This is only one of the instances of wholesale horrible cruelty which he committed throughout his war in Gaul--of cruelty so frightful that we shudder as we think of the sufferings of past ages. The ages have gone their way, and the sufferings are lessened by increased humanity. But we cannot allow Cicero's compliment to pass idly by. The "nemo nisi armatus" referred to Italians, and to Italians, we may take it, of the upper rank--among whom, for the sake of dramatic effect, Deiotarus was placed for the occasion. This was the last of Cicero's casual speeches. It was now near the end of the year, and on the ides of March following it was fated that Caesar should die. After which there was a lull in the storm for a while, and then Cicero broke out into that which I have called his final scream of liberty. There came the Philippics--and then the end. This speech of which I have given record as spoken Pro Rege Deiotaro was the last delivered by him for a private purpose. Forty-two he has spoken hitherto, of which something of the story has been told; the Philippics of which I have got to speak are fourteen in number, making the total number of speeches which we possess to be fifty-six. But of those spoken by him we have not a half, and of those which we possess some have been declared by the great critics to be absolutely spurious. The great critics have perhaps been too hard upon them: they have all been polished. Cicero himself was so anxious for his future fame that he led the way in preparing them for the press. Quintilian tells us that Tiro adapted them.[165] Others again have come after him and have retouched them, sometimes, no doubt, making them smoother, and striking out morsels which would naturally become unintelligible to later readers. We know what he himself did to the Milo. Others subsequently may have received rougher usage, but still from loving hands. Bits have been lost, and other bits interpolated, and in this way have come to us the speeches which we possess. But we know enough of the history of the times, and are sufficient judges of the language, to accept them as upon the whole authentic. The great critic, when he comes upon a passage against which his very soul recoils, on the score of its halting Latinity, rises up in his wrath and tears the oration to tatters, till he will have none of it. One set of objectionable words he encounters after another, till the whole seems to him to be damnable, and the oration is condemned. It has been well to allude to this, because in dealing with these orations it is necessary to point out that every word cannot be accepted as having been spoken as we find it printed. Taken collectively, we may accept them as a stupendous monument of human eloquence and human perseverance. [Sidenote: B.C. 45, aetat. 62.]