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Their originality there, as is well said by a remarkable writer in the most remarkable of his works, consisted in taking these principles au serieux. They did what the others talked about. Zeno, indeed, was not a Roman; but Poetus Thrasea and Marcus Antoninus were. Mr.
In one amusing letter to Poetus, he does indeed tell him what he had for dinner at a friend's house, but only by way of explaining that he had been very unwell from eating mushrooms and such dishes, which his host had had cooked in order not to contravene a recent sumptuary law.
Now, she felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts she never had doubted. Yet, the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the kind of spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of her death-wound, "It is not painful, Poetus." She did not blench she did not change countenance.
At this time Dolabella, who assumed the Consulship upon Cæsar's death, and Hirtius, who became Consul during the next year, used to attend upon Cicero and take lessons in elocution. So at least the story has been told, from a letter written in this year to his friend Poetus; but I should imagine that the lessons were not much in earnest.
With such a voice to sell as his, a voice which carried with it the verdict of either guilt or innocence, what payments would it not have been worth the while of a Roman nobleman to make to him? No such payments, as far as we can tell, were ever made. He took a present of books from his friend Poetus, and asked another friend what "Cincius" would say to it?
We have a correspondence with Poetus which always typifies hilarity of spirits. There is a discussion, of which we have but the one side, on "double entendre" and plain speaking. Poetus had advocated the propriety of calling a spade a spade, and Cicero shows him the inexpediency. Then we come suddenly upon his letter to Atticus, written on the 7th of April, three weeks after the fall of Cæsar.
Men struggling to find him out, and not understanding his little joke, have said, "Lo! he has been paid for his work. He defended Poetus, and Poetus gave him books." "Did he defend Poetus?" you ask. "We surmise so, because he gave him books," they reply. I say that at any rate the fault should be brought home against him before it is implied from chance passages in his own letters.
Tyrrell but I should myself have been inclined rather to say that the style of Cicero's letters varies constantly, being very different when used to Atticus, or to his brother, or to lighter friends such as Poetus and Trebatius; and very different again when business of state was in hand, as are his letters to Decimus Brutus, Cassius Brutus, and Plancus.
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