V. Marcus Cicero, long flung
among men like Catiline and Clodius and Pompey and Crassus, some open enemies,
others doubtful friends, as he is tossed to and fro along with the state and
seeks to keep it from destruction, to be at last swept away, unable as he was
to be restful in prosperity or patient in adversity—how many times does he
curse that very consulship of his, which he had lauded without end, though not
without reason! How tearful the words he uses in a letter12 written to
Atticus, when Pompey the elder had been conquered, and the son was still trying
to restore his shattered arms in Spain! "Do you ask," he said,
"what I am doing here? I am lingering in my Tusculan villa half a
prisoner." He then proceeds to other statements, in which he bewails his
former life and complains of the present and despairs of the future. Cicero
said that he was "half a prisoner." But, in very truth, never will
the wise man resort to so lowly a term, never will he be half a prisoner—he who
always possesses an undiminished and stable liberty, being free and his own
master and towering over all others. For what can possibly be above him who is
above Fortune?
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