Such are the accusations brought against this wonderful man--the truth of which has, I think, on the whole been admitted. The picture of Roman life which it displays is wonderful, that such atrocities should have been possible; and equally so of provincial subjection, that such cruelties should have been endured. But in it all the greatest wonder is that there should have risen up a man so determined to take the part of the weak against the strong with no reward before him, apparently with no other prospect than that of making himself odious to the party to which he belonged. Cicero was not a Gracchus, anxious to throw himself into the arms of the people; he was an oligarch by conviction, born to oligarchy, bred to it, convinced that by it alone could the Roman Republic be preserved. But he was convinced also that unless these oligarchs could be made to do their duty the Republic could not stand. Therefore it was that he dared to defy his own brethren, and to make the acquittal of Verres an impossibility. I should be inclined to think that the day on which Hortensius threw up the sponge, and Verres submitted to banishment and fine, was the happiest in the orator's life. Verres was made to pay a fine which was very insufficient for his crimes, and then to retire into comfortable exile. From this he returned to Rome when the Roman exiles were amnestied, and was shortly afterward murdered by Antony, as has been told before. CHAPTER VII. _CICERO AS ÆDILE AND PRÆTOR._ [Sidenote: B.C. 69, ætat. 38.]