Pompey assured him that not a hair of his head should be touched. Why
Pompey gave him this encouragement Cicero could never afterwards
understand. The scenes in the theatres had also combined to mislead him,
and he misread the disposition of the great body of citizens. He imagined
that they would all start up in his defence, Senate, aristocracy, knights,
commoners, and tradesmen. The world, he thought, looked back upon his
consulship with as much admiration as he did himself, and was always
contrasting him with his successors. Never was mistake more profound. The
Senate, who had envied his talents and resented his assumption, now
despised him as a trimmer. His sarcasms had made him enemies among those
who acted with him politically. He had held aloof at the crisis of
Caesar's election and in the debates which followed, and therefore all
sides distrusted him; while throughout the body of the people there was,
as Caesar had foretold, a real and sustained resentment at the conduct of
the Catiline affair. The final opinion of Rome was that the prisoners
ought to have been tried; and that they were not tried was attributed not
unnaturally to a desire, on the part of the Senate, to silence an inquiry
which might have proved inconvenient.
Thus suddenly out of a clear sky the thunder-clouds gathered over Cicero's
head.
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