After the dinner-party at Puteoli, described in the last chapter, Cicero came up to Rome, and was engaged in literary pursuits. Caesar was now master and lord of everything. In January Cicero wrote to his friend Curio, and told him with disgust of the tomfooleries which were being carried on at the election of Quaestors. An empty chair had been put down, and was declared to be the Consul's chair. Then it was taken away, and another chair was placed, and another Consul was declared. It wanted then but a few hours to the end of the consular year--but not the less was Caninius, the new Consul, appointed, "who would not sleep during his Consulship," which lasted but from mid-day to the evening. "If you saw all this you would not fail to weep," says Cicero![168] After this he seems to have recovered from his sorrow. We have a correspondence with Poetus which always typifies hilarity of spirits. There is a discussion, of which we have but the one side, on "double entendre" and plain speaking. Poetus had advocated the propriety of calling a spade a spade, and Cicero shows him the inexpediency. Then we come suddenly upon his letter to Atticus, written on the 7th of April, three weeks after the fall of Caesar. Mommsen endeavors to explain the intention of Caesar in the adoption of the names by which he chose to be called, and in his acceptance of those which, without his choosing, were imposed upon him.[169] He has done it perhaps with too great precision, but he leaves upon our minds a correct idea of the resolution which Caesar had made to be King, Emperor, Dictator, or what not, before he started for Macedonia, B.C. 49,[170] and the disinclination which moved him at once to proclaim himself a tyrant. Dictator was the title which he first assumed, as being temporary, Roman, and in a certain degree usual. He was Dictator for an indefinite period, annually, for ten years, and, when he died, had been designated Dictator for life. He had already been, for the last two years, named "Imperator" for life; but that title--which I think to have had a military sound in men's ears, though it may, as Mommsen says, imply also civil rule--was not enough to convey to men all that it was necessary that they should understand. Till the moment of his triumph had come, and that "Veni, vidi, vici" had been flaunted in the eyes of Rome--till Caesar, though he had been ashamed to call himself a king, had consented to be associated with the gods--Brutus, Cassius, and those others, sixty in number we are told, who became the conspirators, had hardly realized the fact that the Republic was altogether at an end. A bitter time had come upon them; but it was softened by the personal urbanity of the victor. But now, gradually, the truth was declaring itself, and the conspiracy was formed. I am inclined to think that Shakspeare has been right in his conception of the plot. "I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king," says Brutus. "I had as lief not be,