They had made Rome what it was, and he knew and could imagine nothing better; and, odious as an oligarchy is seen to be under the strong light of experience to which prolonged ages has subjected it, the aspiration on his part was noble.
He has been wrongly accused of deserting "that democracy with which he had flirted in his youth." There had been no democracy in his youth, though there had existed such a condition in the time of the Gracchi.
There was none in his youth and none in his age.

That which has been wrongly called democracy was conspiracy--not a conspiracy of democrats such as led to our Commonwealth, or to the American Independence, or to the French Revolution; but conspiracy of a few nobles for the better assurance of the plunder, and the power, and the high places of the Empire.

Of any tendency toward democracy no man has been less justly accused than Cicero, unless it might be Caesar.

To Caesar we must accord the merit of having seen that a continuation of the old oligarchical forms was impracticable This Cicero did not see.

He thought that the wounds inflicted by the degeneracy and profligacy of individuals were curable.