no new thing; but now that my one hold on life is gone, I am fain to acknowledge it." His reply[1] to the consolations of his friend Lucceius, a month later, breathes the same spirit. "In one respect I think that I am even more courageous than yourself, who exhort me to courage; for you seem to be cherishing some hope that better days may be in store. Your illustrations from the chances of combat and the like, and the arguments you adduce, seem intended to forbid me from despairing utterly for the commonwealth. I do not wonder then that you are braver than I, since you have some hope; but I do wonder that you should still hope on. What remains that is not so stricken, that we must needs confess it to be doomed and blasted? Look round on all the limbs of the State which you know so well; where will you find one that is not crushed and crippled . . . So I will bear my private grief, as you bid me, and the public grief perhaps even more patiently than you, my preceptor. For you have some hope to comfort you, I am resolved to be strong amidst absolute despair."
The misery and hopelessness, which was entailed on the Romans by Cæsar's government, may be well illustrated by Cicero's correspondence with his old friend Servius Sulpicius Rufus. Servius had taken no part against Cæsar in the Civil War (see above, p. 337), and at its close he was nominated by the Dictator to the governorship of Greece. This appointment was a kindly and delicate action on Cæsar's part. He must have known that Servius
- ↑ Ad Fam., v., 13, 3.
