From the first to the last we may best describe him by the word we have now in use, as a conservative.
The government of Rome had been an oligarchy for many years, though much had been done by the citizens to reduce the thraldom which an oligarchy is sure to exact.

To that oligarchy Cicero was bound by all the convictions, by all the practices, and by all the prejudices of his life.

When he speaks of a Republic he speaks of a people and of an Empire governed by an oligarchy; he speaks of a power to be kept in the hands of a few--for the benefit of the few, and of the many if it might be--but at any rate in the hands of a few.

That those few should be so select as to admit of no new-comers among them, would probably have been a portion of his political creed, had he not been himself a "novus homo." As he was the first of his family to storm the barrier of the fortress, he had been forced to depend much on popular opinion; but not on that account had there been any dealings between him and democracy.
That the Empire should be governed according to the old oligarchical forms which had been in use for more than four centuries, and had created the power of Rome--that was his political creed.

That Consuls, Censors, and Senators might go on to the end of time with no diminution of their dignity, but with great increase of justice and honor and truth among them--that was his political aspiration.