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CICERO

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CID

locust should be restricted to certain grasshoppers, which are the true locusts. The cicadas appear in great numbers at long intervals. Those of the north require 17 years for their development, those of the south 13 years. The eggs are laid in slits in twigs of trees, and are hatched after a period of six weeks. Instead ol a caterpillar or grub, a nymph is produced. The latter has legs, but no wings. They drop to the ground and burrow and live by sucking the juices from the roots of trees. After 17 years they reach maturity and come to the surface. The skin splits open along the back and the perfect insect comes out. They attract attention far and near by their loud, shrill singing. Their life in this stage lasts but a few weeks. In some localities several broods overlap, which explains the fact that the insect appears in those localities more than once in the period of 17 years. The dog-day harvest-flies are also cicadas. These develop in two years, but, as there are two broods, they appear annually.

Cicero, Marcus lullius, orator, statesman and writer, was born at the old Italian town of Arpi-num, 106 B. C. In boyhood he went to Rome, and was put through a thorough and wide course of study to fit him to be an orator. Among the Romans the calling of an orator was what we would call that of a lawyer and a politician, the orator pleading law cases before the bar and speaking on political questions in the senate, thus requiring a wide and varied knowledge. In 76 B. C. he held an appointment in Sicily, where he became popular with all classes and obtained the information which enabled him, in 70 B. C., to impeach successfully the wicked governor of Sicily, Verres. This scoundrel felt himself crushed by Cicero's opening speech and fled the country. The orator had already become well known by earlier speeches, and now became a power in the state, and rose rapidly still higher. In 63 B. C., at the age of 44, he was a consul, the highest office within reach of a Roman. In the same year, by his boldness and promptness, he checkmated the dangerous conspiracy of Catiline, delivering in the senate those famous Orations against Catiline, which brought the senators

almost to a man to his support, Cicero was now at the height of his power, but his hot eloquence had carried the senate too far. Some of Catiline's band had been put to death by a simple order of the senate. This was a stretch of power for which Cicero was held responsible, and the Father of His Country, as he had been called but a short time before, was banished and his two houses were plundered. Though the changeable people welcomed him back with shouts in the following year, he never regained power. No longer confident in himself, he halted between allegiance to Cassar and allegiance to Pompey, and was held to be a time-server. It was a time when the old republic was crumbling to pieces, and only a strong man could build upon its ruins what would be stable and lasting. Cicero was gentle, amiable, clever and learned, but strong he certainly was not.

The later years of his life were spent chiefly in pleading at the bar and in writing essays. After Pompey's overthrow at the battle of Pharsalia, he became Caesar's friend; but he never liked Csesar's other friend, Mark Antony; and in the year following Csesar's death the aged orator appeared once more in the senate, making his famous speeches against Antony, which he called Philippics, after the title of Demosthenes' orations against Philip of Macedon. These cost him his life. Antony's proscription-list of his enemies, who were thereby outlawed, was published, and Cicero's name was on it. Old and feeble, he fled, pursued by Antony's soldiers, and was overtaken as he was being carried in his litter down to the shore to embark. With courageous coolness he put his head out of the litter and told the murderers to strike. This was in December, 43 B. C.

Cicero as an orator stands in the first rank. Of his speeches that have come down to us, the finest perhaps are those against Verres and against Catiline. His essays on Old Age, On Friendship and Whole Duty of Man (de Officiis) are most pleasant reading. His letters are classics of epistolary literature. It was a remark of Erasmus: "I feel a better man for reading Cicero."

Cid (sid), The, the name given to Rodrigo Diaz, a famous warrior of Spain, who was born about 1040. He was commander of the army of Sancho II, king of Castile, in the wars in which that king tore Leon and Galicia from his brothers. Sancho was killed treacherously during a siege, and Alfonso, the banished king of Leon, became king. The Cid was soon afterward banished himself, and with a motley following he offered his services to the king of Saragossa and fought ably against his enemies. After besieging Valencia on his own account for yearss he conquered the

MARCUS TULLIUS  CICERO