Core Concepts of Accounting

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 Chapter 9
Introduction to Internal Control Systems
Discussion Questions
9-1. The primary provisions for the 1992 COSO Report and the 2004 Report are outlined
in Figure 9-1.

Business and operating environment have change dramatically since the release of the first
COSO Report. The major drivers of change were globalization, technological innovation, and
increase in overall business complexity. On May 14, 2013, COSO released an updated version
of its Internal Control—Integrated Framework. The new framework has several important
changes, it:
• Codifies principles that support five components of internal control and explicitly states 17
principles representing fundamental concepts associated with five components of internal
control.
• Clarifies the role of objective-setting in internal control.
• Incorporates increased relevance of information technology.
• Reflects on enhanced discussion of governance concepts.
• Expands the reporting category of objectives.
• Enhances consideration of anti-fraud expectations.
• Increases focus on non-financial reporting objectives.
For further information review http://www.coso.org/documents/coso%20mcnallytransition%20article-
final%20coso%20version%20proof_5-31-13.pdf

9-2. The primary provisions of the original version of COBIT, as well as the current
version (5), are outlined in Figure 9-1.

9-3. COSO stands for Committee of Sponsoring Organizations, which was established by
the Treadway Commission to work on a common definition for internal control. COBIT stands
for Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology. It was a project undertaken by
the Information Systems Audit and Control Foundation that involved an extensive examination
of the internal control area.

An important role played by COSO in the internal control area was to come up with a definition
of internal control along with a description of five interrelated components (control environment,
risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring) that should
be included within an internal control system. Regarding COBIT and its role in the internal
control area, COBIT adapted its definition of internal control based on the COSO report. COBIT
(as well as COSO) emphasizes that people at every level of an organization are a very
important part of the organization’s internal control system.

COSO is an important framework that management of organizations might use to help ensure
that they have effective corporate governance. This is the case because the COSO framework
presents criteria to evaluate an organization’s internal control systems. According to SOX,
Section 404, management must now document the effectiveness of their internal controls and
then issue a report that accompanies the company’s annual report. Similarly, COBIT is used by
managers to ensure effective IT governance.

Chapter 9 Solutions manual to accompany Accounting Information Systems, Cdn ed Simkin et al.
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9-4. The control environment establishes the tone of a company, influencing the control
awareness of the company’s employees. It is the foundation for all the other internal control
components. Risk assessment recognizes the fact that every organization faces risks to its
success and that risks which appear to affect the accomplishment of a company’s goals should
be identified, analyzed, and acted upon. Control activities reflect the policies and procedures
that help ensure that management directives are carried out. Regarding information and
communication, the former refers to the accounting system, which includes the methods and
records used to record, process, summarize, and report a company’s transactions as well as
maintain accountability for the company’s assets, liabilities, and equity. The latter,
communication, refers to providing a company’s personnel with an understanding of their roles
and responsibilities in regard to internal control over financial reporting. Finally, monitoring is
the process that assesses the quality of internal control performance over time. Performance
reports prepared on a timely basis contribute to the monitoring component of an internal control
system.

Concerning which component is the most important, this is a matter of opinion. Most students
indicate that the control environment is the most important component of an internal control
system because, as mentioned in the textbook, it is the foundation for all the other internal
control components, providing discipline and structure.

9-5. Accountants should be concerned that their organization’s financial resources are
protected from activities such as loss, waste, or theft. To protect organizational assets, an
internal control system must be developed and implemented within a company’s AIS as well as
within other parts of the company’s system. In addition to safeguarding assets, an efficient and
effective internal control system should also:
1) Check the accuracy and reliability of accounting data
2) Promote operational efficiency
3) Encourage adherence to prescribed managerial policies.
Accountants should be concerned that all of these objectives are accomplished by their
organization’s internal control system.

9-6. Preventive control procedures are designed and implemented before an activity is
performed to prevent some potential problem (e.g., the inaccurate handling of cash receipts)
from occurring that relates to the activity. Detective control procedures are designed and
implemented to provide feedback to management regarding whether or not operational
efficiency and adherence to prescribed managerial policies have been achieved. In other
words, preventive controls should be developed prior to operating activities taking place and
detective controls should be developed to evaluate if operating efficiency and adherence to
policies of management have occurred after operating activities have taken place. Corrective
control procedures come into play based on the findings from the detective control procedures.
That is, through detective controls, corrective control procedures should be developed to identify
the cause of an organization’s problem, correct any difficulties or errors resulting from the
problem, and modify the organization’s processing system so that future occurrences of the
problem will hopefully be eliminated or at least minimized.

Examples of each type of controls are as follows:

Preventive: scenario planning, risk management, segregation of duties, controlling access to
assets
Detective: duplicate check of calculations, bank reconciliations, monthly trial balances
Corrective: backup copies of transactions and master files, training personnel to perform
their jobs

Chapter 9 Solutions manual to accompany Accounting Information Systems, Cdn ed Simkin et al.
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9-7. Competent employees are definitely important to an organization's internal control
system because employees will be working continually with the organization's various asset
resources. The employees will be, for example, handling cash, acquiring and disbursing
inventory, and operating expensive production equipment. If the organization has incompetent
employees, there is a strong likelihood that inefficient use of the firm's asset resources will
result. This inefficiency will lead to overall operating inefficiency within the organization, thereby
preventing the adherence to management's prescribed policies.

9-8. The “separation of duties” element of an organization’s internal control system

means that, for instance, employees who are given responsibility for the physical custody of
specific company assets (e.g., handling cash or inventory) should not also be given
responsibility for the record-keeping functions relating to the assets (e.g., recording cash or
inventory transactions in the company's journals and ledgers). Otherwise, an employee could
misappropriate company assets and then attempt to conceal this fraud by falsifying the
accounting records.

Through the separation of duties, one employee acts as a check on the work of another
employee. Thus, if an employee attempts to embezzle cash from a customer payment, but
does not have access to the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger to cover up this theft, he or
she would likely be detected. The other employee who performs the record-keeping activities
for accounts receivable would not have recorded the customer's payment since it was
embezzled by the employee handling cash. Consequently, the customer would complain to the
company upon receiving a subsequent billing statement which would not reflect his or her recent
payment. Upon investigating this complaint, the dishonest employee would likely be caught. It
should be noted, however, that through collusion among the employees handling assets and
recording assets, irregularities are usually not detected as quickly as when individuals work
alone (as described earlier).

In addition to detecting irregularities, separation of duties can also be helpful in detecting

accidental errors. If the same employee performs all accounting functions related to a specific
activity (e.g., handling inventory items and recording the inventory transactions), an accidental
human error by this employee, such as incorrectly recording an inventory transaction, may not
be detected. However, with two or more employees handling the accounting functions relating
to a specific activity, an accidental human error made by one employee should be detected by
another employee involved with the same activity.

9-9. Many organizations have a large volume of cash disbursement transactions. In

order to detect any errors and irregularities relating to cash disbursements, a good audit trail for
cash issuances is essential. If an organization uses both a voucher system and prenumbered
cheques for cash disbursement transactions, its audit trail of cash outlays can easily be traced.
The use of prenumbered cheques for making authorized cash disbursements enables a
company to maintain accountability over its issued cheques and its unissued cheques. After the
issued cheques clear the bank in a particular month and are returned to the organization with
the monthly bank statement, these cheques represent evidence of the actual cash
disbursements that were made. Two advantages of employing a voucher system along with
prenumbered cheques are (1) the number of cash disbursement cheques that are written is
reduced, since several invoices to the same vendor can be included on one disbursement
voucher, and (2) the disbursement voucher is an internally generated document; thus, each
voucher can be prenumbered to simplify the tracking of all payables, thereby contributing to an
effective audit trail over cash disbursements.

Chapter 9 Solutions manual to accompany Accounting Information Systems, Cdn ed Simkin et al.
p. 3
Sometimes, prenumbered cheques are not efficient for an organization to use. For example, for
expenditures of small dollar amounts (e.g., spending a few dollars to have the company
president's car washed) cash payment might be a better choice. Because of the time and effort
involved in processing cheques, it is normally more efficient to use a petty cash fund for making
various small, miscellaneous expenditures. However, to exercise good internal control over the
petty cash fund's use, one employee (called the petty cash custodian) should be given the
responsibility for handling petty cash transactions.

9-10. Under the cost-benefit concept, an analysis is performed on each potential control
procedure (i.e., compare the expected costs of designing, implementing, and operating each
control to its expected benefits). Only those controls whose benefits are expected to be greater
than, or at least equal to, the expected costs should be implemented into the company’s
system. Cost-effective controls are those whose anticipated benefits exceed their anticipated
costs.

Ideal control procedures (i.e., those that would reduce the risk to practically zero of any
undetected errors and irregularities occurring) may be impractical for a company because the
expected costs may be larger than their expected benefits. The implementation of controls
whose costs are expected to exceed the controls benefits would not contribute to a company’s
overall operating efficiency. In these cases, control procedures which are less than ideal for
detecting errors and irregularities (but whose expected benefits exceed the expected costs)
should be implemented within the company’s internal control system.

From the standpoint of evaluating a company’s internal control system, a performance report is
a type of report that provides information to management on how efficiently and effectively its
company’s internal controls are functioning. Based on accurately prepared performance
reports, management receives feedback on the success or failure of the previously implemented
package of internal controls. The preparation of a performance report is a detective control
procedure.

Performance reports should be an essential element within a company’s internal control system
because they are the major means of communicating to management regarding the actual
operations of the company’s internal control systems. For specific controls that are not
operating the way they were originally planned, as indicated by a performance report,
management can then take action to correct identified problems.

Timely information to managers, regarding internal control problems, is critical so that mangers
can initiate action to correct the problems. Thus, performance reports should be prepared on a
timely basis in order that a minimum period elapses between the occurrence of operational
problems with certain controls and the feedback to management on these poorly functioning
controls.

9-11. Discussion question 9-5 identifies a number of reasons why accountants are so
concerned about their organizations’ internal control systems. However, the managers of these
organizations are particularly concerned about the effectiveness and efficiency of internal
controls due to the SOX legislation. Under Section 302 of this legislation, the CEO and CFO are
legally responsible for establishing and maintaining internal controls in the organization. In
addition, they must have evaluated the effectiveness of the company’s internal controls and
submitted their report to the external auditors, who evaluate the sufficiency of those internal

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controls. Further, when we talk about the control environment of an organization, we know that
management’s support of a strong internal control system is critical.

9-12. COSO’s 2008 Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems (COSO’s Monitoring
Guidance) was developed to clarify the monitoring component of internal control. It does not
replace the guidance first issued in the COSO Framework or in COSO’s 2006 Internal Control
over Financial Reporting — Guidance for Smaller Public Companies (COSO’s 2006 Guidance).
Rather, it expounds on the basic principles contained in both documents, guiding organizations
in implementing effective and efficient monitoring.

To read the entire document “Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems”, go to this site:
http://www.coso.org/documents/COSO_Guidance_On_Monitoring_Intro_online1.pdf

Problems
9-13.

Weaknesses Recommended Improvements

1. Raw materials may be
removed from the storeroom
upon oral authorization from
one of the production
foremen.
1. Raw materials should be removed from the
storeroom only upon written authorization from an
authorized production foreman. The authorization
forms should be prenumbered and accounted for,
list quantities and job or production number, and be
signed and dated.

2. Alden's practice of monthly 2. A perpetual inventory system should be established

physical inventory counts does
not compensate for the lack of
a perpetual inventory system.
Quantities on hand at the end
of one month may not be
sufficient to last until the next
month's count. If the company
has taken this into account in
establishing reorder levels,
then it is carrying too large an
investment in inventory.
under the control of someone other than the
storekeepers. The system should include quantities
and values for each item of raw material. Total
inventory value per the perpetual records should be
compared with the general ledger at reasonable
intervals. When physical counts are taken, they too
should be compared to the perpetual records.
Where differences occur, they should be
investigated, and if the perpetual records are in
error, they should be adjusted. Also, controls
should be established over obsolescence of stored
materials.

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3. Raw materials are purchased 3. Requests for purchases of raw materials should
at a predetermined reorder come from the production department management
level and in predetermined and be based on production schedules and
quantities. Since production quantities on hand per the perpetual records.
levels may often vary during
the year, quantities ordered
may be either too small or too
great for the current
production demands.

4. The accounts payable clerk 4. The purchasing function should be centralized in a

handles both the purchasing
function and payment of
invoices. This is not a
satisfactory separation of
duties.
separate department. Prenumbered purchase
orders should originate from and be controlled by
this department. A copy of the purchase order
should be sent to the storeroom clerks.
Consideration should be given as to whether the
storeroom clerks’ copy should show quantities.

5. Raw materials are always 5. The purchasing department should be required to

purchased from the same obtain competitive bids on all purchases over a
vendor. specified amount.

6. There is no receiving 6. A receiving department should be established.

department or receiving
report. For proper separation
of duties, the individuals
responsible for receiving
should be separate from the
storeroom clerks.
Personnel in this department should count or weigh
all goods received and prepare prenumbered
receiving reports. These reports should be signed,
dated, and controlled. Copies should be sent to the
accounting department, purchasing department, and
storeroom.

7. There is no inspection 7. An inspection department should be established to

department. Since high cost
electronic components are
usually required to meet
certain specifications, they
should be tested for these
requirements when received.
inspect goods as they are received. Prenumbered
inspection reports should be prepared and
accounted for. Copies of these reports should be
sent to the accounting department.

9-14.

a. The separation of duties is meant to safeguard assets; in this case, cash receipts.
b. Signature plates are used to authenticate cheques. Keeping them secure is a means of
preventing their unauthorized use.
c. Matching the vendor invoice with a receiving report (or similar document) ensures payment
for goods or services actually received.
d. Separating these functions helps ensure payment only for legitimate obligations of the
organization.
e. This procedure would help ensure that disbursements are made only for authorized
purchases.
f. Prenumbered documents have to be securely stored if this preventive control is to be
effective.

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g. Using an imprest or special account for payroll limits the loss due to incorrectly printed
cheques associated with each period’s total payroll.
h. Separation of functions prevents one person from diverting cash assets and subsequently
concealing the wrongdoing.
i. Cheque protectors use a number of methods which make it difficult to successfully change
the cheque amount.
j. Both the surprise counts and the knowledge of their likelihood deter the unauthorized use of
cash.
k. Approved vendor lists help prevent unauthorized purchases (irregularities or embezzlement
of assets).
l. Such separation of duties helps prevent unauthorized purchases.

9-15.

a) As a member of the company’s management, you would hopefully reject the control
recommendations. Specific internal controls should not be implemented into a company’s
system unless the anticipated benefits from the controls are expected to exceed the
anticipated costs of the controls. In the case of Sandra’s recommendations, it is obvious
that the costs to operate these suggested controls would exceed the benefits from having
the controls. The maximum monthly benefit from Sandra’s recommended controls would be
the $350 estimated monthly loss that could be eliminated; however, to achieve this benefit, a
separate room for storing supplies would have to be used and an employee would have to
be assigned the full-time job of supervising the issuance of supplies. The costs of using a
separate room and having an employee work full-time in handling office supplies would
definitely be much greater than the $350 estimated monthly loss that could be eliminated.

A couple of possible control procedures that the company might wish to implement to
reduce the monthly loss from employee theft of office supplies are mentioned below.

b) Rather than storing the supplies on shelves at the back of the office facility whereby
employees have easy access to these supplies, they could be locked in a cabinet. An
authorized company employee (such as a secretary) would be given the responsibility for
issuing supplies when requested by various employees. The authorized employee in
charge of the supplies would have this new job responsibility along with his or her existing
job responsibilities. When an individual needs office supplies, he or she would go to the
authorized employee's desk and indicate the request. The employee in charge of supplies
would then unlock the cabinet and issue the requested supplies. The person receiving the
supplies would have to sign a supplies-received voucher, which serves as evidence of the
specific supplies issued.

Another suggestion might be to use a separate room for storing the supplies (as suggested
by Sandra). This room would be kept locked throughout the day except for possibly one
hour each day. Company employees would be made aware of the specific time every day
during which the supply room is open. As a result of this procedure, an employee would
not be used full-time in issuing the supplies. Rather, the employee assigned the
responsibility for supervising the issuance of supplies could still perform his or her other job
functions throughout the day. Approximately one hour each day away from his or her other
job functions would be required to issue office supplies. As in the preceding suggestion,
each person receiving supplies would have to sign a supplies-received voucher.

9-16.

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1. Most students believe that Ron Mitchell’s method of stealing cash receipts will be detected
by the movie theatre's manager assuming that the manager uses a few internal control
procedures.

First, the tickets issued by Ron to theatre patrons should be prenumbered and controlled by
the manager. At the beginning of Ron's work shift, he should be made accountable for a
specific quantity of prenumbered tickets and not have access to any other tickets. At the
end of Ron's work shift, the manager should count the total number of ticket-halves that he
has accumulated from customers who have entered the theatre. From multiplying the
selling price per ticket by the number of ticket-halves in his possession, the manager can
determine the total cash receipts that should have been collected by Ron. If there is more
than one price for tickets, such as children prices and adult prices, the differently
priced-tickets can be colour-coded to enable the manager to compute the total cash
receipts that should have been collected. The manager can then count the total actual cash
that Ron collected during his work shift. (Of course, the amount of change fund that Ron
was provided at the start of his shift should be subtracted from his total cash.) Through this
procedure, the manager can determine if the actual cash receipts collected by Ron are
equal to the cash receipts that should have been collected (based on the manager's
accumulated ticket-halves). The cash receipts that were pocketed by Ron should thus be
detected, since the manager's count of actual cash receipts would fall short of the cash
receipts that should have been collected.

2. An additional control procedure that the theatre manager may want to implement is to
periodically observe Ron while he is performing his work functions. This procedure should
take place without Ron being aware that he is being observed. If, as a result of observing
Ron's work activities, the manager is suspicious of irregular acts, he can watch Ron even
closer until his suspicions are fully confirmed.

9-17.
a. Cost-benefit analysis:

Without Control With Control Net Expected

Procedure Procedure Difference

Cost of reproducing production $12,000 $12,000

cost data
Risk of data errors 16% 2%
Reprocessing cost expected $ 1,920 $ 240 $1,680
($12,000 * risk)
Cost of validation control $0 $ 800 ($ 800)
procedure
(an incremental cost)
Net estimated benefit from $ 880
validation control procedure

b. Management should implement the data validation control procedure because of the $880
net estimated benefit that is projected with this procedure.

Case Analyses

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9-18. Manitoba Menswear (Risk Assessment and Control Procedures)

1. (a) The risk is that merchandise is stolen.

(b) Shoplifting is a very large problem for retailers. There should be better inventory
controls. These might include closed circuit cameras, tags that are removed at the end
of the sales process, and security personnel.

2. (a) The risk is that stolen merchandise (perhaps at the same two stores in point #4) is being
returned for cash.
(b) Returns should require a sales receipt. The store may also consider a policy of allowing
returns for merchandise credit only.

3. (a) The risk is that the store is losing income.

(b) Either revenues are down or cost of sales has increased. Management needs to inspect
these numbers closely to see where the problem lies. At least part of it could be
attributable to poor inventory control.

4. (a) The risk is that cash was not deposited.

(b) This can easily be controlled by requiring daily reconciliations by an employee not
involved in receiving or depositing cash.

5. (a) The risk is that cash was not collected from customers.
(b) The employee should be reprimanded. Either all cheques or cheques exceeding a
specific dollar amount should be approved by someone other than the salesperson.

6. (a) The risk is that petty cash was pilfered.

(b) There should be a custodian over petty cash who has sole responsibility for it. The
custodian should never disburse cash without obtaining a receipt.

9-19. Cuts-n-Curves Athletic Club (Analyzing Internal Controls)

Weaknesses Recommended Improvements

1. The employee at the desk could 1.
allow friends to enter at no
charge.
There needs to be some separation of duties.
There could be another person at the front desk
where the visitor completes the waiver form and
obtains a daily pass. The first employee would
then require a pass and would not handle cash.
(Note - this may be cost prohibitive)

2. The employee at the desk could 2. The same control as #1.

pocket cash.

3. The cash receipts are not 3. The cash receipts should be kept in a file. They
controlled. should also be sequentially numbered.

4. There may be many different 4. There should be a log of employees and their
desk employees throughout the working hours. They need to sign in and out.
day. If cash is missing, there

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 will be no accountability.

5. There does not appear to be a
procedure for comparing the
cash receipts journal entry and
bank deposit with the cash
receipts given to employees at
the desk.
5. Someone other than the accountant and the desk
employees should periodically compare the cash
receipts journal entries, bank deposit slips, and
cash receipts kept on file.

9-20. Emerson Department Store (Control Suggestions to Strengthen Payroll

System)

1. The use of currency rather than cheques for paying employees makes it essential that
effective separation of duties exist in both the payroll preparation and the payroll distribution
functions.

Regarding payroll preparation, Morris is responsible for submitting payroll information to the
computer centre for data processing. Therefore, Morris should not be involved in the work
of placing currency in each employee's pay envelope. Another company accountant and a
secretary could perform this function. Also, the individuals responsible for placing currency
in employees pay envelopes should be provided with the exact amount of currency
necessary to cover the total net pay for all employees. Using the information from the
payroll register, each employee's gross wages, individual deductions, and net pay should be
printed on the outside of the employee's pay envelope. This information could be prepared
by the computer in the form of an individual printed label for each employee, which would
then be affixed to the employee's envelope. The two employees would then insert in each
wage earner's envelope the correct amount of currency.

Regarding payroll distribution, the completed pay envelopes should not be given to the
department managers for distribution to their employees because these managers are
involved in the payroll record-keeping functions (e.g., the managers submit their employees’
time cards to Morris). Rather, an individual who has no other payroll-related duties should
be designated as paymaster and be responsible for distributing pay envelopes. At pre-
established times on Monday afternoon, pay envelopes should be distributed to the
employees from a central payroll window. The employees would line up at this window and
upon each employee showing proper identification (such as a driver's license or social
insurance card), he or she would be issued a pay envelope by the paymaster. The
employee should also be required to count immediately his or her currency within the
envelope and then sign his or her name on the payroll register. The employee's signature
verifies that he or she received the correct amount of currency in the pay envelope. Any
unclaimed pay envelopes should be returned to the accounting department and should be
locked in the company safe until the employees come in person and sign for their
envelopes.

Regarding all company employees involved in the payroll process, a further control would be
to have fidelity bond coverage for these employees.

2. Now that management is willing to change from cash payroll disbursements, students will
recommend that cheques or direct deposit are better alternatives. Other arguments for
these options are:
• Freeing up the payroll employees from inserting cash into 500 envelopes every week

Chapter 9 Solutions manual to accompany Accounting Information Systems, Cdn ed Simkin et al.
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 saving valuable time
• When the information is sent to the computing centre, that department can write the
cheques and stubs
• Use an imprest account for payroll
• Continue to have employees come to the payroll office to pick up their wages
• Continue to put unclaimed cheques in the safe
• Continue to use separation of duties

Chapter 9 Solutions manual to accompany Accounting Information Systems, Cdn ed Simkin et al.
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Another random document with
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rhetorician’s habits and to his unbridled love for fine speeches, he
assumes that it was Maecenas who proposed to Augustus to establish
them, and he takes advantage of the opportunity to make him speak
at great length.[382] The discourse of Maecenas contains, in truth,
what we may call the general theory of the empire. This interesting
sketch, which was realized later, aids us greatly in understanding
that part which we have still to examine of the inscription of Ancyra.
We should always bear it in mind in order to apprehend thoroughly
the spirit of the institutions of Augustus, the motive of his
liberalities, the hidden meaning of the facts he mentions, and above
all the character of his relations with the different classes of citizens.
Let us begin by studying the relations of Augustus with his
soldiers. “About ... thousand Romans,”[383] says he, “bore arms under
me. I established in colonies, or sent back to their municipia after
their term of service, rather more than three hundred thousand. I
gave land, or money to buy it, to all of them.” On two different
occasions, after the wars against Sextus Pompey, and against Antony,
Augustus was at the head of about fifty legions; he had only twenty-
five when he died. But this number, reduced as it was, still weighed
intolerably upon the finances of the empire. The immense increase of
expenditure that the creation of great standing armies threw upon
the treasury prevented Augustus for a long time, notwithstanding the
prosperity of his reign, from having what we should now call a
budget in equilibrium. Four times he was obliged to aid the public
treasury from his private fortune, and he reckons the amounts that
he presented to the state at one hundred and fifty million sesterces
(£1,200,000). He had much trouble to remedy these financial
difficulties, of which the expenses of the army were the principal
cause. This gave him the idea of creating a sort of military pension
fund, and of appealing, in order to fill it, to the generosity of the
allied kings and cities, and of the richest Roman citizens; and in
order to stimulate others by his own example, he gave one hundred
and seventy million sesterces (£1,360,000) at one time. But these
voluntary gifts being insufficient it was necessary to impose new
taxes, and to fill the treasury of the army with the proceeds of a tax of
a twentieth on inheritances and a hundredth on sales. Yet it seems
that, notwithstanding these efforts, pensions were ill paid, since this
was one of the grievances that the legions of Pannonia alleged in
their revolt against Tiberius. It is certain that the army of Augustus
was one of the greatest anxieties of his administration. His own
legions gave him as much trouble as those of the enemy. He had to
do with soldiers who felt that they were the masters, and who for ten
years had been corrupted by flattery and promises. On the eve of
battle they were very exacting because they knew how much they
were required; after victory they became unmanageable from the
pride with which it inspired them. In order to satisfy them, it would
have been necessary to expropriate all the inhabitants of Italy in a
body. Octavius had consented to this at first, after Philippi; but later,
when his policy changed, when he understood that he could not
found a stable government if he drew on himself the hatred of the
Italians, he resolved to pay the proprietors handsomely for the lands
that he gave his veterans. “I reimbursed the municipia,” he says, “in
money, the value of the lands that I gave to my soldiers in my fourth
consulship, and later under the consulship of M. Crassus and Cn.
Lentulus. I paid six hundred million sesterces (£4,800,000) for the
lands situated in Italy, and two hundred and sixty million sesterces
(£2,080,000) for those situated in the provinces. Of all those who
have established colonies of soldiers in the provinces and in Italy, I
am, up to now, the first and only one who has acted thus.” He was
right in boasting of it. It was not at all the habit of the generals of
that time to pay for what they took, and he himself had given another
example for a long time. When, a little later, he dared to resist the
demands of his veterans, he had to maintain terrible struggles in
which his life was more than once in danger. In every way, his
demeanour towards his soldiers at that time is one of the things that
do him most honour. He owed everything to them, and he had none
of the qualities which were necessary to master them, neither the
abilities of Caesar nor the defects of Antony; and yet he dared to
make head against them, and succeeded in obtaining the mastery. It
is very remarkable that, although he had gained his power solely by
war, he was able to maintain the predominance of the civil element
in the government that he founded. If the empire, in which there was
no longer any other element of strength and life than the army, did
not become from that period a military monarchy, it is assuredly
owing to his firmness.
Nothing is more simple than the relations of Augustus with the
people. The information that the Ancyra inscription furnishes upon
this subject is quite in accord with the discourse of Maecenas: he fed
them and amused them. Here, to begin with, is the exact account of
the sums he expended to feed them: “I reckoned to the Roman
people three hundred sesterces (£2 8s.) a head according to my
father’s testament, and four hundred sesterces (£3 4s.) in my own
name, out of the spoils of the war during my fifth consulship.
Another time, in my tenth consulship, I gave a gratuity of four
hundred sesterces to each citizen, from my private fortune. During
my eleventh consulship I made twelve distributions of corn at my
own cost. When I was invested for the twelfth time with the
tribunitian power, I again gave four hundred sesterces a head to the
people. All these distributions were made to no fewer than two
hundred and fifty thousand persons. Invested for the eighteenth time
with the tribunitian power, and consul for the twelfth, I gave sixty
denarii (£1 10s. 4d.) a head to three hundred and twenty thousand
inhabitants of Rome. During my fourth consulship I had one
thousand sesterces (£8) for each of my soldiers, previously deducted
from the spoil, and distributed in the colonies formed by them.
About one hundred and twenty thousand colonists received their
share in the distribution that followed my triumph. Consul for the
thirteenth time, I gave sixty denarii to each of those who then
received distributions of corn; there were rather more than two
hundred thousand.” After these truly startling liberalities Augustus
mentions the public games he gave to the people, and although the
text has several lacunae here, we may suppose that it did not cost
him less to amuse the people than to feed them. “I gave shows of
gladiators[384] ... times in my own name, and five times in the names
of my children or grandchildren. In these different fêtes about ten
thousand men fought. Twice in my own name, and three times in the
names of my son and grandson, I had combats of wrestlers whom I
had brought from all countries. I celebrated public games four times
in my own name, and twenty-three times in place of magistrates who
were absent or could not support the expense of these games.... I
showed twenty-six times in my own name, or in the names of my
sons and grandsons, African wild beast hunts, in the circus, on the
Forum, or in the amphitheatres, and about three thousand five
hundred of these beasts were killed. I gave the people the spectacle of
a naval combat, beyond the Tiber, where the wood of the Caesars
now is. I had a canal dug there one thousand eight hundred feet long
by one thousand two hundred feet broad. There thirty ships armed
with rams, triremes, biremes, and a large number of smaller vessels
fought together. These vessels contained, besides their rowers, a
crew of three thousand men.” Here, as it seems to me, is a curious
and official commentary on the famous expression of Juvenal,
panem et circenses. We see clearly that it was not a sally of the poet,
but a veritable principle of policy happily invented by Augustus that
his successors preserved as a tradition of government.
The relations of Augustus with the senate, we can well understand,
were more difficult and complicated. Even after Pharsalia and
Philippi it was still a great name that it was necessary to treat with
consideration. Depressed as it was, the old aristocracy still caused
some fear, and seemed to deserve some regard. This is well seen by
the care that Augustus takes in his testament never to speak of the
senate but with respect. Its name comes up at every turn with a sort
of affectation. We should say indeed, if we trusted to appearances,
that the senate was then the master, and that the prince was
contented to execute its decrees. This is what Augustus wished to be
believed. He passed all his life in dissembling his authority or
lamenting about it. From his royal dwelling on the Palatine he wrote
the most pathetic letters to the senate asking to be relieved of the
burden of public affairs, and he never appeared to have a greater
aversion for power than at the moment when he was concentrating
all powers in his own hands. It is not extraordinary that we find these
methods again in his testament: they had succeeded too well with his
contemporaries for him not to be tempted to make use of them with
posterity. Accordingly he continues to play the same comedy of
moderation and disinterestedness. He affects, for instance, to insist
as much upon the honours that he refused as upon those that he
accepted. “During the consulship of M. Marcellus and L. Arruntius,”
he says, “when the senate and people asked me to accept an absolute
authority,[385] I did not accept it. But I did not refuse to undertake the
supervision of supplies in a great famine, and by the expenditure that
I made I delivered the people from their fears and dangers. When, in
return, they offered me the consulship annually or for life, I refused
it.” This is not the only time that he dwells on his own moderation.
More than once again he refers to dignities or presents that he would
not accept. But here, indeed, is something that passes all bounds; “In
my sixth and seventh consulship, after having suppressed the civil
wars, when the common voice of all the citizens offered me the
supreme power, I restored the government of the republic to the
senate and people. As a recompense for this action I received the title
of Augustus by a decree of the senate, my door was encircled with
laurels and surmounted by a civic crown, and a golden shield was
placed in the Julian curia with an inscription recording that this
honour was awarded me as a mark of respect to my virtue, clemency,
justice, and piety. From this moment, although I was above the rest
in dignity in the offices with which I was invested, I never claimed
more power than I allowed to my colleagues.” This curious passage
shows how inscriptions may deceive if we trust them blindly. Would
it not seem that we should be right in concluding that in the year of
Rome 726, the republic had been re-established by the generosity of
Augustus? Now it was exactly at this period that the absolute power
of the emperor was delivered from all fear of attack from without
and, being quietly accepted by everybody, was finally established.
Dio himself, the official Dio, who is so ready to take the word of the
emperor, cannot accept this falsehood of Augustus; he ventures to
show that he is not deceived, and has no difficulty in proving that
this government, under whatever name it is disguised, was at bottom
a monarchy; he might have added that there was never a more
absolute monarchy. A single man constituted himself the heir of all
the magistrates of the republic, and united all their powers in
himself. He ignored the people whom he no longer consulted; he is
the master of the senate, which he chooses and forms at will; at once
consul and pontif, he regulates actions and beliefs; invested with the
tribunitian power, he is inviolable and sacred, that is to say, that the
least word let fall against him becomes a sacrilege; as censor, under
the title of praefect of morals, he can control the conduct of private
persons, and interfere, when he likes, in the most private affairs of
life.[386] Everything is subordinated to him, private as well as public
life, and his authority can penetrate everywhere from the senate to
the most humble and obscure hearths. Add to this that the
boundaries of his empire are those of the civilized world; barbarism
begins where slavery ends, and there is not even the sad resource of
exile against this despotism. Yet it is the man who possesses this
appalling power, whom nothing in his immense empire escapes, and
from whose empire it is impossible to escape, it is he who has just
told us with a bare-faced assurance that he refused to accept absolute
power!
 It must be acknowledged that this absolute power, which he veiled
with so much precaution, sought also by every possible means to
reconcile men to itself. All the compensations which might make a
people forget its liberty were given to the Romans by Augustus with a
free hand. I do not speak only of that material prosperity which made
the number of citizens increase by nearly a million in his reign;[387]
nor even of the repose and security which, at the close of the civil
war, was the most imperious need of the whole world, but also of
that incomparable splendour with which he adorned Rome. This was
a sure means of pleasing the people. Caesar knew this well, and had
expended one hundred million sesterces (£800,000) at one time,
simply in buying the ground on which his Forum was to stand.
Augustus did still more. The Ancyra inscription contains a list of the
public buildings he constructed, but it is so long that it is impossible
to quote it all. He mentions fifteen temples, several porticoes, a
theatre, a senate house, a Forum, a basilica, aqueducts, public roads,
etc.; in truth Rome was entirely reconstructed by him. We may say
that no public building was passed over by him, and that he restored
all those that he did not rebuild. He completed Pompey’s theatre and
the Forum of Caesar, and rebuilt the Capitol; in a single year he
repaired eighty-two temples that were falling into ruin. He did not
expend so many millions without a purpose, and all this profusion in
such a careful ruler covered a profound political design. He wished to
dazzle the people, to intoxicate them with luxury and magnificence in
order to divert them from the intrusive memories of the past. That
Rome of marble that he built was intended to make them forget the
Rome of brick.
This was not the only compensation that Augustus offered to the
people; he made them nobler amends, and thus sought to
legitimatize his power. If he demanded the sacrifice of their liberty
he took care to gratify their national pride in every way. No man
compelled the respect of foreign nations for Rome more than he; no
man gave her more reason for pride in the ascendency she enjoyed
among her neighbours. The latter part of the inscription is filled with
the gratifying recital of the marks of respect that the remotest
countries of the world paid to Rome under his reign. He was eager to
direct their attention towards this external glory, lest they should fix
it with some regret on what was taking place at home. Those citizens
whom the aspect of the deserted Forum and the obedient senate
depressed, he pointed to the Roman armies penetrating among the
Pannonians and the Arabs, to the Roman fleets navigating the Rhine
and the Danube, to the kings of the Britons, the Suevi, and the
Marcomanni, refugees at Rome, imploring the support of the legions,
to the Medes and Parthians, those terrible enemies of Rome, who
asked of her a king, to the most distant nations, the least known and
the best protected by their distance and their obscurity, moved by
this great name that reaches them for the first time and soliciting the
Roman alliance. “Ambassadors came to me from India, from kings
who had never yet sent to any Roman general. The Bastarnae, the
Scythians, and the Sarmatians who dwell on this side the Tanaïs, and
beyond that river, the kings of the Albanians, the Hiberi and the
Medes sent ambassadors to me asking our friendship.” It was very
difficult for the most discontented to hold out against so much
grandeur. But his greatest master-stroke was that he extended this
consideration for the glory of Rome even to the past. He honoured all
who had laboured for her at all times, says Suetonius,[388] almost as
much as the gods; and to show that none was excluded from this
veneration, he raised again the statue of Pompey, at the base of
which Caesar had fallen, and set it up in a public place. This generous
conduct was also a wise policy. By claiming a share in the glories of
the past, he disarmed, by anticipation, those men who might be
tempted to use them against him, and, at the same time, gave a
species of sanction to his authority by attaching it in some sort to
these old memories. Whatever difference might distinguish the
government that he founded from that of the republic, both agreed
on one point: they sought the greatness of Rome. Augustus tried to
reconcile the past with the present on this common ground. He also
had adorned Rome, defended her frontiers, extended her empire,
and made her name respected. He had continued and completed that
work on which they had laboured for seven centuries. He might,
then, call himself the continuator and heir of all those who had set
their hand to it; of Cato, Paulus Emilius, and Scipio, and rank
himself among them. He did not fail to do so when he built the
Forum that bore his name; we know from Suetonius that, under
those porticoes raised by him and filled with the records of his
actions, he ranged all the great men of the republic in triumphal
costume. This was the highest point of his political skill, for by
connecting them with his glory he received in turn a share of theirs,
and thus turned to his own advantage the greatness of the political
order which he had overturned.
These compensations that Augustus offered to the Romans in
exchange for their liberty seem to have satisfied them. Every one
quickly got accustomed to the new government, and it may be said
that Augustus reigned without opposition. The plots which more
than once threatened his life were the crimes of a few isolated
malcontents, of young thoughtless fellows whom he had disgraced,
or of vulgar and ambitious men who desired his position; they were
not the work of political parties. Can it even be said that there were
any political parties at this moment? Those of Sextus Pompey and
Antony had not survived the death of their chiefs; and, since Philippi,
there were scarcely any republicans. From that moment all wise men
adopted the maxim “that the vast body of the empire could not stand
upright and stable without some one to direct it.” A few obstinate
men alone, who were not yet converted, wrote violent declamations
in the schools under the name of Erutus and Cicero, or allowed
themselves to speak freely in those polite gatherings which were the
salons of that time: in conviviis rodunt, in circulis vellicant. But
those were unimportant exceptions which disappeared in the midst
of the universal admiration and respect. During more than fifty years
the senate, the knights, and the people used all their ingenuity to find
new honours for him who had given Rome internal peace, and who
maintained her grandeur so vigorously abroad. Augustus has been
careful to recall all this homage in the inscription we are studying,
not in a fit of puerile vanity, but to represent that agreement of all
orders in the state which seemed to legitimatize his authority. This
idea is shown especially in the last lines of the inscription, where he
recalls that circumstance of his life which was most dear to him,
because in it the agreement of all citizens had most strikingly
appeared: “While I was consul for the thirteenth time, the senate, the
order of knights, and all the people gave me the name of Father of
our Country, and desired that this should be inscribed in the
vestibule of my house, in the curia, and in my Forum, below the
quadrigae which had been placed there in my honour by a decree of
the senate. When I wrote these things I was in my seventy-sixth
year.” It was not without reason that he reserved this detail for the
end. This title of Father of his Country, by which he was saluted in
the name of all the citizens by Messala, the old friend of Brutus,
seemed to be the legal consecration of a power acquired by illegal
means and a sort of amnesty that Rome accorded to the past. We can
well understand that Augustus, even when dying, dwelt with
satisfaction on a recollection which seemed like an absolution, and
that he was anxious to terminate in this fashion his review of his
political life.

II.

I should like to give, in a few words, the impression that the

analysis of this remarkable inscription makes upon me as to its
author.
The whole political life of Augustus is contained in two official
documents which, by singular good fortune, have both come down to
us; I mean the preamble of the edict of proscription that Octavius
signed, and, according to all appearance, drew up himself, which
Appian has preserved; and the inscription found on the walls of the
temple of Ancyra. The former shows us what Octavius was at twenty,
fresh from the hands of the rhetoricians and philosophers, with all
the genuine instincts of his nature; the latter, what he became after
fifty-six years of uncontrolled and unlimited power; it is sufficient to
compare them in order to discover the road he had traversed, and
the changes that the knowledge of men and the practice of public
affairs had wrought in him.
The possession of power had made him better, a thing which is not
usual, and after him Roman history only gives us examples of princes
depraved by power. From the battle of Philippi to that of Actium, or
rather to the moment when he seems formally to ask pardon of the
world by abolishing all the acts of the triumvirate, we feel that he is
striving to become better, and we can almost follow the steps of his
progress. I do not think that we could find another example of so
strong an effort at self-conquest, and so complete a success in
overcoming one’s natural disposition. He was naturally a coward,
and hid himself in his tent in his first battle. I know not how he did
it, but he succeeded in acquiring courage; he became inured to war in
fighting against Sextus Pompey, and even courageous in the
expedition against the Dalmatians, in which he was twice wounded.
He was cynical and debauched, and the orgies of his youth, as related
by Suetonius, do not yield to Antony’s; yet he corrected himself at the
very moment that he became absolute master, that is just when his
passions would have met with the fewest obstacles. He was naturally
cruel, and coldly cruel, a disposition which does not often change;
and yet, after having begun by assassinating his benefactors, he
ended by sparing those who attempted his assassination, and the
philosopher Seneca could call the same man a clement prince[389]
whom his best friend, Maecenas, had once called a common
executioner. Certainly the man who signed the edict of proscription
hardly seems to be the same as the man who wrote the testament,
and it is indeed matter for wonder that a man who began as he did
was able to change so completely, and to assume a virtuous
character, or the appearance of one, in the place of all the vices that
were natural to him.
Nevertheless we should find it difficult to love him, whatever
justice we are bound to do him. We may be wrong after all; for
reason tells us that we ought to appreciate people more for the
qualities they acquire by thus triumphing over themselves than for
those they have by nature, without taking any trouble. And yet, I
hardly know why, it is only the latter that please us; the former lack a
certain charm that nature alone gives and which wins our hearts. The
effort is too apparent in them, and behind the effort some personal
interest; for we always suspect that a man has taken so much pains
only because there was some advantage to be gained. This sort of
acquired goodness, in which reason has a greater share than nature,
attracts no one, because it appears to be the product of a calculating
mind, and it is this feeling that causes all the virtues of Augustus to
leave us unmoved, and to seem at the most but the results of a
profound sagacity. They want a touch of nature and simplicity in
order to affect us. These are qualities that this stiff and formal
personage never knew, although according to Suetonius he gladly
assumed an appearance of plain manners and good-nature in his
familiar intercourse. But one is not a good fellow simply through
wishing to be it, and his private letters, of which we have a few
fragments, show that his pleasantries lacked ease, and that his
simplicity was the result of effort. Do we not know, besides, from
Suetonius himself, that he wrote down what he meant to say to his
friends, in order to leave nothing to chance, and that he even
occasionally wrote down his conversations with Livia beforehand?
[390]

But, after all, that which spoils Augustus in our opinion is that he
stands so near Caesar; the contrast between them is complete.
Caesar, not to speak of what was really great and brilliant in his
nature, attracts us at once by his frankness. His ambition may
displease us, but he had at least the merit of not hiding it. I do not
know why M. Mommsen exerts himself in his Roman History to
prove that Caesar did not care for the diadem, and that Antony, when
he offered it, had not consulted him. I prefer to hold to the common
opinion which, I think, does not do him wrong. He wished to be king,
and to bear the title as well as to exercise the power. He never made
pretence of waiting to be asked to accept honours that he
passionately desired, as Augustus did. He was not the man to make
us believe that he only retained the supreme authority with
reluctance, and would not have dared to tell us, at the very moment
that he was drawing all powers into his hands, that he had restored
the government of the republic to the people and senate. We know,
on the contrary, that after Pharsalia he said frankly that “the
republic” was a phrase without meaning, and that Sulla was a fool to
have abdicated the dictatorship. In everything, even in questions of
literature and grammar, he was a bold innovator, and he did not
display a hypocritical respect for the past at the very time that he was
destroying what had come down from it. This frankness is more to
our taste than the false appearance of veneration that Augustus
lavished on the senate after reducing it to impotence; and whatever
admiration Suetonius may express for him, when he shows him to
us, obsequiously saluting each senator by name, before the sittings
commenced, I am not sure that I do not prefer the disrespectful
behaviour of Caesar to this comedy, Caesar who at last went so far as
not to rise when the senate visited him. Both appeared weary of
power, but it never came into any one’s mind to think that Augustus
was speaking the truth when he asked so earnestly to be restored to
private life. The distaste of Caesar was deeper and more sincere. That
sovereign power, that he had sought after for more than twenty years
with an indefatigable persistence, through so many perils, and by
means of dark intrigues the remembrance of which must have made
him blush, did not answer to his expectations, and appeared
unsatisfying to him though he had so eagerly desired it. He knew that
he was detested by the men whose esteem he most desired; he was
constrained to make use of men whom he despised, and whose
excesses dishonoured his victory; the higher he rose, the more
unpleasing did human nature appear to him, and the more clearly
did he see the base greed and cowardly treachery of those who
intrigued at his feet. He came at last, through disgust, to have no
interest in life; it seemed to him to be no longer worth the trouble of
preserving and defending. It is, therefore, the same man who said,
even at the period when Cicero delivered the pro Marcello: “I have
lived long enough for nature or for glory;” who later, when he was
pressed to take precautions against his assassins, answered in a tone
of despondency: “I would rather die at once than live in fear;” who
might well have said with Corneille:
“I desired the empire and I have attained to it;
But I knew not what it was that I desired:
In its possession I have found, instead of delights,
Appalling cares, continual alarms,
A thousand secret enemies, death at every turn,
No pleasure without alloy, and never repose.”

These fine lines please me less, I admit, put into the mouth of
Augustus. This cautious politician, so cold, so self-possessed, does
not seem to me to have really known that noble sadness that reveals
the man in the hero, that melancholy of a heart ill at ease,
notwithstanding its successes, and disgusted with power through the
very exercise of power. Whatever admiration I may feel for that fine
scene in which Augustus proposes to abdicate the empire, I cannot
avoid being a little vexed with Corneille that he took so seriously and
depicted so gravely that solemn piece of acting which deceived
nobody in Rome, and when I wish to render my pleasure complete in
reading the tragedy of Cinna, I am always tempted to replace the
character of Augustus by that of Caesar.
I add, in conclusion, that all these insincere affectations of
Augustus were not only defects of character, but also political errors
which left most unfortunate effects on the government that he had
created. It was precisely the uncertainty that the interested
falsehoods of Augustus had thrown upon the real nature and limits
of the power of the earlier Caesars that rendered their tyranny
insupportable. When a government boldly states its principles we
know how to behave towards it; but what course is to be followed,
what language held when the forms of liberty are united with the
reality of despotism, when absolute power hides under republican
fictions? In the midst of this obscurity every course has danger and
threatens ruin. Men are ruined by independence, they may also be
ruined by servility; for, if he who refuses anything to the emperor is
an open enemy who regrets the republic, may not he who eagerly
grants everything be a secret enemy, who wishes to show that the
republic no longer exists? In studying Tacitus we find the statesmen
of this terrible period moving at random among these wilfully
accumulated uncertainties, stumbling at every step over unseen
dangers, liable to displease if they are silent or if they speak, if they
flatter or if they resist, continually asking themselves with dread how
they can satisfy this ambiguous and ill-defined authority whose
limits escape them. This want of sincerity in the institutions of
Augustus may be said to have been the torment of several
generations. All the evil came because Augustus thought more of the
present than of the future. He was an able man, full of resources in
escaping from embarrassing and difficult situations; he was not in
reality a great politician, for it seems that his view seldom extended
beyond the difficulties of the moment. Placed face to face with a
people who bore the kingship uneasily, and who were not fit for
anything else, he invented this sort of disguised kingship, and
allowed all the forms of the old government to exist by its side
without endeavouring to conform them to it. But if he was not so
great a politician as it has been pretended, it must be admitted that
he was an excellent administrator; that part of his work deserves all
the praise that has been lavished on it. By co-ordinating all the wise
observances and useful regulations that the republic had created, by
putting in force lost traditions, by himself creating new institutions
for the administration of Rome, the service of the legions, the
handling of the finances and the government of the provinces, he
organized the empire and thus rendered it capable of resisting
external enemies and internal causes of dissolution. If,
notwithstanding a detestable political system, the general lowering of
character, and the vices of the governors and the governed, the
empire still had a time of prosperity and lasted three centuries, it
owed it to the powerful organization it had received from Augustus.
This was the really vital part of his work. It is important enough to
justify the testimony that he bears to himself in that haughty phrase
of the Ancyran inscription: “I made new laws. I restored to honour
the examples of our forefathers which were disappearing from our
manners, and I have myself left examples worthy of being imitated
by our descendants.”

III.

It was no doubt about the middle of the reign, when he who was
the absolute master of the republic was pretending to restore the
government to the people and senate, that Cicero’s letters appeared.
The exact date of their publication is unknown; but everything tends
to the belief that it should be placed in the years that followed the
battle of Actium. The power of Augustus, become more popular since
it had become more moderate, felt itself strong enough to allow some
liberty of writing. It was mistrustful before that time because it was
not sufficiently consolidated; it became so again later when it
perceived that public favour was passing from it. This reign, which
began by proscribing men, ended by burning books. Cicero’s
correspondence could only have been published in the interval that
separates these periods.
No one has told us what impression it produced on those who read
it for the first time; but it may be fearlessly asserted that it was a very
lively impression. The civil wars had only just ended, up till that time
men were only occupied with present ills; in those misfortunes no
man’s mind was sufficiently free to think of the past, but in the first
period of tranquillity which that troubled generation knew, it
hastened to throw a glance backward. Whether it sought to account
for the events that had happened or wished to enjoy that bitter
pleasure which is found, according to the poet, in the recollections of
former sufferings, it retraced the sad years it had just traversed, and
wished to go back to the very beginning of that struggle whose end it
had seen. Nothing could satisfy their curiosity better than Cicero’s
letters, and it cannot therefore be doubtful that everybody at that
time eagerly read them.
I do not think that this reading did any harm to the government of
Augustus. Perhaps the reputation of some important personages of
the new government suffered a little from it. To have their republican
professions of faith disinterred was unpleasant for men who boasted
of being the private friends of the prince. I suppose that the
malicious must have diverted themselves with those letters in which
Pollio swears to be the eternal enemy of tyrants and in which Plancus
harshly attributes the misfortunes of the republic to the treason of
Octavius, who himself was not to be spared; and these lively
recollections of a time when he held out his hand to Caesar’s
assassins and called Cicero his father, were not favourable to him. All
this provided subjects of conversation for the malcontents during
several weeks. But upon the whole, the mischief was small, and these
railleries did not endanger the security of the great empire. What was
most to be feared for it was that imagination, always favourable to
the past, should freely attribute to the republic those qualities with
which it is so easy to adorn institutions that no longer exist. Now,
Cicero’s letters were much more suited to destroy these illusions than
to encourage them. The picture they present of the intrigues, the
disorders, and the scandals of that time did not permit men to regret
it. The men whom Tacitus depicts to us as worn out with struggles
and eager for repose, found in it nothing that could attract them, and
the bad use that men like Curio, Caelius, and Dolabella had made of
liberty, rendered them less sensitive to the sorrow of having lost it.
The memory of him who wrote these letters gained most by their
publication. It was very common at that time to speak ill of Cicero.
Notwithstanding the manner in which the court historians narrated
the meeting at Bologna and the honourable part they attempted to
give Octavius in the proscriptions,[391] they were none the less
unpleasant recollections for him. His victims were calumniated in
order to diminish his faults. This is what Asinius Pollio wished to do,
when he said, in his speech for Lamia, that Cicero died like a coward.
[392]
Those whose devotedness did not go so far, and who had not
enough courage to insult him, took care at least to say nothing of
him. It has been remarked that none of the great poets of this time
speak of him, and we know from Plutarch that at the Palatine it was
necessary to read his works in secret. Silence therefore fell, as far as
it was indeed possible, around Cicero’s great glory; but the
publication of his letters recalled him to the memory of everybody.
When once they had been read, this intellectual and gentle figure, so
amiable, so human and so attractive even in its weaknesses, could
not again be forgotten.
To the interest that the personality of Cicero gives to his letters, a
still more vivid interest is added for us. We have seen, in what I have
just written, how much our time resembles that of which these letters
speak to us. It had no solid faith any more than our own, and its sad
experiences of revolutions had disgusted it with everything while
inuring it to everything. The men of that time knew, just as we do,
that discontent with the present and that uncertainty of the morrow
which do not allow us to enjoy tranquillity or repose. In them we see
ourselves; the sorrows of the men of those times are partly our own,
and we have suffered the same ills of which they complained. We,
like them, live in one of those transitional periods, the most
mournful of history, in which the traditions of the past have
disappeared and the future is not yet clearly defined, and know not
on what to set our affections, and we can well understand that they
might have said with the ancient Hesiod: “Would that I had died
sooner or been born later!” This is what gives Cicero’s letters so lively
though mournful an interest for us; this is what first attracted me
towards them; this is what, perhaps, will give us some pleasure in
spending a short time in the society of the persons they depict, who,
in spite of the lapse of years, seem almost to be our contemporaries.
 INDEX

Abeken, 23
Acidinus, 105
Actium, 302, 367, 382
Aegean, 350
Aegina, 102
Aesopus, son of, 101
Africa, 65, 75, 160, 200, 270, 286, 297, 318
Agendicum, 255
Agrippa, 106
Alba, 117, 226
Alesia, 186, 252, 255
Alexander, 228
Alexandria, 118
Alps, 76, 252, seq.
Ambrose, Saint, 103
America, 231
Amphiaraüs, 71, 190
Ampius, T., 267
Ancyra, 362 and note, 369, 381
Angora, 362
Antium, 12, 346, 347
Antonius, orator, 42
Antony, 13, 20, 45, 70, 72 seq., 76, 81, 100, 104, 105, 158, 177, 197,
266, 276, 306, 331, 333, 335, 336, 339, 340, 345, 347, 350, 353,
356, 357, 360, 365, 370, 380
Apollonia, 362
Appian, 325, 342, 345, 381
Appius Claudius, 89, 285, 305, 314
Apuleius, 169, 350
Apulia, 186, 206
Arabia, 368
Arcae, 239
Archimedes, 287
Argiletum, 86
Ariobarzanes, 120, 314
Ariovistus, 252, 253, 255, 344
Aristophanes, 28
Aristotle, 108, 307
Arpinum, 4, 12, 61, 131, 216, 239
Arrius, 12
Asia, 49, 75, 85, 115, 120, 129, 230, 238, 267, 294, 297, 318, 319, 350
Atella, 120
Athens, 105, 107, 110, 126, 127, 133, 139, 296, 304, 305, 326, 349,
350
Atticus, 4, 10, 12, 13, 26, 53, 79, 85 seq., 89 note, 92, 95, 96, 98, 101,
106, 108, 111, 113;
his correspondence with Cicero, 123;
sources of his wealth, 127 seq.;
attacks Sicyon, 130;
returns to Rome, 132;
his character, 134 seq.;
 his services to Cicero, 141 seq.;
his conduct in public affairs, 147 seq.;
his hatred of Caesar, 152;
194, 218 seq., 224, 236, 262, 305, 310, 314, 317, 323, 332, 355, 360
Augustus. See Octavius
Aulus Gellius, 110, 112
Aventine, 86
Axius, 87, 227 note

Baiae, 168, 172, 175, 208

Balbus, 135, 141, 188, 195, 222, 234, 247, 261
Basilus, 192
Bibulus, 70, 105, 155, 221, 333
Blasius, 323
Bologna, 356, 365, 390
Bossuet, 147, 279
Britain, 65, 232, 234, 240, 245, 249, 250 and note, 251
Brittany, 15
Brundusium, 73, 94, 97, 152, 187 seq., 210, 257, 258, 260, 304, 319
Bruttius, 106
Brutus, 21, 22, 58, 70 seq., 75, 77, 88, 102, 107, 136, 140, 151, 152, 154
seq., 158, 159, 176, 192, 243, 266, 287, 293;
his family, 305;
his character, 307;
his statue, 309 note;
his oratory, 310;
his usury, 312 seq.;
joins Pompey at Pharsalia, 317;
submits to Caesar, 318;
close intimacy with Cicero, 320;
his treatise On Virtue, 324;
 Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, 326;
becomes head of conspiracy against Caesar, 338;
his conduct after Caesar’s death, 340 seq.;
retires to Greece, 348 seq.;
disagreement with Cicero, 350, 359, 360
Brutus, Decimus, 74, 75, 176, 192, 243, 323
Bussy, 17

Caecilia Metella, 101

Caecilius, 87, 130
Caecina, 267, 268
Caelius, 3, 4, 100;
his family and education, 160 seq.;
his relations with Clodia, 166 seq.;
orator and statesman, 177 seq.;
joins Caesar, 187;
goes to Spain, 190;
praetor, 197;
opposes Trebonius, 203 seq.;
leaves Rome, 205;
his death, 206, 264, 306, 359, 389
Caerellia, 90, 91
Caesar, 4, 14, 21, 22, 33, 36, 40, 49 seq., 59, 61, 63, 68, 69, 71, 80, 85,
87, 102, 119, 127, 135, 151, 152, 154, 165, 171, 179, 183, 185 seq., 191
seq.;
Cicero his political ally during the Gallic war, his friend after
Pharsalia, 209;
contrasted with Pompey, 225 seq.;
sets out for Gaul, 229;
his army, 242 seq.;
his victories, 252;
resumes intercourse with Cicero, 260;
his clemency, 263;
his cruelty, 265;