Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/337



CHAPTER X.

CICERO AS PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR. TIRO. CÆLIUS. ROME ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR.

51-50 B.C.

ICERO accepted the governorship of a province unwillingly, and was most desirous that his command should not be prolonged beyond a single year. He felt that this was not the work for which he was best fitted. "They have clapped a saddle on the ox," he says. The political situation at home was fearfully critical, and it distressed him to be away from the centre of events at such a time. Cilicia and its concerns seemed petty, as lying outside of the main current of grave interests and anxious counsels at Rome. "I cannot tell you," he writes to Atticus, "how I burn with desire for the city, and how hard I find it to put up with all this paltry insipid business."

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