Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/18

 a lex passed as a matter of course by the tribes. Even the law courts felt the hand of the master, and though they still probably settled private suits unchecked, men accused of public crimes were tried before the Dictator in his own house (cognitio), or were banished and recalled by his single fiat. The constitution, so dear to Cicero, and under which he had lived in the constant excitement of success and fame, was practically abrogated. The Dictatorship, begun while Cæsar was still at Alexandria, continued till the end of 46, was renewed at the beginning of B.C. 45, and made lifelong after Munda. It gave him unlimited control over all magistrates and all citizens, and all parts of the empire. "If we seek freedom," Cicero says to M. Marcellus, "what place is free from the master's hand?" From the first, therefore, Cicero refrained as much as he could from speaking in the senate, and absented himself from it as often as he dared.

Neither did he find the old charm in social life at Rome. With one or two exceptions he declares that he finds no satisfaction in the society with which he is forced to live. He dines constantly with the Cæsarians, who sought his society, enjoyed his wit, and, as he flattered himself, had a genuine regard for him, and he confesses that he liked dining out. He even gave up his old simplicity of living, and allowed Hirtius and Dolabella to initiate him in the mysteries of the fashionable epicure. Yet when the excitement was over&#8212;-and he had a natural love for society&#8212;-he sadly reflected how few of those with whom he thus passed a few hours of gaiety could be reckoned as friends. "Am I to seek comfort with my friends?" he says to Lucceius in answer to his letter of condolence. "How many of them are there? You know, for they were common to us both. Some have fallen, others have somehow grown callous." This is a subject on which, as he gets on in life, a man is likely to take a somewhat exaggerated view, and after all perhaps Cicero still found in general society