At this time Cicero's eyes were bad. "Mihi molestior lippitudo erat etiam quam ante fuerat." And again, "Lippitudinis meae signum tibi sit librarii manus." But we may doubt whether any great men have lived so long with so little to tease them as to their health. And yet the amount of work he got through was great. He must have so arranged his affairs as to have made the most he could of his hours, and have carried in his memory information on all subjects. When we remember the size of the books which he read, their unwieldy shapes, their unfitness for such work as that of ours, there seems to have been a continuation of study such as we cannot endure. Throughout his life his hours were early, but they must also have been late. Of his letters we have not a half, of his speeches not a half, of his treatises not more than a half. When he was abroad during his exile, or in Cilicia during his government, he could not have had his books with him. That Caesar should have been Caesar, or Pompey Pompey, does not seem to me a matter so difficult as that Cicero should have been Cicero. Then comes that letter of which I spoke in my first chapter, in which he recapitulates the Getae, the Armenians, and the men of Colchis. "Shall I, the savior of the city, assist to bring down upon that city those hordes of foreign men? Shall I deliver it up to famine and to destruction for the sake of one man who is no more than mortal?"[127] It was Pompey as to whom he then asked the question. For Pompey's sake am I to let in these crowds? We have been told, indeed, by Mr. Froude that the man was Caesar, and that Cicero wrote thus anxiously with the special object of arranging his death! "Now, if ever, think what we shall do," he says. "A Roman army sits round Pompey and makes him a prisoner within valley and rampart--and shall we live? The city stands; the Praetors give the law, the AEdiles keep up the games, good men look to their principal and their interest. Shall I remain sitting here? Shall I rush hither and thither madly, and implore the credit of the towns? Men of substance will not follow me. The revolutionists will arrest me. Is there any end to this misery? People will point at me and say, 'How wise he was not to go with him.' I was not wise. Of his victory I never wished to be the comrade--yet now I do of his sorrow."[128] [Sidenote: B.C. 49, aetat. 58.]