region of ideas which they regard as equally dangerous and impracticable." Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44), {Under construction} Tullius Cicero (106–43). An opportunist, "accostomed to flirt at times with the democrats, at times... with the aristocracy, and to lend his services as an advocate to every influential man under impeachment without distinction of person or party". Wealth and commerce were then "dominant in the courts" and the lawyer Cicero had made himself well accomplished as "the eloquent pleader" and "the courtly and witty champion." He was not an aristocrat, but a novus homo; he belonged to no party, but cultivated connections enough among both optimates and populares. Elected consul in 63, he ducked legal responsibility in the Catilina conspiracy. "As a statesman without insight, idea, or purpose, Cicero figured successively as democrat, as aristocrat, and as a tool of the triumvirate, and was never more than a short-sighted egoist." "He was valiant in opposition to sham attacks, and he knocked down many walls of pasteboard with a loud din; no serious matter was ever, either in good or evil, decided by him". In Latin, "his importance rests on his mastery of style". Yet as an author, he was "a dabbler", a "journalist in the worst sense of that term", and "poor beyond all conception in ideas". His letters "reflect the urban or villa life of the world of quality" yet remain in essence "stale and empty". As an orator "Cicero had no conviction and no passion; he was nothing but an advocate". He published his court pleadings; his orations can be "easy and agreeable reading." He used anecdote to excite sentimentality, "to enliven the dry business" of law "by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort". Yet "the serious judge" will find such "advantages of a very dubious value" considering his "want of political discernment in the orations on constitutional questions and of juristic deduction in the forensic addresses, the egotism forgetful of its duty... [and] the dreadful barrenness of thought". Yet as a "mouthpiece" for politicians Cicero "was useful on account of his lawyer's talent of finding a reason, or at any rate words, for everything." Nonetheless Momsen acknowledges that those works of Cicero which are presented in the "stylistic dialogue" form are "not devoid of merit". De Oratore and other rhetorical writings contain "a store of practical forensic experience and forensic anecdotes of all sorts easily and tastefully