Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-07-16

those should hrst bs rscslled to life whom Cicero naw
fully put to death"
The adoption Of this edict was secured rather by
foul means than by fair In its terms it asserted
falschood Cicero had not forged the decree OF
the Senate condemuing the conspirators to death.
But olodius eked out his indictment with this
charge, to add to the popular odium stirred up
against his opponent the ground Of the proceed
ings against Cethegus and others. Those proceed
ings gave ga good handle" to the Clodian faction,
and they used it unscrupulously, as politicians
nowadays are sometimes known to do in this "e en-
lghtened Republic"
The result is known. Cicero, at the bare
prospect of the passage of decree something like
did mere than all his enemies to create conviction
of his guilt. BY his craven flight he seemed to
set his own seal to the condemnation of Clodius.
He brought on himself, as he afterwards wrote,
" the imputation Of wrong" He saw his mistake
when it was too late, and reproached his friends
for net saving him from such an imprudent ste p.
+" You," he writes to Atticus, {" were in position
to judge more coolly than l. You should have
counselled me otherwise" Me, nseos nseis radids
nimicis, nspectante CO tacemte te, qua, 81 non Plus
ingenio vslebas guam ego, certe timebds ma''as.-
Q4itt. ad Att. iii, 15)
On the opening Of the following year, the 696th
A. u. c., ffty-seven years before the Christian
era, there was change in the political admins
tration of Rome The new Consul moved the
Senate for the recall of Cicero, and, after pro-
tracted and bitter opposition, made by the exiles
old political adversaries, the motion was finally
carried in the Senate and in the Centuries of tho
people He landed at Brundisium on the 9Th
Of August in the year above mentioned, after a
Punishment of about sixteen months.
This review of celebrated events in the life and
times of Cicero will show how far our Cincinnati
Ar;starchus is right and how far he is wrong in
his historical citations and criticisms. We know
of period interesting to the student of po-
ltics than that which records the sayings and do
ings of the great lawyer whose stands equally
eminent in the literature and jurisprudence of his
country and age. But it should be studied in the
words and works of those who have preserved its
original memorials, and not in such apochryphal
digests as seem to have been consulted by Pub
lius." If any would know the rule of duty which
Cicero prescribed to himself in putting down a
conspiracy and instruction, let him read it in the
words of the illustrious orator. When addressing
the Senate in the midst of the Catiinaran revolt he
spoke as follows:
If any makes the least stir within the city,
to be caught any act against the Republic he shall
know that there in it vigant consus excellent mags
trates brave Senate that there and prison
here which ancestors provided the avenger of
nifest crimes And all this shall be regulated that the
greatest disorders shall be queed without the least hur
ry; the greatest dangers without any tumult; domestic
war; the most desperate of any within memory, with
alone your leader and general clothed in my gown
This was his theory of civil duty in such a crisis
How far he followed it may be read in what he
did How he atoned for his departures from it
may be read in his moaning letters from Thessa-
Ionica and Dyrrachium. We commend their Pc
rusal to Publiuv," and when he next has occa-
sion to quote Ciceronian presidents in justification
of some recent "informalities" in our military ju-
risprudence, we hope he will not derive them from
incidents which portend so much future discomfort
to our amiable President.