ture as he addressed himself pointedly to his Roman audience, that they recalled him, and, amid a storm of plaudits, made him repeat the passage. He added to it the words—which were not set down for him—
"Best of all friends in direst strait of war!"
and the applause was redoubled. The actor drew courage from his success. When, as the play went on, he came to speak the words—
See him driven forth and hunted from your gates!"
he pointed to the nobles, knights, and commons, as they sat in their respective seats in the crowded rows before him, his own voice broke with grief, and the tears even more than the applause of the whole audience bore witness alike to their feelings towards the exile, and the dramatic power of the actor. "He pleaded my cause before the Roman people," says Cicero (for it is he that tells the story), "with far more weight of eloquence than I could have pleaded for myself."[1]
He had been visited with a remarkable dream, while staying with one of his friends in Italy, during the earlier days of his exile, which he now recalled with some interest. He tells us this story also himself, though he puts it into the mouth of another speaker, in his dialogue on "Divination." If few were so fond of introducing personal anecdotes into every place where he could find room for them, fewer still could tell them so well.
- ↑ Defence of Sestius, c. 56, &c.
