When he thought that there was a hope for the Republic, he sprung at Antony with all the courage of a tigress protecting her young; and when all had failed and was rotten around him, when the Republic had so fallen that he knew it to be gone--then he was able to give his neck to the swordsman with all the apparent indifference of life which was displayed by those countrymen of our own whom I have named.
But why did he write so piteously when he was driven into exile?
Why, at any rate, did he turn upon his chosen friend and scold him, as though that friend had not done enough for friendship?
Why did he talk of suicide as though by that he might find the easiest way of escape?
I hold it to be natural that a man should wail to himself under a sense, not simply of misfortune, but of misfortune coming to him from the injustice of others, and specially from the ingratitude of friends.
Afflictions which come to us from natural causes, such as sickness and physical pain, or from some chance such as the loss of our money by the breaking of a bank, an heroic man will bear without even inward complainings.

But a sense of wrong done to him by friends will stir him, not by the misery inflicted, but because of the injustice; and that which he says to himself he will say to his wife, if his wife be to him a second self, or to his friend, if he have one so dear to him.

The testimony by which the writers I have named have been led to treat Cicero so severely has been found in the letters which he wrote during his exile; and of these letters all but one were addressed either to Atticus or to his wife or to his brother.[268] Twenty-seven of them were to Atticus.

Before he accepted a voluntary exile, as the best solution of the difficulty in which he was placed--for it was voluntary at first, as will be seen--he applied to the Consul Piso for aid, and for the same purpose visited Pompey.

So far he was a suppliant, but this he did in conformity with Roman usage.