LATIN C.OU 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. 
 
 PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH, 
 COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH, 
 COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH, 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 A FREE LANCE. (A VOLUME OF ESSAYS.) 
 
 WEBSTER. AN ODE. WITH NOTES. 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 THE DANCE OF MODERN SOCIETY. 
 
 EDWIN ARNOLD AS POETIZER AND AS PACANIZER, 
 
 FOR SALE BY 
 
 THE CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 
 
 805 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
 
 THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 PREPARATORY 
 
 7" 
 
 IN ENGLISH. 
 
 WILLIAM CLEAVER (WILKINSON 
 
 JW1. 
 
 THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 C H A U TA UQUA PRESS. 
 C. L. S. C. Department. 
 
 1885.
 
 The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by 
 a Council of six. It must, however, be understood that recom- 
 mendation does not involve an approval by the Council, or by 
 any member of it, of every principle or doctrine contained in the 
 book recommended. 
 
 Copyright 1883, by PiiiLUi'S <ii HUNT, 805 Broadway, New York.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS is not a school-book though, on the other hand, it is 
 designed to be a book that any boy or girl in school would like 
 to read, and would read with profit. It is not a book to 
 be studied and labored over though, again, on the other 
 hand, it is designed to be such that some study and labor 
 spent on it would prove to have been pains not ill bestowed. 
 It is, however, pre-eminently a book to be simply read and 
 enjoyed. It is not prepared for any one particular class of 
 persons exclusively, but unless we should except Latin 
 specialists for all classes of persons alike. It is in no sense 
 a technical book. It conveys information, but it is informa- 
 tion that every intelligent reader will be glad to acquire; 
 and it seeks to convey that information in a way to make 
 the process itself of acquiring it not only easy, but agreeable. 
 What is the nature, and what the extent, of the information 
 sought thus to be conveyed, the first chapter of the book will 
 sufficiently show. 
 
 The term Preparatory, found in the title of the volume, 
 admits a word of explanation. It is there used in a certain 
 special or limited sense. In the business of liberal educa- 
 tion, this term has, by common consent, been adopted to 
 designate and describe that course of preliminary training 
 which prepares the student for admission to college. A 
 similar limitation of meaning applies to the term as we 
 
 1562GSS
 
 6 Preface. 
 
 employ it in entitling our volume. The introductory relation 
 expressed by it is not to general culture in Latin letters, but 
 to that more or less definite culture in Latin letters which is 
 ordinarily given in an American college or university curricu- 
 lum of study. 
 
 What, accordingly, is undertaken in the quaternion of 
 books, of which this volume constitutes the second, is dic- 
 tated and prescribed by the well-established customs of our 
 American institutions of higher education. We do not in 
 these books pursue a path of our own independent selecting. 
 If such were the case, our steps might possibly here or there 
 take a somewhat different direction. As it is, we adhere to a 
 course laid down for us beforehand by the experienced en- 
 gineer corps of the great regular army of American classical 
 education. Or if in speaking thus we speak a little too 
 boldly if it is not in exactly this almost sacred ancient 
 way that we should dare talk of here conducting our readers, 
 then it is at least in a parallel path drawn as closely as pos- 
 sible alongside of that. A shibboleth only separates us 
 with our modest irregular troop of lusty light-armed volun- 
 teers from the uniformed regulars, who, under the eye of 
 accomplished commanders, march in heavier panoply step by 
 step at our side. Those speak as they can God bless them 
 and help them ! their oft-faltering Latin and Greek, while 
 our looser light-hearted array moving forward chant their 
 song of deliverance, never missing a note, in the easy habit- 
 ual accents of their own dear mother-tongue. 
 
 This, then, is a book for readers in general, of whatever 
 class. Still, several classes of readers may be named to whom 
 the book is especially commended. Whoever is considering
 
 Preface, 7 
 
 whether he will prepare for college, whoever is now engaged 
 in preparing for college, whoever is already a student in col- 
 lege, whoever has left a college course unfinished, whoever 
 has accomplished a college course and been graduated, would, 
 if we have not failed in our attempt, find it agreeable and use- 
 ful to read this book. Again, and emphatically, to all the far 
 greater number of those whom circumstances have debarred 
 from even the hope of gaining classical culture for themselves 
 to such the author would say, It is for you by eminence 
 that this book has been written. The key is here offered to 
 your hand. Take it and unlock for yourselves the door, no 
 longer sealed against your entrance, to treasures no longer 
 charmed from your possessorship and enjoyment. If your 
 satisfaction in having and holding shall be half as great as his 
 satisfaction has been in thus making it possible for you to have 
 and to hold, the author, knowing this, would feel his reward 
 to be complete.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 WHAT WE PROPOSE 1 1 
 
 II. 
 THE CITY AND THE PEOPLE 16 
 
 III. 
 THE LITERATURE OF ROME , 45 
 
 IV. 
 
 A WORD OR Two OF ADVICE 55 
 
 V. 
 THE LATIN READER 63 
 
 VI. 
 
 CAESAR I i6 
 
 VII. 
 CICERO'S ORATIONS 194 
 
 VIII. 
 VIRGIL 225 
 
 APPENDIX 310 
 
 1*
 
 PEEPAEATOET 
 
 LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH, 
 
 I. 
 
 WHAT WE PROPOSE. 
 
 THE present volume is, in order of preparation and pub- 
 lication, the second one in a series of four books, devoted, 
 all of them, to the same general purpose. That purpose is 
 to conduct readers, by means of the English tongue alone, 
 through substantially the same course of discipline in Greek 
 and Latin literature not, observe, Greek and Latin, the 
 languages, but Greek and Latin literature as is accomplished 
 by students who are graduated from our American colleges. 
 The first volume of the series sought in this manner to go 
 over the ground in Greek literature usually traversed by the 
 student in course of preparing himself to be a college matric- 
 ulate. That volume was entitled, " PREPARATORY GREEK 
 COURSE IN ENGLISH." 
 
 This succeeding volume will seek to do the same thing 
 for Latin literature. If we ourselves, therefore, do not, in 
 preparing this volume, fall short of our mark, whoever reads 
 the volume with suitable attention will, having so read it, be as 
 well-informed in the literature of the Romans, as are students 
 who have triumphantly passed their entrance examinations 
 for, college, and have thus become duly numbered in the 
 ranks of proud and happy freshmen. The present volume 
 bears the title, "PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGIISH."
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 The third book will proceed with Greek literature, through 
 those successive stages of advance in Greek study at college 
 which are appointed to bring, at his graduation, the ingenuous 
 and felicitous youth to the goal of the degree of bachelor of 
 arts. The third volume is to be styled, " COLLEGE GREEK 
 COURSE IN ENGLISH." 
 
 The fourth and final book will forward the reader to a 
 station of progress in knowledge of Latin letters correspond- 
 ing with that fixed as the mark for our third book with 
 reference to Greek. The fourth book will be named, " COL- 
 LEGE LATIN COURSK IN ENGLISH." 
 
 The watchful reader will have noticed that we make a dis- 
 tinction. We say Greek and Latin literature not Greek and 
 Latin, the languages themselves. We do not hope or aim to 
 make linguists of our readers. Greek and Latin scholars 
 they will not become, however heedfully they may read these 
 books of ours. Obviously, no such result as actual Greek 
 and Latin scholarship, on the part of student or reader, 
 could be obtained by a course of training conducted purely 
 in English. But to know Greek and Latin letters letters as 
 distinguished from the languages in which, the letters are pro- 
 duced this is an entirely possible thing for accomplishment 
 through English alone. And this possible thing is what we 
 here attempt to enable our readers actually to do. Not, 
 then, knowledge of the languages of Greece and Rome, and 
 not that peculiar discipline of mind which is to be obtained 
 through the pursuit of such knowledge, and in that way 
 alone ; not these two things highly desirable indeed, both 
 of them, to all, but not to all attainable are the scope of 
 the present series of books; but simply and solely a certain 
 degree of familiarity \vith Greek and Roman literature. 
 This, primarily ; and then, secondarily, too, the mental culti- 
 vation that inevitably, in the process of gaining the know- 
 ledge, comes with the knowledge itself that is gained. 
 
 No reader need now misunderstand us. Our aim is a practical
 
 What ive Propose. 13 
 
 one. It is not, on our own part, foolishly aspiring. It should 
 breed no foolish conceit on the part of any reader. No 
 truly intelligent reader of our books will ever be found boast- 
 ing th?t he lias come to knowledge of Greek and Latin by a 
 royal road. To that knowledge there is no royal road. No 
 royal road though a road there is, we verily believe, much 
 more nearly worthy of being called royal than the one that 
 up to this time has usually been traveled in our schools and 
 colleges. Of that, perhaps, in some future issue of this "After- 
 school Series " we may speak ; but we will not speak of it 
 here. We say there is no royal road to Greek and Latin 
 scholaiship. Whatever flattering opinion you, dear reader, 
 that have never studied Greek and Latin, may kindly enter- 
 tain of the road we build for you call it royal, if you please, 
 and many thanks for your good-will still, let there be no 
 mistake as to whither the road built by us leads. It does not 
 lead to knowledge of Greek and Latin, but only to some 
 real knowledge of Greek and Latin letters. You will, indeed, 
 be able to talk with college-bred men and women, on a 
 tolerable footing of equality, about Greek books and Latin. 
 But when it comes to a comparison of your knowledge with 
 theirs, in the matter of Greek and Latin, the languages them- 
 selves, you will discreetly and modestly be silent. You may 
 inwardly suspect and one chance at least in ten your sus- 
 picion will be correct that your graduate friends, too, might 
 better be silent themselves, than loquacious, on these same 
 delicate topics of accurate scholarship. Real scholars in 
 Greek and Latin are not very plentiful. But that fact let 
 college-bred people themselves be the ones to avow. Enough 
 for you, not disputing the avowal when made, quietly to en- 
 joy the substantial satisfaction of conscious peerage with the 
 liberally educated in familiarity with ancient classic litera- 
 ture which familiarity is, after all, the really liberalizing 
 thing in classical education. 
 
 It is not meant that the substance only of what is
 
 14 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 contained in the portions of Roman literature represented, is 
 sought to be here conveyed to English readers. Besides the 
 substance, we seek to convey also the spirit of the works. 
 In any body of literature there may be said to be three ele- 
 ments, somewhat separate one from another, a substance, a 
 spirit, and a form. Of these three elements, so far as they 
 are indeed separable one from another, we shall hope, then, 
 to communicate to our readers two the spirit, as well as the 
 substance. The form we have mainly to forego it being 
 precisely our object, out of Latin molds of expression, to take 
 up and transfuse into molds of expression that are English, 
 the ideas and the genius that we discover contained in the 
 works to be reproduced. 
 
 Something, no doubt, of spirit is always inextricably en- 
 tangled with form in every literary production. Something, 
 therefore, of the Roman spirit we unavoidably lose in 
 sacrificing the Roman form. But then, on the other hand, 
 in compensation, the spirit is always so much the master of 
 form so much, in fact, the maker of form in literary expres- 
 sion, that when we seize the authentic spirit of a writing, we, 
 with this, triumphantly seize, also, more or less trace and effect 
 of the very form itself in which that writing was originally 
 conceived and cast. To this extent, accordingly, we may 
 hope to save even the Roman form of expression. In other 
 words, English diction and English construction may, and 
 indeed, in good reproduction, they inevitably will, somewhat 
 conform and assimilate to the idiom of that Latin literature 
 whose spirit they submit themselves to transfuse. 
 
 Somewhat, we say for after all, practically, the degree per- 
 mitted of conformity to Latin idiom must be restrained within 
 narrow limits. We expect here to write English, not Latin, 
 and not Latinized English, but English of the good old vernac- 
 ular sort. Still, our readers may justly presume that they will 
 get something of even the form as we hold them entitled to 
 get nearly in full the spirit and the substance of the Latin
 
 What we Propose. 
 
 literature treated. Once more, let it be remembered that 
 what we undertake is not to reproduce Latin authors' works 
 entire, or even any single work of any single Latin author 
 entire; but, in absolute strictness of statement, to reproduce 
 substantially such Latin works as are read in preparation 
 for entering college, and of those works, such parts only as 
 are ordinarily gone over by the preparatory student in his 
 class-room. If we, here or there, go beyond these rigorous 
 limits and we do not engage but that we may this must 
 not be regarded as creating a new and different obligation 
 to be discharged by us to our readers. It will be simply giv- 
 ing our readers a little more than we agree. This, of course, 
 we shall, on every available occasion, be very glad to do. 
 
 And now may we not, without presumption, aspire to es- 
 tablish some agreeable reciprocity of relation between our- 
 selves and our readers? We very cordially invite any and 
 every reader of this volume who may light upon a mistake in 
 it, of the author's or of the printer's, mistake grave or trivial 
 and no matter how trivial to point out to us the discovery 
 as soon as it is made. It is our earnest desire to have our 
 work as free as possible from errors of whatever sort. We 
 shall thankfully welcome also the suggestion of any change, 
 either in plan or in execution, that might promise to render 
 what we here do more widely acceptable or more effectively 
 useful. We are already in debt to a number of friendly 
 volunteer correspondents, unknown to us by face, who were 
 at the pains to apprise us of slips made by the author or the 
 printer in the companion volume that preceded this, namely, 
 the " Preparatory Greek Course in English." We shall be 
 gratefully glad if we may feel ourselves to be, in the endeavor 
 to make our books faultless, of one guild and fellowship with 
 all our readers. 
 
 Our plan of procedure in the present volume will be 
 this : after a rapid sketch of Roman history blended with 
 a sketch of the city of Rome itself, the seat of Roman
 
 16 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 power and the origin of Latin letters, summarily to pre- 
 sent the body of writing that the Roman people produced ; 
 and then, a brief parenthetical chapter intervening, of friend- 
 ly counsel to the student, to take up, successively, the Latin 
 Reader, (which we shall make include some specimens of 
 Sallust and of Ovid,) the Commentaries of Caesar, a few ora- 
 tions of Cicero, and the poetry, especially the ^Eneid, of 
 Virgil. 
 
 It is a loaded table of contents to spread in a single 
 volume before our readers. But we will trust their appetite, 
 as we shall have to ask them to trust our cookery. The 
 quality, not less than the quantity, of the provision, is amply 
 good. It will, we confess it beforehand, be the fault of the 
 cook if the feast is disappointing. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE CITY AND THE PEOPLE. 
 
 WE are about to deal with certain limited portions of the 
 literature called Latin. The literature called Latin was pro- 
 duced by a people called Roman, chiefly in a city called Rome. 
 Before entering upon the presentation of the proposed select 
 portions of Latin literature, we pause, but a swift moment or 
 two, to say something of the people that produced the litera- 
 ture, and of the city in which the literature was produced. 
 
 When, in the preceding volume, we began the correspond- 
 ing work with Greek literature, we were able to consider the 
 land and the people separately, in separate chapters. In the 
 present case, we shall be compelled to blend the place and 
 the race in one joint and common treatment. The reason 
 lor the difference is, that Greece, however small in area, was 
 yet a country, and, as such, had its peculiar character, inde- 
 pendently of its inhabitants ; whereas Rome, however large
 
 The City and the People. 1 7 
 
 in area, was a city, not a country, and, as a city, took its 
 character and its history from the character and the history 
 of the people that built it and that held it. It is true that 
 Rome, at a comparatively early point in her long historic 
 career, extending the right of citizenship to Italy in general, 
 thus converted the whole peninsula into one great suburb to 
 the metropolis. Still, Rome herself always remained so cen- 
 tral and so controlling in the national system, that we shall 
 best represent the reality to our readers by concentrating 
 their attention almost exclusively upon the city alone. 
 
 Over every thing pertaining to Rome, except her language 
 and her literature, the name Roman lords it exclusively. We 
 say, Roman power, Roman conquest, Roman law, Roman 
 architecture, Roman art, Roman history. It is curious that 
 the language always, and the literature generally, of Rome 
 should be called, not Roman, but Latin. The circumstance 
 maybe taken to indicate, what is indeed the fact in reference 
 to Rome, that literature was for her a subordinate interest. 
 Unlike Greece, Rome is less remarkable for what she wrote, 
 than for what she wrought. Less remarkable, we say; but 
 this could easily be and Roman writings remain, as in fact 
 they do remain, in a very high degree remarkable. For the 
 deeds of Rome surpass, in enduring influence on the fort- 
 unes of mankind, the deeds of any other nation in the world. 
 If Rome wrote with her left hand while she wrought with 
 her right, her left hand was yet an instrument of marvelous 
 cunning and power. One can fancy how Rome, content if 
 she branded the epithet Roman on what she did, might from 
 what she said or wrote unconsciously disdain to remove the 
 traditional name Latin. 
 
 For the word Latin was applied by the ancient Roman writ- 
 ers themselves to their language and their literature. Before 
 there was a city Rome, there was a country Latium in which 
 Rome would be built. The country Latium contributed the 
 adjective Latin to describe the language and the literature of
 
 1 8 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 the city Rome. The designation continues to this day, and 
 it will no doubt continue indefinitely in the future. When we 
 say Greek, we violate the custom of the Greeks, who never 
 described themselves or any thing pertaining to them by that 
 word. When we say Latin, we observe the custom of the Ro- 
 mans, who habitually so described their own language and liter- 
 ature. In both cases we acknowledge the authority of Rome. 
 For Greek, as well as Latin, is a name dictated to us by Roman 
 example a curious symbol of the ascendant power of Rome. 
 
 Rome has a long history. But the history of Rome is not 
 so long as is the date of the existence of the city. The city, 
 that is to say, was founded an unreckoned time before the 
 history of the city began. But where history fails, there is 
 plenty of fable. The fable followed by Virgil recounts how 
 ^neas, escaping, with a trusty few, from the flames of Troy, 
 bore the beginnings of Rome across from Asia to Italy. If 
 this fable were fact, and if, moreover, any body knew the date 
 of the fact, then, of course, an origin in time for the history of 
 Rome could be fixed. As it is, for all the information to be 
 drawn from the sources that supplied to Virgil the story of 
 yEneas, we are in blank darkness. According to a second 
 legend, lapping on and piecing out the first, Mars, the Roman 
 god of war, was father to a b'oy named Romulus, who, after a 
 miraculous infancy answering to this his miraculous birth, 
 grew up to found a city on which he impressed his name. 
 A line of legendary kings succeeded, closed by Tarquin the 
 Proud, whoje arrogance and cruelty provoked a revolution, 
 as the result of which a republic was established to supersede 
 the monarchy. 
 
 This republic of Rome, authentic Roman history when it 
 began confronted as a palpable fact already existing. This 
 was about three centuries before the Christian era. The state 
 of things was, at that period, such as unmistakably to show 
 that a considerable space of national life had preceded. That 
 national life, however, had made no trustworthy record of itself
 
 The City and the People. 19 
 
 then anywhere surviving; no record, that is to say, existing 
 in regular written form fit to be called history. There were 
 public works, there were institutions of government, there 
 were established usages, and there was a body of popular 
 traditions. The study of these various monuments of pre- 
 historic Roman antiquity, as found actually still existing, or 
 as reported of to our generation by ancient writers of Rome 
 in extant Latin literature, has led late sagacious historical 
 critics to certain conjectural conclusions with reference to 
 the period of Roman national life anterior to written record, 
 which every reader is entitled to receive with credit graduated 
 according to his own individual estimate of their probable 
 correctness. 
 
 There seems to be no doubt that Rome was in early times 
 a monarchy. It is quite certain that, later, a republic of 
 Rome existed for an indefinite period of time previous to the 
 war with Pyrrhus which war may, however, be assumed as 
 the starting-point of Roman history worthy to be so called. 
 
 This war with Pyrrhus broke out, to be now a little exact, 
 in the year 281 before Christ. Rome had been gradually ab- 
 sorbing Italy into her empire ; but there were in Italy certain 
 Greek cities not disposed to be absorbed. One of these, a 
 Lacedsemonian colony, Tarentum, invited the bold and able 
 king of E-pi'rus, a country to the north-west of Greece proper, 
 to come over and lend help against the Romans. This king 
 was Pyrrhus, and Pyrrhus, paired with the famous diplomat- 
 ist Cineas, somewhat as, in our own time, with Count Cavour 
 was paired Victor Immanuel, proved a formidable antag- 
 onist to the pretensions of Rome. Rome conquered, how- 
 ever, and within less than twenty years was undisputed mis- 
 tress of Italy. 
 
 But now immediately began the protracted and deadly 
 duel, doubtful so long, on both sides waged not merely for 
 supremacy but for life, between Rome and the African city 
 of Carthage. Every body knows the name of Carthaginian
 
 20 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Ham-il'car, of Has'dru-bal, of Han'ni-bal outshining either and 
 itself hardly outshone by any name whatever to be found in 
 rival Roman story ; of Roman Reg'u-lus, with that high, brae-' 
 ing, but pathetic legend concerning him, of patriot devotion 
 and good faith with foes kept at cost of cruel death ; of Fa'bi-us, 
 the master of delay, contrasted with Scipio (Sip'i-o), admir- 
 ingly pronounced by Milton " the heighth of Rome," him who 
 carried the war into Africa, making that phrase thenceforward 
 forever a proverb of aggressive prowess these names, we 
 say, every body knows ; and these personal names, with the 
 local names of Cannae and Capua, scenes of memorable battle 
 and siege, recall, better than mere detail of incident would 
 do, the struggle of sixty years and more that ended in the 
 humiliation of Carthage and the decisive triumph of Rome. 
 
 The subjugation of Carthage was the beginning to Rome of 
 a career, prolonged, perhaps, beyond any other example in 
 history, of foreign conquest and glory. With few checks to 
 her progress, Rome from this time forward that is, from 
 about two hundred years before Christ rapidly expanded 
 her dominions in every direction, until they embraced almost 
 literally the whole then known world. Macedonia was first, 
 after Carthage had yielded, to feel the hand of Roman power. 
 Syria soon shared the fate of Macedonia. The imperial city 
 imperial in the reach of her sway, though still, and for near 
 two hundred years to remain, republican in the form of her 
 polity threw out meanwhile her invincible legions westward 
 into Spain, and northward to the feet of the Alps. The Alps 
 themselves proved no barrier to the rising impetuous tide of 
 Roman ambition. Her advance surged over the summits of 
 perpetual snow, and rolled, in a torrent that nothing could 
 stay, into the fields and forests of Gaul. Macedonia, hissing 
 at the heel of her conqueror, was stamped into silence. 
 Carthage, tempting her foe to extremity, was blotted utterly 
 out of the world, by sword and torch in the hand of a second 
 Scipio Af-ri-ca'nus.
 
 The City and the People. 
 
 The name of Gracchus (Grak'kus) calls up the image of 
 outwardly victorious Rome inwardly rent with faction. It 
 was the feud of the many against the few, one party as self- 
 ish, perhaps, in the end as the other, and both equally con- 
 tending for the prize of power in the state. The few at first 
 prevailed, and there followed a period of corruption in public 
 morals scarcely paralleled in Roman history. Ju-gur'tha, 
 usurping king of Numidia, is for some time able, of the Ro- 
 man generals sent against him, to buy such as he cannot beat, 
 until at length the redoubtable figure of Ma'rius looms on the 
 gloomy and inglorious scene. 
 
 The election of Marius to the consulship was a triumph 
 achieved, in their turn, by the many over the few. It was an 
 ominous triumph. The rapid and splendid successes won by 
 the arms of Marius, first over Jugurtha, and then over the 
 Cimbrians and Teutons, made that great but unprincipled 
 man omnipotent in Rome. But the date of his omnipotence 
 was short. 
 
 The few soon came to their turn again. They, on their 
 side, found in Syl'la a champion not unmeet to cope with the 
 popular champion Marius. A bloody civil war ensued, in 
 which the aristocrats under Sylla were the 'victors. The 
 historic picture of Marius, ruined, sitting amid the ruins of 
 Carthage, indicates the tragic final issue of life to a man 
 whose name and whose spirit, both bequeathed to a political 
 party, survived himself in a long entail of fateful influence 
 on the fortune of the Roman state. 
 
 The foreign conquests of Rome were hardly suspended 
 during these dreadful internal conflicts. The brilliant names 
 of Lu-cul'lusand Pom'pey now light up the sky of Roman re- 
 nown, while, just below the conscious horizon, we feel the 
 growing nearness of the all-eclipsing sun of Roman history. 
 "Great Julius " is about to begin his lordly upward journey 
 toward a zenith of power and of glory, from which he will fall 
 so tragically, so suddenly, and so soon. Also, "the time
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 draws near the birth of Christ." Within comparatively a few 
 years now will be crowded together most of the great Roman 
 writers who have made for us that Latin literature to intro- 
 duce which to our readers we are here giving them this rapid 
 sketch of the history of Rome. 
 
 The story of Caesar's career, mingled of glory and of 
 shame, and the story of the differently glorious and inglori- 
 ous career of his nephew, the emperor Au-gus'tus these are 
 so well known that they seem almost to be a part of modern 
 history. Of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, pro- 
 tracted through many centuries, like the slow leaning and re- 
 luctant approach to the ground of an oak that has sunk its 
 roots deep, and anchored them to the rocks of the centre of 
 this we shall not here speak at all. Strictly classic Latin litera- 
 ture was already a finished library before the decay of Roman 
 power visibly began. The age of Augustus was how can we 
 better, how can we even otherwise adequately, express it ? 
 the Augustan age of Latin literature. There were noble 
 Roman writers after this time, but hardly any with whom our 
 duty here will summon us to deal. Let us, then, say, that our 
 sketch of the history of Roman conquest is done. 
 
 The great race who accomplished such a history as that 
 which we thus have summarized built for themselves a city 
 worthy of the renown of which it was to become the centre 
 and seat. Ancient Rome is, on the whole, and on the whole 
 it deservedly is, the most famous city in the world. Its site 
 was on the river Tiber, about fifteen miles from the sea. 
 
 When we here say " sea," we mean the Mediterranean Sea. 
 Consider that nearly all the international commerce carried 
 on through navigation by the ancients was confined to the 
 waters of this vast midland ocean, and observe further that, of 
 three great peninsulas stretching down into the Mediterranean 
 from the continent of Europe on the north well toward 
 the continent of Africa on the south, the boot- shaped penin- 
 sula of Italy is the central one, while likewise as to Italy
 
 The City and the People. 23 
 
 itself Rome is centrally placed consider, we say, these 
 points, and you will perceive that the site of Rome, un- 
 attractive and ineligible in itself, was, on the map of the 
 then known world, as convenient as any that could have been 
 selected for a city destined to become a metropolis and mis- 
 tress of the nations. Its remove from the coast secured it, 
 in its feeble beginning, against pirates, while the navigable 
 s;ream of the Tiber made it virtually a sea-board town. 
 
 Rome grew from age to age, until finally seven different 
 hills, bearing stately Latin names, were embraced within its 
 compass. Hence its sounding designation, the City of the 
 Seven Hills. It was, if we may trust tradition, (this was long 
 before its empire had extended beyond the bounds of Italy,) 
 sacked and burned by the invading Gauls. What precious 
 monuments perished in that catastrophe, can only be con- 
 jectured. But probably the primeval Rome which the Gauls 
 destroyed, however grand in comparison of its contemporary 
 rivals, was a city that, to our modern eyes, could we see it 
 now as it then existed, would seem but very moderately 
 magnificent. Even the splendid capital that Augustus, ac- 
 cordiijg to the familiar hyperbole, built in marble, by trans- 
 formation from the brick in which he found it, lacked some 
 important features' that we now demand as necessary to sat- 
 isfy our ideas of imposing effect in a city. Augustan Rome 
 was built, in considerable part, without proper streets of any 
 sort, the houses of the nobles being disposed, as it were hap- 
 hazard, here and there, amid parks and gardens, over that 
 portion of the city's site which they occupied. The streets 
 that did exist, worthy of that name, were continuations of the 
 great roads radiating from Rome in every direction out into 
 the provinces ; and these highways, sternly straight without 
 the walls, were likely within to be winding as well as narrow. 
 
 But whatever other element of imposing effect ancient 
 Rome lacked, it did not lack magnitude. It covered a 
 great extent of ground, and covered much of that extent with
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 dwellings six and eight stories in height. The population, 
 thus stratified one tier above another, has been variously esti- 
 mated to have numbered at its maximum from two to six 
 million souls. 
 
 A large area, inclosed between the Quirinal Hill and the 
 river, was reserved exclusively to public buildings, and here 
 there was an almost unparalleled accumulation of costly, 
 solid, and magnificent architecture. Temples, buildings de- 
 voted to business of state, arches, columns, statues, porticoes, 
 
 TEMPLE OF JUPITER CAPITOLINUS. 
 
 mausoleums, theatres, amphitheatres, public baths, palaces, 
 bridges, aqueducts, made the city to the unaccustomed be- 
 holder a bewildering and overwhelming maze and mass of 
 architectural splendor. Underneath the city was a system 
 of sewers which provided for streams so large, that Pliny felt 
 warranted in speaking of Rome as being navigable under- 
 ground. There were forums and campuses, furnishing open
 
 ARCH OK TITUS.
 
 TEMPLE OF CONCORD.
 
 The City and the People. 
 
 2 5 
 
 spaces, here and there, in the city, for light and air the 
 forums being meeting-places for business, and the campuses 
 being pleasure-grounds, like modern parks. Of these feat- 
 ures of imperial Rome, many remain, some remarkably pre- 
 served, others not less august in ruin, to this day. 
 
 Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime 
 
 the Pan-the'-on, fitly and memorably so described in the fine 
 adjective verse of Byron, stands a striking monumental 
 
 PANTHEON. 
 
 symbol at once of the Rome that was and of the Rome that 
 has succeeded. The Pantheon, guessed to have been orig- 
 inally a temple dedicated in common to all or to many of the 
 gods of polytheism, (whence its name,) is now a Roman 
 Catholic church. The Colise'um, more properly Colosse'tmi, 
 (so named from its neighborhood to a colossal statue of 
 Nero,) a roofless amphitheatre for gladiatorial exhibitions, 
 2
 
 26 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 built of stone and capable of seating more than eighty thou- 
 sand spectators, is, after having served for centuries to de- 
 generate Roman nobles as a quarry of building material for 
 their palaces, now one of the chief spectacles in modern 
 Rome to excite the wonder and awe of the tourist. Broken 
 columns, columns half buried in the dust of ages, arches 
 
 COLOSSEUM. 
 
 with the bloom of the artist's finish long gone from them, 
 but in their bold outlines unsubdued by time, or chance, or 
 change, ruined baths, palaces become wildernesses, aque- 
 ducts striding out in stone over the Campagna, (Cam-pan'ya,) 
 relieved against the sky, with that majestic, all-defying gait 
 of theirs these mementoes abide, mutilated, indeed, and 
 melancholy, but indestructible like nature itself, to attest the
 
 The City and the People. 27 
 
 greatness of that perished race whose left-hand by-play we are 
 here to study in a few portions of their surviving literature. 
 
 Not, however, at Rome itself, but remote from Rome, are 
 to be found perhaps the most eloquent of all existing memo- 
 rials of Roman greatness. Go almost anywhere that it may 
 chance, in the Europe of to-day, and light upon pieces of 
 Roman road, imbedded in the soil as if they were stratified 
 there when the primeval rocks were cast and when the mount- 
 ains were brought forth ; light upon walls of fortification 
 that were laid, it may be, in far-off Britain soon after " great 
 Julius" fell; find cities there that took their rise from the 
 chance of a Roman army's having fixed its encampment 
 on the spot, and that still, in their English names, of Ches- 
 ter or Dorchester, (from Latin, castra, camp,) carry a remin- 
 iscence of their origin actually see these things with your 
 eyes, feel them with your feet, and then the mighty enchant- 
 ment of Roman dominion will begin to assert itself, with 
 something like its due influence, over your sentiment and 
 your imagination. 
 
 Less impressive to^the merely picturesque fancy, but quite 
 equally so to the thoughtfully constructive historic sense, is 
 the sign-manual of the Roman character everywhere im- 
 printed upon the laws and civil institutions of Europe. The 
 Germans, pressing powerfully forward in the van of current 
 national development, when they proudly, at Versailles, new- 
 named King William, Kaiser, so hailed him emperor, by a 
 title dictated to them, in unconscious anticipation, twenty 
 centuries before he was born, by the stretched-out arm of 
 posthumous influence proceeding from the Julian house of 
 Rome, in the person of their great representative, Caius 
 Julius Csesar. 
 
 We stop here in our survey of what ancient Rome did and 
 was; but we stop without finishing, as also we set out without 
 beginning. The subject of Roman history is, indeed, at both 
 ends, endless. We should like to tell our readers something
 
 28 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 about the Romans, ethnologically; that is, of what blood they 
 were sprung. But this nobody really knows. To most his- 
 torical students it has seemed probable that they were, like 
 perhaps every other one of the great races of mankind, 
 with the remarkable sole exception of the Jews, a highly 
 mixed and composite race. This mingled character has, 
 however, been denied to the Romans by one of the most 
 considerable recent authorities in Roman history, the Ger- 
 man historian Mommsen. Thus much, at least, is now, we 
 believe, universally agreed, that the Roman race, or, speaking 
 more largely, the Italian, was a twin offshoot with the Gre- 
 cian, of a common Ar'yan or Indo-European stock. This 
 means that both Greeks and Romans were descended from 
 a people that, having its original home in Central Asia, 
 spread thence outward in two main directions, one toward 
 India and one westward over Europe, Beyond this very 
 general fact in Roman ethnology, settled chiefly by compari- 
 son of languages Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit there is noth- 
 ing in the question of the derivation of the race that prob- 
 ably would interest our readers. 
 
 The study of ethnology, indeed, as applied to the particu- 
 lar case of any given people, can never, from the nature of 
 things, yield wholly satisfactory results. Races do not keep 
 their outlines persistently firm and distinct. They flow into 
 each other, in the revolving kaleidoscope of history shaken 
 by the hand of Time, and form endlessly new and various 
 combinations. Only such great divisions of blood as, to il- 
 lustrate, those for which there have come to be adopted the 
 designations Aryan and Sem-it'ic, remain separate and distin- 
 guishable. From one to another of even these, there is more 
 or less of mutual exchange and interpenetration. But with- 
 in these limits respectively, the reciprocal flux and reflux of 
 blood and blood long reaches of time being taken into the 
 account may be pronounced free and incessant. Migra- 
 tions and conquests have often, with violence, suddenly
 
 The City and the People. 29 
 
 shuffled different peoples in masses into each other. The 
 peaceful attritions of commerce have had a similar effect, in 
 a slower and less strikingly observable way. Altogether, the 
 ethnological classification of the prehistoric Romans is, be- 
 yond the general fact concerning them already indicated, 
 namely, that they were Aryan, a matter of special, rather 
 than general, interest. The whole subject may here with 
 propriety be indefinitely postponed. 
 
 More interesting, and more likely to be fruitful, is the 
 question how the Romans ran the great career that they did. 
 We have told that they conquered and governed the world ; 
 of their method in doing these things, we have thus far said 
 not a word. Their secret might all be summed up in a single 
 sentence a sentence which to the superficial mind would 
 naturally seem a mere truism : they conquered and they 
 governed, by being conquerors and governors. What they 
 did, that is to say, is explained by what they were. Com- 
 prehensively, intimately, consistently, intensely, incessantly, 
 exclusively, they were conquerors and governors. 
 
 In the two functions thus indicated, the ancient Romans 
 absorbed themselves almost completely. There was very 
 little left of them at any time to render account of itself 
 otherwise than so. Romans all lived for the state. The 
 state was at once the unit and the sum of Roman society. 
 The family, the individual, was nothing, and the state was 
 all. This was the theory, and this was the practice, of Ro- 
 man life. The national idea was never forgotten. True, 
 indeed, the individual was exalted by being a member of 
 an exalted civil society. But such seemed not to be the 
 Roman form of selfish consideration. The ideal Roman was 
 a very definite conception. He was legendary Cur'ti-us, 
 willing, for the state, to take his forlorn leap into darkness. 
 
 We are not representing that the Roman commonwealth 
 was an unselfish state. Nothing could be farther from the 
 truth than this. We are not representing that the individual
 
 30 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Roman was, in all his relations, an unselfish man. This, also, 
 would be wide of the truth. But the relation of the individual 
 Roman citizen to the state this at least bore always an as- 
 pect of generosity. If there was selfishness still at bottom, it 
 was an exceedingly specious, a noble, a magnanimous selfish- 
 ness. The appearance was of the opposite to selfishness. 
 You saw nothing but self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, devotion. 
 
 This meant that to the individual citizen every thing was 
 to be dared, and every thing endured, to make the state con- 
 stantly greater than it was greater, that is, not in moral qual- 
 ities, but in wealth and in power. (We speak now somewhat 
 largely, disregarding exceptions, and avoiding qualifications. 
 We speak, too, of Rome as Rome was before the imperial 
 system began. We exaggerate and idealize a little, for the 
 sake of greater distinctness.) To wealth and power for the 
 state there was open one straight road. That road was con- 
 quest. Conquest, therefore, was the one business of the 
 state conquest, in a twofold sense : first, subjugation by 
 arms ; second, consequent upon subjugation, rule by law. 
 
 In the road to wealth and power through conquest, in this 
 double meaning of the word conquest, there lay for Rome no 
 obstacles but purely material obstacles. Obstacles of the 
 moral or sentimental sort did not exist for Rome. There 
 perhaps never was another nation so absolutely devoid as 
 were the Romans of any thing like sentiment. Pure cold 
 blood, always exactly at zero, was Rome's invariable temper. 
 Her constancy to her purpose of dominion is one of the mir- 
 acles of history. But, in truth, there was nothing to weaken, 
 or in any wise perturb, that constancy. She experienced 
 no state of mutiny in the councils of her heart. Greece 
 loved art, she loved eloquence, she loved letters, as things 
 desirable and amiable in themselves. Greece was, too, 
 capable of sheer generosity. She had her enthusiasms. 
 Rome was not Greece. Rome never felt the warmth of a 
 generous emotion so much as once thrill along the gelid
 
 The City and the People. 31 
 
 courses of her blood. Rome would turn upon the eager and 
 expectant face of a suffering cause, pleading to her for assist- 
 ance, if not the gloating eyes of greed frankly glad for her 
 chance, then simply the fixed and fixing stony stare of Me- 
 du'sa. If Rome did any thing in the way of art, it was most 
 likely by bringing home, in barbaric triumph, the spoil of 
 pictures, of vases, of statues, plundered from conquered cities. 
 The enlightened spirit in which Rome practiced this aesthetic 
 robber-industry of hers is amusingly, if a little extravagantly, 
 illustrated by the story of the Roman general, who, in ship- 
 ping across sea to Italy a plundered masterpiece of Grecian 
 art, duly advised the forwarder that, in case of injury done to 
 the article, he, the forwarder, would be held strictly respon- 
 sible for furnishing a duplicate of equal value. Conceive 
 an honest ship-master duplicating, for instance, a statue by 
 Phidias ! 
 
 Rome cultivated eloquence indeed ; but, at least before 
 her period of aggression was virtually over, it was solely as a 
 practical expedient in affairs, not as an embellishment of civ- 
 ilized life. Letters she almost wholly neglected until her 
 conquest of the world was accomplished. Sentimental inter- 
 ests like these never disputed place in her heart with the 
 purpose of self-aggrandizement by conquest. 
 
 It would be impossible to exaggerate the supreme and ex- 
 clusive dominion exercised by the national purpose to con- 
 quer, over Roman character and life. This purpose \vas a 
 fire that burned up in the soul of Rome every thing that 
 tended to hinder it, every thing that did not volunteer to 
 help it. Truth, honor, justice, pity, love every sentiment 
 that had in it a trace of unselfishness was withered, was 
 shriveled, was turned to ashes, licked by that fierce, fiery, 
 flickering tongue. It is comparatively easy to conquer, if 
 you are a conqueror that simply, solely, exclusively. Meth- 
 ods of conquest are secondary and subordinate to the purpose 
 of conquering. The will is the way.
 
 32 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 The Romans had the will. Their will made them take the 
 sword into their own hands. They did not fight by proxy. 
 They fought in person. They lived chiefly by fighting. The 
 country immediately around the city was poor, and they came 
 by degrees to depend chiefly on rapine for subsistence. They 
 had every thing to gain, and little to lose, by the chance of a 
 battle. This was at first. With rare exceptions, the same 
 thing remained true throughout their history. They almost 
 always waged war themselves; they seldom suffered war 
 waged upon them by others. It was of no use to defeat the 
 Romans in battle. Defeat experienced by them only made 
 them more resolute than before. They, in fact, never made 
 peace but as conquerors. On every occasion, on almost 
 every occasion, of disaster to their arms, they rose in spirit 
 with the decline of their fortune, and demanded more, rather 
 than less, as condition of peace. There was but one effectual 
 way to subdue such a people, and that way was to annihilate 
 them. The nation to annihilate the Romans did not appear. 
 Be patient : they will at last, with long suicide, annihilate 
 themselves. 
 
 The Roman military discipline was the quite natural, the 
 inevitable, development of the Roman genius. Its rigor, its 
 comprehension, its minute attention to details, were like the 
 action of the law of gravitation. You could count on it as 
 you count on the persistent uniformity of nature. It forgot 
 nothing, made no exceptions, exercised no pity, felt no mis- 
 giving. A Roman father, in command of an army, did not 
 wink putting his own son to death for gaining a victory over 
 the enemy without waiting for orders. What wonder ? That 
 father had, perhaps who knows? just before starting forth 
 on his campaign, abandoned an infant sister of that son to take 
 her chance of life or death according to the practice of in- 
 fant exposition, so called, in use at Rome, for convenient 
 riddance of children not desired, among a people well 
 described, in the gross, as " without natural affection." If
 
 The City and the People. 33 
 
 a legion, panic-smitten, turned its back in battle, every tenth 
 man of its number was first put to the sword, and then the 
 decimated legion, bleeding and staggering with its six hun- 
 dred gaping wounds, was marched back to the front to take 
 the brunt of the next mortal encounter with the foe. 
 
 The soldiers were worked so hard in camp and march, 
 that they begged to fight as a welcome reprieve from toils 
 more intolerable than danger or than death. Every night, 
 on every march, however long the march might be, and 
 wherever they might halt, they made a fortified town of their 
 encampment, by digging a trench twelve feet broad and nine 
 feet deep around the whole circuit, and building the dirt 
 thrown out into an embankment, which they then strength- 
 ened with a paling of driven stakes, bristling impenetrably to- 
 ward the foe. These stakes, to the number, sometimes, of 
 twelve to each man, they carried with them on the march. 
 Besides these stakes, they carried on their persons, every 
 soldier, a spade, a pickaxe, a hatchet, a saw, and various 
 other implements, until, with rations for fifteen days, their 
 armor not reckoned, the total weight was sixty pounds. 
 Their armor, offensive and defensive made always heavier 
 than that of any enemy they might have to meet they did 
 not call part of their burden, but part of themselves, like 
 their clothes. Thus handicapped, they marched in five 
 hours ordinarily twenty Roman miles; at a pinch, twenty-four. 
 
 We hear little or nothing of sickness in Roman armies. 
 Whether this signifies that there was no sickness, or that 
 sickness was a trifle not worth mentioning, we need not de- 
 cide. Manifestly, there was not much soft fibre left in Ro- 
 man military muscle to be attacked and dissolved by dis- 
 ease. Softness of heart was as rare as softness of muscle. 
 The very diversions of the people were a school to hardness 
 of heart. The appetite for blood was exasperated by the 
 brutal shows of the amphitheatre. In one word, the Roman 
 man was made into a pure automaton of soldiership and 
 2*
 
 34 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 rulcrship. There came at length to be no organs in him that 
 had not been transformed and perverted into these. 
 
 Still, perfect soldiership and leadership involve much be- 
 sides what is merely physical. The Romans did not do their 
 work exclusively by main strength and with heavy blows. 
 They had a method for their conquests. They proceeded 
 according to a plan. Viewed now in the backward perspec- 
 tive of a finished history, their policy in conquering and in 
 governing may be made to seem the consummation of fore- 
 cast and wisdom. The organization of their armies was ad- 
 mirable. But it was always in process of becoming more 
 and more admirable. Whatever superior feature they found 
 in the military scheme of other nations, they did not hesitate 
 to transfer and adopt into their own. Their enemies did 
 not have two chances to meet them with any species of ar- 
 mament more formidable than they themselves possessed. 
 They let their foes teach them to beat their foes. The 
 Spaniards and the Gauls enjoyed, each nation in its turn, the 
 honor of furnishing to the Romans the model for their sword. 
 From Pyrrhus, Rome learned how to order her encampment ; 
 from Carthage, how to build ships. She imported horses 
 from Numidia. She trained a force of Cretan bowmen, of 
 Bal-e-a'ric slingers. Every particular superiority of every 
 nation, Rome took to herself and made her own. 
 
 With this comprehensive assemblage in herself of all par- 
 ticular national superiorities, Rome made her military as- 
 cendency overwhelming. But she added a hardened bodily 
 strength and endurance, an exercised agility and skill, in her 
 individual soldiers, a perfect organization, a mobile disposi- 
 tion, of the mass, that were nowhere else equaled. Then her 
 military roads, solid and straight, enabled her to move her 
 armies with a swiftness that continually surprised and over- 
 awed her enemies. The terror of her name prepared her 
 most distant enemies beforehand for defeat. Her sudden, 
 as it were supernatural, appearance to their face dismayed
 
 The City and the People. 35 
 
 them, like an omen from the gods. They were already half 
 conquered before the battle. Other races, as the Gauls and 
 the Germans, were equally brave with the Romans. These 
 fierce semi-barbarian warriors would deliver an onset with 
 an enthusiasm, a frenzy, of courage. It was like the dash of 
 a torrent. But the Romans took the torrent's dash like a 
 rock. Courage, onset, seemed to be useless against such 
 resistance. If the legion for a moment was broken, it could 
 form again, not less adamantine than before, in the face of 
 the foe, amid the full fury of battle. Read the cold-blooded 
 Commentaries of Caesar, and you are affected as with a sense 
 of seeing uncounted thousands of human beings warring 
 hopelessly, desperately, with fate. Caesar drove his legion 
 like a car of Juggernaut over those Gallic and German 
 tribes eagerly flinging themselves forward to bloody death 
 beneath his reeking wheels. It is indescribably depressing. 
 The Commentaries of Cassar, awaiting the attention of our 
 readers in pages to follow, will supply ample illustration in 
 particular instances for many of the features in Rome's 
 method of conquering, here described briefly in terms of bold 
 general statement. The same is true also of Sallust's his- 
 tory of the Jugurthine war, still earlier to find place in these 
 pages. 
 
 Do you wonder what occasion Rome could find for mak- 
 ing war on every nation under heaven ? She was as resource- 
 ful in picking quarrels as she was afterward obstinate in fight- 
 ing her quarrels to the end. As soon as she had conquered a 
 people she made that people her ally. Then nobody must 
 meddle with her ally. If there was a war going on anywhere 
 in the world, Rome's habit was to be promptly at hand for a 
 share in the fray. She chose her side with the weaker of the 
 combatants. Her heavy hand in the scale of course decided 
 the dip of the balance. The war finished, she had con- 
 quered two nations at one stroke the weaker by grappling 
 it to herself in alliance, the stronger by the help of the
 
 36 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 weaker. For like reason, Rome never turned a deaf ear to 
 appeals for interference from a nation at war. She consti- 
 tuted the appealing nation at once her ally, and, after her 
 wont, used it to make prize for herself of its enemy. If 
 there was not a promising quarrel anywhere at a given mo- 
 ment in progress, that circumstance created no difficulty for 
 Rome. It was easy enough any fine morning to despatch an 
 ambassador to some distant people, commissioned to use 
 with them language so high that they would certainly resent 
 it. Then an insult to her ambassador, it necessarily behooved 
 the majesty of Rome signally to avenge. It was the fable, 
 enacted in history, of the lamb accused of roiling the cur- 
 rent up-stream for the wolf. 
 
 It would be long to tell half the expedients adopted by 
 the senate of Rome to push their business of conquest. 
 Rome had much to say of honor, and good faith, and the 
 inviolability of oaths. She abhorred the duplicity of Car- 
 thage. " Punic faith " she has made the phrase a proverb 
 to all time of false dealing between nations. This style of 
 speech on Rome's part this ostensible disdain of false deal- 
 ing you must be careful, however, not to misunderstand. 
 It by no means imported that Rome herself might not be as 
 clever as she chose to be, in avoiding the obligation of con- 
 ventions and treaties. If, having unhappily covenanted with 
 Carthage not to destroy that city, she found afterward that to 
 have that city destroyed was necessary to her profit or to 
 her revenge, Rome had her way of managing the matter. 
 She became philological, and made a verbal distinction. She 
 had not promised to spare the town, but only the city. The 
 city was the municipality with the inhabitants. The town 
 was the aggregation of buildings. She destroyed the town, 
 but spared the city. And who could say but the faith of 
 treaties was duly observed by Rome ? Who could stop 
 Rome from continuing to cry shame, with immaculate lips, on 
 the perfidy of Carthage ? Did a Roman general in extremity
 
 The City and the People. 37 
 
 come to terms with a foe ? The senate could accept the ad- 
 vantage but repudiate the price. Did even a consul sign a 
 treaty that Rome subsequently concluded not to like? She 
 could tear the treaty in tatters, and save her sacred good 
 faith by sending the consul who signed it a prisoner to the 
 enemy! Rome gave Jugurtha peace on condition of his sur- 
 rendering his elephants, his horses, his gold, the deserters 
 Jhat had come to him. When these had been duly surren- 
 dered the weakened prince was next, forsooth, summoned to 
 surrender himself! Jugurtha's St. Helena was a Roman 
 dungeon. In his subterranean Longwood, Jugurtha would 
 probably not have chafed, as did Napoleon, at mere want of 
 due deference shown him. Jugurtha might thankfully have 
 eaten the crumbs that fell from captive Napoleon's table. 
 Rome starved Jugurtha to death. 
 
 This capacity, on the part of Rome, to use the diplomatist's 
 wit as well as the warrior's sword, was associated with much 
 thrifty self-restraint and patience exercised by her, when oc- 
 casion demanded, in obtaining her end, whether the end 
 was to fat her greed or to feast her revenge. She was 
 proud, but hers was that " considerate pride," attributed by 
 Milton to Satan, which attended its chance. If she had too 
 many affairs on hand to be able to punish to-day, there was 
 always a to-morrow for Rome. Was she not the eternal 
 city ? Her cold blood served her well. She waited for the 
 fruit she desired to ripen on the tree. It was easier to let the 
 fruit fall than to pluck it, and generally the flavor was better. 
 Thus, she did not at once and abruptly reduce every enemy 
 overcome to absolute subjection. Often she contented her- 
 self, for the present, with simply making an enemy conven- 
 iently weak. She then suffered the tributary state to grow 
 gradually accustomed to obey. 
 
 Of course, Rome did her conquering always at the ex- 
 pense of the conquered. Her governing, too, she did at the 
 expense of the governed. But we need hardly make this
 
 38 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 % 
 
 distinction. Rome's governing was of the same species with 
 her conquering. It was conquest continued. To be a Roman 
 province was only less a calamity than to be a nation at war 
 with Rome. The pillage of peace was not quite so destruc- 
 tive as the pillage of war. That was all the difference. To 
 be governed, as to be conquered, by Rome, was, to the un- 
 happy victim, pillage the same. Indeed, to say that Rome 
 made the nations pay the expense of being conquered by 
 her, and being governed by her, is a ridiculously inadequate 
 statement of the fact. The nations did that for Rome, and 
 much more. They, besides, made Rome, both the state at 
 large and individual citizens, incredibly rich. Practically, it 
 was the sole question witli the Romans how much spoil a 
 province might, with good farming, be made to yield. The 
 subject nations came to pour not less than half the products 
 of all their toil into the spendthrift and luxurious lap of their 
 mistress, Rome. Rome was to the world like a monstrous 
 ulcer that constantly drained the juices of its life, and that 
 constantly grew by what it fed on to want more and more. 
 
 Rome, it will thus be seen, never herself became poorer, 
 but always richer, by war. In mere literal fact, war was to 
 Rome her one source of wealth. All that enormous ac- 
 cumulation of public and private resources which made Rome 
 rich and great, was let the truth be nakedly stated it was 
 pure plunder. Plunder laid the foundation of all her tem- 
 ples, all her state edifices, all her public pleasure-houses, all 
 her palaces. The superstructure of all these was plunder. 
 Outside and inside, they were garnished with plunder. 
 Plunder paved her streets, her highways. Plunder under- 
 girded the city with sewers, built as for subterranean rivers. 
 Plunder flung bridges across the Tiber. Plunder arched her 
 aqueducts, and shot them forth, in miles and miles of straight 
 stone trajectory, high over the subject Campagna. It was 
 plunder that robed her senators, in the awed eyes of Cineas, 
 like an assembly of kings. The Roman nobles fared sumpt-
 
 The City and the People. 39 
 
 uously every day on plunder. Nay, the very rabble of the 
 streets subsisted on a commons of plunder. This is not rhet- 
 oric. It is mere hard matter of fact. Rome was active, 
 but her activity was not the activity of production. She did 
 not till the ground, she did not ply the loom. That is, the 
 productive industry of Rome was so little, in any kind what- 
 ever, that it need not be reckoned at all. Rome's only in- 
 dustry was robbery. She exported nothing. She imported 
 every thing. Rome was a mighty metropolis of plunder. 
 She sucked the breast of kings. 
 
 The famous Roman Triumph was no unrelated incident 
 of the national life. It was the symbol, the representative, 
 the epitome, of what Rome was. It brought into vivid and 
 striking demonstration to the senses the whole motive and 
 method and meaning of her career. It was simply a strong 
 momentary accentuation of the habitual tenor of her con- 
 duct. The gorgeous procession, the holiday streets, the idly 
 gaping and applauding beholders, the captive kings led in 
 chains with their wives and their children, the blazoned 
 names of conquered nations, the loads of glittering spoil, the 
 laureled general with his vermeil-tinctured face, and that 
 familiar at his side incessantly whispering in his ear, " Re- 
 member that thou art a man ;" the bands of musicians, the 
 harlequin pantomime, whose business it was to insult the 
 vanquished; the thronging soldiers, cheering or chaffing their 
 leader; the attendant senators what was this spectacle, but 
 Rome herself exhibiting on the stage, Roman history drama- 
 tized and enacted ? The captives sent to prison, and usually 
 to death ; the multitudinous bloody gladiatorial shows that ac- 
 companied these were necessary, too; and now, half-savage, 
 half-civilized, wholly heathen, Rome is fully represented in 
 her Triumph, that pride of the Roman general, that joy of 
 the Roman populace, that terror and dread of vanquished 
 kings, that phantasmagoric instruction to history. 
 
 Our readers may need to be reminded of a momentous
 
 40 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 fact, not yet named, but implied throughout in Roman con- 
 quest and government. That fact is, that in the end more 
 than one half the population of the Roman empire in other 
 words, more than one half the population of the world then 
 known were slaves. Take that into your thought and your 
 imagination. For every man, every woman, every child, liv- 
 ing free, and master of self, like you, there was a man, a wom- 
 an, a child, possessing no rights whatsoever that any human 
 being was bound to regard. The Roman master was lord of 
 his slave in the most absolute sense of lordship. He could 
 not only whip him as much as he pleased, he could kill him, 
 and be by no one called in question for his deed. The mis- 
 ery, the sin, that this state of things meant, not less for the 
 ascendant minority than for the abject majority of the human 
 race, is a topic for imagination rather than for description. 
 Let it not be forgotten that whatever was outwardly great in 
 Rome, rested on a foundation of rapine rapine that robbed 
 not only of wealth, but of life ; that robbed of life, not only by 
 death, quick and merciful, at the point of the sword, but by 
 the prolonged death of life under the lash of slavery. There 
 was not a stone laid in the building of Rome that did not 
 represent outrage on the rights of mankind. Rome, from 
 foundation to topstone, was a towering and splendid edifice 
 of crime. How could God's earth help rocking to topple her 
 to her overthrow ? Rome sat on a volcano that burned under 
 her to the lowest hell. 
 
 The Christian moral sense instinctively and irresistibly 
 speaks such language. But Christian charity no less feels 
 bound to judge righteous judgment. And there is no right- 
 eous judgment of ancient Rome that is not widely compre- 
 hensive, comparative, and wise. 
 
 Over against the colossal criminality which tends to make 
 Rome morally bankrupt beyond hope before the conscience 
 and judgment of history, there is justly to be set down to her 
 credit a considerable sum of benefits conferred by her upon
 
 The City and the People. 41 
 
 mankind. And, to begin with, there is this comparative ex- 
 tenuation to be pleaded in her behalf. Rome was no worse 
 than the other nations of antiquity, except as she was strong- 
 er, shrewder, more single, more persistent, more success- 
 fully wicked, than they. They were all supremely selfish, not 
 less than was Rome. It happened that the selfishness of 
 Rome took one direction, one direction only, and that direc- 
 tion kept to the end. She wished to be mistress of the 
 world, and she was willing to pay the price. This made 
 Rome what she was. She devoured the nations. True. 
 But the nations she devoured were, when she devoured 
 them, all hard at work ambitiously devouring each other. 
 Perhaps it was an alleviation, rather than an aggravation, to 
 the misery of mankind, that it should be as it was. Perhaps 
 it was better for the nations that they should all go together 
 down one great throat stretched wide enough to pass them 
 commodiously, than that they should spend ages of time in 
 ineffectual attempts at alternately swallowing one another. 
 There was one capacious maw within which they could all 
 be at peace. Let them enter there, since otherwise they 
 would be endlessly at war. 
 
 This reflection is an immense consolation to the afflicted 
 sentiment of one who reads Roman history. These wretched 
 nations, that Rome so ruthlessly crushes, bruising them 
 bloodily one against another, wielded helplessly in her two 
 mailed hands they might nearly as well be thus crushed by 
 Rome effectively, at once and for all, as go on dashing 
 themselves together in ceaseless mutual collision indecisively 
 cruel, cruelly indecisive, age after age, indefinitely, forever. 
 
 But there are offsets as well as extenuations to the charges 
 against Rome. Frightful as was her injustice in governing, 
 Rome yet governed more beneficently than any other ancient 
 nation. She had a genius for government. Politics, not 
 less than war, was her passion if of passion, a blood that 
 ran so cold as Rome's can be deemed to have been capable.
 
 42 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 She extended the blessing of stable government, of an ad- 
 ministration of law at least comparatively just and wise, to 
 all the countries she conquered. 
 
 Further : imperfect as was the civilization of Rome, her 
 civilization was yet incomparably better than the qualified 
 barbarism that characterized the greater part of even the 
 best of the world besides. And, after her fashion, she civ- 
 ilized where she had subjugated. Or if, in subjugating, she 
 encountered, as in Greece, a civilization in some respects 
 more excellent than her own, she was great enough to be 
 wise enough to profit by the lessons that her beaten enemies 
 could teach her. Alas ! the tuition to evil that also her vassal 
 panders eagerly offered this, she was neither wise enough 
 nor morally sound enough to reject. 
 
 Again : it is to be accounted an immeasurable blessing to 
 mankind that Rome made the world politically one for the 
 unhindered universal spread of Christianity. This we may 
 say, not only speaking as Christians, but speaking as social 
 philosophers. Whether one believes Christianity or not, it is 
 at least undeniable that Christianity creates the chief differ- 
 ence between modern civilization and ancient. And that 
 this difference might exist, it was worth while for the iron 
 embrace of Rome to crush the world into one mass of em- 
 pire, throughout which the Gospel could everywhere be 
 preached. 
 
 Briefly, then : First, the Roman empire was peace ; secondly, 
 it was comparatively good government ; thirdly, it was civili- 
 zation ; fourthly, it was the condition to Christianity of its 
 diffusion through the world. Let Rome have her due of 
 acknowledgment. There has not been stinted to her the 
 full cup of her blame. 
 
 We grant that the benefits thus conferred by Rome on the 
 world far exceed the merits of Rome in conferring the ben- 
 efits. But the optimist that is, the believer in eventual 
 good may get, for his faith, more argument than can the
 
 The City and tJte People. 43 
 
 pessimist that is, the believer in eventual evil for his, from 
 the history of Rome, not, indeed, taken by itself, but taken 
 in conjunction with the l.istory of Christianity. Under this 
 wide interpretation, the diffusive and permanent influence 
 of Rome for good to the world must be held to overbalance 
 her influence for evil. The praise, however, is due rather 
 to Providence than to Rome. 
 
 Of such a people, holding such a city, and through such 
 policies of conquest and of government accomplishing such 
 a career to such a resulting account, in history, of balanced 
 praise and blame, we advance in the next chapter to consider 
 in summary the literature. Meantime, however, a few 
 words of bibliography respecting Roman history may be 
 helpful. 
 
 Those, then, of our friends who may be inclined to prose- 
 cute farther than we here have enabled them to do their 
 study of Roman history, will find the primer on that subject 
 by Mr. M. Creighton, (republished in this country by the Ap- 
 pletons,) a well-conceived and well-executed work, admirably 
 adapted to the use of the general reader willing to be satis- 
 fied with a greatly reduced but clear and proportional view 
 of the entire field. Mr. Creighton's primer begins with 753 
 B. C., that is, with the date assumed for the founding of 
 Rome, and ends with 1453 A. D., that is, with the date 
 marked by the final overthrow of the Eastern Empire in the 
 fall of Constantinople under the arms of the Turks. 
 
 Such as have more leisure at their command may profit- 
 ably peruse Mr. R. F. Leighton's school " History of Rome," 
 published by Clark & Maynard. This is richly illustrated 
 with maps and engravings. It is written with enlightened 
 scholarship. Mr. Leighton's book sets out from 753 B. C., 
 and comes to its stop at 476 A. D., the date commonly as- 
 signed for the fall of the Western Empire. 
 
 A larger and fuller work, prepared for the general reader, 
 and therefore properly less interrupted by divisions into
 
 44 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 paragraphs and by differences of type, than the foregoing 
 meritorious manual of Mr. heighten, is Liddell's " History 
 of Rome," published by the Harpers. This history, be- 
 ginning, like the rest, at 753 B. C., closes at 29 B. C., the 
 date of the establishment of the empire. Dr. Liddell is 
 the same with the associate author and compiler of the 
 Greek Lexicon known as Liddell and Scott's. His history 
 is a clearly-written and readable work. 
 
 Dr. Mommsen's more expanded work, extending now to 
 four considerable volumes, issued in excellent style by Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, is perhaps the great work on Roman history 
 to be studied by such as desire the latest and the best. 
 This work may hereafter be continued by the author to in- 
 clude the period of the empire ; but in its present state it 
 closes with the fall of the republic. Mommsen's History 
 will be more particularly referred to in the course of the 
 chapter to follow this, on Cassar's Commentaries. 
 
 Merivale's " History of the Romans " is likewise a large 
 work, worthy to be commended. Sound in judgment, trust- 
 worthy in scholarship, it is well written without being re- 
 markably well written. It lacks brilliant and striking quali- 
 ties of style. 
 
 Dr. Arnold's works on Roman history are valuable, but 
 they are incomplete. Dr. Arnold was a student and follower 
 of the great German Niebuhr, (nee'boor,) who may be said to 
 have almost created ancient Roman history, as that history 
 has since his time (1776-1831) been written, and must al- 
 ways henceforth continue to be written. 
 
 Gibbon's great work, " The Decline and Fall of the Ro- 
 man Empire," is too well known to everybody to need char- 
 acterization, or even mention. That work, however, deals, 
 as its title indicates, with the later periods of Roman his- 
 tory. It is learned and exhaustive, but it is overpoweringly 
 long and full for any except the special student, or the gen- 
 eral reader with ample leisure at command. There is an
 
 The City and the People. 45 
 
 abridgment, called the " Student's Gibbon," published in a 
 single volume. 
 
 A number of romances, seeking to reproduce the life of 
 the Roman empire, have lately been written in German and 
 translated into English, which may serve a useful purpose to 
 the student of Roman history. " Quintus Claudius," among 
 these, is worthy of particular mention. Macaulay's "Frag- 
 ment of a Roman Tale " is not to be forgotten. 
 
 On the philosophy of Roman history, De Quincey has a 
 striking and suggestive essay, sufficiently independent, if it 
 should not even be called paradoxical, to be stimulating to 
 thought. Read also De Quincey 's essay on the Caesars, 
 not neglecting his notes. But the most enlightening philo- 
 sophical discussion of Roman history known to the present 
 writer is Montesquieu's " Greatness [the French word is not 
 well translated 'Grandeur'] and Decadence of the Ro- 
 mans." A translation of this work, under the English title, 
 " Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans," accompanied 
 with valuable notes, has recently been issued by the 
 Appletons. 
 
 III. 
 THE LITERATURE OF ROME. 
 
 SUCH of our readers as may wish to know more of Latin 
 literature than we, in the following brief sketch, undertake to 
 tell, can satisfy their curiosity, either by consulting some one 
 or more of several accessible works expressly devoted to this 
 subject, or by giving careful attention to what the general 
 histories of Rome have to say about the literary productions 
 of the Roman mind. Charles Scribner's Sons republish in 
 this country what is, perhaps, on the whole, the best manual 
 of Latin letters, namely, Cruttwell's " History of Roman Liter- 
 ature." This is written with excellent judgment and with good
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 taste. The style is clear and readable. It reconciles, with 
 considerable success, the popular and the scholarly traits of 
 treatment. Harper & Brothers have lately re-issued a work 
 in two volumes covering much the same ground. This is 
 Simcox's manual, bearing the title, "History of Latin Liter- 
 ature." Mr. Simcox begins, as Mr. Cruttwell does, at the be- 
 ginning, but he comes down to a later date than Mr. Crutt- 
 well. Marcus Au-re'li-us (121-180 A. D.) is the hither term 
 of Mr. Cruttwell; while Mr. Simcox continues his account 
 to Bo-e'thi-us, (470-525.) We give the preference to Mr. 
 Cruttwell's book for the use of our readers. 
 
 As we have already intimated, the period during which 
 classic Latin literature, strictly so-called, came into existence 
 was, in comparison to the whole life of the Roman people, 
 very short. The epithet classic is somewhat arbitrarily ap- 
 plied to the literature produced at Rome during a certain 
 limited time, variously reckoned by various authorities, but 
 fairly enough to be considered as extending from about 
 80 B. C. to A. D. 108, and as thus covering one hundred and 
 eighty-eight years, a little less than the space of six generations. 
 Cicero begins and Tacitus (Tass'i-tus) ends this period. All 
 before is ante-classic ; all after, post-classic. Cicero, or some 
 might say Caesar, may be taken as marking the point of high- 
 est purity and perfection in Latin diction and style. Liter- 
 ature, with the Romans, was both late to spring into life, and 
 early to fall into decay. The names of Roman writers 
 familiar now to the popular ear are few in number, and they 
 are clustered together in time, like the stars of a constellation 
 in the sky. 
 
 Liv-i-us An-dro-ni'cus was a writer of tragedy. He flour- 
 ished about two hundred and forty years before Christ. But 
 Livius Andronicus is a name, nothing more, and as merely a 
 name, is probably, to most of our readers, unknown. We 
 write the name here, not to say any thing more about the 
 bearer of the name, than that Livius Andronicus may be
 
 The Literature of Rome. 47 
 
 regarded as the beginner of Latin literature. This Livy, by 
 the way, is not to be confounded with Livy the historian, 
 who will come two centuries later, and be a very different 
 man. "Andronicus " alone, a Greek appellation, was the 
 earlier writer's original name. He was an Italian Greek, made 
 prisoner at the Roman capture of Tarentum prisoner and, 
 by natural consequence, slave. When, afterward, he was set 
 free, he adopted, according to custom, the name of his mas- 
 ter, Livius. The mention of Tarentum captured will remind 
 our readers of Pyrrhus, vainly summoned by the Tarentines 
 to help them against Rome. It was the war between Pyr- 
 rhus and Rome, you remember, that we took as the point of 
 commencement for strictly authentic Roman history. The 
 time was about the middle of the third century before Christ. 
 It is historically significant that Roman literature should 
 have been begun by a Greek. Rome conquered Greece, but 
 Greece turned about and made captive her conqueror. But 
 we might have got our epigram by quoting the Roman poet 
 Horace himself, who says, " Captive Greece took captive her 
 rude conqueror." What Livius Andronicus wrote in Latin 
 was no doubt mainly translation from the writer's native 
 Greek. Of his indifferent verse a few fragments only re- 
 main. 
 
 Nos'vi-us is another merename in Latin literature this, like- 
 wise, a name now, perhaps, for the first time meeting the eyes 
 of most of the readers of this volume. Against the hellen- 
 izing tendency introduced by Livius, Ncevius, himself also, 
 like Livius, debtor to Hellenic originals, nevertheless made a 
 manly, though a vain, stand for the native Roman spirit in 
 Roman literature. He wrote a sort of epic on the first Punic 
 war, esteemed by scholars one of the chief lost things in 
 Latin literature. It contained notices of previous Roman 
 history, which nothing survives to replace. Macaulay, in his 
 Lays of Ancient Rome, has exercised his imagination to con- 
 struct what it may be supposed that the epic of Ncevius, had
 
 48 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 that poem escaped the chances of time, would have supplied 
 to the Englishman's hand. Perhaps, if the truth were known, 
 we English-speakers gain, rather than lose, by exchanging 
 tradition for fancy, Naevius for Macaulay. Cicero, however, 
 who had a capacity for appreciating, as great as was his 
 capacity for creating, expresses strongly the delight he ex- 
 perienced in reading the lost epic of Nnsvius. 
 
 The next great name in Latin literature is still to us little 
 more than a name. It is En'ni-us. Ennius is praised by 
 Cicero, by Lu-cre'ti-us ; Virgil does not praise him, but he 
 copies him ; while Horace, too, does not altogether disdain 
 to acknowledge merit in his verse. Ennius was a thorough- 
 going hellenizer. His influence and example decisively 
 fixed the form of the Latin poetry, and so, we may say, of 
 the Latin language. It long remained a part of the conserva- 
 tism and pride of the Roman people, to keep alive portions, 
 at least, of the poetry of Ennius. It is tantalizing to think 
 that Ennius was lost to the world only so long ago as the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 We may skip other names after Ennius, until we come to 
 names as familiar as those of Plau'tus and Ter'ence. These 
 two were the great Roman writers of comedy. Naevius had 
 done something in the line of the comic drama, but the truly 
 indigenous literary product, like that which Naevius at- 
 tempted to furnish, seemed somehow never to thrive in 
 Rome. Plautus and Terence won their triumphs by boldly 
 importing their intellectual wares from Greece. Of Terence, 
 Julius Ccesar, in a celebrated epigram, spoke slightingly, as 
 but " a half-Menander." The epigrammatist named thus the 
 Greek (Menan'der) from whom the Roman, if Roman indeed 
 he is to be called for Terence was a native of Carthage 
 purveyed his comedies. These two writers, Plautus and 
 Terence, will furnish their full share of what our readers may 
 promise themselves most to enjoy, in the companion volume 
 to the present, namely, that devoted to representing the
 
 The Literature of Rome. 49 
 
 college or university course in Latin. The two were partly 
 contemporary, but Plautus was Terence's senior. The senior 
 was, of the two, the coarser, but so the more characteristic- 
 ally Roman, the more original, and, perhaps, the abler. Ter- 
 ence, however, died when hardly more than a youth, so that 
 what we have from his hand was but the first-fruits of his 
 early-ripe genius. Plautus lived, and, on the whole, pros- 
 pered, to a good old age. Both these dramatists reflected a 
 civilization that was full of iniquity. Their reflections, of 
 course, are tainted accordingly. Roman life and manners, 
 beginning, through superfluous wealth and, we grieve to say 
 it, through corrupting influence and example imported from 
 Greece, to show deterioration from their ancient simplicity 
 and comparative virtue, are vividly portrayed in the comedies 
 of Plautus and of Terence. Our readers will relish the ex- 
 tracts in store for them from these writers. The relish, how- 
 ever, will be pungent with pain as well as with pleasure. 
 The lines themselves that the authors wrote will amuse you, 
 but you will be saddened with what you read between the 
 lines. You may safely reckon, while tasting this mingled 
 relish, on getting at the same time a better idea of what 
 Roman civilization really was, than many a laborious page of 
 history might yield, duly studied under a sense, on your part, 
 of so much necessary work conscientiously perfoimed. 
 
 Another important source of knowledge respecting the 
 cvery-day life and morality of the ancient Romans, is to be 
 found in the Satires which their own writers produced. The 
 satire may be said to be a form of composition in verse orig- 
 inal with Rome. In satire, more naturally by far than in 
 comedy, the Roman genius could unbend from its habitual 
 and characteristic severity. Perhaps Roman satire was 
 hardly, to the Romans, an unbending from severity ; say, 
 rather, it was with them a way of giving loose to severity. 
 At all events, satire is a kind of verse in which the Romans 
 distance all competitors.
 
 50 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Verse, but not poetry, observe, we call the Roman satire. 
 Indeed, the wit, the scorn, the ridicule, which, in any lan- 
 guage, make the life of the satire, are hardly compatible 
 with poetry. It was by no means, therefore, because the 
 satire is of its own nature poetical, that, among the Romans, 
 the satire chose for itself verse as its form of expression. It 
 was rather for the curious reason that, when satire began, 
 verse was a literary vehicle of thought already prepared to 
 the hand of the satirical writer, while prose had yet to be in- 
 vented. Curious we call it, and our readers will agree with 
 us in feeling it to be curious, that so difficult a form of com- 
 position as verse should precede prose in the first develop- 
 ment of a national literature. This, however, seems to be a 
 general fact in literary history. It has even been suggested 
 that you may measure the advance of a people in the liter- 
 ary art by the degree to which prose has secured for itself 
 among them an expansion of its sphere. Let us trust, we 
 that love poetry, that poetry is not, one day, in the triumph- 
 ant perfection of literature, to be quite swallowed up. By 
 the way, is there, in this line of thought, a light thrown on 
 Coleridge's noteworthy sentence of exclamation at what he 
 calls the " wonderfulness of prose " ? 
 
 The spirit of satire is very pervasive throughout Latin lit- 
 erature. Cato the Censor was a great satirist in his writing, 
 but especially in his speech. That tongue of his was as a 
 scourge for the chastisement of the public. Lucretius, poetic 
 interpreter to the Romans of philosophic Epicurus the 
 Greek, is highly satirical. Seneca was a moralist, but he 
 moralized satirically. As for Tacitus, our readers in due 
 time shall see for themselves how the ink with which that 
 great historian wrote was embittered with the gall of the 
 satirist. Of the classic Roman satire Lu-cil'ius (148-103 B.C.) 
 was the creator. The learned world has suffered a great loss 
 in losing Lucilius. He satirized, not to vent his own spleen, 
 but to chastise the vices of society, and thus to help give
 
 The Literature of JRome. 5 1 
 
 virtue its chance among men. But the great Roman mas- 
 ters of satire are Horace and Ju'ven-al. These two writers 
 not only wrote nobly themselves, but they have been the 
 cause of much noble writing, done long since their day, by 
 others, both in French and in English. French Boileau and 
 English Dryden and Pope, especially, with Johnson too, have 
 transfused the essential spirit of Horace and Juvenal into 
 brilliant imitative satires, dealing with the follies and vices of 
 modern contemporary life. For some specimens of the sa- 
 tirical work of the Englishmen named as being, perhaps, for 
 our purpose in this series of volumes, better than exclusive 
 mere translation would be we shall hereafter try to find 
 room. That will be when we come to representing Horace 
 and Juvenal, in the volume on Latin literature to follow this. 
 Our readers may prepare their palates for a strong sapor of 
 spice. 
 
 To Cato, famous always and everywhere as Cato the 
 Censor, may be attributed the merit of being the founder or 
 former of Latin prose. For this service to Latin literature, 
 Cato's merit is as distinctive and as indisputable, as is the 
 merit of Ennius for a corresponding influence exercised in 
 fixing the mold of Latin verse. But while Ennius hellen- 
 ized, that is, followed Greek models, Cato, in principle and 
 in practice, was stanchly Roman. There is something whim- 
 sical in the fact that one of the great creators of Roman 
 literature should have been, as Cato undoubtedly was, quite 
 sincerely and cordially a despiser of literature. Cato wrote 
 to decry writing, as Carlyle lately deafened us all to recom- 
 mend silence. Unhappily, Cato is now mainly but a tradi- 
 tion in Latin letters. We have left from his hand nothing 
 entire, except a treatise on farming, and even this is edited 
 somewhat. Cato wrote an important historical work, the 
 loss of which leaves an irreparable breach in the continuity 
 of primitive Roman story. Cato is also named for praise 
 by Cicero as the first Roman orator worthy of that title.
 
 52 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Oratory, from early times down to the establishment of the 
 empire true oratory the empire extinguished was a favor- 
 ite form of intellectual activity among the Romans. It has 
 happened, however, and this from the nature of things, that 
 of the immense volume of an eloquence hardly perhaps, in 
 the aggregate, equaled by that of any other nation, ancient 
 or modern, comparatively little remains to justify the fame 
 which Roman oratory traditionally enjoys. The orator's 
 triumph, as it is the most intense, is likewise the most mo- 
 mentary of all intellectual victories. Cicero, among Romans, 
 reigns alone, in glorious companionship with Demosthenes 
 among Greeks, as one of the two undisputedly greatest mas- 
 ters of human speech that have ever appeared on the planet. 
 ^Eschines (Es'ki-neez) survives, in equivocal renown, as foil 
 to Demosthenes Hortensius enjoying a similar privilege 
 of continued remembrance in connection with Cicero. 
 While of ^Eschines, however, we still have the really brill- 
 iant speech which provoked from his victorious rival that 
 "bright consummate flower" of eloquence, the Oration on 
 the Crown, nothing remains of Hortensius but the splendid 
 tradition of his fame. For other Roman orators, there are the 
 brothers Gracchi, (Grak'ki,) Crassus, and that universal man, 
 not less capable of great words than of great deeds, Julius 
 Caesar. Nor must we forget Mark Antony. This orator's 
 masterpiece, the funeral discourse on murdered Caesar, per- 
 ished long ago, but you may still study it in the form in 
 which the creative imagination and easy omnipotence in ex- 
 pression of Shakespeare have perhaps more than restored it. 
 Read Antony in the tragedy of "Julius Caesar," and, if you are 
 an orator, hope that what you utter in the supreme moment 
 of your career may die, to enjoy a like resurrection. The 
 names that we have last mentioned, added to those of Cato, 
 Cicero, Hortensius, sufficiently suggest the roll-call of illus- 
 trious orators that Rome, before eloquence died with liberty in 
 Rome, could boast, in not unsuccessful rivalship with Greece.
 
 The Literature of Rome. 53 
 
 Cato, as founder of history for Rome, had a following not 
 less distinguished than that which, as you have seen, he drew 
 after him as founder of oratory. When \ve have mentioned, 
 first, Crcsar, that name appearing so often, and always among 
 the foremost, when you recall the glories of Rome in differ- 
 ent spheres of achievement ; next, Sallust, emulating but 
 hardly rivaling Thucydides in force and in point ; then 
 Livy, of the " pictured page," with his lost books, perhaps 
 the chief theme of hopeless deploring for the lovers of 
 classical literature and the students of Roman antiquity ; 
 and, fourth, Tacitus, grave, severe, pathetic but loftily, in- 
 dignantly pathetic, with pathos made bitter and virile by 
 sarcasm- -illustrating in his practice that definition of history 
 which calls it philosophy teaching by example, and so plac- 
 ing himself chronologically second in the line, in which 
 Thucydides stands first, of philosophical historians when, 
 we say, we have mentioned these four names, we have not, 
 indeed, exhausted, but we have adequately suggested, the 
 list of Roman historical writers. Cornelius Nepos and the 
 same is true of Suetonius was a biographer rather than a 
 historian. Suetonius deserves higher regard; but the pre- 
 tensions of Xepos, as a man of letters, are humble, and what 
 survives of his work is rather tame reading. 
 
 It was reserved for the age cf Augustus to produce the 
 great epic of Rome, the /Ene'id of Virgil. This poem, like 
 the Georgics of the same author, seems to have had a patri- 
 otic inspiration, inspiration genuinely the poet's, though, per- 
 haps, originally communicated from no less august a source 
 than the Roman emperor himself. It was not simply ad- 
 dressed to the national feeling of Rome, for the purpose of 
 flattering that feeling to the gain of the poet. It was de- 
 signed to create and excite national feeling, or rather to re- 
 vive and restore the national feeling which the long civil wars 
 had done so much to extinguish. Whatever the merits of the 
 poem, the ^Eneid has had a fortune of lame and of influence
 
 54 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 that pairs it, in unchallenged pre-eminence, with the Iliad 
 of Homer. With Virgil was matched and contrasted, in a 
 life-long friendship equally honorable to both, a very dif- 
 ferent poet by eminence the Roman poet of society and 
 manners Horace, of a fame fulfilling his own celebrated 
 boast and prediction concerning himself: " I have reared for 
 myself a monument more enduring than brass." Horace has 
 a peculiar persisting modernness of manner that keeps him 
 perhaps the most read and the most quoted of all ancient 
 poets. 
 
 In connection with Virgil and Horace, let us make mention, 
 in one word, of a man who, producing, indeed, no valuable 
 literature himself, became, nevertheless, alike by his initiative, 
 by his taste, and by his munificence, to such an extent the 
 cause to others of their producing of literature, that his very 
 name is now an immortal synonym for enlightened and gener- 
 ous patronage of culture. If you wish to dignify by a name 
 some wise and liberal encourager of intellectual activity you 
 call him a Maj-ce'nas. Augustus himself surpassed his minis- 
 ter Maecenas in patronizing genius, only as the sovereign may 
 always surpass the subject. Ovid, however, less happy than 
 Virgil and Horace, felt the weight of imperial displeasure. 
 Banished from Rome by Augustus, he became as famous to 
 all time for his unmanly tears in exile, as he had been before 
 for his much-appreciated verse. 
 
 Ovid ill Pontus, puling for his Rome, 
 
 is the merciless line in which Mr. Lowell, in his " Cathedral," 
 pillories him for the contempt of mankind. 
 
 We must not close this rapid and summary survey of Latin 
 literature without remarking that it was proper of the Roman 
 genius to produce a copious literature about literature, in the 
 form of grammatical, rhetorical, and critical treatises. Be- 
 sides Varro, a luminous as well as voluminous author, much 
 lauded by Cicero, whose works, however valuable for matter,
 
 The Literature of Rome. rr 
 
 lacked every charm of manner, we name here only Quin-til'i- 
 an, the writer on rhetoric who, perhaps, from his store will 
 supply us with material for enriching the variety and in- 
 structiveness of future pages of the present series of vol- 
 umes. 
 
 Our readers can easily see that, with a magazine of re- 
 sources accessible, so large and so various as is the literature 
 thus imperfectly described, it will be next to impossible not 
 to draw for our use what, properly presented, will make up a 
 full and an appetizing intellectual feast. 
 
 Now forward, with but one more brief stage of delay, to 
 that part of the proof which belongs to this volume. 
 
 IV. 
 A WORD OR TWO OF ADVICE. 
 
 IN concluding the previous chapter our impulse was to 
 begin at once here with something highly interesting. This, 
 in our next chapter, we shall show that we could very easily 
 have done. On the whole, however, we decide to keep that 
 impulse in check, until we shall first have given certain of 
 our readers some good advice about their proper course of 
 proceeding. 
 
 The advice to be submitted is, perhaps, hardly more than 
 suggestion ; for no one need follow it who is not that way in- \ 
 clined. In fact, those readers with whom good advice is a 
 favorite aversion may, if they like, just drop the thread right 
 here, to take it up again unbroken at the beginning of the 
 next chapter. To these last readers nothing probably will 
 be lost by their skipping of a few pages here, except barely 
 the good advice itself contained therein small loss that, 
 since they would not in any case have been apt, against their 
 liking, to follow the good advice, and so get the resultant 
 practical benefit aimed at in their behalf. No offense, we trust,
 
 56 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 even to these readers for we quite understand that our office 
 here is to make Latin literature easy, and not in general to 
 give good advice. 
 
 We speak, then, for the moment, to such among our readers 
 as, not being classically educated, and not expecting to be, 
 would, nevertheless, like, to some small degree, to get the 
 secret of the Latin language itself, in addition to the Latin 
 literature so far, at least, that when, for example, they 
 chance in reading aloud to come upon a Latin word or 
 phrase used by an English writer, they need not stumble 
 and say Jerusalem ; or when, for another example, to 
 tongue's tip springs some pat quotation in Latin, they need 
 not hold the volunteer back, for fear they shall forsooth 
 commit a dreadful solecism by missing unawares a mysterious 
 concord of gender, number, or case. Some readers, too, 
 there will be parents, perhaps, or older brothers or sisters 
 who, to the reasons already suggested for liking to know a 
 little Latin, will add also the wish to keep in sympathetic 
 communication with fortunate kinsman or kinswoman enjoy- 
 ing the privilege of education at academy or college. To all 
 readers, whatever their private motive, who would gladly fur- 
 nish themselves with a modest, but serviceable, smatter of 
 Latin, we take great pleasure in saying, Your wish can be 
 gratified, and that without any very formidable cost of time 
 or pains on your part. You have no new alphabet to learn. 
 A Latin page does not, like a Greek, bristle to you with 
 Procul, procul, Off, off, multitudinously horrid in the very 
 aspect of the letters ! The words look familiar and inviting. 
 Some of them carry their meaning on their face. 
 
 Very well; go at it, nothing doubting. Take up any Latin 
 grammar at hazard, or first book in Latin. Read it unafraid. 
 Skip paragraphs, pages even, that look too learned and dry, 
 and by no means accuse yourselves of being superficial for 
 doing so. Rather secretly take pleasure in thinking that 
 you know how to " refuse the prickle, and assume the rose."
 
 A Word or Two of Advice. 57 
 
 Get yourself thus easily led up to the declensions, so-called, 
 of the Latin nouns. Fall afoul of these, and master them. 
 It is really not a very serious affair. You can make sing- 
 song of the task, if you like, and chant it as accompaniment 
 to any necessary other employment you may happen to have 
 in hand any employment, we mean, that will leave your 
 mind a little at leisure to be, as Mrs. Browning cheerfully 
 puts it, "singing at a work apart." Well, in the same way 
 take a turn at the adjectives and pronouns, which, as you 
 will with pleasure observe, have a trick of following the 
 phases of the nouns, making it thus quite easy for you to 
 master them. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, and 
 storm the four conjugations of the Latin verbs. There, that 
 is all only, of course, you can, you know, if you find you 
 rather like Latin grammar, look, as much as pleases you, at 
 the rules of syntax. But you will now have learned enough 
 Latin to serve several useful ends. 
 
 The mere guidance of your ear, thus grown familiar with 
 the forms of the nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, shifting 
 rhythmically down through their several cases and numbers, 
 will save you from the embarrassment of making, for instance, 
 such a ludicrous blunder as that of the lady who spoke to a 
 friend of ours about taking a plunge in medias rebus when 
 she meant, with easy command of classic quotation, to mus- 
 ter in that veteran conscript, our old acquaintance, in medias 
 res, who, perhaps some readers will remember, graced, with 
 well-accustomed step, the ranks of our own array in the vol- 
 ume on Greek literature preceding this. Lexicon, not gram- 
 mar, was wanting to the traveler who, tired of sea, declared 
 himself glad to set foot once more on terra cotta. (If, now, 
 that traveler had been but a homesick Neapolitan gentle- 
 man, landing nigh the base of Mount Vesuvius with its 
 burnt volcanic soil ! terra cotta, that is, baked or cooked 
 earth would not have been in him so very bad a term to 
 
 express his sentiment of whimsical pathetic gladness in the 
 3*
 
 58 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 "home return." Alas! we fear the traveler was a hapless 
 American, born too soon to have had the benefit of these 
 books; though even to such a traveler a timely recollection 
 of his mother tongue should have served to point out that 
 terra fir ma was the natural antithesis desired to the tumbling 
 and wallowing sea. It is fair, finally, to advise our readers 
 that terra cotta is not true Latin at all, but Italian, " that soft 
 bastard Latin," to use Byron's affectionate descriptive phrase.) 
 
 A very ingenious device for acquiring something like ver- 
 nacular familiarity with a foreign language, through much 
 practice in repetition of words and phrases, is that of Sauveur. 
 A spirited movement toward the general introduction of an 
 improved conversational method in the study of Latin has re- 
 cently been started by Professor E. S. Shumway, of the State 
 Normal School at Potsdam, in New York. This enlightened 
 and enterprising classical teacher publishes an admirable 
 little monthly magazine, entitled " Latine," printed almost 
 wholly in Latin, which, with much interesting and instruct- 
 ive matter besides, furnishes, from number to number, co- 
 pious and well-prepared specimen exercises in exemplification 
 of his method. 
 
 Some readers of this chapter may be incited by what we 
 say to prosecute, still farther than we have now suggested, 
 their study of Latin. To any such reader we would say, If 
 your age and your circumstances permit, by all means take 
 the regular way of doing this. Go to a good school, and fit 
 yourself for college. Then accomplish a college course and 
 be a graduate. There is no other plan for you so wise as 
 this. Do not undertake to educate yourself, if it is possible 
 for you to get yourself educated. There will be quite enough 
 of self-educating for you to do in getting yourself properly 
 
 educated. 
 
 A little learning is a dangerous thing, 
 
 sings Pope, with excellently good wisdom, in very moder- 
 ately good poetry. Still, we believe all our readers may
 
 A Word or Two of Advice. 59 
 
 safely venture on knowing as much as we have now sug- 
 gested about the Latin language. With this not cumbrous 
 equipment of knowledge, not one, we dare warrant, of them 
 all will make the mistake of setting up for a critical Latin 
 scholar. We should even hope that prudence and modesty 
 would be the fruit, full rather than conceit and audacity. 
 
 As to pronunciation of Latin, there are wide diver- 
 gences of practice, and the divergences of theory are not 
 slight. Theoretically, what is called the Roman pronuncia- 
 tion is, we suppose, the nearest approximation yet made to 
 the orthoepy of the ancient Romans themselves. This pro- 
 nunciation is gaining ground. The present writer remembers 
 the time when the college at which he was then student stood 
 alone among American colleges in adopting, under the in- 
 trepid lead of that admirable instructor, Professor J. F. Rich- 
 ardson, the Roman method of pronouncing Latin. This 
 method our readers need not take even the very little trouble 
 it would require to master. Nor had they better undertake 
 the so-called Continental method. Just adhere to the per- 
 verse old English method, the very worst, probably, in itself 
 of all methods, but among English-speakers in possession 
 still, to such an extent that, for practical purposes, it is to 
 you for the present the best. The differences of the different 
 systems of Latin orthoepy concern both the vowels and the 
 consonants. We cannot here profitably consume space to 
 indicate what even the chief differences are. 
 
 There is one point, however, in which all methods agree, 
 and that is a point in which they all agree to differ from the 
 usage that obtains in the pronunciation of the English 
 tongue. According to any recognized method of pronounc- 
 ing Latin, every several vowel or diphthong makes a sylla- 
 ble. There are no silent vowels in Latin. Simply remember 
 this principle, and you will be saved from very many of the 
 mistakes that, in pronouncing Latin, an English speaker is 
 likely to make. Take the Latin expressions, familiar to
 
 60 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 every one in English, ex tempore, pro tempore. To say, ex 
 tem'pore, pro teniporc, in three syllables, is barbarous. Make 
 four syllables ex tempo-re, pro tempo-re. So of sine die. 
 Make four syllables, two to each word sine di'e. 
 
 Again, all methods of Latin pronunciation agree in observ- 
 ing carefully what is called quantity. If the next to the last, 
 that is, the penultimate, syllable in any word is long, that 
 syllable receives the accent. Whether a given syllable is 
 long or short you cannot, in all cases, at sight determine. 
 If the vowel is a diphthong, the syllable containing it is in- 
 variably long ; for example, Athense'um, not Athe'naeum. 
 This, likewise, almost invariably holds true: If the vowel in a 
 syllable is followed by two consecutive consonants the sylla- 
 ble is long. Thus Bayard Taylor made a slip in so versifying 
 a passage in his translation of Goethe's (pronounced very 
 nearly as Gur'tur, with the r sound in both syllables omitted) 
 " Faust," that you have to accent mag'ister on the first syl- 
 lable. It is a case in which the penult is long by two con- 
 secutive consonants, s and /, following the vowel magis'ter. 
 Libert'as, volunt'as, volupt'as, are words falling under the 
 same rule, though likely to be misaccented by English 
 speakers. This is the principle on which Worcester, with 
 the other best English orthoepists, pronounces demon'strate, 
 illus'trate, devas'tate, etc., instead of dem'onstrate, il'lustrate, 
 dev'astate, etc. Your Latin lexicon, you will find, in doubt- 
 ful cases marks the principal vowels in each word with their 
 proper quantity. Heed these marks scrupulously, if you 
 desire to be correct in your quantity a very important test 
 of good Latin scholarship. 
 
 A good idea would be, for all our readers of the class here 
 particularly addressed, to familiarize themselves with the 
 quotations from Latin given, for instance, in the dictionary, 
 Webster's or Worcester's, which they use. A little attention 
 to this list, bestowed daily for a week, would probably suf- 
 fice. The result would be not only a convenient addition to
 
 A Word or Tu<o cf Advice. 61 
 
 your stock of knowledge, in the understanding of these spe- 
 cific Latin words and phrases, but beyond that a certain serv- 
 iceable conversance with the Latin idiom of expression in 
 general. Get the quotations, and the English renderings of 
 the quotations, in both ways ; that is, so that, given the Latin, 
 the English will be ready on your tongue ; and, conversely, 
 so that, the English given, you can instantly respond with 
 the Latin. Do not, by the way, assume that the English 
 equivalents given are always word-for-word translations of 
 the Latin. Use a Latin lexicon, if you wish to be sure of the 
 meaning of a particular word. The sense of command, ac- 
 quired through this simple process of memorizing, over a 
 little stock of Latin words and phrases, will yield to you a 
 satisfaction more than worth the trifling pains it will cost. 
 Professor Blackie in his little book, " Self-Culture," has some 
 hints worth attention on method in acquiring foreign lan- 
 guages. 
 
 One item more of advice, and we have done. Begin now 
 watchfully to note the obvious derivations of English words 
 from Latin, that you have been all your life in the habit of 
 passing over without heed. You can make your own native 
 language half subserve the purpose of a lexicon to ordinary 
 Latin prose. For your help in doing this, consult your English 
 lexicon, in which you have given, along with the definitions, 
 the etymologies of the words defined. Very interesting it 
 will be to you, very instructive as well, to take some particu- 
 lar selected word and, tracing it from one language to an- 
 other, see, with what changes of form suffered in several 
 different languages, that word may nevertheless remain sub- 
 stantially and recognizably the same. To illustrate, the 
 English word heart, you probably never thought of as the 
 same with the Latin word cor, although to be cordial and to 
 be hearty would in your mouth be equivalent expressions. But 
 observe, when you say "heart," you can breathe the h sound in 
 the word as hard and gutturally as you please. Breathing
 
 62 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 it very roughly, somewhat as if you were clearing your throat, 
 you make the h almost like a k rather softly uttered. Broad- 
 en the vowel sound a, and you approximate the sound o. 
 Now leave off the t final, and you are speaking tolerable 
 Latin, when, with these changes, you say heart. The Greek 
 equivalent word is kardia, the German word is hertz, the 
 Sanskrit word is hrid all closely related, one to another, 
 as derived probably from one common original language now 
 lost. Through some such simple illustration as this, one 
 comes to conceive more vividly what philologists mean by 
 their talk of Indo-European languages, that is, languages 
 sprung from a supposed primitive speech that great popular 
 migrations once spread over Hindostan and Europe. 
 
 Furthermore, this single example supplies by suggestion 
 two or three principles under which changes may take place 
 in words, as the words pass from one language to another. 
 First, observe, vowels may be very freely interchanged. 
 Secondly, certain kindred consonants may relieve one another 
 at will. Thirdly, letters may, within certain ascertainable 
 limits, be mutually transposed. 
 
 Now, let watchful readers remark, all this philological 
 learning of ours is capable of being verified by reference to so 
 accessible a book as Webster's Dictionary unabridged : see 
 the word heart. Make the most of your dictionaries. 
 Comparative philology, to be sure, is not so perfectly easy 
 a science that we could conscientiously recommend to 
 any reader to profess himself a specialist in it, without 
 much move than merely incidental and diverting atten- 
 tion paid to the subject in unabridged English dictionaries. 
 For all that, however, is it not pleasant to see vistas opened 
 here and there to the light, where nothing but impenetrable 
 darkness presented itself before? You feel like a soul un- 
 imprisoned. Your horizon widens around you. You breathe 
 an ampler air. 
 
 In this released spirit, and enjoying it to the full, you that
 
 A Word or Two of Advice. 63 
 
 actually follow the advice which, we trust, you have now 
 been reading, may go on in company with the rest who, alas 
 for them ! made a skip of the present chapter and take up 
 what comes alter, with as much greater satisfaction than can 
 belong to those others as your humility and enterprise are 
 greater than theirs. 
 
 V. 
 THE LATIN READER. 
 
 WE have not thought it worth while to spend time in any 
 detailed mention of the numerous books that have been 
 prepared by enterprising authors, to facilitate the way 
 of beginners in Latin. It will be sufficient to say that 
 the publishing houses named in our " Preparatory Greek 
 Course in English," with other houses of like rank, may be 
 applied to for descriptive catalogues of their issues, with all 
 confidence on the part of the reader that he will not go 
 amiss in selecting for himself his manual from the lists which 
 they offer abundantly to his choice. Harkness's series of 
 books in Latin are excellent, and the same may be said of 
 Allen and Greenough's, with Leighton's introductory book, 
 "Latin Lessons," referring to the grammar of the Latin 
 series. Leighton's manual has a brief and clear explanation 
 of the two methods, English and Roman, of pronouncing 
 Latin. The later beginning-books in Latin have, as a rule, 
 much the advantage in point of method over their old-time 
 predecessors. The " Historia Sacra," it may interest some 
 readers to know, was a book of auld lang syne made up of 
 passages from the Bible, translated into Latin. We say of 
 auld lang syne, for this text-book is now, we suppose, to be 
 classed among the things that were. It well served its turn 
 for many in its day. Old " Ainsworth's Dictionary," too, is 
 nearly or quite superseded by more modern dictionaries
 
 64 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 much better than that. Our readers will find the Latin dic- 
 tionary published last by the Harpers the fullest and best. 
 A smaller and less expensive work, easy to carry and easy 
 to handle, exceedingly compendious, and for all ordinary 
 purposes of mere translation quite sufficient, is White's Dic- 
 tionary, published in this country by Ginn, Heath, & Co. 
 White's Dictionary has two parts, Latin-English and English- 
 Latin, to be bought, we believe, either separately or together. 
 The Latin-English gives the Latin words in alphabetical 
 order, with their equivalents in English, while the English- 
 Latin proceeds conversely. There are to be had editions of 
 the various authors most commonly read in the preparatory 
 Latin course, containing, in connection with the text itself, 
 (and with the explanatory notes almost always accompanying 
 the texts,) special lexicons, partial, indeed, but full enough 
 for the satisfactory rendering of the particular works or selec- 
 tions to which they severally appertain. Greenough's lexicon 
 to Virgil is worthy of particular mention, not only as being 
 an admirable piece of work, but as being obtainable either 
 with or without the text for which it is prepared. These 
 special lexicons will in many cases make unnecessary the 
 purchase of larger and more costly dictionaries. Readers, 
 however, who can conveniently do so, will act wisely to pos- 
 sess themselves of the best. 
 
 And now for the Latin Reader. The Latin Reader is a 
 book compiled very much after the fashion of the Reader in 
 Greek, with which, in the preceding volume, our friends 
 had, many of them, an opportunity of becoming somewhat 
 acquainted. The contents of the book vary according to 
 the choice made by the particular editor or compiler. Any 
 Latin Reader, however, is pretty sure, like any Greek, to 
 contain its share of fables, of anecdotes, of historical frag- 
 ments, of mythology, of biography. The collection has thus 
 almost always a good spice of variety. The tyro is con- 
 stantly allured along the paths of Latin lore by some
 
 The Latin Reader. 65 
 
 appetizing bait, of tale, of witty wisdom, held out before him, 
 in every succeeding paragraph which, by dint of much turn- 
 ing and thumbing of the leaves of his lexicon, he slowly 
 comes to understand, with more or with less of distinct and 
 certain comprehension. The sweet juice of the meaning is 
 usually well diluted in the youthful student's mouth with the 
 secretions of his own mental idiosyncrasy, excited to flow by 
 the long suspense of ruminant mastication necessary before 
 the mingled product is ready to be swallowed and entered 
 into his hungry individual circulation. A rather tantaliz- 
 ing process for the present, but ct Jiacc olim mcminisse^ 
 "to remember even these things afterward," as Virgil has it, 
 in his memory-haunting phrase ! On the whole, the Latin 
 Reader (ask any college graduate) is saturate with pleasurable 
 association. And indeed the book is a genuinely interesting 
 one. 
 
 Still, our readers, unless we should do a little managing for 
 them in this matter, would be apt to feel that, in comparison 
 of the Latin Reader with the Greek, there was, when both 
 were done into English, surprisingly little difference between 
 the two; and the truth is that, already, even with the Latin 
 Reader, the Roman genius begins to be displayed, in its lit- 
 erary production, very dependent on the Greek. The same 
 fables recur, with naturalized Greek ^Esop for putative father 
 of them all. The anecdotes are many of them concerning 
 Greek personages and incidents. 
 
 Now it would be quite fair to Roman literary fame to let 
 this imitative character of the Roman literature everywhere 
 fully appear in these pages. There would be also the ad- 
 vantage to our readers of seeing for themselves from the 
 start how Rome was well content to echo Greece in letters. 
 On the other hand, however, this book of ours, following, as 
 it properly does, in order of appearance, the corresponding 
 one in Greek, might thus be, at least in the present chapter, 
 somewhat less entertaining than, for our readers' sake, we
 
 66 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 are resolved, if we can, to make it. So, the advantage just 
 now named being mainly saved to our friends by our merely 
 having named it, we shall choose to give here, from the 
 contents of the Latin Reader, only such material, and that 
 in very brief exemplification, as may be most differenced 
 from the Greek, and most racy of the native Roman 
 character. 
 
 There was, a century or so ago, a compilation made from 
 various Latin writers, entitled " Viri Romae," which formerly 
 was much used by beginners in the study of the language. 
 This compilation would, of course, from the character prom- 
 ised in its title, be highly flavored with the authentic Roman 
 life and spirit. But Livy, for instance one of the writers 
 upon whom, with Valerius Maximus and others, the volume 
 referred to draws for its material is too important a creator 
 of Roman literature not to be represented more liberally 
 than in the fragmentary way of excerpts such as could find 
 room in a beginning-book in Latin. 
 
 Cornelius Nepos, (about 50 B. C.,) again, is a simple, vir- 
 tuously-disposed biographer, who has been widely used to 
 give learners their start in construing Latin. This, notwith- 
 standing that, judged by the standard of Cicero, Nepos vio- 
 lates sometimes the purest and best Latinity. Conscientious 
 editors get along with that objection by duly warning the 
 endangered tyro (absurdly safe already he, from all literary 
 infection whatsoever, bad and good alike !) against his au- 
 thor's slips in style. Nepos, however, unlike Livy, might be 
 fairly enough presented piecemeal, both because that is the 
 only state in which he at present exists for us, and because 
 his rank in letters is very humble. But as to Nepos, good, 
 kind, insipid Nepos, it is doubtful whether he is really good 
 enough to merit being presented at all to our friends, even in 
 our Englished Latin Reader. 
 
 Let us begin with a story exceedingly well invented, if not 
 true. Perhaps the story might be described as founded on
 
 The Latin Reader. 67 
 
 fact. The incidents, taken together, are a little too entirely 
 satisfactory to have happened just so in every circumstance. 
 But here is the story as the Latin Reader gives it. Our 
 readers need only be reminded that Actium was one of the 
 great decisive battles of the world, and that it was fought 
 between Augustus Ceesar and Mark Antony, with event in 
 favor of Caesar. We translate, a little awkwardly perhaps, 
 with pretty close literalness : 
 
 When, the victory at Actium having been won. Augustus was making 
 his entry into Rome, there met him, in the number of those who were 
 offering their congratulations, a certain artisan, with a raven which he 
 had taught to say, " Long live Caesar, victor, emperor ! " Caesar, struck 
 with admiration of so courteous a bird, bought it for twenty thousand 
 sesterces, [nearly a thousand dollars.] A partner of the artisan, whom 
 no share of the imperial liberality had reached, assured Caesar that he 
 had a different raven, which, accordingly, he directed should be brought. 
 The raven being brought uttered the words which he had taught it, 
 " Long live the victor, the emperor, Antony ! " In no degree offended 
 at this, Augustus deemed it sufficient to direct that the teacher of the 
 ravens share the reward received with his companion. 
 
 Similarly saluted by a parrot, he ordered that to be bought. Admir- 
 ing the same thing in a magpie, he purchased that also. 
 
 The example incited a poor shoemaker to train a raven to a like salu- 
 tation ; but as it did not make very good proficiency, he fell into the way 
 of saying frequently to the bird not replying, " It is labor and outlay 
 lost." At length, however, the raven came to say the salutation taught. 
 Hearing this as he passed, Augustus responded, " I have a sufficient 
 number of such saluters at my house." Thereupon the raven added 
 those words in which he was accustomed to hear his master complaining, 
 "It is labor and outlay lost." At this Caesar laughed, and directed to 
 have the bird bought at the highest price of all." 
 
 Here is that fine story, now worn threadbare, of the Ro- 
 man matron, Cornelia : 
 
 Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, when a Campanian lady, guest at her 
 house, was displaying to her her jewels, very beautiful ones, kept the 
 conversation on that subject in progress till her sons returned from school. 
 " And these," then she said, " are my jewels."
 
 68 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 There is no story like the foregoing told of a Greek moth- 
 er. The nearest approach to it-rand the interval of differ- 
 ence is long would perhaps be the narrative of some inci- 
 dent, such as our readers will remember from the Prepara- 
 tory Greek Course in English, of a Spartan mother's brave 
 cheer to her boy, it may be, bound to battle, or, it may be, 
 come out of battle lame with glorious wound. The truth 
 is, the Greeks had not so much domestic life, and not so 
 much virtue of kindred affection, as had the Romans. 
 The wife, the mother, the woman, was more at Rome than 
 in Greece. This, in the earlier and purer period of Roman 
 history, the period, that is to say, before conquered Greece, 
 herself grown degenerate no\v, had begun to corrupt her 
 conqueror. 
 
 By the way, simply interpreting the sons backward by such 
 a mother as the Cornelia of this anecdote, shall we not, with 
 some confidence, hold the Gracchi to have been rather pa- 
 triots than demagogues? Demagogues should have a differ- 
 ent mother from the mother of the Gracchi. 
 
 There is a touching story of the early Christian Church, 
 which associates itself naturally with the foregoing legend 
 of Roman Cornelia. After the Christian bishop, Sixtus, had 
 suffered martyrdom, his deacon was ordered to produce the 
 treasures of the Church for surrender to the civil authorities. 
 The deacon assembled the poor whom the Church nourished, 
 and, exhibiting them to the prefect, said to him, " Here are 
 the Church's treasures! " Pagan Cornelia had, perhaps, fur- 
 nished to the Christian deacon the model of his unanswer- 
 able reply. 
 
 We did not, our readers will bear us witness, spare the 
 Roman character in our sketch of the Roman history. Now 
 let our readers again bear us witness that we are even more 
 than fair in giving the Roman character its chance to redeem 
 itself to them, in noble anecdote and instance. Is not the 
 following a wholesome example of sturdy virtue?
 
 The Latin Reader. 69 
 
 Publius Rutilius Rufus, standing out against the unjust importunity 
 of a certain friend of his, and by him very indignantly upbraided with, 
 "Of what use, then, to me is your friendship, if you do not do what 
 I ask?" said, "IN" ay, of what use to me yours, if, on your account, I 
 
 act unjustly ? " 
 
 Rutilius was an incorruptible Roman aristocrat; and as 
 for the nameless gentleman in the case, we' know nothing 
 whatever to his advantage, except that he was friend to 
 Rutilius. 
 
 Augustus Caesar was a highly religious politician; that is, 
 he greatly believed in religion for people in general. He 
 patronized religion, as he patronized literature, for the benefit 
 of the state. Of the state, we say, but the state was a syno- 
 nym for himself; for you must remember that Augustus was 
 the first Roman fairly entitled to have stolen from Louis XIV., 
 of France, his famous words, " The state, it is I myself." 
 Perhaps the following not very warmly spiced anecdote of 
 great Scipio Africanus was put first into useful popular cir- 
 culation at the provident hint of astute Augustus. It rends 
 so like an intended good example. It is less piquant, but it 
 almost reminds you, in its obvious'moral aim, of that national 
 anecdote of our own about good little George Washington and 
 his hatchet. Convert it, and baptize it into Christianity, and 
 it still will do in part to live by: 
 
 Scipio Africanus would never engage in public business until he had 
 offered prayer in the temple of Jupiter. For this reason he was accus- 
 tomed to resort to the Capitol before daylight. 
 
 By the Capitol, here, you are to understand the magnificent 
 temple of Jupiter situated in Rome, on the Tarpeian mount, 
 otherwise called Capitoline Hill. The pious Roman Cath- 
 olic priest-painter of the Middle Ages, Fra Angelico, always 
 prayed before he painted. The saintly quality of his pictures 
 corresponds. To Scipio's habit of devotion, that Roman's 
 public conduct might have strictly corresponded, and yet
 
 yo Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 have been decidedly rather Roman than moral. Jupiter be- 
 longed to an Olympus of 
 
 Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, 
 Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust 
 
 a couplet, by the way, well deserving to have place, as it has 
 not, in the repertories of familiar poetical quotation. It be- 
 longs to Pope, occurring in his Essay on Man. 
 
 Metellus Pius (of the same great Roman family, in a later 
 generation of it, with the Quintus Metellus to be spoken of 
 presently, when Sallust is taken up) emulated the Spartan 
 frugality and density of expression : 
 
 While he was carrying on war in Spain, being asked what he was 
 going to do the next day, replied, " My tunic, if that were able to tell, 
 I should burn." 
 
 The inquiring friend in the case, if he was at all bright, 
 must have gathered from this that Metellus did not think 
 it good generalship to divulge, on any chance challenge, his 
 military plans. 
 
 Then there is that fine humanity of the Emperor Titus. 
 Here is the way in which it is affectionately told : 
 
 Titus was called the love and the delight of human kind. Recalling 
 once at supper that he had rendered no service to any one during the 
 entire day, he uttered that memorable and justly-lauded expression, 
 " My friends, I have lost a day ! " 
 
 How almost Christian-like it seems ! What a pity that 
 we have to comment it by the acts of Titus's life ! Such a 
 sentiment, on the lips of the imperial author, must receive 
 from you an interpretation not exactly Christian according 
 to the Christianity of one of Titus's contemporaries, the 
 apostle Paul when you remember that it was Titus who 
 destroyed Jerusalem, and massacred its millions of inhabit- 
 ants, men, women, and children together that it was Titus
 
 The Latin Reader. 7 1 
 
 who, to dedicate the Colosseum, (finished by him,) and, in 
 connection with that, his magnificent baths, gave gladiatorial 
 shows lasting a hundred days, in the course of which, it is 
 mentioned, besides the uncounted human beings that slew 
 and. were slain, five thousand wild beasts were set fighting in 
 the arena on a single occasion. Every day of those hun- 
 dred, Titus had done a highly valued favor to a great many 
 people. Not less than eighty thousand spectators daily wit- 
 nessed his bloody exhibitions. Not on any evening of this 
 crowded interval, at least, could it have been, that the gentle 
 emperor heaved his sentimental sigh over having lost a day! 
 Still, it was a fine sentiment, and really Titus was, as Roman 
 emperors went, a very humane gentleman. The standards 
 by which men judge, nay, the very spirit itself within men 
 that judges, have changed since Titus. There have suc- 
 ceeded nineteen centuries of Christianity. 
 
 Cicero was a famous wit, as well as a famous orator. But 
 w T it has to be of a most inextinguishable quality to bear trans- 
 lation from one language to another, especially, perhaps, to 
 bear translation from one civilization, or mode of life and 
 thought, to another. Try here a specimen of Cicero's mem- 
 orable witticisms : 
 
 To Dolabella, remarking that he [Dolabella] was thirty years of age, 
 Cicero said, " True, for I have been hearing that now these twenty 
 years past." 
 
 There is another version of this anecdote. That other 
 version leaves Dolabella quite out of the case, and for him 
 substitutes a lady, though it gallantly omits to mention the 
 lady's name. Anecdotes in those times, like anecdotes in 
 these times, seem to have had a trick of getting themselves 
 foisted upon various persons, and fitted to different occasions, 
 according to the chance, or the whim, or the purpose, of the 
 narrator. 
 
 On Cicero's jest, as the jest was given according to the
 
 7? Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 first version of the story, our readers are entitled to have 
 what light may be thrown by the fact that Dolabella was a 
 celebrated profligate, who became Cicero's son-in-law. Per- 
 haps the fellow had long been a well-known man about town 
 who now, as suitor to Cicero's daughter, was, for the twen- 
 tieth time, playing himself off for much younger than he was. 
 Our readers will probably agree that it is, in this case, the 
 fame of the joker which makes the fame of the joke. They 
 will also not fail to observe that what point the saying pos- 
 sesses, lies in the sarcasm of it. The Roman genius, of itself, 
 knew how to be sarcastic. Not even Greek tuition could 
 teach it how to be innocently and archly playful. 
 
 Here, however, are some pleasantries of Cicero's that come 
 pretty near that mark : 
 
 When he had seen Lcntulus, his son, a person of slight stature, girded 
 with a long sword, "Who," said he, "has been hitching my son to a 
 
 sword ? " 
 
 Once more : 
 
 Crcsar his colleague in the consulship having died on the last day 
 of December had, at the seventh hour, announced Caninius as consul 
 for the rest of the day. As, according to custom, a number of persons 
 were going to salute him, "Let us hasten," said Cicero, "before he gets 
 out of his magistracy." Concerning the same Caninius, Cicero wrote, 
 "A man of wonderful vigilance was Caninius, for during the whole of 
 his consulship, he never saw sleep." 
 
 Now take the following word of the Emperor Tiberius: 
 
 Tiberius, to ambassadors from Troas tendering him, a little tardily, 
 condolences on the death of his son Drusus, mockingly responded that 
 he also commiserated them in turn on the loss of their illustrious fellow- 
 citizen, Hector. 
 
 One almost detects in this turn of Tiberius the unconscious 
 original of that recent American humor about dropping a tear 
 at the grave of Adam. But it was not pleasantry however 
 ill-timed, unfatherly, and unimperial it was sarcasm, wet with
 
 The Latin Reader. 73 
 
 gall, that flavored the reply of gloomy Emperor Tiberius. His 
 son Drusus had been poisoned by the emperor's favorite and 
 familiar, Se-ja'nus. Was it the earlier and better Tiberius 
 let. us trust so that spoke sincerely in the following ? 
 
 Tiberius, to some provincial governors, urging that their provinces 
 should be loaded down with taxes, wrote back, " It is the part of a good 
 shepherd to shear his flock, not to skin them." 
 
 Let the specimens thus already presented of the anecdotal 
 store contained in the average Latin Reader suffice our pres- 
 ent purpose. There is usually included, as we have said, a 
 collection of mythological fragments. The Roman genius, 
 as it was in nothing else more original, so in nothing else was 
 it more fruitful, than in the production of myths and legends 
 connected with the national history. Livy, however, whom 
 we shall treat in the next Latin volume of this series, deals 
 so fully in the national Roman myths, that we may wait to 
 reach him before entering upon the topic thus suggested, 
 further than to make place for the legend of Romulus and 
 Remus : 
 
 The vestal virgin Rhea had twin sons, Romulus and Remus, by Mars 
 [the god of war.] Now when A-mu'li-us [the king] learned this, he threw 
 the mother into chains, while the boys he ordered to be cast into the 
 Tiber. It happened that the water of the Tiber had overflowed its 
 bank, and, as the lads had been deposited in a shallow place, the water 
 subsiding left them on dry land. To their crying a she-wolf came, and 
 nursed them from her dugs. Which seeing, one Faus'tu-lus, a shepherd 
 of that part, took up the boys, and gave them to his wife, Acca Lau-ren'tia, 
 to be nourished. 
 
 There still exists in Rome a bronze statue of the she-wolf 
 that suckled the legendary twins. This statue Byron apos- 
 trophizes in the fourth canto of the" Childe Harold," with an 
 allusion to the fact that it was once struck by lightning : 
 And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! 
 
 Pictures are not uncommon of this famous antique statue. 
 For these legends, Livy, as we have hinted, is our chief 
 4
 
 74 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 authority. He, however, reports them, not as if he believed 
 them himself, and not as if he expected to get them believed 
 by others, but as if he would go back in his history to the 
 farthest point to which even the wildest stories in the mouths 
 of the people could carry him. In whatever way this myth 
 of Romulus and Remus was originally made up, there is a 
 singular poetic fitness in it to the character and career of the 
 great warlike and savage nation of which Romulus was the 
 legendary founder. This poetic fitness is still further seen 
 in the rest of the myth : 
 
 Thus Romulus and Remus passed their boyhood among shepherds. 
 When they had grown to age, and by chance had learned who had 
 been their grandfather and who their mother, they slew Amulius, 
 and restored the kingdom to their grandfather Nu'mi-tor. They then 
 built on Mount Aventine a city which Romulus, from his own name, 
 called Rome. While this was being surrounded with walls, Remus was 
 killed in the act of mocking his brother by leaping over the walls. 
 
 It is certainly the fact, that during the earliest, most vigor- 
 ous, most virtuous, and generally best, period of Roman his- 
 tory, the nation was composed of farmers, who now tilled 
 their own land, and now fought their own battles. The boy- 
 hood of the nation was, like the boyhood of its founder, 
 passed in rustic simplicity. 
 
 Romulus, that he might increase the number of citizens, opened a 
 kind of asylum, to which many, driven from their own states, made their 
 resort. But to the citizens of the new city there were wanting wives. 
 He accordingly instituted a festival of Neptune, together with games. 
 When to these many out of the neighboring peoples had come, with 
 women and children, the Romans in the midst of the games violentl/ 
 bore oft the virgins who were witnessing the spectacles. . . . 
 
 After the death of Romulus, there was a year's interregnum. At the 
 end of this time, Nu-'ma Pom-pil'i-us, born in Cu'res, a city in the ter- 
 ritory of the Sabines, was made king. This great man waged, indeed, 
 no war, but he was not for that less useful to the state. For he both 
 gave laws and instituted many religious rites which tended to soften the 
 manners of a savage and warlike people. All, however, that he did he
 
 The Latin Reader. 75 
 
 used to assert that he did at the instance of the nymph E-ge'ri-a, his 
 spouse. He died of disease in the forty-fourth year of his reign. 
 
 The story of the nymph Egeria has the element of beauty 
 and poetry in it. Byron has touched it in his " Childe Harold " 
 with some true imaginative feeling and with admirable art : 
 
 Egeria ! sweet creation of some heart 
 Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
 As thine ideal breast ; whate'er thou art 
 Or wert a young Aurora of the air. 
 The nympholepsy of some fond despair ; 
 Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, 
 Who found a more than common votaiy there 
 Too much adoring ; whatsoe'er thy birth, 
 Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. 
 
 Let those of our readers who love poetry turn to the pas- 
 sage in the poem. It there runs on through several stanzas. 
 It is finally modulated into one of the most magnificent 
 bursts of the Byronic impiety to be found in the whole range 
 of the Byronic poetry. Happily and unhappily, this poetic 
 impiety in Byron is never anywhere more than half-hearted 
 unhappily, for the quality of the poetry inspired ; happily, 
 for the measure of malign influence exerted. To be either 
 highest in literary merit, or highest in power of impression, 
 literature needs to be intensely real and genuine. Poor 
 Byron ! let it always, in mercy to his fame, be remembered 
 that he died at thirty-six too early for the period of " life 
 outliving heats of youth." 
 
 Did we almost promise to stop with the one myth of 
 Romulus and Remus ? Well, we did not quite promise, you 
 know; and how could you, on your part, have spared the 
 legend of Egeria, and how could we, on ours, deny ourselves 
 the pleasure of giving you that little garnish of poetry about 
 the nymph to grace our page withal ? 
 
 Among the late changes in fashion introduced by classical 
 teachers is the revived plan of making up Latin Readers
 
 "j6 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 that consist exclusively of selections credited to standard 
 Latin authors. As we write here, we have before us two 
 such collections, one edited by Professor Harkness, under 
 the title, "Course in Caesar, Sallust, and Cicero," the other 
 edited by Professor W. F. Allen, under the title, "Latin 
 Reader." These are both of them admirable compilations. 
 Both are furnished with explanatory notes and with vocabu- 
 laries. Professor Harkness's book has in addition a number 
 of interesting illustrations. Professor Allen's volume repre- 
 sents eleven Latin authors, against four represented in the 
 larger volume of Professor Harkness. The extracts are of 
 course correspondingly shorter in the smaller volume. 
 
 We avail ourselves of the justification offered by compila- 
 tions such as these, to include in the present chapter some 
 notice, accompanied with some exemplification, of two Latin 
 authors for whom otherwise we should find no room in the 
 volumes of this series, and who are too important and too 
 entertaining not to be brought to the knowledge of our read- 
 ers. We refer to Sallust and Ovid. These writers are 
 sometimes wholly omitted in the course of Latin literature 
 accomplished by the college graduate. Sometimes, again, 
 they replace two other writers that are more commonly 
 studied Sallust, in such cases, being made a substitute for 
 Cassar, and Ovid for Virgil. 
 
 We bid our readers, then, observe that in thus adding 
 Sallust and Ovid to our list of Roman authors here repre- 
 sented, we make our preparatory Latin course in English 
 wider and more varied than, in the case of most college 
 graduates, was their preparatory Latin course pursued in the 
 original language. Ordinarily, as we have hinted, Sallust 
 and Ovid are made alternative to Caesar and Virgil. We 
 include here all four authors. 
 
 (Readers desiring to know as explicitly as possible what 
 tests are actually applied in examining candidates for matric- 
 ulation at college may satisfy their curiosity by consulting
 
 The Latin Reader. 77 
 
 one or the other of two little volumes published by Ginn, 
 Heath, & Co., under the titles, respectively, of " Yale Exami- 
 nation Papers " and " Harvard Examination Papers." In 
 these are reprinted the papers really used in recent years 
 for entrance examinations at the two institutions named. Of 
 course changes are made in the examination papers from 
 year to year.) 
 
 SALLUST. 
 
 Sallust wrote three historical works, the " Conspiracy of Cat- 
 iline," the " Jugurthine War," and a " History of Rome from 
 the Death of Sulla [Sylla] to the Mithridatic War." This last, 
 the most important of the three, has, with the exception of a 
 few fragments, perished. The other two, historical mono- 
 graphs or even politico-historical pamphlets, we might al- 
 most call them rather than histories, remain to us entire. 
 If we should give our readers the " Conspiracy of Catiline," 
 that would be anticipating in great part what they will find 
 narrated in the specimens of Cicero's oratory to be furnished 
 in this volume. We decide, therefore, to let Sallust appear 
 in his "Jugurthine War." This will bring the celebrated 
 Caius Marius before us, as delineated by one of the great an- 
 cient masters of historical composition. And Jugurtha him- 
 self is a striking and commanding figure, set in temporary 
 lurid relief against the threatened, but finally victorious, 
 greatness of Rome. 
 
 Caius, or to adopt the latest vogue in Latin scholarship, 
 Gains, or Gajus Sallustius Crispus, more familiar as simply 
 Sallust, the historian, was born 86 B. C. We know little of 
 the beginning of his life. He became senator early enough 
 to be, ostensibly for his profligate manners, expelled from 
 the senate when he was thirty-six years old. He got his 
 seat again three years afterward. He was lucky enough to 
 choose his side with Caesar in the civil war, and for this was 
 made governor of Numidia. His Numidian experience, per- 
 haps, qualified him the better to treat the subject of his
 
 78 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 " Jugurthine War." It at least gave him the opportunity to 
 amass immense riches, with which to retire from public life 
 and devote himself to literature. He died, however, at the 
 comparatively early age of fifty-two. The residence he 
 occupied in Rome was in the midst of grounds laid out and 
 beautified by him with the most lavish magnificence. These 
 grounds became subsequently the chosen resort of the 
 Roman emperors. They still bear the name of the Gardens 
 of Sallust. Sallust moralized with much virtue in his histo- 
 ries, but his actual life was said to be deformed with nearly 
 every vice and excess. 
 
 The " Jugurthine War " is commenced with a sort of moral 
 essay, or homily, not having the least particular relation to 
 the subject about to be treated. Our readers must see in 
 specimen this absurdly placed bit of didactics. It will throw 
 for them a light of illustration on the character of the man 
 who could with grave face inappropriately obtrude in a 
 history a preface of sentiments so violently out of accord 
 with his own notorious practice. We use the translation, a 
 very good one, printed in Bonn's Classical Library: 
 
 Mankind unreasonably complain of their nature, that, being weak 
 and short-lived, it is governed by chance rather than intellectual power ; 
 for, on the contrary, you will find, upon reflection, that there is nothing 
 more noble or excellent, and that to nature is wanting rather human 
 industry than ability or time. . . . 
 
 The depravity of those, therefore, is the more surprising, who, devoted 
 to corporeal gratifications, spend their lives in luxury and indolence, but 
 suffer the mind, than which nothing is better or greater in man, to lan- 
 guish in neglect and inactivity ; especially when there are so many and 
 various mental employments by which the highest renown may be 
 attained. 
 
 There, that will do, surely. The disease of unreality which, 
 with the extinguishment of liberty under the emperors, 
 was so soon to attack Roman literature and make it com- 
 paratively worthless, had already, in such writing as this of 
 Sallust's, begun to exhibit its premonitory symptoms. Sallust
 
 The Latiu Reader. 79 
 
 is tolerably genuine when he stops moralizing and com- 
 mences narrating. Still, he is to be classed with the romantic, 
 rather than the realistic, with the rhetorical, rather than 
 the philosophical, historians. Our readers, when they come 
 to study Caesar's writings, will feel the marked difference of 
 tone between the two. 
 Sallust: 
 
 I am about to relate the war which the Roman people carried on with 
 Jugurtha, King of the Numidians : first, because it was great, sanguina y, 
 and of varied fortune; and secondly, because then, for the first time, 
 opposition was offered to the power of the nobility ; a contest which 
 threw every thing, religious and civil, into confusion, and was carried to 
 such a height of madness, that nothing but war, and the devastation of 
 Italy, could put an end to civil dissensions. But before I fairly com- 
 mence my narrative, I will take a review of a few preceding particulars, 
 in order that the whole subject may be more clearly and distinctly un- 
 derstood. 
 
 Sallust's preliminary historical review recounts how, dur- 
 ing the second Punic war, (of course before Jugurtha's time,) 
 the king of the Numidians had rendered invaluable aid to 
 the Romans, and been by them rewarded with important 
 accessions to his kingdom. The kingdom of Numidia re- 
 mained a faithful ally to Rome throughout that reign. The 
 succeeding king, Mi-cip'sa, had two sons, and an orphan 
 nephew whom he brought up with his two sons, in the same 
 nurture. This nephew was Jugurtha. Sallust portrays the 
 youthful person and character of Jugurtha in a few bold 
 strokes, as follows : 
 
 Jugurtha, as he grew up, being strong in frame, graceful in person, 
 but, above all, vigorous in understanding, did not allo\v himseif to be 
 enervated by pleasure and indolence, but, as is the usage of his country, 
 exercised himself in riding, throwing the javelin, and contending in the 
 race with his equals in age ; and, though he excelled them all in reputa- 
 tion, he was yet beloved by all. He also passed much of his time in 
 hunting ; he was first, or among the first, to wound the lion and other 
 beasts ; he performed very much, but spoke very little of himself.
 
 8o Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Jugurtha was quite too promising a young fellow to leave 
 his patronizing uncle, the king, at ease in his own mind. 
 Micipsa formed a sinister plan to make away with so dan- 
 gerous a competitor for succession to the crown. This plan 
 Sallust sketches in the following words : 
 
 He resolved, as Jugurtha was of an active disposition and eager for 
 military reputation, to expose him to ciangers in the field, and thus make 
 trial of fortune. During the Numantine war, therefore, when he was 
 sending supplies of horse and foot to the Romans, he gave him the com- 
 mand of the Numidians whom he despatched into Spain, hoping that he 
 would certainly perish, either by an ostentatious display of his bravery, 
 or by the merciless hand of the enemy. 
 
 The result was sadly disappointing. Jugurtha not merely 
 survived his dangers, but he made himself famous. The 
 king, with great good sense, adjusted himself to circum- 
 stances which he could not control, and adopted the youth 
 as his son. 
 
 A few years after, the aged Micipsa, about to die, makes 
 a death-bed address, full of affectionate wisdom, to his sons 
 and his nephew. Sallust reproduces it for us at length, 
 much as if there had been a short-hand reporter present to 
 take down word after word falling from the old man's lips. 
 This is Sallust's fashion in historical composition. He herein 
 imitates his master Thucydides. Our readers shall, in due 
 time, have a specimen of the speeches that Sallust constructs 
 for the persons of his drama. But we will skip the dying 
 Micipsa's farewell address, in favor of an harangue, to come 
 later, from no less a character than Caius Manus himself. 
 
 To his uncle's exhortations, Jugurtha, all the while secretly 
 feeling that they were insincerely spoken, schools himself to 
 make a dutiful reply. In a few days, Micipsa dies. The 
 real state of feeling among the king's three heirs was prompt 
 in declaring itself. They quarreled, and Jugurtha got his 
 kinsman, Hi-emp'sal, treacherously killed. 
 
 The surviving brother, Ad-her'bal, defeated in a battle joined
 
 The Latin Reader. Si 
 
 by him with Jugurtha in defense of his right, fled a suppliant 
 to Rome. Sallust gives us the really eloquent and pathetic, 
 if rather elaborate, speech in which he pleaded before the 
 Roman senate. But Jugurtha pleaded with money, instead 
 of with eloquence and pathos, and the Roman senate ad- 
 judged Jugurtha the better orator of the two. It is a shame- 
 ful story, as Sallust, probably with substantial truth, relates it. 
 Sallust, to be sure, writes as a thorough-going partisan of 
 Cagsar, by espousing whose cause he had come to the enjoy- 
 ment of his present enormous ill-gotten wealth. Now Cassar 
 was one party, and the Roman senate another. Whatever, 
 therefore, tended to exhibit the unworthiness of the senate 
 tended, so far, to justify Coesar's usurpation of power. But 
 the senate was, it must, no doubt, be confessed, an oligarchy 
 grown, already in Jugurtha's time, incredibly corrupt. Sub- 
 sequently somewhat revived in virtue, it suffered however a 
 relapse worse than the original disease. Caesar, unquestion- 
 ably, foud a senate invested with no moral right, subsist- 
 ing in the character of its members, to administer the gov- 
 ernment of the world. 
 
 There follows now, in Sallust's text, a little digression on 
 the geography of Africa in general, which it will do for us 
 wholly to omit. It is not usual to see editions of Sallust's 
 "Jugurthine War" illustrated with a map of the regions con- 
 cerned. In truth, there is some degree of geographical, as 
 well as chronological, vagueness in Sallust's history a trait 
 which may not unfairly be taken to mark the less strictly 
 verifiable historical character of the work, in comparison 
 with Caesar's Commentaries, for instance. 
 
 The kingdom of Numidia was, by interference from Rome, 
 divided between the two claimants, Jugurtha getting the lion's 
 share. Jugurtha was now convinced that he could buy 
 whatever he wanted at Rome. He proceeded, accordingly, 
 with a high hand, to encroach on the rights of his brother 
 Adherbal. The two fought, and Adherbal was worsted. 
 4*
 
 82 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Jugurtha has no difficulty in ridding himself of three young 
 Romans sent to him and to Adherbal, as ambassadors from 
 the mistress of nations, to enjoin concord between the two 
 contending kinsmen. These outwitted deputies get no 
 chance whatever at the ear of Adherbal. Jugurtha professes 
 profound respect for the authority of the Roman senate, 
 promises to send soon to Rome an embassy who shall ex- 
 plain his conduct satisfactorily, and so speeds the youthful 
 diplomatists home, carrying with them barren fair words 
 from the wily usurper, as the sole fruit of their mission to 
 Africa. These ambassadors were no sooner well out of the 
 country, than Jugurtha besieged Adherbal in Cirta with the 
 utmost energy. Adherbal found means to send by messen- 
 gers an urgent appeal to Rome, which, however, Jugurtha's 
 partisans in the city took care should bring about no more 
 serious result than the dispatch of a fresh embassy to Africa. 
 
 This time it is a deputation extremely reverend by age, by 
 birth, by political influence, in the persons composing it. 
 Arrived at Utica, (the African town subsequently to be made 
 so memorable by the tragic suicide of Cato, refusing to sur- 
 vive the republic,) these men of dignity summon Jugurtha 
 by letter to meet them there. Instead of promptly obeying 
 this august behest, Jugurtha redoubled his efforts to capture 
 Cirta. Not succeeding, he took counsel of his prudence, 
 and, though without raising the siege, went tardily to meet 
 the Roman ambassadors. These upbraided his contumacy, 
 threatened him gravely in the name of the senate, but retired 
 without finally getting Jugurtha to yield. In this state of 
 things Adherbal, overpowered by the persuasions of others, 
 made a reluctant surrender to Jugurtha. Jugurtha put Ad- 
 herbal to death with torture, and massacred indiscriminately 
 all the grown-up inhabitants of the town. 
 
 This audacious proceeding on Jugurtha's part raised a 
 storm of indignation at Rome, which, however, under the 
 pacifying influence of the Numidian conqueror's money,
 
 77ie La fin Reader. 83 
 
 seemed likely to be laid, till, as Sallust represents it, an elo- 
 quent and energetic tribune of the people, rousing the public 
 to perceive the perfidious venality of the senate, compelled 
 that body to move in a serious demonstration against the 
 designs of Jugurtha. Cal pur'ni-us, one of the consuls next 
 elected, was sent with an army into Africa. With him went 
 Scaurus, described as an astute, but corrupt, politician of 
 great influence at Rome. 
 
 Calpurnius made a spirited beginning of war, but Jugurtha 
 met him with weapons of silver and gold that Calpurnius 
 could not resist. Scaurus, too, was bought with a great sum 
 of money. The issue was that, Jugurtha having been per- 
 mitted to make a merely nominal surrender, the consul went 
 back to Rome and left Numidia at peace. 
 
 But that same tribune of the people, Caius Memmius by 
 name, again excited the people to withstand the shameful 
 corruption of the senate and nobles. Sallust takes occasion 
 to supply in full one of this enterprising orator's popular 
 harangues. It is, of course, Sallust in form and in spirit, 
 though it may in substance be Memmius. It is only fair, 
 however, to the historian to say that he here, as usual, gives 
 his reader the hint not to expect from him word-for-word 
 icporting. He introduces the speech of Memmius, not as 
 " the following speech," but as " a speech of the following 
 kind." 
 
 The eloquence of Memmius had its effect. Lucius Cas- 
 sius, a man of stainless fame for probity, was sent to bring 
 Jugurtha, under pledge of the public faith for his safety, to 
 Rome. The thing aimed at was to get Jugurtha's testimony 
 for the conviction of those Scaurus and the rest who had 
 been guilty of taking bribes. Sallust himself again : 
 
 Jugurtha, accordingly, accompanied Cassius to Rome, but without any 
 mark of royalty, and in the garb, as much as possible, of a suppliant; and, 
 though he felt great confidence on his own part, and was supported by 
 all those through whose power or villainy he had accomplished his
 
 84 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 projects, he purchased, by a vast bribe, the aid of Caius Bse'bi-us, a trib- 
 une of the people, by whose audacity he hoped to be protected against 
 the law, and against all harm. 
 
 Advised by Baebius, Jugurtha faced the angry assembly 
 of the Roman people, and triumphantly refused to testify 
 against those who had been bribed by him. 
 
 There was at this time in Rome a Numidian refugee, of 
 blood nearly enough royal to give him some color of claim to 
 the throne' of the kingdom. Mas-si'va was his name, and 
 this Massiva was by one of the consuls for that year pur- 
 suaded to petition the senate for the Numidian crown. Al- 
 bi'nus, the instigating consul, was a restless spirit who wished 
 to enjoy the chance of distinguishing himself in a war. 
 
 The result was fatal to the Numidian aspirant. Resource- 
 ful and unscrupulous Jugurtha procured his assassination. 
 Soon after, having first sent off the assassin in safety, not- 
 withstanding that he had given fifty of his own friends in 
 bail for that criminal's appearance, he withdrew himself from 
 Rome, saying as he looked back at the place, " A venal city, 
 could it but find a purchaser!" What became of Jugur- 
 tha's fifty sureties for his friend the assassin, Sallust does 
 not inform us ! 
 
 The war was renewed, but Jugurtha avoided decisive en- 
 gagements, and, full of shifts, protracted the campaign until 
 people began to say, "Albinus, too, is a traitor." Faith in 
 public virtue was almost extinct. 
 
 Albinus finally went home, leaving his brother Aulus to 
 act in his place. Aulus was seized with the desire to do a 
 conspicuous stroke of business. In midwinter, he went to 
 the town in which Jugurtha's treasures were deposited, and 
 absurdly attempted to take it by siege. Jugurtha, playing 
 with this Roman's vanity and weakness, soon had him com- 
 pletely in his power. The end was that a Roman army was 
 reduced to the disgrace of passing under the yoke. The 
 condition of their being permitted to escape alive and free,
 
 The Latin Reader. 8s 
 
 was that they should quit Numidia within ten days. On 
 such hard terms, they were admitted to treaty with the con- 
 queror. 
 
 Now is illustrated the unscrupulous policy of Rome. 
 Albinus consulted the senate on the subject of the treaty. 
 The senate (" as was just," Sallust calmly remarks) decreed 
 that " no treaty could be made without their own consent 
 and that of the people." In other words, apparently, Rome 
 accepted the advantage and repudiated the price at which 
 the advantage was bought. 
 
 Sallust at this point enters into a striking and instructive 
 exposition of the state of parties at Rome. This we must 
 leave, and leap forward to the story of the campaign against 
 Jugurtha conducted by Metellus. Metellus was, according 
 to Sallust, a man of talent and character. He restored the 
 discipline of the Roman army, and made such head against 
 Jugurtha that this prince was fain, or at least feigned to be 
 fain, to make a surrender. But the Roman was now willing 
 to try a match in duplicity with the Numidian. Let Sallust 
 himself report a few moves in this extraordinary game at 
 mutual deceit a game, we are bound to say, in which all the 
 really unquestionable deceit is on the Roman's side : 
 
 Jugurtha sent deputies to the consul with proposals of submission, 
 stipulating only for his own life and that of his children, and offering to 
 surrender every thing else to the Romans. But Metellus had already 
 learned by experience that the Numidians were a faithless race, of un- 
 settled disposition, and fond of change; and he accordingly applied 
 himself to each of the deputies separately, and after gradually sounding 
 them, and finding them proper instruments for his purpose, prevailed 
 on them, by large promises, to deliver Jugurtha into his hands ; bring- 
 ing him alive, if they could, or dead, if to take him alive should be im- 
 practicable. In public, however, he directed that such an answer 
 should be given to the king as would be agreeable to his wishes. 
 
 A few days afterward, he led the army, which was now vigorous 
 and resolute, into Numidia, where, instead of any appearance of war, 
 he found the cottages full of people, and the cattle and laborers in the 
 fields, while the officers of Jugurtha came from the towns and villages to
 
 86 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 meet him, offering to supply him with corn, to convey provisions for 
 him, and to do whatever might be required of them. Metellus, not- 
 withstanding, made no diminution in the caution with which he marched, 
 but kept as much on the defensive as if an enemy had been at hand ; 
 and he dispatched scouts to explore the country, thinking that these signs 
 of submission were but pretense, and that the Numidians were watching 
 an opportunity for treachery. . . . Such was the subtlety of Jugurtha, and 
 such his knowledge of the country and the art of war, that it was doubt- 
 ful whether he was more formidable absent or present, offering peace or 
 threatening hostilities. . . . 
 
 In the midst of these proceedings, Jugurtha, with extraordinary ear- 
 nestness, sent deputies to sue for peace, offering to resign every thing to 
 Metellus, except his own life and that of his children. These, like the 
 former, the consul first seduced to treachery, and then sent back ; the 
 peace which Jugurtha asked, he neither granted nor refused, but waited, 
 during these delays, the performance of the deputies' promises. 
 
 Tugurtha, on comparing the words of Metellus with his actions, per- 
 ceived that he was assailed with his own artifices ; for though peace was 
 offered him in words, a most vigorous war was in reality pursued against 
 him ; one of his strongest cities was wrested from him ; his country was 
 explored by the enemy, and the affections of his subjects alienated. Be- 
 ing compelled, therefore, by the necessity of circumstances, he resolved 
 to try the fortune of a battle. 
 
 The incidents of the battle finally joined between the two 
 armies, and of the siege that followed, of the town of Zama, 
 are highly interesting. It is a pity that the limits of our 
 space forbid our giving them at large in Sallust's own words. 
 The fortune of war wavers in exciting vicissitudes, but on 
 the whole inclines in favor of the Romans. The fame of 
 Metellus rises high at Rome. Caius Marius, as a lieutenant 
 of the general, becomes a conspicuous figure in the story. 
 He will presently as consul succeed to the chief command 
 against Jugurtha. 
 
 The siege of Zama, Metellus had to raise. The period of 
 military inaction enforced by the winter season, this Roman 
 general (praised, though a senatorial aristocrat, by Sallust, 
 as being a man of honor) "did not," so the rigid historian, 
 mindful of his moral, remarks, " like other commanders,
 
 The Latin Reader. 87 
 
 abandon to idleness and luxury." But the account of high- 
 minded Metellus's winter activity in war must be set before 
 our readers in the translated text of the original writer him- 
 self. Sallust says : 
 
 Metellus, as the war had been but slowly advanced by fighting, re- 
 solved to try the effect of treachery on the king through his friends, 
 and to employ their perfidy instead of arms. He accordingly ad- 
 dressed himself, with large promises, to Bo-mil'car, the same noble- 
 man who had been with Jugurtha at Rome, and who liad fled from 
 thence, notwithstanding he had given bail, to escape being tried 
 for the murder of Massiva ; selecting this person for his instrument, be- 
 cause, from his great intimacy with Jugurtha, he had the best opportu- 
 nities of betraying him. He prevailed on him, in the first place, to 
 come to a conference with him privately, when, having given him his 
 word, " that, if he should deliver up Jugurtha, alive or dead, the senate 
 would grant him a pardon, and the full possession of his property," he 
 easily brought him over to his purpose, especially as he was naturally 
 faithless, and also apprehensive that, if peace were made with the Ro- 
 mans, he himself would be surrendered to justice by the terms of it. 
 
 Bomilcar took advantage of a time when Jugurtha was in 
 low spirits and got him to offer a surrender. Metellus re- 
 quired of him to give up 200,000 pounds' weight of silver, 
 with his elephants and a portion of his horses and arms. 
 This done, all the deserters then were demanded, to be 
 brought in chains. The next thing exacted was that Ju- 
 gurtha should surrender his own person. 
 
 The war with Jugurtha was, however, still not ended. 
 But before resuming the narrative of warlike operations, 
 Sallust, with a few graphic and powerful strokes, paints Caius 
 Marius into his canvas : 
 
 About the same time, as Caius Marius, who happened to be at Utica, 
 was sacrificing to the gods, an augur told him that great and wonderful 
 things were presaged to him ; that he might therefore pursue whatever 
 designs he had formed, trusting to the gods for success ; and that he 
 might try fortune as often as he pleased, for that all his undertakings 
 would prosper. Previously to this period, an ardent longing for tho 
 consulship had possessed him ; and he had, indeed, every qualification
 
 88 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 for obtaining it, except antiquity of family ; he had industry, integrity, 
 great knowledge of war, and a spirit undaunted in the field ; he was 
 temperate in private life, superior to pleasure and riches, and ambitious 
 only of glory. Having been born at Ar-pi'num, and brought up there dur- 
 ing his boyhood, he employed himself, as soon as he was of age to bear 
 arms, not in the study of Greek eloquence, nor in learning the refinements 
 of the city, but in military service ; and thus, amid the strictest discipline, 
 his excellent genius soon attained full vigor. When he solicited the 
 people, therefore, for the military tribuneship, he was well known by 
 name, though most were strangers to his face, and unanimously elected 
 by the tribes. After this office he attained others in succession, and 
 conducted himself so well in his public duties that he was always 
 deemed worthy of a higher station than he had reached. Yet, though 
 such had been his character hitherto, (for he was afterward carried away 
 by ambition,) he had not ventured to stand for the consulship. The 
 people, at that time, still disposed of other civil offices, but the 
 nobility transmitted the consulship from hand to hand among them- 
 selves. Nor had any commoner appeared, however famous or distin- 
 guished by his achievements, who would not have been thought un- 
 worthy of that honor, and, as it were, a disgrace to it. 
 
 The people of Vacca, a town which Metellus had garri- 
 soned, Jugurtha succeeded in inducing to return to their 
 allegiance to himself. The Vaccans, through base treachery, 
 put the Roman garrison to death. Two days after, Metellus 
 arrived before the town. The inhabitants, seeing his van- 
 guard of Numidian cavalry, said, 'It is Jugurtha,' and went 
 out joyfully to meet their king. The wretched city, de- 
 scribed as great and opulent, was given over to pillage. The 
 only Roman that, in the massacre of ten days before, had 
 escaped the violence of the Numidians, was put on his trial 
 by Metellus. This was Tur-pil'i-us, the commander of the 
 garrison. Not answering satisfactorily how it chanced that 
 he himself survived alone, the unhappy man was scourged 
 and executed. Such was Roman discipline. 
 
 There was plot, and there was plot within plot. Bomilcar 
 had seduced Jugurtha's trusted friend, Nab-dal'sa, to join 
 him in his designs against their common master. Nabdalsa
 
 The Latin Reader. 89 
 
 had an attack of misgiving. Bomilcar sent him a tonic let- 
 ter. This letter the recipient left on his pillow, as he sank 
 into a sleep of exhaustion. His trusted friend found the 
 letter, and made all haste to carry it to Jugurtha. Jugur- 
 tha put Bomilcar with others to death The Numidian 
 prince's state of mind and way of life, resulting, are power- 
 fully described by Sallust : 
 
 After this occurrence he had no peace either by day or by night ; he 
 thought himself safe neither in any place, nor with any person, nor at 
 any time ; he feared his subjects and his enemies alike ; he was always 
 on the watch, and was startled at every sound ; he passed the night 
 sometimes in one place, and sometimes in another, and often in places 
 little suited to royal dignity ; and sometimes, starting from his sleep, he 
 would seize his arms, and raise an alarm. He was, indeed, so agitated 
 by extreme terror that he appeared under the influence of madness. 
 
 Metellus now renews with zeal the prosecution of the war, 
 and Jugurtha is driven to extremity. Marius is excused to 
 go to Rome and stand for the consulship. He is elected. 
 Meantime, however, Metellus, having defeated Jugurtha in a 
 battle, follows his retreating foe across a desert fifty miles 
 wide, to a city which he finally invests and takes. But the prize 
 of war, irrepressible Jugurtha himself, has escaped, carrying 
 with him a large part of his treasure. The town is found by 
 its captors to be an empty mass of ruin. It had been de- 
 fended by Romans Roman deserters to Jugurtha. These 
 men could hope for no mercy from their conquerors. Sallust 
 thus tells how they perished ; it is a frightful tale, but the 
 historian wastes no sentiment in telling it : 
 
 When they [the Roman deserters defending the town] saw the walls 
 shaken by the battering-ram, and their own situation desperate, they had 
 conveyed the gold and silver, and whatever else is esteemed valuable, to 
 the royal palace, where, after being sated with wine and luxuries, they 
 destroyed the treasures, the building, and themselves by fire, and thus 
 voluntarily submitted to the sufferings which, in case of being conquered, 
 they dreaded at the hands of the enemy.
 
 90 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Jugurtha was inexhaustible of resources. He went now 
 to the Ge-tu'li-ans, a savage African tribe, and enlisted recruits 
 whom he trained to be soldiers. King Bocchus, too, the 
 Mau'ri-ta'ni-an king, was approached by Jugurtha, who finally 
 induced this monarch, his own father-in-law, to make com- 
 mon cause with himself against Rome. In the midst of prep- 
 arations, on his part, to meet these confederates, Metellus 
 was advised from Rome that Marius had already been ap- 
 pointed his successor in the war. The proud spirit broke at 
 this humiliation. Metellus wept. 
 
 Marius, still in Rome, was drunk with natural wild tem- 
 perament and with success. He carried every thing before 
 him. The haughty senate was at his feet. He spurned 
 them in a speech to the people which Sallust constructs for 
 him as follows (we abridge) : 
 
 I am aware, my fellow-citizens, that most men do not appear as can- 
 didates before you for an office, and conduct themselves in it when they 
 have obtained it, under the same character ; that they are at first 
 industrious, humble, and modest, but afterward lead a life of indo- 
 lence and arrogance. But to me it appears that the contrary should be 
 the case. . . . 
 
 If others fail in their undertakings, their ancient rank, the heroic ac- 
 tions of their ancestors, the power of their relatives and connections, their 
 numerous dependents are all at hand to support them ; but as for me, 
 my whole hopes rest upon myself, which I must sustain by good conduct 
 and integrity ; for all other means are unavailing. . . . 
 
 You have commanded me to carry on the war against Jugurtha ; a 
 commission at which the nobility are highly offended. Consider with 
 yourselves, I pray you, whether it would be a change for the better if 
 you were to send to this, or to any other such appointment, one of yon- 
 der crowd of nobles, a man of ancient family, of innumerable statues, 
 and of no military experience. . . . 
 
 Compare now, my fellow-citizens, me, who am a new man, with those 
 haughty nobles. What they have but heard or read, I have witnessed or 
 performed. What they have learned from books, I have acquired in the 
 fit^ld ; and whether deeds or words are of greater estimation, it is for 
 you to consider. They despise my humbleness of birth ; I contemn their 
 imbecility. . . .
 
 The Latin Reader. 91 
 
 My speech, they say, is inelegant ; but that I have ever thought of little 
 importance. Worth sufficiently displays itself; it is for my detractors to 
 use studied language, that they may palliate base conduct by plausible 
 words. Nor have I learned Greek ; for I had no wish to acquire a 
 tongue that adds nothing to the valor of those who teach it. But I have 
 gained other accomplishments, such as are of the utmost benefit to a 
 state : I have learned to strike down an enemy ; to be vigilant at my 
 post; to fear nothing but dishonor; to bear cold and heat with equal 
 endurance; to sleep on the ground; and to sustain n.t the same time 
 hunger and fatigue. And with such rules of conduct I shall stimulate 
 my soldiers, not treating them with rigor and myself with indulgence, 
 nor making their toils my glory. Such a mode of commanding is at once 
 useful to the state, and becoming to a citizen. For to coerce your troops 
 with severity, while you yourself live at ease, is to be a tyrant, not a 
 general. . . . 
 
 Such of you, then, as are of military age, co-operate with me, and 
 support the cause of your country ; and let no discouragement, from the 
 ill-fortune of others, or the arrogance of the late commanders, affect any 
 one of you. I myself shall be with you, both on the march and in the 
 battle, both to direct your movements and to share your dangers. I 
 shall treat you and myself on every occasion alike ; and, doubtless, with 
 the aid of the gods, all good things, victory, spoil, and glory, are ready 
 to our hands ; though, even if they were doubtful or distant, it would 
 still become every able citizen to act in defense of his country. For no 
 man, by slothful timidity, has escaped the lot of mortals ; nor has any 
 parent wished for his children that they might live forever, but rather 
 that they might act in life with virtue and honor. I would add more, 
 my fellow-citizens, if words could give courage to the faint-hearted ; to 
 the brave I think I have said enough. 
 
 Marius easily raised a great army. Every body was eager 
 to be a soldier under the idolized hero of the hour. The 
 two confederate kings, Jugurtha and Bocchus, retired differ- 
 ent ways before the Roman general. But Marius was not to 
 be beguiled. He did not disperse his forces, and he did not 
 relax his discipline. He had begun by whetting the appetite 
 of his soldiers with maddening tastes of plunder. He cap- 
 tured places, and gave up the booty to his men. He was 
 rapidly making for himself an army after his own heart as 
 fierce as brave, and as greedy as fierce. Soon he aimed at
 
 9 2 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 the most difficult, at the apparently impossible. He would 
 take Capsa, a city great and strong, surrounded by deserts 
 vast in extent, destitute of water, and infested with wild 
 beasts and with venomous serpents. Through these waste 
 tracts Marius marched his men by night. Three nights they 
 thus pressed on. He had provided water-bottles, made from 
 the skins of cattle killed on the way for food. These water- 
 bottles, filled from the last river, were the only baggage that 
 was carried by man or beast. The impossible was achieved. 
 Capsa was surprised and taken. The grown-up inhabitants 
 were all butchered. 
 
 The rest were sold, and the spoil divided among the soldiers. This 
 severity, in violation [as Sallust rather unexpectedly remarks] of the 
 usages of war, was not adopted from avarice or cruelty in the consul, but 
 was exercised because the place was of great advantage to Jugurtha, and 
 difficult of access to us, while the inhabitants were a fickle and faithless 
 race, to be influenced neither by kindness nor by terror. 
 
 The effect of such success on the part of Marius was to 
 make him almost a god in the eyes of both friends and foes. 
 Thenceforward, a fine saying of Virgil's, by him applied to a 
 comparatively trivial occasion, will be true in this war for 
 Marius. He will be able, for he will seem to be able. The 
 next great incident in his campaign furnishes an illustration. 
 
 Marius had undertaken a second well-nigh impossible feat. 
 It was not prospering. But again his good fortune befriended 
 him. By mere chance, as it seemed, a Li-gu'ri-an soldier dis- 
 covered one particular spot at which it was practicable for a 
 few bold men to effect an entrance into an otherwise im- 
 pregnably defended town of the Numidians, which, to all 
 previous appearance vainly, Marius was besieging. The en- 
 trance was effected and the town was Marius's. The very 
 imprudence of his attempt redounded to his glory for 
 the imprudent attempt was successful. The incident of the 
 Ligurian's individual enterprise is a pleasing relief and orna- 
 ment embroidered upon the general text of the history.
 
 The Latin Reader. 93 
 
 Another celebrated character here enters upon the scene 
 of Sallusl's story, to play a brilliant, though a subordinate, 
 part. The player of a second part now, this man is destined 
 in the sequel to drive Marius himself off the stage. It is 
 no other than Lucius Sylla, the future dictator of Rome. 
 Sallust is not reluctant to illustrate his page with a strong 
 portrait in words of this remarkable man. Our readers 
 must see the delineation, unchanged except as translated. 
 And here it is : 
 
 Sylla, then, was of patrician descent, but of a family almost sunk in 
 obscurity by the degeneracy of his forefathers. He was skilled, equally 
 and profoundly, in Greek and Roman literature. He was a man of large 
 mind, fond of pleasure, but fonder of glory. His leisure was spent in 
 luxurious gratifications, but pleasure never kept him from his duties, 
 except that he might have acted more for his honor with regard to his 
 wife. He was eloquent and subtle, and lived on the easiest terms with 
 his friends. His depth of thought in disguising his intentions was in- 
 credible. He was liberal of most things, but especially of money. And 
 though he was the most fortunate of all men before his victory in the 
 civil war, yet his fortune was never beyond his desert ; and many have 
 expressed a doubt whether his success or his merit were the greater. As 
 to his subsequent acts, I know not whether more of shame or of regret 
 must be felt at the recital of them. 
 
 When Sylla came with his cavalry into Africa, as has just been stated, 
 and arrived at the camp of Marius, though he had hitherto been un- 
 skilled and undisciplined in the art of war, he became, in a short time, 
 the most expert of the whole army. He was, besides, affable to the sol- 
 diers ; he conferred favors on many at their request, and on others of his 
 own accord, and was reluctant to receive any in return. But he repaid 
 other obligations more readily than those of a pecuniary nature ; he 
 himself demanded repayment from no one, but rather made it his object 
 that as many as possible should be indebted to him. He conversed, 
 jocosely as well as seriously, with the humblest of the soldiers ; he was 
 their frequent companion at their works, on the march, and on guard. 
 Nor did he ever, as is usual with depraved ambition, attempt to injure 
 the character of the consul, or of any deserving person. His sole aim, 
 whether in the council or the field, was to suffer none to excel him ; to 
 most he was superior. By such conduct he soon became a favorite both 
 with Marius and with the army.
 
 94 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Marius was marching to winter-quarters, when one day, 
 just before dark, the combined armies of the two kings, Ju- 
 gurtha and Bocchus, suddenly fell upon him. It was a com- 
 plete surprise. What happened illustrates so well the ac- 
 count given in a previous chapter, of the discipline and valor 
 of Roman legionaries, that we present the narrative in Sal- 
 lust's own words, simply making a few silent omissions neces- 
 sary for economy of space : 
 
 Before the troops could either form themselves or collect the baggage, 
 before they could receive even a signal or an order, the Moorish and 
 Getulian horse, not in line, or any regular array of battle, but in separate 
 bodies, as chance had united them, rushed furiously on our men ; who, 
 though all struck with a panic, yet, calling to mind what they had clone 
 on former occasions, either seized their arms, or protected those who 
 were looking for theirs, while some, springing on their horses, advanced 
 against the enemy. But the whole conflict was more like a rencounter 
 with robbers than a battle ; the horse and foot of the enemy, mingled 
 together without standards or order, wounded Pome of our men, and cut 
 down others, and surprised many in the rear while fighting stoutly with 
 those in front ; neither valor nor arms were a sufficient defense, the en- 
 emy being superior in numbers, and covering the field on all sides. At 
 last the Roman veterans, who were necessarily well experienced in war, 
 formed themselves, wherever the nature of the ground or chance allowed 
 them to unite, in circular bodies, and thus secured on every side, and 
 regularly drawn up, withstood the attacks of the enemy. 
 
 Marius, in this desperate emergency, was not more alarmed or dis- 
 heartened than on any previous occasion, but rode about with his troop 
 of cavalry, which he had formed of his bravest soldiers rather than his 
 nearest friends, in every quarter of the field, sometimes supporting his 
 own men when giving way, sometimes charging the enemy where they 
 were thickest, and doing service to his troops with his sword, since, in 
 the general confusion, he was unable to command with his voice. 
 
 The day had now closed. . . . Marius, that his men might have a place 
 of retreat, took possession of two hills contiguous to each other. . . . The 
 kings, obliged by the strength of the Roman position, were deterred 
 from continuing the combat. . . . Having then lighted numerous fires, 
 the barbarians, after their custom, spent most of the night in merri- 
 ment, exultation, and tumultuous clamor, the kings, elated at having kept 
 their ground, conducting themselves as conquerors. This scene, plainly
 
 The Latin Reader. 95 
 
 visible to the Romans, uncles cover of the night and on the higher 
 ground, afforded great encouragement to them. 
 
 Marius kept his army perfectly still, let the poor Africans 
 have their riot out, let them sink into exhausted sleep, and 
 then, falling upon them at day-break, slaughtered them as 
 if they had been sheep. 
 
 Marius now again takes up his march to winter-quarters 
 As a last particular mentioned of the order of march ob- 
 served, Sallust, in characteristically Roman spirit, remarks: 
 " The deserters, [that is, the Numidians who had de- 
 serted to the Romans,] whose lives were of little value, and 
 who were well acquainted with the country, kept watch of 
 the route of the enemy." A few touches added now to the 
 portrait of Marius are as full of the artist's power as they are 
 of the subject's character : 
 
 Marius himself, too, as if no other were placed in charge, attended 
 to every thing, went through the whole of the troops, and praised or 
 blamed them according to their desert. He was always armed and on 
 the alert, and obliged his men to imitate his example. He fortified 
 his camp with the same caution with which he marched ; stationing 
 cohorts of the legions to watch the gates, and the auxiliary cavalry in 
 front, and others upon the rampart and lines. He went round the 
 posts in person, not from suspicion that his orders would not be ob- 
 served, but that the labor of the soldiers, shared equally by their gen- 
 eral, might be endured by them with cheerfulness. Indeed, Marius, as 
 well at this as at other periods of the war, kept his men to their 
 duty rather by the dread of shame than of severity; a course which 
 many said was adopted from a desire of popularity, but some thought 
 it was because he took pleasure in toils to which he had been accus- 
 tomed from his youth, and in exertions which other men call perfect 
 miseries. The public interest, however, was served witli as much 
 efficiency and honor as it could have been under the most rigorous 
 command. 
 
 The caution of Marius was wise. On the fourth day fol- 
 lowing, the indefatigable, the unconquerable spirit of Jugur- 
 tha brought him again to the attack. He almost won the
 
 96 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 day, but once more those invincible Romans snatched vic- 
 tory out of the very jaws of defeat. The battle-field, as it 
 appeared at this moment, is described by<Sallust in a cele- 
 brated sentence, which a note by the English translator of 
 his text enables us conveniently to compare with two cele- 
 brated parallels, one earlier and one later in literary history 
 than Sallust. The first is Sallust's own original in Xeno- 
 phon, the second is a copy in Tacitus taken probably from 
 this copy by Sallust. Sallust says : 
 
 The spectacle on the open plains was then frightful ; some were pur- 
 suing, others fleeing ; some were being slain, others captured ; men and 
 horses were dashed to the earth ; many, who were wounded, could 
 neither flee nor remain at rest, attempting to rise, and instantly falling 
 back ; and the whole field, as far as the eye could reach, was strewed 
 with arms and dead bodies, and the intermediate spaces saturated with 
 blood. 
 
 Xenophon, four hundred years earlier, in his panegyric on 
 the Spartan monarch, A-ges'i-la'us, had said : 
 
 " Clashing their shields together, they pushed, they fought, 
 they" slew, they were slain. . . . But when the battle was 
 over, you might have seen, where they had fought, the 
 ground clotted with blood, the corpses of friends and ene- 
 mies mingled together, and pierced shields, broken lances, 
 and swords without their sheaths, strewed on the ground, 
 sticking in the dead bodies, or still remaining in the hands 
 that had wielded them when alive." 
 
 Tacitus, a hundred years later, in his life of Agricola, will 
 say : 
 
 " The sight on the open field was then striking and hor- 
 rible ; they pursued, they inflicted wounds, they took men 
 prisoners, and slaughtered them as others presented them- 
 selves. . . Everywhere were seen arms and corpses, mangled 
 limbs, and the ground stained with blood." 
 
 Lon-gi'nus, the famous Greek writer on rhetoric, quotes 
 Xenophon's sentence to illustrate the rhetorical effect pro-
 
 The Latin Reader. 97 
 
 duced by the omission of conjunctions. Our readers will 
 instinctively feel how much more powerfully the impression 
 is made of the hurry, the huddle, the horror, of the scene, 
 by the writer's letting the circumstances appear crowded and 
 heaped one upon another, in description too swift and ex- 
 cited for conjunction and arrangement. 
 
 Let our readers also observe that, whether or not as in 
 imitation of a Greek model, the Roman Sallust here intro- 
 duces a trait of writing not characteristic either of Sallust, 
 or of the Roman : he speaks of the scene described as 
 "frightful." 
 
 Five days after suffering this defeat, Jugurtha's confeder- 
 ate, King Bocchus, desires Marius to send him two trusted 
 ambassadors for a conference. Sylla is one of the two sent. 
 Sylla forestalls what Bocchus may say, with a very specious 
 and seductive address to the monarch. This address, though 
 short, we must omit. The purport of it was to dispose Boc- 
 chus to desert Jugurtha's alliance for the alliance of the Ro- 
 mans. Bocchus replied yieldingly, but was by hired friends 
 of Jugurtha immediately persuaded out of his mind again. A 
 short interval of reflection, however, restored Bocchus's pru- 
 dent purpose, and he dispatched a select embassy of five, 
 empowered to treat, first with Marius, and then, on Marius's 
 approving, with the Roman senate, for peace on any terms 
 whatever. 
 
 It chanced that these five ambassadors fell, on their way, 
 into the hands of robbers who so frightened them that, being 
 let go, they fled to Sylla. Sylla received them with munificent 
 courtesy. Sallust says that " interested bounty in those days 
 was still unknown to many," whereby he accounts for it that 
 these simple barbarian folk concluded from Sylla's conduct 
 toward them that the reports of Roman avarice were false, 
 and that generous Sylla must surely be their friend. Sal- 
 lust's cynical- smile leers out upon you here from between 
 the lines. Sylla promised his guests every thing they asked
 
 9 8 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 for. He gave them lessons in the proper way to address 
 Marius and the senate, and, at the end of forty days, dis- 
 missed them delightfully penetrated with the idea that dis- 
 interested kindness, if nowhere else at home in this un- 
 friendly world, had at least found refuge with Lucius Sylla. 
 
 Three of the ambassadors were sped on to Rome, and t\vo 
 went back to Bocchns, who was especially well-pleased with 
 their report of Sylla's politeness. The senate gave answer 
 that Bocchus should have Roman friendship and alliance 
 when he should have deserved them. This parsimonious as- 
 surance from Rome made Bocchus send for his friend Sylla. 
 
 Sylla, setting out with a suitable escort, was met on his way 
 by Volux, Bocchus's son. This encounter was at first sus- 
 pected to be hostile, as Volux had with him a body of horse 
 whose loose array made their number, about a thousand, 
 seem greater than it was. Volux and Sylla marched together 
 in amity two days. On the third day, Volux came distressed 
 to Sylla with the news that his scouts reported Jugurtha 
 close at hand. The Mauritanian (Moor) urged Sylla to flee 
 along with him under cover of darkness. Sylla responded 
 in good Roman character; but he did adopt the suggestion 
 of Volux that they should continue their forward march by 
 night. Sunrise found them tired and about to encamp, when 
 suddenly they learned that Jugurtha was but two miles away. 
 ' Perfidy ' ! exclaimed some ; ' let us take vengeance at once 
 on Volux.' Sylla, himself suspicious, kept cool, and inspirited 
 his men. He, however, with imprecations to Jupiter the al- 
 mighty on wicked Bocchus, ordered Volux to quit the camp. 
 The Moor protested his innocence, and adjured Sylla to 
 trust him. He advised Sylla to go boldly straight through 
 the camp of Jugurtha. This the fearless Roman actually 
 did, and without suffering molestation. 
 
 The end now hastens. It is Sylla's unscrupulous, adroit, 
 and audacious contrivance that entraps the wily Jugurtha, 
 and delivers him into the hands of Marius. Jugurtha, it
 
 The Latin Reader. 99 
 
 seems, had a Numidian envoy at Bocchus's court to act as 
 spy on the conduct of his doubtful Moorish ally. The as- 
 tuteness of this ambassadorial spy was no match for the pro- 
 found policy of Sylla playing upon the facile faithlessness of 
 Bocchus. The first step was taken by Bocchus. Bocchus 
 gave Sylla to understand that he himself was ready to agree 
 to any thing. It was, however, he said, necessary to let Ju- 
 gurtha's man be present at their interviews. Sylla replied 
 that before said personage he would speak sparingly, and 
 see Bocchus again apart. It was accordingly arranged by 
 Sylla that Bocchus, at the close of the formal interview, 
 should, in the presence of Jugurtha's representative, tell Sylla 
 to come back in ten days and get the king's answer. This 
 was done, and the two withdrew to their respective camps. 
 But in the middle of the night, Sylla, according to the plan 
 concerted between them, was summoned secretly back by 
 Bocchus, who, to trust Sallust's report of it, made the Ro- 
 man lieutenant a remarkable speech, profuse in professions 
 of personal attachment and gratitude. Sylla replying told the 
 king in effect that promises from an enemy situated as he, 
 Bocchus, now was, at disadvantage, would signify little to the 
 Roman senate and people. He, Bocchus, would have to do 
 something substantial. It lay in his, Bocchus's, power to 
 put Rome under real obligation. He could betray Jugurtha 
 to her. Bocchus started back. Why, there was the kindred 
 tie, the solemn league, between himself and Jugurtha. Be- 
 sides, Jugurtha was beloved, and the Romans were hated, by 
 his, Bocchus's, subjects. Sylla pressed, and Bocchus 
 yielded. An ambush was laid, and the father-in-law de- 
 livered up the son-in-law r to Sylla. It was a proud feather 
 in young Sylla's cap. But it was before the chariot-wheels 
 of Marius that, afterward, Jugurtha, with his two sons, was 
 driven in triumph at Rome. 
 
 Sallust's history stops abruptly with Jugurtha's capture. 
 From other sources we learn that the proud captive lost his
 
 ioo Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 senses under the dreadful humiliation of the triumph ; also 
 that soon after, with much contumelious violence, he was 
 flung naked into the chill under-ground dungeon at Rome 
 called the Tullianum, where after six days he perished of 
 cold and starvation. (One authority says he was strangled.) 
 He is said to have exclaimed shudderingly, as he fell, 
 " Heavens, a cold bath this of yours ! " 
 
 Jugurtha is painted black in Sallust's picture. But the 
 artist that painted him, remember, is a foe and a Roman. 
 Jugurtha must have been, indeed, a false and bloody man. 
 Still he had followers that clave to him. Nay, Jugurtha was 
 to all Africans the most beloved of men. He was univers- 
 ally hailed as deliverer of the nation from Rome. His name 
 long continued a spell of power to his countrymen. It was 
 twenty years after his death and already his kingdom was 
 in large part a province of Rome when a son of his, recog- 
 nized in the force opposed to the Romans, raised such sen- 
 timents in the breasts of a Numidian corps attached to the 
 Roman army, that the whole body had to be immediately 
 sent home to Africa. 
 
 Jugurtha's bravery, his talent, his endurance, redeem him 
 to our admiration, as do his misfortunes to our sympathy. 
 Supposing Jugurtha had been the conqueror, and some 
 Numidian partisan of his, instead of a Roman partisan of 
 Cassar's, had given us the history ! Imagine the difference ! 
 Instead of " Punic faith " as now, the phrase, " Roman faith," 
 might then have been the proverbial irony for false dealing. 
 
 There is, outside of the Bible, no history that is not merely 
 a version of history. 
 
 OVID 
 
 (Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso is the full Roman name) was 
 born in Northern Italy. It is striking how few, compara- 
 tively, of the great Roman writers were natives of Rome. 
 Ovid came of a good family, and he liked to have this 
 known. "In my family," he says, "you will find knights up
 
 The Latin Reader. 
 
 through an endless line of ancestry." He was born just 
 when the republic died ; that is, he and the imperial order 
 came twins into the world together, in 43 B.C. The boy was 
 a natural versifier. Like Pope, he " lisped in numbers, for 
 the numbers came." His youth coincided either with the 
 full maturity, or with the declining age, of the great Au- 
 gustan writers, Virgil, Livy, Horace, Sallust. Unhappily for 
 himself, he did not come under the sunshine that streamed 
 on literature and art from the face of Augustus's great min- 
 ister, Mae-ce'nas. The emperor never extended his favor to 
 Ovid ; and in the end, as our readers know, the poet was 
 sent into exile. 
 
 Ovid was a man of loose character, and his looseness of 
 character leaked into his verse. In fact, much of what he 
 wrote is now unreadable for rank impurity. One of his 
 poems in particular scandalized the moral sense of even his 
 own age, and became the ostensible occasion of his banish- 
 ment. His " Metamorphoses " must be considered his chief 
 work. The title means, literally, '' changes of form." Ovid's 
 idea in the poem is to tell in his own way such legends of 
 the teeming Greek mythology as deal with the transforma- 
 tions of men and women into animals, plants, or inanimate 
 things. The inventive ingenuity of the poet is displayed in 
 connecting these separate stories into something like coher- 
 ence and unity. This poem has been a great treasury of 
 material to subsequent poets. Even Milton has conde- 
 scended to be not a little indebted to Ovid for images or 
 allusions, which he dignified by adopting them, with noble 
 metamorphosis, into his own loftier verse. 
 
 For our first specimen of Ovid's Metamorphoses, we select 
 a passage which does not indeed, as properly perhaps it 
 should, contain an instance of transformation, but which 
 nevertheless is an interesting and a celebrated story capable 
 of various moral application. It is the story of Pha'e-ton, 
 or Pha'-e-thon. We are able to give this in a version which,
 
 io2 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 if it is not quite so closely literal as would be desirable, is 
 excellent art of its kind, and is, at any rate, a classic too in 
 English, for it is from the hand of Joseph Addison. 
 
 For the benefit of the more inquisitive among our read- 
 ers, we may mention that Lippincott's re-issue of Ancient 
 Classics for English Readers contains an admirable volume 
 on Ovid. There is in Bonn's Classical Library a very good 
 prose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses entire, accom- 
 panied with enlightening notes. There have, first and last, 
 been a considerable number of English translations made, 
 both in prose and in verse, of Ovid's poetry. Two small 
 volumes, published by Harper & Brothers, compile various 
 partial rhymed versions by different hands, among them 
 Dryden, Pope, Congreve, and Addison. These pieces of 
 translation are all of them, perhaps, a little antiquated in 
 tone and style, and they are of exceedingly unequal merit. 
 They have the recommendation of being very accessible. 
 
 Our readers will like, by way of introduction to our exem- 
 plification of Ovid's Metamorphoses, to see what the poet 
 himself in one of his most delightfully buoyant moods 
 surely it must have been thought of his own work as a 
 whole. We give, accordingly, the conclusion of the Meta- 
 morphoses in literal prose translation : 
 
 And now I have completed a work, which neither the anger of Jove, 
 nor fire, nor steel, nor consuming time will be able to destroy ! Let 
 that day, which has no power 1ml over this body of mine, put an end to 
 the time of my uncertain life when it will. Yet, in my better part, I 
 shall be raised immortal above the lofty stars, and indelible shall be my 
 name. And wherever the Roman power is extended throughout the 
 vanquished earth, I shall be read by the lips of nations, and (if the 
 presages of the poets have aught of truth) throughout all ages shall I 
 survive in fame. 
 
 There is. perhaps, no part of Ovid's poem that constitutes 
 upon the whole a better warrant to the poet for his cheerful 
 anticipation of enduring fame, than that which we now in
 
 The Latin Reader. 103 
 
 specimen present. Phoebus (Apollo) is god of the sun. He 
 is applied to by his not universally acknowledged son, Phae- 
 ton, with a startling request. Obedient to the straitening 
 demands of space, we omit the brilliant opening which de- 
 scribes the dazzling palace and the richly decorated en- 
 thronement of the god. Phaeton has arrived and presents 
 himself. To Phoebus's gracious welcome of his son, 
 
 " Light of the world," the trembling youth replies, 
 " Illustrious parent ! since you don't despise 
 The parent's name, some certain token give, 
 That I may Clymene's proud boast believe, 
 Nor longer under false reproaches grieve." 
 
 The tender sire was touched with what he said, 
 And flung the blaze of glories from his head, 
 And bade the youth advance. " My son," said he, 
 " Come to thy father's arms ! for Clymene 
 Has told thee true : a parent's name I own, 
 And deem thee worthy to be called my son. 
 As a sure proof make some request, and I, 
 \Vhate'er it be, with that request comply: 
 By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night, 
 And roll impervious to my piercing sight." 
 
 The youth, transported, asks without delay, 
 To guide the sun's bright chariot for a day. 
 
 Phoebus is distressed. He begs Phaeton to reconsider 
 and choose more wisely for himself. This at considerable 
 length and with much poetical eloquence. But Phaeton was 
 not to be dissuaded, and the reluctant father has his chariot 
 brought out. Then at daybreak, 
 
 He bids the nimble Hours, without delay, 
 Firing forth the steeds: the nimble Hours obey. 
 From their full racks the generous steeds retire, 
 Dropping ambrosial foams, and snorting fire. 
 Still anxious for his son, the god of day, 
 To make him proof against the burning ray, 
 His temples with celestial ointment wet, 
 Of sovereign virtue, to repel the heat ; 
 Then fixed the beamy circle on his head, 
 And fetched a deep foreboding sigh, and said :
 
 104 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 " Take this at least, this last advice, my son : 
 Keep a still' rein, and move but gently on : 
 The coursers of themselves will run too fast ; 
 Your art must be to moderate their haste. 
 Drive them not on directly through the skies, 
 But where the zodiac's winding circle lies, 
 Along the midmost zone ; but sally forth, 
 Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north. 
 The horses' hoofs a beaten track will show ; 
 But neither mount too high, nor sink too low. 
 That no new fires or heaven or earth infest. 
 Keep the mid way ; the middle way is best : 
 Nor where, in radiant folds, the serpent twines, 
 Direct your course, nor where the altar shines. 
 Shun both extremes ; the rest let Fortune guide, 
 And better for thee than thyself provide ! " 
 
 HELIOS, OR SOL. 
 
 Meanwhile the restless horses neighed aloud, 
 Breathing out fire, and pawing where they stood. 
 Tethys, not knowing what had passed, gave way, 
 And all the waste of heaven before them lay. 
 They spring together out, and swiftly bear 
 The flying youth through clouds and yielding air ; 
 With wingy speed outstrip the eastern wind, 
 And leave the breezes of the morn behind. 
 The youth was light, nor could he fill the seat, 
 Or poise the chariot with its wonted weight: 
 But as at sea the unballasted vessel .-ides, 
 Cast to and fro, the sport of winds and tides, 
 So in the bounding chariot, tossed on high, 
 The youth is hurried headlong through the sky. 
 Soon as the steeds perceive it, they forsake 
 Their stated course, and leave the beaten track.
 
 The Latin Reader. 105 
 
 The youth was in a maze, nor did he know 
 
 Which way to turn the reins, or where to go : 
 
 Nor would the horses, had he known, obey. 
 
 Then the seven stars first felt Apollo's ray, 
 
 And wished to dip in the forbidden sea. 
 
 The folded serpent, next the frozen pole, 
 
 Stiff and benumbed before, began to roll, 
 
 And raged with inward heat, and threatened war, 
 
 And shot a redder light from every star; 
 
 Nay, and 'tis said, Bootes, too, that fain 
 
 Thou wouldst have fled, though cumbered with thy wain. 
 
 The bewildered charioteer is racked with emotions which 
 Ovid feels himself at leisure enough to describe with great 
 particularity. Then follows a very detailed account, with 
 many geographical names, of the progressive effects of that 
 unguided drive. We omit and resume : 
 
 The astonished youth, where'er his eyes could turn. 
 Beheld the universe around him burn : 
 The world was in a blaze ; nor could he bear 
 The sultry vapors and the scorching air, 
 Which from below, as from a furnace, flowed : 
 And now the axle-tree beneath him glowed. 
 Lost in the whirling clouds that round him broke, 
 And white with ashes, hovering in the smoke, 
 He flew where'er the horses drove, nor knew 
 Whither the horses drove, or where he flew. 
 
 'Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun 
 To change his hue, and blacken in the sun ; 
 Then Libya first, of all her moisture drained, 
 Became a barren waste, a wild of sand ; 
 The water-nymphs lament their empty urns ; 
 Boeotia, robbed of silver Dirce, mourns. 
 Corinth Pyrene's wasted spring bewails ; 
 And Argos grieves while Amymone fails. 
 
 The floods are drained from every distant coast; 
 Ev'n Tanais, though fixed in ice, was lost ; 
 Enraged Caicus and Lycormas roar, 
 And Xanthus, fated to be burnt once more. 
 The famed Mseander, that unwearied strays 
 Through many windings, smokes in every maze : 
 From his loved Babylon Euphrates flies : 
 The big-swollen Ganges and the Danube rise 
 In thickening fumes, and darken half the skies: 
 In flames Ismenos and the Phasis rolled, 
 And Tagus, floating in his melted gold : 
 5*
 
 io6 Prefiaratjry La tin Course in English. 
 
 The swans, that on Cnyster often tried 
 Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died. 
 The frighted Nile ran off, and under ground 
 Concealed iiis head, nor ean it yet he found ; 
 His seven divided currents all are dry, 
 And, where they rolled, seven gaping trenches lie : 
 No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain, 
 Nor Tiber, of his promised empire vain. 
 The ground, deep cleft, admits the dazzling ray, 
 And startles Pluto with the flash of day : 
 The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose 
 Wide naked plains, where once their billows rose ; 
 Their roeks are all discovered, and increase 
 The number of the scattered Cyclades; 
 The fish in shoals about the bottom creep ; 
 Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap : 
 Gasping for breath, the unshapen Phocce die, 
 And on the boiling wave extended lie : 
 Nereus, and Doris, with her virgin tram, 
 Seek out the last recesses of the main : 
 Beneath unfathomable depths they faint, 
 And secret in their gloomy caverns pant : 
 Stern Neptune thiice above the waves upheld 
 His face, and thrice was by the flames repelled. 
 The Earth at length, on every side embraced 
 With scalding seas, that floated round her waist, 
 When now she felt the springs and rivers come, 
 And crowd within the hollow of her womb, 
 Uplifted to the heavens her blasted head, 
 And clapped her hand upon her brows, and said, 
 (But first, impatient of the sultry heat, 
 Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat) : 
 " If you, great king of gods, my death approve, 
 And I deserve it, let me die by Jove : 
 If I must perish by the force of fire, 
 Let me transfixed with thunderbolts expire." 
 
 Jove called to witness every power above, 
 And even the god whose son the chariot drove, 
 That what he acts he is compelled to do, 
 Or universal ruin must ensue. 
 Straight he ascends the high ethereal throne, 
 From whence he used to dart his thunder down, 
 From whence his showers and storms he used to pour, 
 But now could meet with neither storm or shower : 
 Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand, 
 Full at his head he hurled the forky brand 
 In dreadful thunderings. Thus the almighty sire 
 Suppressed the raging of the fires with fire.
 
 The Latin Reader. 107 
 
 At once from life and from the chariot driven, 
 The ambitious boy fell thunder-struck from heaven ; 
 The horses started with a sudden bound, 
 And flung the reins and chariot to the ground: 
 The studded harness from their necks they broke, 
 Here fell a wheel, and here a silver spoke, 
 Here were the beam and axle torn away. 
 And scattered o'er the earth the shining fragments lay. 
 The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair, 
 Shot from the chariot like a falling star, 
 That in a summer's evening from the top 
 Of heaven drops down, or seems, at least, to drop, 
 Till on the Po his blasted corpse was hurled, 
 Far from his country, in the western world. 
 
 A " long bright river " of verse it is, in the original, and in 
 the translation as well. We have been sorry to break the 
 current with omissions. You, however, lose nothing essential. 
 You simply fail to receive, as through any condensed citation 
 you would necessarily fail to receive, a due impression of the 
 melodious prolixity, the " linked sweetness long drawn out," 
 which is characteristic of Ovid. 
 
 The foregoing episode about Phaeton is taken from the 
 second book of the Metamorphoses. (There are fifteen 
 books in all.) As we said beforehand, and as our readers 
 have now seen, it does not include an example of transfor- 
 mation. But there is plenty of transformation in the sequel 
 of the story, as given in the rest of the second book. Phae- 
 ton's sisters, while mourning their brother, are changed into 
 trees, and a male kinsman of his, similarly engaged, finds him- 
 self suddenly a swan. Jupiter, visiting the earth to mend 
 the mischief caused by Phaeton's adventure, commits some 
 characteristic mischief of his own, which his wife Juno, 
 jealous with reason, revenges by making a bear of the 
 unhappy victim of her husband's lust. Areas, son by Jupiter 
 to that victim, being about to slay his unrecognized mother, 
 in her form of bear, presto, Jupiter plants them both amony; 
 the constellations of the sky. These are but a few of the 
 transformations with which Ovid fills the sequel of his story 
 of Phaeton. Our readers will guess that here they have
 
 io8 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Ovid's account of the origin of the constellation, Ursa Major, 
 and perhaps, too, of the neighboring constellation, Ursa 
 Minor the mother being the Greater Bear, and her tender 
 son, the Lesser. 
 
 Ovid's fondness for making his stories always about as 
 long as he can which means longer than any body except 
 Ovid could make them creates for us great difficulty in lay- 
 ing before our readers, within allowable limits of space, as 
 great a variety of instances as we should be glad to present, 
 of this poet's quality. We must not dismiss the example al- 
 ready offered without adding one or two suggested remarks. 
 
 In Burke's celebrated " Letter to a Noble Lord," one of the 
 greatest masterpieces of indignant sarcasm to be found in 
 literature, occurs this sentence, " I was not, like his Grace of 
 Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled into a legis- 
 lator Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me." 
 Burke's Latin phrase is taken from a line in the foregoing 
 passage of Ovid. "I steer against their motions," Addison 
 renders it freely. More literally, it is, " I struggle against 
 opposition." 
 
 The words which Addison translates, " Keep the mid way, 
 the middle way is best," our readers will recognize in its 
 original Latin as a familiar quotation for recommending the 
 proverbial wisdom of the golden mean : 
 
 Medio tutissimus ibis. 
 
 The legend of Phaeton is conceived by many to have 
 had its origin in some meteorological fact an extraordinary 
 solar heat perhaps, producing drought and conflagration. It 
 has even been connected, by a rather fanciful conjecture, 
 with the burning of the cities of the plain, and also with the 
 staying of the sun at the command of Joshua. Chrysostom 
 offers the suggestion of Elijah's rapture in his chariot of fire. 
 Plutarch explains that Phaeton was a Molossian king who 
 drowned himself in the Po lively Lucian to this explanation
 
 The Latin Reader. 109 
 
 of Plutarch's adding, that the monarch, having a mind to 
 astronomy, died before completing his observations, whence 
 the story of his not knowing how to drive to the goal. And 
 now our readers, from among these various modes of ex- 
 plaining the myth of Phaeton, shall choose to suit themselves; 
 or if this they cannot do, then, either give the puzzle up, or 
 invent a solution of their own, whichever course may please 
 them best. 
 
 We shall not violently shock the unity, the progress, or the 
 true effect, of the Metamorphoses, if we go back now, as let 
 us do, to the first book for our second specimen. There is, 
 in truth, no proper organic unity to Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
 The successive stories selected by the poet to be told are 
 just ingeniously tacked together by some association more or 
 less natural, and that is all. The interest of the work is the 
 interest of its episodes. In fact the work consists of its 
 episodes. To point out the connection of this story with 
 that, would in most cases be merely curious, not at all in- 
 structive. By disregarding, as we do, the order of the poem, 
 we best point out to our readers the fact that the poem has 
 no order that needs to be regarded. 
 
 Dryden shall be our next translator a bold, free, manly, 
 mind, gifted with more of talent than of real genius, but 
 writer of verse that is secure of place among the imper- 
 ishable classics of English literature. You will feel increase 
 of vigor, as you will feel diminution of urbanity, elegance, 
 and grace, in passing from Addison to Dryden. On the 
 other hand, such readers as may take the pains to compare 
 Dryden translating Ovid with Dryden translating Virgil, will 
 observe that the native force of this writer is sympathetically 
 modulated to more softness and sweetness in representing 
 the poet of the Metamorphoses. Let us choose the pretty 
 story of Daphne's transformation into a laurel. We shall omit 
 in places, indicating our omissions by dotted lines. Apollo 
 is the hero, shall we call him ? of a most unmanly, if too
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 godlike, adventure in which Daphne, daughter of the river 
 Pencils, is the heroine, or victim. Disregarding the contrac- 
 tion of verbal forms which Dry den and Addison affect, we 
 print, for instance, " viewed," instead of " vievv'd," as do 
 they. It is observable, however, that Tennyson, too, whose 
 judgment in such things it is safer generally to accept than 
 to reject, makes the line light to the eye by the practice 
 which we decide to honor rather in the breach than in the ob- 
 servance. The mutilated aspect of words thus contracted is 
 hardly, we think, compensated for by merely ocular illusion 
 of greater lightness in the line. 
 
 Apollo had disdainfully bidden stripling Cupid lay aside 
 bow and arrows, as weapons proper to himself alone, and un- 
 suitable for such as the infant god of love. Whereupon 
 Cupid takes revenge by piercing Apollo's breast with passion 
 for Daphne. We omit some opening lines: 
 
 So burns the god, consuming in desire, 
 And feeding in his breast a fruitless fire : 
 Her well-turned neck he viewed, (her neck was bare,) 
 And on her shoulders her disheveled hair: 
 " O were it combed," said he, " with what a grace 
 Would every waving curl become her face ! " 
 He viewed her eyes, like heavenly lamps that shone, 
 lie viewed her lips, too sweet to view alone. 
 Swift as the wind the damsel fled away, 
 Nor did for these alluring speeches stay. 
 
 "Stay, nymph," he cried, " I follow, not a foe. 
 Thus from the lion trips the trembling doe ; 
 Thus from the wolf the frightened lamb removes, 
 And from pursuing falcons fearful doves : 
 Thou shunn'st a god, and shunn'st a god that loves. 
 
 Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly ; 
 Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I. 
 Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state ; 
 And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate. 
 Me, Claros, Delphos, Tenedos, obey; 
 These hands the Patareian sceptre sway : 
 The king of gods begot me : what shall be, 
 Or is, or ever was, in fate, I see : 
 Mine is the invention of the charming lyre: 
 Sweet notes, and heavenly numbers, I inspire
 
 TJic Latin Reader. 
 
 Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart ; 
 But ah ! more deadly his who pierced my heart. 
 Med'cine is mine ; what herbs and simples grow 
 In fields and forests, all their powers I know, 
 And am the great physician called below. 
 Alas ! that fields and forests can afford 
 No remedies to heal their love-sick lord : 
 To cure the pains of love no plant avails ; 
 And his own physic the physician fails." 
 
 She, urged by fear, her feet did swiftly move, 
 But he more swiftly, who was urged by love. 
 
 The nymph grew pale, and, in a mortal fright, 
 
 Spent with the labor of so long a flight, 
 
 And now despairing, cast a mournful look 
 
 Upon the streams of her paternal brook : 
 
 " O help," she cried, " in this extremes! need ! 
 
 If water- gods are deities indeed ; 
 
 Gape earth, and this unhappy wretch entomb ; 
 
 Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come." 
 
 Scarce had she finished, when her feet she found 
 
 Benumbed with cold, and fastened to the ground ; 
 
 A filmy rind about her body grows ; 
 
 Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs : 
 
 The nymph is all into a laurel gone ; 
 
 The smoothness of her skin remains alone. 
 
 Yet Phoebus loves her still, and casting round 
 
 Her bole his arms, some little warmth he found. 
 
 The tree still panted in the unfinished part, 
 
 Not wholly vegetive, and heaved her heart. 
 
 He fixed his lips upon the trembling rind ; 
 
 It swerved aside, and his embrace declined : 
 
 To whom the god : " Because thou canst not be 
 
 My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree : 
 
 Be thou the prize of honor and renown ; 
 
 The deathless poet, and the poem, crown : 
 
 Thou shall the Roman festivals adorn, 
 
 And, after poets, be by victors worn : 
 
 Thou shall returning Caesar's triumph grace, 
 
 When pomps shall in a long procession pass ; 
 
 Wreathed on the post before his palace wait, 
 
 And be the sacred guardian of the gate : 
 
 Secure from thunder and unharmed by Jove ; 
 
 Unfading as the immortal poweis above: 
 
 And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn, 
 
 So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn." 
 
 The grateful tree was pleased with what he said; 
 And shook the shady honors of her head.
 
 H2 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Dazzled and perplexed amid so many brilliant things from 
 which to choose, we pitch next upon the tragic story of 
 Ni'o-be. This for the sake of variety, as well as for the 
 sake of letting our readers, in this final example, see a more 
 exact reproduction of the very words and forms of the 
 original we will give from the literal prose translation of 
 Ovid's " Metamorphoses " furnished in Bonn's Classical Li- 
 brary. It would seem that Niobe (wife of Am-phi'on, king 
 of Thebes) was of a temper haughty even to impiety. When 
 sacrifice and worship were demanded from the Thebans by 
 La-to'na, mother of Apollo and Di-a'na, to be paid to herself 
 and her two divine children, Niobe advanced her own claim 
 to such honors in rivalry with the divinities. To punish her, 
 Apollo slew her seven sons and seven daughters. We omit 
 the horribly realistic details of the shooting of the seven sons 
 by the archer god. Suffice to say, these had been duly and 
 divinely shot : 
 
 The sisters were standing in black array, with their hair disheveled, 
 before the biers of their brothers. One of these, drawing out the weap- 
 on sticking in her entrails, about to die, swooned away, with her face 
 placed upon her brother. Another, endeavoring to console her wretched 
 parent, was suddenly silent, and was doubled together with an invisible 
 wound ; and did not close her mouth, until after the breath had de- 
 parted. Another, vainly flying, falls down ; another dies upon her sis- 
 ter ; another lies hid ; another you might see trembling. And now six 
 being put to death, and having received different wounds, the last only 
 remains ; her mother covering her with all her body, and with all her 
 garments, cries, " Leave me but one, and that the youngest ; the young- 
 est only do I ask out of so many, and that but one." And while she 
 was entreating, she, for whom she was entreating, was slain. Childless, 
 she sat down among her dead sons and daughters and husband, and be- 
 came hardened by her woes. The breeze stirs not a hair ; in her 
 features is a color without blood ; her eyes stand unmoved in her sad 
 cheeks ; in her form there is no appearance of life. Her tongue itself, 
 too, congeals within, together with her hardened palate, and the veins 
 cease to be able to be moved. Her neck can neither be bent, nor can 
 her arms give any motion, nor her feet move. Within her entrails, too, 
 it is stone.
 
 The Latin Reader. 113 
 
 Still did she weep on ; and, enveloped in a hurricane of mighty wind, 
 she was borne away to her native land. There, fixed on the top of a 
 mountain, she dissolves ; and even yet does the marble distil tears. 
 
 Our readers will recall Byron's magnificent comparison of 
 the desolated city of Rome : 
 
 " The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
 Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
 
 An empty urn within her withered hands, 
 Whose holy dust was scattered long ago." 
 
 Shakespeare's "Like Niobe, all tears" is one of those 
 commonplaces of quotation multitudinously supplied by the 
 tragedy of Hamlet. 
 
 The stories of miraculous metamorphosis were even in an- 
 cient times the subject of much ingenious conjectural inter- 
 pretation. We hardly have space here to accumulate ex- 
 amples of the guesses that have been made to explain the 
 origin and meaning of these myths. 
 
 We have not, of course, pretended to give any thing like a 
 full account of Ovid's " Metamorphoses." To do so would far 
 exceed our space. But it would in any case be tedious, and 
 not very profitable. Some monuments of architecture there 
 are, which, besides being composed of choice stones exqui- 
 sitely wrought, are great wholes whose aggregate mass and 
 proportion impress you with an effect of grandeur or beauty 
 infinitely surpassing the sum of the effects due to all the 
 component parts taken together. Of such a structure a few 
 stones by themselves would give a very inadequate idea. 
 But the " Metamorphoses " of Ovid form an edifice from 
 which a number of shapely and polished precious blocks 
 brought away will serve to suggest all the beauty that be- 
 longs to the building. You have merely to say, There are a 
 great many lovely pieces like these. You could not truly 
 say, The glory of the whole is greater than that of the sum 
 of all the parts. 
 
 Ovid had predecessors in the treatment of his subject. To
 
 1 1 4 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 these predecessors how much he was indebted, we have no 
 means of judging. The earlier works have perished, and no 
 critics who knew them have transmitted to us their estimate 
 of Ovid's obligation. We need hardly say that Ovid's fore- 
 runners were Greek. 
 
 If any reader of ours has the means at command, and 
 therewith the curiosity too, to go further than we forward him 
 in the study of Ovid's " Metamorphoses," he will find The 
 Golden Age, Nar-cis'sus at the Fountain, Daed'a-lus and 
 Ic'a-rus, Pyr'a-mus and This'be, Bau'cis and Phi-le'mon, 
 charming episodes for his examination. Of the story of 
 Baucis and Philemon, Hawthorne makes a lovely idyll, 
 clothed upon with more than Ovidian grace, in his "Won- 
 der-book." Hawthorne's, " The Golden Touch," in the same 
 volume, is that magical genius's treatment of Ovid's " Midas." 
 Indeed, you could not do better, for entrance into the spirit 
 of these old myths delightfully modernized, than to read Haw- 
 thorne throughout in his two collections, " Wonder-book " 
 and " Tanglewood Tales." No one will need to be reminded 
 of the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe, interspersed through 
 Shakespeare's" Midsummer Night's Dream." A good many 
 Americans will have become familiar with Mr. John G. 
 Saxe's comical rendering of the same story. Milton's " Ly- 
 cidas," (notably the allusion in it to Orpheus,) and his 
 " Comus," especially the song in it to Echo, are full of Ovid. 
 
 Since the publication of the volume answering to this, in 
 Greek, we have received from correspondents in various 
 parts of the country, courteous letters of request to have col- 
 l.iteral reading suggested in private communications, addi- 
 tionally illustrative of the subjects introduced in our text. 
 In some instances, these applications have proceeded from 
 persons writing on behalf of circles and coteries of readers 
 who were making their perusal of the book a genial social 
 exercise. To all such friends of ours we will say that a com- 
 parative reading of the different English poems named by us
 
 The Latin Reader. 
 
 as in part drawn from Ovid, together with Hawthorne's ex- 
 quisite handling of Ovidian topics, would certainly prove at 
 once instructive and delightful. The same is true of other 
 productions in English literature elsewhere mentioned in 
 connection with the various Latin authors represented. 
 
 We must now take lingering leave of Ovid, to go on in the 
 following chapter with an author who, to a character of so- 
 cial dilettanteism in which he might have rivaled Ovid him- 
 self, joined a character of stern and strenuous practical force, 
 tor affairs of war and of state, iu which he scarcely admitted 
 any rival ancient or modern we mean, Julius Caesar. We 
 barely add that Ovid's verse in the "Metamorphoses" is the 
 same as that of Virgil and of Homer, namely, the dactylic 
 hexameter. No Latin poet ever made his numbers more 
 tunable than did Ovid. 
 
 
 HEAD OK MEDUSA.
 
 1 1 6 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 VI. 
 CAESAR. 
 
 WE put our readers on their guard. The present writer 
 is not a disciple of Carlyle. lie is no idolater of power. 
 He does not believe that might makes right. He is not, 
 therefore, a member of that school of thinkers who fall 
 down speechless in worship before Caesar. We have honestly 
 tried, in the pages that follow, to do scrupulous justice to 
 that great character as much so as if he were still a living 
 man among us, to be pleased or to be pained with award of 
 human praise or blame. We have, however, found it quite 
 impossible not to feel, and not sometimes to vent, a sentiment 
 of indignation at the monstrous things that Cresar could do. 
 
 We have been, no doubt, prompted the more to this by the 
 present prevalence of the opposite tendency, the tendency not 
 simply to apologize for, but boldly to glorify, the man. Let 
 it be considered that it is not against Cassar, the individual 
 man, but against Cocsar, the great embodiment of a certain 
 spirit, pagan in general and Roman in particular, that our 
 zeal of condemnation here or there irrepressibly kindles. 
 
 " The foremost man of all this world," is what Shakes- 
 peare, -in his tragedy bearing for title the illustrious Roman's 
 name, makes Brutus, who had stabbed him, speaking to 
 Cassius, who also had stabbed him, call Julius Caesar. The 
 general agreement of thoughtful minds has tended to affirm 
 Brutus's sentence, and this in a meaning of his expression 
 higher and larger than that which Shakespeare probably in- 
 tended to represent Brutus as intending to convey. Fore- 
 most in position and power, rather than foremost in rank of 
 peisonal greatness, was, we suppose, what Shakespeare's 
 Brutus meant. But there is, with judges presumptively com- 
 petent to pronounce opinion, a strong disposition, to say the 
 least, to accord to Julius Caesar a place of lonely pre-emi-
 
 Cccsar. 117 
 
 r.ence, as, upon the whole, in amplitude of natural endow- 
 ment, and in splendor of historic achievement, perhaps the 
 very first among the sons of men. 
 
 It undoubtedly requires much comprehensive and compara- 
 tive knowledge of the heroes of history, to appreciate the 
 large-molded, many-sided character of such a man as Caesar. 
 Julius Caesar is great in an order of greatness like that, for 
 
 instance, of Mont Blanc or of Niagara among the works of 
 nature; of St. Peter's or of the Milan Cathedral among the 
 works of human hands. You have to study him to measure 
 him. You have to put other great men alongside of him, 
 to perceive how he dwarfs them by the contrast of his easy 
 and symmetrical magnitude. 
 
 In the present volume, we are to let Caesar, in large part, 
 make his own impression of himself by one of his literary
 
 1 1 8 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 works. This work is the account which he wrote of his cam- 
 paigns in Gaul. " Commentaries'" is the name by which the 
 account is technically known. The word "commentaries" 
 in this title is not, of course, to be understood as signifying 
 remarks in criticism and explanation. It is used in the sense of 
 memoirs or memoranda. In the entitling of Caesar's book, it 
 has it perhaps was designed to have the effect of modesty. 
 It is as if to forewarn the reader, This is not an elaborate 
 work of literary art; it is simply a collection of sketches or jot- 
 tings. And, in fact, Caesar's memoirs of his campaigns are said 
 to have been written from time to time, in the course of duty 
 performed by him as military commander in arduously act- 
 ive service in field and in camp. They have somewhat the 
 character of journals of camp and march and fight. 
 
 They are, for all that, much admired for the style in 
 which they are written. Clear, straightforward, simple, 
 manly records they are, of great achievements, hardly, but 
 triumphantly, performed. Caesar writes constantly in the third 
 person, never, save in some three or four, perhaps inadvertent, 
 certainly unimportant, cases of exception, in the first. That 
 is, when he means Caesar he says " Caesar," not " I," or " me." 
 Tiiere is scarcely any thing more remarkable in the book 
 than the impersonal form under which the strong person- 
 ality of writer and actor is forced by the writer to appear. 
 You would scarcely guess, from merely reading the book, 
 that the writer of the book is the same man as he who fur- 
 nished the matter of action which the book was written to 
 report. Given the fact that Caesar is the author, you then 
 immediately feel that the author could have been no other 
 than he. But, without that clue, the idea might never have 
 occurred to your mind. The external evidence, however, is 
 ample for Caesar's authorship of the " Commentaries." 
 
 What did Caesar write his memoirs for? Such a detail of 
 his activity was not required by the government at Rome. 
 The answer probably is, Caesar felt himself a public man.
 
 i j 9 
 
 He had the consciousness of great aims. He felt that he 
 could do things worthy of record, and he felt, moreover, 
 that he could produce a record worthy of the things that he 
 should do. In addition to this more abstract incentive, he, 
 no doubt, had a directly practical purpose in writing his 
 " Commentaries." The book would advance his fortunes at 
 Rome. 
 
 For Csesar was unboundedly ambitious. He wanted to be the 
 lord of the world. We impute this motive freely with all con- 
 fidence. Let every reader, however, keep wisely on his guard. 
 Motives are generally matters of inference only. Cicero says 
 that Caesar had habitually on his tongue that sentiment from 
 Euripides, " If you may ever rightly do wrong, you may do so 
 for the sake of obtaining sovereign power." He wished in his 
 distant wars to act under the gaze of mankind. He should 
 need the support of wide admiration and confidence from 
 his countrymen, in the future movements that he might find 
 it necessary to make, in his race for the first place of power 
 among men. Still, Caesar relates his own exploits witii sin- 
 gular self-restraint. There is not a particle of apparent dem- 
 onstration. A tone of quiet and candor prevails through- 
 out his story, which \vould be the perfection of art, were it 
 art, but which probably is in the main the unaffected, unsought 
 expression of a great nature, in complacent harmony with 
 itself. Caesar's singleness of purpose as a man helped him 
 as a writer. It forbade his allowing any literary vanity to 
 disturb the serenity of his style. Every other ambition was 
 servant in Caesar to the ambition to be the first man in the 
 first city in the world. 
 
 We are not to read Caesar's " Commentaries," as if the au- 
 thor's years of unparalleled activity in Gaul were a mere un- 
 related episode, brilliant, but barren, in his career. We are 
 rather to read them but there are two quite different ways 
 in which we may read Caesar's Gallic " Commentaries." Either 
 we may regard them as telling the story of the thorough and
 
 I2O Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 masterful manner in which he accomplished an important 
 share of certain serious work that it fell to his lot to do for 
 Rome and for the world ; or we may regard them as giving 
 account of a piece of canvassing, on his part, for place 
 and power in the Roman state, canvassing conceived and 
 executed on a scale of largeness and enterprise beyond the 
 reach of any but the most magnificent political as well as 
 military genius. But whichever of these two views we 
 take, it still remains true that this history is vitally related 
 to the whole subsequent history of mankind. 
 
 We shall, in reading Caesar's story, seem to be reading only 
 how consummate skill and discipline in war, supported by 
 boundless resources, overwhelmed brave, but helpless, bar- 
 barism, with the irresistible mass and weight of an equally 
 brave, but also a splendidly equipped, civilization. But let 
 us correct our very natural misconception of the case. The 
 truth is, the Gauls were by no means a wholly uncivilized 
 people, and they were a really formidable foe to Rome. For 
 good reason, Rome dreaded them with immemorial dread. 
 One of the saddest and most shameful of the early traditions 
 of Roman history was the taking and sacking of the city by 
 Gauls. A vast, dense, black cloud of ever-threatened irrup- 
 tion hung, growing, in the quarter of the Roman sky toward 
 Gaul and Germany, ready to break on Italy and pour a flood 
 of devastation against Rome that should even sweep the city 
 from the face of the globe. Caesar's bold plan was to open 
 the cloud and disperse its gathering danger. He perhaps 
 saved Europe to civilization and to Christianity. Four hun- 
 dred years later, the barbarians pressed again against the 
 barriers of the Roman empire. This time the barriers gave 
 way, and the floods came in. But meantime, and this as the 
 result of Coesar's work, Gaul itself, indeed all Europe, west 
 and south, with Africa, too, had been permanently Roman- 
 ized ; and there was moreover now a Christian Church pre- 
 pared to welcome the inrushing barbarians to her bosom,
 
 Ccesar. 121 
 
 and make them, retaining much, no doubt, of their native 
 fierceness still, yet strangely gentle pupils in the school of 
 Christ. 
 
 With how much far forecast, on his own part, of all this 
 long reach of influence, to be exerted through his deeds, 
 on the future fortune of Rome, Caesar accepted and admin- 
 istered his governorship of Gaul, it is of course impossible 
 now to say. It is hard, however, not to feel that glorifying 
 historians, like Mommsen, of Caesar, have found much states- 
 manlike wisdom in Caesar's career, which in point of fact it 
 never entered the great Roman's mind to conceive. Provi- 
 dence is wiser in state than any man, and it is poor philos- 
 ophy of history to be over-confident in projecting back- 
 ward upon Caesar's credit for foresight, results of his activ- 
 ity that in all probability he neither planned, nor expected, 
 nor desired, nor even conjectured. The historian of Caesar 
 thus magnifies the man by giving him adjuncts not his, and 
 by applying standards of measurement too large to be laid 
 off against any one but God. Caesar was wise in his genera- 
 tion. He knew how to make himself master of Rome. Let 
 him have his praise. But he was not a prophet. And he 
 was too selfish to be a patriot. And with all his greatness, 
 he was not great enough to be a lover of mankind. The 
 type of greatness that embraces the human race, that antici- 
 pates all time, was born into this world with Jesus of Naz- 
 areth precisely one hundred years after the birth of Caesar. 
 It was not Caesar's individual fault that he kept within the 
 limits of the ideas of the non-Christian ancient world. But 
 so it is not to be made his individual praise that he over- 
 passed those limits; for he did not overpass them. Caesar 
 was just a Roman, with Roman traits, both good and bad, 
 carried to their highest expression. He was the impersona- 
 tion, the idealization, the realization, of the Roman genius 
 for conquest and government. He had the cold blood and 
 cruelty of Rome. 
 6
 
 122 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Our readers will observe, as they go forward in the Com- 
 mentaries, occasional mention made of Caesar's absences, 
 during the winters, in Italy. These absences of Csesar from 
 Gaul, during that season of the year in which military oper- 
 ations were usually suspended, were not for the purpose 
 of mere pleasure and relaxation, on his part, in the capital. 
 Caesar, in fact, did not visit the capital. Friends and follow- 
 ers from the capital visited him instead, where he held for 
 them almost regal court at Luca (modern Lucca) in North 
 Italy. These Italian winters of his were a part, an essential 
 part, of Caesar's long, patient, watchful, skillful, audacious, 
 successful, tragic game in Roman politics. The senate had 
 banished him if the senate intended to banish him to Gaul, 
 in vain. He was still present in Rome more potently than 
 ever. Our readers will better understand the relation of 
 Caesar's experience in Gaul to the rest of his life, if we pause 
 long enough at this point to sketch briefly his previous career. 
 
 Caius Julius Caesar was of an ancient patrician family of 
 Rome, who claimed derivation from lulus, son of Trojan 
 v^Eneas. The word Csesar was made by Caius Julius a name 
 so illustrious, that it came afterward to be adopted by his 
 successors in power at Rome, and finally thence to be trans- 
 ferred to the emperors of Germany, and to the autocrats of 
 Russia, called respectively Kaiser and Czar. Caesar was 
 politician from a boy. He was married (or perhaps only 
 betrothed) early enough to get himself divorced at seventeen, 
 for the purpose of allying himself to Cinna through a second 
 marriage with that democratic leader's daughter. This wife, 
 too, the dictator, Sylla, now omnipotent at Rome, advised 
 young Csesar to put away. Csesar had the spirit to refuse 
 compliance, but he had also the prudence to flee from Rome 
 to escape the dictator's resentment. Before he fled, Sylla 
 had warned him of his danger by taking away his office, his 
 inheritance, his dowry by his wife. When, upon Syila's 
 death, Caesar got back to Rome, he won popular favor by
 
 Ccesar. 123 
 
 bringing an indictment for extortion in Macedonia against 
 Dolabella. His taste of applause as public speaker excited 
 him to become a master of eloquence. He repaired to 
 Rhodes for study with a celebrated rhetorician there. On 
 his way, he was taken by pirates who asked thirty thousand 
 dollars in ransom. He agreed to pay this sum, but at the 
 same time laughingly told the pirates that if they knew who 
 he was, they would ask fifty thousand dollars. Let me but 
 catch you, he said, and I will crucify you to a man. They 
 thought Caesar a merry fellow; but he promptly got together 
 a number of ships, pursued them, captured them, and, taking 
 the law into his own hands, true to his word put them all to 
 death on crosses. The young student then went on to his 
 rhetorical professor. 
 
 Having been chosen pontifex, he returned to Rome, where 
 he went rapidly through a succession of public offices : as 
 quaestor, bidding for popularity by pronouncing a eulogy on 
 his aunt Julia, wife of the redoubtable democrat Marius; 
 as aedile, still further courting the favor of the common 
 people by entertainments provided on a scale of unmatched 
 magnificence, and of course at correspondingly enormous 
 expense. The result was to plunge him millions on millions 
 of dollars in debt. Now occurred the conspiracy of Catiline, 
 in which Caesar himself was implicated, in the suspicion of 
 some. The mere existence of the suspicion tends to show 
 how active and how unscrupulous in politics Caesar was 
 held to be. Mommsen, the German historian of Rome 
 already before alluded to, a warm eulogist of Caesar, holds it 
 for tolerably certain that his hero was in fact a fellow-con- 
 spirator with Catiline ; nor does he on that account (or on 
 any other account) at all abate the great man's praise. 
 
 He wanted to be pontifex maximus, that is, chief priest of 
 the Roman religion. Caesar was a thorough-paced skeptic, 
 and his aim in this matter was worldly-minded in the ex- 
 treme : he needed the office as a refuge from his creditors.
 
 124 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Without it he would have to flee from Rome. A rival candi- 
 date offered to pay Caesar's debts for him, if he would with- 
 draw his name from the canvass. " I would double my 
 debt, if that were necessary," was Caesar's reply. "I shall be 
 pontifex maximus this day or I shall be an exile," he said to 
 his mother on the morning of the election day. He was 
 triumphantly elected. The next year saw him praetor. At 
 the close of the year's prsetorship, he was, in due course of 
 Roman custom, given a province to squeeze. Spain was his 
 lot. He here, by levying war on the native tribes bordering 
 the province, found means to amass money enough to ease 
 him of his debts, which, by the way, to the pretty sum of 
 five millions of dollars, his friend Crassus had had to become 
 surety for, before Caesar, in the first instance, could leave 
 Rome for Spain. From Spain, at the end of his term of 
 office in that province, this masterful spirit hastened back to 
 Rome to run for the consulship. The consulship was the 
 top round in the ladder of Roman political ambition. Caesar 
 saw all things possible to himself once chosen consul. He 
 was chosen. His colleague was Bibulus, a stiff senatorial 
 conservative, joined with Cxsar in office in order to check 
 that politician's popular arts. But honest Bibulus became 
 so manageable in Caesar's hands that there might nearly as 
 well have been one consul instead of two. In fact, it was a 
 saying at Rome that the two consuls were Julius and 
 Caesar. Caesar's consulship, in its bearing on his own per- 
 sonal fortunes, was an overflowing success. He steadily 
 opposed the oligarchy of the senate (for the Roman republic, 
 so-called, was in reality a senatorial oligarchy) he got a law 
 enacted for distributing lands to the poor (the poor being 
 chiefly the soldiers of Pompey, which great Roman was now 
 to be made Caesar's friend) he won the favor of the knights 
 by relieving them, as the senate had refused to do, from a 
 burdensome contract into which they had entered with the 
 state for collection of revenue ; in short, he made himself
 
 Casar. 125 
 
 an overwhelmingly popular man. It was now that, with 
 Pompey, the most honored man in Rome, and Crassus, per- 
 haps the richest, Csesar, undoubtedly the ablest, formed that 
 famous political fellowship which has acquired the name of 
 the first triumvirate. 
 
 Caesar's consulship expired, he went to Gaul as proconsul. 
 His term of proconsular government was at first fixed for 
 five years, an unusual length of term, afterward, however, 
 extended to ten years, though eight years was the extreme 
 limit of time that Caesar actually spent as governor of Gaul. 
 Before the other two years were done he had outgrown 
 Gaul. In four years more he had made himself emperor of 
 the world, in every thing but the name, and then, after less 
 than twelve months' enjoyment of the long-coveted su- 
 premacy, had fallen in death, under numerous wounds from 
 his friends, at the base of the statue of that former colleague 
 of his, great Pompey, against whom he had meantime waged 
 deadly war, and who had himself also but a short time be- 
 fore been treacherously slain. It is a dreadful history. 
 Caesar's glory is emblazoned in blood. 
 
 For the subsequent and closing parts of his career, Caesar's 
 campaigns in Gaul, which we are here about to study in his 
 own record of them, were a necessary preparation. It was 
 for these campaigns that he at first obtained control of the 
 legions which were soon to be the weapon in his hand for 
 hewing his way to sovereign power. It was in these cam- 
 paigns that he disciplined those legions to become, perhaps, 
 the best soldiers the world ever saw, and that he attached 
 them so remarkably to his own person and fortune. The 
 whole course of subsequent history would have been incal- 
 culably different, but for the momentous transactions which 
 we learn of from Csesar's Commentaries. The occurrences 
 which the Anabasis of Xenophon relates, have their bearing 
 on the general history of mankind in but an incidental and, 
 as it were, fortuitous way. In Csesar's Commentaries, on
 
 126 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 the contrary, we give our attention to affairs that directly 
 affected the destiny of the civilized world. 
 
 Caesar's style is correspondingly different from the style 
 of Xenophon. There is a largeness of handling, a virility, a 
 force, in the Roman's work, which in the Grecian's we do 
 not find. In compensation, Xenophon has more grace, more 
 humanity, than Caesar. Caesar, we may as well frankly con- 
 fess it, has stretches that are drier than any in Xenophon. 
 We make our peace with Latin specialists for this compara- 
 tive slight to an author who is universally, with good reason, 
 their admiration and delight, by quoting here a sentence from 
 learned Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth. In his 
 " Schoolmaster," this early and excellent writer on educa- 
 tion, says : " In Caesar's Commentaries is seen the unspotted 
 propriety of the Latin tongue." We may adapt a familiar 
 quotation, and, of Caesar, with the change of a word or two, 
 say exactly what stately Edmund Spenser said of Chaucer : 
 
 Dan Chaucer, well of English undenled, 
 becomes 
 
 Great Julius, well of Latin undefiled. 
 
 This we think with all our heart, and yet believe that our 
 readers will be contented to have less of his narrative in 
 Caesar's own words, than, in the case of Xenophon, we were 
 sure they would unanimously demand. Undoubtedly one 
 feels that Caesar is of the two the greater man. But un- 
 doubtedly, also, one feels that of the two Xenophon is the 
 more pleasing writer. 
 
 Out of the eight books comprised in Caesar's Gallic Com- 
 mentaries, the preparatory student is usually required to 
 read only four. We, however, with our accustomed liberality 
 toward our friends, shall try to give them a fairly satisfactory 
 account of the entire work. Each book recounts the events 
 and incidents, these and no more, of one campaign, covering 
 a military year of time.
 
 Cxsar. 12 7 
 
 FIRST BOOK. 
 
 The first book, after a bit of geography to begin with, oc- 
 cupies itself with two series of military operations on Caesar's 
 part, one directed against the Helvetians, (Swiss,) and one 
 against a body of Germans who had invaded Gaul. Our 
 readers will, not only here, but elsewhere at points through- 
 out the volume, find in the elegant colored map provided by 
 the enlightened liberality of the publishers, a convenient 
 elucidation of the text. 
 
 It seems that there is among the Helvetians a man with 
 ideas. Or-get'o-rix is his name. This Orgetorix proposes to 
 his countrymen a whole national migration. To prevent, 
 or rather to turn back, this movement, deemed by Csesar 
 threatening to the Roman province of Gaul-beyond-the- 
 Alps a margin of territory along the Mediterranean coast, 
 with Marseilles (Massilia) for its chief town was the first 
 object of the new governor's first Gallic campaign. 
 
 The Helvetians have already, after two years of provident 
 and laborious preparation, begun to move. Their towns and 
 villages burned behind them, they are already on the banks 
 of the Rhone, seeking the most eligible route to their desti- 
 nation, which is a district of country lying to the west, out- 
 side their native mountain fastnesses. 
 
 But Caesar appears. They ask his permission to cross the 
 Roman province. Caesar will answer them in two weeks. 
 The two weeks Caesar spends in putting himself in safe con- 
 dition to answer them no. The Helvetian emigrants persist- 
 ing make several attempts to pass the Rhone, which failing, 
 they turn in another direction. 
 
 Ca?sar posts to Italy. Quickly back again with ample re-en- 
 forcements, he hears from the ^Eduans that the Helvetians 
 are overrunning their country. The ^Eduans were old allies 
 of Rome. Caesar undertook to help them. He follows up the 
 line of the emigrant Helvetians. Seizing his opportunity,
 
 iz8 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 he falls upon a fourth part of the Helvetian horde, left still 
 upon the hither bank of a river they were crossing, and cuts 
 them in pieces. Caesar recalls that it was this particular 
 canton of the Swiss which had, in a former generation, slain 
 a Roman consul and compelled that Roman consul's army 
 to pass under the yoke. A coincidence, he thinks, that the 
 same canton should be the one now to feel the stroke of 
 retribution. Caesar had a kinsman who suffered in that an- 
 cient calamity. This personal wrong also was redressed. 
 Readers will be interested to know just how close home to 
 Caesar had come the wrong thus vicariously avenged. The 
 man concerned was the grandfather of Caesar's father-in- 
 law ! 
 
 The Helvetian body, the three fourths that were left of 
 them, sued for peace. Caesar demanded hostages. They 
 were accustomed, so they haughtily replied, to receive hos- 
 tages, not to give them. The great multitude staggered for- 
 ward. Caesar dogged them watchfully. 
 
 But his provisions were failing. The vEduans had prom- 
 ised to victual his army. They paltered and postponed. 
 Caesar at length learned what the difficulty was. There was 
 one vEduan who had the spirit not to be a Romanizer. 
 Caesar guessed his man. It was a brother of Div'i-ti'a-cus, 
 and Divitiacus was a chief whom Csesar could not afford to 
 offend. This man, Dumnorix by name, had influence enough 
 to make the ^Eduans keep back the promised supplies. 
 Caesar warned him to beware, but forgave him this time for 
 his brother's sake. 
 
 The Romans now turn aside in quest of provisions. The 
 Helvetians mistook the movement for retreat. They pursue, 
 and give Caesar his chance. They fight at disadvantage, 
 and after a desperate struggle are defeated. 
 
 But the duel was long, and for a time it even seemed 
 doubtful. When finally the Romans prevail, the emigrants 
 retire, one part up a mountain near by, and the other to
 
 Ccesar. 129 
 
 their baggage trains. No Roman, Csesar testifies, saw that 
 day the back of a foe. The conflict lasted all the long 
 summer afternoon. It was prolonged at the wagons far into 
 the night. The end came at last, and the Romans got pos- 
 session of the emigrants' baggage and encampment. The 
 daughter, and a son, of Orgetorix were among the captives. 
 
 All this was a good while ago, but it was highly real 
 when it happened. Caesar's mention of Orgetorix's daughter 
 irresistibly stimulates the imagination of the thoughtful 
 modern reader of his story, to conceive the multiplied and 
 diversified distress endured by the Swiss, in this experience 
 of armed and fighting migration. Old men, tender women, 
 little children, there were, huddled helplessly together in the 
 Helvetian quarters bereavement, destitution, death, captivity 
 worse than death, staring them in the face while husbands, 
 sons, fathers, brothers, sweethearts, by scores and by hun- 
 dreds, fell before their very eyes, bravely but vainly fighting 
 there for every thing dear to the heart of man. War, Csesar, 
 with Roman magniloquence, called this dreadful business. 
 Butchery would be a better name. 
 
 Caesar relates that about one hundred and thirty thousand 
 emigrant survivors of the struggle marched- men, women, 
 and children, think of it, and after an endless afternoon of 
 such agony all that night, without a moment to rest, and 
 wearily on and on until on the fourth day they reach, " all 
 that was left of them," the country of the Lin'go-nes. To the 
 Lingones, Caesar choking down any gasp of sympathy for 
 the sufferers he might have the weakness to feel rising in 
 his Roman breast sends word that they must give no aid 
 whatever, not so much as a crust of bread, to the Helve- 
 tians, on pain of being regarded by him in the same light as 
 were they. The Romans, an unusual thing for Romans 
 under Caesar, have to wait three days before pursuing the 
 refugees. 
 
 With arithmetical calmness, Caesar gives the number of the 
 6*
 
 130 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 enemy, according to lists found in the captured camp of the 
 Helvetians. There had set out from home in all three 
 hundred and sixty-eight thousand emigrants. There returned, 
 for there was a return, under what auspices effected we shall 
 presently see, one hundred and ten thousand. In round 
 numbers, a quarter of a million souls perished or were made 
 slaves, as the result of that disastrous exodus. 
 
 Excavations made under the munificent auspices of Napo- 
 leon III., uncovered, in some of the localities identified as 
 scenes of Caesar's Gallic slaughters, vast deposits of human 
 remains, in which could be distinguished the skeletons of 
 men, women, and children. 
 
 Mr. J. A. Froude has written an elaborately studied and 
 highly readable life, by him entitled " Sketch," of Julius Caesar. 
 The work is conceived and is executed throughout in a spirit 
 of unbounded, not to say unscrupulous, ascription to the au- 
 thor's hero. A fair estimate that of Napoleon III., biogra- 
 pher surely devoted enough to Caesar makes the actual fight- 
 ing force engaged in the struggle just described nearly equal 
 on the two sides, not far from sixty thousand men to each. 
 The Helvetians may have had a few thousand more than the 
 Romans, perhaps seventy thousand against sixty thousand. 
 Mr. Froude, however, apparently forgetting that the great 
 mixed multitude of the emigrants did not raise to a very 
 high figure their effective combatant strength, says that the 
 Helvetians were " enormously superior " in numbers to 
 Caesar's army. 
 
 Mr. Froude also says that " Caesar treated the poor creat- 
 ures [the survivors] with kindness and care." Caesar, after 
 unconditional surrender on the part of the fugitives, com- 
 manded the Al-lob'ro-ges to furnish them with plenty to eat, 
 and sent them, so victualed at the expense of his allies, 
 back to their own deserted and desolated homes with orders 
 there to rebuild their towns and villages. This constituted 
 Caesar's "kindness and care," and this constituted the whole
 
 C<zsar. 131 
 
 of it. Caesar, regardless of future biographers, is at pains 
 to let it be known that he, for his part, had no sentimental 
 reasons for his "kindness and care." He says: "This he 
 did, chiefly, on this account, because he was unwilling that 
 the country from which the Helvetians had departed, should 
 be untenanted, lest the Germans, who dwell on the other 
 side of the Rhine, should, allured by the excellence of the 
 lands, cross over from their own territories into those of the 
 Helvetians, and become borderers upon the provinces of 
 Gaul and the Allobroges." 
 
 Caesar, by the way, saved his character, as a sound practical 
 man of affairs and no sentimentalist, by excepting from his 
 " kindness and care " some six thousand men of the Helve- 
 tians who, after the general surrender, made off in the night 
 to seek safety for themselves rather than depend upon the 
 clemency of their conqueror. " These he considered, when 
 brought back, in the light of enemies," a pregnant expression 
 from the frugal pen of Caesar. The euphemism means that 
 he had six thousand unarmed and helpless prisoners of war 
 butchered in cold blood. The people through whose terri- 
 tory the escape was attempted, were required by Caesar to 
 do the catching and bringing in of the fugitives. 
 
 Thus ended the Helvetian war war, to indulge Caesar in 
 his own non-descriptive word. The future dictator had be- 
 gun prosperously in Gaul. Already he had made up his 
 score to one quarter of the full million of human lives that 
 he must take in Gaul, to prepare himself for by and by crossing 
 the Rubicon, on his way to empire and to bloody death. 
 
 Here let the thought of that expiation awaiting this ruth- 
 less conqueror give us check and pause. Our indignation 
 and horror must not hurry us into injustice toward Caesar. 
 This was not Cassar, except as Csesar was Rome. Hardly 
 more, perhaps, was it Rome, except as Rome was the ancient 
 pagan world. We say this, but we feel that we ought to qual- 
 ify with an exception in favor of the Greeks. Xenophon.
 
 132 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 for example, relating an incident of peculiar distress to 
 his enemies, comments upon it with humanity : "A dreadful 
 spectacle was then to be seen." No such token of sympa- 
 thy, on the part of the soldier and author, even once relieves 
 the arctic pages of Caesar. Sentiment like that was Grecian, 
 not Roman. In the present instance, however, we have no 
 reason for supposing otherwise than that the wretched Hel- 
 vetians would, in the place of conquerors, have been every 
 whit as cruel as were the Romans. It is natural to side with 
 the weak. But we must in doing so take care not to be un- 
 just to the strong. And, here at least, we may comfort our- 
 selves with remembering it was for the good of mankind that 
 the strong should prevail. 
 
 Victorious Caesar now sat at the receipt of congratulations. 
 Ambassadors from almost all parts of Gaul hastened to his 
 head-quarters to thank him for his services. One would 
 like much to know with what degree of literal accuracy Caesar 
 has condescended, in that indirect fashion of his, the oralio 
 obliqua so called, (which is the delight of drill-masters in Latin 
 desiring to initiate their pupils into the mysteries of the re- 
 flexive pronoun and of the subjunctive mood) one, we say, 
 would gladly know with what measure of regard for strict 
 fidelity to fact, Caesar has condescended to make his oblique 
 report of the speeches delivered to him by these effusive 
 ambassadors ! 
 
 The crowded first Gallic campaign of Caesar is to be closed 
 with a series of operations better deserving, than did the 
 slaughter of the pilgrim Helvetians, to be styled a war. 
 A certain Ar'i-o-vis'tus, German prince and conqueror, 
 invoked at first as ally by one of the Gallic tribes at war 
 among themselves, has turned intolerable oppressor and 
 usurper, menacing especially the prosperity and power of the 
 ^Eduans. 
 
 Caesar at once resolves on interfering. His first step of 
 course is to send an embassy to Ariovistus. Ariovistus
 
 Casar. 133 
 
 must meet Cresar in conference. Ariovistus demurs, and 
 Caesar insists. There is thrust and parry between the two in 
 diplomatic interchange. Caesar stings Ariovistus with a 
 charge of ingratitude to himself and the Roman people. 
 Ariovistus retorts that Rome governed her conquered as she 
 chose, and that he, Ariovistus, claimed a similar privilege 
 for himself. Let Caesar come on if he liked. He, Caesar, 
 would soon learn what Germans, inured from infancy to 
 war, and never once during fourteen years sheltered under a 
 roof, were able to accomplish. 
 
 Whatever the effect produced on Caesar's own mind by Ari- 
 ovistus's bold attitude, Caesar's camp at any rate is now the 
 scene of singular commotion. Staggering reports reach the 
 soldiers respecting the enemy they are about marching to 
 meet. The Germans are of gigantic stature, they are in- 
 credibly brave and incredibly skillful in arms. Their very 
 looks are frightful. You could not withstand the mere 
 fierceness of their eyes. At these reports, the whole army 
 of Caesar is panic-stricken. 
 
 The civilians present in camp as friends of Caesar, place- 
 holders there perhaps by personal favor and spectators rather 
 than sharers of the campaign were the first to feel, and they 
 communicated, the fright. Urging various reasons why it 
 was necessary for them to leave, some of these begged Cassar 
 kindly to excuse them and let them withdraw ; while others, 
 ashamed to appear afraid, yet could not with all their efforts 
 keep their countenances composed, or even always restrain 
 their tears. They got together in groups of mutual com- 
 miseration, and, hidden within the tents, gave themselves up 
 to moans of despair. Throughout the camp, there was a 
 universal making of wills. (This feature of the panic is fairly 
 farcical. If the extremity was so desperate, who, pray, was 
 going to carry the sealed testaments to Rome and see that 
 they were duly executed ?) It was a scene of general demor- 
 alization. The most experienced soldiers did not escape the
 
 134 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 spreading contagion. Officers even began to yield. They 
 did not fear the enemy, not they, but the narrow roads, the 
 vast forests, the failing supplies ! Csesar was warned that 
 his soldiers would not obey a command to advance. 
 
 Here was a situation for a general. But there was a 
 general for the situation. Csesar summoned his officers 
 to council and lectured them sharply. He reasoned with 
 them, but he also brought his will to bear upon them. 
 In short, he used the language of one born to command, as 
 well as of one born to persuade. It was the will, no doubt, 
 quite as much as the reasons, that prevailed. But if Csesar 
 in fact overbore with his will, he did not disdain to give his 
 centurions a chance to save their own self-respect. They 
 might, if they preferred, feel that they were overborne by his 
 representations. He shrewdly excited the spirit of mutual 
 emulation. He said if the rest of the army all failed him, 
 he would march on with his tenth legion alone. Caesar's 
 tenth legion, by the way, was his favorite body of soldiers. 
 It became famous, immortal indeed, in history. It is a prov- 
 erb still for loyalty, valor, effectiveness. 
 
 Csesar frankly admits that his address told surprisingly on 
 his hearers. The general feeling was completely changed. 
 Enthusiasm took the place of panic. The tenth legion sent 
 to thank their commander for his compliment to them. 
 They were ready, they said, to march to the war. The cen- 
 turions now generally explained, each one that he had not 
 been afraid, that he had not taken it upon him to distrust 
 Caesar's wisdom. They were, each man of them, too well 
 instructed in duty. 
 
 Csesar was prudently gracious and he accepted their ex- 
 cuses. Hastened instead of retarded by the mutinous state 
 of his army, he broke camp and set out in the fourth watch, 
 that is, between three and six in the morning. (The Roman 
 night was divided into four watches of three hours each, the 
 length of the hour varying with the season of the year.)
 
 Ctesar. 135 
 
 Seven days of Caesar's marching brings him within about 
 twenty miles of Ariovistus. 
 
 Ariovistus hears of an approach so important to himself, 
 and sends ambassadors to Caesar. A conference, to be held 
 in the saddle, was agreed upon. Caesar had to extemporize 
 a cavalry escort that he could trust. He dismounted the 
 Gallic cavalry, and on their horses seated his tenth legion. 
 The extemporized cavalry were well pleased with the ar- 
 rangement. One of them facetiously remarked: 'You have 
 done more for us than you promised. You promised to 
 make us your pretorian cohort. But here we are all of us 
 knights.' (The Latin word for horseman meant also mem- 
 ber of a certain privileged order, namely, the knights. It is 
 fair, however, to apprise our readers that there is another 
 explanation of the soldier's pleasantry. According to this 
 other explanation, there is no pun in the case. The soldier 
 simply felicitates himself with his comrades on their good 
 fortune in being converted from foot-soldiers into cavalry. 
 We advise our readers to choose the first explanation, and, 
 with undisturbed confidence, enjoy their pun. Those, how- 
 ever, who take Dr. Johnson's severe view of puns, as worth- 
 less wit, are supplied with their alternative.) 
 
 We can afford to skip the pages of oblique report in which 
 Caesar gives his account of what passed between the two 
 generals in their conference. Again there was thrust and 
 parry on either side ; but the result of course was that they 
 parted without arriving at any agreement. A movement on 
 the part of the German cavalry escort was interpreted by the 
 Romans as hostile. Caesar on this withdrew. He was solic- 
 itous, he says, that no chance should be given the enemy for 
 saying that they had been ensnared at the conference. On 
 a signal subsequent occasion, as our readers will see, Caesar 
 was less solicitous. 
 
 Battle cannot now be much longer postponed. However, 
 Caesar draws up his army before Ariovistus in challenge to
 
 136 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 engagement, day after day, without result. A description 
 given of the German military method is interesting. (We 
 use, for our extracts in strict translation from Caesar, chiefly 
 the version of Professor William Duncan, of the University 
 of Aberdeen. A more accessible, but far inferior, work is 
 the translation printed in Bohn's Classical Library.) 
 Caesar : 
 
 They had about six thousand horse, who chose a like number out of 
 the foot, each his man, and all remarkable for strength and agility. 
 These continually accompanied them in battle, and served them as a 
 rear-guard, to which, when hard pressed, they might retire ; if the ac- 
 tion became dangerous, they advanced to their relief ; if any horseman 
 was considerably wounded, and fell from his horse, they gathered round 
 to defend him ; if speed was required, either for a hasty pursuit, or sud- 
 den retreat, they were become so nimble and alert by continual exercise, 
 that, laying hold of the manes of their horses, they could run as fast as 
 they. 
 
 Ariovistus at length hazards an attack. This was about 
 midday. A hot fight raged all the afternoon. From some 
 German prisoners taken, Caesar learned at evening the reason 
 why Ariovistus had been so slow in coming to an engage- 
 ment. It seems the German matrons, who practiced some 
 sort of divination, warned him not to fight until the new 
 moon. 
 
 The Germans now prepare for the inevitable decisive en- 
 counter. They marshal their army by cantons or tribes, of 
 which Caesar enumerates seven, all with barbarous names. 
 They surround the whole army with their chariots and 
 wagons, on which are placed their women, who, with dishev- 
 eled hair and in tears, implore the warriors, moving forward 
 to battle, not to deliver them into Roman slavery. 
 
 Caesar quietly introduces a change in the organization of 
 the legion. Over each legion he sets a lieutenant and a 
 quaestor to act as witnesses, and so as stimulators, of the valor 
 of the men. Previously to this there seems not to have been
 
 Ccesar. 137 
 
 any unity given to the legion by the existence of a general 
 officer for the whole body. Caesar this time commences the 
 attack himself. The enemy meet him more than half way. 
 They rush forward so prompt and so swift, that the battle is 
 joined hand in hand before javelins can be thrown. The 
 Germans form a phalanx. On this close-locked array, with 
 its impenetrable front of shield to shield, the Roman soldiers, 
 some of them, in their eager bravery, leaped up and with 
 their hands pulling down the shields stabbed at the bearers 
 from above. 
 
 Caesar's attack was successful on the right. But on the 
 left the Romans suffered. A timely re- enforcement sup- 
 ported them at that point, and along the whole line the Ger- 
 mans gave way. They fled, fifty miles without stopping, to 
 the Rhine. A few escaped, among them, Ariovistus. All 
 the rest, dryly observes Caesar, " our cavalry slew." Ario- 
 vistus had two wives, (monogamy, however, was the rule, 
 polygamy the exception, among the Germans,) who both per- 
 ished in this flight. There were two daughters. Of these 
 one was killed, another captured. 
 
 The rumor of this rout reached a body of Germans who 
 had come to the banks of the Rhine intending to cross, and 
 sent them back home. Their retreat was not without loss, 
 for the Gauls near the river followed them and destroyed 
 many lives. 
 
 In his grand way, Caesar closes the first book of his Com- 
 mentaries as follows : 
 
 Caesar having in one campaign put an end to two very considerable 
 wars, went into winter-quarters somewhat sooner than the season of the 
 year required. He distributed his army among the Seq'ua-ni, left La- 
 bienus to command in his absence, and set out himself for Cisalpine 
 Gaul, to preside in the assembly of the states. 
 
 The winter-quarters of a Roman army had much the char- 
 acter of a permanent town. They occupied a considerable 
 area. They were fortified in almost every conceivable way.
 
 138 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 They were supplied with conveniences of various kinds, like 
 the cities of the period. Hither. Gaul, or Cisalpine Gaul, was 
 Northern Italy. The assizes spoken of were sessions of a 
 proconsular court such as was customarily held in Roman 
 provinces for the administration of justice. Without neglect- 
 ing these official duties of his, Caesar, we know, managed be- 
 sides to pay some attention to his own personal plans for 
 getting on in the world, though of this it does not belong to 
 the purpose of the Commentaries to speak. 
 
 SECOND BOOK. 
 
 Caesar's winter in Luca is disturbed, perhaps not disagree- 
 ably to himself, by reports brought to him that the Belgians 
 are " conspiring " against the Roman people. The Belgians 
 were made up of different tribes, who now all exchange hos- 
 tages among themselves, in pledge of mutual good faith for 
 the purpose contemplated. Caesar gives a considerable num- 
 ber of reasons for this hostile confederation on the part of 
 the Belgians. He might have spared himself his pains. 
 There was one sufficient reason to the Belgians for entering 
 into their league against Rome they did not wish to be 
 Rome's slaves. 
 
 Caesar at once raises two new legions in Hither Gaul, that 
 part of his province in which he then was. The Roman 
 legion, by the way, was, in the number of men composing 
 it, a somewhat variable quantity. Originally, the number 
 was three thousand foot with three hundred horse. Later it 
 went up to four, five, and even six thousand men. Caesar's 
 legions have been differently estimated ; they were probably 
 about forty-five hundred strong. Caesar seldom takes care 
 to let us know the exact numerical strength of his own army. 
 Habitually, too, he avoids telling the loss and waste of men 
 that he surfers. We only read from time to time of his levy- 
 ing new legions. His auxiliary forces are usually a pretty 
 indefinite addition to his strength.
 
 Casar. 139 
 
 Sudden rapid movement on his part has the usual effect 
 on the enemy. The Remi (Rheims, pronounce Reemz, is 
 the modern form bequeathed from this Roman name of 
 the Belgic tribe) are fairly scared into poltroonery. They 
 send ambassadors to Caesar, and make an abject surrender 
 of themselves and of all their possessions into Caesar's hands. 
 They purge themselves of fault in his eyes, by declaring that 
 they had not conspired with the rest, and by volunteering 
 information about what their brethren are doing. The poor 
 cravens say that the (patriotic) infatuation of the Belgians is 
 so great that they, the Remi, could in no wise keep back 
 even their own kindred, the Sues-si-o'nes (Soissons is the 
 modern derivative) from joining the confederacy. 
 
 The Remi are. like the ^Eduans, after Caesar's own heart. 
 He gets the following statistics of numbers from his forward 
 informants we give them in Caesar's own summary : 
 
 He found that the Suessiones had within their territories twelve forti- 
 fied towns, and promised to bring into the field fifty thousand men : 
 the like number had been stipulated by. the Nervians, who, inhabiting 
 the remotest provinces of Gaul, were esteemed the most fierce and war- 
 like of all the Belgian nations : that the At're-ba'tians were to furnish 
 fifteen thousand, the Am'bi-a'ni ten thousand, the Mort-ni twenty-five 
 thousand, the Men'a-pians nine thousand, the Cal'e-tes ten thousand, 
 the Vel'o-cas'sians and Ver'o-man'du-ans the like number ; the At'u-at'- 
 i-ci twenty-nine thousand ; and the Con-dru-'sians, Eb'u-ro'nes, Caerce'- 
 sians, and Pae-ma'ni, all comprehended under the common name of Ger- 
 mans, forty thousand. 
 
 Let not our readers shudder at the aspect of these bristling 
 proper names. We show them for this once here, but we 
 shall, for the most part, keep them discreetly out of sight 
 hereafter. 
 
 Caesar patted those accommodating Romanizers, the Remi, 
 on the back, told them to have their whole % senate paraded 
 before him, and to bring him the children of their chief men 
 as hostages. The Remi eagerly obey. 
 
 Meantime, the Belgians are on the march to meet Caesar.
 
 140 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Eight miles distant from his camp was a town of the Remi, 
 Bi'brax by name. This town the marching Belgians pause 
 to attack. They well-nigh succeed in taking it the very first 
 day. Their plan of operations was like that of the Gauls 
 proper in besieging. (The Belgians were not pure Gauls, 
 having a strong admixture of German in their blood.) They 
 surrounded the whole circuit of the fortifications with men, 
 who, casting stones, cleared the walls of defenders. This 
 done, they formed a testudo which Roman military term 
 may here properly be explained to our readers. The testudo 
 was a certain disposition of troops made for a particular pur- 
 pose. It was formed by a body of soldiers closing up to each 
 other, the central part with their shields held over their heads, 
 to provide complete protection against missiles hurled from 
 above, the outer ranks with their shields sloped at an angle, 
 to guard all the sides from weapons horizontally thrown. 
 The whole appearance resembled the back of a tortoise, 
 (whence the name testudo, meaning tortoise.) The testudo 
 became a cover under which besieging soldiers could at their 
 leisure work safely to undermine walls. This purpose was 
 on the present occasion successfully effected by the Belgians. 
 But evening fell, and put a temporary period to the progress 
 of the operations. 
 
 As soon as it is dark, messengers come from the beleag- 
 uered town to Caesar with news that, unless relieved, the town 
 must surrender. Caesar loses no time. At midnight he 
 sends a detachment of troops, such as Rome had learned, 
 from various enemies encountered, to add to her own army 
 organization Numidian and Cretan archers, they were in 
 this instance, together with Balearic slingers to succor the 
 distressed inhabitants of Bibrax. The effect was decisive. 
 The Belgians stayed only to devastate the neighboring coun- 
 try, and then advanced to within two miles of Caesar. Their 
 camp was seen, by its line of fires, to have a front of some 
 eight miles.
 
 Ccesar. 141 
 
 Caesar to great audacity joined great prudence. In the 
 present case he did not give battle at once. The multitude 
 of the enemy was formidable, their repute for valor was 
 high. He would first test his soldiers in skirmishes against 
 the foe. The result was reassuring. Caesar accordingly re- 
 solved on committing himself to the hazard of battle. The 
 battle had its vicissitudes, but there was a foregone con- 
 clusion of them all. The Belgians, worsted, resolved on 
 returning to their respective homes. They broke up their 
 camp in the night. The noise was like that of a rout. At 
 daybreak, Caesar started in pursuit. 
 
 Labienus, Titus Labienus, was Caesar's ablest and most 
 trusted lieutenant. He is destined to fight against his chief 
 in the civil war that, in a few years, will follow. This Labie- 
 nus was now with three legions set upon the flying foe. 
 All day long these dogs of war fed on the helpless Belgians 
 as if they had been sheep. Read Caesar's business-like state- 
 ment, and consider that it is of hunted men, not of beasts, 
 that he is speaking: 
 
 Thus, without any risk to themselves, our men killed as great a num- 
 ber of them as the length of the day allowed. 
 
 This was not cruelty ; it was simply cold blood. Cold 
 blood was Caesar's strength, and Rome's. Caesar was Rome. 
 Let us not forget it when a writer is heartless, the readers 
 whom that writer addresses are probably as heartless as he. 
 There was little danger that any one at Rome would charge 
 Caesar, do as he might, with acting cruelly in Gaul. It was 
 a dreadful world, the world before Christ. 
 
 The very next day, Caesar advanced into the country of 
 the Suessiones, neighbors to the Remi. He would give his 
 wretched foes no time to rally from their terror and flight. 
 But he encounters an obstacle. He finds himself unable to 
 take a town, No'vi-o-du'num, or Suessiones, (modern Soissons,) 
 by storm, as he passes. He pauses, therefore, to bring up
 
 142 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 his military engines. Meantime, the returning inhabitants 
 swarm into the town. They see what Caesar is doing. Dis- 
 mayed at the greatness of his works, such as were never be- 
 fore seen or heard of by them, they offer to capitulate to 
 Caesar, who, for the sake of the interceding Remi, graciously 
 accepts their surrender. He condescends to receive as hos- 
 tages the first men of the state, together with " even the two 
 sons of king Galba himself." These acts of sovereign grace 
 accomplished, Caesar is free to deal next with the Bel-lov'a-ci. 
 
 The Bellovaci had all sought refuge in a certain town, 
 toward which Caesar was now making his way. Five miles 
 from the town the conquering hero is met by a striking 
 and pathetic embassy. All the old men coming out of the 
 gates stretched forth their hands to Caesar, and implored 
 him to receive them into surrender. Arrived at the town 
 for Caesar's advance is apparently not hindered at all by so 
 picturesque an appeal and duly encamped, he sees now the 
 boys and the women standing ranged on the ramparts, their 
 hands reached out toward the Romans, still in sign of sur- 
 render, and in piteous dumb plea for compassion. 
 
 Caesar's man Friday, Divitiacus, appears again. He is 
 back in Caesar's camp, having, by devastating work in the 
 territory of the Bellovaci, done his Roman master impor- 
 tant service in creating a diversion that helped break up the 
 army of the confederates. The thrifty yEduan Romanizer 
 now intercedes with Caesar on behalf of the very Belgians 
 whose lands he has just been engaged in laying waste. The 
 chief motive which actuates this intervention will be seen and 
 appreciated from what Caesar reports Divitiacus as saying, 
 namely : " That Caesar in granting their request would greatly 
 enlarge the credit and authority of the .^Eduans among the 
 Belgian states." 
 
 Caesar's policy was always to make great ostentation of 
 regard for those who, like this Divitiacus, were exemplarily 
 submissive and serviceable to him. He grants grace to the
 
 Casar. 1 43 
 
 Bellovaci, for the sake of Divitiacus and the ^Eduans. To 
 the comparative influence of the Bellovaci among Belgians, 
 he pays a distinguished compliment. He will receive from 
 them the unusual number of six hundred hostages. 
 
 The next aim of Caesar is the tribe called Ambiani (Ami- 
 ens). These incontinently surrender without condition to 
 Caesar. 
 
 Beyond the Ambiani live the Nervii. About the Nervii, 
 Caesar, inquiring, learns the following particulars : 
 
 That they suffered no resort of merchants into their cities, nor 
 would allow of the importation of wine or other commodities tending to 
 luxury ; as imagining that thereby the minds of men were enfeebled, 
 and their martial fire and courage extinguished ; that they were men of 
 a warlike spirit, but altogether unacquainted with the refinements of 
 life ; that they continually inveighed against the rest of the Belgians 
 for ignominiously submitting to the Roman yoke and abandoning the 
 steady bravery of their ancestors. In fine, that they had openly declared 
 their resolution of neither sending ambassadors to Caesar, nor accepting 
 any terms of peace. 
 
 The foregoing passage, containing, as readers may observe, 
 nothing whatever but an abstract of information received by 
 Caesar concerning the Nervii, Mr. Froude cites, in its original 
 Latin, with these prefatory words, " Caesar thus records his 
 admiration of the Nervian character." This English idol- 
 ater of Caesar wishes to impress his readers with the idea 
 that there was, in his hero's breast, a generous sentiment of 
 appreciation for high character in a foe. Bare, bald, cold 
 summary of statements brought to Caesar, and by him barely, 
 baldly, coldly related, are transformed, by Mr. Froude's 
 hero-worshiping imagination, into a record of admiration 
 on Caesar's part. Mr. Froude even brings himself, on no 
 better authority as appears than that of the passage just 
 placed under our readers' eyes, to say that " the abstemious 
 Caesar marks with approbation " the water-drinking habits of 
 the Nervians. In point of fact, there is not a trace, not a 
 shadow, of approval either expressed or implied. Over against
 
 144 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 laudation like Mr. Froude's of Caesar, set the following expres- 
 sion from a great student and authority in Roman history, 
 sturdy, Christian Dr. Arnold of Rugby. (We quote from 
 his " Later Roman Commonwealth " :) 
 
 " While Caesar was giving tokens of the danger which the 
 aristocracy had to apprehend from his political career, he al- 
 most lulled their fears by the unbounded infamy of his per- 
 sonal character. We will not, and cannot repeat the picture 
 which ancient writers, little scrupulous on such points, have 
 drawn of his debaucheries ; it will be sufficient to say, that 
 he was stained with numerous adulteries, committed with 
 women of the noblest families; that his profligacies in other 
 points drew upon him general disgrace, even amid the lax 
 morality of his own contemporaries, and are such that their 
 very flagitiousness has in part saved them from the abhor- 
 rence of posterity, because modern writers cannot pollute 
 their pages with the mention of them." 
 
 We, for our part, have no occasion here to denounce Caesar, 
 and we have no disposition to do so. Let us render the am- 
 plest justice to his character. But let us not be dazzled by 
 his greatness, to be blind to his wickedness. Our readers 
 will wish to have the true view of Caesar; and, from what 
 Dr. Arnold is quoted as saying, they may at least see that 
 their friend, the present author, is not peculiar in chal- 
 lenging the enormous claims made on his behalf by such 
 encomiasts as Mr. Froude. Caesar was a great man, but 
 he was an evil man. He was perhaps uniquely great; 
 and he was not, which is the best that can be truly said 
 for him, he was not uniquely, nay, his time being consid- 
 ered, he was not even remarkably, evil. Mr. Anthony 
 Trollope has, in the series of Ancient Classics for English 
 Readers, a volume on Caesar, in which, while sufficiently eu- 
 logizing his hero, the author, wholesomely contrasting herein 
 with Mr. Froude, stands up somewhat as an Englishman 
 writing in the nineteenth Christian century should, to point
 
 Caesar. 145 
 
 out the staring moral deformities in the great Roman's 
 character. 
 
 Caesar's struggle with the Nervii was one of the sharpest 
 crises that he encountered in the whole course of his Gallic 
 experience. Shakespeare showed true art in making Antony 
 begin his funeral discourse over the dead body of murdered 
 Cassar, with an allusion, seemingly the offspring of chance 
 reminiscence, to this bloody and glorious moment in the 
 dead man's military career. What a stroke it was of artful 
 eloquence on Antony's part ! 
 
 You all do know this mantle ; I remember 
 The first time ever Caesar put it on ! 
 'Twas on a summer's evening in his tent^. 
 That day he overcame the Nervii. 
 
 The Nervians were beforehand with the Romans in attacking. 
 In truth, this time the Romans were taken by surprise. They 
 had not a moment to put themselves in proper order of bat- 
 tle. Nay, the men could not even arm themselves as usual. 
 It was not so much one battle, as it was a confusion of sep- 
 arate battles, that ensued. Caesar for once found himself in 
 imminent peril. His officers were slain or disabled. He had 
 himself to hasten from point to point as he could. There was 
 one moment when all seemed to be over with him and his 
 army. A body of his own auxiliary horse actually fled head- 
 long home bearing that news to their countrymen. While 
 this was happening in one quarter, in another, matters were 
 if possible worse for the Romans. 
 
 The men of the twelfth legion were so huddled together 
 that they had no room to use their arms to advantage. 
 Their centurions were nearly all of them either killed or dis- 
 abled, among them the chief centurion, whom Caesar pauses 
 to name and to praise it is Publius Sextius Baculus, an of- 
 ficer who will reappear later in the history, rising from a sick 
 bed, and, with one brief heroic rally, rescuing a panic-stricken 
 camp from the most threatening danger, to sink then in a
 
 146 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 swoon of utter exhaustion. (Would his pain, think you, have 
 been to Publius Sextius Baculus a degree lighter to bear, if 
 he could have known that, near twenty centuries after, four 
 thousand miles away, you, dear reader, would dwell for a 
 moment on his name?) The enemy, at every point, were 
 pressing harder and harder. 
 
 Such was the posture of things confronting Caesar. Should 
 he order up his reserves ? But there were no reserves. No 
 reserve but himself. On that reserve, Cassar confidently fell 
 back. He found it a sufficient support. With it he suc- 
 cessfully stemmed and turned the rising and foaming tide of 
 adverse battle. 
 
 Snatching from a soldier his shield, Caesar pressed to 
 the front line of his men. He called his centurions by 
 name. He inspirited the rest of the soldiers. ' On with 
 the standards,' he shouted. 'Spread out your ranks and 
 give yourselves room.' Labienus from a distant point 
 discovered the critical situation of affairs. He immediately 
 dispatched the tenth legion to give aid, and the aspect of 
 the field was instantly and utterly changed. Wounded 
 men revived and renewed the fight. Camp-followers un- 
 armed met the enemy armed. The cavalry, eager to re- 
 trieve their forfeited fame, sought everywhere to be in 
 advance of the legionaries. It was now the turn of the 
 Nervii to be dismayed. Dismayed, however, as they might 
 be, they fought with desperate valor. When a soldier 
 among them fell, his comrade behind advancing would stand 
 on the corpse and thence continue to fight. He falling in 
 turn, and another, and another, still the indomitable Nervii 
 would only make mounds of their slain from which to dis- 
 charge their weapons on the foe. There Avas no flight, no 
 surrender, no giving way. The Nervii fought till they died. 
 But they died almost to a man. The nation and the name 
 were well-nigh annihilated. So Cassar says, but we hear 
 of the Nervii again by and by, and as redoubtable warriors
 
 Ccesar. 147 
 
 still. Perhaps the exaggeration is not so much Ccesar's, 
 as that of the old men of the Nervii, who sent from their 
 marshes to offer themselves, with the women and the chil- 
 dren, in surrender to Caesar. They said that their senators 
 were reduced from six hundred to three, their fightin- men 
 from sixty thousand to five hundred. These, "Cresar, that 
 he might appear to use compassion toward the wretched and 
 the suppliant, most carefully spared." He "ordered them 
 to enjoy their own territories and towns, and commanded 
 their neighbors that they should restrain themselves and 
 their dependents from offering them injury or outrage." 
 
 It is a slip in accuracy on Mr. Motley's part, for that his- 
 torian, in the introduction to his "Rise of the Dutch Repub- 
 lic," to make Cassar bid " his legions " " treat with respect the 
 little remnant of the tribe that had just fallen to record the 
 empty echo of his glory." As our readers can see, it was 
 not the Roman legions, but the neighbors of the Nervii, on 
 whom the purely negative injunction to refrain from outrage, 
 was laid. This is not the only fault of too great freedom, in 
 the brief spirited report made by Mr. Motley of the present 
 passage in Coesar. 
 
 It is time our readers had another taste of Caesar's own 
 quality in narration. We give his account of his transac- 
 tions, in arms and in diplomacy, with the Aduatuci, a tribe 
 of Nervian allies. This tribe had been coming up to assist 
 the Nervii. On their way, they heard of the battle just de- 
 scribed, and turned back. They threw themselves into a 
 town of theirs which Coesar proceeded to attack. 
 
 Cassar says : 
 
 When we had now finished our approaches, cast up a mount, and 
 were preparing a tower of assault behind the works, they began at 
 first to deride us from the battlements, and in reproachful language ask 
 the meaning of that prodigious engine raised at such a distance ! With 
 what hands or strength, men of our size and make, (for the Gauls, \vho 
 are for the most part very tall, despise the small stature of the Romans,)
 
 148 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 could hope to bring forward so unwieldy a machine against their 
 walls ? 
 
 But when they saw it removed and approaching near the town, aston- 
 ished at the new and unusual appearance, they sent ambassadors to Caesar 
 to sue for peace. These being accordingly introduced, told him: "That 
 they doubted not but the Romans were aided in their wars by the gods 
 
 BESIEGING TOWER. 
 
 themselves, it seeming to them a more than human task to transport 
 with such facility an engine of that amazing height, by which they were 
 brought upon a level with their enemies, and enabled to engage them in 
 close fight. That they therefore put themselves and their fortunes into 
 his hands, requesting only, that if his clemency and goodness, of which 
 they had heard so much from others, had determined him to spare
 
 C&sar. 149 
 
 the Atuatici [Aduatuci] he would not deprive them of their arms." . . . 
 To this Caesar replied : " That no surrender would be accepted unless 
 they agreed to deliver up their arms." . . . They accepted in appear- 
 ance the conditions offered them by Caesar, and threw so vast a quantity 
 of arms into the ditch before the town, that the heap almost reached to 
 the top of the wall. Nevertheless, as was afterward known, they re- 
 tained about a third part, and concealed them privately within the town. 
 The gates being thrown open, they enjoyed peace for the remaining part 
 of that day. 
 
 In the evening, Cresar ordered the gates to be shut, and the soldiers to 
 quit the town, that no injury might be offered to the inhabitants during 
 the night. Whereupon, the Atuatici, in consequence of a design they 
 had before concerted, imagining that the Romans, after a surrender of 
 the place, would either set no guard at all, or at least keep watch with 
 less precaution ; partly arming themselves with such weapons as they 
 had privately retained, partly with targets made of bark or wicker, and 
 covered over hastily with hides, made a furious sally about midnight 
 with all their forces, and charged our works on that side where they 
 seemed to be of easiest access. 
 
 The alarm being immediately given by lighting fires, as Cncsar before 
 commanded, the soldiers ran to the attack from the neighboring forts. 
 A very sharp conflict ensued, for the entmy, now driven to despair, and 
 having no hope but in their valor, fought with all possible bravery, 
 though the Romans had the advantage of the ground, and poured their 
 javelins upon them both from the towers and the top of the rampart. 
 About four thousand were slain upon the spot, and the rest obliged to 
 retire into the town. Next day the gates were forced, no one offering 
 to make the least resistance, and, the army having taken possession of 
 the place, the inhabitants, to the number of fifty-three thousand, were 
 sold for slaves. 
 
 What sum of money the sale of these people brought Caesar, 
 he does not descend enough into particulars to name. Num- 
 bers of speculators from Rome were no doubt in attendance 
 on the progress of conquests so important as these of Cnssar 
 in Gaul. The bidding, we may presume, was spirited, and 
 the prices realized were probably satisfactory. How cold- 
 blooded it all seems! What a different spirit Christianity 
 has infused even into business so unchristian as war ! 
 
 Once again, Coesar has the opportunity to exercise the
 
 150 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 "clemency" which it suited his suppliants to ascribe to 
 their conqueror. This time, however, the conqueror feels 
 sufficiently at ease and at leisure to put on very royal airs. 
 He tells the embassies from various quarters that wait on 
 him, to call again at the beginning of the following season. 
 Meantime, having quartered his legions for the winter near 
 the scene of their recent exploits, he himself repairs, as in 
 the year previous, to Italy. 
 
 In closing the second book of the Commentaries, Cassar 
 mentions that a thanksgiving of fifteen days was decreed for 
 his victories an unprecedented honor, he puts force upon 
 his moderation to add. The thanksgiving was a religious 
 solemnity, graduated in length of continuance according to 
 the magnitude of the victories to celebrate which it was de- 
 creed. The ordinary period was three days, or five. Pom- 
 pey had, on occasion of his subduing Mithridates, enjoyed 
 the honor of a thanksgiving of twelve days. Cassar is des- 
 tined later, and more than once, to overpass the limit of even 
 a fifteen days' thanksgiving. 
 
 During the thanksgiving, the temples of the gods stood 
 open. The idols were placed in public on couches arranged 
 as if for a banquet about the altars, where the people offered 
 them, in the form of rich viands, their tributes of gratitude. 
 Nominally religious, this observance was really political and 
 personal in character. The public rites of Roman idolatry 
 had already become, for the most part, state pomps of the 
 hollowest mockery. 
 
 THIRD BOOK. 
 
 The third book, as dealing with transactions of less mag- 
 nitude than those already narrated, we shall feel quite free 
 in condensing. 
 
 Csesar is disappointed to find that his conquering work has 
 not made things so comfortable as could be wished for the 
 Romans in Gaul. Galba, ancestor of the future emperor of 
 that name, left in charge of a force with orders to winter in
 
 Cczsar. 151 
 
 a certain Alpine region pointed out if he should find it con- 
 venient did not find it convenient. There was a rising 
 against him, and he was obliged to cut his way out of his 
 quarters and withdraw into the province. 
 
 More serious was the new posture of things in another 
 quarter of Gaul. Quite to the west, a people called the 
 Ven'e-ti, living on the Atlantic coast, (in that part of France 
 which has since been styled Brittany,) began to make trouble 
 for the Romans. The occasion was very simple. It seems 
 that young Crassus, son of Caesar's wealthy political partner, 
 was left with the seventh legion in Aquitania, (south-western 
 France,) to pass the winter. It happened, not unnaturally 
 after so many wasting wars, that grain was scarce in Aqui- 
 tania. The young gentleman accordingly sent out some 
 officers among the neighboring states to ''procure" pro- 
 visions. Of these agents, or purveyors, two went to the 
 Veneti. (By and by, when it becomes necessary in order to 
 make good a pretext for war, these emissaries will reappear 
 in Caesar's language as " ambassadors.") Well, the Veneti, 
 instead of filling up the proffered baskets of these military 
 tramps with provisions, seize their persons and detain them. 
 This example is followed by the less powerful neighbors of 
 the Veneti, and a confederacy is immediately formed among 
 all the sea-coast tribes. This sudden confederacy send 
 word to Crassus that, if he wants his officers back, he must 
 return them their hostages. 
 
 Young Crassus takes advice of Caesar. Caesar was too far 
 off to intervene personally, but he orders ships of war to be 
 built and the necessary crews, pilots, and so forth, to be got 
 ready. 
 
 Such orders as these from Caesar are very suggestive. 
 They are suggestive of incalculable resources belonging to 
 the power of Rome. A word from distant Caesar in Italy 
 summons a navy into existence on the western coast of 
 France. The whole work of construction seems to have
 
 152 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 been accomplished during that part of the winter which re- 
 mained after Crassus sent his word to Crcsar and Ccesar sent 
 his orders back in reply. 
 
 With the opening spring, Caesar is on hand himself. It 
 seems from what he says that the conscience of the Veneti 
 was greatly quickened by his arrival. They began to reflect 
 what a "crime" they had committed, in detaining those 
 martial mendicants. Csesar even pauses here to enlarge a 
 little on the sacredness of the persons of " ambassadors." 
 The moral sense of the ancient world might be relied upon 
 to go with Csesar, if he should chastise with exemplary se- 
 verity a wrong done to ambassadors. But, besides this, 
 Csesar has statesmanship enough to know that " revolt " was 
 likely to spread. With edifying general reflection on the 
 constitution of the human mind, Caesar here says, that "all 
 men by nature love liberty and hate the condition of slavery." 
 Caesar, at least, knew what Roman conquest meant to the 
 nations conquered. In view of every thing, this tireless man 
 decided that he must both punish the Veneti, together with 
 their allies, and likewise garrison all Gaul quite, forsooth, 
 as if it had not been in the two years preceding sufficiently 
 "pacified." ("Pacified" is the harmless-looking quakerly 
 word by which the clement soul of Csesar loves best to 
 speak of such wasting and depopulating wars as he waged in 
 Gaul.) Labienus, Crassus, Titurius, are sent each to a dif- 
 ferent quarter of the pacified country, while young Decimus 
 Brutus (kinsman of the future chief conspirator, himself also 
 destined to be of the number of Csesar's murderers) is placed 
 over the fleet, and ordered to go, as soon as possible, to the 
 Veneti. The land forces Cossar in person leads thither. 
 
 It is constantly, in the preparation of these volumes, a 
 great problem for us to decide in what way we may hope 
 best to serve the interests of our readers. For instance, we 
 cannot give Caesar entire. But, indeed, we should not wish 
 to do so, if we could. The full narrative would be tedious.
 
 Cccsar. 
 
 153 
 
 Our text would bristle with strange outlandish names, repellent 
 to readers. On the other hand, condensation always threatens 
 to squeeze out and lose what juice there is in a story by no 
 means over-juicy at its best. To leave out details that need- 
 lessly would weary, to introduce precisely the details most 
 necessary to instruct and entertain, to condense enough to 
 bring within required limits, to be full enough to make a 
 fairly adequate exhibition of our author in his matter and his 
 manner this, we must keep it ever in mind, is our aim. 
 
 Well, on the whole, now for a heavy turn in our press, the 
 juice meantime to waste if it must. This naval warfare of the 
 Romans men never very natural sailors with the Veneti 
 men born and bred to the sea had, notwithstanding so 
 much advantage against the invaders, the usual, the inevita- 
 ble, issue. The Veneti were beaten on their own element. 
 The Romans applied their energy, awkwardly indeed, but 
 irresistibly, and won. 
 
 Before engaging in warfare on the water, Caesar had, with 
 infinite labor to his men, uselessly captured town after town 
 of the enemy, only to see the inhabitants escape with their 
 possessions to a farther stronghold which had still to be 
 taken with similarly laborious and similarly useless opera- 
 tions of siege. Exasperated, no doubt, with the troublesome 
 opposition he had encountered in conquering, Caesar was the 
 more forward to think, as he says he thought, that the barba- 
 rians needed a wholesome lesson about the sacred rights of 
 ambassadors. He calmly slaughtered all the national sena- 
 tors, and sold the rest of the Veneti for slaves. 
 
 While these things were going on between Csesar and the 
 Veneti, Ti-tu'ri-us Sa-bi'nus, one of the lieutenants sent to gar- 
 rison pacified Gaul, had an opportunity to show the Gallic 
 foe what Romans could do, no less in knavery than in brav- 
 ery. (Wait till the fifth book, and see how Titurius himself 
 will tragically experience, through knavery, a recompense 
 of his knavery.) He bribed a renegade Gaul among his 
 7*
 
 154 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 auxiliaries to carry false news to the patriot insurgents. 
 This pretended deserter gets his brethren to attack the 
 Roman camp. 
 
 The attacking Gauls are spent with running up hill, they 
 are burdened with sticks and brush brought by them to fill 
 up the trenches around the Roman camp and the Romans, 
 fully prepared, fresh, expectant, confident, cut them in pieces 
 almost to a man. Thus, as Caesar, evidently complacent 
 over a coincidence exhibiting his own good fortune, cheer- 
 fully remarks, Sabinus heard of Caesar's victory, and Caesar 
 of Sabinus's, both at one and the same moment. 
 
 Meantime, young Crassus distinguishes himself. If there 
 is any art in Caesar's account of Crassus's achievements, it 
 is exquisitely good art, for it almost completely conceals 
 itself. By whatever motive on Caesar's part influenced, 
 the story is told by Caesar in a way to give his rich 
 colleague the utmost possible pleasure in the gallant and 
 skillful conduct of his son. The youthful lieutenant had 
 been put in charge of revolted Aquitania. With no less 
 prudence than firmness, he marched into the territories 
 of the most powerful of the Aquitanian tribes. The ene- 
 my mass their forces and attack the Romans in march. 
 Ccesar, with consummate grace of compliment to the father 
 through the son, says, that while, on their part, the enemy 
 were animated by the thought of all Aquitania's depending 
 for its freedom on their valor, the Romans, on their part, 
 " desired that it might be seen what they could accomplish, 
 without their general and without the other legions, under a 
 very young commander." How sweet a proud Roman fa- 
 ther must have found it, to chew the cud of such tribute, so 
 deftly postponed and concealed, to the virtues and the pop- 
 ularity of his son! Under the circumstances described, the 
 contest was a long and bloody one. But the inevitable hap- 
 pened once more. The Aquitanians gave way, and Crassus 
 at once proceeded to besiege their chief town. He brought
 
 Ccesar. 155 
 
 his vi'ne-ae (movable shelters under which sappers and 
 miners could work) and his turrets or towers he brought 
 these military engines to bear, and the town capitulated. 
 
 Enterprising young Crassus is fired with the zeal which 
 springs from success. He takes up his line of hostile march 
 into the territories of other tribes. The natural and usual 
 course of events again. The threatened barbarians sent 
 each other ambassadors and combined to repel the common 
 enemy. Crassus thought that his true plan was to come at 
 once to combat with the constantly increasing force of his 
 foe. His officers agreed. 
 
 But the wary Aquitanians preferred the chances of delay. 
 They did not accept battle from Crassus. Crassus accord- 
 ingly, having waited till the army had become eager enough 
 for fighting to fight furiously, let fly his men like dogs at 
 their game. It is the old story. Of fifty thousand Aqui- 
 tanians scarce a fourth part escape. The tired Romans 
 got back late that night to their camp. 
 
 The greater part of Aquitania was, on receiving news of 
 this battle, ready to regard itself as " pacified." Eleven 
 peoples are named that sent in their hostages to Crassus. 
 The young fellow had had a very fine hunting season, and 
 bagged a large quantity of game. 
 
 The summer is now well-nigh spent the summer, but 
 not Caesar. He hears of two Gallic tribes guilty of not send- 
 ing in to him their ambassadors. He instantly marches into 
 their territory. This thing, he thinks, is now so nearly done, 
 it might better be finished up out of hand. He seemed con- 
 stitutionally averse to having a trifle of the sort left over for 
 a future campaign. 
 
 These contumacious Gallic tribes adopted a new strategy. 
 They hid themselves and their effects among morasses and 
 forests, Caesar began to fortify a camp, when, out of the 
 woods surrounding the place, forth rushed a multitude of 
 barbarians and fell upon the Romans unprepared. Unpre-
 
 156 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 pared, however, the Romans never were. They dropped 
 their shovels, and snatched up their swords. They drove 
 the barbarians to cover. 
 
 Nothing daunted these Romans. Csesar set his men to 
 clearing up the barbarians' country for them. For immense 
 spaces the forests were leveled with the ground. But now 
 the winter rains came on, and even Romans could not stand 
 it longer in their tents. So Csesar, having merely wasted 
 the lands and burned the villages and houses of the inhab- 
 itants, withdrew into winter-quarters elsewhere. 
 
 And the third book and the third campaign are ended. 
 
 FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 Three things especially, in the fourth book of Coesar's 
 Commentaries, are of commanding interest. The first is the 
 case of alleged perfidy, with enormous undoubted cruelty, 
 practiced by Csesar against his German enemies. The 
 second is Csesar's famous feat in throwing a bridge across 
 the river Rhine. The third is his invasion of Great Britain. 
 
 Far northward toward the mouth of that river, two more 
 tribes of Germans had just crossed the Rhine. They may 
 have heard of Ariovistus's fate, and have dreaded the con- 
 sequences of their own act in crossing; but what seemed 
 worse urged them behind, and they crossed, men, women, 
 and children, to the number of near half a million. This 
 immense migration could not be permitted. Csesar marched 
 against the Germans. 
 
 But Csesar lingers more than usual in describing his en- 
 emy. Naming the Su-e'vi in particular, but apparently 
 meaning the Germans in general, he makes out his adver- 
 saries to be a very wild and savage people. They wear no 
 clothes but skins, and these in such scant measure that the 
 greater part of their bodies goes bare. They practice, even 
 in their severely cold climate, bathing out of doors in the 
 rivers. They make milk and flesh their main food. This
 
 Casar. 157 
 
 sort of life promotes among them great size of body. They 
 grow up from their childhood without discipline or restraint, 
 in the habit of freely following each one his own individual 
 inclination. They do not stay more than a single year in the 
 same place of residence. There is with them no separate 
 ownership of land. Their practice in war is to send out, this 
 year, a certain proportion of their men to fight, while the 
 rest stay at home to maintain both themselves and the war- 
 riors, and next year to let these relays exchange places. They 
 will not use saddles, and they despise those who do. They 
 often in battle spring to the ground, and, fighting on foot, 
 leave their horses, trained to this habit, standing exactly 
 where the riders dismounted, to await their return. Wine 
 they, like the Nervii, will none of, deeming that drink to be 
 hurtful to their powers of endurance. 
 
 Caesar takes, for him, unaccustomed pains to magnify thus 
 the formidable character of foes, whom in the sequel he 
 will, employing so detestable an expedient, so easily destroy. 
 He says that the Suevi, who were, in power, the foremost of 
 the Germans, had it for their boast that no nations dared 
 live in their neighborhood. They kept the lands lying waste 
 and wild for hundreds of miles on their frontier. 
 
 The two tribes (the U-sip'e-tes and the Tenc-te'ri if you 
 will have their names) first alluded to in the present book 
 had, for a time, held their own against the encroachments of 
 the Suevi. At length dispossessed, they wandered about 
 hither and thither in Germany, seeking homes, until they 
 found homes by dispossessing in turn the Me-na'pi-i, a tribe 
 occupying places on both banks of the Rhine. 
 
 These restless movements of population on the confines 
 of the Roman world, no doubt, as we have before said, in- 
 dicates a steady pressure of advancing southward immigra- 
 tion, starting from sources somewhere in the remote interior 
 of Asia, and felt for ages, both before and after Cassar's 
 time, along the whole extended northern frontier of the
 
 158 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 empire. The pressure continued, and grew, until, in the inva- 
 sion of the Goths and the Huns, it breached the outer walls 
 of Roman civilization and overspread the empire in a tide of 
 irruption that submerged the eternal city itself. What Caesar 
 did was to stay this importunate stress for a time. But not 
 even Caesar can permanently keep out the sea. To the sea 
 there is but One who can say, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but 
 no farther : and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." And 
 Asian population was a sea. He who " made of one blood all 
 nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth " He 
 had "determined the times before appointed, and the bounds 
 of their habitation." The pre-appointed times determined for 
 the influx into southern Europe of emigrant Asia had not 
 yet arrived. The bounds of the habitation of those peoples 
 were still providentially fixed, for a space, beyond the Rhine. 
 Caesar in Gaul was working unconsciously under Divine 
 providence. His success was far more certain than he 
 knew. 
 
 Caesar was disturbed with fear lest the incoming of the 
 Germans should unsettle the allegiance of the Gauls to their 
 Roman master. What Caesar feared had in fact already 
 begun to happen. Some of the Gallic tribes had sent am- 
 bassadors to the Germans, begging them to leave the banks 
 of the Rhine and come on into the interior of Gaul. It was 
 not Caesar's way to wait for difficulties to grow and thicken 
 around him. He liked to be beforehand with adverse cir- 
 cumstances. He forthwith set out with his army to find the 
 Germans. 
 
 As he came near, ambassadors from the Germans met him, 
 
 desiring terms of peace. But Caesar would make no terms 
 
 with the Germans, as long as they remained in Gaul. There 
 
 was no land there to be given away. However, if they liked 
 
 *to do so, they might settle among the U'bi-i. 
 
 The German ambassadors were at a stand. They would 
 carry back Caesar's reply. But would Caesar stay where he
 
 Ccesar. 159 
 
 than was, and give them a day or two in which to go and re- 
 turn ? (The two armies were still some days' march apart.) 
 Cassar would not consent. He assumed that what the Ger- 
 mans wanted was to gain time for recalling their cavalry from 
 a distant foraging expedition. 
 
 The Roman army, which the Germans could no more stop 
 by entreating, than by entreating they could have stopped 
 the circuit of the earth about the sun, had now come to 
 within twelve miles of the enemy, when the German ambas- 
 sadors returned to Ccesar. They begged Caesar to halt. 
 The earth kept moving and so did Cossar. 'Pray, then,' 
 besought the ambassadors, 'pray at least send orders in ad- 
 vance to the Roman vanguard not to engage in battle ; and 
 permit us meantime to send ambassadors to the Ubii. If 
 the Ubii will engage under oath with us, we will do any 
 thing you say. But let us have a day or two in which to 
 negotiate.' 
 
 Caesar avers he was still suspicious of the Germans. How- 
 ever, he told them he should not advance more than four 
 miles that day, this for the sake of finding water. Let the 
 Germans come to him at that point in good numbers, (the 
 proviso, in "good numbers" seems significant was Caesar's 
 perfidious purpose already in his mind ?) and he would talk 
 with them. Meanwhile Caesar sent orders to his vanguard 
 not to fight unless attacked. 
 
 Now follows an incident which it is very difficult to under- 
 stand. Caesar says that as soon as the enemy got sight of 
 the Roman horse, five thousand strong, the German horse, 
 only eight hundred strong, fell upon these and threw them 
 into disorder. The Roman cavalry thereupon making a 
 stand, the Germans leaped from their steeds, stabbed Caesar's 
 horses in the belly, and, overthrowing many of his soldiers, 
 put the rest to flight. For the first time in his history, Caesar 
 tells the number of his fallen. There were seventy-five, 
 among them an illustrious Aquitanian, sacred from having
 
 160 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 had a grandfather who was once styled " friend " by the Ro- 
 man senate. 
 
 What follows in Caesar's narrative is so grave in its illus- 
 trative bearing upon Qesar's character, that we are going 
 to satisfy the just curiosity of our readers by letting them 
 see exactly how the writer states the business for himself. 
 Here, then, are Caesar's own words, in sufficiently strict 
 translation : 
 
 After this battle, Caesar resolved neither to give audience to their am- 
 bassadors, nor admit them to terms of peace, seeing they had treacher- 
 ously applied for a truce, and afterward of their own accord broken it. 
 lie likewise considered that it would be downright madness to delay 
 coming to an action until their army should be augmented, and their 
 cavalry join them ; and the more so, because he was perfectly well ac- 
 quainted with the levity of the Gauls, among whom they had already 
 acquired a considerable reputation by this successful attack, and to 
 whom it therefore behooved him by no means to allow time to enter into 
 measures against him. Upon all these accounts he determined to come 
 to an engagement with the enemy as soon as possible, and communi- 
 cated his design to his quaestor and lieutenants. A very lucky accident 
 fell out to bring about Caesar's purpose, for the day after, in the morn- 
 ing, the Germans persisting in their treachery and dissimulation, came 
 in great numbers to the camp : all their nobility and princes making 
 part of their embassy. Their design was, as they pretended, to vindi- 
 cate themselves in regard to what had happened the day before ; because, 
 contrary to engagements made and come under at their own request, 
 they had fallen upon our men ; but their real motive was to obtain if 
 possible another insidious truce. Caesar, overjoyed to have them thus 
 in his power, ordered them to be secured, and immediately drew his 
 forces out of the camp. The cavalry, whom he supposed terrified with 
 the late engagement, were commanded to follow in the rear. 
 
 Having drawn up his army in three lines, and made a very expedi- 
 tious march of eight miles, he appeared before the enemy's camp before 
 they had the least apprehension of his design. All things conspiring to 
 throw them into a sudden consternation, which was not a little increased 
 by our unexpected appearance, and the absence of their own officers ; 
 and hardly any time left them either to take counsel or fly to arms, they 
 were utterly at a loss what course to take, whether to draw out their 
 forces and oppose the enemy, or content themselves with defending the
 
 Casar. 1 6 1 
 
 camp, or, in fine, to seek for safety in flight. As this fear was evident 
 from the tumult and uproar we perceived among them, our soldiers, in- 
 stigated by the remembrance of their treacherous behavior the day be- 
 fore, broke into the camp. Such as could first provide themselves with 
 arms made a show of resistance and for some time maintained the fight 
 amidst the baggage and carriages. But the women and children (for 
 the Germans had brought all their families and effects with them over 
 the Rhine) betook themselves to flight on all sides. Ccesar sent the 
 cavalry in pursuit of them. 
 
 The Germans, hearing the noise behind them, and seeing their wives 
 and children put to the sword, threw down their arms, abandoned their 
 ensigns, and fled out of the camp. Being arrived at the confluence of 
 the Rhine and the Meuse, and finding it impossible to continue their 
 flight any farther; after a dreadful slaughter of those that pretended 
 to make resistance, the rest threw themselves into the river ; where, 
 what with fear, weariness, and the force of the current, they almost all 
 perished. Thus our army, without the loss of a man, and with very few 
 wounded, returned to their camp, having put an end to this formidable 
 war in which the number of the enemy amounted to four hundred and 
 thirty thousand. Ctesar offered those whom he had delnined in his 
 camp liberty to depart ; but they, dreading the resentment of the Gauls, 
 whose lands they had laid waste, chose rather to remain with him, and 
 obtained his consent for that purpose. 
 
 Readers will decide, each one for himself, what measure of 
 reprobation to visit on the name and memory of Ccesar for 
 this portentous wholesale murder of men, women, and chil- 
 dren, (to a number equaling, conceive it, the entire pop- 
 ulation of a great city like Boston,) accomplished through 
 such violation of honor on his part. It ought to be observed 
 how Caesar, with all his care, very nearly convicts himself of 
 falsifying in his representation that he thought the German 
 ambassadors were trying to deceive him. For, after destroy- 
 ing by hundreds of thousands, men, women, and children 
 who certainly were innocent, then, the very ones, and the 
 only ones, who were guilty, if any were guilty, namely, the 
 ambassadors, he tells us himself he offered to let go ! If one 
 could but feel that this offer of Csesar's was the prompting of 
 remorse on his part ! Alas, Coesar, as we shall see by and
 
 1 62 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 by, in connection with a later occasion of his conduct in 
 Gaul Caesar was far too conscious of clemency in himself 
 to be capable of a gracious remorse ! Not even Mr. Froude 
 clears Caesar here; and Caesar's fellow-senator, Cato, (accord- 
 ing to Plutarch, who cites his authority for the statement,) 
 openly proposed in the Roman senate that Caesar should be 
 given up to the enemy in punishment of his crime. This 
 proposal of Cato's was somewhat like the mice's proposal to 
 put a bell on the cat in order that thenceforward their ex- 
 posed community might upon occasion be seasonably ap- 
 prised of their enemy's approach. It was, perhaps, in 
 either case, an excellent proposal ; but there was no mouse 
 found to put the bell on the cat, and there was nobody at 
 Rome or elsewhere to deliver Caesar to the Germans. 
 
 Perfidy, Caesar's detention of the German envoys has gen- 
 erally been called. There is, perhaps, no better name for 
 his crime. The engagement, however, which he broke, was 
 simply the implied engagement always existing toward am- 
 bassadors. Such implied engagement, Caesar, as we have 
 seen, when it suited him, insisted upon with much solem- 
 nity. To us moderns, heirs of near twenty Christian cent- 
 uries, the cold-bloodedness of Caesar's behavior in setting 
 lis dastard cavalry to riding down women and children, 
 and trampling them, by tens of thousands, into the bloody 
 dust, seems simply incredible. But Caesar did the thing, for 
 he tells us of it himself. Having once done it, there was 
 no alternative for Caesar, he must then tell of it. Too many 
 Roman eyes saw the deed, for the deed to remain secret 
 from Rome. It behooved Caesar to put the best face upon 
 the matter that he could. And this, we need not doubt, he 
 has done. It is a fearful judgment in its nature quite ir- 
 reversible, indeed beyond any appeal that Caesar has thus 
 passed upon himself before the bar of posterity. But let us 
 not forget there was, in the mere cruelty of this deed of 
 his, nothing to make Caesar, in the presence of the public
 
 Cczsar. 163 
 
 sentiment of his time, feel in the least ashamed. It was only 
 the bad faith, the treachery, of his deed, that was doubtful. 
 Cato said Csesar was false. Nobody, so far as we know, said 
 Caesar was cruel. 
 
 Mr. Long, we believe it is, in his " Decline of the Roman 
 Republic," who points out that Christian civilization has no 
 very clear case for vaunting itself, as ideally humane in war, 
 above the example of the Romans and of Caesar. He records, 
 with disagreeable pertinency of recollection, instances of 
 barbarous military practice, on the part of the English them- 
 selves of the nineteenth century; and then, as if to make us 
 Americans, too, dumb with conscious shame, he brings for- 
 ward our national crimes of atrocity toward the Indians, per- 
 petrated in very recent times. Can we not all of us remem- 
 ber when our own gallant soldiers in the West murdered 
 Indian men, women, and children, and called it war ? The 
 difference, indeed, is great ; for the American nation at large 
 burned with indignant remorse. 
 
 We have ourselves claimed that Caesar was seldom, if ever, 
 wantonly cruel. And that massacre of the Germans was not 
 wanton cruelty on his part. He wished to have those peo- 
 ple annihilated. The way that he took was the one sure 
 way of annihilating them. To have fought them fairly, 
 would have been to take upon himself the always doubtful 
 risks of war. And in his heart, Caesar, as the present writer 
 judges from Caesar himself, was afraid of the Germans. His 
 crossing of the Rhine, now next to be described, was an act 
 of bravado on his part in its circumstances, exhibiting 
 fear, the fear of a brave, wise man, rather than confidence. 
 
 Caesar had effectually dispelled the present danger. 
 While the terror and horror of such an atrocity was still be- 
 numbing men's minds, he could safely display his skill and 
 his daring in a feat well calculated to impress barbarian sen- 
 sibilities with a useful idea of Roman power. He would do 
 what no Roman had ever yet done, he would bridge the
 
 164 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Rhine and cross it. It was to be barren demonstration, so 
 far as any thing beyond impression on the imagination was 
 concerned. For he would recross almost immediately. 
 "Avidity of fame," Plutarch attributes as Caesar's motive, in 
 this action of his. He wished to be the first Roman to put 
 his head in the lion's mouth by invading Germany. He 
 crossed and he recrossed the Rhine, and he had his reward. 
 
 Caesar's bridge was fourteen hundred feet long, furnishing 
 a solid roadway thirty or forty feet wide, all finished promptly 
 enough to have the whole army got in safety across at least 
 with no casualty reported within ten days from the time 
 when the first blow of a Roman axe startled those distant 
 forests. Just where it was situated, is a matter of much dis- 
 pute. When, in your next European tour, you visit Bonn, 
 placed as that city is about where the Rhine first begins to 
 be picturesque enough to satisfy the eye of the traveler for 
 pleasure, take an observation of the locality and see if you 
 do not think the conditions go together very well in favor of 
 the neighborhood of Bonn as the probable site of Caesar's 
 rough-and-ready bridge. Cologne used to be the favorite 
 locality with learned students of Caesar ; but the late Empe- 
 ror Napoleon, who spent a good deal of time and money in 
 illustrating Caesar's Gallic campaigns, gave his vote for Bonn 
 instead of Cologne. 
 
 Caesar now turns his attention to another enterprise, that 
 of invading Great Britain. He begins prudently. He dis- 
 patches one Caius Vol'u-se'nus with a single ship of war, to 
 cross the channel, cruise about the British coast, and bring 
 back such fruits of observation as he may be able to obtain 
 without landing. While this is going on, the accustomed 
 flow of ambassadors sets in toward Caesar this time from 
 Britain. Certain "states" of the island offer hostages and 
 submit to the Roman power. Caesar hereupon assumes 
 something of the air of a gracious sovereign about to visit 
 his affectionate lieges.
 
 Ccesar. 1 65 
 
 There were many preparations very necessary for Caesar 
 to make, which are not at all necessary for us here to re- 
 count. Suffice it to say, that in due time the flotilla is 
 ready, and a few hours' sail brings Caesar to the British 
 coast. The cliffs are alive with islanders, prepared to re- 
 ceive their visitor with warlike welcome. 
 
 The Britons are alert, and they dash along the coast, with 
 horsemen and with chariots of war, to meet the invasion where 
 it threatened. The Romans have a sad time of it getting 
 ashore. Caesar notes it that his soldiers seemed not to take 
 their chance of floundering through the shoal water to land, 
 with any thing like their wonted appetite for fighting on dry 
 ground. He made a display of his vessels under motion, 
 with their military engines in view, which demonstration he 
 says produced some impression of awe on the barbarians. 
 Here occurs a little incident which Caesar, with a for him 
 quite unusual condescension to dramatic representation, re- 
 lates in what grammarians call (pratio recta] direct discourse. 
 Our readers must have this rare specimen of Caesar in the 
 lively mood, without change except the necessary change 
 of literal translation from Latin into English : 
 
 While our men were hesitating chiefly on account of the depth 
 of the sea, he who carried the eagle of the tenth legion, after sup- 
 plicating the gods, that the matter might turn out favorably to the 
 legion, exclaimed, "Leap, fellow-soldiers, unless you wish to betray 
 your eagle to the enemy. I, for my part, will perform my duty to the 
 commonwealth and my general." When he had said this with a loud 
 voice, he leaped from the ship and proceeded to bear the eagle toward 
 the enemy. Then our men, exhorting one another that so great a dis- 
 grace should not be incurred, all leaped from the ship. When those in 
 the nearest vessels saw them, they speedily followed and approached the 
 enemy. 
 
 (To say, ' cried out to his fellow-soldiers, bidding them 
 leap,' etc., would have been (pratio obliqua) indiiect dis- 
 course, Caesar's wonted form of construction.) 
 
 We hardly need follow with further detail the incidents of
 
 1 66 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 this British adventure of Cresar. The historian tries to give 
 the affair something like historic dignity. The truth, how- 
 ever, is that Caesar's first visit to Great Britain was by no 
 means a very glorious thing. He is compelled himself to 
 admit that his usual good fortune Tailed him in one impor- 
 tant particular his cavalry had not arrived, and he could not 
 pursue the enemy. The enemy had an extremely light way 
 of dealing with the Romans. They made peace by sur- 
 render, and by promise of hostages, and then, watching their 
 chance, they, with easy adjustment to circumstances, made 
 war again when the Romans seemed to be in extremity. 
 Altogether, Caesar, as narrator, has his match to make out 
 any thing beyond the story of a fairly successful escape, on 
 his part, from the dangers of an ostentatious and barren ex- 
 cursion to Great Britain. What with the fickle, but always 
 warlike, Britons careering around among the Roman ranks 
 with their chariots of war, the unexpectedly high tides 
 swamping the beached galleys of the invaders on the land, 
 the furious storms crushing their floating vessels one against 
 another on the water, the wretched trouble the honest 
 legionaries had of it reaping for themselves in the British 
 harvest-fields, under the weapons of the rightful owners of the 
 harvests Caesar did well that he got off from Great Britain 
 at all. He had a thanksgiving of twenty days decreed to 
 him for the success of the campaign. 
 
 We will venture to guess that there were moments of 
 emergency to Csesar in Great Britain, when he would gladly 
 have relinquished several days out of the glorious twenty, to 
 be perfectly certain that he should himself at last get back 
 to Rome with a whole skin. 
 
 What would Csesar have said, had it been revealed to him 
 that the time was coming when Britons could set out from 
 London in a palace on wheels, and ride, reading, feasting, or 
 sleeping at pleasure, like kings, the whole distance to Rome, 
 accomplishing the journey with more comfort than Caesar
 
 Ccesar. 167 
 
 himself perhaps enjoyed in his own princely dwelling at 
 home, all within the space of fifty-three hours ! Such is the 
 miracle of locomotion achieved in our days. 
 
 FIFTH BOOK. 
 
 We have already in the preceding pages gone over, with a 
 fair degree of fullness, that portion of Caesar's Gallic Com- 
 mentaries which, to the student aiming at preparation for 
 entering college, is usually prescribed for his reading in the 
 original Latin. Gallic Commentaries, observe, we say. For 
 besides the Gallic Commentaries there are commentaries of 
 Caesar concerning the civil war waged between himself and 
 Pompey. This last book contains very interesting and very 
 important history. But Caesar's commentaries on the civil 
 war are seldom or never read in the so-styled Preparatory 
 Course. That work, therefore, of Caesar's we here dismiss 
 with the mere mention of it thus already made. 
 
 We beg to call our reader's attention to a fact that will 
 interest them. You are now engaged in studying history, 
 almost, not quite, at first hand. You are not reading ex- 
 actly Caesar's own words, for you read in English, not in 
 Latin ; and besides, you take, in large part, the present 
 writer's redaction or interpretation of Caesar upon trust. 
 Those, however, who read the Latin itself of Ccesar's Com- 
 mentaries, enjoy, in doing so, what is a very rare privilege, 
 the privilege of reading history written, in nearly every part 
 of it, by an exceptionally well-sitiiated eye-witness of the 
 transactions described. 
 
 Very little of the history that we have in any language 
 bears this character. Nearly all the history of the world is 
 given to us by authors who, for their information, have been 
 obliged to rely upon testimony. The testimony relied upon 
 is in many cases somewhat remote, and not unfrequently it 
 reaches the historian transmitted indirectly through several 
 different hands. History accordingly is a sphere of study
 
 1 68 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 in which there is room for the exercise of much critical dis- 
 crimination, in the giving and refusing of credit. When we 
 read Caesar telling of things that he saw, and the chief part 
 of which he himself was, we may rest assured that we have 
 no occasion for being distrustful, at least on the score of de- 
 fective opportunity enjoyed by the historian. What hap- 
 pened within the range of his narrative, Caesar knew. More 
 than this. Ceesar, as we suppose, wrote his Commentaries on 
 the spot and at the time. He did not wait long enough be- 
 fore writing to remember wrong when he wrote. Thus all 
 we have to guard against in reading Caesar, is conscious and 
 intentional misrepresentation on his part. But the tone of 
 his writing is such that, in the main, our belief of what he 
 says is irresistibly compelled. We may, at any rate, re- 
 ceive undoubtingly whatever he tells us that makes against 
 himself. 
 
 Xenophon is another example of the historian writing at 
 first hand. His narrative of the famous expedition of Cyrus 
 against his brother expedition made famous by the narra- 
 tive it occasioned and of the adventurous return of the gal- 
 lant Ten Thousand to Greece derives its charm and its 
 value largely from the fact that the author himself saw and 
 shared what he described. Long after Xenophon, came a 
 different Greek author, who, imitating Xenophon as master, 
 produced a history of Alexander's invasion and conquest of 
 the East. This history he, after the title of Xenophon's 
 work, called the "Anabasis of Alexander." Arrian is the 
 name of the author referred to. Arrian was of an age four 
 centuries later than Alexander. His narrative has historical 
 value, for he drew from original sources ; but it lacks both 
 the peculiar authority and the peculiar interest that would 
 have attached to the narrative of a man actually accompany- 
 ing Alexander in camp and in march. Among Roman his- 
 torians, Qesar stands almost alone as writer of first-hand 
 history. Sallust, as readers will recall, has the characteristic
 
 Cczsar. 169 
 
 marks of a narrator and describer not present in the scenes 
 with which he deals. The same is true of Livy. Tacitus, 
 too, treats of matters of which he had to learn by investiga- 
 tion through others. This derivative character does not 
 necessarily discredit the historian to whom it belongs. The 
 difference, however, between first-hand and second-hand his- 
 tory, it is well always to bear in mind. We shall judge the 
 one somewhat differently from the way in which we judge 
 the other. 
 
 One more caution is to be observed. In the case of an 
 historian translated, we must take care not unjustly to charge 
 errors committed by the translator to the account of his 
 original. A relevant instance is supplied by collation of 
 Caesar with Plutarch with Plutarch, not as Plutarch wrote, 
 but as Plutarch was carelessly translated. Two brothers 
 Langhorne produced a version of Plutarch, still current in an 
 edition issued by the Harpers. This version represents Plu- 
 tarch, (at a point occurring in connection with the account 
 of that incident in Caesar's Gallic career, as to which he was 
 accused by Cato in the senate of perfidy toward the Ger- 
 mans) as giving to Caesar eight hundred horse not ready for 
 battle, with which to beat the Germans' eight thousand. The 
 numbers mentioned are exactly transposed from Caesar's 
 report; but the error is the translators', not Plutarch's. Ar- 
 thur Hugh dough's edition of Plutarch translated is a more 
 trustworthy book than the Langhornes'. 
 
 The fifth book of Caesar's Commentaries sees the tables 
 sharply turned on the Romans. This whole book is mainly 
 one unbroken record of disaster to Caesar's arms, disaster 
 retrieved, but barely retrieved, from being irreparable dis- 
 aster. It would, perhaps, be a certain hard relief to our 
 readers' sympathies, so long almost exclusively engaged on 
 the side of the barbarians as the weaker and the more 
 suffering of the two parties at war it might, we say, take a 
 weight off the depressed feelings of our readers, if they 
 8
 
 i jo Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 could dwell in some detail on the heavy compensating mis- 
 fortunes experienced now in their turn by the Romans. But 
 this the requirements of space forbid. We must be rapid 
 and short. We can promise, however, to be fairly enter- 
 taining. That the matter itself will insure. 
 
 There is an episode to begin with the episode of a second 
 and last expedition, on Caesar's part, to Great Britain. With- 
 out much more effort, that is permitted to appear in his 
 story, than the mere word of command from his mouth, 
 Csesar gets together a fleet of some eight hundred sail all 
 told there are reckoned into this total a number of private 
 bottoms, probably ventures in merchant speculation and 
 with this numerically formidable armada he reaches the 
 coast of Great Britain. The commander goes attended with 
 a numerous staff. For Cassar compels (Mr. Froude says 
 " requests ") the chiefs of Gaul, with their retinue, to accom- 
 pany him on his British expedition, as a kind of cavalry 
 escort. 
 
 Our old friend Dumnorix, the yEduan patriot, does not 
 like the idea of taking this trip with Cresar. He objects in 
 every way possible, and Cassar in every way possible insists. 
 Cassar of course prevails. That is, he supposes he prevails. 
 But in fact Dumnorix, without the knowledge of Cassar, 
 slips off for home with the ^Eduan horse. This never would 
 do. Caesar wanted all the Gallic chiefs with him, but es- 
 pecially Dumnorix. As companions of his on the voyage, 
 they would be virtual hostages for their own good behavior, 
 and for the good behavior of their nations, during the period 
 of his absence from Gaul. Dumnorix nobody could be 
 hostage for him nobody but Dumnorix himself. Dumnorix 
 at least could in no wise be spared. On the very eve of em- 
 barkation, Cassar gives over his voyage, till Dumnorix be 
 taken. He is taken, but he is not taken alive. He falls, 
 stoutly resisting, and calling on his countrymen to support 
 him. Again and again, with vain protestation, he exclaimed,
 
 Ccssar. 171 
 
 " I am a free man, and I belong to a free state." (The 
 JEduan territory had, in fact, not been reduced to a province 
 of Rome.) Farewell to Dumnorix ! 
 
 There is nothing now, this business being well dispatched, 
 to detain Caesar, and he sets sail as we have said. Having 
 landed and encamped, he encounters once more a former 
 enemy of his a British storm. His ships are badly shat- 
 tered. But what can withstand Caesar? He speaks a word, 
 and his ships are tugged and lugged with main strength on 
 shore, and there fortified within the same lines as his camp. 
 This operation took about ten days and nights, for the men 
 worked continuously in relays, let us trust all the twenty- 
 four hours through. 
 
 We pass over a bit of British geography by Caesar, to tell 
 briefly what happened in the way of warlike operations. The 
 Romans have active work of it fighting with the poor islanders. 
 Cas'si-ve-lau'nus is the name of the British leader. He 
 adopts a kind of guerrilla plan of operations. When the 
 Roman cavalry rode forth to "plunder and ravage" honest 
 industries, which Caesar mentions with the most business-like, 
 matter-of-course calmness the British charioteers would 
 rush out of the skirting woods, and sadly interfere with their 
 foreign visitors' work. Nothing, by the way, is said by 
 Caesar of those British war-chariots' being armed at the 
 wheels with scythes. The scythe-bearing chariots of the 
 ancient Britons, of which we have all heard so much, are 
 probably a myth. Caesar would certainly have mentioned 
 the scythes, if scythes there had been. 
 
 Of attack and repulse, of retreat and pursuit, of slaughter 
 and capture, of embassy and reply, of surrender proposed 
 and hostages demanded, of all the vicissitudes of this wanton 
 and gratuitous war, the upshot is that Caesar gets off at last 
 in safety, and, as he represents it, even in a certain barren 
 and ambiguous triumph. The account closes with a passage 
 worth our quoting. Caesar covers the emptiness of his mill-
 
 172 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 tary performance in Britain with a rhetorical flourish about 
 his own good fortune. This is a topic on which he never 
 tires of enlarging. It is not mere curiosity on his own part 
 that prompts the treatment of this topic, nor is it a good- 
 natured wish to gratify the curiosity of his readers. It is a 
 motive of thrift. Prosperity prospers. Caesar wants every 
 body to understand that Caesar is prosperous. Here, then, is 
 the passage, in which Caesar thinks it comportable with his 
 dignity to dismiss the story of his adventures in Britain : 
 
 And it so happened, that out of so large a number of ships, in so many 
 voyages, neither in this nor in the previous year was any ship missing 
 which conveyed soldiers ; but very few out of those which were sent 
 back to him from the continent empty, as the soldiers of the former 
 convoy had been disembarked, and out of those (sixty in number) which 
 Labienus had taken care to have built, reached their destination ; al- 
 most all the rest were driven back, and when Caesar had waited for them 
 for some time in vain, lest he should be deterred from a voyage by the 
 season of the year, inasmuch as the equinox was at hand, he of necessity 
 stowed his soldiers the more closely, and, a very great calm coming on, 
 after he had weighed anchor at the beginning of the second watch, he 
 reached land at break of day and brought hi all the ships in safety. 
 
 Returned to Gaul, Caesar found that the harvests there, on 
 account of droughts, were poor. He felt compelled, accord- 
 ingly, to depart from his prudent previous practice, and for 
 that winter distribute his legions. This seemed to offer to 
 the natives their chance. There was a general movement 
 commenced to fall on all the Roman camps simultaneously, 
 and overpower them one by one. Am-bi'o-rix, a crafty native 
 chief, practices successfully on the simplicity of a lieutenant 
 of Caesar who had no right to be simple. It was none other 
 than our old acquaintance, Titurius Sabinus, the author of 
 that deception which, our readers will remember, in the 
 third book, brought such calamity on the Gauls. Ambiorix 
 induces Titurius to forsake his winter-quarters, for the pur- 
 pose (proposed to him by his enemy) of seeking greater 
 safety by joining the Roman legion nearest his present posi-
 
 Cccsar. 173 
 
 tion. On the way, an ambuscade surprises the Roman force ; 
 and, notwithstanding the address and courage of Titurius's 
 colleague, Cotta, who had throughout opposed the movement 
 to retire, the Romans were all cut in pieces, save a remnant 
 who fell back into the just-forsaken camp. The standard- 
 bearer, overpowered Csesar gives his name with last, des- 
 perate, unconquerable strength flings his eagle before him 
 within the intrenchments, where, during the hopeless night 
 that followed, the proud Romans all to a man put an end 
 to their own lives. The destruction of the legion was sub- 
 stantially complete. Some stragglers only escaped to tell 
 the tale to Labienus. 
 
 The great orator Cicero has a brother, Quintus Cicero, 
 among Caesar's lieutenants. This officer was next attacked 
 by the Gauls. Csesar represents his lieutenant Cicero's con- 
 duct as every thing that could have been desired by his illus- 
 trious brother in the capital. 
 
 The annihilated Nervii, of whom Csesar told us in the sec- 
 ond book of his Commentaries, re-appear unaccountably here, 
 and, it would seem, for an annihilated nation, in very con- 
 siderable force. Here is what Cassar tells us of them and of 
 their work. How much, think you, did eagerness for revenge 
 stimulate these brave, fierce fellows in their incredible toils ? 
 
 The Nervians . . . surrounded the camp with a line, whose rampart 
 was eleven feet high, and ditch fifteen feet deep. They had learned 
 something of this in former wars with Caesar, and the prisoners they had 
 made gave them further instructions. But being unprovided with the 
 tools necessary in this kind of service, they were obliged to cut the turf 
 with their swords, dig up the earth with their hands, and carry it in their 
 cloaks. And hence it will be easy to form some judgment of their num- 
 ber ; for in less than three hours they completed a line of fifteen miles in 
 circuit. The following days were employed in raising towers, propor- 
 tioned to the height of our rampart, and in preparing scythes, and 
 wooden galleries, in which they were again assisted by the prisoners. 
 
 In near sequel to this comes an episode so very romantic, 
 and so far outside of the limits within which Csesar usually
 
 174 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 confines his narration, that our readers will like to have seen 
 it in the translated text of the original : 
 
 In this legion were two centurions of distinguished valor, T. Pul'fi-o 
 and L. Va-re'nus, who stood fair for being raised to the first rank of their 
 order. These were perpetually disputing with one another the pre- 
 eminence in courage, and at every year's promotion contended with 
 great eagerness for precedence. In the heat of the attack before the 
 ramparts, Pulfio addressing Varenus, " What hinders you now, (says he,) 
 or what more glorious opportunity would you desire of signalizing your 
 bravery? This, this is the day for determining the controversy 
 between us." At these words he sallied out of the camp, and rushed 
 amid the thickest of the Gauls. Nor did Varenus decline the challenge ; 
 but, thinking his honor at stake, followed at some distance. Pulfio 
 darted his javelin at the enemy, and transfixed a Gaul that was coming 
 forward to engage him ; who, falling dead of the wound, the multitude 
 advanced to cover him with their shields, and all poured their darts 
 upon Pulfio, giving him no time to retire. A javelin pierced his shield 
 and stuck fast in his belt. This accident, entangling his right hand, 
 prevented him from drawing his sword, and gave the enemy time to 
 surround him. Varenus, his rival, flew to his assistance, and endeavored 
 to rescue him. Immediately the multitude, quitting Pulfio, as fancying 
 the dart had dispatched him, all turned upon Varenus. He met them 
 with his sword drawn, charged them hand to hand, and having laid one 
 dead at his feet, drove back the rest ; but, pursuing with too much 
 eagerness, stepped into a hole, and fell down. Pulfio, in his turn, hast- 
 ened to extricate him ; and both together, after having slain a multitude 
 of the Gauls, and acquired infinite applause, retired unhurt within the 
 intrenchments. Thus fortune gave such a turn to the dispute that each 
 owed his life to his adversary ; nor was it possible to decide to which of 
 them the prize of valor was due. 
 
 The situation, meantime, became daily more critical for 
 distressed Cicero. But he was relieved at last by the coin- 
 ing of Cassar. It was an occasion in some features like 
 Havelock's famous relief of Lucknow. Cicero despatched to 
 Caesar messenger after messenger with news of his piteous 
 plight. Of these messengers, some were seized by the en- 
 emy and tortured to death in the sight of the Romans. At 
 last a Nervian in Cicero's quarters got a Gallic slave of his
 
 Ccesar. 175 
 
 to risk his life for his freedom, with riches, in an attempt 
 to communicate with Caesar. This Gaul reached Caesar in 
 safety. Let us hope that he duly received his promised 
 reward. 
 
 Caesar at once takes his measures. He speeds to Cicero a 
 return messenger, whom he bids, if unable to enter the en- 
 closure, throw in his spear with the letter tied to it. This 
 the messenger did, and it so happened that the spear stuck 
 in a tower, where it remained for two days not observed. 
 The third day Cicero got it, and read to the rejoicing legion- 
 aries Caesar's promise of speedy relief. About the same mo- 
 ment, smoke of fires seen in the distance announced to the 
 beleaguered Romans the actual approach of Caesar. The 
 final result was decisive victory for the Romans. 
 
 The chief peril was now past, but the winter kept bringing 
 fresh anxieties to Caesar, who had this time to forego his ac- 
 customed annual visit to Italy. 
 
 The fifth book closes without mention made of any thanks- 
 giving decreed at Rome for Caesar's successes, and Caesar has 
 no concluding paragraph in self-complacent celebration of 
 his own good fortune. 
 
 SIXTH BOOK. 
 
 Caesar resolved to show the Gauls how Romans behaved 
 themselves in the presence of reverses to their arms. He 
 made a new levy of troops; the cohorts lost under Titurius, 
 he replaced with a double number of soldiers, and he bor- 
 rowed a legion from his fellow-triumvir, Pompey. Thus 
 strengthened in force, Caesar further strengthened himself 
 with speed ; for he began his new campaign before the win- 
 ter was over. Observing that in the customary annual con- 
 gress of Gaul, summoned by him, the Sen'o-nes failed to 
 appear, Caesar, with prompt audacity, at once transfers the 
 place of meeting to their neighborhood. He goes to Paris, 
 (Lu-te'tia Par-is-i-o'rurn.) How modern and how real this 
 name makes the history seem ! From Paris, with those
 
 176 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 forced marches of his which so often accomplished so much 
 for his cause, he brings his legions into the country of the 
 Senones. Acco, the head of the revolt, calls on the Senones 
 to muster into their towns. But the sudden apparition of 
 the Romans overawes them, and they send in their sur- 
 render. Caesar accepts their submission for the sake of 
 his friends, the ^Eduans, to whom he hands over for safe 
 keeping the hundred hostages exacted. It will turn out 
 to have been a confidence ill placed. In the end, even the 
 trusted yduans will rise against Csesar. 
 
 Csesar never, perhaps, in any other instance, evinced so 
 much personal feeling to ripple the habitual viscid flux of 
 his glacial cold-bloodedness, as in the instance of Ambiorix, 
 that subtle deceiver and destroyer of Titurius with his legion. 
 With noticeable energy of expression, Csesar remarks that, 
 the Senones disposed of, he " applied himself entirely, both 
 in mind and in soul, to the war with the Trev'i-ri and Am- 
 biorix." It might be said that to make an end of Ambiorix 
 the campaign is chiefly directed. It seems not so much 
 victory as revenge that Csesar seeks. He fairly thirsts for 
 Ambiorix's blood. Caesar will die thirsting, for Ambiorix's 
 blood he is destined never to taste. But it was a hot and 
 eager hunt, with many a slip 'twixt cup and lip for the hunter, 
 and many a hair-breadth escape for the hunted. Csesar's 
 good fortune was at fault again. 
 
 Csesar hunted with as much of patience and of prudence 
 as of zeal. He first went at the Me-na'pi-i and the Treviri, 
 and disposed of them. 
 
 But now Ambiorix might find refuge among the Germans. 
 Caesar must bridge the Rhine again, and provide against that. 
 The Suevi have, he learns on getting over, retired to the far- 
 ther boundary of their possessions, there to await the on-com- 
 ing of the Romans. With this space between himself and 
 his foe, Caesar pauses to amuse his readers with a circum- 
 stantial account of the Germans and the Gauls, described in
 
 Ccesar. 177 
 
 mutual contrast with each other. Almost every body likes 
 to read travelers' stories ; and when the traveler is Caius 
 Julius Ccesar, and the scene of the travels is ancient France 
 and Germany, the story is likely to be worth reading. Still, 
 the inexorable laws of space forbid our including it here. 
 
 From his geographical digression, Caesar gets back to say 
 that he resolved not to follow the Suevi into their forests. 
 Not, however, entirely to free the Germans from uncertain 
 apprehension as to what he may yet do, he leaves a large 
 part of his bridge standing. He now himself in person sets 
 forth in chase of Ambiorix. His march lay through the 
 Gallic forest of Ar-du-en'na. (Our readers will recall Byron's 
 stanza in memory by anticipation of those destined to fall on 
 the field of Waterloo, beginning 
 
 And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. 
 
 Byron was a poet, not a topographer. He was nearly enough 
 right, but you must not rely too literally on the locality he 
 thus seems to give to the forest. What he wanted was the 
 romantic name, Ardennes, to grace the pathos of his verse.) 
 
 But Caesar's phlegm was too much quickened. He could 
 not wait. He sent on the cavalry in advance, <; all the cav- 
 alry," to surprise Ambiorix, if possible. The cavalry are not 
 to build camp-fires. The enemy would see them. They 
 must take their rations cold, perhaps raw; bare grain, very 
 likely, which they must champ like their steeds. The cav- 
 alry surpass themselves in speed. They surprise and capt- 
 ure "many in the field" many, but not Ambiorix. Caesar 
 has to moralize about " fortune." The cavalry came fairly 
 upon Ambiorix. They got everything that belonged to him, 
 his horses, his chariots, his weapons, but him not. A few fol- 
 lowers of his made a momentary stand against the Roman 
 onset. They meantime mounted Ambiorix, and he escaped. 
 
 But Ambiorix's people had a lamentable lot. They were 
 dispersed in every direction, each man looking out for himself. 
 8*
 
 178 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Ambiorix's colleague, King Cat-i-vol'cus, infirm and old, 
 called down every curse on Ambiorix and poisoned himself. 
 Caesar's purpose was fell. He wished to root out that "stock 
 of wicked men." In order not to risk precious Roman sol- 
 diers in the forests, he called in the neighboring tribes to the 
 hunt, making Ambiorix's nation, the Ebu rones, a free and 
 common prey to all. It was better economy, Caesar thought, 
 to throw away Gallic lives than Roman, in so dangerous a 
 chase. But at some rate, " the stock and name of the state " 
 must "for such a crime be abolished." Again Caesar feels 
 called upon to speak of the powerful influence exercised in 
 war by fortune. His promising plan for the extermination 
 of the Eburones comes near costing him a lieutenant and a 
 legion. 
 
 For, from even beyond the Rhine, who should hear of this 
 fine free hunt in progress, and come forward for their share 
 of the booty, but the Sicambri ? (Sicambrians perhaps we 
 should say, to be English. But Shakespeare says " Nervii," 
 not Nervians. There seems to be no practicable way of 
 being uniform in this matter, except to be uniformly Latin. 
 Some of the proper names have acquired for themselves no 
 established English equivalent Remi, Bellovaci, for exam- 
 ples. We preferred, upon the whole, to do as we have done, 
 that is, use our readers gradually to the Latin forms, by em- 
 ploying these in occasional free interchange with the En- 
 glish.) These freebooters, the Sicambri, however, have it 
 whispered to them that there is a richer chance. What 
 need prevent their surprising and taking Quintus Cicero with 
 his command? The prize would be immense. Cicero, by 
 order from Caesar, is keeping his soldiers very close within 
 the intrenchments. At length, however, a party of the re- 
 covered sick and wounded, with a large retinue of slaves and 
 beasts of burden, make a sally for foraging. At this very 
 moment, up come the Germans and throw the camp into 
 panic confusion. This is the self-same spot on which Titu-
 
 Ccesar. 179 
 
 rins and his legion were destroyed. The soldiers think it a 
 doomed place. It is now that our friend, Publius Sextius 
 Baculus, springing up from a sick bed, faint with a five-days' 
 fast, performs his prodigy of will and valor and saves the 
 camp. The foraging party suffer loss, but some even of 
 these get back safe to camp. Not till Caesar arrives do the 
 soldiers recover from their fright. It affected Caesar sadly 
 to reflect how what he had plotted well for the injury of 
 Ambiorix had thus turned out actually to the advantage of 
 that detestable man. 
 
 However, the hunt was resumed. Thorough work Caesar 
 made of it. His plan was nothing less than to remove every 
 cover that could hide the fugitive. Far and wide the horse- 
 men rode to burn every human dwelling in the land of the 
 Eburones. The soldiers, many of them, kindled with the 
 hope of acquiring the highest favor with Caesar, almost killed 
 themselves, he tells us, with their exertions to catch Am- 
 biorix. They again and again just missed him, but he 
 finally never was caught. Ccesar had to content himself, as 
 best he could, without his Ambiorix. 
 
 He closes his sixth book with mention of several matters 
 dispatched by him before his setting out for Italy. Among 
 these was the execution of Acco, the head of the late con- 
 federate revolt. Our readers will perhaps be interested to 
 know how this was accomplished. Well, to use Caesar's own 
 soft phrase, Acco was put to death " in accordance with the 
 custom of the fathers." This meant, if we may trust the ex- 
 planation supplied by Suetonius in his " Life of Nero," that, 
 stripped naked, the victim was fastened by the neck in a 
 forked stake, and then scourged till he died. With much 
 justness of sentiment, Caesar hints in passing that this sen- 
 tence of his on Acco was " rather sharp." We can only 
 guess what would have happened to Ambiorix had he been 
 captured. Perhaps, indeed, Acco suffered a little vicariouslv, 
 to satisfy the exasperated feelings of Caesar disappointed of
 
 i So Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 his prey in the person of hateful Ambiorix, hunted by him so 
 long in vain. 
 
 SEVENTH BOOK. 
 
 The seventh book is of tragic interest. One man looms 
 large in it, as the doomed Hector of a contest in which no 
 one can stand before the prowess of mighty Achilles. Ver- 
 cin-get'o-rix is this hero's name. He becomes the head of a 
 last, the greatest, confederate revolt of Gaul against Rome. 
 He was a young Arvernian, (Auvergne,) son of a man as to 
 whom Caesar, in language curiously applicable to his own 
 impending fate, says, " Having held the supremacy of entire 
 Gaul, he had been put to death by his fellow-citizens for 
 this reason, because he aimed at sovereign power." 
 
 This able and gallant chieftain thought that Caesar's neces- 
 sities in Rome the city was at this moment the scene of 
 civil broils ^woiild keep him there, and that now was the 
 one chance to strike for his own oppressed country. He or- 
 ganizes the most formidable combination hostile to Ceesar 
 that has yet confronted that conqueror in Gaul. 
 
 Caesar, as usual, gets the start. He begins his campaign 
 in midwinter. Clearing his way through snow six feet deep, 
 " with infinite labor to his soldiers," as, with a touch of almost 
 sympathetic appreciation rare for him, he remarks, he reaches 
 the country of the Arverni, the people of Vercingetorix him- 
 self. (Cresar believes in taking the bull by the horn.) This 
 proceeding has the desired effect. It brings Vercingetorix 
 home. 
 
 Now, with Vercingetorix at home for a space, Cassar can 
 execute one of his rapid movements. With marches not in- 
 termitted day or night, he goes through the ^Eduan territory 
 into the country of the Lingones, where two legions are win- 
 tering. If his trusty friends, the yEduans Caesar himself 
 says this should be devising any thing to his own disadvan- 
 tage, it would be well to forestall their plans! He sends out 
 a mustering summons to the rest of his lesions. The Ar-
 
 i Si 
 
 verni meantime are fully occupied with attention to the Ro- 
 man cavalry raids going on in their own country from the force 
 left behind. Before the Arverni, thus occupied, hear a whis- 
 per of what he is doing, he has his whole army safely com- 
 pacted. Vercingetorix, when he does learn of Csesar's pro- 
 ceedings, prepares to attack a town of the Boi'i, lately made 
 tributary by Caesar to the ^duans. This greatly perplexes 
 Csesar. But he feels that at every risk he must take care of 
 his friends, or he may come to have no friends to be taken 
 care of and in turn to take care of him. So he marches to 
 the Boii. 
 
 On the way he takes two towns, sacking one of them and 
 giving the booty to his soldiers. A third town surrenders 
 itself to Csesar. Vercingetorix now gets the confederates to 
 adopt the policy of wasting their own country so as to starve 
 the Romans out. One city, proud of itself, and strong by 
 natural situation, is excepted against the remonstrance of 
 Vercingetorix, who, howeve'r, finally concedes the point. 
 The hope of the confederates is that this city can make 
 good its own defense against the Romans. 
 
 The Romans are reduced to extremity for want of pro- 
 visions. The Boii are poor and the ^Eduans are lukewarm. 
 For several days the soldiers are without grain ; but they 
 do not once murmur. So the siege of the one spared con- 
 federate town goes on. Vercingetorix, as he finds oppor- 
 tunity, creates diversions in relief of the besieged. But dis- 
 affection toward him is bred among the allied forces. Ac- 
 cused of treason, he makes a successful defense of himself. 
 'I want nothing,' said he, 'from Caesar through treachery, I, 
 who can gain from Csesar all I desire by victory.' With fine 
 dramatic effect, he produces a number of starved fellows 
 who, Csesar says, were mere camp-followers of the Romans, 
 captured when foraging and makes these do for specimens 
 of Caesar's legionary soldiers. ' Such,' says Vercingetorix, 
 'is the condition to which the Romans are now reduced.
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 This is what traitor Vercingetorix has effected for you.' 
 The whole tumultuary assembly clash their arms in applause, 
 and cry, ' Long live Vercingetorix ! ' Do not our readers 
 recognize here something characteristic of that modern 
 French nation which, with much mixture of blood, has since 
 inherited the ancient Gauls ? 
 
 Crcsar praises, too, a remarkable ingenuity of defense ex 
 habited by the enemj which reminds one that modern 
 French inventiveness can boast a long descent. But noth- 
 ing availed against the resolute persistence of the Romans. 
 Avaricum is doomed. Csesar chooses the moment of a vio- 
 lent tempest to storm the walls. There followed a frightful 
 massacre. His soldiers, Caesar tells us, spared no class, not 
 the old, not women, and not children. Of forty thousand, 
 scarce eight hundred escaped to reach Vercingetorix in 
 safety. These mournful refugees Vercingetorix arranged to 
 receive in silence during the night, not in a body, lest the 
 effect should be too much for the nerves of his army, but in 
 separate groups severally consigned to different quarters of 
 his ramp. 
 
 The behavior of this general in adversity excites our 
 admiration and our sympathy. He calls a council, before 
 which he holds a high language of consolation, of courage, 
 and of hope. His bearing sustains the spirit of his country- 
 men. They remember that Vercingetorix advised, from the 
 first, against defending Avaricum. His influence is rather 
 strengthened than weakened by the calamity. 
 
 Caesar, meantime, feasted and refreshed his famished men 
 on the plenty that he found in captured Avaricum. But here 
 he had new trouble. The ^Eduans are at odds among them- 
 selves. Two contending factions bring the state to the very 
 brink of civil war. One of these factions might turn to Ver- 
 cingetorix for support. Csesar must visit the yEduans. Visit 
 them he does, and bids them be at peace among themselves, 
 help him in the present war, and see what he will do for
 
 Cfcsar. 183 
 
 them when all is over. This said, and one of the leaders of 
 faction by him duly pronounced magistrate, Caesar returned 
 to the war. But all did not avail. Caesar's preferred ydu- 
 an is himself disloyal to Caesar, and the whole ^Eduan state 
 goes over to the enemy. One wide conflagration of revolt 
 now enwraps almost the entire region of Gaul. 
 
 Various vicissitudes of war follow, which our space forbids 
 us to describe in detail. It must suffice to say that Caesar's 
 siege of one important town issues in defeat and disaster to 
 his arms. Through the defection of the yEduans, he loses, 
 too, a town of theirs, in which he had accumulated a vast 
 reserve of resources for the war. In short, the situation be- 
 comes perilous for the Romans. 
 
 But, at this point in our narrative, we plan an agreeable 
 change for our readers. We are going to let the German 
 historian of Rome, Theodor Mommsen, tell you the story of 
 the end. You will like to have a specimen of the large, 
 luminous way in which this hero-worshiping, but enlightened, 
 historian deals with his subject. Vercingetorix has thrown 
 himself with his whole army into the town of A-le'si-a. He, 
 however, establishes also a camp outside. Town and camp 
 together, with works extending not less than ten miles, 
 Caesar resolves to invest. Now Mommsen: 
 
 "Vercingetorix had been prepared for a struggle under 
 the walls, but not for being besieged in Alesia ; in that point 
 of view the accumulated stores, considerable as they were, 
 were yet far from sufficient for his army which was said to 
 amount to 80,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry and for the 
 numerous inhabitants of the town. . . . Vercingetorix dis- 
 missed his whole cavalry, and sent at the same time to 
 the heads of the nation instructions to call forth all their 
 forces and lead them to the relief of Alesia. . . . But 
 Cossar made up his mind at once to besiege and to be 
 besieged. He prepared his line of circumvallation for 
 defense also on its outer side, and furnished himself with
 
 184 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 provisions fora longer period. The days passed; they had 
 no longer a boll of grain in the fortress, and they were obliged 
 to drive out the unhappy inhabitants of the town to perish 
 miserably between the intrenchments of the Celts and of the 
 Romans, pitilessly rejected by both. 
 
 "At the last hour there appeared behind Caesar's lines the 
 interminable array of the Celto-Belgic relieving army, said 
 to amount to 250,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry. From the 
 Channel to the Cevennes the insurgent cantons had strained 
 every nerve to rescue the flower of their patriots and the 
 general of their choice the Bellovaci alone had answered 
 that they were disposed to fight against the Romans, but not 
 beyond their own bounds. The first assault, which the 
 besieged of Alesia and the relieving troops without made on 
 the Roman double line, was repulsed ; but when, after a 
 day's rest, it was repeated, the Celts succeeded at a spot 
 where the line of circumvallation ran over the slope of a hill 
 and could be assailed from the height above in filling up 
 the trenches and hurling the defenders down from the ram- 
 part. Then Labienus, sent thither by Caesar, collected the 
 nearest cohorts, and threw himself with four legions on the 
 foe. Under the eyes of the general, who himself appeared 
 at the most dangerous moment, the assailants were driven 
 back in a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, and the squadrons 
 of cavalry that came with Caesar taking the fugitives in the 
 rear completed the defeat. 
 
 " It was more than a great victory; the fate of Alesia, and 
 indeed of the Celtic nation, was thereby irrevocably decided. 
 The Celtic army, utterly disheartened, dispersed at once 
 from the battle-field and went home. Vercingetorix might 
 perhaps have even now taken to flight, or at least have saved 
 himself by the last means open to a free man ; he did not 
 do so, but declared in a council of war that, since he had 
 not succeeded in breaking off the alien yoke, he was ready to 
 give himself up as a victim, and to avert, so far as possible,
 
 Ctzsar. 1 85 
 
 destruction from the nation by bringing it on his own head. 
 This was done. The Celtic officers delivered their general 
 the solemn choice of the whole nation to the enemy of their 
 country for such punishment as might be thought fit. 
 Mounted on his steed, and in full armour, the king of the 
 Arvernians appeared before the Roman proconsul and rode 
 round his tribunal ; then he surrendered his horse and arms, 
 and sat down in silence on the steps at Ccesar's feet. Five 
 years afterward he was led in triumph through the streets of 
 the Italian capital, and, while his conqueror was offering sol- 
 emn thanks to the gods on the summit of the Capitol, Ver- 
 cingetorix was beheaded at its foot as guilty of high treason 
 against the Roman nation. ... It is impossible to part 
 from the noble king of the Arverni without a feeling of 
 historical and human sympathy ; but it is characteristic of 
 the Celtic nation that its greatest man was after all merely 
 a knight." 
 
 The passage we have condensed from Dr. Mommsen's 
 history deals with a subject perhaps the most striking in 
 Caesar's Commentaries ; and in style it presents the historian 
 at his best. We cannot in fairness suffer our readers to sup- 
 pose that they would be equally entertained and instructed 
 in all other parts of Mommsen's history of Rome. 
 
 Mommsen is a very able man, and he is a very learned 
 specialist in Roman history. But he presents a curious com- 
 bination in himself of sentimentalism with abstract hardness 
 of heart. He is genuinely philosophical, but his philosoph- 
 ical generalizations are liable to be qualified by both these 
 two apparently inconsistent traits in his character. We must 
 not pause to write an essay on Mommsen, but we feel bound 
 to advise our readers of the powerful bias under which he 
 constructs his history of Rome. He is an idolater of Csesar. 
 Caesar-worship dictates the point of view from which he sees 
 nearly every thing that he describes. That our readers may 
 judge for themselves how far we, in saying this, are from
 
 1 86 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 exaggerating the fact, we show them Mommsen in the act of 
 kneeling to burn his incense at Caesar's shrine : 
 
 " Of such a personage [Csesar] our conceptions may well 
 vary in point of shallowness or depth, but they cannot be, 
 strictly speaking, different; to every not utterly perverted 
 inquirer the grand figure has exhibited the same essential 
 features, and yet no one has succeeded in reproducing it to 
 the life. The secret lies in its perfection." 
 
 The Cassarizing spirit of Mommsen is, perhaps, to be seen 
 in the attempt which apparently he makes to have it appear 
 that the ultimate murder of Vercingetorix was somehow a 
 deed done for good reason, and in accordance with just law. 
 For " high treason against the Roman nation," is a form of 
 statement that seems to give a certain color of justification 
 to what was in fact a piece of the purest brutality on the 
 part of Cassar. Custom sanctioned, as the last and sharpest 
 culmination of those bacchanalia of savagery and cruelty 
 which go under the name of the Roman Triumph, the killing 
 of captives in prison, to be accomplished at the moment when 
 the conqueror reached the summit of the Capitol. This final 
 taste of blood, the triumphing general might, if he chose, 
 forego. Cassar did, in fact, forego it in some other cases. But 
 princely and gallant Vercingetorix, who, having been defeated 
 in the self-sacrificing attempt to vindicate the freedom of his 
 country, had, in his defeat, thrown himself upon the magna- 
 nimity of the victor, is by that victor abruptly cast into chains, 
 in chains kept eating his high heart through more than five 
 long dreary years, and then, after an interval during which any 
 but a cold-blooded man's resentment might have found time 
 to cool, is put to death in prison as "guilty of high treason 
 against the Roman nation," forsooth ! But we check our- 
 selves in our indignation ; and, having thus simply put our 
 readers on their guard against such idealizing historians as 
 Dr. Mommsen, and such romancing apologists as Mr. Froude, 
 pass on to finish our task with Caesar's Commentaries.
 
 C&sar. 187 
 
 Napoleon III. wrote a life of Caesar with most elaborate 
 imperial care, and published it at most lavish imperial ex- 
 pense. The hardly disguised object of that work was to set 
 forth the parallel, real or imaginary, between Julius Caesar 
 and Bonaparte, as also between Julius Caesar's grand-nephew, 
 Augustus Csesar, and the French biographer himself, Napo- 
 leon III., nephew of Bonaparte. "Csesarism " is, of course, 
 the key-note of this biography. But even Napoleon III. is 
 not so lunatic an admirer of Caesar as is Mommsen. Napo- 
 leon admits it to be, for the sake of Caesar's glory, a matter 
 of regret that his noble captive, Vercingetorix, was not 
 spared. Or shall we suspect that it was Celtic sympathy in 
 Napoleon, and German sympathy in Mommsen, that deter- 
 mined respectively their sentiments toward Celtic Ver- 
 cingetorix ? 
 
 It is related, by the way, that Cassar's chariot was broken, 
 on occasion of this triumph of his in which Vercingetorix 
 was slain. After that, so the story goes, Caesar never took 
 his seat in a chariot without repeating three times a certain 
 form of words to act as a charm against accident. He also 
 performed, in deprecation of the misfortunes supposed to be 
 visited in compensation upon the too prosperous man, a sin- 
 gular act of voluntary humility. He ascended the long flight 
 of steps leading up to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter on 
 his bended knees. What a parallel and contrast to Luther's 
 famous ascent of the Santa Scala ! And Caesar was in re- 
 ligion a skeptic ! Would our readers like to know how Dr. 
 Mommsen, alluding to such superstitions on the part of 
 Caesar, guards himself against seeming at all to degrade the 
 reputation of his hero for perfect sobriety of mind ? Why, 
 "There was in Caesar's rationalism [practical good sense] a 
 point at which it came in some measure into contact with 
 mysticism " ! And would they like to sec how Caesar's licen- 
 tiousness, persisted in to the last, can be nearly hidden from 
 sight under flowers of language, by an idolizing German
 
 1 88 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 historian ? " Around him, as around all those whom the full 
 lustre of woman's love has dazzled in youth, fainter gleams 
 of it continued imperishably to linger"! Would they like, 
 further, to see how bald-headed, grim-featured Caesar's weak 
 vanity about his personal appearance can be touched into an 
 illusion of something even rather winning ? " He retained a 
 certain foppishness in his outward appearance, or, to speak 
 more correctly, a pleasing consciousness of his own manly 
 beauty "! Caesar had a commanding presence, but his "manly 
 beauty " is, so far as we have been able to learn, strictly an 
 evolution from the depths of the rapt German's own con- 
 structive consciousness. Byron's ascription of infirmity to 
 Caesar must stand for substantial truth : 
 
 With but one weakest weakness vanity. 
 
 The foregoing expressions from Mommsen will be enough 
 to apprise attentive readers of the care with which, when they 
 study this really great writer's history of Rome, they must 
 calculate for the historian's personal bias. 
 
 The latest fashion in opinion, whatever that may chance to 
 be, is by no means, because it is the latest, necessarily the 
 right one. Our readers are entitled to know that various 
 vogues in opinion have prevailed, from one period to another, 
 as to the true character of Julius Caesar. The current 
 vogue is favorable rather than adverse. A generation or two 
 ago the case was otherwise. With a single further quota- 
 tion from Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, to show more fully what 
 it was the fashion, when he wrote, to think about Caesar, 
 (Dr. Arnold, however, was not a man to follow fashion in 
 thinking, he made fashion rather,) we leave the topic to our 
 readers to make up each one his own mind for himself: 
 
 "During the present summer, Caesar had, in fact, com- 
 pleted the conquest of Gaul, by defeat of the formidable 
 confederacy organized by Vercingetorix and by the capture 
 of Alesia. By his successive victories he had amassed a
 
 Ccesar. 189 
 
 treasure which, if we may judge by the effects ascribed to 
 it, must have been enormous. . . . To his own army his 
 liberalities were almost unbounded, while his camp presented 
 a place of refuge to the needy, the profligate, the debtors, 
 and even the criminals who found it convenient to retreat 
 from the capital. When it is remembered that the object of 
 all this profusion was the enslaving of his country, and that 
 the means which enabled him to practice it were derived 
 from the unprovoked pillage of the towns and temples of 
 Gaul, and the sale of those unfortunate barbarians who in 
 the course of his unjust wars became his prisoners, it may 
 be justly doubted whether the life of any individual recorded 
 in history was ever productive of a greater amount of hu- 
 man misery, or has been marked with a deeper stain of 
 wickedness." 
 
 " Agedincum " for Agendicum, " H?edui " for ^Edui, read- 
 ers will observe, are the spellings adopted by Mommsen. 
 He also writes " Gaius " for Caius in Caesar's name. " Sulla " 
 for Sylla, " Mithradates " for Mithridates, " Sugambri " for 
 Sicambri, are other variations of his from the common orthog- 
 raphy. These changes need not disturb any body. They 
 are mostly points rather of taste and vogue than of correct- 
 ness and scholarship. However, if, in such things, you like 
 to be abreast of the progressive van in scholarship, follow 
 Mommsen. We, for our part, decide to be moderate, rather 
 than extreme. We adhere chiefly to the old ways. We 
 shall therefore presently r,ay Virgil, not "Vergil." "Celts," 
 Mommsen calls the Gauls. This is an ethnic, rather than 
 a geographic, designation. In race the Gauls and the 
 Irish were allied. Celtic blood ran in the veins of both 
 peoples. 
 
 This little digression, of which, it may be, some more 
 methodical among our readers have been silently and good- 
 naturedly impatient, has in reality, let us assure them, been 
 not inappropriate here, at the close of the last book of
 
 190 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 Caesar's Commentaries. For this seventh book is in strict- 
 ness the last book of Caesar's Commentaries. Caesar him- 
 self did not write the eighth book, although that also bears 
 his name. 
 
 EIGHTH BOOK. 
 
 The eighth book was written by one of Caesar's lieutenants, 
 Aulus Hirtius. who begins with a rather fulsomely laudatory 
 appreciation of his master's work, and an almost abject depre- 
 cation of the charge against himself of rashness in presuming 
 to complete what one so unapproachably his superior in talent 
 had commenced. The book relates in very good imitation of 
 Caesar's style it is easy, you know, to make an egg stand on 
 end after Columbus has shown you how the incidents of 
 that last Gallic campaign in which Caesar cleared off all the 
 little arrearages of his task to leave pacified Gaul, as Mr. 
 Froude would have us believe, passionately attached to the 
 person and interests of her conqueror. 
 
 We dismiss this book with a single extract in literal trans- 
 lation, luridly illustrative of one style of address adopted by 
 Caesar in wooing and fixing the impulsive affections of the 
 conquered. It is but just to say that Caesar had also his 
 really amiable ways of attaching his subjects to himself. He 
 was by instinct, as well as by judgment, humane, when hu- 
 manity would serve his purposes. Humanity in the present 
 case he thought would not do. 
 
 The town of Ux-el-lo-du'num had been taken by siege, 
 after obstinate resistance from the inhabitants. The capitu- 
 lation was finally secured by a piece of almost fabulously 
 vast and well-directed military engineering, on the part of 
 the Romans, conducted under the personal supervision of 
 the commander himself. The subterranean vein outside the 
 walls, that supplied the town with water, was found and cut 
 off. The towns-people declared it was the gods and not a 
 man that had accomplished this. Hirtius thus relates what 
 Caesar did after the capitulation :
 
 Casar. \ 9 1 
 
 Cresar, being convinced that his lenity was known to all men, and 
 being under no fears of being thought to act severely from a natural 
 cruelty, and perceiving that there would be no end to his troubles if 
 several states should attempt to rebel in like manner and in different 
 places, resolved to deter others by inflicting an exemplary punishment 
 on these. Accordingly he cut off the hands of those who had borne 
 arms against him. Their lives he spared, that the punishment of their 
 rebellion might be the more conspicuous. 
 
 The trustworthiness of Mr. Froude as biographer of Caesar 
 will have been sufficiently illustrated, if to what has hereto- 
 fore been said on the point we now add that, though he of 
 course tells the story of this siege and capture, he does not 
 even once mention that crowning act of " clemency " on his 
 hero's part, which Hirtius relates with a preface, in its adu- 
 latory imputation of serene confidence to Caesar, so full of 
 melancholy historic instruction. 
 
 It is Caesar's peculiar distinction that he not only made 
 history, but wrote the history that he made. Perhaps if 
 humane Pompey, if honorable Lucullus, had left behind 
 them commentaries of their campaigns, Caesar then, in the 
 comparison, might have seemed to us the mild conqueror 
 that he seemed to himself. Certainly as conqueror in the 
 civil war, Caesar shows to extraordinary advantage in con- 
 trast with the bloody Marius and the bloody Sylla. In just 
 discrimination, however, this also needs to be said, that rea- 
 sons for proscription and political murder existed to Sylla 
 and to Marius, which to Julius Caesar, and to Caesar Augus- 
 tus after him, were wanting. When these two Caesars got 
 the power, there were left comparatively few enemies or 
 rivals that they needed to fear! The state had been chiefly 
 stripped of its greatest men except such of those greatest 
 men as were committed to the winning side. 
 
 We bring to abrupt conclusion this exhaustless and fasci- 
 nating subject, by gratifying the curiosity which we know our 
 readers must have felt, to know something of the business 
 relations that subsisted between Caesar and his soldiers.
 
 1 92 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 How were Caesar's soldiers paid ? Chiefly with great ex- 
 pectations expectations, however, which in the end were 
 not disappointed. It was by no means a case, between 
 Caesar and his men, of romantic purely disinterested mutual 
 attachment of soldiers to their chief and of chief to his sol- 
 diers. General and men were all of them soldiers of fortune 
 together. They had to prosper, if they prospered, each by 
 means of the other. Caesar depended on his legionaries, and 
 his legionaries depended on Caesar. Neither party could get 
 on alone. Caesar's wars were mostly personal wars. That 
 is, they had no sanction of government. Caesar raised le- 
 gions, and he waged war, on his own responsibility. It was 
 freebootery on a colossal scale winked at by the Roman 
 government, but winked at not without many a qualm, on its 
 part, of helpless disgust and resentment. Caesar's soldiers no 
 doubt knew all this perfectly well. He early doubled the 
 regular pay of his men. He gave them booty freely from 
 time to time. Every legionary might count on having, for 
 instance, a slave from among the prisoners of war, to be his 
 own peculiar property, to serve his wants, to suffer his hu- 
 mors. Besides this, there was the glittering chance always 
 before the soldier's eyes of some more or less indefinite re- 
 ward to be enjoyed when Caesar should come to his final 
 goal. This unquestionably helps explain the celebrated in- 
 cident of Caesar's dealing with his mutinous legions, during 
 the civil war. Even his favored and favorite tenth came 
 once to play a game of bluff with their old commander they 
 demanded to be discharged, and sent home. 'Entirely rea- 
 sonable request,' said Caesar, easy master himself of the game 
 which his tenth had blunderingly attempted to play 'you 
 shall be gratified.' The legion were confounded. It was the 
 very last thing they really desired. They thought he could 
 not get along without them. Perhaps he could not. But 
 certainly they could not get along without him. This Caesar 
 knew, and, with splendid mastery, he soon reduced the
 
 Ctzsar. 193 
 
 mutineers to beg for reinstatement in his army, on his own 
 terms. Those veterans could not endure that raw soldiers 
 of Caesar should march with their commander in future tri- 
 umphs at Rome, while they themselves, who had bought dear 
 that right in a hundred battles, should lose it, and lose be- 
 sides whatever additional prizes they might hope to earn by 
 additional victories achieved for Caesar. 
 
 The soldiers of the early republic served without pay. 
 They were sure, if they conquered, of a fair share in the 
 spoil, and that would be worth to them far more than 
 any reasonable wages. Caesar's soldiers, even at their double 
 pay, received, what seems to us but a paltry sum, about 
 thirty-seven dollars a year, for their service. But when 
 Ccesar came to triumph at Rome, then he opened his strong 
 box, and sowed riches with both hands far and wide. Remem- 
 ber that these were the riches of plunder. To every common 
 soldier of his, he gave what was equivalent to a moderate 
 fortune for one in his condition of life, nearly a thousand 
 dollars in money. The centurions each received twice that 
 amount. The prize was doubled again for the military trib- 
 unes. When Cassar dealt with his officers, mutinous from 
 fear of Ariovistus and the Germans, he claimed, in address- 
 ing them, to have been a man above blame on the score of 
 uprightness. What he specifically meant no doubt was that 
 he had always treated his soldiers fairly in the matter of pay 
 and of booty. There was, of course, no generosity in his 
 lavishing money on his soldiers. The wealth of the world 
 was his by plunder. He could not possibly use it all him- 
 self. The simple question was, how should he dispose of his 
 surplus ? 
 
 On the occasion of his successive triumphs, he showed 
 something of the same genius in scattering his plunder that he 
 had shown in amassing it. He spread twenty-two thousand 
 tables, and feasted the universal public of Rome. He gave 
 every poor citizen meat, grain, oil, money, and remission of 
 9
 
 1 94 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 a year's rent. He made an artificial lake deep enough and 
 wide enough to float a navy, and on its surface exhibited a 
 sea-fight not a sham-fight, but a real fight, in which thou- 
 sands of Egyptians and thousands of Tyrians, respectively, 
 killed each other for the delight of the populace. There 
 were murmurs at this feature of Caesar's displays not, how- 
 ever, because it was cruel, but because it was wasteful ! One 
 almost incredible account says that the whole length of the 
 street through which Caesar's triumphal procession passed 
 was covered from the sun with awnings of silk. 
 
 It is difficult not to feel with De Quincey that the Roman 
 Empire founded by Caesar was less a form of civilization, 
 than a magnificently masked essential barbarism, proceeding 
 by unperceived degrees to disintegration moral, social, po- 
 litical engendered from within. 
 
 Let us redress once more the balance of praise and blame 
 for Caesar, by quoting the highly rhetorical sentence of De 
 Quincey on his relative rank in greatness among the ancients: 
 " Unquestionably, for comprehensive talents, the Lucifer, 
 the Protagonist of all antiquity." 
 
 VII. 
 CICERO'S ORATIONS. 
 
 CICERO'S writings form what has been finely called a library 
 of reason and eloquence. We shall hereafter meet this al- 
 ways welcome literary figure again, in the course of that vol- 
 ume to follow the present, which treats the Latin read by the 
 student in college. To that future occasion we postpone the 
 biographical and critical notice which it seems fitting for us 
 somewhere to make of this most modern of the ancients, 
 this most cosmopolitan of Romans. 
 
 The amount of reading in Cicero's orations required for
 
 Cicero's Orations. 
 
 J 95 
 
 entrance at college is somewhat indeterminate. That is to 
 say, different colleges have different standards of require- 
 ment. Most of them, we believe, ask for the four orations 
 against Catiline and, together with these, two or three other 
 of Cicero's orations, variously chosen by various authorities. 
 What we give our readers will approximately represent the 
 average requirement. 
 
 It is to be regretted that many of our college graduates 
 gain their sole impression of Cicero as orator from their 
 reading of him in course of preparation for college. To the 
 student in that preparatory stage of education, naturally 
 even the most consummate pieces of eloquence can be but so 
 many portions of dead literature, to be mastered for lame 
 and impotent construing by him, simply as his open sesame 
 at the entrance-gate of college. Our readers will, some of 
 them at least, through experience of life producing maturity 
 and wisdom of judgment, have become prepared to appre- 
 ciate, better than boys and girls at school can do, the masterly 
 art with which Cicero orders his narration, his argument, his 
 representations, his appeals. Still, the conditions of eloquence 
 change so much with change of time, of place, of race, of po- 
 sition, of civilization, of occasion that oratory belonging, like 
 Cicero's, to an order of things remote in every way from 
 that in which we live, requires a large amount of prepara- 
 tion on our part to judge it justly and to enjoy it to the full. 
 Readers will be liable to disappointment in making first ac- 
 quaintance here with oratory of so ancient, so constant, and 
 so universal fame. But we had better, all of us, presume 
 with much confidence that Cicero deserves his established and 
 august reputation. If he fails to answer our ideal, perhaps 
 our ideal, rather than Cicero, is at fault. Or perhaps we 
 have failed to study Cicero, and Cicero's occasion, deeply 
 enough. Imagine somebody, two thousand years hence, 
 four thousand miles away, spelling out, in a language not 
 only foreign but long dead, an American speech of to-day,
 
 196 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 delivered on some occasion as obsolete as is now the conspir- 
 acy of Catiline. What speech of what orator would you 
 select as likely to interest that supposed reader, more than 
 Cicero's invectives against Catiline interest you as likely to 
 satisfy that reader's ideal of eloquence better than your ideal 
 of eloquence is satisfied in Cicero? 
 
 Of Cicero as an orator it may summarily be said that he 
 was, first of all, and always, as clear as a sunbeam this, 
 both as to his general order in the speech, and as to the 
 structure of the particular sentence full in matter, copious, 
 while pure, in diction, harmonious in rhythm, in temper by 
 preference urbane, though capable of the utmost truculence, 
 unsurpassed in skill of self-adjustment to the demands of 
 his occasion. When, in the next succeeding volume of the 
 present series, we come to the eloquence of Demosthenes, 
 we may seek to set the Roman's style in a still stronger light, 
 by comparing and contrasting it with the style of the Greek. 
 The English Burke, we believe, consciously modeled his 
 own oratory on the oratory of Cicero. 
 
 Notwithstanding what we have said of the inevitable tend- 
 ency to obsolescence in all oratory, it yet remains true 
 such is the perfection of Cicero's oratorical and literary art 
 that the reader will find singularly little narrative explana- 
 tion necessary that is not furnished within the productions 
 themselves which we are here about to present. This, how- 
 ever, is less the case with the last oration to follow, than with 
 the others. 
 
 We first bring forward (in specimen only, for our bounds 
 are inelastic) that celebrated oration of Cicero's, in which 
 he lauds the character of Caesar. There is here a generous 
 effusion of eulogy, such as to one not familiar with the amen- 
 ity, the affluence, the Italian enthusiasm, of the speaker's 
 oratorical temperament, might well seem insincere and ful- 
 some. But there are several considerations necessary to be 
 kept in mind in order to the forming of a just judgment on
 
 Cicero's Orations. 197 
 
 the real quality of this high-wrought panegeric of Cicero's on 
 Caesar. 
 
 You must remember that Caesar was now undisputed sole 
 master of the world. You must remember that he had, since 
 his victory in the civil war, exhibited extraordinary modera- 
 tion in the use of boundless power. You must remember, 
 that, to the strained anxiety of the Roman public dreading 
 to see renewed the frightful scenes of the times of Marius 
 and of Sylla, this self-control and mildness on Caesar's part 
 had brought a sense of relief whose reaction made men al- 
 most mad with joy. You must remember that Cicero, besides 
 consciously speaking in the presence of a diffused sentiment 
 like this, himself shared the sentiment to a degree commen- 
 surate with the genial warmth of his own exceptionally 
 vivid sympathies. You must remember that a capital in- 
 stance of Caesar's clemency had, under striking, almost the- 
 atrical, circumstances, just occurred in the senate. You 
 must remember that Cicero's personal affections were in that 
 instance ardently engaged. And finally, perhaps chiefly, 
 you must remember that Cicero praised not simply the vir- 
 tues which he saw in Caesar, but the virtues which, for his 
 own sake and for the sake of mankind, he wished to see, and 
 which, therefore, he would help create or confirm in Caesar, 
 by thus magnanimously praising them. The extravagance 
 of Cicero's rhetoric will surely seem somewhat modified in 
 view of considerations such as these, however yet it may 
 pass the bounds of decorum prescribed by our colder north- 
 ern taste and judgment. Cicero is to be thought of as an 
 Italian, rather than as a typical Roman. His style in gen- 
 eral is Asiatic, by an exuberance that true Roman austerity 
 would have chastised and corrected. 
 
 The oration for Marcus Marcellus had this occasion. 
 Marcellus had fought for Pompey and against Ccesar in the 
 civil war. After the decisive defeat of Pharsalia he with- 
 drew to Myt'i-le'ne, and there devoted himself to rhetoric
 
 198 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 and philosophy. Marcellus's cousin one day in full senate 
 prostrated himself before Caesar to implore the dictator's 
 pardon for his kinsman. The whole body of the senators 
 did likewise. Csesar yielded and pardoned the exile. Pope 
 had this occasion in mind when he wrote his couplet, 
 
 And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, 
 Than Ciesar with a senate at his heels. 
 
 Cicero, as a life-long friend of the pardoned man, instantly 
 responded in a speech which, on being subsequently written 
 out, took the form in which it here appears. 
 
 Literary and historical critics have found much, in litera- 
 ture, profane as well as sacred, to assail with their weapons 
 of skepticism, and this oration has not escaped their serious 
 challenge. Some very high authorities have doubted wheth- 
 er it ever was either spoken or written by Cicero. But the 
 best way for our readers is to go with the majority and be- 
 lieve that they are now enjoying a genuine, and a very fine, 
 specimen of Cicero's rhetoric. 
 
 It should have been added that, besides being a Pompeian, 
 Marcellus had further offended Caesar by once proposing in the 
 senate a decree to deprive him of his command. The clem- 
 ency that Cicero celebrates is thus seen to be really remark- 
 able. Toward his countrymen, Caesar was certainly a very 
 magnanimous conqueror. But here is Cicero's 
 
 ORATION FOR MARCUS MARCELLUS. 
 
 This clay, O conscript fathers [literally, "enrolled or elect fathers," 
 the customary style of address to the Roman senate,] has brought with 
 it an end to the long silence in which I have of late indulged ; not out 
 of any fear, but partly from sorrow, pari'y from modesty ; and at the 
 same time it has revived in me my ancient habit of saying what my 
 wishes and opinions are. For I cannot by any means pass over in si- 
 lence such great humanity, such unprecedented and unheard-of clem- 
 ency, such moderation in the exercise of supreme and universal power, 
 such incredible and almost godlike wisdom. For now that Marcus 
 Marcellus, O conscript fathers, has been restored to you and the repub-
 
 Cicero's Orations. 199 
 
 lie, I think that not only his voice and authority are preserved and re- 
 stored to you and to the republic, but my own also. 
 
 For I was concerned, O conscript fathers, and most exceedingly 
 grieved, when I saw such a man as he is, who had espoused the same 
 cause which I myself had, not enjoying the same good fortune as my- 
 self; nor was I able to persuade myself to think it right or fair that I 
 should be going on in my usual routine, while that rival and imitator of 
 my zeal and labors, who had been a companion and comrade of mine 
 throughout, was separated from me. Therefore, you, O Caius Caesar, 
 have re-opened to me my former habits of life, which were closed up, 
 and you have raised, as it were, a standard to all these men, as a sort 
 of token to lead them to entertain hopes of the general welfare of the 
 republic. For it was seen by me before in many instances, and espe- 
 cially in my own, and now it is clearly understood by every body, since 
 you have granted Marcus Marcellus to the senate and people of Rome, 
 in spite of your recollection of all the injuries you have received at his 
 hands, that you prefer the authority of this order and the dignity of the 
 republic to the indulgence of your own resentment or your own sus- 
 picions. 
 
 He, indeed, has this day reaped the greatest possible reward for the 
 virtuous tenor of his previous life ; in the great unanimity of the senate in 
 his favor, and also in your own most dignified and important opinion of 
 him. And from this you, in truth, must perceive what great credit there 
 is in conferring a kindness, when there is such glory to be got even by 
 receiving one. And he, too, is fortunate whose safety is now the cause 
 of scarcely less joy to all other men than it will be to himself when he 
 is informed of it. And this honor has deservedly and most rightfully 
 fallen to his lot. For who is superior to him either in nobleness of birth, 
 or in honesty, or in zeal for virtuous studies, or in purity of life, or in 
 any description whatever of excellence ? 
 
 No one is blessed with such a stream of genius, no one is endowed 
 with such vigor and richness of eloquence, either as a speaker or as a 
 writer, as to be able, I will not say to extol, but even, O Caius Csesar, 
 plainly to relate, all your achievements. Nevertheless, I assert, and with 
 your leave I maintain, that in all of them you never gained greater and 
 truer glory than you have acquired this day. I am accustomed often to 
 keep this idea before my eyes, and often to affirm in frequent conversa- 
 tions, that all the exploits of our own generals, all those of foreign na- 
 tions and of most powerful states, all the mighty deeds of the most il- 
 lustrious monarchs, can be compared with yours neither in the magni- 
 tude of your wars, nor in the number of your battles, nor in the variety
 
 200 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 of countries which you have conquered, nor in the rapidity of your con- 
 quests, nor in the great difference of character with which your wars have 
 been marked ; and that those countries the most remote from each other 
 could not be traveled over more rapidly by any one in a jeurney, than 
 they have been visited by your, I will not say journeys but, victories. 
 
 And if I were not to admit that those actions are so great that scarcely 
 any man's mind or comprehension is capable of doing justice to them, I 
 should be very senseless. But there are other actions greater than 
 those. For some people are in the habit of disparaging military glory, 
 and of denying the whole of it to the generals, and of giving the multi- 
 tude a share of it also, so that it may not be the peculiar property of the 
 commanders. And, no doubt, in the affairs of war, the valor of the 
 troops, the advantages of situation, the assistance of allies, fleets, and sup- 
 plies, have great influence ; and a most important share in all such 
 transactions, Fortune claims for herself, as of her right ; and whatever 
 has been done successfully she considers almost entirely as her own 
 work. 
 
 But in this glory, O Caius Csesar, which you have just earned, you 
 have no partner. The whole of this, however great this may be and 
 surely it is as great as possible, the whole of it, I say, is your own. 
 The centurion can claim for himself no share of that praise, neither can 
 the prefect, nor the battalion, nor the squadron. Nay, even that very 
 mistress of all human affairs, Fortune herself, cannot thrust herself into 
 any participation in that glory ; she yields to you ; she confesses that it 
 is all your own, your peculiar private desert. For rashness is never 
 united with wisdom, nor is chance ever admitted to regulate affairs con- 
 ducted with prudence. 
 
 You have subdued nations, savage in their barbarism, countless in 
 their numbers, boundless, if we regard the extent of country peopled by 
 them, and rich in every kind of resource ; but still you were only con- 
 quering things, the nature and condition of which was such that they 
 could be overcome by force. For there is no strength so great that it 
 cannot be weakened and broken by arms and violence. But to subdue 
 one's inclinations, to master one's angry feelings, to be moderate in the 
 hour of victory, to not merely raise from the ground a prostrate adver- 
 sary, eminent for noble birth, for genius, and for virtue, but even to in- 
 crease his previous dignity they are actions of such a nature, that the 
 man who does them, I do not compare to the most illustrious man, but 
 I consider equal to God. 
 
 Therefore, O Caius Caesar, those military glories of yours will be cel- 
 ebrated not only in our own literature and language, but in those of
 
 Cicero's Orations. 201 
 
 almost all nations; nor is there any age which will ever be silent about 
 your praises. But still, deeds of that sort, somehow or other, even when 
 they are read, appear to be overwhelmed with the cries of the soldiers 
 and the sound of the trumpets. But when we hear or read of any thing 
 which has been done with clemency, with humanity, with justice, with 
 moderation, and with wisdom, especially in a time of anger, which is 
 very adverse to prudence, and in the hour of victor)', which is nat- 
 urally insolent and haughty, with what ardor are we then inflamed, 
 (even if the actions are not such as have really been performed, but are 
 only fabulous,) so as often to love those whom we have never seen ! 
 But as for you, whom we behold present among us, whose mind, and 
 feelings, and countenance we at this moment see to be such, that you 
 wish t preserve every thing which the fortune of war has left to the re- 
 public, O with what praises must we extol you ? with what zeal must 
 we follow you ? with what affection must we devote ourselves to you ? 
 The very walls, I declare, the very walls of this senate-house appear to 
 me eager to return you thanks ; because, in a short time, you will have 
 restored their ancient authority to this venerable abode of themselves 
 and of their ancestors. 
 
 Now no one can read intelligently the foregoing repre- 
 sentative extract, about one quarter of the whole, from this 
 senatorial speech of Cicero, without perceiving that, both in 
 the lines and between the lines of the speech, there unmis- 
 takably betrays itself the spirit of the patriot consenting to 
 speak, nay, generously rejoicing to speak, in the words of the 
 personal encomiast. The orator hoped well concerning the 
 republic. Cicero's letters, written about the date of this 
 speech, make it probable that the trust was not yet extinct 
 in his breast that Caesar was going to restore the ancient 
 freedom and constitution. Csesar should be helped on to any 
 such goal of his thought by every incitement of appreciation 
 shown him beforehand. The praise, then, was less mere adu- 
 lation, than pregnant wisdom of oratory and statesmanship. 
 Cicero was not playing a part, the part of a flatterer. He 
 really hoped, in the magnanimous exaltation of the moment, 
 that what he said in hyperbole was substantially true, or at 
 
 least might be helped to become true if he should unseal 
 9*
 
 202 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 those eloquent lips of his to say it. The forms of senatorial 
 comity permitted much apparent exaggeration of phrase. He 
 did not stint language. He poured it out abundantly and 
 made his speech which, perhaps, after all, our readers, not- 
 withstanding what their author here says in explanation, will 
 feel to have been inexcusably laudatory. Holding the 
 opinion that we do, we shall say no more to press the opin- 
 ion on our readers. Let each think what he will but think 
 wisely, with exercise of that historic sense, of that diplomatic 
 sense, which leads to just consideration of the bearing and 
 relation of things. 
 
 One perceives a startling contrast in tone, a contrast 
 startling, but appropriate, as one follows up this gracious, 
 suave, complaisant utterance of Cicero's, with two of his 
 speeches against Catiline. These speeches had a very differ- 
 ent occasion, and were made under widely different circum- 
 stances from those of the foregoing. There was a wide-spread 
 dangerous political movement on foot at Rome, desperate 
 enough in its aim and in its measures, as also in the character 
 of the men concerned in it, to be justly branded a conspir- 
 acy. This was before, but not many years before, Caesar 
 went to Gaul. Of this conspiracy, the leading spirit was 
 Lucius Catilina, commonly now among us called Catiline. 
 Catiline was a member of the senate, and many of his fellow- 
 conspirators belonged to the same body. He was bankrupt 
 in fortune and in name by general agreement an abandoned 
 man. But he was as able as he was unscrupulous. 
 
 Catiline's high birth entitled him to hopes of political pre- 
 ferment. He had been candidate against Cicero for the 
 consulship. Defeated, he was not disheartened. Another 
 year he tried his fortune again, playing his game with loaded 
 dice ; for he practiced bribery on a scale so vast that Cicero 
 proposed a new law against the corruption. Catiline felt 
 himself aimed at, and plotted against Cicero's life. Cicero 
 in open senate charged on him this design, and the consuls
 
 Cicero's Orations. 
 
 203 
 
 to meet the emergency were by decree invested with dicta- 
 torial powers. Catiline's hopes of election, and his plot to 
 assassinate Cicero, were thwarted together. 
 
 Desperate now, he rushed into courses the most extreme. 
 A general rising was to be instigated throughout Italy, 
 Rome was to be fired in numerous places at once, the senate 
 were all to be put to death, likewise the personal and polit- 
 ical enemies of the conspirators. Pompey's sons, however, 
 
 POMPEY THE GREAT. 
 
 were to be kept alive, as hostages to secure the proper be- 
 havior of Pompey, who in command of an army in the East 
 held the really effective power in the state. 
 
 Of all this stupendous iniquity, plotted in darkness, Cicero 
 was fortunate enough and skillful enough to learn, from one 
 of the conspirators gained over through the arts of that con- 
 spirator's mistress. Cicero managed the affair with perfect 
 adroitness. Things proceeded until he summoned a meeting
 
 204 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 of the senate in the temple of Jupiter at the foot of the 
 Palatine hill, (some say on the Capitoline hill,) a place of 
 assembling resorted to only under circumstances of the most 
 threatening danger. Catiline was brazen enough to attend 
 himself this session of the senate. His entrance created a 
 sensation, and that sensation Cicero heightened by break- 
 ing into the following strain of personal invective, taken 
 from what is known as the first oration against Catiline. 
 There are four such orations in all. Of these the first and 
 last were delivered in the senate, the second and third in the 
 forum to the popular assembly of citizens. The style, or 
 rather the course of treatment adopted, differs according to 
 the character of the audience addressed, and according to 
 the object sought to be accomplished, by the orator. Here, 
 then, is a condensation of the 
 
 FIRST ORATION AGAINST CATILINE. 
 
 WHEN, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience ? 
 How long is that madness of yours still to mock us ? When is there to 
 be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it 
 does now? Do not the night guards placed on the Palatine Hill -do 
 not the watches posted throughout the city does not the alarm of the 
 people, and the union of all good men does not the precaution taken of 
 assembling the senate in this most defensible place do not the looks 
 and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect 
 upon you ? Do you not feel that your plans are detected ? Do you not 
 see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by 
 the knowledge which every one here possesses of it ? What is there that 
 you did last night, what the night before where is it that you were 
 who was there that you summoned to meet you what design was there 
 which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is 
 unacquainted ? 
 
 Shame on the age and on its principles ! The senate is aware of these 
 things ; the consul sees them ; and yet this man lives. Lives ! ay, he 
 comes even into the senate. He takes a part in the public delibera- 
 tions ; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter 
 every individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think 
 that we are doing our duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of 
 his frensied attacks.
 
 Cicero's Orations. 205 
 
 You ought, O Catiline, long ago to have been led to execution by 
 command of the consul. That destruction which you have been long 
 plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head. 
 
 What ? Did not that most illustrious man, Publius Scipio, the Ponti- 
 fex Maximus, in his capacity of a private citizen, put to death Tiberius 
 Gracchus, though but slightly undermining the constitution ? And shall 
 we, who are the consuls, tolerate Catiline, openly desirous to destroy the 
 whole world with fire and slaughter? For I pass over older instances, 
 such as how Caius Servilius A-ha'la with his own hand slew Spurius 
 Mselius when plotting a revolution in the state. There was there was 
 once such virtue in this republic, that brave men would repress mis- 
 chievous citizens with severer chastisement than the most bitter enemy. 
 For we have a resolution of the senate, a formidable and authoritative 
 decree against you, O Catiline ; the wisdom of the republic is not at 
 fault, nor the dignity of this senatorial body. We, we alone I say it 
 openly we, the consuls, are wanting in our duty. 
 
 The senate once passed a decree that Lucius O-pim'i-us, the consul, 
 should take care that the republic suffered no injury. Not one night 
 elapsed. There was put to death, on some mere suspicion of disaffec- 
 tion, Caius Gracchus, a man whose family had borne the most unblem- 
 ished reputation for many generations. There was slain Marcus Fulvius, 
 a man of consular rank, and all his children. By a like decree of the 
 senate the safety of the republic was intrusted to Caius Marius and 
 Lucius Valerius, the consuls. Did not the vengeance of the republic, 
 did not execution overtake Lucius Sat'ur-ni'nus, a tribune of the people, 
 and Caius Servilius, the praetor, without the delay of one single day? 
 But we, for these twenty days, have been allowing the edge of the senate's 
 authority to grow blunt, as it were. For we are in possession of a sim- 
 ilar decree of the senate, but we keep it locked up in its parchment 
 buried, I may say, in the sheath ; and according to this decree you 
 ought, O Catiline, to be put to death this instant. You live and you 
 live, not to lay aside, but to persist in your audacity. 
 
 I wish, O conscript fathers, to be merciful ; I wish not to appear 
 negligent amid such danger to the state ; but I do now accuse 
 myself of remissness and culpable inactivity. A camp is pitched in 
 Italy, at the entrance of Etruria, in hostility to the republic ; the number 
 of the enemy increases every day ; and yet the general of that camp, 
 the leader of those enemies, we see within the walls ay, and even in 
 the senate planning every day some internal injury to the republic If, 
 O Catiline, I should now order you to be arrested, to be put to death, I 
 should, I suppose, have to fear lest all good men should say that I had
 
 206 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 acted tardily, rather than that any one should affirm that I acted cruelly. 
 But yet this, which ought to have been done long since, I have good reason 
 for not doing as yet ; I will put you to death, then, when there shall be 
 not one person possible to be found so wicked, so abandoned, so like 
 yourself, as not to allow that it has been rightly done. As long as one 
 person exists who can dare to defend you, you shall live ; but you shall 
 ]ive as you do now, surrounded by my many and trusty guards, so that 
 you shall not be able to stir one finger against the republic : many eyes 
 and ears shall still observe and watch you, as they have hitherto done, 
 though you shall not perceive them. 
 
 O ye immortal gods, where on earth are we? in what city are we 
 living ? what constitution is ours ? There are here here in our body, 
 O conscript fathers, in this the most holy and dignified assembly of the 
 whole world, men who meditate my death, and the death of all of us, and 
 the destruction of this city, and of the whole world. I, the consul, see 
 them; I ask them their opinion about the republic, .and I do not yet at- 
 tack, even by words, those who ought to be put to death by the sword. 
 
 But now, what is that life of yours that you are leading? For I will 
 speak to you not so as to seem influenced by the hatred I ought to feel, 
 but by pity, nothing of which is due to you. You came a little while 
 ago into the senate : in so numerous an assembly, who of so many 
 friends and connections of yours saluted you? If this in the memory of 
 man never happened to any one else, are you waiting for insults by 
 word of mouth, when you are overwhelmed by the most irresistible 
 condemnation of silence ? Is it nothing that at your arrival all those seats 
 were vacated? that all the men of consular rank, who had often been 
 marked out by you for slaughter, the very moment you sat down, left 
 that part of the benches bare and vacant ? With what feelings do you 
 think you ought to bear this ? On my honor, if my slaves feared me 
 as all your fellow-citizens fear you, I should think I must leave my 
 house. Do not you think you should leave the city ? If I saw that I was 
 even undeservedly so suspected and hated by my fellow-citizens, I would 
 rather flee from their sight than be gazed at by the hostile eyes of every 
 one. And do you who, from the consciousness of your wickedness, 
 know that the hatred of all men is just and has been long due to you, 
 hesitate to avoid the sight and presence of those men whose minds and 
 senses you offend? If your parents feared and hated you, and if you 
 could by no means pacify them, you would. I think, depart somewhere 
 out of their sight. Now, your country, which is the common parent of
 
 Cicero's Orations. 207 
 
 all of us, hales and fears you, and has no other opinion, of you, than 
 that you are meditating parricide in her case ; and will you neither feel 
 awe of her authority, nor deference for her judgment, nor fear of her 
 power ? 
 
 And she, O Catiline, thus pleads with you, and after a manner silently 
 speaks to you : There has now for many years been no crime committed 
 but by you ; no atrocity has taken place without you ; you alone un- 
 punished and unquestioned have murdered the citizens, have harassed 
 and plundered the allies ; you alone have had power not only to neglect 
 all laws and investigations, but to overthrow and break through them. 
 Your former actions, though they ought not to have been borne, yet I 
 did bear as well as I could ; but now that I should be wholly occupied 
 with fear of you alone, that at every sound I should dread Catiline, that 
 no design should seem possible to be entertained against me which does 
 not proceed from your wickedness, this is no longer endurable. Depart, 
 then, and deliver me from this fear ; that, if it be a just one, I may not 
 be destroyed ; if an imaginary one, that at least I may at last cease to 
 fear. 
 
 I will let you see what these men [Catiline's fellow-senators] think of 
 you. Be gone from the city, O Catiline, deliver the republic from fear ; 
 depart into banishment, if that is the word you are waiting for. What 
 now, O Catiline ? Do you not perceive, do you not see the silence 
 of these men ? they permit it, they say nothing ; why wait you for the 
 authority of their words, when you see their wishes in their silence ? 
 
 But had I said the same to this excellent young man, Publius Sextius, 
 or to that brave man, Marcus Marcellus, before this time the senate 
 would deservedly have laid violent hands on me, consul though I be, in 
 this veiy temple. But as to you, Catiline, while they are quiet they ap- 
 prove, while they permit me to speak they vote, while they are silent 
 they are loud and eloquent. 
 
 O conscript fathers, let the worthless begone let them separate them- 
 selves from the good let them collect in one place let them, as I have 
 often said before, be separated from us by a wall ; let them cease to plot 
 against the consul in his own house to surround the tribunal of the 
 city prsetor to besiege the senate-house with words to prepare brands 
 and torches to burn the city ; let it, in short, be written on the brow of 
 every citizen, what are his sentiments about the republic. I promise 
 you this, O conscript fathers, that there shall be so much diligence in 
 us the consuls, so much authority in you, so much virtue in the Roman
 
 208 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 i 
 
 knights, so much unanimity in all good men, that you shall see every 
 thing made plain and manifest by the departure of Catiline everything 
 checked and punished 
 
 With these omens, O Catiline, begone to your impious and nefarious 
 war, to the great safety of the republic, to your own misfortune and 
 injury, and to the destruction of those who have joined themselves to 
 you in every wickedness and atrocity. Then do you, O Jupiter, who 
 were consecrated by Romulus with the same auspices as this city, whom 
 we rightly call the stay of this city and empire, repel this man and his 
 companions from your altars and from the other temples from the 
 houses and walls of the city from the lives and fortunes of all the 
 citizens ; and overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the 
 republic, the robbers of Italy, men bound together by a treaty and in- 
 famous alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal punishments. 
 
 The peculiar effect of the noble Ciceronian rhetoric is 
 necessarily to a great extent lost in any translation. We 
 use the rendering supplied to us in Bonn's Classical Library. 
 The sense is generally well transferred, but one regrets that 
 a translator, otherwise so competent, should not have had a 
 little more feeling'of style. Take, for example, the sentence 
 in the second page of our extract : " But we, for these twenty 
 days, have been allowing the edge of the senate's authority 
 to grow blunt, as if were.' 9 The "as it were" is an addition 
 of the translator's. How it enfeebles the sentence ! Placed 
 as it is at the end, it has almost the effect of intentional hu- 
 morous burlesque. What Cicero said was : " But we consuls 
 now the twentieth day are suffering to grow blunt the edge 
 of this body's authority." This example of the translator's 
 execution is perhaps extreme, but it by no means stands 
 alone. Our readers will have to imagine the nerve and force 
 of expression to be at least doubled throughout in the orig- 
 inal. "O temporal O mores!" is rendered, indeed, in its 
 purport, but not in its power by, " Shame on the age and on 
 its principles ! " " O, the times ! O, the manners [morals] ! " 
 would be literal. 
 
 The effect of a speech so very unconventionally frank, on
 
 Cicero's Orations. 209 
 
 the person against whom it was aimed, seems not to have been 
 immediately and overwhelmingly discomposing. Catiline 
 begged that the senate would not be hasty in giving credit 
 to the wild accusations of Cicero. The senate responded 
 with cries of "Traitor!" and "Parricide!" This enraged 
 Catiline, and he declared that the flame which his enemies 
 were kindling around him he would quench in the general 
 ruin. He flung himself out of the temple. 
 
 Our readers are all familiar with extracts at least from the 
 tragedy of " Catiline " by George Croly. That is a work of 
 some real power, a little overstrained perhaps in intensity 
 of expression, but well worth studying in connection with 
 these orations of Cicero. Ben Jonson has a drama on the 
 same subject. 
 
 "I go, but I return !" Croly makes Catiline, leaving the 
 senate, exclaim. He did go to the camp of the army col- 
 lected by the conspirators, designing to come back at the 
 head of a column of troops. He took with him, among other 
 things, a silver eagle once used by Marius in fighting the 
 Cimbri. This standard he made much of as invested with 
 some supernatural charm. Cicero had now a task of justify- 
 ing himself before the people of Rome. Catiline's friends 
 got it reported that Catiline had gone into voluntary exile to 
 Marseilles, driven forth by the violence of the consul. To 
 meet the popular odium sought thus to be excited against 
 himself, and in general to satisfy public opinion in Rome 
 that what had been done had been wisely done, Cicero 
 harangued the people in the forum. We give some extracts 
 from this address, usually called the 
 
 SECOND ORATION AGAINST CATILINE. 
 
 AT length, O Romans, we have dismissed from the city, or driven out, 
 or, when he was departing of his own accord, we have pursued with 
 words, Lucius Catiline, mad with audacity, breathing wickedness, im- 
 piously planning mischief to his country, threatening fire and sword to 
 you and to this city. He is gone, he has departed, he has disappeared,
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 he has rushed out. No injury will now be prepared against these walls 
 within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wicked- 
 ness. . . . Now he lies prostrate, O Romans, and feels himself stricken 
 down and abject, and often casts back his eyes toward this city, which 
 he mourns over as snatched from his jaws, but which seems to me to re- 
 joice at having vomited forth such a pest, and cast it out of doors. 
 
 But if there be any one of that disposition which all men should have, 
 who yet blames me greatly for the very thing in which my speech exults 
 and triumphs namely, that I did not arrest so capital mortal an enemy 
 rather than let him go that is not my fault, O citizens, but the fault of 
 the times. Lucius Catiline ought to have been visited with the severest 
 punishment, and to have been put to death long since ; and both the 
 customs of our ancestors, and the rigor of my office, and the republic, 
 demanded this of me ; but how many, think you, were there who did 
 not believe what I reported ? how many who out of stupidity did not 
 think so? how many who even defended him? how many who, out of 
 their own depravity, favored him? If, in truth, I had thought that, if 
 he were removed, all danger would be removed from you, I would long 
 since have cut off Lucius Catiline, had it been at the risk, not only of 
 my popularity, but even of my life. 
 
 There is no nation for us to fear no king who can make war on the 
 Roman people. All foreign affairs are tranquil ized, both by land and 
 sea, by the valor of one man, [Pompey.] Domestic war alone remains- 
 The only plots against us are within our own walls the danger is within 
 the enemy is within. We must war with luxury, with madness, with 
 wickedness. For this war, O citizens, I offer myself as the general. 
 I take on myself the enmity of profligate men. What can be cured, I 
 will cure, by whatever means it may be possible. What must be cut 
 away, I will not suffer to spread, to the ruin of the republic. Let them 
 depart, or let them stay quiet ; or if they remain in the city and in the 
 same disposition as at present, let them expect what they deserve. 
 
 I will tell you, O Romans, of what classes of men those forces are 
 made up, and then, if I can, I will apply to each the medicine of my 
 advice and persuasion. 
 
 There is one class of them, who, with enormous debts, have still greater 
 possessions, and who can by no means be detached from their affection 
 to them. . . . But I think these men are the least of all to be dreaded, 
 because they can either be persuaded to abandon their opinions, or if 
 they cling to them, they seem to me more likely to form wishes against 
 the republic than to bear arms against it.
 
 Cicero's Orations. 
 
 There is another class of them, who, although they are harassed by 
 debt, yet are expecting supreme power ; they wish to become masters. 
 ... If these had already got that which they with the greatest madness 
 wish for, do they think that in the ashes of the city and blood of the 
 citizens, which in their wicked and infamous hearts they desire, they 
 will become consuls and dictators, and even kings? Do they not see 
 that they are wishing for that which, if they were to obtain it, must be 
 given up to some fugitive slave, or to some gladiator ? 
 
 There is a third class, already touched by age, but still vigorous from 
 constant exercise. . . . These are colonists, who, from becoming pos- 
 sessed of unexpected and sudden wealth, boast themselves extravagantly 
 and insolently ; these men, while they build like rich men, while they 
 delight in farms, in litters, in vast families of slaves, in luxurious ban- 
 quets, have incurred such great debts, that, if they would be saved, they 
 must raise Sylla from the dead. . . . Let them cease to be mad, and to 
 think of proscriptions and dictatorships ; for such a horror of these 
 times is ingrained into the city, that not even men, but it seems to me 
 that even the very cattle, would refuse to bear them again. 
 
 There is a fourth class, various, promiscuous, and turbulent ; . . . 
 not so much active soldiers as lazy insolvents. ... As to these, I do 
 not understand why, if they cannot live with honor, they should wish 
 to die shamefully ; or why they think they shall perish with less pain 
 in a crowd, than if they perish by themselves. 
 
 There is a fifth class, of parricides, assassins; in short, of all infamous 
 characters, whom I do not wish to recall from Catiline, and indeed 
 they cannot be separated from him. Let them perish in their wicked 
 war, since they are so numerous that a prison cannot contain them. 
 
 There is a last class, last not only in number but in the sort of men 
 and in their way of life ; the especial body-guard of Catiline, of his 
 levying ; ay, the friends of his embraces and of his bosom ; whom 
 you see with carefully-combed hair, glossy, beardless, or with well- 
 trimmed beards ; with tunics with sleeves, or reaching to the ankles ; 
 clothed with veils, not with robes, all the industry of whose life, all the 
 labor of whose watchfulness, is expended in suppers lasting till day- 
 break. 
 
 On the one side are fighting modesty, on the other, wantonness ; on the 
 one, chastity, on the other, uncleanness ; on the one, honesty, on the 
 other, fraud; on the one, piety, on the other, wickedness ; on the one, con- 
 sistency, on the other, insanity ; on the one, honor, on the other, baseness; 
 on the one, continence, on the other, lust ; in short, equity, temperance, 
 fortitude, prudence, all the virtues, contend against iniquity with luxury,
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 against indolence, against rashness, against all the vices ; lastly, abundance 
 contends against destitution, good plans against baffled designs, wisdom 
 against madness, well-founded hope against universal despair. In a con- 
 test and war of this sort, even if the zeal of men were to fail, will not the 
 immortal gods compel such numerous and excessive vices to be defeated 
 by these most eminent virtues? 
 
 Now once more I wish those who have remained in the city, and who, 
 contrary to the safety of the city and of all of you, have been left in the 
 city by Catiline, although they are enemies, yet because they were born 
 citizens, to be warned again and again by me. ... If any one stirs in 
 the city, and if I detect not only any action, but any attempt or design 
 against the country, he shall feel that there are in this city vigilant con- 
 suls, eminent magistrates, a brave senate, arms, and prisons, which 
 our ancestors appointed as the avengers of nefarious and convicted 
 crimes. 
 
 . . . An internal civil war the most cruel and terrible in the memory 
 of man, shall be put an end to by me alone in the robe of peace acting 
 as general and commander-in-chief. . . . And this I promise you, O 
 Romans, relying neither on my own prudence, nor on human counsels, 
 but on many and manifest intimations of the will of the immortal gods ; 
 under whose guidance I first entertained this hope and this opinion ; 
 who are now defending their temples and the houses of the city, not afar 
 off, as they were used to, from a foreign and distant enemy, but here on 
 the spot, by their own divinity and present help. And you, O Romans, 
 ought to pray to and implore them to defend from the nefarious wicked- 
 ness of abandoned citizens, now that all the forces of all enemies are de- 
 feated by land and sea, this city which they have ordained to be the 
 most beautiful and flourishing of all cities. 
 
 Look back and observe the sagacity with which the orator, 
 instead of assuming the attitude of self-defense, begins by 
 boldly making a merit of his conduct. 
 
 The third oration is interesting. It has even something 
 of the interest of plot described, as well as of eloquence. 
 It is addressed to the people, and it details, in masterly nar- 
 ration, the incidents of the discovery of full documentary 
 evidence against the conspirators. The Allobroges had at 
 the moment an embassy in Rome, with whom the conspira- 
 tors had tampered. But Cicero received from these Gallic
 
 Cicero's Orations. 213 
 
 envoys a hint of the approaches made to them. He bade 
 them go on and obtain full knowledge of the plans of the 
 conspirators. This they did. At Cicero's suggestion they 
 demanded credentials in black and white which they might 
 carry home to their nation. Such were supplied, and then, 
 as they were withdrawing homeward, they were arrested and 
 brought back with their papers in possession. The evidence 
 was so unquestionable that the conspirators could not gain- 
 say it, and one of them made a clean breast of the whole 
 crime. Such in brief is what Cicero in this admirable pop- 
 ular speech recites to his hearers. 
 
 The subject of the fourth speech delivered in the senate 
 is the disposal to be made of the conspirators now in custody. 
 To put to death a Roman citizen, especially one of high 
 extraction, was opposed to the traditionary popular preju- 
 dice at Rome. However, the consul elect (not Cicero, but 
 Silanus, Cicero's destined successor) did not scruple to de- 
 clare in favor of the penalty of death. All speakers fol- 
 lowing concurred in his opinion, until Julius Csesar rose and 
 in a specious speech argued for imprisonment instead, together 
 with confiscation of estate. Cato stood up strongly against 
 Caesar. Some, however, of Cicero's friends inclined toward 
 the more lenient view, deeming that less likely to prove injuri- 
 ous to Cicero himself. On this, Cicero spoke in favor of the 
 capital sentence. His weight and eloquence prevailed. The 
 conspirators were strangled by torchlight in their under- 
 ground dungeon. The suppression of this conspiracy was 
 an occasion of triumph to Cicero. No civilian's glory had 
 ever been so great at Rome. He was saluted Pater Patrice, 
 " Father of his Fatherland." 
 
 We have space for but little of this fourth speech. Our 
 readers will, however, for several reasons demand to see 
 how Cicero touches upon the opinions and arguments of his 
 fellow-senator, Csesar. We extract briefly to show, from 
 Cicero's statement of them, the tenor of Caesar's remarks.
 
 2i4 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 The advice of Silanus, consul elect, to put the conspirators 
 to death, is contrasted with that of Julius Caesar, thus : 
 
 The other [Ccesar] feels that death was not appointed by the immortal 
 gods for the sake of punishment, but that it is either a necessity of 
 nature, or a rest from toils and miseries ; therefore wise men have never 
 met it unwillingly, brave men have often encountered it even voluntarily. 
 But imprisonment, and that too perpetual, was certainly invented for the 
 extraordinary punishment of nefarious wickedness : therefore he propo- 
 ses that they should be distributed among the municipal towns. This 
 proposition seems to have in it injustice if you command it, difficulty if 
 you request it ; however, let it be so decreed if you like. 
 
 For I will undertake, and, as I hope, I shall find one who will not think 
 it suitable to his dignity to refuse what you decide on for the sake of the 
 universal safety. He imposes, besides, a severe punishment on the bur- 
 gesses of the municipal town if any of the prisoners escape ; he sur- 
 rounds them with the most terrible guard, and with every thing worthy 
 of the wickedness of abandoned men. And he proposes to establish a 
 decree that no one shall be able to alleviate the punishment of those 
 whom he is condemning, by a vote of either the senate or the people. 
 He takes away even hope, which alone can comfort men in their mis- 
 eries ; besides this, he votes that their goods should be confiscated ; he 
 leaves life alone to these infamous men, and if he had taken that away, 
 he would have relieved them by one pang of many tortures of mind and 
 body and of all the punishment of their crimes. Therefore, that there 
 might be some dread in life to the wicked, men of old have believed that 
 there were some punishments of that sort appointed for the wicked in 
 the shades below ; because in truth they perceived that if this were 
 taken away death itself would not be terrible. 
 
 Now, O conscript fathers, I see what is my interest. If you follow the 
 opinion of Caius Caesar, (since he has adopted this path in the republic, 
 which is accounted the popular one,) perhaps as he is the author and 
 promoter of this opinion, the popular violence will be less to be dreaded 
 by me. If you adopt the other opinion, I know not but I am likely to 
 have more trouble. Still, let the advantage of the republic outweigh the 
 consideration of my danger. For we have from Caius Caesar, as his 
 own dignity and as the illustrious character of his ancestors demanded, 
 a vote as a hostage of his lasting good-will to the republic. It has 
 been clearly seen how great is the difference between the lenity of dem- 
 agogues, and a disposition really attached to the interests of the people.
 
 Cicero's Orations. 
 
 215 
 
 This most gentle and merciful man does not hesitate to commit Publius 
 Lentulus to eternal darkness and imprisonment, and he establishes a 
 law to all posterity that no one shall be able to boast of alleviating his 
 punishment, or hereafter to appear a friend of the people to the destruc- 
 tion of the Roman people. He adds, also, the confiscation of their 
 goods, so that want also and beggary may be added to all the torments 
 of mind and body. Wherefore, if you decide on this, you give me a com- 
 panion in my address dear and acceptable to the Roman people. 
 
 The comity proper between senators is carefully observed 
 in Cicero's answer to Caesar. Nay, you feel that Cicero is 
 conscious of dealing now with a man whose popular influence 
 is at least to be respected, perhaps to be feared. How much 
 self-control, combined with how much fine courage, was dis- 
 played by Cicero, if, within himself, he indeed knew, what 
 Mommsen supposes to be certainly true, that Cassar was all 
 the time, by secret encouragement, in complicity with the 
 conspirators ! In that case, however, you cannot acquit 
 Cicero of being crafty at some expense of candor. We can 
 seldom be quite sure, in a great game of statesmanship or 
 diplomacy, what motives behind the mask of decent appear- 
 ance really work in the breasts of those engaged in it. 
 
 We shall probably, after what we say here, make little 
 return, beyond casual allusion, to the subject of Cicero as an 
 orator. We wish we had room to render our presentation 
 less inadequate than, as the case stands, we shall feel under 
 the necessity of leaving it. The range of Cicero's eloquence 
 is so wide, that adequately to represent it would require a 
 whole volume as large as this. There is, however, one other 
 cycle of Cicero's speeches too important in themselves, and 
 too important for illustration of the orator's genius and 
 character, not to be spoken of here, and exemplified in at 
 least a few extracts. 
 
 We refer to the fourteen orations that go by the name of 
 the Philippics a style of designation imitated and appro- 
 priated from the famous harangues of Demosthenes against
 
 216 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Philip of Macedon. Cicero's Philippics were directed 
 against Mark Antony. They were delivered, part of them 
 to the senate, and part of them before the people, within 
 the period following Julius Caesar's death during which it re- 
 mained doubtful what course of public policy would be pur- 
 sued by young Octavian, (Csesar Augustus,) named in Caesar's 
 will as his political heir. Cicero still hoped that the des- 
 tined future emperor might be induced to restore the 
 republic. 
 
 Antony meantime, who, as having been Caesar's colleague 
 in nominal consulship, had succeeded to the place of chief 
 actual power in the state, was manifestly taking measures to 
 confirm himself in a kind of imperial usurpation. He had 
 been in negotiation and collusion with the assassins Liber- 
 ators, it was the fashion to call them but he was evidently 
 beginning to revive Cassarism by such contrivances of ad- 
 ministration as, for that purpose, he dared adventure upon. 
 He convened the senate to confer some additional divine 
 honors on the dead dictator. That day's session, Cicero, 
 though specially requested by Antony to do so, did not at- 
 tend. He was against the measure proposed. Antony, pro- 
 voked, talked threateningly in the senate about pulling down 
 the recusant ex-consul's house about his ears. 
 
 The next day, Cicero went to the senate, and, Antony in 
 his turn being absent, delivered a speech in dignified, mod- 
 erate, but quite firm, opposition to Antony. Provoked again, 
 Antony replied in a violent personal invective. To this, 
 Cicero prudently abstained from replying in the senate ; but 
 he wrote out a speech in response, which, having previously 
 sent it in private to some of his friends, he finally published 
 as the second philippic. This second philippic, conceived 
 and composed as if addressed in immediate reply to Antony 
 before the senate, constitutes what is generally esteemed the 
 masterpiece of Cicero's eloquence. 
 
 The contrast in tone, in style, in matter, which this philip-
 
 Cicero's Orations. 217 
 
 pic, in common with the rest of the series, presents to the 
 other orations of Cicero, not excepting even the vehement 
 onslaughts upon Catiline, is more than merely strong, it is 
 violent. You could hardly believe it possible for the author 
 of the courtly orations for the poet Archias, for the Man- 
 ilian Law, for Marcus Marcellus, to produce discourse so 
 indignant, so impetuous, so direct, so hard-hitting, nay, so 
 savage, as the orations against Antony. The flowing robes 
 are flung off, and the orator speaks like an athlete, rather 
 like a warrior, stripped to hew his antagonist to the ground. 
 
 The simplest way, and the most obvious, would, of course, 
 be to insert this second philippic entire. But, unfortunately 
 for that purpose, the speech is very long, (about fifty of these 
 pages) ; unfortunately again, and more unfortunately, it is so 
 replete with local, temporary, personal allusion, that, without 
 a commentary as long as itself, it would be unintelligible to 
 the general reader. It must also be added that there is in 
 the speech a good deal which would shock, rather than please, 
 the refined modern taste. Cicero is perfectly conscious of 
 the change from his customary style presented in this speech. 
 He makes the change deliberately. He is resolved to deal 
 with a truculent man in a sufficiently truculent manner to be 
 effective. He succeeded. He succeeded too we'll. The 
 result was finally fatal to himself. Antony felt the sting of 
 Cicero's dreadful sarcasm so keenly that when, afterward, in 
 disappointment of Cicero's patriotic hopes, Antony and Oc- 
 tavian came to an understanding, and each, in the bloody 
 proscription that followed, agreed to sacrifice his own per- 
 sonal friends to the demands of the other's revenge Cicero's 
 head and hands cut off were brought, ghastly reeking gifts 
 to Antony, and by him nailed up in the forum that had been 
 wont to ring with the resonant voice, and to flash with the 
 passionate gesture, of the orator. 
 
 Antony was, undoubtedly, one of the most shamelessly 
 
 profligate of men. Otherwise such accusations as Cicero 
 10
 
 21 8 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 brought must, with his audience, have reacted against the 
 bringer. 
 
 AVe must content ourselves with brief citations. Here is 
 the opening of the speech, [we condense by omissions :] 
 
 To what destiny of mine, O conscript fathers, shall I say that it is 
 owing, that none for the last twenty years has been an enemy to the re- 
 public without at the same time declaring war against me ? Nor is 
 there any necessity for naming any particular person; you yourselves rec- 
 ollect instances in proof of my statement. They have-all hitherto suf- 
 fered severer punishments than I could have wished for them ; but I 
 marvel that you, O Antonius, do not fear the end of those men whose 
 conduct you are imitating. And in others I was less surprised at this. 
 None of these men of former times was a voluntary enemy to me ; all 
 of them were attacked by me for the sake of the republic. But you, 
 who have never been injured by me, not even by a word, in order to ap- 
 pear more audacious than Catiline, more frantic than Clodius, have of 
 your own accord attacked me with abuse. 
 
 Did he think that it was easiest to disparage me in the senate? a body 
 which has borne its testimony in favor of many most illustrious citizens 
 that they governed the republic well, but in favor of me alone, of all 
 men, that I preserved it. Or did he wish to contend with me in a ri- 
 valry of eloquence? This, indeed, is an act of generosity! for what 
 could be a more fertile or richer subject for me than to have to speak in 
 defense of myself, and against Antonius? 
 
 In that complaint, [Cicero's first philippic,] mournful indeed and misera- 
 ble, but still unavoidable for a man of that rank in which the senate and 
 people of Rome have placed me, what did, I say that was insulting ? that 
 was otherwise than moderate? that was otherwise than friendly? and 
 what instance was it not of moderation to complain of the conduct of 
 Marcus Antonius, and yet to abstain from any abusive expressions ? es- 
 pecially when you had scattered abroad all relics of the republic ; when 
 every thing was on sale at your house by the most infamous traffic ; when 
 you confessed that those laws which had never been promulgated had 
 been passed with reference to you, and by you ; when you, being augur, 
 had abolished the auspices, being consul, had taken away the power of 
 interposing the veto ; when you were escorted in the most shameful 
 manner by armed guards ; when, worn out with drunkermess and de- 
 bauchery, you were every day performing all sorts of obscenities in that
 
 Cicero's Orations. 219 
 
 chaste house of yours. But I, as if I had to contend against Marcus 
 Crassus, with whom I have had many severe struggles, and not with a 
 most worthless gladiator, while complaining in dignified language of 
 the state of the republic, did not say one word which could be called 
 personal. Therefore, to-day I will make him understand with what 
 great kindness he was then treated by me. 
 
 Since, O conscript fathers, I have many things which I may say both in 
 my own defense and against Marcus Antonias, one thing I ask you, that 
 you will listen to me with kindness while I am speaking for myself ; the 
 other I will insure myself, namely, that you shall listen to me with 
 attention while speaking against him. At the same time also, I beg 
 this of you : that if you have been acquainted with my moderation and 
 modesty throughout my whole life, and especially as a speaker, you will 
 not, when to-day I answer this man in the spirit in which he has at- 
 tacked me, think that I have forgotten my usual character. I will not 
 treat him as a consul, for he did not treat me as a man of consular rank ; 
 and although he in no respect deserves to be considered a consul, 
 whether we regard his way of life, or his principle of governing the re- 
 public, or the manner in which he was elected, I am beyond all dis- 
 pute a man of consular rank. 
 
 On one occasion, [addressed directly as to Antony,] you attempted 
 even to be witty. O ye good gods, how little did that attempt suit you ! 
 And yet you are a little to be blamed for your failure in that instance, 
 too. For you might have got some wit from your wife, who was an 
 actress. "Arms to the gown must yield." \Cedant anna togas, "let 
 military yield to civil power." This is a bit of verse from Cicero him- 
 self ; Antony had evidently been rallying his antagonist on it ; Cicero 
 meant it in praise of his own exploits.] Well, have they not yielded ? 
 But afterward the gown yielded to your arms. Let us inquire, then, 
 whether it was better for the arms of wicked men to yield to the free- 
 dom of the Roman people, or that our liberty should yield to your 
 arms. Nor will I make any further reply to you about the verses. I will 
 only say briefly that you do not understand them, nor any other litera- 
 ture whatever. 
 
 The free and frequent change, on Cicero's part, from ad- 
 dressing the senate to addressing Antony, indicates the 
 highly dramatic play of delivery in which the orator must 
 have been accustomed to indulge. Antony, it seems, in-
 
 22O Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 culpatcd Cicero as in complicity with the assassins of Caesar. 
 Cicero points out the inconsistency of Antony's praising, as 
 Antony did, the conspirators, and, at the same time, blaming 
 Cicero. Cicero, however, shows, as to himself, that though 
 he approved the deed when the deed had been done, he 
 could have had no part in the doing of the deed, since, 
 were it otherwise, his name must have been associated with 
 it in the popular fame of so illustrious an exploit. Evidently, 
 at that point of time, it was the prevailing opinion at Rome 
 that Caesar's murder was a praiseworthy act of liberation for 
 the state. Cicero goes over Antony's life and finds abundant 
 matter of invective : 
 
 Let us speak of his meaner descriptions of worthlessness. You, 
 with those jaws of yours, and those sides of yours, and that strength of 
 body suited to a gladiator, drank such quantities of wine at the mar- 
 riage of Ilippia, that you were forced to vomit the next day in the sight 
 of the Roman people. O action disgraceful not merely to see, but even 
 to hear of! If this had happened to you at supper amid those vast 
 drinking-cups of yours who would not have thought it scandalous ? But 
 in an assembly of the Roman people, a man holding a public office, a 
 master of the horse, to whom it would have been disgraceful even to 
 belch, vomiting filled his own bosom and the whole tribunal with frag- 
 ments of what he had been eating reeking with wine. 
 
 Cicero comes to an incident in Antony's career the men- 
 tion of which, as the author's lively imagination prompts him, 
 writing in his closet, to suppose, makes Antony start : 
 
 He does not dissemble, O conscript fathers ; it is plain that he is 
 agitated ; he perspires ; he turns pale. Let him do what he pleases, 
 provided he is not sick, and does not behave as he did in the Minucian 
 colonnade. . . . Your colleague [Julius Caesar] was sitting in the 
 rostra, clothed in a purple robe, on a golden chair, wearing a crown. 
 You mount the steps ; you approach his chair, (if you were a priest of 
 Pan, you ought to have recollected that you were consul too ; ) you dis- 
 play a diadem. There is a groan over the whole forum. Where did 
 the diadem come from ? For you had not picked it up when lying on 
 the ground, but you had brought it from home with you, a premeditated
 
 Cicero's Orations. 
 
 and deliberately planned wickedness. You placed the diadem on his 
 head amid the groans of the people ; he rejected it amid great applause. 
 You then alone, O wicked man, were found, both to advise the assump- 
 tion of kingly power, and to wish to have him for your master who was 
 your colleague ; and also to try what the Roman people might be able to 
 bear and to endure. Moreover, you even sought to move his pity ; you 
 threw yourself at his feet as a suppliant ; begging for what? to be a 
 slave? You might beg it for yourself, when you had lived in such a 
 way from the time that you were a boy that you could bear every thing, 
 and would find no difficulty in being a slave ; but certainly you had no 
 commission from the Roman people to try for such a thing for them. 
 
 O how splendid was that eloquence of yours, when you harangued the 
 people stark naked ! What could be more foul than this? more 
 shameful than this? more deserving of every sort of punishment ? Are 
 you waiting for me to prick you more ? This that I am saying must 
 tear you and bring blood enough, if you have any feeling at all. I am 
 afraid that I may be detracting from the glory of some most eminent 
 men. Still my indignation shall find a voice. What can be more scan- 
 dalous than for that man to live who placed a diadem on a man's head, 
 when every one confesses that that man was deservedly slain who re- 
 jected it ? And, moreover, he caused it to be recorded in the annals, 
 under the head of Lupercalia, "That Marcus Antonius, the consul, by 
 command of the people, had offered the kingdom to Caius Caesar, per- 
 petual dictator ; and that Caesar had refused to accept it." 
 
 Cicero again alludes to the killing of Caesar: 
 
 The name of peace is sweet; the thing itself is most salutary. But 
 between peace and slavery there is a wide difference. Peace is liberty 
 in tranquillity ; slavery is the worst of all evils to be repelled, if need 
 be, not only by war, but even by death. But if those deliverers of ours 
 have taken themselves away out of our sight, still they have left behind 
 the example of their conduct. They have done what no one else had 
 done. Brutus pursued Tarquinius with war, who was a king when it 
 was lawful for a king to exist in Rome. Spurius Cassius, Spurius 
 Mselius, and Marcus Manlius were all slain because they were suspected 
 of aiming at regal power. These are the first men who have ever vent- 
 ured to attack, sword in hand, a man not aiming at regal power, but 
 actually reigning. And their action is not only of itself a glorious and 
 godlike exploit, but it is also one put forth for our imitation ; especially 
 since by it they have acquired such glory as appears hardly to be 
 bounded by heaven itself. For although in the very consciousness of a
 
 222 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 glorious action there is a certain reward, still I do not consider immor- 
 tality of glory a thing to be despised by one who is himself mortal. 
 
 Contrasting Antony with Julius Caesar, Cicero says : 
 
 In that man were combined genius, method, memory, literature, pru- 
 dence, deliberation, and industry. He had performed exploits in war 
 which, though calamitous for the republic, were nevertheless mighty 
 deeds. Having for many years aimed at being a king, he had with 
 great labor, and much personal danger, accomplished what he intended, 
 lie had conciliated the ignorant multitude by presents, by monuments, 
 by largesses of food, and by banquets ; he had bound his own party to 
 him by rewards, his adversaries by the appearances of clemency. Why 
 need I say much on such a subject? He had already brought a free 
 city, partly by fear, partly by patience, into a habit of slavery. 
 
 With him I can, indeed, compare you as to your desire to reign ; but 
 in all other respects you are in no degree to be compared to him. 
 But from the many evils which by him have been burned into the re- 
 public there is still this good, that the Roman people has now learned 
 how much to believe every one, to whom to trust itself, and against 
 whom to guard. Do you never think on these things? And do you 
 not understand that it is enough for brave men to have learned how no- 
 ble a thing it is as to the act, how grateful it is as to the benefit done, 
 how glorious as to the fame acquired, to slay a tyrant? When men 
 could not bear him, do you think they will bear you ? Believe me, the 
 time will come when men will race with one another to do this deed, 
 and when no one will wait for the tardy arrival of an opportunity. 
 
 Consider, I beg you, Marcus Antonius, do some time or other con- 
 sider the republic : think of the family of which you are born, not of 
 the men with whom you are living. Be reconciled to the republic. 
 However, do you decide on your conduct. As to mine, I myself will 
 declare what that shall be. I defended the republic as a young man ; I 
 will not abandon it now when I am old. I scorned the sword of Cati- 
 line; I will not quail before yours. No, I will rather cheerfully expose 
 my own person, if the liberty of the city can be restored by my death. 
 
 May the indignation of the Roman people at last bring forth what it has 
 been so long laboring with. In truth, if twenty years ago in this very tem- 
 ple I asserted that death could not come prematurely upon a man of con- 
 sular rank, with how much more truth must I now say the same of an 
 old man ? To me, indeed, O conscript fathers, death is now even de- 
 sirable, after all the honors which I have gained, and the deeds which I 
 have done. I only pray for these two things : One, that dying I may leave
 
 Cicero's Orations. 223 
 
 the Roman people free. No greater boon than this can be granted me 
 by the immortal gods. The other, that every one may meet with a fate 
 suitable to his deserts and conduct toward the republic. 
 
 Thus the second philippic of Cicero ends. And with this 
 selection of extracts ends our imperfect presentation to our 
 readers of Cicero the orator. 
 
 By way of general retrospect and appreciation, see what 
 our own great jurist and orator, Rufus Choate, says of Cicero 
 and of Cicero's philippics. Mr. Choate is speaking on the 
 general subject of " The Eloquence of Revolutionary Pe- 
 riods." The allusion to Cicero comes in as an important 
 illustration of the orator's theme. Mr. Choate, in our cita- 
 tion, begins with presenting a useful foil of contrast to 
 Cicero in the person and character of Julius Caesar: 
 
 " Easy is it and tempting for the Merivales and Congreves 
 (I am sorry to see De Quincey in such company) to say the 
 senate and people of Rome were unfit to rule the world they 
 had overrun ; and, therefore, it was needful for an emperor 
 and his guard and his legions to step in ; easy and tempting 
 is such a speculation, because nobody can disprove it, and 
 it sounds of philosophy, seems to be new. . . . 
 
 " How soothing and elevating to turn from such philoso- 
 phy, falsely so called, to the grand and stirring music of that 
 eloquence those last fourteen pleadings of Cicero, [the 
 philippics,] which he who has not studied knows nothing of 
 the orator, nothing of the patriot in which the Roman lib- 
 erty breathed its last. From that purer eloquence, from 
 that nobler orator, the great trial of fire and blood through 
 which the spirit of Rome was passing had burned and 
 purged away all things light, all things gross ; the purple robe, 
 the superb attitude and action, the splendid commonplaces 
 of a festal rhetoric, are all laid by; the ungraceful, occa- 
 sional vanity of adulation, the elaborate speech of the abun- 
 dant, happy mind, at its ease, all disappear; and, instead, 
 what directness, what plainness, what rapidity, what fire,
 
 224 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 what abnegation of himself, what disdain, what hate of 
 the usurper and the usurpation, what grand, swelling senti- 
 ments, what fine raptures of liberty, roll and revel there ! 
 How there rise above and from out that impetuous torrent of 
 speech, rushing fervidly, audibly, distinctly, between the 
 peals of that thunder with which, like a guardian divinity, 
 he seems to keep the senate-house, and the forum where the 
 people assembled, unprofaned by the impending tyranny 
 how there rise, here and there, those tones, so sweet, so 
 mournful, boding, and prophetic of the end ! . . . The alter- 
 native of his own certain death, if the republic fell resisting 
 what pathos, what dignity, what sincerity, what merit in- 
 trinsical, it gives to his brave counsels of resistance ! " [Mr. 
 Choate at this point enters without notice upon a magnifi- 
 cent version, his own, no doubt, of a representative passage 
 of Cicero's patriot oratory, as follows :] 
 
 Lay hold on this opportunity of our salvation, conscript fathers by the 
 immortal gods I conjure you ! and remember that you are the foremost 
 men here, in the council-chamber of the whole earth. Give one sign 
 to the Roman people that even as now they pledge their valor, so you 
 pledge your wisdom to the crisis of the state. But what need that I 
 exhort you ? Is there one so insensate as not to understand that if we 
 sleep over an occasion such as this, it is ours to bow our necks to a 
 tyranny not proud and cruel only, but ignominous but sinful? Do ye 
 not know this Antony ? Do ye not know his companions ? Do ye not 
 know his whole house insolent, impure, gamesters, drunkards? 
 To be slaves to such as he, to such as these, were it not the fullest 
 measure of misery, conjoined with the fullest measure of disgrace ? If 
 it be so may the gods avert the omen that the supreme hour of the 
 republic has come, let us, the rulers of the world, rather fall with honor, 
 than serve with infamy ! Born to glory and to liberty, let us hold these 
 bright distinctions fast, or let us greatly die ! Be it, Romans, our first 
 resolve to strike do\vm the tyrant and the tyranny. Be it our second to 
 endure all things for the honor and liberty of our country. To submit 
 to infamy for the love of life can never come within the contemplation 
 of a Roman soul ! For you, the people of Rome you, whom the gods 
 have appointed to rule the world for you to own a master is impious.
 
 Cicero's Orations. 221 
 
 You are in the last crisis of nations. To be free or to be slaves that 
 is the question of the hour. By every obligation of man or states it 
 behooves you in this extremity to conquer as your devotion to the gods 
 and your concord among yourselves encourage you to hope or to bear 
 all things but slavery. Other nations may bend to servitude ; the birth- 
 right and the distinction of the people of Rome is liberty. 
 
 The rendering which Choate thus gives of a passage of 
 Cicero may serve to show what a different power there is in 
 Cicero's eloquence according as he is translated or not by a 
 man with the sense in him, and the capacity, of style. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 NEXT to the Iliad of Homer, and hardly second to that, 
 the /Eneid of Virgil is the most famous of poems. The 
 two poems, like the two poets, are joined forever in an in- 
 separable comparison, contrast, and fellowship of fame. It 
 would, however, be right that Homer's Odyssey, not less than 
 his Iliad, should be associated in thought with the ^Eneid of 
 Virgil. For the yEneid partakes quite as much of the 
 character of the Odyssey, as it does of the character of the 
 Iliad. It is, in fact, a composite reproduction of both those 
 poems, Virgil's poetic invention consisting rather in a cun- 
 ning of composition and harmony to blend the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey into one new whole, an authentic creation of the 
 Roman poet's proper genius Virgil's invention, we say, 
 consisting rather in this, than in power to produce really 
 original material of his own. 
 
 But though thus there is little in the ^Eneid that was not first 
 in either the Odyssey or the Iliad, still, Virgil is no plagiarist, 
 and he is no mere copyist. He is a great individual poet, 
 
 to whom Homer was as the rest of the universe, namely, a 
 10*
 
 226 
 
 Preparatory Latin Coitrse in English. 
 
 vast free treasure-house of material and resource for Ins 
 work. He went to the Iliad and the Odyssey for what he 
 wanted ; but he, in doing so, no more conceived of himself as 
 purloining from Homer, or even as dependently and slavishly 
 copying Homer, than he would have conceived of himself as 
 unworthily subservient, in a similar relation, to Nature her- 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 self, or to the history of mankind, if he had from these 
 sources alone drawn all his matter and all his inspiration. 
 Homer was already to Virgil a far-off, half-impersonal poet, 
 hardly more than a name, to whom there could be no rela- 
 tion of debt worth considering, and whose works were so 
 much a universal volume of poetry that to take from him
 
 Virgil. 22? 
 
 what you needed for your verse was a quite unquestiona- 
 ble matter of course. The present writer remembers once 
 seeing Mr. Charles Sumner taken seriously to task for pla- 
 giarizing from Demosthenes; because, forsooth, in that fond- 
 ness for classic tincture to his style which was an infirmity 
 with this New England rhetorican, he introduced, in a sena- 
 torial speech of his, an elaborate adaptation of one of the 
 most famous passages of the Greek's great Oration for the 
 Crown. The fact is, Mr. Sumner was in this so far from 
 being conscious to himself of any dishonorable conveyance of 
 the Demosthenean eloquence, that it would have disappointed 
 him rather not to have his literary art, in the use he thus 
 made of his Greek, recognized by his hearers or his readers. 
 Just so an Homeric story in Virgil was a thing for the Roman 
 poet not to be ashamed of, but to be proud of. The portrait- 
 painter Stuart would as soon have been mortified to be told 
 concerning a picture of his, "Why, that is Washington," as 
 would have been Virgil, to be told, "Why, you got that from 
 Homer." In either case the artist would have smiled, and 
 said, " I am glad you think it is like." 
 
 The literary history of the ^ineid is remarkable. There 
 has happened no parenthesis of neglect in the long sentence 
 of study and approval which posterity has pronounced upon 
 his genius and his fame. There was a time when Homer 
 was forgotten, to be afterward revived in recollection, with 
 the revival of Greek letters. But Virgil, if, during the ages 
 which we call dark, he was not a poet to men, was in com- 
 pensation a magician. A kind of unconscious blind poetry 
 it was in itself, this mediaeval metamorphosis of Virgil into a 
 magician from a poet. For is not the poet any poet, we 
 mean poetically conceived, a true magician ? The most 
 marvelous feats of magic were attributed to the power of 
 Virgil. He was said to have built at Rome for Augustus, 
 his imperial patron, a tower furnished with figures emblem- 
 atic of the imperial provinces, each figure holding in its
 
 22<S Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 hand a bell that would strike a spontaneous alarm whenever 
 a revolt occurred in the province to which that particular 
 figure appertained. This magical tower contained, besides, a 
 mirror that would do for the eye what the bells did for the 
 ear it would show an image of the enemies of Rome, just as 
 they appeared at any time in hostile array against the empire. 
 Another mirror was more magical still. This mirror would 
 reveal in reflection the secret guilt of any citizen of Rome. 
 There are many other curious mediaeval legends of Virgilius 
 the magician. Perhaps Virgil himself is responsible for the 
 transformation which popular superstition thus caused him 
 to undergo. There is in one of his minor poems a mention 
 made of magical arts sufficient, perhaps, to become the 
 fruitful germ of suggestion. The poem referred to is the 
 eighth pastoral, and the magical arts consist of the repeated 
 spells furnished by an enchantress to win the heart of a 
 reluctant lover. 
 
 The history of Virgil's poetry is in great part the history 
 of a singularly potent literary influence. Almost all readers 
 know something of the relation between Virgil and Dante. 
 The Florentine poet makes Virgil serve him as guide and 
 master through all that strange imaginative experience of his 
 in visiting hell and purgatory which he describes in his 
 Inferno and Purgatorio the first two parts of the " Divina 
 Commedia." Dante stood in time close upon the hither con- 
 fines of the Dark Ages. It is, perhaps, not absurd to imagine, 
 that it was scarcely less Virgil's capacity of magician, than 
 his capacity of poet, that first suggested to Dante his selec- 
 tion of Virgil as of all men the man to conduct and instruct 
 amid the mysteries of the unseen world. The honor is well- 
 nigh, if not quite, unique, that Virgil enjoys in being looked 
 up to as superior by a genius that certainly was superior to 
 him. For Dante's order of mind was loftier than was that of 
 Virgil. It is Virgil's good fortune, not less than it is his 
 merit, that he is so safely and so universally famous. Or
 
 Virgil. 229 
 
 possibly his fame belongs in part to the man as distinct from 
 the poet. For Virgil had what has been called the genius 
 to be loved. 
 
 This simple fact about his character, that he was lovable, 
 together with the complementary fact about his life, that he 
 was loved, is the most important thing that we know of 
 Virgil the man. He was born (70 B.C.) a country boy in 
 the hamlet of Andes, (Northern Italy,) near Mantua, whence 
 " the Mantuan " has become a designation for him. (Mr. Col- 
 lins, editor of the Ancient Classics for English Readers, a 
 series of books often praised in these pages, has himself pre- 
 pared the volume on Virgil. It is curious, unaccountable 
 indeed, that this careful writer should have suffered himself 
 to say concerning Virgil, that " the emperor under whom he 
 was born was that Octavianus Caesar, nephew of the great 
 Julius, whose title of 'Augustus,' " etc. the fact being that 
 Virgil was born seven years before even the birth of Augustus 
 Caesar. Another strange slip is Mr. Collins's allusion to cer- 
 tain " legionaries who had fought for Antony and young 
 Octavianus against Pompey." There was, of course, no fight- 
 ing done for "Antony and young Octavianus," until after 
 the death of Julius Csesar; and before the death of Julius 
 Caesar, Pompey himself had been murdered. The fighting 
 referred to, therefore, could not have been against Pompey. 
 It is hard for any writer to commit himself in unnumbered 
 statements of fact and never go wrong.) Virgil grew to 
 early manhood in the rustic region of his birth. His little 
 farm was not little enough to escape confiscation when the 
 discharged legionaries of Octavius (Augustus) were to be 
 furnished with settlements of land to keep them quiet and 
 contented. Virgil had already won some friend at court 
 who now proved influential enough to get back again for him, 
 from the grace of Augustus, his confiscated patrimony. No 
 wonder the grateful poet felt like praising his imperial pa- 
 tron in verse ; and the interceding friend, Pollio, if Pollio
 
 230 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 was he, is made securely immortal in recompense of his 
 service. For, as Milton sings it of himself with noble ego- 
 tism justified by both the genius and the character of the 
 singer so Virgil, too, might have sung: 
 
 He can requite thee, for he knows the charms 
 That call fame on such gentle acts as these, 
 And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas, 
 
 Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. 
 
 The most celebrated of all Virgil's minor poems is known 
 by the name of Pollio, supposed to have been the poet's 
 friend in need. 
 
 It shows the terms on which victorious Roman emperors 
 held their empire, that Virgil, bringing back from Rome an 
 imperial edict that authorized him to recover his farm, was 
 resisted by the soldier occupant, and obliged to swim the 
 Mincius to save his life. A second visit of Virgil to Rome 
 in prosecution of his right resulted in his becoming a 
 resident of that city. Not improbably Augustus found 
 it more convenient to give his grace to Virgil some other 
 form of bounty, than the restoration of that farm en- 
 forced against the turbulent protest of his disappointed 
 legionary. 
 
 There is a pretty story told of Virgil's composing a couplet 
 of verses in praise of the emperor, and posting them secretly 
 and anonymously on the palace gate. Augustus, having had 
 the good taste to be pleased with the lines, made an effort to 
 discover the author. Virgil's modesty kept him in the back- 
 ground, until some unscrupulous fellow thought it safe to claim 
 the verses for his own. The impostor was handsomely re- 
 warded. Virgil at this was so much vexed that he took 
 measures to redress himself. With all his modesty and all 
 his genius, Virgil seems not to have wanted a certain thrifty 
 knack for making his way in the world. His present con- 
 trivance, however, was the contrivance of a poet, as well as
 
 Virgil. 231 
 
 of a man of sense. Under the original distich he wrote an 
 additional verse, running 
 
 I made these lines, another took the praise, 
 
 together with the first words of a verse to follow which 
 same first words were written four times, in form and order 
 as if beginning four successive verses purposely left unfin- 
 ished. Here was a puzzle and a mystery. Augustus con- 
 descended to require that the lines should be completed. 
 Several attempts to complete them ignominiously failed. 
 Virgil at last revealed himself as the author, and finished the 
 lines. They read as follows : 
 
 Thus you not for yourselves build nests, O birds ; 
 Thus you not for yourselves bear fleeces, flocks ; 
 Thus you not for yourselves make honey, bees ; 
 Thus you not for yourselves draw plows, O oxen. 
 
 The neat symmetrical look of the verses is necessarily lost 
 in an English rendering. It is needless to say that the for- 
 tune of the poet was made. 
 
 Virgil is said to have been shy, awkward, retiring in so- 
 ciety. He and the poet Horace were excellent friends, but 
 that did not prevent so accomplished a man of the world as 
 Horace from appreciating the country effect of Virgil in a 
 drawing-room. It is guessed that Horace alludes loyally to 
 this in one of his satires, where, without naming any one, he 
 praises a friend of his for the worth disguised by him under 
 an uncouth exterior. 
 
 Virgil was, it is believed, a man of exceptionally pure life, 
 for a Roman of his time. His poetry agrees with this esti- 
 mate of his morals. Toward the close of his life, he lived 
 chiefly at Naples, Par-then'-o-pe, as it used to be called. 
 (Wordsworth, in his magnificent sonnet of farewell and god- 
 speed to Sir Walter Scott starting on his last melancholy 
 voyage to Italy for his health, finely used the name Parthen- 
 ope to close the closing line of the poem.) He ended his
 
 232 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 peaceful and prosperous life in his fifty-first year, a very well- 
 to-do man. He was buried, according to Roman custom, by 
 the wayside. They still point out the spot to the tourist. It 
 lies on the road leading to Pu-te'o-li, out from Naples. 
 
 Virgil's works consist of three classes of poems. The or- 
 der of production must be exactly inverted to give the order 
 of comparative importance. That is, Virgil's poetic achieve- 
 ment formed a regular climax to its close. He was still, 
 after finishing the ^Eneid, younger than Milton was when 
 he began his Paradise Lost. Finishing, we say ; but, accord- 
 ing to the poet's own standard, the yneid never was fin- 
 ished. It is even reported that one of his parting directions 
 was to have his manuscript of the poem burned. Augustus 
 intervened to prevent the act of destruction. The text 
 exhibits here and there an unfinished line. In short, the 
 artist's last touches the poem never received ; but the most 
 of the poem is in a state requring from the artist no last 
 touches to improve it. 
 
 We had better let our own order of treatment follow 
 Virgil's order of production. Take notice, however, kind 
 reader, that the average course of preparation for college in- 
 cludes from Virgil only about six books of the ^Eneid. What, 
 therefore, we give of the other poetry of Virgil will be so 
 much over and above. First, then, of Virgil's pastoral 
 poems. 
 
 These are called sometimes bucolics, (Greek for " pas- 
 torals," which latter term is Latin,) and sometimes eclogues, 
 (Greek for "select pieces.") There are in all ten eclogues 
 of Virgil now extant. They vary somewhat in length, aver- 
 aging about eighty lines each. They are written in the 
 same meter as that of the ^Eneid, dactylic hexameter. The 
 idea of such poems is derived from a Greek original. The- 
 ocritus in particular was Virgil's master in this species of 
 composition. The pupil, however, puts into some of his 
 eclogues what he found no hint of anywhere in his master.
 
 Virgil. 233 
 
 This is pre-eminently the case with the "Pollio," so called, 
 which we shall by and by present in full. 
 
 In general, the eclogues presuppose a Utopian pastoral 
 life ; that is, a life such as never really existed anywhere, cer- 
 tainly not in Italy. The scenery and the circumstance are 
 made up partly from the Greek Arcadia, partly from rural 
 Italy, but chiefly from the poet's imagination. Shepherds, 
 cultivated in music and poetry, tend their flocks and spend 
 their time alternately in love-making and in matches of verse 
 or of song. Grant the poet his world, which never was, 
 which, indeed, never could be, and his poetry is fine. Virgil 
 contrives to weave into his verse some compliments, sincere, 
 no doubt, but thrifty all the same, to his friends, especially to 
 his imperial friend, Augustus. We will be frank with our 
 readers, and fairly tell them that they would not be greatly 
 interested in Virgil's eclogues spread out before them at 
 any considerable length. They are highly artificial literary 
 forms, dependent for currency upon temporary and local 
 vogue. And the vogue, at least among us, has passed, for 
 such poems as these. Tennyson's pastorals, the " Gardener's 
 Daughter," for instance, are intrinsically far more interesting, 
 and far more valuable, as far more genuine, than Virgil's 
 eclogues. Still, interested or not in these productions for 
 their own sake, you will certainly be interested in them as 
 celebrated pieces of literature. 
 
 The most celebrated among them all is, as we have said, 
 the " Pollio," but that happens to be also the piece least 
 truly pastoral in its quality. However nay, for that very 
 reason it is at the same time the most highly characteristic, 
 not, to be sure, of the eclogues as bucolics, but of the 
 eclogues as purely conventional productions of an artificial 
 age, and of a true poet rendered artificial by the influences 
 surrounding him. 
 
 Our readers would find pleasure in comparing with Vir- 
 gil's eclogues some imitative pastorals written by Pope at
 
 234 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 sixteen years of age. These are marvels of precocious fa- 
 cility in verse. 
 
 The fourth pastoral, or the " Pollio," has for ostensible 
 subject the birth of a marvelous boy, variously supposed to 
 be son of Antony, son of Pollio, son of Augustus even, by re- 
 trospective license on the poet's part, to be Augustus himself. 
 The terms of allusion to this offspring, and of description of a 
 blessed state of things to accompany and follow his birth, are, 
 at points, singularly coincident with prophecies of Holy Writ 
 concerning Jesus. The date of the poem is startlingly near 
 that of the nativity of our Saviour. One can easily conceive 
 in reading it that we have here an articulate utterance of the 
 unconscious desire of all nations for a Redeemer. In it, the 
 Sibyl is spoken of by Virgil as having foretold this happy 
 age. Fragments still exist alleged to be authentic parts of 
 the Sibylline oracles. But we cannot be sure. Those or- 
 acles, whatever they originally were, have been tampered 
 with, for reasons of state and of church, until nothing of 
 them remains that is unquestionably genuine. That old 
 Latin hymn, so familiar to us all, the Dies Iras, has a line, 
 Teste David cum Sibylla, 
 
 David, along with the Sibyl, bearing witness which keeps 
 the idea of a Sibylline prophecy concerning Jesus fresh in 
 modern recollection. Cuma was the Sibyl's dwelling-place. 
 
 Here, then, is Virgil's " Pollio." We use the prose trans- 
 lation of Professor Conington, of whose fruitful labors on 
 Virgil we shall hereafter speak. The Muses of Sicily, you 
 will observe, are invoked. Virgil thus acknowledges, or 
 rather proclaims, that he derives his pastoral verse from 
 Theocritus, a Sicilian Greek, of Syracuse: 
 
 POLLIO. 
 
 Muses of Sicily, let us strike a somewhat louder chord. It is not for 
 all that plantations have charms, or groundling tamarisks. If we are to 
 sing of the woodland, let the woodland rise to a consul's dignity.
 
 Virgil. 235 
 
 The last era of the song of Cuma has come at length : the grand file 
 of the ages is being born anew ; at length the virgin is returning to the 
 reign of Saturn ; at length a new generation is descending from heaven 
 on high. Do but t.hou smile thy pure smile on the birth of the boy who 
 shall at last bring the race of iron to an end, and bid the golden race 
 spring up all the world over thou Lucina thine own Apollo is at 
 lengthen his throne. In thy consulship it is in thine, Pollio that this 
 glorious time shall come on, and the mighty months begin their march. 
 Under thy conduct, any remaining trace of our national guilt shall be- 
 come void, and release the world from the thraldom of peqietual fear. 
 He shall have the life of the gods conferred on him, and shall see gods 
 and heroes mixing together, and shall himself be seen of them, and with 
 his father's virtues shall govern a world at peace. 
 
 For thee, sweet boy, the earth, of her own unforced will, shall pour 
 forth a child's first presents gadding ivy and foxglove everywhere, 
 and Egyptian bean blending with the bright smiling acanthus. Of 
 themselves, the goats shall carry home udders distended with milk ; 
 nor shall the herds fear huge lions in the way. Of itself, thy grassy 
 cradle shall pour out flowers to caress thee. Death to the serpent, 
 and to the treacherous plant of poisoned juice. Assyrian spices shall 
 spring up by the wayside. 
 
 But soon as thou shalt be of an age to read at length of the glories of 
 heroes and thy father's deeds, and to acquaint thyself with the nature of 
 manly work, the yellow of the waving corn shall steal gradually over 
 the plain, and from briers, that know naught of culture, grapes shall 
 hang in purple clusters, and the stubborn heart of oak shall exude dews of 
 honey. Still, under all this show, some few traces shall remain of the sin 
 and guile of old such as may prompt men to defy the ocean goddess 
 with their ships, to build towns with walls around them, to cleave furrows 
 in the soil of earth. A second Tiphys shall there be in those days a 
 second Argo to convey the flower of chivalry ; a second war of heroes, 
 too, shall there be, and a second time shall Achilles be sent in his great- 
 ness to Troy. 
 
 Afterward, when ripe years have at length made thee man, even the 
 peaceful sailor shall leave the sea, nor shall the good ship of pine ex- 
 change merchandise all lands shall produce all things, the ground 
 shall not feel the harrow, nor the vineyard the pruning-hook ; the sturdy 
 plowman, too, shall at length set his bullocks free from the yoke ; 
 nor shall wool be taught to counterfeit varied hues, but of himself, as he 
 feeds in the meadows, the ram shall transform his fleece, now into a 
 lovely purple dye, now into saffron-yellow of its own will, scarlet shall
 
 236 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 clothe the lambs as they graze. Ages like these, flow on ! so cried to 
 their spindles the Fates, uttering in concert the fixed will of destiny. 
 
 Assume thine august dignities the time is at length at hand thou 
 best-loved offspring of the gods, august scion of Jove ! Look upon the 
 world as it totters beneath the mass of its overhanging dome earth and 
 the expanse of sea and the deep of heaven look how all are rejoic- 
 ing in the age that is to be ! O may my life's last days last long enough, 
 and breath be granted me enough to tell of thy deeds ! I will be o'er- 
 matched in song by none not by Orpheus of Thrace, nor by Linus 
 though that were backed by his mother, and this by his father Or'pheus 
 by Cal-li'o-pe, Linus by Apollo in his beauty. Were Pan himself, with 
 Arcady looking on, to enter the lists with me, Pan himself, with Arcady 
 looking on, should own himself vanquished. 
 
 Begin, sweet child, with a smile, to take notice of thy mother. . . . 
 
 There is a famous parallel, or paraphrase, or imitation, 
 of the " Pollio," written in English heroics by Pope. 
 This intentional and avowed imitation has the express pur- 
 pose to point out the resemblances, so interesting to the 
 modern and Christian reader, between the profane poet 
 Virgil, and the sacred prophet Isaiah. Pope accompanies 
 his poem (originally published in Addison's "Spectator") 
 with entertaining and instructive commentary, which readers 
 having access to it would do well to examine. Pope's title 
 is, " Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue. In imitation of Virgil's 
 Pollio," 
 
 In the Georgics, we have a poem on farming. The title 
 itself, Georgics, means farming, from ge (Greek for ' earth,' 
 appearing in geography, geology, geometry) and ergo, (an old 
 Greek root, meaning 'work.') The object of the poem was to 
 encourage agricultural pursuits. Augustus desired that the 
 empire should be peace, and he wanted to see every sword 
 turned into a sickle that is, every sword but his own. It is 
 doubtful if Virgil's Georgics ever made many men farmers, 
 or made many farmers better farmers than they were before. 
 The theory and practice of farming exhibited are hardly up 
 to the mark of the present scientific times. Quite probably,
 
 Virgil. 237 
 
 too, the farmers of Virgil's own day might have criticised 
 the poet's suggestions at points. However, there is much 
 good sense in the poem, mingled with much superstition. 
 The tenor of didactics is pleasantly interrupted by occasional 
 episode. 
 
 The Georgics are divided into four books. (The verse is 
 dactylic hexameter.) The first book treats of raising what 
 English people call corn, and we Americans call grain, or, 
 in commercial dialect, cereal crops. The second book has 
 the culture of fruits, especially of the grape, for its subject. 
 The third book deals with the breeding and treatment of 
 farm animals. The fourth book is given up to the topic of 
 the management of bees. An aggressive religious earnest- 
 ness appears throughout, animating the author, as it were 
 out of time. 
 
 Virgil, in his Georgics, as in all his other poetry, follows 
 Greek originals. Hesiod in antiquity and in traditionary 
 character, to be associated with Homer has a poem, not very 
 poetical, entitled " Works and Days," in which, after giving 
 a legendary account of the history of the earth, he proceeds 
 to furnish farmers with practical suggestions about their 
 husbandry. Virgil draws from Hesiod. To other Greek 
 authors Virgil owes an obligation, the extent of which it is no 
 longer possible to estimate. When we come, in a succeed- 
 ing volume, to speak of Lucretius, it may fall in our way to 
 point out how Virgil, in the Georgics, found that philosoph- 
 ical Roman poet also an inspiration to his genius. 
 
 We give the opening lines, containing, first, what might be 
 called the argument and dedication, and, secondly, the invo- 
 cation. We use Dryden's version iambic pentameters, or 
 heroics, varied from uniformity by triplets, frequently re- 
 placing couplets, of lines, and by Alexandrines occurring at 
 irregular intervals, whether sometimes through defect of ear 
 in the rhymer, or always in the exercise of conscious art on 
 his part, it might be a doubtful matter to determine. The
 
 238 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 brevity and simplicity of the argument, as also of the dedi- 
 cation, are admirable in the original. The length and mul- 
 tiplicity, to say nothing of the adulatory blasphemy, of the 
 invocation, are to be admired, if admired at all, rather for 
 the ingenuity which they afford opportunity to display, than 
 for any merit of a higher sort exhibited. The idea of the 
 poet seems to have been to muster into his prayer as many 
 of the national divinities as could in any way be associated 
 with farming, and then to cap his climax with a sweetmeat 
 of compliment to Augustus as large and as rich as the impe- 
 rial stomach could be supposed equal to digesting. Whether 
 the genius of the flatterer succeeded in sating the appetite 
 of the flattered, our readers shall be left to guess each one 
 for himself. Here are the lines : 
 
 What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn 
 The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn ; 
 The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine ; 
 And how to raise on elms the teeming vine; 
 The birth and genius of the frugal bee, 
 I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee. 
 
 Ye deities ! who fields and plains protect, 
 Who rule the seasons, and the year direct, 
 Bacchus and fostering Ceres, powers divine, 
 Who gave us corn for mast, for water, wine 
 Ye Fauns, propitious to the rural swains, 
 Ye Nymphs that haunt the mountains and the plains, 
 Join in my work, and to my numbers bring 
 Your needful succor ; for your gifts I sing. 
 And tliou, whose trident struck the teeming earth, 
 And made a passage for the courser's birth ; 
 And thou, for whom the Cean shore sustains 
 The milky herds, that graze the flowery plains ; 
 And thou the shepherds' tutelary god, 
 Leave, for a while, O Pan, thy loved abode ; 
 And, if Arcadian fleeces be thy care, 
 From fields and mountains to my song repair. 
 Inventor, Pallas, of the fattening oil, 
 Thou founder of the plow and plowman's toil ; 
 And thou, whose hands the shroud-like cypress rear, 
 Come, all ye gods and goddesses, that wear 
 The rural honors, and increase the year ; 
 You who supply the ground with seeds of grain ; 
 And you, who swell those seeds with kindly rain ;
 
 Virgil. 239 
 
 And chiefly thou, whose undetermined state 
 
 Is yet the business of the gods' debate, 
 
 Whether in after times, to be declared, 
 
 The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard, 
 
 Or o'er the fruits and seasons to preside, 
 
 And the round circuit of the year to guide 
 
 Powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around, 
 
 And with thy goddess mother's myrtle crowned, 
 
 Or wilt thou, Csesar, choose the watery reign 
 
 To smooth the surges, and correct the main ? 
 
 Then mariners, in storms, to thee shall pray ; 
 
 E'en utmost Thule shall thy power obey ; 
 
 And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea. 
 
 The watery virgins for thy bed shall strive, 
 
 And Tethys all her waves in dowry give. 
 
 Or wilt thou bless our summers with thy rays, 
 
 And, seated near the Balance, poise the days, 
 
 Where in the void of heaven a space is free, 
 
 Betwixt the Scorpion and the Maid, for thee? 
 
 The Scorpion, ready to receive thy laws, 
 
 Yields half his region, and contracts his claws. 
 
 Whatever part of heaven thou shalt obtain, 
 
 (For let not hell presume of such a reign ; 
 
 Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move 
 
 Thy mind, to leave thy kindred gods above ; 
 
 Though Greece admires Elysium's blest retreat, 
 
 Though Proserpine affects her silent scat, 
 
 And, importuned by Ceres to remove, 
 
 Prefers the fields below to those above,) 
 
 Be thou propitious, Crcsar ! guide iny course, 
 
 And to my bold endeavors add thy force ; 
 
 Pity the poet's and the plowman's cares ; 
 
 Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs, 
 
 And use thyself betimes to hear and grant our prayers. 
 
 We go on a few verses : 
 
 \Vhile yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds 
 Her frozen bosom to the western winds ; 
 While mountain snows dissolve against the sun, 
 And streams, yet new, from precipices run ; 
 E'en in this early dawning of the year. 
 Produce the plow, and yoke the sturdy steer, 
 And goad him till he groans beneath his toil, 
 Till the bright share is buried in the soil. 
 
 These last lines, with others to follow, Daniel Webster, in 
 the spring preceding the autumn in which he died, copied 
 from memory, scarcely missing a word, in a letter written
 
 240 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 from Washington, to his farmer in New Hampshire. No 
 doubt the great statesman had carried up the passage in 
 his mind, from boyhood to this his seventy-first year. The 
 characteristic comments with which he introduced and fol- 
 lowed his quotation are interesting: 
 
 " JOHN TAYLOR : I am glad to hear from you again, and 
 to learn that you are all well, and that your teams and tools 
 are ready for spring's work, whenever the weather will 
 allow you to begin. I sometimes read books on farming, 
 and I remember that a very old author advises farmers 'to 
 plow naked, and to sow naked.' By this he means that 
 there is no use in beginning spring's work till the weather 
 is warm, that a farmer may throw aside his winter clothes, 
 and roll up his sleeves. Yet he says we ought to begin as 
 early in the year as possible. He wrote some very pretty 
 verses on the subject, which, as far as I remember, run thus," 
 
 Webster, having given the lines, proceeds idiosyncratically : 
 
 "John Taylor, when you read these lines do you not see the 
 snow melting, and the little streams beginning to run down 
 the southern slopes of your Punch Brook pasture, and the 
 new grass starting and growing in the trickling water, all 
 green and bright and beautiful ? And do you not see your 
 Durham oxen smoking from heat and perspiration, as they 
 draw along your great breaking-up plow, cutting and turn- 
 ing over the tough sward in your meadow, in the great fields ? " 
 
 We may as well let Webster proceed a little farther, with 
 Virgil's Georgics according to Dryden : 
 
 "The name [so Webster tells his farmer] of this sensible 
 author is Virgil, and he gives farmers much other advice, 
 some of which you have been following all this winter, with- 
 out ever knowing that he had given it : 
 
 But when cold weather, heavy snows and rain 
 
 The laboring farmer in his house restrain, 
 
 I,ct him forecast his work with timely care, 
 
 Which else is huddled when the skies are fair ; 
 
 Then let him mark the sheep, and whet the shining share,
 
 Virgil. 241 
 
 Or hollow trees for boats, or number o'er 
 
 His sacks, or measure his increasing store ; 
 
 Or sharpen stakes, and mend each rack and fork; 
 
 So to be ready, in good time to work, 
 
 Visit his crowded barns, at early morn, 
 
 Look to his granary and shell his corn ; 
 
 Give a good breakfast to his numerous kine, 
 
 His shivering poultry and his fattening swine." 
 
 The foregoing lines are in Webster's quotation modified 
 to suit them better to the state of things in New England. 
 Still greater freedom he uses in the following passage, of 
 which he writes : 
 
 " And Mr. Virgil says some other things, which you un- 
 derstand up at Franklin as well as ever he did : 
 
 In chilling winter, swains enjoy their store, 
 Forget their hardships, and recruit for more ; 
 The farmer to full feasts invites his friends, 
 And what he got with pains, with pleasure spends ; 
 Draws chairs around the fire, and tells once more 
 Stories which often have been told before ; 
 Spreads a clean table with things good to eat, 
 And adds some moistening to his fruit and meat; 
 They praise his hospitality, and feel 
 They shall sleep better after such a meal. 
 
 " John Taylor, by the time you have got through this, you 
 will have read enough. 
 
 " The sum of all is, be ready for your spring's work, as 
 soon as the weather is warm enough. 
 
 " And then, put in the plow, and turn not back. 
 
 " DANIEL WEBSTER." 
 
 " Feasts " for " bowls," in the third line of the last cita- 
 tion, is a substitution of Webster's. The last six lines are 
 Webster's own, improvised in playful imitation of Virgil 
 translated by Dryden. 
 
 We make now a bold bound forward and light upon the 
 end of Virgil's Georgics. The last book, our readers will 
 remember, is devoted to the subject of bees. A climax is 
 sought and found by the poet in a queer bit of thaumaturgy. 
 
 He tells how bees, having once been quite lost to the 
 11
 
 242 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 world, were renewed in their stock by a process which he 
 describes at great length in one of the most elaborate 
 episodes of the poem. Proteus figures in the episode 
 Proteus, a humorous old sea-god who has it for his specialty 
 to be a cheat of the first water. He can slip from form to 
 form in the very hands of those who hold him. But bind 
 him, caught asleep, and you have him at advantage. Unless 
 he manages still to deceive you as to his own true identity 
 and so to make his escape from your hand, you can compel 
 him to tell you any thing whatever, past, present, or future, 
 you may desire to know. (Those of our readers who supply 
 themselves with full translations of both Virgil and Ovid may 
 compare these two poets in their several treatments of the 
 Proteus legend.) The upshot is that the bee-seeker is di- 
 rected to slay four fine bulls and four fair heifers and have 
 their carcasses exposed. The wonderful sequel is thus told 
 by the poet, (Professor Conington's prose translation once 
 more :) 
 
 After, when the ninth morn-goddess had ushered in the dawn, he sends 
 to Orpheus a funeral sacrifice, and visits the grove again. And now a 
 portent, sudden and marvelous to tell, meets their view : through the 
 whole length of the kine's dissolving flesh bees are seen, buzzing in the 
 belly and boiling out through the bursten ribs, and huge clouds lengthen 
 and sway, till at last they pour altogether to the tree's top, and let down 
 a cluster from the bending boughs. 
 
 The conclusion of the poem follows immediately : 
 
 Such was the song I was making ; a song of the husbandry of fields 
 and cattle, and of trees ; while Caesar, the great, is flashing war's thun- 
 derbolt over the depths of Euphrates, and dispensing among willing 
 nations a conqueror's law, and setting his foot on the road to the sky. 
 In those days I was being nursed in Parthenope's delicious lap, em- 
 bowered in the pursuits of inglorious peace I, Virgil, who once dallied 
 with the shepherd's muse, and with a young man's boldness, sang of 
 thae, Tityrus, under the spreading beechcn shade. 
 
 The poetry of the Georgics is of a texture more finished 
 than is that of the poetry of the .^Eneid. You have, however,
 
 Virgil. 243 
 
 to pick your steps in this poem with some care, if you are 
 reading it aloud to a mixed company. Still, the standard and 
 purpose of Virgil are, according to the age and the nation 
 for which he wrote, good and pure, even nobly good and 
 pure. It will be interesting and suggestive to compare an 
 English poet's Georgics with the great Roman's. Read 
 Thomson's Seasons as in some respects a parallel for Virgil's 
 Georgics. 
 
 We come to the ^Eneid. This great epic has attracted 
 many translators. We here shall have no doubt, no hesita- 
 tion, in choosing from among the number. Mr. Conington, 
 the late Professor John Conington, of Oxford, England, is 
 unquestionably our man. Other translators than he have 
 their merits ; but for exhaustive learned preparation, schol- 
 arlike accuracy, divining insight, conscientious fidelity, sure 
 good sense, resourceful command of language, unflagging 
 spirit, Mr. Conington is easily the best of all Virgil's English 
 metrical translators. 
 
 A serious abatement has to be made. Mr. Conington has 
 chosen for his verse a measure, not only such that the proper 
 stately Virgilian movement is lost in the Eaglish form which 
 the poem assumes, but such that this movement suffers 
 change to a gait entirely different, indeed violently con- 
 trasted. Virgil's line is like the Juno he describes in one of 
 his own memorably fine, almost untranslatable, expressions ; 
 it moves with measured tread as queen. Mr. Conington 's 
 translation gives us a line that always hastens, and that 
 sometimes runs with breathless speed. The high, queenly, 
 sweeping, dactylic gait that Virgil taught his verse is trans- 
 formed by Mr. Conington into a quick, springing, eager, for- 
 ward, iambic bound. Perhaps, too, in a poem so long, the 
 versification is felt at last to be a little monotonous. Mr. 
 Conington adopts the octosyllabic wayward irregular meter, 
 made so popular in the handling of Sir Walter Scott. You 
 read the ^Eneid as if you were reading another Lady of the
 
 244 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 Lake. The flowing 
 robes of the dactylic 
 hexameter are cinct- 
 ured and retrenched 
 into the neat, trim, 
 smart frock of a Scot- 
 tish lassie. 
 
 But our readers are 
 not tobe discomposed. 
 The total effect is re- 
 markably good. We 
 have told you the 
 whole truth. You get 
 Virgil in almost every 
 thing, but the move- 
 ment of his verse. It 
 needs to be added 
 that Mr. Conington, 
 brilliant as he is, brill- 
 iantly poetical almost, 
 still remains rather a 
 versifier than essen- 
 tially a poet. He 
 gives you not poetry 
 so much as rhetoric 
 in rhyme. But it is 
 good rhyme, and it is 
 good rhetoric. Now 
 Virgil is a true poet ; 
 but his poetry is, far 
 more than is Homer's, 
 rhetorical. Coning- 
 ton, thus for his task 
 
 with Virgil, did not quite so absolutely need, as did Worsley 
 
 for his task with Homer, to be a true poet. 
 
 JCNO.
 
 Virgil. 245 
 
 There was, by the way, a relation between Worsley, the 
 translator of Homer, and Conington, the translator of Virgil, 
 of which our readers will like to hear. The two were mutual 
 friends. They knew how to appreciate each other, and how 
 to encourage each other by reciprocal appreciation. Mr. 
 Worsley began to translate the Iliad, as he had before trans- 
 lated the Odyssey, in the Spenserian stanza of his choice. 
 Now, Mr. Conington did not wholly approve of his friend's 
 stanza, for the purpose; but when, about midway in the 
 Iliad, the pen dropped from Worsley's failing hand, and his 
 noble translation of the Homeric poems seemed likely to re- 
 main a torso, Mr. Conington, in his friend's behoof, took 
 up the unfinished task, and brought it to a prosperous com- 
 pletion. The external character of the workmanship is in- 
 distinguishably the same as you pass the joint made in 
 crossing from Worsley to Conington. Only the reader who 
 possesses, or who imagines himself to possess, a subtle sense 
 of poetry as differenced from verse and rhetoric, will perceive 
 any change of literary standard in the work. 
 
 We give Virgil's ^Sneid chiefly in Conington's version. 
 But there are other renderings of which our readers will en- 
 joy seeing specimens. Foremost, of somewhat ancient fame, 
 stands John Dryden's. You already know, from what you 
 have seen of his handling of the Georgics, the character 
 which Dryden's ^Eneid will inevitably bear. There will be 
 vigor, there will be wit if any chance offers, sometimes per- 
 haps without much offering chance there will be occasional 
 breaches of taste, there will be plentiful noble negligence of 
 fidelity to the original, and there will be sonorous rhythm 
 and rhyme. We shall not need to furnish, in great quantity, 
 additional samples of Dryden who, by the way, says 
 "./Eneis" instead of "^Eneid." In fact our spelling reform- 
 ers are an age, nay, several ages, too late. They ought to 
 have come with Dryden, or before. There was, in the his- 
 tory of our tongue, a time when the forms of words were very
 
 246 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 conveniently unfixed and plastic. ^Eneid, ^Eneis, Eneidos, 
 Eneados, are some of the various spellings for the title to 
 Virgil's great epic, with which the curious explorer of books 
 pertaining to their author will meet. 
 
 Mr. William Morris, too, of our own time, has his fancy for 
 naming the epic of Virgil. His translation he entitles, " The 
 ^Eneids of Virgil Done into English Verse." Each book, 
 that is, of the poem, he will have to be an ^Eneid, as a 
 Georgic, one might call each book of the Georgics. Mr. 
 Morris, a Victorian poet, adopts for his verse the fourteen- 
 syllabled couplet, in which George Chapman, of the age of 
 Elizabeth, translated the Iliad. Mr. Morris was anticipated 
 in his choice of this meter for the work. More than three 
 hundred years ago, Thomas Phaer, a physician, translated 
 the first nine books of the ^Eneid in the same form of English 
 verse. Phaer (or Phaier, or Phaire, or Phayer, or Phayre 
 even English proper names were then such good subjects 
 for spelling reform) was thirty years or so before George 
 Chapman. 
 
 Some of our readers may prefer Mr. Morris's style to Mr. 
 Conington's. Enough will be shown of Mr. Morris's render- 
 ing to enable each to choose for himself independently of 
 the choice of his author. Our own countryman, Mr. C. P. 
 Cranch like Mr. Morris, poet and artist both in one has 
 translated the Iliad into blank verse. We shall exhibit 
 a sample also of his work. And Mr. John D. Long, late 
 governor of Massachusetts, now one of that commonwealth's 
 representatives in Congress, a man of singularly clear fame, 
 still young enough to let the hope of unaccomplished years 
 be large and lucid round his brow Mr. Long, \ve say, has 
 executed in blank verse a translation of the yEneid, some 
 specimen lines of which we shall take pleasure in presenting 
 to our readers. As already remarked, however, we shall 
 unhesitatingly choose Conington to furnish us the main 
 current of our citation from Virgil.
 
 Virgil. 247 
 
 The setting forth of the subject of the poem is excellent 
 literary art, in Virgil's text. We cannot do better than to 
 exhibit to our readers a collation of the forms in which this 
 appears, as rendered by different translators. Let Mr. Con- 
 
 ington lead : 
 
 Arms and the man I sing, who first, 
 By Fate of Ilian realm amerced, 
 To fair Italia onward bore, 
 And landed on Lavinium's shore : 
 Long tossing earth and ocean o'er, 
 By violence of heaven, to sate 
 Fell Juno's unforgetting hate : 
 Much labored too in battle-field, 
 Striving his city's walls to build, 
 
 And give his gods a home : 
 Thence come the hardy Latin brood, 
 The ancient sires of Alba's blood, 
 And lofty-rampired Rome. 
 
 Dryden : 
 
 Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate, 
 And naughty Juno's unrelenting hate, 
 Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore. 
 Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore, 
 And in the doubtful war, before he won 
 The Latian realm, and built the destined towa } 
 His banished gods restored to rites divine, 
 And settled sure succession in his line, 
 From whence the race of Alban fathers come 
 And the long glories of majestic Rome. 
 
 Morris : 
 
 I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land 
 Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand 
 First came : all tost about was he on earth and on the deep 
 By heavenly might for Juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep: 
 And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame 
 And set his gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name, 
 And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome. 
 
 Cranch : 
 
 I sing of arms, and of the man who first 
 Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy 
 And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate. 
 Much was he tossed about upon the lands 
 And in the ocean by supernal powers, 
 Because of cruel Juno's sleepless wrath.
 
 248 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Many things also suffered he in war 
 Until he built a city, and his gods 
 Brought into Latium ; whence the Latin race, 
 The Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome. 
 
 Long: 
 
 I sing of war. I sing the man who erst, 
 
 From off the shore of Troy fate-hunted, came 
 
 To the Lavinian coast in Italy, 
 
 Hard pressed on land and sea, the gods malign, 
 
 Fierce Juno's hate unslaked. Much too in war 
 
 He bore while he a city built, and set 
 
 His gods in Latium. Thence the Latin race, 
 
 Our Alban sires, the walls of haughty Rome ! 
 
 It is no part of our purpose to discuss at any length the 
 particular merits of the various versions that we name. Here, 
 in at least one short sample, they all are ; judge their merits 
 for yourselves. Something, however, we may perhaps wisely 
 say about varying degrees of fidelity to the original observ- 
 able in these versions. 
 
 In preparation for such a comparison, while it may mystify, 
 it may also entertain, possibly stimulate, the reader familiar 
 only with English, if, of this one short passage we present a 
 word-for-word translation, with the verbal order preserved of 
 the original Latin. Latin prose has an order of construction 
 which one might follow pretty closely, translating into En- 
 glish, and produce results that would be intelligible, (some- 
 times, indeed, barely so,) though marked with violent unidio- 
 matic inversions, dislocations, and involutions. But Latin 
 poetry has apparently well-nigh unlimited license in the 
 relative order of its words. From such a translation as we 
 are now about to give, of the opening lines of the ^Eneid, the 
 English reader might almost seem justified in judging the 
 verbal order of the passage in the original Latin to be as 
 lawless, as if it had been reached by simply shuffling the proper 
 words together in an arrangement purely fortuitous. Such, 
 however, is by no means the case. Even in poetical con- 
 struction, the law of Latin syntax still prevails, though pre- 
 vailing after a manner which it would be uninteresting to
 
 Virgil. 249 
 
 explain to one not versed at all in the language. What per- 
 mits such seemingly strange collocation of words in a Latin 
 sentence is principally the inflection to which Latin nouns 
 and adjectives are subject. In most instances, you know ab- 
 solutely whether a given noun is subject or object, in a Latin 
 sentence, by the form in which it stands. What noun a giv- 
 en adjective affects, you know by the agreement in gender, 
 number, and case, that subsists between the two. This pe- 
 culiarity of the Latin language, (it belongs to the Greek no 
 less,) as compared with the English, renders it possible for a 
 Latin writer, without injury to clearness of style, to use, in 
 disjoining and separating related words, a degree of freedom 
 that in English would be hopelessly confusing which let our 
 readers see for themselves in the following literal, over-literal, 
 translation of the lines from Virgil that they have now just 
 read in a number of metrical versions : 
 
 Arms, man-and I sing, of Troy who first from shores | To Italy by 
 fate to Lavinian-and came | Coasts much he both on lands tossed about, 
 and on deep | By violence of superior beings, fierce mindful Juno's on 
 account of wrath | Many things besides also in war suffering while he 
 should build city | Bring-and gods to Latium: race whence Latin Alban- 
 and fathers, and of lofty walls Rome. 
 
 Such an assemblage of words as the foregoing would cer- 
 tainly answer very well for a puzzle to amuse the leisurely 
 and curious mind of childhood the problem being to arrange 
 the jumbled words in the order necessary to give sense, and 
 the true sense. Take, for example, the clause, " fierce mindful 
 Juno's on account of wrath." The words of this clause 
 would present a quite hopeless riddle. You could not tell 
 with which noun to join the different adjectives. The order 
 might be, "on account of fierce mindful Juno's wrath." The 
 idea in fact is, "on account of fierce Juno's mindful wrath," 
 and there is in the Latin no chance of other rendering. If 
 readers would feel it a relief to have their brains settled, 
 after whirling in the vortices, or wandering in the mazes, of 
 11*
 
 250 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 our too-literal translation, let them now peruse Professor 
 Conington's clear and beautiful prose rendering of the same 
 passage : 
 
 Arms and the man I sing, who at the first from Troy's shores the 
 exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and her Latian coast a man 
 much buffeted on land and on the deep by violence from above, to sate 
 the unforgetting wrath of Juno the cruel much scourged too in war, as 
 he struggled to build him a city, and find his gods a home in Latium 
 himself the father of the Latian people, and the chiefs of Alba's houses, 
 and the walls of high towering Rome. 
 
 Professor Conington translates, you see, even in prose, 
 with noble liberality. The Latin has no article. Whether 
 the conception of the original writer may be better expressed 
 by " the," or by " a," or by neither, is always a point to be 
 decided for each particular case on its own grounds. In our 
 own servile translation, we preferred to give the nouns uni- 
 formly quite bare of articles. 
 
 Professor Conington, we may in passing mention, besides 
 his translation in verse of the ^Eneid, and in prose of the 
 books of Virgil entire, has also a scholarly edition with notes 
 of the original Latin text of his author. (And, by the way, 
 since our " Preparatory Greek Course in English," there has 
 appeared a choice prose translation of the Odyssey by 
 Messrs. Butcher & Lang, obtainable at a fair price, in two 
 different editions, that of Macmillan & Co., and that of D. 
 Lothrop & Co. Both are well printed, but the latter is in 
 larger type. A prose version of the Iliad, executed on the 
 same plan, has also lately appeared.) Mr. W. T. Sellar has 
 a thorough and satisfactory book on Virgil under the general 
 title, "Roman Poets of the Augustan Age." To Professor 
 Frieze, of the University of Michigan, must be attributed the 
 merit of giving the lead to American scholars in producing 
 school editions of the ^Eneid, luminous not only with learn- 
 ing, but with choice graphic illustrations of the text. We 
 here are indebted to the liberality of Professor Frieze's
 
 publishers, Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., for many of the cuts 
 distributed through our own pages. 
 
 The JEneid is of set deliberate purpose a national epic in 
 the strictest sense. Such, the Iliad, Hellenic as that poem is 
 throughout, is not. It happens that the Iliad is Greek. Vir- 
 gil expressly designed to produce a poem that should be 
 Roman and national. The JEneid is accordingly, in its 
 plan, a larger poem than the Iliad. The wrath of Achilles 
 suffices to Homer for theme. Virgil's theme must be noth- 
 ing less than the founding of Rome. The Iliad, personal by 
 intention, is only by accident national. The ^Eneid, na- 
 tional by intention, is only by accident personal. Virgil is 
 second and secondary to Homer. But nobody can deny 
 that the conception of Virgil's poem, as a whole, though it 
 may lack the attribute of spontaneity, may be cold-blood- 
 edly intentional and conventional, is at least nobler in breadth 
 and magnitude, perhaps also in height and aspiration, than 
 is the conception of the Iliad. The Iliad grew to be what it 
 was. The ^Eneid was made such as we have it by a first 
 great act of invention on the part of the poet. Virgil's poem 
 was, from the first, what, with few intervals, it has always re- 
 mained, a school-book. Its national character eminently 
 fitted it to be, as it was, a school-book to Roman boys. 
 
 A short summary of the action of the ^Eneid may help the 
 reader follow intelligently the sequence of events. Virgil 
 really does, what Homer is often said to do, but does not, 
 plunge into the midst of things with his story. 
 
 In the first book, ^Eneas, the seventh summer after the fall 
 of Troy, lands with his companions on the Carthaginian coast. 
 Here, Ulysses-like, he relates to Carthaginian Queen Dido 
 the story of his previous adventures and wanderings. This 
 narration occupies two more books of the poem. The fourth 
 book contains the episode of the mutual passion between 
 Dido and .^Eneas, ending tragically for Dido in his faithless 
 desertion of her and in her death by cruel suicide. The fifth
 
 252 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 book describes the games celebrated by the Trojans on the 
 hospitable shores of Sicily in honor of ^Eneas's dead father, 
 Anchises (An-ki'ses.) In the sixth book, ./Eneas, arrived in 
 Italy, makes his descent into the lower world. The rest of 
 the poem relates the fortunes of yEneas in obtaining a set- 
 tlement for the Trojans in Italy. There is war. Against 
 the invaders, a great Italian champion appears, who serves 
 the same purpose of foil to ^Eneas as long before did Hector 
 to Achilles. The end, of course, is victory for yneas. 
 
 We now return to let Virgil himself, speaking by the voice 
 of English interpreter Conington, take us forward the first 
 stage of his poem. There is, in the whole yEneid, no more 
 finished versification, no more skillful narrative, no greater 
 wealth of quotable and quoted phrases, than you will find in 
 the first book of the poem. We should much like to give 
 the book entire. We, however, promise ourselves the pros- 
 pect of affording our readers even more pleasure by showing 
 them the full text, or as nearly as possible the full text, of 
 the sixth book. This, indeed, we feel under some obliga- 
 tion to do. In the volume preceding this, we omitted the 
 Homeric story of a visit on the part of Ulysses to Hades 
 making peace with our readers then by a hint that we should 
 by and by have the Virgilian version of the same incident to 
 offer in compensation. We, therefore, condense Virgil's first 
 book by retrenchments which, not less on account of the 
 beauty of the translation, than on account of the beauty of 
 the original, it irks us sore to make. We begin with a cita- 
 tion long enough to include a fine example of Virgil's sub- 
 limity, appearing in the description of a storm and shipwreck. 
 But first let us do as boys do when they are about to make a 
 fine jump let us go back a little and get a start before be- 
 ginning. The few lines of transition intervening between 
 the introduction and the story proper of Virgil are too good 
 and too famous to be wholly left out. These, in particular 
 an invocation :
 
 Virgil. 253 
 
 Say, muse, for godhead how disdained, 
 
 Or wherefore wroth, Heaven's queen constrained 
 
 That soul of piety so long 
 
 To turn the wheel, to cope with wrong. 
 
 Can heavenly natures nourish hate 
 
 So fierce, so blindly passionate ? 
 
 The last couplet is the rendering, unfortunately somewhat 
 dilute by amplification, of celebrated words : 
 Tantsene animis coelestibus irae ? 
 
 Literally: Angers so great in minds celestial? 
 
 What immediately follows this challenge to the muse con- 
 tains the supposably muse-inspired account of the matter in- 
 quired about. Juno was jealous partly on behalf of threat- 
 ened Carthage, beloved by her, and partly on account of 
 a slight done to her own claims of personal beauty, by 
 Trojan Paris's judgment that Venus was lovelier than she. 
 The passage contains memorable phrases, for example : Samo 
 posthabita, meaning " [even] Samos being held in less esteem 
 [than Carthage] " an expression not unfrequently quoted, 
 in various adaptation, by modern writers; alia mente repos* 
 turn, literally, "stored up in her [Juno's] deep mind," said of 
 the invidious judgment of Paris; relliquias Danaum atque 
 imrnitis Achilli, literally, " remnants left by the Danaans and 
 by pitiless Achilles," applying to the escaped Trojans ; now 
 a whole Virgilian line, 
 
 Tantoe molis erat Romanam condere gentem, 
 
 which let Conington modulate for us from the lofty single 
 Virgilian hexameter to the ringing octosyllabic couplet : 
 
 So vast the labor to create, 
 The fabric of the Roman state. 
 
 Two lines for one, with however but two syllables added to 
 the number of syllables. 
 
 We need not tell our readers that the machinery with 
 which, in the comparatively long citation to follow, the raising 
 and calming of the tempest are brought about, was already
 
 2 54 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 in Virgil's time nearly as much an exploded superstition at 
 Rome as is the case in our own day. There is in the intro- 
 duction, on Virgil's part, of this absurd supernaturalism a 
 certain lack of genuineness apparent, which in Homer we 
 nowhere discover. The tempest-raising part of .^Eolus in this 
 action is a transfer from Homer. ^Eolus has just responded 
 favorably to an appeal from Juno for his intervention. His 
 intervention is prompt. It was, literally, a word and a blow - 
 
 He said, and with his spear struck wide 
 
 The portals in the mountain side : 
 
 At once, like soldiers in a band, 
 
 Forth rush the winds, and scour the land: 
 
 Then lighting heavily on the main, 
 
 East, South, and West with storms in train, 
 
 Heave from its depth the watery floor, 
 
 And roll great billows. to the shore. 
 
 Then come the clamor and the shriek, 
 
 The sailors shout, the main-ropes creak : 
 
 All in a moment sun and skies 
 
 Are blotted from the Trojan's eyes: 
 
 Black night is brooding o'er the deep, 
 
 Sharp thunder peals, live lightnings leap : 
 
 The stoutest warrior holds his breath, 
 
 And looks as on the face of death. 
 
 At once tineas thrilled with dread ; 
 
 Forth from his breast, with hands outspread, 
 
 These groaning words he drew : 
 "O happy, thrice and yet again, 
 Who died at Troy like valiant men, 
 
 E'en in their parents' view ! 
 O Diomed, first of Greeks in fray, 
 Why pressed I not the plain that day, 
 
 Yielding my life to you, 
 Where stretched beneath a Phrygian sky 
 Fierce Hector, tall Sarpedon lie: 
 \Vhere Simois tumbles 'neath his wave 
 Shields, helms, and bodies of the brave?" 
 
 Now, howling from the north, the gale, 
 While thus he moans him, strikes his sail : 
 The swelling surges climb the sky ; 
 The shattered oars in splinters fly ; 
 The prow turns round, and to the tide 
 I,ays broad and bare the vessel's side ; 
 On comes a billow mountain-steep, 
 Bears down, and tumbles in a heap.
 
 Virgil. 
 
 2 55 
 
 These stagger on the billow's crest, 
 
 Those to the yawning depth deprest 
 
 See land appearing 'mid the waves, 
 
 While surf with sand in turmoil raves. 
 
 Three ships the South has caught and thrown 
 
 On scarce hid rocks, as altars known, 
 
 Ridging the main, a reef of stone. 
 
 Three more fierce Eurus from the deep, 
 
 A sight to make the gazer weep. 
 
 Drives on the shoals, and banks them round 
 
 With sand, as with a rampire-mouncl. 
 
 One, which erewhile from Lycia's shore 
 
 Orontes and his people bore, 
 
 E'en in ^Lneas's anguished sight 
 
 A sea down crashing from the height 
 
 Strikes full astern : the pilot, torn 
 
 From off the helm, is headlong borne : 
 
 Three turns the foundered vessel gave, 
 
 Then sank beneath the engulfing wave. 
 
 There in the rast abyss are seen 
 
 Tlte swimmers, few and far beliveen, 
 
 And warrior's arms and shattered wood, 
 
 And Trojan treasures strew the flood. 
 
 And now Ilioneus, and now 
 
 Aletes old and gray, 
 Abas and brave Achates bow, 
 
 Beneath the tempest's sway ; 
 Fast drinking in through timbers loose 
 At every pore the fatal ooze, 
 
 Their sturdy barks give way. 
 Neptune at this point 
 
 His calm broad brow o'er ocean rears. 
 
 NEPTUNE CALMING THE SEA.
 
 256 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 He speaks with highly pacific effect thus described: 
 
 
 
 As when sedition oft has stirred 
 In some great town the vulgar herd, 
 And brands and stones already fly 
 For Rage has weapons always nigh- 
 Then should some man of worth appear 
 Whose stainless virtue all re /ere, 
 They hush, they list : his clear voice rules 
 Their rebel wills, their anger cools : 
 So ocean ceased at once to rave, 
 When, calmly looking o'er the wave, 
 Girt with a range of azure sky, 
 The father bids his chariot fly. 
 
 The foregoing simile is a celebrated one. The allusion in 
 it is, with great probability, held to be to an incident in 
 Cicero's oratorical career. Roscius Otho had been greeted 
 in a theater with a tumultuary storm of hisses. The disturb- 
 ance grew to a riot. Cicero was summoned. He got the 
 people into a temple near by, and there, with infinite skill, 
 rebuked and rallied them out of their ill-temper. It was a 
 striking triumph of oratory seconded by character. 
 
 The couplet italicized a little way back, translates 
 
 Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto, 
 
 a highly picturesque phrase of description, which you will 
 occasionally meet as classical garnish to a passage of writing 
 in English. 
 
 Our readers, we are sure, must feel with us that such 
 verse as they have now been reading is full of spirit. They 
 may equally feel that it represents, and well represents, an 
 original worthy of being thus admirably translated. 
 
 The " tempest-tossed ^Eneadoe" (Trojans) struggle ashore, 
 and there make themselves as comfortable as they can. 
 ./Eneas gets a shot (with bow and arrow) at some deer that 
 come within sight and range. He kills just a deer apiece 
 for his seven ships, and, with this good fortune to support 
 him, he harangues his comrades:
 
 Virgil. 
 
 257 
 
 Comrades and friends ! for ours is strength 
 
 Has brooked the test of woes ; 
 O worse-scarred hearts ! these wounds at length 
 
 The gods will heal, like those. 
 You that have seen grim Scylla rave, 
 
 And heard her monsters yell, 
 You that have looked upon the cave 
 
 Where savage Cyclops dwell, 
 Come, cheer your souls, your fears forget ; 
 This suffering luill yield us yet 
 
 A pleasant tale to tell. 
 
 Through chance, through peril lies our way 
 To Latium, where the fates display 
 A mansion of abiding stay: 
 There Troy her fallen realm shall raise : 
 Bear up, and live for happier days. 
 
 The couplet italicized translates 
 
 Et hsec olim meminisse juvabit, 
 
 (literally : Even these things hereafter to remember will 
 afford delight,) a sentiment often quoted by modern authors 
 in Virgil's own happy expression. 
 
 Venus intervenes. She begs her father Jove to let her do 
 something handsome for her beloved Trojans. She took 
 Jove at the right moment and went at him in the right way. 
 He is completely overcome. He most paternally reassures 
 his irresistible daughter with a pro- 
 phetic sketch of the future awaiting 
 her chosen nation. What noble flat- 
 tery Virgil manages thus to offer to 
 his countrymen, and to his illustri- 
 ous patron, the emperor we must 
 leave it to the imagination of our 
 readers to conjecture. An era of 
 tranquillity, of course the Augustan 
 age, is foreshadowed, in which 
 
 JANUS. 
 
 Grim iron bolt and massive bar 
 Shall close the dreadful gates of war.
 
 258 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 In the closing line of the prophetic passage, by us omitted, 
 Rage, personified, is represented as in the prosperous peace 
 foretold roaring vainly 
 
 From lips incarnadined with gore. 
 
 Here "incarnadined" (dyed red) is a word that Coning- 
 ton, and with fine felicity, takes, no doubt, at the suggestion 
 of Shakespeare's 
 
 The multitudinous seas incarnadine. 
 
 The word has a certain Virgilian quality which warrants 
 Mr. Conington in using it, as he does, more than once in the 
 course of his translation. 
 
 The next day yneas had an adventure that was worth 
 while. He met his goddess-mother, Venus, not confessed in 
 her true divine identity, but wearing a disguise of virgin 
 loveliness, which Virgil beautifully describes as follows: 
 
 In mien and gear a Spartan maid, 
 Or like Harpalyce arrayed, 
 Who tires fleet coursers in the chase, 
 And heads the swiftest streams of Thrace. 
 Slung from her shoulders hangs a bow ; 
 Loose to the wind her tresses flow ; 
 Bare was her knee ; her mantle's fold 
 The gathering of a knot controlled. 
 
 The colloquy which ensued we have no room to give at 
 large. The goddess informs yEneas where he is, and how, 
 under present circumstances, he ought to manage matters. 
 The bewitching creature uses one simile, to convey her en- 
 couragement to her son, that is divine enough to be reported 
 to our readers : 
 
 Mark those twelve swans, that hold their way 
 
 In seemly jubilant array, 
 
 Whom late, down swooping from on high, 
 
 Jove's eagle scattered through the sky ; 
 
 Now see them o'er the land extend 
 
 Or hover, ready to descend : 
 
 They, rallying, sport on noisy wing, 
 
 And circle round the heaven, and sing :
 
 Virgil. 259 
 
 E'en so your ships, your martial train, 
 Have gained the port, or stand to gain. 
 Then pause not further, but proceed 
 Still following where the road shall lead. 
 
 The immediate sequel was tantalizing in the extreme. 
 Venus revealed herself as Venus and instantly vanished : 
 
 She turned, and flashed upon their view 
 Her stately neck's pwrpureal hue ; 
 Ambrosial tresses round her head 
 A more than earthly fragrance shed : 
 Her falling robe her footprints swept, 
 And showed the goddess as she slept. 
 
 She through the sky to Paphos moves, 
 And seeks the temple of her loves. 
 
 The line in Italics translates 
 
 Et vera incessu patuit dea, 
 
 an expression familiar in quotation. 
 
 The two Trojans, yEneas and his faithful companion, Acha- 
 tes, shrouded by Venus in a cloud, invisibly visit the scene 
 of the labors in progress for the founding of Carthage. The 
 description is very fine in Virgil, and it loses nothing of spirit 
 in the finished version of Mr. Conington. A simile occurs 
 in it, one of Virgil's best, which our readers must not lose. 
 The various busy labor of the Carthaginian builders is the 
 
 subject : 
 
 So bees, when spring-time is begun 
 Ply their warm labor in the sun, 
 What time along the flowery mead 
 Their nation's infant hope they lead ; 
 Or with clear honey charge each cell, 
 And make the hive with sweetness swell, 
 The workers of their loads relieve, 
 Or chase the drones, that gorge and thieve : 
 IVitJi toil the busy scene ferments, 
 And fragrance breathes from thymy scents. 
 
 The italicized line translates two words in the original, 
 Fervet opus, " glows the work," literally rendered a phrase 
 of great descriptive power, which Mr. Conington injures by 
 his compulsory dilution of it.
 
 260 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 ^Eneas Achates is now neglected by the poet looks about 
 him at his leisure. He examines a temple to Juno, and in it 
 sees what affects him to tears tears such as Ulysses also wept 
 in the Pheeacian land. The Trojan war is depicted in the 
 decorations. One of his exclamations at the sight an ex- 
 clamation we are to suppose to have been inaudible, as the 
 utterer of it was invisible is famous in frequent citation. 
 There is a charm-like effect to the words, which makes them 
 seem somehow to convey a meaning deeper than they really 
 do: 
 
 E'en here the tear of pity springs, 
 
 And hearts are touched by human things, 
 
 an inadequate rendering of language which perhaps no art 
 could successfully transmute into another and equivalent 
 form of expression. These are Virgil's magical words : 
 
 Sunt lacrymoe rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. 
 
 A previous word, "here," meaning 'even at Carthage,' af- 
 fects the line and makes it say, literally, " Here too there are 
 tears for things [that need them] and mortal experiences 
 touch the mind." 
 
 The whole passage, descriptive of the scenes that were 
 portrayed in that temple, is exceedingly fine. ^Eneas made 
 a rapt study of what he saw, until he was interrupted by 
 the approach of Queen Dido, whom the poet ushers in to us 
 with a stately simile. 
 
 Dido seats herself and gives out laws when, behold, 
 some of those Trojans who were shipwrecked make their ap- 
 pearance. Invisible ^Eneas and Achates are overjoyed, but 
 they wait and listen while one of their Trojan friends de- 
 livers himself of an extremely well-conceived appeal, for fa- 
 vorable consideration, to the queen and her subjects. The 
 speaker makes flowing promises of the most honorable con- 
 duct on the part of his companions, and on that of the Tro- 
 jans in general, by way of return for the hospitality they crave.
 
 Virgil. 261 
 
 The Carthaginian queen responds with the utmost grace of 
 majesty. She says she will send to seek their great ^Eneas. 
 ^neas himself, with his friend Achates, amid the clouds 
 can scarcely keep from crying out. The cloud seems to feel 
 by sympathy the effects of his impulse to speak. It parts 
 
 And purges brightening into day. 
 
 And now an Homeric miracle. The goddess-mother of 
 ^Eneas does for her son what readers of the Odyssey will re- 
 member Pallas Athene more than once did for her favorite 
 warrior and sage, Ulysses she glorifies ^Eneas into godlike 
 grace and beauty. The transfiguration is beautifully por- 
 trayed by Virgil, and Mr. Conington as translator is not 
 wanting to the occasion : 
 
 stood, to sight confest, 
 A very god in face and chest : 
 For Venus round her darling's head 
 A length of clustering locks had spread, 
 Crowned him with youth's purpureal light, 
 And made his eyes gleam glad and bright : 
 Such loveliness the hands of art 
 To ivory's native hues impart : 
 So 'mid the gold around it placed 
 Shines silver pale or marble chaste. 
 
 Radiant ^Eneas makes to Dido a very gallant speech, full of 
 chivalrous engagement. You would have taken him for the 
 soul of honor. But honor, as we Christians understand the 
 idea, was b'y no means ^Eneas's forte. ^Eneas's specialty was 
 " piety " piety in the sense of reverence for the gods and 
 for parents, and of regard for duties owed to country. Vir- 
 gil's attribution of piety to ^Eneas did not in the least imply 
 that he, pious soul, might not all the same be a very poor 
 reliance in relations other than the ones above specified. 
 This, Dido, to her undoing, was presently to learn. Uncon- 
 sciously, or indeed perhaps consciously, Virgil incorporated 
 the very spirit of the ideal Roman character in his hero
 
 262 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 yEneas. To this " pious " man nothing could be wrong that 
 would tend to further his fortunes. But we anticipate. 
 
 Dido, in all good sincerity, makes fit queenly return of 
 /Eneas's high-flown assurances : 
 
 Myself not ignorant of woe 
 Compassion I have learned to show, 
 
 is one of her pathetic expressions. These words translate 
 
 the line, 
 
 Non ignara mail miseris succerrere disco, 
 
 which is one of the most frequently quoted of all Virgil's 
 numerous contributions to the stock of current poetical com- 
 monplace. Dido thus refers to a sad experience of her own, 
 in the loss of her husband Sy-choe'us by foul unnatural murder. 
 Poor soul, she was destined soon to be still more learned in 
 the lore of woe, and that through the perfidy of this her pious 
 guest. For the present, however, Dido lavishes refreshment 
 on the Trojan crews, and sets her palace in order for the en- 
 tertainment of their goddess-born and godlike leader, /Eneas. 
 He meantime, " loth to lose the father in the king," sends to 
 have brought to him his son, the lovely lad variously named 
 I-u'lus, I-lus, As-ca'ni-us. 
 
 This quest of the father's gives Venus a chance, not to be 
 lost. She plans a deceit. Her boy Cupid shall go person- 
 ate Ascanius and, nestling, at the feast to be, in the bosom 
 of Dido, shall infix ineradicably there a sweet sting of love 
 for /Eneas. The true Ascanius, her grandson, the goddess 
 transports elsewhere and 
 
 soft amaracus receives 
 And gently curtains him with leaves. 
 
 The plot prospers. Cupid enters sympathetically into the 
 humor of his part. As Mr. Conington featly and daintily 
 translates, 
 
 Young Love obeyed, his plumage stripped, 
 And, laughing, like lulus tripped.
 
 Virgil. 
 
 263 
 
 Unconscious Dido at the feast caresses her doom. The 
 
 roguish Cupid having first 
 
 satisfied the fond desire 
 Of that his counterfeited bire, 
 Turns him to Dido. Heart and eye 
 She clings, she cleaves, she makes him lie 
 Lapped in her breast, nor knows, lost fair, 
 How dire a god sits heavy there. 
 But he, too studious to fulfill 
 His Acidalian mother's will, 
 Begins to cancel trace by trace 
 The imprint of Sychasus' face, 
 And bids a living passion steal 
 On senses long unused to feel. 
 
 Dido is lost. She commits herself in boundless pledge to the 
 Trojans. In a pause made, she solemnly appeals to Olympus. 
 
 JUPITER AND THE OLYMPIAN GODS.
 
 264 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Jove as the monarch, Juno as patroness of Carthage, and Bac- 
 chus as lord of feasts are the divinities invoked. Dido cries: 
 
 O make this day a day of joy 
 Alike to Tyre and wandering Troy, 
 And may our children's children feel 
 The blessing of the bond we seal ! 
 
 Readers must understand that Dido was a colonist at Car- 
 thage, lately come from Tyre. With her invocation of the 
 Olympians, a full pledge in golden wine was poured out. 
 Then the part performed by Demodocus at Homer's Phaea- 
 cian banquet to Ulysses is repeated at this Didonian feast 
 given in honor of ^Eneas. I-o'pas is the name of Virgil's 
 bard. This name has never become so famous in subse- 
 quent song and story as has the name Demodocus. Never- 
 theless, the performance did not lack matter, as will show 
 the following brilliant programme, itself poetry and song of 
 potent spell to the imagination. How charmingly Mr. 
 Conington has rendered it ! Virgil had a marked tendency 
 toward philosophical poetry. Lucretius drew him strongly. 
 Observe how he here makes lopas go, as it were philosoph- 
 ically, not less than poetically, into the secret of things: 
 
 He sings the wanderings of the moon, 
 The sun eclipsed in deadly swoon, 
 Whence human kind and cattle came, 
 And whence the rain-spout and the flame, 
 Arcturus and the two bright Bears, 
 And Hyads weeping showery tears, 
 Why winter suns so swiftly go, 
 And why the weary nights move slow. 
 
 Discourse succeeds to feast and song. Dido asks ^Eneas 
 to tell the company all about his own various fortune with 
 which request ends book first of the yEneid. 
 
 The second book, with the third, is made up of vEneas's 
 autobiographical story. The beginning of the tale has some 
 phrases that have passed into the commonplace of quotation 
 
 and allusion. 
 
 Too cruel, lady, is the pain 
 You bid me thus revive again,
 
 Virgil. 265 
 
 is Mr. Conington's turning into English of 
 
 Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem. 
 
 Again the couplet, 
 
 The woes I saw with these sad eyne, 
 The deeds whereof large part was mine, 
 
 renders 
 
 quaeque ipse miserrima vidi 
 Et quorum pars magna fui. 
 
 The last clause in particular is almost a proverb for uni- 
 versal familiarity. Literally rendered, the whole quotation 
 would read, " Both the things, most full of wretchedness, which 
 I myself saw, and the things of which I a large part was." 
 Nothing could possibly reproduce the neat denseness of the 
 original Latin. Would readers like to see how Mr. Morris 
 manages this place in his fourteen-syllabled line ? Well, he, 
 through the whole poem, makes his translation keep step 
 verse by verse with the original a thing which is in itself a 
 merit. But the consequence is that here we have to give 
 two partial lines answering to two such in Virgil : 
 
 which thing myself unhappy did behold, 
 Yea, and was no small part thereof. 
 
 The adjective " unhappy " he seems to make qualify " my- 
 self," which in the original it does not do, it there qualifying 
 the " thing," instead. 
 
 All that I saw and part of which I was, 
 
 is what the easy-going literary conscience of Dryden per- 
 mits him to make of the same passage he, to boot, rhyming 
 execrably the word "place " with the word "was." 
 
 yEneas, as after-dinner story-teller, sets out with the inci- 
 dent of the celebrated Wooden Horse. Of this incident, 
 
 only alluded to in our treatment of Homer, we proceed to 
 12
 
 c66 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 give Virgil's account in full, or nearly enough in full for the 
 full satisfaction of our readers : 
 
 The Danaan chiefs, with cunning given 
 By Pallas, mountain-high to heaven 
 
 A giant horse uprear, 
 And with compacted beams of pine 
 The texture of its ribs entwine : 
 A vow for their return they feign, 
 So runs the tale, and spreads amain. 
 There in the monster's cavernous side 
 Huge frames of chosen chiefs they hide, 
 And steel-clad soldiery finds room 
 Within that death-producing womb. 
 
 This huge image of a horse the Greeks leave on shore, and 
 withdraw in their ships from the Trojans' sight. The de- 
 lighted Trojans swarm out of the gates to survey the de- 
 serted camp of the Greeks. One of them proposes that they 
 draw the colossal horse within the walls of the city. As to 
 the expediency of this there are conflicting views, and 
 La-oc'o-on note the name, there is a sequel awaiting associ- 
 ated with this priest of Neptune runs down to discounte- 
 nance the project. His speech is full of prophet's wisdom 
 and fire. One sententious phrase of it has become a proverb : 
 
 Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. 
 Mr. Conington translates : 
 
 Whate'er it be, a Greek I fear 
 Though presents in his hand he bear. 
 
 Literally translated : " I fear the Greeks, even bringing 
 gifts." Mr. Morris says laboriously: 
 
 Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing, I fear. 
 
 The archaic quaintness everywhere infused by Mr. Morris 
 into his version, is not justified by any corresponding qual- 
 ity in Virgil. The enforced accent on -ing in " gift-bearing " 
 is a thing to be endured rather than to be enjoyed. From 
 Dryden, you would not suspect that there was any thing
 
 Virgil. 267 
 
 worthy of note in the original. Nothing could be more un- 
 conscious and commonplace : 
 
 Trust not their presents nor admit the horse. 
 
 The disposition to be made of the horse hangs in doubt, 
 when a Greek captive is brought in who plays a very deep 
 part. Si'non is the man's name. On the desperate chance 
 of getting himself believed in a most improbable tale, this 
 man has risked his life by thus throwing himself into the 
 power of the Trojans. He pretends to have escaped from 
 dreadful death at the hands of his own countrymen, having 
 been, as he says, destined by them to perish, a human sacri- 
 fice, for their safe return from Troy. Sinon treats the Tro- 
 jans to a rich abuse of Ulysses, which naturally, however 
 illogically, wins their trust for the slanderer. Interrupting 
 himself with exquisite art, he cries : 
 
 But why a tedious tale repeat, 
 
 To stay you from your morsel sweet ? 
 
 If all are equal, Greek and Greek, 
 
 Enough your tardy vengeance wreak ; 
 
 My death will Ithacus delight, 
 
 And Atreus' sons the boon requite. 
 
 The whole incident of Sinon's treachery is consummately 
 well managed by Virgil, and Mr. Conington's translation is 
 so admirable, that we have to put force upon ourselves to 
 abridge it as we must. The upshot is that Sinon gets him- 
 self believed. His fetters are stricken off and, at Priam's 
 kindly challenge, he has his desired chance to cheat the 
 Trojans to the full, under sanction of protestations volun- 
 teered by him with gratuitous eloquence of perjury. Tell 
 us honestly, Sinon, Priam says, What does the horse mean ? 
 
 Sinon's satisfaction to the old king's curiosity is ingen- 
 iously fabricated. He says that Pallas turned against the 
 Greeks, aggrieved by profanation done to her image at the 
 hands of ruthless Ulysses and Ty-di'des. These chieftains 
 had plucked the sacred statue Palladium, it was called
 
 268 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 from its scat in the temple in Troy, and stained it with 
 blood. The Greek prophet Calchas, [Kal'kas,] so Sinon 
 glibly relates, assures his countrymen that they must return 
 home and there renew the omens, or they will never take Troy. 
 Meantime they fashion the colossal horse in Pallas's honor, 
 
 An image for an image given 
 To pacify offended Heaven. 
 
 Calchas, Sinon with skillful surplusage of lying, says, bade 
 the Greeks rear the horse so high that the Trojans could 
 not get it through their city gates, lest, taken within, it should 
 make Troy impregnable, and endanger Greece. 
 
 To second and support the lithe lying of Sinon, a ghastly 
 omen fell. Now comes in the story of Laocoon, which is too 
 famous and too characteristic of Virgil not to be given to 
 our readers without retrenchment, as Virgil tells it : 
 
 Laocoon, named as Neptune's priest, 
 
 Was offering up the victim beast, 
 
 When lo ! from Tenedos I quail, 
 
 E'en now, at telling of the tale 
 
 Two monstrous serpents stem the tide, 
 
 And shoreward through the stillness glide. 
 
 Amid the waves they rear their breasts, 
 
 And toss on high their sanguine crests ; 
 
 The hind part coils along the deep, 
 
 And undulates with sinuous sweep. 
 
 The lashed spray echoes : now they reach 
 
 The inland belted by the beach, 
 
 And rolling bloodshot eyes of fire, 
 
 Dart their forked tongue, and hiss for ire. 
 
 We fly distraught ; unswerving they 
 
 Toward Laocoon hold their way ; 
 
 First round his two young sons they wreathe, 
 
 And grind their limbs with savage teeth : 
 
 Then, as with arms he comes to aid, 
 
 The wretched father they invade 
 
 And twine in giant folds ; twice round 
 
 His stalwart waist their spires are wound, 
 
 Twice round his nck, while over all 
 
 Their heads and crests tower high and tall. 
 
 He strains his strength their knots to tear, 
 
 While gore and slime his fillets smear, 
 
 And lo the unregardful skies 
 
 Sends up his agonizing cries :
 
 Virgil. 
 
 A wounded bull such moaning makes, 
 When from his neck the axe he shakes, 
 Ill-aimed, and from the altar breaks. 
 The twin destroyers take their flight 
 To Pallas' temple on the height ; 
 There by the goddess' feet concealed 
 They lie and nestle 'neath her shield. 
 
 269 
 
 LAOCOON. 
 
 No wonder that the Trojans now, seeing an apparent pun- 
 ishment so dire befall Laocoon, are shocked into unquali-
 
 270 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 fied credit of Sinon's tale. With resistless enthusiasm, they 
 rush to drag the fateful horse within the walls. Virgil's de- 
 scription of this madness and this action is instinct with fire. 
 It is almost impossible to refrain from swelling our volume 
 to admit it unabridged. But our readers will have, many of 
 them, to get Mr. Conington's version, and read the whole 
 ^neid for themselves. The book is accessible in comely 
 republication, and is sold at a reasonable rate, by Messrs. 
 A. C. Armstrong & Son who ought, for so admirable a 
 work, to feel, from the public, demand enough to justify 
 them in making the plates of the book as nearly perfect as 
 possible. (Let them, also, strengthen this volume of transla- 
 tion by twinning with it its fellow in felicity and in easy su- 
 premacy over every rival, Mr. Worsley's version of the 
 Odyssey.) 
 
 The sequel of the contrivance of the Wooden Horse is 
 
 thus told : 
 
 And now from Tenedos set free 
 The Greeks are sailing on the sea, 
 Bound for the shore where erst they lay, 
 Beneath the still moon's friendly ray : 
 When in a moment leaps to sight 
 On the king's ship the signal light, 
 And Sinon, screened by partial fate, 
 Unlocks the pine-wood prison's gate. 
 The horse its charge to aid restores 
 And forth the armed invasion pours. 
 Tliessander, Sthenelus, the first, 
 Slide down the rope : Ulysses curst, 
 Thoas and Acamas are there, 
 And great Pel ides' youthful heir, 
 Machaon, Menelaus, last 
 Epeus, who the plot forecast. 
 They seize the city, buried deep 
 In floods of revelry and sleep, 
 Cut down the warders of the gates, 
 And introduce their conscious mates. 
 
 That same night ^Eneas, in his sleep, is visited by a vision 
 of Hector. Hector bids him flee from the doomed city and 
 carry Troy to other shores. The frightful hurly-burly of that 
 night's confused fight and massacre, mixed with conflagra-
 
 Virgil. 271 
 
 tion, is powerfully described by Virgil, who. as usual, is pow- 
 erfully translated by Mr. Conington. ^Eneas wakes, and 
 climbs to the palace-roof. At first the flaming houses fill hi 
 sight. His ear next is assailed with sound : 
 
 Then come the clamor and the blare, 
 And shouts and clarions rend the air. 
 
 Virgil's line enjoys great renown : 
 
 Exoritur clamorque virum clangorque tubarum. 
 
 Any one who will read it aloud, pronouncing the Latin after 
 his own fashion, whatever that fashion be, will find his 
 mouth filled with words, and his ear filled with sound. It is 
 a fine example of consonance between sound and sense. 
 Mr. Morris, in his line-for-line style, renders thus : 
 
 The shout of men ariseth now, and blaring of the horn. 
 Tennyson's rolling crescendo, in the Ode on Wellington, 
 
 Followed up in valley and glen 
 With blare of bugle, clamor of men, 
 Roll of cannon, clash of arms, 
 And England pouring on her foes, 
 
 owes probably its second line to a recollection of Virgil here. 
 A priest of Apollo, escaped from the marauding Greeks, 
 makes his way to the house, and ^Eneas asks him what of 
 the night. The answer contains two memorable lines : 
 
 Venit summa dies et ineluctable tempus 
 Dardanins. Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens 
 Gloria Teucrorum. 
 
 Conington renders : 
 
 'Tis come, our fated day of death. 
 We have been Trojans : Troy has been : 
 She sat, but sits no more, a queen. 
 Mr. Morris : 
 
 , Time was, the Trojans were ; time was, and Ilium stood ; time was, 
 And glory of the Teucrian folk ! 
 
 No translation could well reproduce the solemn and lofty 
 prophet-like effect of the original, with its melancholy pro-
 
 272 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 longation of words, its dense brevity withal, its inimitable 
 choice of order in syntax. Literally it reads: "Has come 
 the final day, and the not-to-be-struggled-out-of occasion, 
 to Dardania. We have been, we Trojans ; it has been, the 
 city of Ilium, and the boundless glory of the sons of Teucer." 
 The perfect tenses, "We have been," and "Troy has 
 been," are examples, magnificent examples, of the pregnant 
 idiom with which the Romans sometimes expressed great 
 calamity by stopping short of statement, and trusting to 
 irresistible inference. We English-speakers say, " He is no 
 more ; he is dead ; " the Romans sometime said, " He has 
 been; he has lived" the ap-o-si-o-pe'sis, the refusal to 
 speak, being more eloquent than declaration. 
 
 Among the touching incidents of 
 the last night of Troy, with which the 
 teeming invention of Virgil crowds 
 his swift-revolving kaleidoscopic nar- 
 rative, there is, perhaps, none so pa- 
 thetic as that of aged Priam's girding 
 on the armor of his youth, to sally out 
 and do battle with the foe. Hecuba, 
 his wife, espies him in his panoply, 
 and exclaims at the noble madness 
 of the old man. One line of her ex- 
 clamation is, almost literally, a jewel, 
 such as Tennyson (in a phrase, itself 
 also such a jewel) describes in The 
 Princess, 
 
 PRIAM. 
 
 jewels five-words-long 
 
 That on the stretched forefinger of all Time 
 Sparkle forever : 
 
 Non tali auxilio nee defensoribus istis. 
 
 The full Virgilian sentence adds the two words, Tcmpits 
 egct ; the sense being, " Not aid such as yours, nor defenders
 
 Virgil. 273 
 
 like you, does the occasion demand." Some, however, of the 
 best Latin scholars find here a meaning considerably differ- 
 ent, namely, " Not aid of such a sort as arms afford, nor weap- 
 ons like those you bring, will answer the present need," (we 
 must pray rather than fight.) Mr. Conington, accordingly, 
 with bold freedom, translates : 
 
 times so dire 
 Bent knees, not lifted arms, require 
 
 a rendering which, even be the general meaning granted, the 
 ambiguity in the word " arms," and the doubtful symbolism 
 of" lifted," qualifying "arms," combine to make not entirely 
 happy. Difference of view on a sentence apparently so simple 
 may surprise our readers. None the less, it is part of desirable 
 knowledge to know thfct such difference of view exists. The 
 applications are manifold, in which this famous line of Vir- 
 gil's continues, and will always continue, to be quoted in 
 all literatures that have any relation with the literature of 
 Rome. 
 
 The end of Priam comes by the hand of Pyrrhus, son of 
 Achilles. Priam had just seen his own son Po-li'tes slain 
 at his very feet by Pyrrhus, and with aged ire had up- 
 braided the slayer as degenerate offspring of an illustrious 
 sire. He had even hurled against Pyrrhus an impotent 
 weapon. Now a few lines of Virgil according to Conington : 
 
 Then Pyrrhus : " Take the news below, 
 And to my sire Achilles go : 
 Tell him of his degenerate seed, 
 And that and this my bloody deed. 
 Now die : " and to the altar-stone 
 
 Along the marble floor 
 He dragged the father sliddering on 
 
 E'en in his child's own gore : 
 His left hand in his hair he wreathed, 
 
 While with the right he plied 
 His flashing sword, and hilt-deep sheathed 
 
 Within the old man's side. 
 So Priam's fortunes closed at last : 
 So passed he, seeing as he passed 
 12*
 
 274 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 II is Troy in flames, his royal tower 
 Laid low in dust by hostile power. 
 'Who once o'er land and peoples proud 
 Sat, while before him Asia bowed : 
 Now on the shore behold him dead, 
 A nameless trunk, a trunkless head. 
 
 The last line of Conington affords an admirable instance of 
 this accomplished translator's quality as rhetorician rather 
 lhan poet. What consummate rhetoric is 
 
 A nameless trunk, a trunkless head ! 
 
 The sense is exactly Virgil's, the rhetoric exactly Coning- 
 ton's. That repetition, in transposed order, of the word 
 trunk it is brilliant, but it is too brilliant. It is rhetoric 
 rather than poetry. 
 
 No wonder pious ^neas was horrified. No wonder he 
 thought of his own father Anchises. In his craze, he was 
 tempted to lift his hand against Argive Helen, seen by him 
 crouching in the temple of Vesta. But his mother Venus 
 came between, confessing the goddess in her august Olym- 
 pian grace, and ^Eneas was saved acknowledging to a woman 
 the sorry prowess of a woman slain by his hand. Venus ex- 
 horted her son to look after his father, his wife, and his boy. 
 She promised him safe conduct to his own dwelling. His 
 eye-sight should be clarified to see with more than mortal 
 vision: 
 
 That vision showed me Neptune's town 
 
 In blazing ruin sinking down: 
 
 As rustics strive with many a stroke 
 
 To fell some venerable oak ; 
 
 It still keeps nodding to its doom. 
 
 Still bows its head, and shakes its plume, 
 
 Till, by degrees o'ercome, one groan 
 
 It heaves, and on the hill lies prone. 
 
 Mr. Conington transforms the tree in this comparison from 
 mountain-ash (Virgil's species) to oak. 
 
 Have we perhaps a reader here or there who will remem- 
 ber that in our preceding chapter, " The City and the
 
 Virgil. 275 
 
 People," the author himself used this very image of Virgil's, 
 the slow-descending oak, to set forth the decline and fall of 
 the Roman Empire ? It was either a coincidence of inde- 
 pendent thought in two writers, or else it was a case of un- 
 remembered influence received by the later from the elder. 
 However, the image as used by Virgil illustrates the fall of a 
 city, by conflagration, accomplished in a night; the image as 
 used by the present writer illustrated the decadence of an 
 empire slowly proceeding through centuries of time. Ap- 
 propriately, Virgil's tree, symbolizing Troy, falls undr strokes 
 of an axe ; while our oak, symbolizing the Roman Empire, 
 was conceived of as succumbing to secular influences of 
 natural decay. 
 
 The saviour son ^Eneas has trouble with his spirited old 
 father, who refuses to be saved. Whereupon ^Eneas is as 
 spirited as he, and, unrestrained by his wife Cre-u'-sa's en- 
 treaty, is on the point of rushing forth again into the street 
 brim with its battle and flame, when, behold a prodigy! 
 A lovely lambent flame lights on the head of little lulus, as 
 his mother is eloquently presenting him in argument to his 
 father. The parents try to quench it, but prophetic grand- 
 father Anchises is enraptured at the sight. He prays for 
 confirmation of the omen. A clap of thunder on the left, 
 and a sliding meteor above the palace-roof! Anchises 
 chants but we should profane a holy phrase with such 
 an application we were about to say his " Nunc dimittis " 
 Anchises, in short, now consents to flee with ^Eneas. The 
 pious son arranges a place of meeting for Creusa, outside the 
 city, and starts, bearing his father on his shoulders and 
 leading his boy by the hand an immortal picture of filial 
 fidelity. 
 
 Creusa got parted from her company and met a fate un- 
 known. yEneas did what a faithful husband was bound to 
 do ; he returned to the city in search of his wife. Her 
 specter met him and bade him fare well. She was not to be
 
 276 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 his companion. He tried to embrace her, but he embraced 
 emptiness. ./Eneas was wifeless. 
 
 The second book ends with ^Eneas's return to his father 
 and son, where he had left them in order to seek his wife. 
 He there found a number of Trojans ready to join their fate 
 with his. 
 
 The third book is crowded with matter; but we must dis- 
 pose of it very briefly. This we may the better do, since it 
 it is pretty close imitation of the Odyssey, and the Odyssey 
 has in a former volume of this series been somewhat largely 
 represented. 
 
 tineas, in this third book, tells of seven years' wanderings 
 
 SCYLLA. 
 
 with his fleet seven years, short by the one winter which 
 the wanderers spend, to begin with, in building ships. The 
 season following, the Trojans visit Thrace, and found a 
 town. Hence they are driven forth by a dire prodigy, 
 ^neas, sacrificing to Jupiter, plucks, to garland the altars, a 
 sapling which from the wound trickles gore. A second
 
 Virgil. 277 
 
 time, and a third, this happens, and the third time a " lament- 
 able sound " issues from the earth. It cries to yEneas : 
 
 Trojan, not alien is the blood 
 That oozes from the uptorn wood. 
 Fly this fell soil, these greedy shores : 
 The voice you hear is Polydore's. 
 
 Polydore, (Polydorus,) it seems, was a Trojan who had been 
 sent by Priam, bearing treasure to be stored in trust with the 
 Thracian king this, in preparation for the downfall feared 
 of Troy. The Thracian king turned traitor, and, making an 
 end of Polydorus, seized his trust of treasure. Now comes 
 a phrase of Virgil's that men often quote, " auri sacra fames," 
 " accursed hunger for gold " so literally, but since thirst 
 and hunger are twin appetites guardian of life, Conington 
 is well enough justified in seeking his rhyme, by saying, as 
 
 he does : 
 
 Fell lust of gold ! abhorred, accurst ! 
 What will not men to slake such thirst ? 
 
 (The last line has its equivalent in the Latin.) English 
 readers looking at the Latin word "sacra" may naturally be 
 surprised to see it translated (the opposite of what it should 
 seem to mean) "accursed." "Sacred," rather, you would 
 be inclined to guess. This is the explanation : The word 
 first means, " dedicated, devoted to the gods." Then "de- 
 voted in order to be destroyed," whence, by easy transition, 
 "accursed," "detestable." 
 
 From Thrace faring, yEneas next came to Delos, the fable 
 of which is that it was a floating island until fixed and 
 anchored by Phoebus Apollo to be the seat of his oracle. 
 
 In Delos, tineas prays to Apollo. With memorable 
 pathos he calls himself and his companions by the repeated 
 phrase, our readers will remember it, 
 
 relliquias Danaum atque immitis Achilli. 
 
 yEneas gets an answer which Anchises interprets into sail- 
 ing directions to the company for Crete, whither accordingly
 
 278 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 the Trojans sail, only to suffer there from pestilence, until, 
 about to send back again for instruction explanatory of in- 
 struction, they receive distinct warning from their own 
 household gods, brought with them in Anchises' hands from 
 Ilium, that Italy was their true destination. Another chance 
 is thus offered for a strain of prediction about the future 
 glories of Rorjie. The appetite for this sort of thing that 
 Virgil could calculate on with Romans in general, and with 
 the emperor in particular, must have been immense. Prob- 
 ably it grew by what Virgil fed it on. Praise well served is 
 an extremely dainty dish. Such Frederick the Great found it, 
 when Voltaire was the cook, accomplished as that French- 
 man was, to more than the national degree of skill in this 
 culinary art. 
 
 So to sea once more. Out of sight of land they find them- 
 selves, those Trojans ; and Virgil, through ^Eneas, makes a 
 point of it. His expression, 
 
 coelum undique et undique pontus, 
 
 sky everywhere and everywhere sea, is famous. The chi- 
 asm in it, that is, the transposed construction the word for 
 " everywhere," as you will observe, occupying exchanged 
 positions in the two clauses is a fine stroke of literary art. 
 
 Of the Ulyssean adventures that befell ^neas on his voy- 
 age, we skip, among others, the incident of the harpies, and 
 come to the story of the Cyclops. But we ought to tell our 
 readers that meantime it has chanced to ^Eneas to meet an 
 old Trojan friend in Hel'e-nus, who, singularly enough, has 
 mated with An-drom'a-che, Hector's wife, and, by a variety of 
 circumstances has, with her, succeeded, he a Trojan, to a 
 Grecian crown. From Helenus, acting in his quality of 
 priest to Apollo, ^Eneas gets yet again a prophecy of what 
 awaits him. This time, however, the prediction concerns 
 itself chiefly with the immediate future, the period, namely, 
 of yEneas's wanderings still to be accomplished.
 
 Visgil. 
 
 279 
 
 Virgil, with obvious ingenuity of joinery, pieces his own 
 account of the Cyclops upon that of his master. He makes 
 ./Eneas encounter a forlorn Greek it is a wonder that, with 
 the Trojans, the thought of Sinon did not inopportunely 
 occur, to be the instant death of the man who says that 
 his fellows in misery inadvertently left him behind, flying 
 wildly from the dreadful neighborhood. The Greek he had 
 a long name, Ach'e-men'i-des [Ak] describes the monster 
 Cyclops and his den. 
 
 SIRENS. 
 
 Let us have a change. 
 Conington to Mr. Morris, 
 grateful to some readers. 
 
 We go for this once from Mr. 
 The change will perhaps be 
 
 A house of blood and bloody meat, most huge from end to end, 
 
 Mirky within : high up aloft star-smiting to behold 
 
 Is he himself ; such bane, O God, keep thou from field and fold ! 
 
 Scarce may a man look on his face ; no word to him is good ; 
 
 On wretches' entrails doth he feed and black abundant blood. 
 
 Myself I saw him of our folk two hapless bodies take 
 
 In his huge hand, whom straight he fell athwart a stone to break 
 
 As there he lay upon his back ; I saw the threshold swim 
 
 With spouted blood, I saw him grind each bloody dripping limb,
 
 280 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 I saw the joints amidst his teeth all warm and quivering still. 
 
 He payed therefor, for never might Ulysses bear such ill, 
 
 Nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead : 
 
 For when with victual satiate, deep sunk in wine, his head 
 
 Fell on his breast, and there he lay enormous through the den, 
 
 Snorting out gore amidst his sleep, with gobbets of the men 
 
 And mingled blood and wine ; then we sought the great gods with prayer, 
 
 And drew the lots, and one and all crowded about him there, 
 
 And bored out with a sharpened pike the eye that used to lurk 
 
 Enormous lonely 'neatli his brow o'erhanging grim and mirk. 
 
 While the wretched Greek was yet speaking, Pol'y-phe'mus, 
 the blinded Cyclops, appears. Conington : 
 
 A pine-tree, plucked from earth, makes strong 
 His tread, and guides his steps along. 
 
 Readers of Milton will recall (" Paradise Lost," i, 292) 
 
 His spear, to equal which the tallest pine, 
 Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast 
 Of some great ammiral, were but a wand, 
 He walked with to support uneasy steps 
 Over the burning marie, 
 
 which presents the same picture in Milton heightened to 
 correspond justly with the larger and sublimer scale of the 
 general representation. 
 
 The last thing told by ^Eneas before the incident of his 
 landing on the Carthaginian coast is the death of his father 
 Anchises, which, like the dutiful son that vEneas was, and 
 affectionate, he bewails in sweet and pathetic verse. 
 
 The feast was ended, and the long recital of ^Eneas. 
 
 The fourth book is devoted to the sad tale of Dido and 
 her fatal passion for her guest. The episode is interesting, but 
 it has not the interest of a story of love, such as Christianity, 
 with its gospel of woman's equality with man, has taught us 
 moderns to understand love between the sexes. Of that love, 
 pagan antiquity knew nothing. The relation between Dido 
 and ^neas was not one of true love, but one of passion, in 
 which the passion was chiefly on the hapless woman's side. 
 We moderns cannot enter into the sympathy of it. Dido
 
 Virgil. 281 
 
 you pity indeed, but hardly respect. You feel more satis- 
 faction in heartily execrating ^Eneas with his everlastingly 
 applauded piety. You wish he were a little less pious and 
 a little more honorable. 
 
 There are celebrated passages of fine poetry in this book 
 which we must lay before our readers ; but poor Dido's moon- 
 struck maunderings to her confidant sister Anna, together 
 with her love-sick wheedling of ^Eneas kind, and her crazy 
 objurgation of ./Eneas treacherous this detail may well be 
 spared. Virgil does it all with great skill, displaying in it 
 great knowledge of the human heart. But the story rather 
 revolts the modern taste. Let us pass it. The short of it 
 is that Dido helplessly burns for JEneas, that ^Eneas ruins 
 Dido and deserts her, and that then Dido takes refuge in 
 suicide, having first provided to perish in a funeral pyre that 
 shall flame high enough to be a baleful sign to yEneas off at 
 sea. Thus is a quasi- historic reason found or feigned by 
 Virgil for the immortal enmity that subsisted between Car- 
 thaginian and Roman blood. It should be said that the 
 rascal Olympian divinities come in to be, as usual, mutually 
 antagonist artificers of fraud. 
 
 After Dido's fall, she seeks at once to cover her disgrace : 
 
 She calls it marriage now ; such name 
 She chooses to conceal her shame. 
 
 What follows is perhaps as famous a passage as any in an- 
 cient poetry. It is a magnificent description of fame, report, 
 or rumor personified gossip, we might familiarly call the 
 creature : 
 
 Now through the towns of Libya's sons 
 
 Her progress Fame begins, 
 Fame than who never plague that runs 
 
 Its way more swiftly wins ; 
 Her very motion lends her power ; 
 She flies and waxes every hour. 
 At first she shrinks, and cowers for dread : 
 
 Ere long she soars on high : 
 Upon the ground she plants her tread, 
 
 Her forehead in the sky.
 
 282 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Wroth with Olympus, parent Earth 
 Brought forth the monster to the light, 
 
 Last daughter of the giant birth, 
 
 With feet and rapid wings for flight. 
 
 Huge, terrible, gigantic Fame ! 
 
 For every plume that clothes her frame 
 
 An eye beneath the feather peeps, 
 
 A tongue rings loud, an ear upleaps. 
 
 Hurtling "twixt earth and heaven she flies 
 
 By night, nor bows to sleep her eyes ; 
 
 Perched on a roof or tower by day 
 
 She fills great cities with dismay ; 
 
 How oft soe'er the truth she tell. 
 
 She loves a falsehood all too well. 
 
 A nice critical assay would perhaps find in the foregoing 
 
 brilliant lines from Virgil 
 as much alloy of rhetoric 
 as verse will bear and still 
 keep to a high standard 
 of poetical purity. 
 
 Here is another fine pas- 
 sage. It is descriptive of 
 night the calm night on 
 which, while wakeful Di- 
 do communed with her- 
 self about ways of yet re- 
 gaining her lover, that 
 lover, himself first roused 
 by Mercury, messenger 
 of Jove, roused in turn 
 his men, and faithlessly, 
 though piously, set sail for 
 Italy. The contrast of the 
 
 universal quiet, in a few strokes so strongly depicted, with 
 
 Dido's unrest, is very effective: 
 
 'Tis night : earth's tired ones taste the balm, 
 The precious balm of sleep, 
 And in the forest there is calm, 
 And on the savage deep: 
 
 MERCURY CONVEYING THE MESSAGE 
 OF JUPITER.
 
 Virgil. 283 
 
 The stars are in their middle flight : 
 
 The fields are hushed : each bird or beast 
 
 That dwells beside the silver lake 
 
 Or haunts the tangles of the brake 
 In placid slumber lies, released 
 
 From trouble by the touch of night ; 
 
 All but the hapless queen. 
 
 Queen Dido wakes and soliloquizes; ^Eneas sleeps and 
 dreams. He dreaming, Mercury presents himself to him 
 with a message. 
 
 Away to sea ! a woman's will 
 
 Is changeful and uncertain still, 
 
 is the gist and the close of Mercury's communication. The 
 Latin almost translates itself, to the English reader : 
 
 Varium et mutabile semper 
 Femina 
 
 " a thing moody and mutable ever woman, " we may ren- 
 der it literally. It was, of course, a slant at Dido through 
 a generalization assailing her sex. A fit brave sentiment 
 truly for such a man as ^Eneas to meditate ! Compare and 
 contrast with that of Virgil this of Scott's : 
 
 O woman ! in our hours of ease, 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
 And variable as the shade 
 By the light quivering aspen made ; 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou ! 
 
 The difference of sentiment is, of course, partly a difference 
 created by the difference of occasion ; but are we not all 
 conscious that there is a feeling in Scott of which, less per- 
 haps by his own individual character than by the fortune of 
 his historic position, Virgil was incapable? Human thought 
 and feeling have been marvelously transposed by Christian- 
 ity to a different key. Here, however, is a sentiment that 
 would not read out of place in Scott, attributed to one of his 
 proud fierce chieftain warriors :
 
 284 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 Let the false Dardan feel the blaze 
 That burns me pouring on his gaze, 
 And bear along, to cheer his way, 
 The funeral presage of to-day. 
 
 These are the suicide queen-lover's very last words. 
 
 on his part, pitied Dido, perhaps dropped some tears over 
 
 DIDO S DEATH. 
 
 her fate about as he might pour a libation to the gods and 
 think of it no more pious soul, intent he on his mission of 
 founding an empire. 
 
 The fifth book is largely occupied with an elaborate ac- 
 count of games celebrated on a friendly shore by the Trojans 
 under the imperio-paternal eye of ^neas, in honor of the 
 anniversary of his father Anchises' death. They had a galley- 
 race, a foot-race, a boxing-match, a trial of archery, and, to 
 crown all, a gallant competition of horsemanship in mimic 
 tournament, on the part of the boys. Virgil here accounts 
 for the origin of the Ludus Trojanus, a public game so called 
 prevalent in his own time at Rome an adjustment of his 
 poem to the popular pleasure quite characteristic of the 
 genius and complaisance of this pre-eminently national poet. 
 
 We shall not follow the vicissitudes of the fortune of the
 
 Virgil. 
 
 285 
 
 sports engaged in by the Trojans, which, however, we may 
 say, in passing, are cunningly shaken up and fitted in the 
 kaleidoscope of deft invention. There is mischance and 
 laughter Roman laughter, not Greek mixed with the am- 
 bitions, the strivings, the victories, the defeats, that attend the 
 games. " Good ^Eneas," as Mr. Conington, partly in defer- 
 ence to modern taste perhaps, and partly in concession to 
 the needs of his measure, translates Virgil's reiterated "pious 
 yEneas " good, or pious, ^neas, (pious, we, for our part, 
 
 should say, rather than good,) makes every body fairly happy 
 at last by lavishly distributing gifts all around to the victo- 
 rious as prizes, to the defeated as solaces. 
 
 Now let us be free to go skimming over the surface of 
 book fifth, and take off the summa, as perhaps the Latin- 
 speakers might say, the cream, say we, of the rhetoric and 
 poetry which it contains. 
 
 There are several consecutive lines standing near the out- 
 set of this book which Virgil very closely repeats from book 
 third. Mr. Conington translates as if the repetition were 
 more nearly exact than it really is. The fact would seem to 
 be that Virgil, conscious of repeating himself, aimed at va- 
 riation. For instance, Conington translates both times, 
 
 On every side the watery plain, 
 On every side the expanse of sky,
 
 2 S6 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 whereas Virgil once says that, and the other time says, 
 
 On every side the expanse of sky, 
 On every side the watery plain, 
 
 using, however, in the two cases different words for "watery 
 plain," that is, the sea. One is a little surprised that Mr. 
 Morris here did not obey the logic of his method in trans- 
 lation and vary his order of words to follow Virgil's varied 
 order. 
 
 In the part about the galley-race (this is a rowing-match) 
 occurs that memorable expression which some readers per- 
 haps will recollect the present writer alluded to in applica- 
 tion to Marius. It is very neatly rendered by Mr. Conington : 
 
 They can, because they think they can. 
 
 Confidence of success certainly is a great help to succeeding. 
 , Possunt, quia posse videntur 
 
 is the Virgil of it " they are able because they seem [to 
 themselves] to be able." 
 
 At the end of the trial in archery the first bowman has 
 sent his arrow into the wood of the mast to which the dove 
 was tied, the second has with his shaft cut the binding cord, 
 a third has pierced the flying bird in air; happy climax of 
 marksmanship, for the marksman happy, unhappy for the 
 mark ! at the end of all this, we say, Acestes, the host of 
 the Trojan wanderers, disappointed of his chance to shoot, 
 discharges his arrow aimlessly into the sky. Hereupon a 
 prodigy for which we moderns care nothing, but the simile 
 that describes it is worth quoting : 
 
 E'en in the mid expanse of skies 
 The arrow kindles as it flies, 
 Behind it draws a fiery glare, 
 Then wasting, vanishes in air: 
 So stars, dislodged, athwart the night 
 Career and trail a length of light.
 
 Virgil. 287 
 
 Virgil's similes are thick-sown, not however with unwise 
 plenty, through his verse. They are almost always lucky 
 likenesses, and luckily set off luckily, with that careful good 
 luck which is called curiosa felicitas, curious felicity. 
 
 The Trojans' stay with Acestes is marked by a sinister in- 
 cident. The Trojan women being apart by themselves dur- 
 ing the games are instigated by a disguised emissary from 
 Juno to set fire to the fleet. A timely shower from Jupiter 
 stays the conflagration, but not before four ships have been 
 consumed, ^sneas decides to build a town on the coast for 
 those of his company who prefer not to go farther. With 
 embraces and with tears they part, those who go, from those 
 who stay. On the smooth sail to Cumse, Pal'i-nu'rus, the pilot 
 of ^Eneas's vessel, falls overboard asleep and is drowned. It 
 was the trick of the god Sleep. So ends the fifth book. 
 
 The sixth book is a long and splendid tract of poetry. The 
 matter of it is ^Eneas's descent into Hades. This descent is 
 accomplished with much antecedent as well as accompany- 
 ing circumstance and ceremony. Resort is had to the resi- 
 dence of the Sibyl at Cumse (Cuma). This famous mythical 
 personage is a well-known subject in the modem painter's 
 art. She i? thus introduced by Virgil : 
 
 Within the mountain's hollow side 
 A cavern stretches high and wide ; 
 A hundred entries thither lead ; 
 A hundred voices thence proceed, 
 Fach uttering forth the Sibyl's rede. 
 The sacred threshold now they trod : 
 " Pray for an answer ! pray ! the god," 
 
 She cries, " the god is nigh ! " 
 And as before the doors in view 
 She stands, her visage pales its hue, 
 Her locks dishevelled fly, 
 
 Her breath comes thick, her wild heart glows. 
 Dilating as 'he madness grows, 
 Her form look? larger to the eye, 
 Unearthly peals her deep-toned cry, 
 As breathing nearer and more rear 
 The god comes rushing on his seer.
 
 288 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 " So slack " cries she " at work divine ? 
 Pray, Trojan, pray ! not else the shrine 
 Its spell-bound silence breaks." 
 
 Thus adjured, ^Eneas fell to praying with pious pagan zeal. 
 The result was marked and immediate. The maiden seer is 
 as drunk as a pantheist with god, that is, with Apollo: 
 
 The seer, impatient of control, 
 
 Raves in the cavern vast, 
 And madly struggles from her soul 
 
 The incumbent power to cast : 
 He, mighty Master, plies the more 
 Her foaming mouth, all chafed and sore, 
 Tames her wild heart with plastic hand, 
 And makes her docile to command. 
 Now, all untouched, the hundred gates 
 Fly open, and proclaim the fates. 
 
 The fates are trouble, ending in conquest, for ^neas. The 
 prophet-maid has a dreadful convulsion all the time, which 
 ^neas waits to see a little composed before he boastfully 
 prefers his request to be admitted to the lower world. The 
 Sibyl told him, in words that have become as famous as any 
 
 in poetry, 
 
 facilis descensus Averni, 
 
 Etc., 
 
 which Mr. Conington translates: 
 
 The journey down to the abyss 
 
 Is prosperous and light : 
 The palace-gates of gloomy Dis 
 
 Stand open day and night : 
 But upward to retrace the way 
 And pass into the light of day 
 There comes the stress of labor ; this 
 
 May task a hero's might. 
 
 She uses powerfully deterrent language, but bids JEneas, if 
 he still will try the journey, go into the woods and look till 
 he finds a certain mystic golden bough which may serve as 
 passport to the regions of the dead. With much ado, this 
 branch is found. Then sacrifice is offered and, with a 
 warning cry, "Back, ye unhallowed," to all besides, she in- 
 vites ^Eneas to follow her and plunges into the cave.
 
 Virgil. 289 
 
 Here Virgil puts up a prayer in his own behalf for per- 
 mission to go on and tell what he has resolved on telling : 
 
 Eternal Powers, whose sway controls 
 
 The empire of departed souls, 
 
 Ye too, throughout whose wide domain 
 
 Black Night and grisly Silence reign, 
 
 Hoar Chaos, awful Phlegethon, 
 
 What ear has heard let tongue make known : 
 
 Vouchsafe your sanction, nor forbid 
 
 To utter things in darkness hid. 
 
 Permitted or not, Virgil proceeds with his disclosure. Of 
 ^Eneas and his guide, he says : 
 
 Along the illimitable shade 
 
 Darkling and lone their way they made, 
 
 Through the vast kingdom of the dead, 
 
 An empty void, though tenanted : 
 
 So travelers in a forest move 
 
 With but the uncertain moon above, 
 
 Beneath her niggard light, 
 When Jupiter has hid from view 
 The heaven, and Nature's every hue 
 
 Is lost in blinding night. 
 
 The shapes that haunt, as porters and portresses, about 
 the entrance of Hades are a grim group : 
 
 At Orcus" portals hold their lair 
 Wild Sorrow and avenging Care ; 
 And pale Diseases cluster there, 
 
 And pleasureless Decay, 
 Foul Penury, and Fears that kill. 
 And Hunger, counselor of ill, 
 
 A ghastly presence they : 
 Suffering and Death the threshold keep 
 And with them Death's blood-brother, Sleep : 
 111 Joys with their seducing spells 
 
 And deadly War are at the door ; 
 The Furies couch in iron cells 
 And Discord maddens and rebels; 
 
 Her snake-locks hiss, her wreaths drip gore. 
 
 The description of the journey proceeds : 
 
 The threshold passed, the road leads on 
 To Tartarus and to Acheron. 
 At distance rolls the infernal flood, 
 Seething and swollen with turbid mud, 
 13
 
 2 go Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 And into dark Cocytus pours 
 
 The burden of its oozy stores. 
 
 Grim, squalid, foul, with aspect dire, 
 
 His eye-balls each a globe of fire. 
 
 The watery passage Charon keeps, 
 
 Sole warden of those murky deeps : 
 
 A sordid mantle round him thrown 
 
 Girds breast and shoulder like a zone. 
 
 He plies the pole with dexterous ease, 
 
 Or sets the sail to catch the breeze, 
 
 Ferrying the legions of the dead 
 
 In bark of dusky iron-red, 
 
 Now marked with age ; but heavenly powers 
 
 Have fresher, greener eld than ours. 
 
 Towards the ferry and the shore 
 
 The multitudinous phantoms pour ; 
 
 Matrons, and men, and heroes dead, 
 
 And boys and maidens, yet unwed, 
 
 And youths who funeral fires have fed 
 
 Before their parents' eye : 
 Dense as the leaves that from the treen 
 Float down when autumn first is keen, 
 Or as the birds that thickly massed 
 Fly landward from the ocean vast, 
 Driven over sea by wintry blast 
 
 To seek a sunnier sky. 
 Each in pathetic suppliance stands, 
 
 So may he first be ferried o'er, 
 And stretches out his helpless hands 
 
 In yearning for the farther shore: 
 The ferryman, austere and stern, 
 Takes these and those in varying turn, 
 While other some he scatters wide, 
 And chases from the river side. 
 ./Eneas, startled at the scene, 
 Cries, " Tell me, priestess, what may mean 
 
 This concourse to the shore ? 
 What cause can shade from shade divide 
 That these should leave the river side, 
 
 Those sweep the dull waves o'er? " 
 The ancient seer made brief reply: 
 " Anchises' seed, of those on high 
 
 The undisputed heir, 
 Cocytus' pool, and Styx you soe. 
 The stream by whose dread majesty 
 
 No god will falsely swear. 
 A helpless and unburied crew 
 Is this that swarms before your view : 
 The boatman, Charon : whom the wave 
 Is carrying, these have found their grave.
 
 Virgil. 291 
 
 For never man may travel o'er 
 That dark and dreadful flood before 
 
 His bones are in the urn. 
 E'en till a hundred years are told 
 They wander shivering in the cold: 
 At length admitted they behold 
 
 The stream for which they yearn." 
 
 There is now an encounter, on ^Eneas's part, with pilot 
 Palinurus, disconsolate because his corpse lies unburied. 
 The Sibyl promises the shade that the coast where he per- 
 ished shall bear a name associated with his own whereat 
 his grief is comforted ! What an irony, such comfort irony 
 probably not intended by Virgil, who was no cynic on post- 
 humous fame ! 
 
 The two adventurers, ^Eneas and the Sibyl, come in due 
 
 CHARON LANDING GHOSTS FROM HIS BOAT. 
 
 course to the banks of the Styx. Charon, the infernal ferry- 
 man, challenges ^neas, but the Sibyl speaks the hero's 
 name and shows the golden branch. This satisfies Charon, 
 and he lets ^Eneas step into his boat. The crazy bark sinks 
 deep under living weight, but they all get safe across. It 
 was to a gruesome place : 
 
 Lo ! Cerberus with three-throated bark 
 
 Makes all the region ring, 
 Stretched out along the cavern dark 
 
 That fronts their entering.
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 The seer perceived his monstrous head 
 
 All bristling o'er with snakes uproused, 
 And toward him flings a sop of bread 
 
 With poppy-seed and honey drowsed. 
 He with his triple jaws dispread 
 
 Snaps up the morsel as it falls, 
 Relaxes his huge frame as dead, 
 
 And o'er the cave extended sprawls. 
 The sentry thus in slumber drowned, 
 yEncas takes the vacant ground, 
 And quickly passes from the side 
 Of the irremeable 
 
 (" Ir-re'me-a-ble " (not to be repassed) is Virgil's own stately 
 Latin polysyllable, irrcmeabilis, transferred almost without 
 change into English. In making this impressive transfer 
 Conington follows Dryden.) 
 
 Hark ! as they enter, shrieks arise, 
 
 And wailing great and sore, 
 The souls of infants uttering cries 
 
 At ingress of the door, 
 Whom, portionless of life's sweet bliss, 
 
 From mother's breast untimely torn, 
 The black day hurried to the abyss 
 
 And plunged in darkness soon as born. 
 Next those are placed whom Slander's breath 
 By false arraignment did to death. 
 Nor lacks e'en here the law's appeal, 
 Nor sits no judge the lots to deal. 
 Sage Minos shakes the impartial urn, 
 
 And calls a court of those below, 
 The life of each intent to learn 
 
 And what the cause that wrought them woe. 
 Next comes their portion in the gloom 
 Who guiltless sent themselves to doom, 
 And all for loathing of the day 
 In madness threw their lives away : 
 How gladly now in upper air 
 Contempt and beggary would they bear, 
 
 And labor's sorest pain ! 
 Fate bars the way : around their keep 
 The slow unlovely waters creep 
 
 And bind with ninefold chain. 
 
 Another class were there whom love had slain. Virgil, of 
 course, does not " slip the occasion " indeed it was prob- 
 ably an occasion expressly created by the poet to bring
 
 Virgil. 293 
 
 about a dramatic encounter between /Eneas and Dido. The 
 total effect commends Virgil's art ; for the reader is gratefully 
 relieved in his feeling as to both the two personages con- 
 cerned : 
 
 'Mid these among the branching treen 
 
 Sad Dido moved, the Tyrian queen, 
 
 Her death-wound ghastly yet and green. 
 
 Soon as /Eneas caught the view 
 
 And through the mist her semblance knew, 
 
 Like one who spies or thinks he spies 
 
 Through flickering clouds the new moon rise, 
 
 The tear-drop liom his eyelids broke, 
 
 And thus in tenderest tones he spoke : 
 
 "Ah Dido ! rightly then I read 
 
 The news that told me you were dead, 
 
 Slain by your own rash hand ! 
 Myself the cause of your despair ! 
 Now by the blessed stars I swear, 
 By heaven, by all that dead men keep 
 In reverence here 'mid darkness deep, 
 Against my will, ill-fated fair, 
 
 I parted from your land. 
 The gods, at whose command to-day 
 Through these dim shades 1 take my way, 
 Thread the waste realm of sunless blight, 
 And penetrate abysmal night, 
 They drove me forth : nor could I know 
 My flight would work such cruel woe : 
 Stay, stay your step awhile, nor fly 
 So quickly from /Eneas' eye. 
 Whom would you shun ? this brief space o'er, 
 Fate suffers us to meet no more." 
 Thus while the briny tears run down, 
 The hero strives to calm her frown, 
 
 Still pleading 'gainst disdain : 
 She on the ground averted kept 
 Hard eyes that neither smiled nor wept, 
 Nor bated more of her stern mood 
 Than if a monument she stood 
 
 Of firm Marpesian grain. 
 At length she tears her from the place 
 And hies her, still with sullen face, 
 
 Into the embowering grove, 
 Where her first lord, Sycheeus, shares 
 In tender interchange of cares 
 
 And gives her love for love ; 
 y^neas tracks her as she flies, 
 With bleeding heart and tearful eyes.
 
 294 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 As soon as ^Eneas could stanch his flowing heart and eyes, 
 he with his guide advanced to the quarters of the warrior 
 dead. Here Trojan ghosts recognized him: 
 
 They cluster round their ancient friend ; 
 
 No single view contents their eye : 
 They linger and his steps attend, 
 
 And ask him how he came, and why. 
 
 Upon the Grecian slain a quite different effect is produced 
 by the sight of ^Eneas : 
 
 Some huddle in promiscuous rout 
 
 As erst at Troy they sought the fleet ; 
 
 Some feebly raise the battle-shout ; 
 
 Their straining throats the thin tones flout 
 Unformed and incomplete. 
 
 The Sibyl checks a colloquy between ^Eneas and De-iph'o- 
 bus with reminder that the time was passing. Deiphobus 
 flees, and yEneas now beholds a gloomy prison-house of pain. 
 Virgil describes and, through the Sibyl, relates: 
 
 Hark ! from within there issue groans 
 
 The cracking of the thong, 
 The clank of iron o'er the stones 
 
 Dragged heavily along, 
 tineas halted, and drank in 
 With startled car the fiendish din : 
 " What forms of crime are these?" he cries, 
 
 " What shapes of penal woe? 
 What piteous wails assault the skies? 
 
 O maid ! I fain would know." 
 ''Brave chief of Troy," returned the seer, 
 " No soul from guilt's pollution clear 
 
 May yon foul threshold tread : 
 But me when royal Hecate made 
 Controller of the Avernian shade, 
 The realms of torture she displayed, 
 
 And through their horrors led. 
 Stern monarch of these dark domains, 
 The Gnosian Rhadamanthus reigns: 
 He hears and judges each deceit, 
 
 And makes the soul tliose crimes declare 
 Which, glorying in the empty cheat, 
 
 It veiled from sight in upper air. 
 Swift on the guilty, scourge in hand, 
 
 Leaps fell Tisiphone, and shakes 
 
 Full in their face her loathly snakes, 
 And calls her sister band.
 
 Virgil. 295 
 
 Then, not till then, the hinges grate, 
 
 And slowly opes the infernal gate. 
 
 See you who sits that gate to guard? 
 
 What presence there keeps watch and ward? 
 
 Within, the Hydra's direr shape 
 
 Sits with her fifty throats agape. 
 
 Then Tartarus with sheer descent 
 
 Dips 'neath the ghost-world twice as deep 
 As towers above earth's continent 
 
 The height of heaven's Olympian steep. 
 'Tis there the eldest born of earth, 
 The children of Titanic birth, 
 Hurled headlong by the lightning's blast. 
 Deep in the lowest gulf are cast, 
 Aloeus' sons there met my eyes, 
 Twin monsters of enormous size, 
 Who stormed the gate of heaven, and strove 
 From his high seat to pull down Jove. 
 Salmoneus too I saw in chains, 
 The victim of relentless pains, 
 While Jove's own flame he tries to mock 
 And emulate the thunder-shock. 
 By four fleet coursers chariot-borne 
 And scattering brands in impious scorn 
 
 Through Elis' streets he rode, 
 All Greece assisting at the show, 
 And claimed of fellow-men below 
 
 The honors of a god : 
 
 Fond fool ! to think that thunderous crash 
 And heaven's inimitable flash 
 Man's puny craft could counterfeit 
 With rattling brass and horsehoof s beat. 
 Lo ! from the sky the Almighty Sire 
 The levin-bolt's authentic fire 
 
 'Mid thickest darkness sped 
 (No volley his of pine-wood smoke) 
 And with the inevitable stroke 
 
 Dispatched him to the dead. 
 There too is Tityos the accurst, 
 By earth's all-fostering bosom nurst : 
 O'er acres nine from end to end 
 His vast unmeasured limbs extend : 
 A vulture on his liver preys : 
 The liver fails not nor decays : 
 Still o'er that flesh, which breeds new pangs, 
 With crooked beak the torturer hangs, 
 Explores its depth with bloody fangs, 
 
 And searches for her food ; 
 Still haunts the cavern of his breast, 
 Nor lets the filaments have rest, 
 
 To endless pain renewed.
 
 296 
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Why should I name the Lapiih race, 
 
 Pirithous and Ixion base? 
 
 A frowning rock their heads o'ertops, 
 
 Which ever nods and almost drops: 
 
 Couches where golden pillars shine 
 
 Invite them freely to recline, 
 
 And banquets smile before their eyne 
 
 With kingly splendor proud : 
 When lo ! fell malice in her mien, 
 Beside them lies the Furies' queen : 
 From the rich fare she bars their hand, 
 Thrusts in their face her sulphurous brand, 
 
 And thunders hoarse and loud. 
 Here those who wronged a brother's love, 
 
 Assailed a sire's grey hair, 
 Or for a trustful client wove 
 
 A treachery and a snare, 
 Who wont on hoarded wealth to brood, 
 In sullen selfish solitude, 
 Nor call their friends to share the good 
 
 (The most in number they) 
 W r ith those whom vengeance robbed of life 
 For guilty love of other's wife, 
 And those who drew the unnatural sword, 
 Or broke the bond 'twixt slave and lord, 
 
 Await the reckoning-day. 
 
 SISYPHUS, IXION, TANTALUS. 
 
 Ask not their doom, nor seek to know 
 What depth receives them there below. 
 Some roll huge rocks up rising ground, 
 Or hang, to whirling wheels fast bound ;
 
 Virgil. 297 
 
 There in the bottom of the pit 
 Sits Theseus, and will ever sit : 
 And Phlegyas warns the ghostly crowd, 
 Proclaiming through the shades aloud, 
 " Behold, and learn to practice right, 
 Nor do the blessed gods despite." 
 This to a tyrant master sold 
 His native land for cursed gold, 
 
 Made laws for lucre and unmade: 
 That dared his daughter's bed to climb: 
 All, all essayed some monstrous crime, 
 
 And perfected the crime essayed. 
 No had I e'en a hundred tongues, 
 A hundred mouths, and iron lungs, 
 Those types of guilt I could not show, 
 Nor tell the forms of penal woe. 
 
 The Sibyl, ending thus, once more hastens ^Eneas, and 
 they go on to the dwelling-place of the happy dead. At the 
 entrance, ^Eneas deposits his golden bough. Virgil describes 
 Elysium and its inhabitants : 
 
 Green spnces, folded in with trees, 
 A paradise of pleasances. 
 Around the champaign mantles bright 
 The fullness of purpureal light ; 
 Another sun and stars they know, 
 That shine like ours, but shine below. 
 There some disport their manly frames 
 In wrestling and palsestral games, 
 Strive on the grassy sward, or stand 
 Contending on the yellow sand : 
 Some ply the dance with eager feet 
 And chant responsive to its beat. 
 The priest of Thrace in loose attire 
 Makes music on his seven-stringed lyre; 
 The sweet notes 'neath his ringers trill, 
 Or tremble 'neath his ivory quill. 
 Here dwell the chiefs from Teucer sprung, 
 Brave heroes, born when earth was young, 
 Ilus, Assaracus, and he 
 "Who gave his name to Dardany. 
 Marveling, /Eneas sees from far 
 The ghostly arms, the shadowy car. 
 Their spears are planted in the mead: 
 Free o'er the plain their horses feed : 
 Whate'er the living found of charms 
 In chariot and refulgent arms, 
 13*
 
 298 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 YVhate'er their care to tend and groom 
 Their glossy steeds, outlives the tomb. 
 Others along the sward he sees 
 Reclined, and feasting at their ease 
 
 With chanted Paeans, blessed souls, 
 Amid a fragrant bay-tree grove, 
 Whence rising in the world above 
 Eridanus 'twixt bowering trees 
 
 His breadth of water rolls. 
 
 Here sees he the illustrious dead 
 Who fighting for their country bled ; 
 Priests, who while earthly life remained 
 Preserved that life unsoiled, unstained ; 
 Blest bards, transparent souls and clear, 
 Whose song was worthy Phoebus' ear ; 
 Inventors, who by arts refined 
 The common life of human kind, 
 With all who grateful memory won 
 By services to others done : 
 A goodly brotherhood, bedight 
 With coronals of virgin white. 
 There as they stream along the plain 
 The Sibyl thus accosts the train, 
 Musoeus o'er the rest, for he 
 Stands midmost in that company, 
 His stately head and shoulders tall 
 O'ertopping and admired of all : 
 " Say, happy souls, and thou, blest seer, 
 
 In what retreat Anchises bides : 
 To look on him we journey here, 
 
 Across the dread Avernian tides." 
 And answer to her quest in brief 
 Thus made the venerable chief: 
 " No several home has each assigned; 
 We dwell where forest pathways wind, 
 Haunt velvet banks 'neath shady treen, 
 And meads with rivulets fresh and green ; 
 But climb with me this ridgy hill, 
 Yon path shall take you where you will." 
 He said, and led the way, and showed 
 
 The fields of dazzling light : 
 They gladly choose the downward road, 
 
 And issue from the height. 
 
 They find Anchises busy at an employment which must 
 have afforded that highly patriotic old gentleman much 
 pleasure. He was surveying the yet unborn generations of 
 his own destined progeny. For this Elysium seems to have
 
 Virgil. 299 
 
 been not only the home of the beatified dead, but a waiting- 
 place, an ante-room, for those that were to live. Anchises 
 descries ^Eneas and salutes him. The son striving to em- 
 brace the sire is cheated with an intangible phantom in his 
 grasp. But a new sight diverts his mind : 
 
 Deep woodlands, where the evening gale 
 
 Goes whispering through the trees, 
 And Lethe river, which flows by 
 Those dwellings of tranquillity. 
 Nations and tribes, in countless ranks, 
 Were crowding to its verdant banks : 
 As bees afield in summer clear 
 Beset the flowerets far and near 
 And round the fair white lilies pour : 
 The deep hum sounds the champaign o'er. 
 tineas, startled at the scene, 
 Asks wondering what the noise may mean, 
 What river this, or what the throng 
 That crowds so thick its banks along. 
 
 Anchises replying describes a kind of purgatory in which 
 souls linger, to become pure through pain, until, after the lapse 
 of a millennium, summoned they come to the banks of Lethe 
 and thence drinking forget the past and are born anew into 
 the world of men. Readers will hardly need to be told that 
 Virgil has thus prepared his way for going over, in a novel 
 and striking manner, the whole range of Roman history. It 
 will be prophecy at excellent advantage, for it will be proph- 
 ecy after the fact. There will be in it magnificent opportu- 
 nity offered for compliment to the imperial house of Rome. 
 Such compliment Virgil prepares, compliment more elaborate 
 and more lofty than perhaps ever before or since in the annals 
 of literature was laid by poet at the feet of his prince. An- 
 chises leads his son yEneas with the Sibyl to a " specular 
 
 mount," 
 
 whence the eye 
 
 Might form and countenance descry, 
 As each one passed along. 
 
 Anchises then takes up the office of herald or usher, and 
 announces the name and quality of the illustrious descend-
 
 300 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 ants who should prolong and decorate the Trojan line. 
 
 We quote : 
 
 " Now listen what the future fame 
 Shall follow the Dardanian name, 
 
 What glorious spirits wait 
 Our progeny to furnish forth : 
 My tongue shall name each soul of worth, 
 
 And show you of your fate. 
 See you yon gallant youth advance 
 Leaning upon a headless lance? 
 He next in upper air holds place, 
 First offspring of the Italian race 
 Commixed with ours, your latest child 
 By Alban name of Silvius styled, 
 Whom to your eye Lavinia fair 
 In silvan solitude shall bear, 
 King, sire of kings, by whom comes down 
 Through Trojan hands the Alban crown. 
 Nearest to him see Procas shine, 
 The glory of Dardania's line, 
 And Numitor and Capys too, 
 And one that draws his name from you, 
 Silvius ./Eneas, mighty he 
 Alike in arms and piety, 
 Should Fate's high pleasure e'er command 
 The Alban scepter to his land. 
 Look how they bloom in youth's fresh flower ! 
 What promise theirs of martial power ! 
 Mark you the civic wreath they wear, 
 The oaken garland in their hair? 
 These, these are they, whose hands shall crown 
 The mountain heights with many a town. 
 Shall Gabii and Nomentum rear, 
 There plant Collatia, Cora here, 
 And leave to after years their stamp 
 On ISola and on Inuus' camp : 
 Names that shall then be far renowned, 
 Now nameless spots of unknown ground. 
 There to his grandsire's fortune clings 
 
 Young Romulus of Mars' true breed ; 
 From Ilia's womb the warrior springs, 
 
 Assaracus' authentic seed. 
 See on his helm the double crest, 
 The token by his sire impressed, 
 That marks him out betimes to share 
 The heritage of upper air. 
 Lo ! by his fiat called to birth 
 
 Imperial Rome shall rise. 
 Extend her reign to utmost earth, 
 
 Her genius to the skies,
 
 Virgil. 301 
 
 And with a wall of girdling stone 
 Embrace seven hills herself alone 
 Blest in an offspring wise and strong : 
 So through great cities rides along 
 
 The mighty Mother, crowned with towers, 
 Around her knees a numerous line, 
 A hundred grandsons, all divine, 
 
 All tenants of Olympian bowers. 
 
 Turn hither now your ranging eye : 
 Behold a glorious family, 
 
 Your sons and sons of Rome : 
 Lo ! Caesar there and all his seed, 
 lulus' progeny, decreed 
 
 To pass 'neath heaven's high dome. 
 This, this is he, so oft the theme 
 Of your prophetic fancy's dream, 
 
 Augustus Csesar, Jove's own strain ; 
 Restorer of the age of gold 
 In lands where Saturn ruled of old : 
 O'er Ind and Garamant extreme 
 
 Shall stretch his boundless reign. 
 
 Look to that land which lies afar 
 Beyond the path of sun or star, 
 Where Atlas on his shoulder rears 
 The burden of the incumbent spheres. 
 Egypt e'en now and Caspia hear 
 The muttered voice of many a seer, 
 And Nile's seven mouths, disturbed with fear, 
 
 Their coming conqueror know: 
 Alcicles in his savage chase 
 Ne'er traveled o'er so wide a space, 
 What though the brass-hoofed deer he killed, 
 And Erymanthus' forest stilled, 
 And Lerna's depth with terror thrilled 
 At twanging of his bow : 
 Nor stretched his conquering march so far, 
 Who drove his ivy-harnessed car 
 From Nysa's lofty height, and broke 
 The tiger's spirit 'neath his yoke. 
 And shrink we in this glorious hour 
 From bidding worth assert her power, 
 Or ran our craven hearts recoil 
 From settling on Ausonian soil? 
 
 But who is he at distance seen 
 With priestly garb and olive green ? 
 That reverend beard, that hoary hair 
 The royal sage of Rome declare, 
 Who first shall round the city draw 
 The limitary lines of law,
 
 302 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Called forth from Cures' petty town 
 To bear the burden of a crown. 
 Then he whose voice shall break the rest 
 That lulled to sleep a nation's breast, 
 And sound in languid ears the cry 
 Of Tullus and of victory. 
 
 Say, shall I show you face to face 
 The monarchs of Tarquinian race, 
 And vengeful Brutus, proud to wring 
 The people's fasces from a king? 
 lie first in consul's pomp shall lift 
 The axe and rods, the freeman's gift, 
 And call his own rebellious seed 
 For menaced liberty to bleed. 
 Unhappy father ! howso'e'er 
 
 The deed be judged by after days, 
 His country's love shall all o'erbear, 
 
 And unextinguished thirst of praise. 
 There move the Decii, Drusus here, 
 Torquatus, too, with axe severe, 
 And great Camillus : mark him show 
 Rome's standards rescued from the foe V 
 But those who side by side you see 
 
 In equal armor bright, 
 Now twined in bonds of amity 
 
 While yet they dwell in night, 
 Alas ! how terrible their strife, 
 If e'er they win their way to life, 
 
 How fierce the shock of war, 
 Tliis kinsman rushing to the fight 
 From castellated Alpine height, 
 That leading his embattled might 
 
 From farthest morning star ! 
 Kay, children, nay, your hate unlearn, 
 Jsor 'gainst your country's vitals turn 
 
 The valor of her sons : 
 And thou, do thou the first refrain ; 
 Cast down thy weapons on the plain, 
 Thou, born of Jove's Olympian strain, 
 
 In whom my lifeblood runs ! 
 
 One, victor in Corinthian war, 
 Up Capitol shall drive his car, 
 
 Proud of Achseans slain : 
 And one MyceriEe shall o'erthrow, 
 The city of the Atridan foe, 
 And e'en ^fiacides destroy, 
 Achilles' long-descended boy, 
 In vengeance for his sires of Troy, 
 
 And Pallas' plundered fane.
 
 Virgil. 303 
 
 Who mighty Cato, Cossus, who 
 
 Would keep your names concealed ? 
 The Gracchi, and the Scipios t\vo, 
 
 The levins of the field, 
 Serranus o'er his furrow bowed, 
 Or thee, Fabricius, poor yet proud ? 
 Ye Fabii, must your actions done 
 The speed of panting praise outrun? 
 Our greatest thou, whose wise delay 
 Restores the fortune of the day. 
 Others, I ween, with happier grace 
 From bronze or stone shall call the face, 
 Plead doubtful causes, map the skies, 
 And tell when planets set or rise : 
 But ye, my Romans, sti! 1 control 
 
 The nations far and wide, 
 Be this your genius to impose 
 The rule of peace on vanquished foes, 
 Show pity to the humbled soul, 
 
 And crush the sons of pride." 
 
 Virgil, they say, read his sixth book aloud to Augustus. 
 At the reading, Augustus's sister, Octavia, was present. This 
 sister had then just lost a son, Marcellus, dead at twenty 
 years of age. With exquisite art of adulation, perhaps too 
 of sincerely sympathetic consolation, Virgil, as we are just 
 about to show our readers, introduced at this point a noble 
 and delicate tribute to young Marcellus. The story is that 
 the mother fainted with emotion when she heard it. She 
 rallied, to make the fortunate poet glad with a great gift of 
 money. We proceed with the resumed prophetic strain of 
 Anchises, allusive now to Marcellus: 
 
 He ceased ; and ere their awe was o'er, 
 Took up his prophecy once more: 
 " Lo, great Marcellus ! see him tower 
 With kingly spoils, in conquering power, 
 
 The warrior host above ! 
 He in a day of dire debate 
 Shall stablish firm the reeling state, 
 The Carthaginian bands o'erride, 
 Break down the Gaul's insurgent pride, 
 And the third trophy dedicate 
 
 To Rome's Feretrian Jove."
 
 304 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Then spoke /Eneas, who beheld 
 
 Beside the warrior pace 
 A youth, full-armed, by none excelled 
 
 In beauty's manly grace, 
 But on his brow was naught of mirth, 
 And his fixed eyes were dropped on earth ; 
 "Who, father, he, who thus attends 
 
 Upon that chief divine? 
 His son, or other who descends 
 
 From his illustrious line ? 
 What whispers in the encircling crowd? 
 The portance of his steps how proud ? 
 But gloomy night, as of the dead, 
 Flaps her sad pinions o'er his head." 
 The sire replies, while down his cheek 
 
 The tear-drops roll apace : 
 " Ah son ! compel me not to speak 
 
 The sorrows of our race ! 
 That youth the Fates but just display 
 To earth, nor let him longer stay : 
 With gifts like these for aye to hold, 
 Rome's heart had e'en been overbold. 
 Ah ! what a groan from Mars's plain 
 
 Shall o'er the city sound ! 
 How wilt thou gaze on that long train, 
 Old Tiber, rolling to the main 
 
 Beside his new-raised mound ! 
 No youth of Ilium's seed inspires 
 With hope as fair his Latian sires : 
 Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee 
 A nursling so adored as he. 
 O piety ! O ancient faith ! 
 O hand untamed in battle scathe ! 
 No foe had lived before his sword, 
 
 Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide 
 Or with relentless rowel gored 
 
 His foaming charger's side. 
 Dear child of pity ! shouldst thou burst 
 The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst, 
 
 Our own Marcellus thou ! 
 Bring lilies here, in handfuls bring: 
 Their lustrous blooms I fain would fling: 
 Such honor to a grandson's shade 
 By grandsire hands may well be paid : 
 
 Yet O ! it 'vails not now ! " 
 
 Mid such discourse, at will they range 
 The mist-clad region, dim and strange. 
 So when the sire the son had led 
 Through all the ranks of happy dead,
 
 Virgil. 305 
 
 And stirred his spirit into flame 
 At thought of centuries of fame, 
 With prophet power lie next relates 
 The war that in the future waits, 
 Italia's fated realm describes, 
 Latinus' town, Laurentum's tribes, 
 And tells him how to face or fly 
 Each cloud that darkens o'er his sky. 
 Sleep gives his name to portals twain : 
 
 One all of horn, they say, 
 Through which authentic specters gain 
 
 Quick exit into day, 
 
 And one which bright with ivory gleams, 
 Whence Pluto sends delusive dreams. 
 Conversing still the sire attends 
 
 The travelers on their road, 
 And through the ivory portal sends 
 
 From forth the unseen abode. 
 The chief betakes him to the fleet, 
 Well pleased again his crew to meet : 
 Then for Caieta's port sets sail, 
 
 Straight coasting by the strand : 
 The anchors from the prow they hale, 
 
 The sterns are turned to land. 
 
 'Let readers remark with what fine artistic self-restraint 
 Virgil at the close dimisses the arduous subject of the sixth 
 book. No effort at unnaturally sustaining the tension be- 
 yond its just end. The stream of his verse has writhed in 
 long subterranean torture, but it issues, placidly in light and 
 peace, with calm unconscious resumption of the usual flow 
 of the narrative. The basis of the whole episode is Homeric, 
 but the majestic imperial sweep of execution is purely, in- 
 imitably, Virgilian. 
 
 Students of Milton will not fail to note, in that poet's review 
 of the history of the world, given in prophetic recital to Adam 
 from the lips of Raphael, the "affable archangel," a likeness 
 in idea to Virgil's sketch of Roman story put into the mouth 
 of Anchises in Elysium. On the whole, there is no nobler 
 poetry in Virgil, no poetry at the same time more character- 
 istic of the poet at his highest and best, and more character- 
 istic of great Rome herself at the summit of her victorious 
 pride, than is what we have thus, from the sixth book of
 
 306 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 the ^Eneid, spread out in large quotation before our readers. 
 If your heart does not swell, and your imagination stir her 
 wings, at this touch from the wand of the enchanter, then 
 you may conclude that his power is powerless for you. 
 
 We have now finished that part of the yneid which is 
 usually read by the student in preparation for college. What 
 remains of the poem we may fairly despatch, as necessarily 
 \ve must, within very brief space, ^neas, thrifty soul, secures 
 for himself a royal matrimonial alliance, which, however, in- 
 volves him in war with a rival, Turnus by name. This Tur- 
 nus is the foil to ^Eneas. The foil is almost too much for 
 the hero. It is decidedly by a very narrow chance, if the 
 reader's sympathies do not go over from cold-blooded 
 yEneas to the side of Turnus foredoomed to be slain. After 
 many oscillations of fortune in war, the narration of which 
 is mixed and prolonged with many episodes and many dia- 
 logues, it is finally determined that Turnus and ^Eneas shall 
 decide the strife by single combat. This combat, with its 
 diversified incidents, fills up the measure of the twelfth and 
 last book of the poem. It is the Iliad over again, but the 
 Iliad fairly made into the ^Eneid, by a genius in Virgil as 
 clearly his own as the genius of Homer was his. We quote 
 the closing lines. Turnus is overthrown, after heroic struggle 
 against a foregone and foreshown conclusion of the strife. 
 He confesses defeat, resigns his betrothed to ^Eneas, but begs 
 to be sent back, living or dead, to hre father. Now Virgil : 
 
 Rolling his eyes, tineas stood, 
 
 And checked his sword, athirst for blood. 
 
 Now faltering more and more he felt 
 
 The human heart within him melt, 
 
 When round the shoulder wreathed in pride 
 
 The belt of Pallas he espied, 
 
 And sudden flashed upon his view 
 
 Those golden studs so well he knew, 
 
 Which Turnus from the stripling tore 
 
 When breathless on the field he lay, 
 And on his breast in triumph wore, 
 
 Memorial of the bloody day.
 
 Virgil. 307 
 
 Soon as his eyes had gazed their fill 
 
 On that sad monument of ill, 
 
 Live fury kindling every vein, 
 
 He cries with terrible disdain : 
 
 " What ! in my friend's dear spoils arrayed 
 
 To me for mercy sue ? 
 'Tis Pallas, Pallas guides the blade: 
 From your cursed blood his injured shade 
 
 Thus takes the atonement due." 
 Thus as he spake, his sword he drave 
 
 With fierce and fiery blow 
 Through the broad breast before him spread : 
 The stalwart limbs grow cold and dead : 
 One groan the indignant spirit gave, 
 
 Then sought the shades below. 
 
 We dismiss our task with Virgil by presenting to our read- 
 ers the elaborate parallel that Pope, in the preface to his 
 translation of the Iliad, draws between the Greek poet and 
 the Roman : 
 
 "The beauty of his [Homer's] numbers is allowed by the 
 critics to be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though 
 they are so just as to ascribe it to the nature of the Latin 
 tongue. Indeed, the Greek has some advantages, both from 
 the natural sound of its words, and the turn and cadence of 
 its verse, which agree with the genius of no other language. 
 Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost dil- 
 igence in working up a more intractable language to what- 
 soever graces it was capable of; and in particular never 
 failed to bring the sound of his line to a beautiful agree- 
 ment with its sense. [A celebrated instance of this occurs 
 in the eighth book, line 596 : 
 
 Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum, 
 
 to represent the measured numerous tread of galloping horses. ] 
 If the Grecian poet has not bean so frequently celebrated on 
 this account as the Roman, the only reason is, that fewer crit- 
 ics have understood one language than the other. Dionysius 
 of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our author's 
 beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the ' Composition of
 
 308 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Words.' It suffices at present to observe of his numbers, 
 that they flow with so much ease as to make one imagine 
 Homer had no other care than to transcribe as fast as the 
 Muses dictated ; and at the same time with so much force 
 and aspiring vigor that they awaken and raise us like the 
 sound of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river, 
 always in motion, and always full ; while we are borne away 
 by a tide of verse, the most rapid and yet the most smooth 
 imaginable. 
 
 " Thus, on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what 
 principally strikes us is his invention. It is that which 
 forms the character of each part of his work ; and accord- 
 ingly we find it to have made his fable more extensive 
 and copious than any other, his manners more lively and 
 strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and trans- 
 ported, his sentiments more warm and sublime, his im- 
 ages and descriptions more full and animated, his expres- 
 sion more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid 
 and various. I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with 
 regard to any of these heads, I have in no way derogated 
 from his character. Nothing is more absurd and endless 
 than the common method of comparing eminent writers by 
 an opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a 
 judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole. We 
 ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character 
 and distinguishing excellence of each : it is in that we are to 
 consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are 
 to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the 
 world in more than one faculty : and as Homer has done 
 this in invention, Virgil has in judgment ; not that we are to 
 think Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil has it in a 
 more eminent degree, or that Virgil wanted invention, be- 
 cause Homer possessed a larger share of it ; each of these 
 great authors had more of both than perhaps any man be- 
 sides, and are only said to have less in comparison with one
 
 Virgil. 309 
 
 another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better 
 artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the 
 work; Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding 
 impetuosity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty; 
 Homer scatters with a generous profusion, Virgil bestows 
 with a careful magnificence ; Homer, like the Nile, pours 
 out his riches with a boundless overflow ; Virgil, like a river 
 in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we 
 behold their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the 
 heroes they celebrate. Homer, boundless and irresistible as 
 Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as 
 the tumult increases ; Virgil, calmly daring, like ^Eneas, ap- 
 pears undisturbed in the midst of the action, disposes all 
 about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we 
 look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter 
 in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, 
 and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his 
 benevolence, .counseling with the gods, laying plans for em- 
 pires, and regularly ordering his whole creation." 
 
 Those who have read the present volume, together with 
 its fellow preceding, are prepared to enter, with the two 
 books following in completion of the series, upon their col- 
 lege course in Greek and Latin. We shall hope to graduate 
 our readers in numbers increasing rather than diminishing 
 to the end of their classical course.
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 READERS of this book who may desire to make some- 
 what serious work of the perusal, will appreciate a scheme 
 of review and self-testing here submitted. We first assemble, 
 in alphabetical order, the various proper names having a 
 certain degree of importance that occur in the foregoing 
 pages, with space enough adjacent left blank to receive the 
 entry of such facts concerning the persons or places named 
 as are most material. 
 
 We begin with the principal names, that is, the names of 
 the Latin authors whose writings are reproduced, and follow 
 with the names of persons incidentally or subordinately 
 mentioned. Then comes a list of geographical and national 
 names. 
 
 We reprint here the few prefatory words furnished by 
 Rev. John H. Vincent, D.D., for a similar scheme, his own 
 device, in the Preparatory Greek Course taking pleasure, 
 at the same time, in crediting to that enlightened and 
 public-spirited popular instructor, the origination of the idea 
 of this series of volumes: 
 
 THE STUDENT'S MEMORANDA. 
 
 The reader of this volume may profitably fill the blanks 
 on the following pages. 
 
 The labor required in this is very slight, but well performed 
 will be of value, as it incites to the exercise of judgment, the
 
 Appendix. 311 
 
 discipline of memory, and the training in the art of concise 
 and comprehensive statement. Every effort to recall and to 
 express one's knowledge gives a firmer hold upon that knowl- 
 edge, and renders it of greater practical value. He who 
 does a little work well, will know how to undertake some- 
 thing larger, and from this experience will come continued 
 and cumulative success. The reader may become the stu- 
 dent, and the student, after a while, the scholar. 
 
 The exercises here provided are for beginners whether 
 they be old or young. They are not tasks assigned, but op- 
 portunities offered. The work may be done at any time, 
 and in any place, and after any method. Only let the work 
 be done. 
 
 The student having mastered the several subjects with 
 sufficient fullness to be able to write out his answers, should 
 do so with care and neatness, that he may never have reason 
 to be ashamed of the portion of the book which he has him- 
 self written. 
 
 Record. Began reading this book , 1 88 . 
 
 Finished it , 1 88 . . 
 
 Name 
 
 Residence 
 
 A Statement. The object of this book :
 
 312 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 An Outline. The contents of the book stated in few words : 
 
 A Selection. In what incidents and passages contained in 
 the book have I been most interested? (Indicate here by 
 pages. On the pages mark the selections.) 
 
 Biographical. Give in condensed form the principal facts 
 and characteristics * of the following persons : 
 CAESAR : 
 
 CICERO: 
 
 * Name. .. .Family ... .Time and Place of Birth. .. . Prin. Deeds.... 
 Prin. Writings. . . .Characteristics. . . .Time and Place of Death. . . .Esti- 
 mate of Influence, . . .
 
 Appendix. 313 
 
 OVID : 
 
 SALLUST 
 
 VIRGIL : 
 
 Acco : 
 Addison : 
 Adherbal 
 
 JEschines; 
 Ambiorix: 
 14
 
 314 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Angelico : 
 
 Antony : 
 Ascanius : 
 Augustus: 
 Ariovistus : 
 Arnold : 
 Ascham : 
 Baculus : 
 Blackie : 
 Bocchus: 
 Boileau : 
 Browning, Mrs. : 
 Brutus: 
 Burke : 
 Byron :
 
 Appendix. 315 
 
 Butcher & Lang: 
 
 Carlyle : 
 Cassivelaunus : 
 Catiline : 
 Cato : 
 Cavour : 
 Chapman : 
 Charon : 
 Choate : 
 Cineas: 
 Coleridge: 
 Collins : 
 Cornelia: 
 Cranch : 
 Crassus:
 
 316 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Creighton : 
 
 Creusa: 
 Croly : 
 Cruttwell : 
 Curtius : 
 Dumnorix : 
 De Quincey : 
 Dido: 
 Divitiacus: 
 Dolabella : 
 Dryden : 
 Egeria : 
 Ennius : 
 Epicurus : 
 Euripides :
 
 Appendix, 317 
 
 Fabius : 
 
 Frederic the Great : 
 Froude : 
 Gibbon : 
 Goethe : 
 Gracchus : 
 Hamilcar : 
 Hannibal : 
 Havelock: 
 Hawthorne : 
 Hesiod : 
 Hiempsal : 
 Hirtius: 
 Homer : 
 Horace :
 
 318 Preparatory Latin Course in English* 
 
 Hortensius: 
 
 Isaiah : 
 
 lulus: 
 
 Johnson: 
 
 Jugurtha: 
 
 Juvenal : 
 
 Labienus : 
 
 Leighton : 
 
 Liddell : 
 
 Livius Andronicus: 
 
 Livy : 
 
 Long: 
 
 Longinus: 
 
 Long, John D. : 
 
 Louis XIV.:
 
 Appendix. ? T o 
 
 Lowell : 
 Lucilius: 
 Lucretius : 
 Lucullus: 
 Macaulay : 
 Maecenas : 
 Marcellus : 
 Marius : 
 Memmius: 
 Metellus : 
 Merivale : 
 Micipsa: 
 Milton : 
 Mommsen : 
 Montesquieu :
 
 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Morris : 
 Mithridates : 
 Motley: 
 Naevius : 
 Napoleon : 
 Nepos Cornelius : 
 Nero : 
 Niobe : 
 Octavia : 
 Orgetorix : 
 Palinurus : 
 Phaer : 
 Phaeton : 
 
 Philip of Macedon 
 Plautus :
 
 Appendix. 321 
 
 Pliny : 
 
 Plutarch : 
 Pollio: 
 
 Pompey : 
 Pope : 
 
 Pulfio: 
 Pyrrhus : 
 Quintilian : 
 Regulus : 
 
 Romulus and Remus : 
 Rutilius: 
 Saxe : 
 Scaurus : 
 Scipio : 
 Simcox : 
 14*
 
 322 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Sellar : 
 
 Seneca: 
 Shakespeare: 
 Sinon : 
 Sixtus : 
 Spenser : 
 Suetonius : . 
 Sumner : 
 Sylla : 
 
 Taylor, Bayard : 
 Tennyson : 
 Terence: 
 Theocritus : 
 Thomson : 
 Thucydides :
 
 Appendix. 323 
 
 Tiberius : 
 
 Titurius: 
 Titus : 
 Trollope : 
 Turnus : 
 Varro : 
 
 Vercingetorix : 
 Victor Immanuel : 
 Volux : 
 Webster: 
 Wordsworth : 
 Xenophon : 
 
 Students will find highly useful an atlas of Ancient or 
 Classical Geography. Such an atlas elegantly executed is 
 offered by Ginn, Heath, & Co., at reasonable rates. 
 
 Geographical and National : * 
 
 * Location .... Size , . . . Characteristics. . . . Influence. . . .
 
 524 Preparatory Latin Course in English, 
 
 Allobroges : 
 
 Aquitanians : 
 Ardennes : 
 Balearic : 
 Belgians : 
 Bellovaci : 
 Britain : 
 Cannae : 
 Capua : 
 Carthage : 
 Chester: 
 Cimbrians : 
 Crete : 
 Delos : 
 Dorchester :
 
 Appendix, 
 Eburones : 
 
 Epirus : 
 
 Getulians : 
 
 Germany : 
 
 Goths : 
 
 Helvetians 
 
 Huns : 
 
 Italy : 
 
 Latium : 
 
 Lingones : 
 
 Luca : 
 
 Lutetia Parisiorum: 
 
 Macedonia: 
 
 Massilia : 
 
 Mauritania :
 
 326 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 Nervii : 
 
 Numidia : 
 Parthenope : 
 Pontus : 
 Remi : 
 Rome : 
 Sequani : 
 Sicily : 
 Suessiones : 
 Suevi : 
 Syria : 
 Tarentum : 
 Teutons : 
 Thrace : 
 Tiber :
 
 Appendix. 327 
 
 Treviri : 
 
 Utica : 
 Veneti : 
 
 ROMAN HISTORY. 
 
 From Dr. Vincent's interesting and helpful little primer of 
 Roman History, belonging to the series of Chautauqua 
 Text-books, so-called, we lake the following arrangement of 
 periods and ages : 
 
 I. The TRADITIONAL about 500 years from 1,000 B.C. 
 to 509 B.C. And this may be again divided into two nearly 
 equal periods: 
 
 1. From the Etruscan entrance to the founding of Rome. 
 (It may help the memory to associate with the founding of 
 Rome by Romulus, in 753 B.C., the first Olympiad in Greece, 
 776 B.C., and the taking into captivity of the ten tribes of 
 Israel, 721 B.C.) 
 
 2. From the founding of Rome to the expulsion of the last 
 of its " seven kings." 
 
 II. The REPUBLICAN about 500 years from 509 B. C. to 
 30 B. C. At the first date (509) the last king (Tarquinius 
 Superbus) passed into exile. At the last date (30) the first 
 emperor (Augustus Caesar) passed into power. The repub- 
 lican period comprised four stages : 
 
 1. Tli at of class-strife in Rome. 
 
 2. That of tribal feuds in Italy. 
 
 3. That of foreign conquest in Europe, Asia, and Africa. 
 
 4. That of civil wars within the republic. 
 
 III. The IMPERIAL about 500 years from 30 B. C. to 
 476 A. D. from the first emperor Octavius (Augustus) to
 
 328 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 the sixty-second emperor Romulus Augustulus. This pe- 
 riod comprised five ages : 
 
 1. The Augustan Age. 
 
 2. The Augustan Emperors. 
 
 3. The Age of the Twelve. 
 
 4. The Age of the Decline. 
 
 5. The Age of the Vandals. 
 
 From Mr. Creighton's Primer we transfer the following 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 B. c. 
 
 Rome founded 753 
 
 The Romans drove out their Kings 509 
 
 The Plebeians first had Tribunes 494 
 
 The Decemvirs published the Laws at Rome 451 
 
 The Romans took Veii from the Etruscans 396 
 
 The Gauls took Rome 389 
 
 The Laws of Licinius and Sextius made the Pa- 
 tricians and Plebeians equal in Rome 366 
 
 The Romans conquered the Latins 338 
 
 The Romans, having conquered the Samnites, be- 
 came the chief people in Italy 290 
 
 The Romans drove Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, out of 
 
 Italy... 275 
 
 First war with Carthage 264-241 
 
 War with Hannibal , 2 19-202 
 
 The Romans conquered the East 200-160 
 
 The Romans conquered Spain 150 
 
 Destruction of Carthage 146 
 
 Tiberius Gracchus tried to reform the Roman State 133 
 
 Caius Gracchus tried to reform the Roman State. . 123-121 
 
 War with Jugurtha in Numidia 1 1 1-106 
 
 Caius Marius drove back the Teutones and Cimbri 
 
 from Italy 102 
 
 The Italians forced Rome to make them Roman 
 
 citizens 91-89 
 
 Civil War between Sulla and Marius 88-82 
 
 Cnreus Pompeius overcame Rome's rebels 74~6i 
 
 Caius Julius Qusar conquered the Gauls 58-49 
 
 Caius Julius Ciesar invaded Britain 54
 
 Appendix. 329 
 
 Civil War between Pompeius and Csesar in which B. c. 
 Cresar was conqueror at the Battle of Pharsalia 49-48 
 
 Caius Julius Caesar put himself at the head of the 
 
 Government of Rome 48-44 
 
 Caius Julius Caesar was murdered 44 
 
 Marcus Antonius, Caius Octavianus, and Marcus 
 Lepidus gained the chief power in the Roman 
 State 43 
 
 Octavianus defeated Antonius at Actium, and be- 
 came the chief man in Rome 31 
 
 Octavianus, known as Augustus Caesar, governed the 
 Roman Republic as Emperor, B. C. 30-14 A. D. 
 
 From the Appendix to Cruttwell's " History of Roman Lit- 
 erature " we make a selection of 
 
 Questions or Subjects for Essays Suggested by the History of 
 Roman Literature. 
 
 1. Trace the influence of conquest on Roman literature. 
 
 2. Examine Niebuhr's hypothesis of an old Roman epos. 
 
 3. Trace the causes of the special devotion to poetry during 
 
 the Augustan Age. 
 
 4. State succinctly the debt of Roman thought, in all its 
 
 branches, to Greece. 
 
 5. Criticise Mommsen's remark, that the drama is, after all, 
 
 the form of literature for which the Romans were best 
 adapted. 
 
 6. In what sense is it true that the intellectual progress of 
 
 a nation is measured by its prose writers? 
 
 7. "Latin literature lacks originality." How far is this criti- 
 
 cism sound ? 
 
 8. It has been remarked, that while every great Roman au- 
 
 thor expresses a hope of literary immortality, few, if any, 
 of the great Greek authors mention it. How far is this 
 difference suggestive of their respective national charac- 
 ters, and of radically distinct conceptions of art ?
 
 330 Preparatory Latin Course in English. 
 
 9. Examine the traces of a satiric tendency in Roman liter- 
 
 ature, independent of professed satire. 
 
 10. " O dimidiate Mcnander." , By whom said? Of whom 
 said? Criticise. 
 
 11. "Roman history ended where it had begun, in biogra- 
 
 phy." (Merivale.) Account for the predominance of 
 biography in Latin literature. 
 
 12. In what sense can Ennius rightly be called the father of 
 Latin literature ? 
 
 13. Compare the Homeric characters as they appear in Virgil 
 with their originals in the Iliad and Odyssey, and with 
 the same as treated by the Greek tragedians. 
 
 14. Contrast Latin with Greek (illustrating by any analogies 
 that may occur to you in modern languages) as regards 
 facility of composition. Did Latin vary in this respect 
 at different periods ? 
 
 15. What are the main differences in Latin between the 
 
 language and constructions of poetry and those of 
 prose ? 
 
 16. Which of the great periods of Greek literature had the 
 
 most direct or lasting influence upon that of Rome ? 
 
 17. What influence did the study of Virgil exercise (i) on 
 
 later Latin literature; (2) on the Middle Ages; (3) on 
 tne poetry of the eighteenth century ? 
 
 1 8. Give a succinct analysis of any speech of Cicero with 
 which you are familiar, and show the principles involved 
 in its construction. 
 
 19. The influence of patronage on literature. Consider 
 chiefly with reference to Rome, but illustrate from other 
 literatures. 
 
 20. Prove the assertion that jurisprudence was the only form 
 of intellectual activity that Rome from first to last 
 worked out in a thoroughly national manner. 
 
 21. Which are the most important of the public, and which 
 
 of the private, orations of Cicero? Give a short ac- 
 count of one of each class, with date, place, and circum-
 
 Appendix. 331 
 
 stances of delivery. How were such speeches preserved? 
 Had the Romans any system of reporting? 
 
 22. Donaldson, in his Varronianus, argues that the French, 
 rather than the Italian, represents the more perfect form 
 of the original Latin. Test this view by a comparison 
 of words in both languages with the Latin forms. 
 
 23. " Italy remained without national poetry or art." 
 
 (Mommsen.) In what sense can this assertion be justi- 
 fied ? 
 
 24. Enumerate the chief losses which Latin literature has 
 sustained. 
 
 25. Contrast briefly the life and occupations of an Athenian 
 citizen in the time of Pericles and Plato, with those of a 
 Roman in the age of Cicero and Augustus. 
 
 THE END.
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SEEIES 
 
 COMPK1SING 
 
 * PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH 
 ** PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 
 *** COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH 
 **** COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 
 
 BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. 
 
 OPINIONS. 
 
 Professor HENRY F. BURTON, Ph.D., head of the Department of Latin 
 in the University of Rochester, says [of the " Preparatory Latin Course "] : 
 
 You have certainly made an exceedingly readable book. The familiar 
 gossippy style which yon adopt, and the numberless little digressions and 
 allusions and quotations by which you enliven the natural dryness of the 
 subject, cannot fail to fix the attention of botli youthful and adult readers. I 
 am sure, too, that the beginner in Latin will get from the book a large 
 amount of information upon the authors he reads which no other work, and 
 perhaps no teacher, would give him, and what is more, thnt it will help 
 greatly to give life and reality to his early reading. ... As one interested 
 in the advancement of Latin studies, I thank you. 
 
 Professor W. S. TYLER, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek in 
 Amherst College, says : 
 
 Professor Wilkinson has executed with sound judgment, much learning, 
 and good taste the difficult task of giving Preparatory Greek and Latin 
 Courses in English to those who are unable to obtain a college education. 
 The author has shown his good sense and his own just appreciation of clas- 
 sical studies by not professing to make classical scholars, but only to impart 
 such a knowledge of Greek and Latin literature as can be obtained without 
 
 1
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 knowing the Greek and Latin languages. The public will look with interest 
 for the third and fourth volumes in the series, which are to contain a similar 
 outline of College Greek and College Latin for English readers. 
 
 Miss FRANCES E. LORD, head of the Department of Latin in Welles- 
 ley College, says : 
 
 Prof. Wilkinson has certainly succeeded in giving the English reader of 
 the Latin Classics a volume of delightful entertainment and much valuable 
 information. Great taste and judgment have been shown in the selections 
 and iu the choice of the translators, while the running commentary upon 
 these, at once so lively and so keen in its analysis of characters and styles, 
 will prove very attractive to the youthful student. 
 
 Professor CHARLES D. MORRIS, LL.D., of Johns Hopkins University, 
 
 says [of the " Preparatory Greek"] : 
 
 I think that the book is as a whole well done, and that it will be read 
 with interest and profit, not only by persons who have no other knowledge 
 of the subject-matter, but also by those who may wish to revive in an easy 
 way knowledge which was once familiar, but has been allowed to drop 
 more or less out of remembrance. 
 
 Rev. HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D., late Chancellor of the University 
 of the City of New York, says [of the " Greek " volumes] : 
 
 I know no Sanscrit. If a Sanscrit scholar should give me in English a 
 clear view of the Sanscrit literature in its style and spirit, so that I could be 
 familiar with it in all its relations (saving the aclnnl acquaintance with the 
 language), I should be greatly benefited and delighted. ID is just this 
 grand help that Professor Wilkinson has given to the enlightened reader 
 who does not happen to know the Greek language, and who has not time to 
 acquire it. His "Greek Course' is clear, attractive, and judicious in its 
 treatment of the subject, and fills a valuable place in our literature. 
 
 Professor HENRY DRISLER, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek in 
 Columbia College, and American Editor of Liddell & Scott's Greek Lex- 
 icon, says : 
 
 I concur in the main in Dr. Crosby's commendation of Professor Wilkin- 
 son's " Greek Course." 
 
 Professor A. C. KENDRICK, D.D., LL.D., head of the Department of Greek 
 in the University of Rochester, says : 
 
 The plan of the book is quite unique, yet certainly adapted to the wants 
 of a large and increasing class of young persons in our country. Its exe- 
 cution seems to me very felicitous ; it is marked by the taste and scholar- 
 ship which were to be expected from its accomplished author. I sincerely 
 
 2
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 hope, and I can scarcely doubt, that it will prove of benefit to a wide 
 circle, both as a substitute for, and as an aid to, the ordinary preparatory 
 course in Greek. 
 
 Professor JAMES E. BOISE, LL.D., formerly head of the Department of 
 Greek in the University of Michigan, says : 
 
 The idea of the work is original, and the execution, like every thing 
 which Professor Wilkinson undertakes, is excellent. The book must prove, 
 in more ways than I can enumerate, of great value to the young student. 
 
 Again [of the Preparatory Latin] : 
 
 I shall lose no opportunity to recommend it. 
 
 Professor LEWIS E. PACXASD, LL.D., late head of the Department of 
 Greek in Yale College, says : 
 
 I think the book is well adapted to accomplish the end at which it aims. 
 "While I do not wholly agree with all the author's views, I think he has 
 succeeded in conveying correct impressions on the subjects he treats, es- 
 pecially in matters where incorrect impressions are too often current. I 
 should say the book would be useful to a large class of people. 
 
 Professor MAETIN L. D'OOGE, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek 
 in the University of Michigan, says : 
 
 The author, it will be observed, guards his statement from the erro- 
 neous view that his or any similar effort is or can be an equivalent for the 
 training of the mind, and the knowledge of the L-itin and Greek literatures, 
 to be gained by pursuing a college course ; nor does the book anywhere 
 convey any such false impression. . . . Professor Wilkinson gives the 
 readers of his book a fair and interesting view of the Greek people, and of 
 some of their great writers, and incidentally furnishes a good deal of lit- 
 erary criticism and information. . . . His account of the subject-matter of 
 the Anabasis is especially clear and satisfactory. The style is throughout 
 bright and readable. The author evidently hopes to inspire in his readers 
 sufficient interest to lead them to read and study Greek life and letters after 
 they shall have finished his introductory course. 
 
 Professor W. W. GOODWIN, LL.D., head of the Department of Greek 
 in Harvard College, authorizes us 
 
 To repeat his already expressed " high opinion of the preparatory works " 
 of this series, and to anticipate his equally cordial approval of and interest 
 in the whole as completed. 
 
 Professor E. S. SHUMWAY, Ph.D., head of the Department of Latin in 
 Eutgers College, says : 
 
 I wish that I could induce every parent in the land to put that book into 
 his child's hands . . . An invaluable service to the cause of classical culture. 
 
 3
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 A second and third reading only confirms my judgment, and adds to the 
 wish that my early Greek teacher had possessed such an aid. 
 
 JOSEPH CUMMINGS, D.D., President of the North-western University, 
 (Evanston, 111.,) says: 
 
 I highly recommend it. 
 
 S. C. BARTLETT, D.D., President of Dartmouth College, says : 
 
 It seems to me a valuable work, highly useful and instructive to a larpe 
 class of thoughtful persons who cannot h;ive access to the originals, and 
 calculated to stimulate and expatid the views of those who can. 
 
 NOAH PORTEB, D.D., LL.D., President of Yale College, says: 
 
 I have examined with some care the volume by Professor W. G. Wilkin- 
 son, entitled " Preparatory Greek Course in English," and I think it a val- 
 uable addition to the abundant apparatus which is now furnished to the 
 young student of the one language of which no aspirant for complete cult- 
 ure can contentedly remain in ignorance. 
 
 JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D., President of the University of Michigan, 
 
 says: 
 
 The difficulty of bringing one, who does not read the language in which 
 a literature is written, into close and appreciative and vital contact with the 
 literature is very great, too great to be entirely overcome. But you have 
 done more than I should have thought possible to overcome it. I have 
 found myself thoroughly interested from the beginning to the end of your 
 book. It seems to me that most readers must find themselves interested in 
 the same manner. And if they are interested they must be profited. 
 
 ALVAH HOVEY, D.D., President of Newton Theological Institution, 
 says: 
 
 In these latter days I do not often read a volume through from begin- 
 ning to end, without omitting a chapter, paragraph, or sentence. But I 
 have read in this way your "Preparatory Greek Course," simply because it 
 is so instructive and captivating a volume that I could not persuade myself 
 to pass over any word of it unread. 
 
 M. B. ANDERSON, LL.D., President of the University of Rochester, 
 says: 
 
 It seems to me that your purpose is most excellent, and the skill with 
 which you have accomplished it is all that could be desired. The work 
 will be useful, not only to those for whom it was specially written, but also 
 to young persons in a course of classical study in the academy or college.
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 E. G. ROBINSON, D.D., LL.D., President of Brown University, says : 
 Will undoubtedly do a good service, enabling intelligent readers who are 
 
 unacquainted with Greek to attain some definite conception of the literature 
 of that language, as well as enlightening and quickening into intellectual 
 life many a student who otherwise might know little or nothing, beyond 
 his mere lesson, of the book he was reading. 
 
 Hon. FEANCIS WAYLAND, LL.D, Dean of the Law Department of 
 Yale College, says : 
 
 I have examined with great interest the "Preparatory Greek Course in 
 English," by Professor Wilkinson. 
 
 The object aimed at seems to me most praiseworthy, and it is accomplished 
 in a manner in keeping with the design. I do not believe that it will 
 diminish the number of those studying the original Greek, while it will cer- 
 tainly cultivate a knowledge and love of the spirit of the great Greek clas- 
 sics among those who, but for the aid of such a crutch, would never have 
 walked over the " plains of windy Troy," or in " the olive grove of 
 Academe." 
 
 I shall be surprised if it does not reach a very wide circulation. 
 
 F. B. PALMER, Ph.D., Principal of the State Normal School, Fredonia, 
 N. Y., says : 
 
 It seems to mo admirably adapted to give young students a liking for old 
 authors who will be ever young, and it adds a completeness of view which 
 few young persons can get by a study of the ancient authors in the origi- 
 nal, or even in the best translations. 
 
 Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D.D., Superintendent of Instruction, C. L. S. C., 
 says: 
 
 I have just finished, for my own instruction, reading your " Preparatory 
 Greek Course in English." My dear doctor, that book is simply magnifi- 
 cent. It is a complete success in every way, and I read it with the great- 
 est enthusiasm. 
 
 T. J. MORGAN, D.D., Principal of the State Normal School, Providence, 
 R. I., says: 
 
 An admirable book, unique and happy in design, and well executed. 
 I wish I might have had it while pursuing my classical studies in college. 
 
 S. L. CALDWELL, D.D., President of Vassar College, says : 
 
 As the idea is capital, the execution is equallj' good. The whole book 
 shows ample knowledge and good taste, and is far enough from any dullness 
 such as infects some books of this kind. Any intelligent person, and even 
 one well read in Greek, may read it to find it stimulating and instructive.
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 Again [of the " Preparatory Latin >! ] ; 
 I find it very interesting reading. 
 
 Rev. GEORGE D. B. PEPPEE, D.D., President of Colby University, 
 says: 
 
 It is well fitted to stimulate to a thorough fircek scholarship, and equally 
 fitted to serve an admirable purpose for those who can never study tho 
 Greek. 
 
 Again [of the Preparatory Latin "] : 
 
 Not till this very morning have I completed its perusal. I have been 
 unable to content myself with any omissions. 
 
 S. A. ELLIS, Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Instruction, Rochester, 
 N. Y., says : 
 
 A somewhat critical examination of the entire work full}' confirms tho 
 favorable impression I formed at the first reading. . . . The book will be 
 found to be both scholarly and popular two qualities often divorced from 
 each other. ... I am confident that whoever begins "The Preparatory 
 Greek Course in English '' will read it through to the end, and will look 
 with eager expectancy, as I shall, for the other volumes that are to follow. 
 
 Subsequently: In our estimation it grows better and better. 
 
 Professor W. F. ALLEN, Professor of Latin in the University of Wis- 
 consin, says: 
 
 It seems to me that it is better adapted to give non-classical readers a. 
 notion of what classical literature is thn any other book with which I am 
 acquainted. I shall look with interest for the succeeding volumes. 
 
 Again [of the " Preparatory Latin ''] : 
 
 I will only reiterate in general what I said then in relation to the new 
 book. 
 
 Rev. A. P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D., late of Harvard University, says : 
 
 I have looked through Mr. Wilkinson's "Preparatory Greek Course in 
 English," and am prepared to give it my warmest commendation. It sup- 
 plies a need which is more and more felt from year to year, for two reasons, 
 one for which I rejoice, the higher standard of culture that prevails in so- 
 ciety at large; the other, inevitable, yet to me a subject of regret, the 
 diminishing disposition on the part of well-educated people to study the 
 classical languages. 
 
 C. K. ADAMS, LL.D., Professor of History in the University of Michi- 
 gan, says : 
 
 I found almost nothing to criticise. I cannot conscientiously say less 
 than that you have written an excellent book on a difficult subject. I could
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 not e >nmicnd your book, if I thought it would be doomed a substitute for 
 studies in the Greek language. But it seems to me well calculated to 
 sharpen the appetite instead of satisfying it. Your accounts of the larger 
 works are admirable. In short, the book as a whole is remarkably well 
 adapted to tempt the reader to a further acquaintance with Greek litera- 
 ture and life. And this is saying much ; for, in these busy and distracting 
 times, education is apt to drift away from the safe anchorage of the classics, 
 and whatever tends to hold it to its moorings performs a service for which 
 all scholars should be grateful. 
 
 Professor HENRY S. FRIEZE, LL.D., head of the Department of Latin 
 in the University of Michigan, says : 
 
 I have been delighted with the perusal of your critical notices, your own 
 translations, and your selections of the translations of others, and I sincerely 
 congratulate you on the admirable style in which you have presented the 
 matter itself, as well as on the character of the matter itself, and the plan of 
 the whole work. 
 
 Again [of the " Preparatory Latin "] : 
 
 It cannot fail to do good in opening a new world of thought and expression 
 to those who have no access to it through the Latin originals, and in thus 
 enlarging the circle of readers and scholars interested in classical literature. 
 I trust nothing will interrupt your plan of adding more advanced works of a 
 similar kind to the series. They will together form a valuable contribution 
 to the history of classical literature. 
 
 Professor F. S. CAPEN, of Colby University, says : 
 
 Having studied Greek under Professor Wilkinson, I have, by a most de- 
 lightful experience, a personal knowledge of his thorough classical culture and 
 his ability to interest the learner. I should have felt perfectly safe in rec- 
 ommending, without reserve, his "After-School Series " without seeing it. 
 Having seen the numbers already published, I find them all that could be 
 desired. 
 
 The "Nation" says 
 
 Of all the devices for introducing non-classical readers to a knowledge 
 of the ancient classics, we are inclined to think that Mr. Wilkinson's (or 
 Dr. Vincent's, for to him the compiler gives the credit of the idea) is the 
 most effective. It is to proceed on the course the classical student himself 
 follows: to make the reader acquainted first with the land, then with the 
 people, them (but this is, perhaps, a mistake) to give a peep at the language, 
 and follow it up with a few fables, a dialogue of Lucian, and enough of 
 Xenophon and Homer to make him tolerably familiar with them. After an 
 introduction like this and it really gives one a higher respect for our pre- 
 
 7
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 paratory course to see how effective it is the reader will be able to take 
 hold of Sophocles, Plato, and Demosthenes with a much better understand- 
 ing. . . . We think we may safely predict that the four volumes will present 
 a unique and very satisfactory view of ancient literature for non-classical 
 readers. 
 
 Again : 
 
 The "Preparatory Latin Course in English" is a companion to the "Pre- 
 paratory Greek Course " of the same editor, which we noticed a few months 
 ago. It has the same general character, and the same excellences in execu- 
 tion, while it shows a readier and more experienced hand. 
 
 Again : 
 
 Professor "Wilkinson makes rapid progress with his "After-School Series," 
 and we are inclined to rate his last published volume, " College Greek 
 Course in English," as the best of the three that have appeared. 
 
 The "Westminster Review" (October, 1884) says: 
 
 Popular works of this kind ["College Greek Course in English"], so far 
 from degrading classical literature, or making the ignorant fancy that they 
 have the key to all knowledge, are genuine cultivators of the public taste. 
 
 The " Independent " says : 
 
 Whatever doubts one may have on the start as to the gain for sound 
 learning in the numerous attempts to popularize it in manuals or in summer 
 schools, "Where the Attic bird trills her thick-warbled notes the summer 
 long," he must lay them aside, as we do, on examining William Cleaver Wil- 
 kinson's "Preparatory Greek Course in English." Jt aims at the very end 
 which seems of such questionable utility to many of us, to give a kind of 
 Greek education in English to persons who cannot get it in Greek. We 
 have examined the book with unusual care, and with our doubts hovering 
 near as to the question whether this were not another attempt to acquire 
 the French language in English, or to achieve something else without 
 achieving it. But our doubts are laid. There is a large class of people 
 who will find this book exceedingly useful, and we hardly venture to say 
 just how large we think the class is who need not be ashamed to make use 
 of it. . . . 
 
 The " Literary World " (Boston) says : 
 
 A bright and useful book. . . . The author acts as a personal instructor, 
 and takes the pupil into his confidence., who thus gains much of the inspira- 
 tion which is usually to be had only from the living teacher. . . . The ac- 
 counts of groat writers are excellent, and the selections from their works 
 are admirably chosen, the chapter comparing the various translations of 
 Homer being particularly suggestive. 
 
 8
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 Again : 
 
 The iirst volume of this unique series had our liearty commendation, and 
 the appearance of the second only confirms our favorable judgment. The 
 books will have, as they deserve, a wide popularity. 
 
 The " Latino " says : 
 
 One of the most valuable books for promoting the study of Greek that 
 have yet been issued in this country. ... Of value not only to the beginner 
 in Greek, but also to the parent who wishes to aid liis boy or girl, and to 
 the teacher who would help without weakening the student. 
 
 The " American Rural Home," Rochester, N. Y., says : 
 
 So clear, so fresh, so learned, and yet so simple is his presentation, so 
 discursive ofteu and so happy altogether, that one reads it as if it were 
 romance, until, reading it thoroughly, one may know nearly as much of the 
 three Greek works most familiar as the college graduate knows. It is 
 such a book as it seems somebody should have given us long ago, and yet 
 Just such a book as no one, we suspect, but Dr. Wilkinson could have 
 made. 
 
 The " Baptist Quarterly Review " says : 
 
 The author is correct in supposing that there are many, some in unsus- 
 pected quarters, who will gladly welcome such a volume. 
 
 . . . The common people will read it gladly, while many a college graduate 
 may, by its perusal, add so much to his knowledge of Xenophon, Homer, 
 etc., as to suggest that he is enjoying the pleasure of forming new acquaint- 
 ances among interesting people. 
 
 The " Examiner " (New York) says: 
 
 It is not often that a man of Dr. Wilkinson's literary ability gives him- 
 self to the work of enlightening the masses. If such men allow their names 
 to appear on the title-pages of popular books, the bulk of the work is gen- 
 erally performed by men of inferior ability. But here we have a popular 
 book prepared by a writer of first-rate ability, and we are assured that he 
 has given to the making of it his best thought and skill. . . . The introduc- 
 tory remarks on Homer are particularly good. Take a few sentences: . . . 
 We trust that no one of our readers will do himself the injustice of failing 
 to read this book. 
 
 Again : 
 
 . . . The second has all the merits of the first, and in a considerably higher 
 degree. . . . The attentive reader of the " Preparatory Latin Course in En- 
 glish " will have a far more adequate idea of Latin literature than is ac- 
 quired by the average student previous to matriculation in college. . . .
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 The long chapter on " The City and the People " we think unsurpassed in 
 English historical literature as regards philosophical insight, grandeur, and 
 sustained eloquence. 
 
 The " Methodist Quarterly Review " says : 
 
 The writer gives frank credit to Dr. Vincent for the origination of the 
 idea of this volume, as well as ample suggestions in its production ; and 
 the compliment might be reciprocated that he has filled out, and more than 
 filled out, the programme with eminent ability and success. ... It furnishe 
 to the young student a clear idea of what lie is going about. ... In the 
 olden time his Latin grammar was put into his hands, then his manual of 
 selections, with dictionary, then his Virgil, and he plodded like a miner cut- 
 ting a tunnel through a rock. A book like this would have thrown an il- 
 lumination around his path, revealing to him where he was, and what the 
 surroundings of the route he was obliged to pursue. Mr. Wilkinson lias 
 done his work in the best manner, var) ing his style through a variety of 
 changes, now cheerily colloquial, now running an even level, and anon rising 
 with graceful ease into a strain of lofty eloquence. 
 
 The " Canadian Methodist Magazine " says: 
 
 Designed to give the English reader some such knowledge of classic lit- 
 erature as the college graduate obtains through the original text. We vent- 
 ure to say that in many cases it will be a superior knowledge. 
 
 " Zion's Herald " says : 
 
 The idea is a capital one, and is executed with rare skill. 
 
 The "Advance" (Chicago) says: 
 
 ... To take up this book and catch a glimpse of ^Kschylus or Aris- 
 tophanes, in a smooth translation, will bring back for a moment a faint 
 glow of youth, and, like Dido, we recognize the vestigia flamm<E. Professor 
 Wilkinson has done his work well. He has shown himself alert for the 
 best translations, arid the notes and illustrations are valuable aids to the 
 student. 
 
 The " Nashville Christian Advocate " says : 
 
 These books afford the best possible substitute for college culture in 
 Greek and Latin. 
 
 The " Standard " (Chicago) says : 
 
 The author of these books is a trained scholar and writer. He knows 
 what is essential, and what not, in study of the sort here undertaken. 
 
 The " Intelligencer " (New York) says : 
 
 A worthy end admirably attained. 
 
 10
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 The Methodist Quarterly Eeview (South) says : 
 
 There is little doubt that the majority of pupils would become better 
 acquainted with the thought, if not the style, of the classical authors by 
 reading carefully the book under review than they do at present by their 
 labored efforts of translating a page or two a day. As even the graduates 
 of our colleges cannot compass the whole range of Oreek and Latin authors, 
 and but few entire works of any autnor, this series is worthy of their at- 
 tention as well as that of the persons who have nver entered college. . . . 
 Mr. Wilkinson's series is worthy of all commendation. 
 
 The " Interior " (Chicago) says: 
 
 While the volume will certainly prove eminently useful in the line for 
 which it was originally intended, it will just as certainly have strong attrac- 
 tions for general literary students and readers of all classes for those who 
 have read, or have undertaken to read, these authors in their original Greek, 
 as well as for those who have done neither. 
 
 The " Sunday-School Journal" says: 
 
 Many a college graduate will get more idea of what Herodotus and Plato 
 and Sophocles have really written by the reading of this book for one day 
 than they received during their whole college course. 
 
 The " Western Christian Advocate " says [of the " Preparatory Latin "] : 
 
 This work cannot be too highly commended. 
 
 The " Christian Union" says : 
 
 It is a pleasure to examine so careful and conscientious a piece of schol- 
 arly workmanship as Professor W. C. Wilkinson's "Preparatory Latin 
 Course in English." Perhaps nothing better can be said of it than that 
 it is worthy to take its place with its companion volume, the " Preparatory 
 Greek Course in English." 
 
 A brief and yet thoroughly trustworthy presentation of the literature and 
 thought of a great nation is a work which demands thoroughgoing scholar- 
 ship and a trained literary instinct. In this volume Professor Wilkinson 
 shows ample competency for the task which he had imposed upon himself, 
 and the result is a book which can be commended without qualification to 
 all those who desire to familiarize themselves with the Roman people in 
 their intellectual achievements. It is a work of great interest as well as 
 of great power of instruction, since it deals not with the isolated mental life 
 of the people, but with that life as it stands related to character, to history, 
 and to the world-wide extension of Roman rule. Professor Wilkinson has 
 succeeded, in a word, in sketching, with a bold, free, and sure hand, the 
 outlines of the mental and moral life of one of the great dominant races of 
 antiquity. 
 
 11
 
 AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 The " Atlantic Monthly " says : 
 
 Writes with liveliness and with a manifest determination that the render 
 shall find the Greek writers as human and as interesting as English or 
 American ones. 
 
 The " Louisiana Journal of Education " says : 
 
 High-schools and academies in which Greek is taught should be furnished 
 with a copy of this admirable work for the benefit of their pupils and 
 classes. The analysis of Homer's Hind, illustrated by quotations from the 
 best translators, may be read with interest, even by scholars sufficiently ad- 
 vanced to comprehend and enjoy the original. 
 
 The " Visitor and Teacher " (Kirksville, Mo.) says : 
 
 We have read many of our best novels and found none more thoroughly 
 enjoyable, from first to last, than this work, and would unhesitatingly recom- 
 mend it to all lovers of good literature. 
 
 Professor MOSES COIT TYLEE, LL.D. (Cornell University), says: 
 I have just been looking over your book, with real delight in the ingenious 
 and simple plan of it, arid in its felicitous execution. 
 
 EDMUND CLAEENCE STEDMAN says : 
 
 In the seclusion that this island grants I have had a chance to enjoy the 
 volume quite thoroughly. Tn fact, I have read pretty much all of it. ... 
 Your presentation of Plato, Aristophanes, and Demosthenes struck me as 
 being peculiarly apt and instinctive. 
 
 THOMAS WENTWOETH HIGGINSON says : 
 
 Your book I have read with much pleasure. ... In speaking of Aris- 
 tophanes I think you do not render justice to his poetic beauty, especially 
 to the "Birds," which is the "Midsummer Night's Dream " of antiquity. . . . 
 I know that there are many who will be grateful for just such a book. 
 
 WILLIAM C. CONANT, in " Vidi Correspondence," speaks 
 
 Of the rich classic tone with which Professor Wilkinson's own style and 
 substance are so delightfully penetrated, while so free, so humorous, shrewd, 
 and American. 
 
 JOSEPH COOK says : 
 
 Breathes the true Hellenic spirit. 
 Mr. SPUEGEON says : 
 
 Bright and vivacious. 
 
 12
 
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