It was at this time that he wrote two of his philosophical treatises, known to us as ’The True Ends of Life’,[1] and the ’Tusculan Disputations’, of which more will be said hereafter.  In this latter, which he named from his favourite country-house, he addressed himself to the subjects which suited best with his own sorrowful mood under his recent bereavement.  How men might learn to shake off the terrors of death—­nay, to look upon it rather as a release from pain and evil; how pain, mental and bodily, may best be borne; how we may moderate our passions; and, lastly, whether the practice of virtue be not all-sufficient for our happiness.

[Footnote 1:  ’De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum’—­a title hard to translate.]

A philosopher does not always find in himself a ready pupil.  It was hardly so in Cicero’s case.  His arguments were incontrovertible; but he found them fail him sadly in their practical application to life.  He never could shake off from himself that dread of death which he felt in a degree unusually vivid for a Roman.  He sought his own happiness afterwards, as he had done before, rather in the exciting struggle of public life than in the special cultivation of any form of virtue; and he did not even find the remedy for his present domestic sorrow in any of those general moral reflections which philosophy, Christian as well as pagan, is so ready to produce upon such occasions; which are all so undeniable, and all so utterly unendurable to the mourner.

Cicero found his consolation, or that diversion of thought which so mercifully serves the purpose of consolation, where most men of active minds like his seek for it and find it—­in hard work.  The literary effort of writing and completing the works which have been just mentioned probably did more to soothe his mind than all the arguments which they contained.  He resumed his practice as an advocate so far as to plead a cause before Caesar, now ruling as Dictator at Rome—­the last cause, as events happened, that he was ever to plead.  It was a cause of no great importance—­a defence of Deiotarus, titulary king of Armenia, who was accused of having entertained designs against the life of Caesar while entertaining him as a guest in his palace.  The Dictator reserved his judgment until he should have made his campaign against the Parthians.  That more convenient season never came:  for before the spring campaign could open, the fatal “Ides of March” cut short Caesar’s triumphs and his life.

CHAPTER VI.

CICERO AND ANTONY.

It remained for Cicero yet to take a part in one more great national struggle—­the last for Rome and for himself.  No doubt there was some grandeur in the cause which he once more so vigorously espoused—­the recovery of the liberties of Rome.  But all the thunders of Cicero’s eloquence, and all the admiration of modern historians and poets, fail to enlist our hearty sympathies with the assassins of