Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/407

46 B.C.] sincere in his declarations, as in his hopes. The real interest of the speech Pro Marcello lies in the expression of these hopes, which Cicero still cherished in the autumn of the year 46, though Cæsar had killed them before he himself fell on the fatal Ides of March, twenty months later. Cicero told the Dictator in language guarded indeed, but sufficiently explicit, that Rome expected something more from him.

"At this moment, though your achievements have embraced the whole State and the preservation of all its citizens, yet so far are you from setting the coping-stone on your greatest work, that you have not yet laid the foundation-stone of that which you design. . . . If, Cæsar, after all your splendid deeds, this were to be the final result, that now your adversaries are overpowered you should leave the commonwealth in the condition in which it at present lies, consider, I pray you, whether your career will not seem famous, indeed, but scarcely glorious; for glory, I take it, consists in the tidings, spread through the world, of great services done to friends or to country or to mankind. This portion, then, of your task, is still before you; this act is still to be played; this work is still unwrought; you have yet to reconstruct the Republic; you have yet to enter on and share with us, amidst all peace and quiet, the fruition of your labours. Then, and not till then, when you have paid to your country her due, and filled up the measure allotted by nature to man, it will be time to say that you 'have lived long enough.'. . . And yet why count this as your