all, with one exception,[141] asked that Marcellus might be allowed to return. Cicero, however, had remained silent to the last. There must have been, I think, some plot to get Cicero on to his legs. He had gone to meet Caesar at Brundisium when he came back from the East, had returned to Rome under his auspices, and had lived in pleasant friendship with Caesar's friends. Pardon seems to have been accorded to Cicero without an effort. As far as he was concerned, that hostile journey to Dyrrachium--for he did not travel farther toward the camp--counted for nothing with Caesar. He was allowed to live in peace, at Rome or at his villas, as he might please, so long as Caesar might rule. The idea seems to have been that he should gradually become absorbed among Caesar's followers. But hitherto he had remained silent. It was now six years since his voice had been heard in Rome. He had spoken for Milo--or had intended to speak--and, in the same affair, for Munatius Plancus, and for Saufeius, B.C. 52. He had then been in his fifty-fifth year, and it might well be that six years of silence at such a period of his life would not be broken. It was manifestly his intention not to speak again, at any rate in the Senate; though the threats made by him as to his total retirement should not be taken as meaning much. Such threats from statesmen depend generally on the wishes of other men. But he held his place in the Senate, and occasionally attended the debates. When this affair of Marcellus came on, and all the Senators of consular rank--excepting only Volcatius and Cicero--had risen, and had implored Caesar in a few words to condescend to be generous; when Claudius Marcellus had knelt at Caesar's feet to ask for his brother's liberty, and Caesar himself, after reminding them of the bitterness of the man, had still declared that he could not refuse the prayers of the Senate, then Cicero, as though driven by the magnanimity of the conqueror, rose from his place, and poured forth his thanks in the speech which is still extant.