Under Caesar's Government.
（Aet. 60-62. B.C. 47-45. Epist. LIV.-LXXXIV.)
32. After the battle of Pharsalus Cicero remained for a time at Corcyra1 and Patrae,2 and then decided to return to Italy. He reached Brundisium3 in Oct., 48 B.C., and stayed there until Sept, 47 B.C., passing one of the most miserable years of his life. He was distressed by both political and domestic anxieties. He had returned contrary to the express orders of Caesar, who had forbidden the Pompeians to enter Italy.4 He was therefore a political fugitive in a city filled with hostile soldiers. At the same time Caesar's critical position in Egypt 5 made it quite possible that the Pompeian cause might succeed after all, in which case Cicero's standing would be still more precarious. His family affairs were equally distressing: Tullia, his daughter, was most unhappy with her husband Dolabella; Terentia's management of his property6 during his absence had caused him a deal of vexation; an unfortunate misunderstanding had sprung up with his brother Quintus.7
33. Cicero's anxiety in regard to his own position was somewhat relieved in Sept., 47 B.C., by the arrival of Caesar, who generously gave him permission to remain in Italy.8 He went almost directly to Rome, and his letters in the main, up to the close of 46 B.C., were written either in that city or at his villas at Tusculum and Cumae. The battle of Thapsus was fought Apr. 6, 46 B.C., and by it Caesar's supremacy in Africa was established; but the tidings of this important battle and even of the violent deaths9 of the Pompeian leaders, Scipio, Petreius, Afranius, and Juba,10 do not seem to have stirred Rome so deeply as the news that Cato had taken his own life at Utica,11 feeling that the cause of the Republic was beyond hope. The little memoir which Cicero wrote of his personal and political friend12 called forth opposition pamphlets from the Caesarians, Hirtius13 and Brutus,14 and even Caesar found time on the eve of the battle of Munda to write an 'Anticato.'15
34. Cicero gave much of his time to literature during this period. The Orator was written and the Brutus finished in 46 B.C.16 Although he attended the meetings of the senate, he took little active part in politics, save in working to secure the recall of some Pompeians who were still in exile. At one time Cicero hoped that Caesar would follow a conservative course and would at least restore the senate to its old position and influence, and it was with this hope in his mind that he spoke so warmly of him in his oration pro Marcello; but he soon saw clearly that it was Caesar's purpose to retain the supreme power in his own hands, especially when, at the close of the year 46, Caesar, on departing for Spain, left the city in charge of eight praefecti, who were directly responsible to his personal representatives, Cornelius Balbus and C. Oppius.17
35. Caesar defeated the last of the Pompeians, who had rallied under the leadership of Labienus and the two sons of Pompey, at Munda,18 Mar. 17, 45 B.C., and returned to Rome in September to continue the reforms which he had already begun, and to make preparations for his great campaign against the Parthians in the following year. In the meantime a conspiracy was forming against him, led by a few disappointed office-seekers and fanatics, and fostered by the traditional Roman prejudice against the title of rex and the regal insignia. The indiscreet act of Antony and of some other personal friend (or enemy?), in offering a diadem to Caesar,19 and in crowning his statue with a laurel wreath,20 strengthened the conspiracy, while Caesar's own course in openly assuming supreme power, a course far removed from the more diplomatic policy of his successor Augustus, must have offended the more conservative element. The meeting of the senate on Mar. 15, 44 B.C., furnished a suitable occasion, the presentation of a petition by L. Tillius Cimber a convenient opportunity, and the conspirators accomplished their purpose of assassinating Caesar.21
