of Caesar’s cause.[180] When war broke out he was greatly perplexed how to act; his breadth of view made decision difficult, and he seems to have been at all times more a student than a man of action.  With some heart-burnings he joined Caesar in the struggle, and accepted from him the government of Achaia; it was at this time that he wrote the famous letter of consolation to Cicero on the death of his beloved daughter Tullia, which is full of true feeling and kindliness, though evidently composed with effort, if not with difficulty.  After Caesar’s death he of course acted with Cicero against Antony, and in the spring of 43, making always for peace and good-will, he gave his life for his country in a way that claims our admiration more really than the suicide of Cato the professional Stoic; he headed an embassy to Antony, though dangerously ill at the time, and died in this last effort to obtain a hearing for the voice of justice.  He has a monumentum aere perennius in the speech of his old friend urging the senate to vote him a public funeral and a statue, as one who had laid down his life for his country.

We must now turn to consider how the mischievous side of the new Greek culture, in combination with other tendencies of the time, found its way into weak points in the armour of the Roman aristocracy.

The pursuit of ease and pleasure, to which the attainment of wealth and political power were too often merely subordinated, is a leading characteristic of the time.  It is seen in many different forms, in many different types of character; but at the root of the whole corruption is the spirit of the coarser side of Epicureanism.  As with Roman Stoicism, so too with Roman Epicureanism, it is not so much the professed holding of philosophical tenets that affected life; in the case of the latter system, it was the coincidence of its popularity with the decay of the old Roman faith and morality, and with the abnormal opportunities of self-indulgence.  Cato as a professed Stoic, Lucretius as an enthusiastic Epicurean, stand quite apart from the mass of men who were actuated one way or the other by these philosophical creeds.  The majority simply played with the philosophy, while following the natural bent of their individual character; but such dilettanteism was often quite enough to affect that character permanently for good or evil.

“Epicureanism popularised inevitably turns to vice.”  Was it really popular at Rome?  Cicero tells us in a valuable passage[181] that one Amafinius had written on it, and that a great number of copies of his book were sold, partly because the arguments were easy to follow, partly because the doctrine was pleasant, and partly too because men failed to get hold of anything better.  The date of this Amafinius is uncertain, but it is probable that Cicero is here speaking of the latter part of the second century B.C.; and he goes on to say that other writers took up the same line of teaching, and