Rutilius also, feeling the same contempt for the sentiments and manners of the age, voluntarily withdrew himself from the corrupted metropolis of the republic. Asia had been defended by his integrity and courage against the ruinous and oppressive extortion of the publicans. These noble and spirited exertions, which he was prompted to make not only from his high sense of justice, but in the honourable discharge of the particular duties of his office, drew on him the indignation of the equestrian order, and excited the animosity of the faction which supported the interests of Marius. They induced the vile and infamous Apicius to become the instrument of his destruction. He was accused of corruption; and as the authors and abettors of this false accusation sat as judges on his trial, Rutilius, the most innocent and virtuous citizen of the republic, was of course condemned: for, indeed, he scarcely condescended to defend the cause. Seeking an asylum in the east, this truly respectable Roman, whose merits were not only overlooked, but traduced, by his ungrateful country, was every where received with profound veneration and unqualified applause. He had however, before the term of his exile expired, an opportunity of exhibiting the just contempt he felt for the treatment he had received; for when Sylla earnestly solicited him to return to Rome, he not only refused to comply with his request, but removed his residence to a greater distance from his infatuated country. Cicero, however, who possessed in an eminent degree all the resources and sentiments which are necessary to render solitude pleasant and advantageous, is a memorable exception to these instances of happy and contented exiles. This eloquent patriot, who had been publicly proclaimed, “the saviour of his country,” who had pursued his measures with undaunted perseverance, in defiance of the open menaces of a desperate faction, and the concealed daggers of hired assassins, sunk into dejection and dismay under a sentence of exile. The strength of his constitution had long been impaired by incessant anxiety and fatigue; and the terrors of banishment so oppressed his mind, that he lost all his powers, and became, from the deep melancholy into which it plunged him, totally incapable of adopting just sentiments, or pursuing spirited measures. By this weak and unmanly conduct he disgraced an event by which Providence intended to render his glory complete. Undetermined where to go, or what to do, he lamented, with effeminate sighs and childish tears, that he could now no longer enjoy the luxuries of his fortune, the splendor of his rank, or the charms of his popularity. Weeping over the ruins of his magnificent mansion, which Clodius levelled with the ground, and groaning for the absence of his wife, Terentia, whom he soon afterward repudiated, he suffered the deepest melancholy to seize upon his mind: became a prey to the most inveterate grief; complained with