Not long after Caesar's death Cicero left Rome, and spent the ensuing month travelling about among his different villas. On the 14th of April he writes to Atticus, declaring that whatever evil might befall him he would find comfort in the ides of March. In the same letter he calls Brutus and the others "our heroes," and begs his friend to send him news--or if not news, then a letter without news.[180] In the next he again calls them his heroes, but adds that he can take no pleasure in anything but in the deed that had been done. Men are still praising the work of Caesar, and he laments that they should be so inconsistent. "Though they laud those who had destroyed Caesar, at the same time they praise his deeds."[181] In the same letter he tells Atticus that the people in all the villages are full of joy. "It cannot be told how eager they are--how they run out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what was done. But the Senate passes no decree!"[182] He speaks of going into Greece to see his son--whom he never lived to see again--telling him of letters from the lad from Athens, which, he thinks, however, may be hypocritical, though he is comforted by finding their language to be clear. He has recovered his good-humor, and can be jocose. One Cluvius has left him a property at Puteoli, and the house has tumbled down; but he has sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling to him? He can thank Socrates and all his followers that they have taught him to disregard such worldly things. Nevertheless, he has deemed it expedient to take the advice of a certain friend as to turning the tumble-down house into profitable shape.[183] A little later he expresses his great disgust that Caesar, in the public speeches in Rome, should be spoken of as that "great and most excellent man."[184] And yet he had said, but a few months since, in his oration for King Deiotarus, in the presence of Caesar, "that he looked only into his eyes, only into his face--that he regarded only him." The flattery and the indignant reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each other, and induce us to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to Caesar with adulation--any of us whom circumstances compelled to speak to him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly becoming a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of to-day require from us certain courtesies of conversation, which I would call abject were it not that etiquette requires them? Nevertheless, making the best allowance that I can for Cicero, the difference of his language within a month or two is very painful. In the letter above quoted Octavius comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspirant to flatter him.