Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/415

45 B.C.] Early in the morning I hide myself away in a thick wood and do not quit it till evening. Next to yourself my best friend is solitude." He attempted to beguile his grief by a project of erecting a shrine for Tullia, and so deifying her memory. His letters are full of schemes for the purchase of gardens near Rome suitable for the purpose. It does not appear that Cicero's wish was ever realised, and the disturbances after Cæsar's death interrupted all his plans.

Cicero's young wife Publilia had been jealous of her stepdaughter, and she was unable to conceal her satisfaction when Tullia died. This heartlessness deeply offended Cicero. He at once divorced Publilia, and though she and her friends made several overtures for a reconciliation, he would never see her again.

In this great trouble Cicero found much consolation in literature. "Those old friends," his books, now once again proved true to him. "There is not a treatise on consolation under bereavement, that I did not read through when I was in your house; but my grief was too strong for the medicine. Nay, I did what I believe no one ever did before; I wrote a treatise on consolation myself. I will send you this book if the copyists have written it out. I declare to you, this has given more relief than anything. Now I write from morning to night; not that what I write is good for much, but it checks my grief to a certain extent." These words were written soon after his loss. Some two months later Cicero can appeal unhesitatingly to his literary