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From the beginning of the Civil War to the Murder of Caesar (B.C. 49-44).

Cicero was now in a very difficult position. It became necessary for every man of importance to take sides; yet he could not see his way clear to join either party. For some time he vacillated, while both Caesar and Pompey made earnest efforts to secure his support. His great hope was to mediate between them; and, after Pompey had left Italy, he remained behind with this end in view. Finally, however, he decided for Pompey as the champion of the senatorial party, and set out, though with great reluctance, to join him at Dyrrachium (June 11, B.C. 49). In the camp he found things even worse than he had expected, and he gave up the cause of the Republic for lost. 1 On account of illness he was not present at the Battle of Pharsalia (Aug. 9, B.C. 48). After the fate of the contest was decided, he refused to continue the struggle or to follow the adherents of the lost cause to Africa, but returned to Italy (September, B.C. 48), to make terms with the conqueror. He remained at Brundisium until Caesar's return from Egypt in September, B.C. 47, when he at once sought an interview. Caesar received him with great kindness and respect, and allowed him once more to return to Rome.

From this time until the assassination of Caesar in B.C. 44, Cicero remained for the most part in retirement at his Tusculan villa, absorbed in literary pursuits, though in B.C. 46 he delivered his Oration for Marcellus 2 (remarkable for its praise of Caesar), and his Defence of Ligarius, 3 and, in the following year, his Defence of King Deiotarus of Galatia, charged with attempting the murder of Caesar. The chief literary fruits of this period of leisure were three works on oratory (De Claris Oratoribus, Orator, and De Partitione Oratoria), and several philosophic works (De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Academica, Tuscalanae Quaestiones, De Natura Deorum, De Senectute): Meantime his domestic relations were far from happy. In B.C. 46 he had divorced his wife Terentia and married his rich young ward Publilia, from whom, however, he separated in the following year. In B.C. 45 his daughter Tullia died suddenly. Cicero was tenderly attached to her, and it was in part as a distraction from his grief that he wrote some of the works just mentioned. He now seemed to be thoroughly given over to a life of dignified literary retirement, when the murder of Caesar (March 15, B.C. 44) once more plunged the state into a condition of anarchy.


1 See the passages from Cicero's letters quoted in note to The Pardon of Marcellus, sect. 16 (p. 219, l. 4).

2 See pp.213 ff., below.

3 See pp. 225 ff., below.

Select Orations of. Cicero. Allen and Greenough's Edition. Revised by J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, with a special vocabulary by J. B. Greenough.

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