That a Sicilian should be free under a Roman Proconsul, as a Roman citizen was entitled to be, was abhorrent to his doctrine.

The idea of cosmopolitan freedom--an idea which exists with us, but is not common to very many even now--had not as yet been born: that care for freedom which springs from a desire to do to others as we would that they should do to us.

It required Christ to father that idea; and Cicero, though he was nearer to Christianity than any who had yet existed, had not reached it.

But this liberty, though it was but of a few, was so dear to him that he spent his life in an endeavor to preserve it.

The kings had been expelled from Rome because they had trampled on liberty.