His words did more than armies, but neither could do anything lasting for the Republic. What was one honest man among so many? We remember Mommsen's verdict: "On the Roman oligarchy of this period no judgment can be passed save one of inexorable and remorseless condemnation." The farther we see into the facts of Roman history in our endeavors to read the life of Cicero, the more apparent becomes its truth. But Cicero, though he saw far toward it, never altogether acknowledged it. In this consists the charm of his character, though at the same time the weakness of his political aspirations; his weakness--because he was vain enough to imagine that he could talk men back from their fish-ponds; its charm--because he was able through it all to believe in honesty. The more hopeless became the cause, the sweeter, the more impassioned, the more divine, became his language. He tuned his notes to still higher pitches of melody, and thought that thus he could bring back public virtue. Often in these Philippics the matter is small enough. The men he has to praise are so little; and Antony does not loom large enough in history to have merited from Cicero so great a meed of vituperation! Nor is the abuse all true, in attributing to him motives so low. But Cicero was true through it all, anxious, all on fire with anxiety to induce those who heard him to send men to fight the battles to which he knew them, in their hearts, to be opposed. The courage, the persistency, and the skill shown, in the attempt were marvellous. They could not have succeeded, but they seem almost to have done so. I have said that he was one honest man among many. Brutus was honest in his patriotism, and Cassius, and all the conspirators. I do not doubt that Caesar was killed from a true desire to restore the Roman Republic. They desired to restore a thing that was in itself evil--the evils of which had induced Caesar to see that he might make himself its master. But Cicero had conceived a Republic in his own mind--not Utopian, altogether human and rational--a Republic which he believed to have been that of Scipio, of Marcellus, and Laelius: a Republic which should do nothing for him but require his assistance, in which the people should vote, and the oligarchs rule in accordance with the established laws. Peace and ease, prosperity and protection, it would be for the Rome of his dream to bestow upon the provinces. Law and order, education and intelligence, it would be for her rulers to bestow upon Rome. In desiring this, he was the one honest man among many. In accordance with that theory he had lived, and I claim for him that he had never departed from it. In his latter days, when the final struggle came, when there had arisen for him the chance of Caesar's death, when Antony was his chief enemy, when he found himself in Rome with authority sufficient to control legions, when the young Caesar had not shown--probably had not made--his plans, when Lepidus and Plancus and