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184 action on their part they could now win over the great soldier to the service of the Senate, and that here lay the only hope of averting the danger which threatened. A fair chance of respite was now offered them, and but for their folly in rejecting it, Horace would not have had to date from this year the

Motum ex Metello consule civicum

which destroyed the Roman Republic. Cato, Hortensius, and Lucullus were blind to their own plainest interests, and their action at this crisis compels us to recognise that they had none of the instincts of statesmen. A petty jealousy of Pompey seemed to dominate all their conduct. They strove to make him feel that in renouncing the rule of the sword he had laid himself at their mercy. Thus they drove him to unconstitutional methods which were destined to ruin himself and them alike.

The Republic had experienced a heavy loss by the death of Catulus in the latter part of the year 61 B.C., and since then Cicero stood alone in recommending a sane policy. "I am acting," he writes, "and will act, so as not to incur the reproach that my old achievement was only the outcome of chance. My 'honest men,' of whom you speak, and that 'Sparta,' in which, as you say, my lot is cast, shall not only never be deserted by me, but if I am deserted by them I shall remain firm by my own principles. At the same time I wish you to understand, that since