CICERO AND C.ZESAR.
[To raic EDITOR OP THE " SPEDTATOR,"] SIE,—/ cannot but think that your critic of Mr. Baring- G-ould's "Tragedy of the Cresars," if he would impose on himself the task of reading carefully Cicero's letters from his proconsulate, would modify the opinion expressed in his interesting review, that Omsar might have combined with Cicero, instead of thwarting him. All that was most im- portant in the conduct of a Roman is shown there at its very best. And what a hateful picture it is, even so I What must have been the ordinary Governor, when Cicero could make the concessions there depicted to the cruel rapacity of Brutus P It is nothing to the purpose that Cicero himself did not cost the provincials a halfpenny. What we have to consider is not what he did, but what he permitted. It is the imperial government of Rome which makes tip all that, according to our ideas, is worthy of the name of government at all. Look at a map of the Empire; compare the area which a Roman thought mere material for pillage, with that which he recog- nised as the domain of citizenship ; and then, remembering that the dealings of a Cicero with a Scaptius present the high- water mark of Roman justice over that larger area, allow—it is surely inevitable—that any change was a gain which broke down that barrier, and forced the Roman to test a single
standard by his own experience.—I am, Sir, &Q., A. W.
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