Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/333

55 B.C.] their boyhood during these years, an.d he was much interested in their education. Tullia, whose first husband, Piso, had died during Cicero's banishment, was again married in the year 56 B.C. to Furius Crassipes, but divorced before Cicero left Rome for his province in 51 B.C. About the same time Atticus married a lady named Pilia. She and Tullia were warm friends, and kind messages to and fro occur frequently in the letters. We hear not a word of Terentia in these five years. "Other matters are vexing me," writes Cicero on one occasion, "but they are too private for a letter. My brother and my daughter are full of affection for me." The ominous silence as to his wife in this sentence seems to point to the beginning of the estrangement which led at last to a divorce.

Before finishing the story of Cicero's residence in Rome since his banishment, we must look back at his literary labours during this period. In the year 55 B.C. he was engaged on one of the most delightful of his creations, the dialogue De Oratore. The scene is laid during the last days (91 B.C.) of the life of Lucius Crassus, the foremost orator of the generation before Cicero. The second person of the dialogue is Antonius, the great rival of Crassus, and the minor parts are taken by the younger statesmen of the day; Cicero's old master, Scævola the augur, appears in the opening scene, but like the aged Cephalus in Plato's Republic, he soon retires. The technical discussions in this book are admirably