Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/89

Rh friendship with Cicero. This intimacy began when they were fellow-students in youth, and it lasted to the end. In Atticus Cicero found the friend exactly fitted to supplement his own qualities. The warm impulsive heart of the one sought repose in the easy-tempered, stable, appreciative nature of the other. The impetuous, indiscreet man of genius needed a calm, sympathising and absolutely safe companion, in whose ear he could breathe all his fears and hopes and doubts; through all the years of their intercourse never a word escaped through Atticus which could add to Cicero's embarrassments. It is from this perfect confidence that the letters to Atticus derive their peculiar interest and their peculiar value. Cicero is no more likely to deceive Atticus than a patient is likely to lie to his physician; the statement of the circumstances which he lays before his counsellor may sometimes be erroneous, but it is never wilfully misleading. Cicero set the highest value on the judgment of his friend. At critical seasons he writes to him every day, and sometimes as much as thrice in a day. His dependence is quaintly expressed, in a passage where he describes his perplexities just before the outbreak of the Civil War. "Imagine the scene; the consul names me—'I call on Marcus Tullius.' What am I to say? 'Wait a little if you please, till I can go and consult Atticus'; alas there is no evading the question in that fashion."

Moderate, sagacious, and cautious, with an onlooker's insight into the game, Atticus was