We have a fragment of Cornelius Nepos, the biographer of the Augustan age, declaring that at Cicero's death men had to doubt whether literature or the Republic had lost the most.[9] Livy declared of him only, that he would be the best writer of Latin prose who was most like to Cicero.[10] Velleius Paterculus, who wrote in the time of Tiberius, speaks of Cicero's achievements with the highest honor.

"At this period," he says, "lived Marcus Cicero, who owed everything to himself; a man of altogether a new family, as distinguished for ability as he was for the purity of his life."[11] Valerius Maximus quotes him as an example of a forgiving character.[12] Perhaps the warmest praise ever given to him came from the pen of Pliny the elder, from whose address to the memory of Cicero I will quote only a few words, as I shall refer to it more at length when speaking of his consulship.

"Hail thou," says Pliny, "who first among men was called the father of your country."[13] Martial, in one of his distichs, tells the traveller that if he have but a book of Cicero's writing he may fancy that he is travelling with Cicero himself.[14] Lucan, in his bombastic verse, declares how Cicero dared to speak of peace in the camp of Pharsalia.

The reader may think that Cicero should have said nothing of the kind, but Lucan mentions him with all honor.[15] Not Tacitus, as I think, but some author whose essay De Oratoribus was written about the time of Tacitus, and whose work has come to us with the name of Tacitus, has told us of Cicero that he was a master of logic, of ethics, and of physical science.[16] Everybody remembers the passage in Juvenal, "Sed Roma parentem Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit." "Rome, even when she was free, declared him to be the father of his country."[17] Even Plutarch, who generally seems to have a touch of jealousy when speaking of Cicero, declares that he verified the prediction of Plato, "That every State would be delivered from its calamities whenever power should fortunately unite with wisdom and justice in one person."[18] The praises of Quintilian as to the man are so mixed with the admiration of the critic for the hero of letters, that I would have omitted to mention them here were it not that they will help to declare what was the general opinion as to Cicero at the time in which it was written.

He has been speaking of Demosthenes,[19] and then goes on: "Nor in regard to Cicero do I see that he ever failed in the duty of a good citizen.