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THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIEN- 
 TIFIC CIRCLE. 
 3fount)e& in 1878. 
 
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 THE REQUIRED LITERATURE FOR 1893-4. 
 
 Rome and the Making of Modern Europe. 
 James R, Joy f 1.00 
 
 Roman and Medieval, Art (illustrated). W. H. 
 Goodyear 100 
 
 Outlines of Economics. Richard T. Ely . 1.00 
 
 Classic Latin Course in English. W. C. Wil- 
 kinson 1.00 
 
 Song and Legend from the Middle Ages. 
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 Volume op Religious Reading .... .50 
 
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Cbautauqua IRcaMng Circle Xiterature 
 
 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE 
 
 IN ENGLISH 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON 
 
 FLOOD AND VINCENT 
 €ht (iCftautauquar^enturp ^ttii^ 
 
 MEADVILLE PENNA 
 
 150 FIFTH AVE. NEW YORK 
 
 1893 
 
Copyright, 1893, 
 By FiiOOD & Vincent, 
 
 i^lojCAf'^ 
 
 o-v^ 
 
 The Chautauqua-Century Press, Meadville, Pa., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by Flood & Vincent. 
 
 GIFT 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 
 Since publishing, ten years ago, the beginning volume 
 of the "After-School" series of books— the volume then en- 
 titled "Preparatory Greek Course in English'* — the author 
 has, in successive editions, subjected his work to many re- 
 visions and changes. The most important of these have 
 had for their object increasing compression of the matter 
 presented. Th^ present volume may be taken as the final 
 form of that part of the whole work which relates to Latin 
 literature. The series is now complete in four volumes, uni- 
 form in plan, in form, in size, in title, and in price, devoted 
 respectively to Greek, to Latin, to French, and to German, 
 literature. 
 
 It is proper to add that the original fuller volumes, four in 
 number, treating Greek literature and Latin, are still kept in 
 print for the benefit of those readers who may desire either to 
 see more copiously exhibited the ancient authors embraced 
 in our revised list of immortals, or to see additional names 
 of such brought under review — names that, in the process of 
 abridgment, were unavoidably excluded. The things left out 
 would probably in most cases be by the majority of readers, as 
 they are by the author, accounted not less interesting and not 
 less valuable than the things retained. The problem of com- 
 pression was not so much to make the pages better, as simply 
 to make them fewer. 
 
 The author gratifies himself by renewing here his ac- 
 knowledgment of debt to his honored friend of many years, 
 
 003 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 Bishop John H. Vincent, for the fruitful idea which, un- 
 der that stimulating friend's constant council and encourage- 
 ment, he has done his best fitly to realize in this series of 
 volumes. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAFTSB. PAGE. 
 
 I. The Literatube op Rome .... 7 
 
 II. Sallust 13 
 
 III. Ovid 21 
 
 IV. C^SAR 28 
 
 V. Cicero 51 
 
 VI. Virgil 91 
 
 VII. LiVY 143 
 
 VIII. Tacitus 175 
 
 IX. PiiAUTus AND Terence . . . . .217 
 
 X. Lucretius 245 
 
 XI. Horace 259 
 
 XII. Juvenal 281 
 
 XIII. Epilogue 296 
 
 Index 297 
 
CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF ROME. 
 
 Over everything 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 Uterature generally, of Rome 
 should be called, not Roman, but Latin. The circumstance 
 may be 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. But if Rome wrote as it were 
 with her left hand, while she wrought with her right, that 
 left hand of hers was yet an instrument of marvelous cunning 
 and power. We are to study here in specimen the Uterature it 
 produced. We confine ourselves to that section of the litera- 
 ture conventionally called classic. 
 
 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 classic period may 
 fairly enough be considered as extending from about 80 B. C. 
 to 108 A. D., and as thus covering one hundred and eighty- 
 eight years — a little less than the space of six generations. 
 
 7 
 
8 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Cicero begins and Tacitus (Tass-'i-tus) ends this period. All 
 before is ante-classic ; all after, post-classic. Literature with 
 the Romans is thus seen to have been 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 con- 
 stellation in the sky. 
 
 Liv'i-us An-dro-ni''cus (ante-classic, about 280 B. C.) may be 
 regarded as the beginner of Latin literature. He was an 
 Italian Greek, made prisoner at the Roman capture of Ta- 
 rentum — ^prisoner, and by natural consequence, slave. He 
 became a freedman and a writer of tragedy. It is historically 
 significant that Roman literature should have been begun 
 by a Greek. Rome conquered Greece, but as Horace says, 
 " Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror." What 
 Livius Andronicus wrote in Latin was no doubt mainly trans- 
 lation from the writer's native Greek. Of his indifferent verse 
 a few fragments only remain. 
 
 Nsevius is another mere name in Latin 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. Cicero, who had a capacity for apprecia- 
 ting, as great as was his capacity for creating, expresses 
 strongly the delight he experienced in reading the epic of 
 Nsevius. 
 
 The next great name in Latin literature is still to us little 
 more than a name. It is Ennius. 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. It is tantaUzing 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 
 
THE LITERATURE OF ROME. 9 
 
 to names as familiar as those of Plau^tus and Ter^'ence. These 
 two were the great Roman writers of comedy. Nsevius had 
 done something in the Hne of the comic drama, but the 
 truly indigenous literary product, like that which Nsevius 
 attempted 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 Caesar, 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 in- 
 deed this writer is to be called — for Terence was a native of 
 Carthage— purveyed his comedies. The works of these two 
 writers, Plautus and Terence, represent to us, and represent 
 alone, the literature of the Roman theater. The two men 
 were partly contemporary, but Plautus was Terence's senior. 
 Roman life and manners, beginning, through superfluous 
 wealth and, one grieves 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. 
 
 Another important source of knowledge respecting the 
 everyday life and morality of the ancient Romans is to be 
 found in the satires which their writers produced. The satire 
 may be said to be a form of composition in verse original with 
 Rome. In satire more naturally by far than in comedy, the 
 Roman genius could unbend from its habitual and character- 
 istic 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. The great Roman masters in this literary form 
 are Horace and Juvenal. But the spirit of satire is a very 
 pervasive spirit throughout Roman literature. 
 
 To Cato, famous always and everywhere as Cato the Censor, 
 
10 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 hellenized, that is, 
 followed Greek models, Cato, in principle and in practice, was 
 stanchly Roman. There is something whimsical 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 recommend silence. Unhappily, Cato 
 is now mainly but a tradition in Latin letters. He 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. 
 
 Oratory, from early times down to the establishment of 
 the empire — ^true oratory the empire extinguished — ^was a 
 favorite 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 per- 
 haps, 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 
 masters of human speech that have ever appeared on the 
 planet, ^schines (Es^ki-neez) survives, in equivocal renown, 
 as foil to Demosthenes — Hortensius enjoying a similar privi- 
 lege of continued remembrance in connection with Cicero. 
 While of JEschines, however, we still have the really brilliant 
 speech which provoked from his victorious rival that " bright 
 
THE lilTERATUBB OP BOME. 11 
 
 consummate flower" of eloquence, the Oration on the Crown, 
 nothing remains of Hortensius but the splendid tradition of 
 his fame. For other Koman 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. 
 
 Cato, as founder of history for Rome, had a following not 
 less distinguished than that which, as has been seen, he 
 drew after him as founder of oratory. After we have men- 
 tioned, first, Caesar, that name appearing so often, and always 
 among the foremost, when you recall the glories of Rome 
 in different 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, indignantly 
 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 placing him- 
 self 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, ex- 
 hausted, 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. Sue- 
 tonius deserves higher regard ; but the pretensions of Nepos, 
 as a man of letters, are humble, and what survives of his work 
 is rather tame reading. 
 
 It was reserved for the age of Augustus to produce the great 
 epic of Rome, the -^ne^id of Virgil. Whatever the merits 
 of the poem, the JEneid has had a fortune of fame and of 
 influence that pairs it, in unchallenged pre-eminence, with the 
 Iliad of Homer. With Virgil was matched and contrasted, in 
 a lifelong friendship equally honorable to both, a very differ- 
 
12 CliASSIO IjATIN course in ENGLISH. 
 
 ent poet — by eminence the Roman poet of society and man- 
 ners — 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 per- 
 haps 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 generous patronage of culture. If you wish to dignify by 
 a name some wise and liberal encourager of intellectual 
 activity you call him a Mse-ce^'nas. Augustus himself sur- 
 passed his minister Maecenas in patronizing genius, only as 
 the sovereign may always surpass the subject. Ovid, how- 
 ever, a poet in this important respect less happy than his 
 contemporaries, 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 in 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, 
 which, however, we are compelled, though they include 
 such works of imperishable value as Quintilian's, to pass with 
 this mere note of their existence. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 SAIiLUST. 
 
 It is the idea of the present volume, as of its companion 
 volume for Greek, to follow somewhat in order the course of 
 study customarily adopted in school and college. Usually, 
 Caesar is the first important author to whom continuous study 
 is devoted ; and after Caesar follows Virgil. Not unfrequently, 
 however, a substitution is made, Sallust taking the place of 
 Caesar for prose, and Ovid of Virgil for verse. 
 
 In consideration of this latter fact, we introduce Sallust and 
 Ovid into these pages. At the same time, in view of the pre- 
 dominance on the whole accorded to Caesar and Virgil, we dis- 
 pose of the substitute authors first and in less space, as 
 comparatively subordinate in rank and importance. 
 
 Sallust wrote three historical works, the "Conspiracy of 
 Catiline," 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 — his- 
 torical monographs, or even politico-historical pamphlets, we 
 might almost call them, rather than histories — remain to us 
 entire. We shall let Sallust appear in his " Jugurthine War." 
 This will bring the celebrated Caius Marius before us, as de- 
 lineated by one of the great ancient masters of historical 
 composition. And Jugurtha himself is a striking and com- 
 manding figure, set in temporary- lurid relief against the 
 threatened, but finally victorious, greatness of Rome. 
 
 13 
 
14 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IX ENGLISH. 
 
 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 afterwards. 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 
 " 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 histories, but his 
 actual life was said to be deformed with nearly every vice and 
 excess. 
 
 The war against Jugurtha, a usurper of the throne of 
 Numidia, had been prosecuted by Rome with various fortune, 
 inclining to be favorable to Jugurtha. Caius Marius, a lieu- 
 tenant of patrician Metellus the Roman general in command, 
 goes to Rome, where he is elected consul. Metellus on the 
 field was advised from Rome that Marius had been appointed 
 his successor in the war. The proud spirit broke at this 
 humiliation. Metellus wept. 
 
 Sallust had previously, with a few graphic and powerful 
 strokes, thus painted Caius Marius into his canvas : 
 
 About the same time, as Caius Marius, who happened to be at 
 Utica [in Africa], was sacrificing to the gods, an augur told him 
 that great and wonderful things were presaged to him; that he 
 
SALLUST. 16 
 
 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. Pre- 
 viously to this period, an ardent longing for the consulship had 
 possessed him ; and he had, indeed, every qualification for obtain- 
 ing 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 bom at Arpinum and 
 brought up there during 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 con- 
 ducted 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 afterwards 
 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 themselves. Nor had any commoner appeared, how- 
 ever famous or distinguished by his achievements, who would not 
 have been thought unworthy of that honor, and, as it were, a dis- 
 grace to it. 
 
 Marius, still in Rome, was drunk with natural wild tem- 
 perament and with success. He carried everything before 
 him. The haughty senate was at the feet of this humble com- 
 moner, this son of the people. He spumed them in a popular 
 harangue which Sallust constructs for him. We give a few 
 characteristic sentences : 
 
 " My speech, they say, is inelegant, 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 en- 
 durance ; to sleep on the ground, and to sustain at the same time 
 hunger and fatigue. And with such rules of conduct I shall stimu- 
 late my soldiers, not treating them with rigor and myself with in- 
 dulgence, nor making their toils my glory. Such a mode of 
 commanding is at once useful to the state and becoming to a citi- 
 
16 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 zen. For to coerce your troops with severity, while you yourself 
 live at ease, is to be a tyrant, not a general." 
 
 Marius easily raised a great army. Everybody was eager to 
 be a soldier under the idolized hero of the hour. He began by 
 whetting the appetite of his troops with maddening tastes of 
 plunder. He captured places and gave up the booty to his 
 men. He rapidly made for himself an army after his own 
 heart — as fierce as brave, and as greedy as fierce. The effect of 
 dazzling immediate success on the part of Marius was to make 
 him almost a god in the eyes of both friends and foes. Thence- 
 forward, a fine saying of Virgil's, by him applied to a compara- 
 tively trivial occasion, will be true in this war for Marius. He 
 will be able, for he will seem to be able. 
 
 Another celebrated character soon enters upon the scene of 
 Sallust'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 incredible. 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 
 
SAIiliUST. 17 
 
 hitherto been unskilled 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 soldiers ; 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 obliga- 
 tions 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 con- 
 versed, 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 de- 
 praved 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. 
 
 Marius was marching to winter quarters, when one day, just 
 
 before dark, the combined armies of the two kings, Jugurtha 
 
 and Bocchus (an ally of Jugurtha, and his father-in-law), 
 
 suddenly fell upon him. It was a complete surprise. What 
 
 happened illustrates so well the accounts given by historians 
 
 of the discipline and valor of Roman legionaries, that we 
 
 present the narrative in Sallust's own words, simply making a 
 
 few silent omissions necessary for economy of space : 
 
 Before the troops could either form themselves or collect the bag- 
 gage, 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 done 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 some 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 enemy being superior in numbers and 
 covering the field on all sides. At last the Roman veterans, 
 who were necessarily well experienced in war, formed them- 
 selves, wherever the nature of the ground or chance allowed 
 them to unite, in circular bodies, and, thus secured on every 
 
18 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 side and regularly drawn up, withstood the attacks of the enemy. 
 
 Marius, in this desperate emergency, was not more alarmed 
 or disheartened 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, some- 
 times charging the enemy where they were thickest, and doing 
 service to his troops with his sword, since, in the general con- 
 fusion, 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 merriment, exultation, and 
 tumultuous clamor, the kings, elated at having kept their ground, 
 conducting themselves as conquerors. This scene, plainly visible 
 to the Romans, under 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 daybreak, slaughtered them as if 
 they had been sheep. 
 
 Marius now again takes up his march to winter quarters. 
 A few touches added 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 everything, 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 auxil- 
 iary cavalry in front, and others upon the ramparts and lines. He 
 went round the posts in person, not from suspicion that his orders 
 would not be observed, but that the labor of the soldiers, shared 
 equally by their general, might be endured by them with cheerful- 
 ness. 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 accustomed from his youth, and 
 in exertions which other men call perfect miseries. The public in- 
 
SAIiliUST. 19 
 
 terest, however, was served with 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 follow- 
 ing, the indefatigable, the unconquerable spirit of Jugurtha 
 brought him again to the attack. He almost won the day, 
 but once more those invincible Romans snatched victory 
 out of the very jaws of defeat. The battlefield, as it appeared 
 at this moment, is described by Sallust in a celebrated sen- 
 tence : 
 
 The spectacle on the open plains was then frightful; some 
 were pursuing, others fleeing ; some were being slain, others cap- 
 tured ; 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. 
 
 Five days after suflfering this defeat, Jugurtha's confederate, 
 King Bocchus, desires Marius to send him two trusted ambas- 
 sadors for a conference. Sylla is one of the two sent. With 
 much artful preface, this adroit Roman diplomatist told 
 Bocchus that it lay in his, Bocchus's, pow^r 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. Besides, 
 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 deUvered up 
 the son-in-law to Sylla. It was a proud feather in young 
 Sylla' s cap. But it was before the chariot wheels of Marius 
 that, afterwards, 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 
 senses under the dreadful humiliation of the triumph ; also 
 that soon after, with much contumelious violence, he was 
 
20 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 flung naked into the chill underground dungeon at Rome 
 called the TuUianum, 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 universally 
 hailed as dehverer 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, recognized 
 in the force opposed to the Romans, raised such sentiments 
 in the breasts of a Numidian corps attached to the Roman 
 army, that the whole body had to be inunediately 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 Nu- 
 midian partisan of his, instead of a Roman partisan of 
 Caesar's, had given us the history ! 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 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 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 Augustan 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 minister, 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 banishment. 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 transformations of men and 
 
 21 
 
22 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 women into animals, plants, or inanimate things. The invent- 
 ive ingenuity of the poet is displayed in connecting these 
 separate stories into something like coherence and unity. 
 This poem has been a great treasury of material to subsequent 
 poets. Even Milton has condescended to be not a little in- 
 debted to Ovid for images and allusions, which he dignified by 
 adopting them, with noble metamorphosis, into his own 
 loftier verse. 
 
 Our one specimen of Ovid's Metamorphoses shall be a con- 
 densation of his story of Pha^e-ton. This we can give in a 
 version which, 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. 
 
 Our readers will like, by way of introduction to our exem- 
 plification of Ovid's Metamorphoses, to see what the poet him- 
 self—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 Metamorphoses in 
 literal prose translation : 
 
 And now I have completed a work, which neither the anger of 
 Jove, nor fire, nor steel, nor consuming time wiU be able to de- 
 stroy ! Let that day, which has no power but 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 work that constitutes 
 upon the whole a better warrant to the poet for his cheerful 
 anticipation of enduring fame, than that which we now in 
 specimen present. Phoebus (Apollo) is god of the sun. He is 
 applied to by his not universally acknowledged son. Phaeton, 
 with a startling request. We omit the brilliant opening 
 which describes the dazzling palace and the richly dec- 
 orated enthronement of the god. Phaeton has arrived and 
 
OVID. 23 
 
 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, 
 Whate'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 tte 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, 
 Bring 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 : 
 •' Take this at least, this last advice, my son : 
 Keep a stiff 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. 
 
2i CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IX ENGLISH. 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 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 rides. 
 
 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 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 ; 
 
OVID. 25 
 
 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 axletree 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 thicken-* :ig fumes, and darken half the skies : 
 
 In flames Ismenos and the Phasis rolled. 
 
 And Tagus, floating in his melted gold : 
 
 The swans, that on Cayster often tried 
 
 Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died. • 
 
 The frighted Nile ran off", and under ground 
 
 Concealed his head, nor can it yet be 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 disc' jse 
 
 Wide naked plains, where once their bUlows rose ; 
 
 Their rocks are all discovered and increase 
 
 The number of the scattered Cyclades ; 
 
 The flsh in shoals about the bottom creep ; 
 
 Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap : 
 
 Gasping for breath, the unshapen Phocse die. 
 
26 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 And on the boiling wave extended lie : 
 Nereus, and Doris, with her virgin train, 
 Seek out the last recesses of the main : 
 Beneath unfathomable depths they faint, 
 And secret in their gloomy caverns pant : 
 Stern Neptune thrice 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 ia 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. 
 
 At once from life and from the chariot driven. 
 
 The ambitious boy fell thunderstruck 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, 
 
OVID. 27 
 
 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. Nothing essential, however, 
 is lost. One simply fails to receive a full due impression of 
 the melodious prolixity, the "linked sweetness long drawn 
 out," which is characteristic of Ovid. 
 
 Some monuments of architecture there are, which, besides 
 being composed of choice stones exquisitely 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 to- 
 gether. 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 even a single shapely and 
 polished precious block brought away will serve to suggest all 
 the beauty that belongs to the building. You have merely 
 to say. There are a great many lovely pieces like this. 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 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 forerunners were Greek. 
 
 Of Ovid we thus now take leave to go on in the following- 
 chapter with an author who, to a character of social dilet- 
 tanteism in which he might have rivaled Ovid himself, joined 
 a character of stern and strenuous practical force, for affairs of 
 war and of state, in which he scarcely admitted any rivals 
 ancient or modern — we mean, Julius Caesar. 
 
CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 The present writer himself holds a more moderate view in 
 the case, but there is with many judges, presumptively com- 
 petent to pronounce opinion, a strong disposition to accord to 
 Julius Caesar a place of lonely pre-eminence, as, upon the 
 whole, in amplitude of natural endowment, 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 Csesar. 
 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 
 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. These have somewhat 
 the character of journals of camp and march and fight. 
 
 28 
 
CiESAR. 29 
 
 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 trium- 
 phantly, performed. Caesar writes constantly in the third per- 
 son, 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." 
 
 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 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 an account of a piece of can- 
 vassing, 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 
 poUtical 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 might 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, barbar- 
 ism, 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 irruption hung, growing, 
 in the quarter of the Roman sky toward Gaul and Germany, 
 ready to break on Italy and pour a fiood of devastation against 
 Rome that should even sweep the city from the face of the 
 
30 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 hundred 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 Caesar's work, Gaul 
 itself, indeed all Europe, west and south, with Africa, too, had 
 been permanently Romanized ; and there was moreover now a 
 Christian church prepared to welcome the inrushing bar- 
 barians to her bosom, and make them, retaining much, no 
 doubt, of their native fierceness still, yet strangely gentle 
 pupils in the school of Christ. Such, whatever may, or 
 may not, have been Caesar's own wisdom and will in his 
 work, was the providential purpose that this colossal military 
 and political genius subserved. 
 
 Caius Julius Caesar was of an ancient patrician family 
 of Rome, who claimed derivation from lulus, son of Trojan 
 ^neas. He 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 aristocratic dictator, Sylla, now 
 omnipotent at Rome, advised young Caesar to put away. 
 Caesar had the spirit to refuse compliance, but he had also the 
 prudence to flee from Rome to escape the dictator's resent- 
 ment. 
 
 In due time, the tide of Roman public sentiment turned 
 strongly in favor of the people and against the aristocracy. 
 Into this powerful movement, Caesar threw himself and his for- 
 tunes. 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 magnifi- 
 
C^SAB. 81 
 
 cence, and of course at correspondingly enormous expense. 
 The result was to plunge him miUions 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. Momm- 
 sen, the German historian of Rome, a warm eulogist of 
 Caesar, holds it for tolerably certain that his hero was in fact a 
 fellow-conspirator with CatiUne ; nor does he on that account 
 (or on any other account) at all abate the great man's praise. 
 
 Caesar wanted to be pontifex maximus, that is, chief priest 
 of the Roman religion. He was a thorough-paced skeptic, 
 and his aim in this matter was worldly-minded in the ex- 
 treme: he needed the oflace as a refuge from his creditors. 
 Without it he would have to flee from Rome. He was 
 triumphantly elected. The next year saw him praetor. At 
 the close of the year's praetorship, he was, in due course of 
 Roman custom, given a province to squeeze. Spain was his 
 lot. 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. 
 Caesar's consulship, in its bearing on his own personal for- 
 tunes, was an overflowing success. Caesar's consulship ex- 
 pired, he went to Gaul as proconsul. It was as proconsul 
 in Gaul that he did the memorable things of which we are 
 now to study in specimen his own masterly account. 
 
 Caesar's Gallic Commentaries are divided into eight books. 
 Each book recounts the events and incidents, these and no 
 more, of one campaign, covering a military year of time. 
 The first book, after a bit of geography to begin with, 
 occupies itself with two series of military operations on 
 Caesar's part, one directed against the Helvetians (Swiss), and 
 
32 CliASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 one against a body of Germans who had invaded Gaul. Of 
 these two military movements, that against the Helvetians 
 resulted in the death or reduction to slavery of a quarter of 
 a million of souls — ^men, women, and children ; for Csesar fell 
 upon the Helvetians engaged in the act of a national 
 migration to other places of abode. It is a ghastly modern 
 commentary on this achievement of Caesar's that excavations 
 made under the munificent auspices of Napoleon III., un- 
 covered, 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. 
 
 So ended the Helvetian war — war, to indulge Caesar in 
 his own non-descriptive word. The future dictator had begun 
 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. 
 
 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 them- 
 selves, has turned intolerable oppressor and usurper, menacing 
 especially the prosperity and power of the ^duans, who were 
 allies of the Romans. Caesar of course interferes, and, to sum 
 up all in a word, annihilates the army of Ariovistus. Of the 
 fugitive Germans, a few escaped, among them, their leader. 
 All the rest, dryly observes Caesar, " our cavalry slew." But 
 the historian meantime has made an interesting note of the 
 German military method, which we may show in the writer's 
 own words : 
 
 They had about six thousand horse, who chose a like number out 
 of the foot, each his man, and all remarkable for strength and 
 
C^SAB. 33 
 
 agility. These continually accompanied them in battle, and 
 served them as a rear guard, to which, when hard pressed, they 
 might retire ; if the action 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 sudden 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. 
 
 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 consider- 
 able wars, wJBnt into winter quarters somewhat sooner than the 
 season of the year required. He distributed his army among the 
 Seq'uani, left Labienus to command in his absence, and set out 
 himself for Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy) to preside in the 
 assembly of the states. 
 
 Caesar's winter in Northern Italy is disturbed, perhaps not 
 disagreeably to himself, by reports brought to him that the 
 Belgians are "conspiring" against the Roman people. But 
 the Remi are, like the JEduans, after Caesar's own heart. He 
 gets the following statistics of numbers from these forward in- 
 formants — we give them in Caesar's own summary : 
 
 He found the Sues-si-o'nes had within their territories twelve 
 fortified 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 warlike of all the Belgian nations : that the At're-ba'- 
 tians were to furnish fifteen thousand, the Am'bi-a'ni ten thou- 
 sand, the Mor'i-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'duans the like number ; the At'u-at'i-ci twenty-nine thou- 
 sand ; and the Con-dru'sians, Eb'u-ro'nes, Cae-rce'sians, and Pae- 
 ma'ni, all comprehended under the common name of Germans, 
 forty thousand. 
 
 The battle that soon was pitched between the Romans and 
 the Belgians had its vicissitudes, but there was a foregone con- 
 clusion of them all. The Belgians, worsted, resolved on re- 
 turning 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, 
 
34 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 All daylong the Roman dogs of war fed on the helpless 
 Belgians as if they had been sheep. Read Caesar's business- 
 like statement, 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 
 number 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. 
 
 Caesar's struggle with the Nervii was one of the sharpest 
 crises that he encountered in the whole course of his Gallic 
 experience. His report of their national character is interest- 
 ing. He says : 
 
 That they suffered no resort of merchants into their cities, nor 
 would allow of the importation of wiue 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 Nervians were beforehand with the Romans in attack- 
 ing. In truth, this time the Romans were taken by surprise. 
 They had not a moment to put themselves in proper order of 
 battle. Nay, the men could not even arm themselves as 
 usual. It was not so much one battle, as it was a confusion of 
 separate 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. 
 
 But Caesar was the man for emergencies. He soon made it 
 the turn of the Nervii to be dismayed. Dismayed, however. 
 
C^SAR. 36 
 
 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 
 discharge their weapons on the foe. There was 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. 
 
 It is time our readers had another taste of Caesar's own 
 quality in narration. We give his account of his transactions, 
 in arms and in diplomacy, with the Atuatici, a tribe of Ner- 
 vian allies. This tribe had been coming up to assist the 
 Nervii. On their way, they heard of the battle just described, 
 and turned back. They threw themselves into a town of 
 theirs, which Caesar proceeded to attack. 
 
 Caesar 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 lan- 
 guage ask the meaning of that prodigious engine raised at such a 
 distance I With what hands or strength, men of our size and make 
 (for the Gauls, who are for the most part very tall, despise the 
 small stature of the Romans), could hope to bring forward so 
 unwieldy a machine against their walls ? 
 
 But when they saw it removed and approaching near the 
 town, astonished 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 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 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 
 
do CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 arms." . . . They accepted in appearance 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 afterwards known, they 
 retained 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, Caesar ordered the gates to be shut, and the 
 soldiers to quit the town, that no injury might be offered to the in- 
 habitants during the night. Whereupon, the Atuatici, in conse- 
 quence 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 re- 
 tained, 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 Caesar 
 before commanded, the soldiers ran to the attack from the neigh- 
 boring forts. A very sharp conflict ensued, for the enemy, 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 Caesar 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 ! 
 
 Caesar, having quartered his legions for the winter near 
 the scene of their recent exploits, repairs himself, as in the 
 year previous, to Italy. And so ends book second* 
 
C^SAR. 87 
 
 The third book, as dealing with transactions of less magni- 
 tude than those already narrated, we may somewhat sum- 
 marily dismiss. It seems to be dedicated, in large measure, to 
 a skillfully conducted laudation of young Crassus, son of 
 Caesar's wealthy political partner. One can hardly help 
 suspecting Caesar's object to have been in part a thrifty one, 
 that of giving pleasure to the father, for the sake of the benefit 
 that might thence accrue to himself. Young Crassus was 
 a lieutenant of the great commander. 
 
 Three things especially, in the fourth book of Caesar's 
 Commentaries, are of commanding interest. The first is the 
 case of alleged perfidy, with enormous undoubted cruelty, 
 practiced by Caesar against his German enemies. The second 
 is Caesar'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. Men, women, 
 and children, they reached the number of near half a million. 
 This immense migration could not be permitted. Caesar 
 marched against 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 then was, and give them a day or two in which to go 
 and return ? (The two armies were still some days' march 
 apart.) CaesEir would not consent. He assumed that what the 
 Germans 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 
 
66 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 circuit of the earth about the sun, had now come to within 
 twelve miles of the enemy, when the German ambassadors re- 
 turned to Csesar. They begged Caesar to halt. The earth 
 kept moving and— so did Caesar. " Pray, then,'' besought the 
 ambassadors, '' pray at least send orders in advance to the Ro- 
 man vanguard not to engage in battle ; and permit us mean- 
 time to send ambassadors to the Ubii. If the Ubii will 
 engage under oath with us, we will do anything 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 occurs 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 had a grand- 
 father who was once styled ** friend " by the Roman senate. 
 
 What follows in Caesar's narrative is so grave in its illus- 
 trative bearing upon Caesar'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 ; 
 
CiESAR. 89 
 
 After this battle, Caesar resolved neither to give audience to their 
 ambassadors nor admit them to terms of peace, seeing they had 
 treacherously applied for a truce, aad afterwards of their own 
 accord broken it. He 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 acquainted with the 
 levity of the Gauls, among whom they had already acquired a con- 
 siderable reputation by this successful attack, and to "w^hom it 
 therefore behooved him by no means to allow time to enter 
 into measures against him. Upon all these accounts he de- 
 termined to come to an engagement with the enemy as soon as 
 possible, and communicated 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 morning, 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 vindicate themselves in re- 
 gard 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 expe- 
 ditious 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 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 
 before, broke into the camp. Such as could first provide them- 
 selves 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. Caesar sent the cavalry in pursuit of them. 
 
 The Germans, hearing the noise behind them, and seeing th^ir 
 
40 CL.ASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGL.ISH. 
 
 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. Csesar offered those whom he had detained 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. 
 
 Caesar had effectually dispelled the present danger. While 
 the terror and horror of such an atrocity were still benumbing 
 men's minds, he could safely display his skill and his daring 
 in a feat well calculated to impress barbarian sensibilities with 
 a useful idea of Roman power. He would do what no Roman 
 had ever yet done, he would bridge the Rhine and cross it. It 
 was to be barren demonstration, so far as anything 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 ax startled those 
 distant forests. Just where it was situated, is a matter of 
 much dispute — some say at Cologne and some say at Bonn. 
 
 Caesar now turns his attention to another enterprise, that of 
 invading Great Britain. In due time a flotilla is ready, and a 
 few hours' sail brings Caesar to the British Qoast, The cliffs 
 
C^SAR. 41 
 
 are alive with islanders, prepared to receive 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 get- 
 ting ashore. Caesar notes it that his soldiers seemed not to 
 take their chance of floundering through the shoal water 
 to land, with anything like their wonted appetite for fighting 
 on dry ground. There occurred a little incident which Caesar, 
 with a for him quite unusual condescension to dramatic repre- 
 sentation, relates in what grammarians call {oratio recta) 
 direct discourse. Our readers must have this rare specimen of 
 Caesar in the lively mood, without change— except the neces- 
 sary 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 
 supplicating 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 disgrace should not be incurred, all leaped 
 from the ship. When those in the nearest vessels saw them, they 
 speedily followed and approached the enemy. 
 
 We hardly need follow with further detail the incidents of 
 this British adventure of Caesar. 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. Caesar in fact did well that 
 he got off from Great Britain at all. But he had a thanks- 
 giving of twenty days decreed to him for the success of the 
 campaign as a whole. 
 
 The fifth book is mainly a record of disaster to Caesar's 
 arms, disaster retrieved, but barely retrieved, from being irrep- 
 arable disaster. There is an episode to begin with — the 
 
42 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 episode of a second and last expedition, on Csesar's part, to 
 Great Britain. Without much more effort, that is permitted 
 to appear in his story, than the mere word of command 
 from his mouth, Caesar gets together a fleet of some eight 
 liundred 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. 
 
 Having landed and encamped, he encounters once more 
 a former enemy of his — a British storm. His ships are badly 
 shattered. 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. 
 
 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 military 
 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 everybody to 
 understand that Caesar is prosperous. Here, then, is tlie pass- 
 age in wliich 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 
 
C^SAR. 43 
 
 ship missing which conveyed soldiers ; but very few out of those 
 which were sent back to him from the continent empty, as the sol- 
 diers 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; almost all the rest were driven back, 
 and when Csesar had waited for them for some time in vain, lest he 
 should be deterred from a voyage by the season of the year, inas- 
 much 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 in all the ships in 
 safety. 
 
 Returned to Gaul, Caesar found that the harvests there, 
 on account of droughts, were poor. He felt compelled, ac- 
 cordingly, 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. This movement had 
 already prospered to the extent of the nearly complete 
 destruction of one whole legion, when Quintus Cicero, the 
 great Cicero's brother, a lieutenant of Caesar's, was attacked in 
 his camp. 
 
 The annihilated Nervii, of whom Caesar told us in the 
 second book of his Commentaries, re-appeared unaccountably 
 here, and, it would seem, for an annihilated nation, in very 
 considerable force. Here is what Caesar tells us of them and 
 of their work. How much, think you, did eagerness for 
 revenge stimulate these brave, fierce fellows in. their in- 
 credible 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 number; for in less 
 
44 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 than three hours they completed a line of fifteen miles in circuit. 
 The following days were employed in raising towers, proportioned 
 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 Caesar usually 
 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 think- 
 ing 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 multi- 
 tude 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, 
 hastened 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 dis- 
 tressed Cicero. But he was relieved at last by the coming 
 of Caesar. It was an occasion in some features like Havel ock's 
 
famous relief of Lucknow. The final result was decisive 
 victory for the Romans. 
 
 The chief peril was now past, but the winter kept bring- 
 ing fresh anxieties to Csesar, who had this time to forego 
 his accustomed annual visit to Italy. 
 
 The fifth book closes without mention made of any thanks- 
 giving decreed at Rome for Caesar's successes, and Csesar 
 has no concluding paragraph in self-complacent celebration of 
 his own good fortune. 
 
 Csesar resolved to show the Gauls how Romans behaved 
 themselves in the presence of reverses to their arms. This 
 is set forth in the sixth book of the Gallic Commentaries, 
 which is accordingly a stimulating chapter of the narrative. 
 He made a new levy of troops ; the cohorts lost under Titu- 
 rius he replaced with a double number of soldiers, and he 
 borrowed 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 winter 
 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^rum). How modern and how real this 
 name makes the history seem. From Paris, with those 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 surrender. 
 Caesar accepts their submission — for the sake of his friends, 
 the JEduans, 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 ^duans 
 will rise against Caesar. 
 
46 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Caesar 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 Am-bi^o-rix, 
 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 Caesar 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 hairbreadth escape for the hunted. 
 Caesar's good fortune was at fault again. 
 
 Caesar hunted with as much of patience and of prudence 
 as of zeal. He flrst 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 
 farther boundary of their possessions, there to await the on- 
 coming 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 mutual contrast with each other. Almost everybody likes 
 to read travelers' stories ; and when the traveler is Caius 
 Julius Caesar 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. 
 
 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 campfires. 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 cavalry 
 surpass themselves in speed. They surprise and capture 
 "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. 
 Ambiorix's colleague. King Cat-i-voFcus, 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 
 soldiers in the forest, he called in the neighboring tribes to the 
 hunt, making Ambiorix's nation, the Eb^u-ro^nes, 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 the 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 Si-cam^bri ? These freebooters, the Sicambri, 
 
48 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 recovered sick and wounded, with a large 
 retinue of slaves and beasts of burden, make a sally for 
 foraging. At this very moment, up con^e the Grermans and 
 throw the camp into panic confusion. This is the selfsame 
 spot on which Titurius and his legion were destroyed. Not 
 till Caesar arrives do they 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 
 horsemen 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 
 Ambiorix. They again and again just missed him, but he 
 finally never was caught. Caesar had to content himself, 
 as best he could, without his Ambiorix. 
 
 He closes his sixth book with mention of several matters 
 despatched 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, Csesar 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 cap- 
 tured. Perhaps, indeed, Acco suffered a little vicariously, 
 to satisfy the exasperated feelings of Caesar disappointed of 
 his prey in the person of hateful Ambiorix, hunted by him 
 so long in vain. 
 
 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. In this 
 character he experiences various and violent vicissitudes of 
 fortune, appearing always high-hearted and noble whether 
 in prosperity or in adversity. The end was inevitable, for 
 he contended with Caesar and with Rome. Vercingetorix 
 is fatally defeated and is captured. It is one of the many deep 
 and indelible stains on the glory of Caesar that, while he as 
 conqueror was enjoying his triumph at Rome, his gallant cap- 
 tive, Vercingetorix, at the selfsame moment suffered death 
 in his Roman dungeon. 
 
 The eighth and last book was written by Caesar's lieu- 
 tenant, Hirtius. Hirtius relates that Caesar, " convinced that 
 his lenity was known to all men," and so not fearing the 
 charge of "cruelty," once "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." 
 
 If we are hastily inclined to charge such atrocity in war- 
 fare exclusively to a pagan spirit abolished with the entrance 
 and spread of Christianity, let us remember Cortes, nay, 
 even Columbus, and be rebuked and ashamed. 
 
 In one of his triumphs, Caesar made an immense artificial 
 lake, on the surface of which he exhibited a sea fight — not 
 a sham fight, but a real fight^-in which thousands of 
 
60 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Egyptians and thousands of Tyrians, respectively, killed 
 each other for the delight of the populace. There were 
 murmurs at this feature of Csesar's displays— not, however, 
 because it was cruel, but because it was wasteful. No wonder 
 De Quincey called the Roman Empire founded by Caesar a 
 magnificently masked essential barbarism. Caesar himself, 
 De Quincey nevertheless pronounces — and with this sentence 
 let us dismiss the present subject — "unquestionably, for 
 comprehensive talents, the Lucifer, the protagonist, of all 
 antiquity." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CICERO. 
 
 Cicero is beyond comparison the most modern of the 
 ancients. We scarcely seem to be breathing the atmosphere 
 of antiquity when we are dealing with Cicero. Especially 
 in reading his letters, we unconsciously forget that the 
 writer of these living lines died near nineteen hundred 
 years ago. Cicero was a most human-hearted man, possessing 
 breadth enough of temperament and of sympathy to ally him 
 with all races and all ages of his kind. In Arpinum in Italy, 
 the birthplace of one of Rome's greatest generals, Rome's 
 greatest orator was born. Caius Marius and Marcus TuUius 
 Cicero were fellow-townsmen by birth. Cicero was not of 
 patrician blood; but his father was a gentleman in circum- 
 stances that enabled him to give his son the best advantages 
 for education. These of course were to be found in Rome, and 
 to Rome accordingly young Cicero was sent. Here, at sixteen 
 years of age, the future orator began his studies in law. 
 
 As a good Roman, with his fortune to make, Cicero must 
 needs have some experience in army life. This, with sub- 
 sequent tours of foreign travel, took him away from the 
 metropolis of the world, which however in due time drew him 
 back into its all-devouring vortex. Cicero rapidly made him- 
 self conspicuous at Rome. Round after round, he climbed the 
 ladder of political promotion, until he became quaestor in 
 Sicily. The quaes torship was an office that had to do with 
 revenue and finance. Cicero distinguished himself as quaestor 
 
 51 
 
52 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 by his ability and by his probity. The Sicilians were 
 delighted with this upright, accomplished, and genial official 
 from Rome. Their praises almost turned the young fellow's 
 head. Cicero afterwards rallied himself in public with ad- 
 mirable humor for the weakness of vanity indulged by him on 
 occasion of the displays that were made in his honor by 
 the grateful and effusive Sicilians. The allusion to this ex- 
 perience of his over-susceptible youth was artfully introduced 
 by the orator to enliven a certain speech that he was making. 
 **I thought in my heart," Cicero said, "that the people 
 at Rome must be talking of nothing but my qusestorship." 
 He was duly discharged of this pleasing illusion — he pro- 
 ceeds to tell us how. Cicero conceived the following strain of 
 allusion to himself— which may be taken as a good specimen 
 of the Ciceronian pleasantry, and Cicero was rated a very 
 lively man : 
 
 The people of Sicily had devised for me unprecedented honors. 
 So I left the island in a state of great elation, thinking that the 
 Roman people would at once offer me everything without my 
 seeking. But when I was leaving my province and on my road 
 home, I happened to land at Pu-te'o-li just at the time when a good 
 many of our most fashionable people are accustomed to resort to 
 that neighborhood. I very nearly collapsed, gentlemen, when a 
 man asked me what day I had left Rome and whether there was 
 any news stirring? When I made answer that I was returning 
 from my province—" Oh ! yes, to be sure," said he ; " Africa, I be- 
 lieve?" "No," said I to him, considerably annoyed and dis- 
 gusted; "from Sicily." Then somebody else, with an air of a 
 man who knew all about it, said to him — " What ! don't you know 
 that he was quaestor at Syracuse? " [It was at Li-ly-bse'um — 
 quite a different district.] No need to make a long story of it ; 
 I swallowed my indignation and made as though I, like the 
 rest, had come there for the waters. 
 
 Cicero's "improvement" of the lesson was highly charac- 
 teristic, both of the Roman and of Cicero. He says he learned 
 from it how important it was for his own profit that he should 
 keep himself constantly familiar before the eyes of his 
 countrymen at Rome and that he should sedulously practice 
 
CICERO. 53 
 
 every art of popularity. The following are the orator's own 
 
 words : 
 
 But I am not sure, gentlemen, whether that scene did not do me 
 more good than if everybody then and there had publicly con- 
 gratulated me. For after I had thus found out that the people 
 of Rome have somewhat deaf ears, but very keen and sharp eyes, 
 I left off cogitating what people would hear about me ; I took care 
 that thenceforth they should see me before them every day: I 
 lived in their sight, I stuck close to the Forum ; the porter at 
 my gate refused no man admittance — my very sleep was never 
 allowed to be a plea against an audience. 
 
 How thoroughly a politician in spirit Cicero was, and 
 
 how willingly he confessed that fact to the people of 
 
 Rome — whom he flattered in the very act of so confessing it — 
 
 is well shown in the following sentences from the same speech : 
 
 This is the inaUenable privilege of a free people, and especially of 
 this the chief people of the world, the lord and conqueror of all na- 
 tions, to be able by their votes to give or to take away what 
 they please to or from any one. And it is our duty,— ours, I 
 say, who are driven about by the winds and waves of this people, 
 to bear the whims of the people with moderation, to strive to 
 win over their affections when alienated from us, to retain them 
 when we have won them, to tranquilize them when in a state 
 of agitation. If we do not think honors of any great consequence, 
 we are not bound to be subservient to the people J if we do 
 strive for them, then we must be unwearied in soliciting them. 
 
 The Roman people enforced a good deal of meekness in their 
 candidates for office. Successful politicians had to learn the 
 distasteful art of stooping to conquer. 
 
 The first really great display of oratory from Cicero, was his 
 impeachment of Verres. Verres had been prsetor in Sicily, 
 and had there signalized his administration of office with 
 more than normal Roman cruelty. Cicero brought him to 
 trial. From this moment Cicero was the foremost orator of 
 Rome. Everything now lay possible before him. He was 
 soon consul. His merit and his fortune together made his 
 consulship the most illustrious in the annals of Rome. That 
 year was the year of the conspiracy of Catiline. This great 
 
54 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 political crime, Cicero had the good luck and the sagacity 
 mingled, to detect, the courage, with the eloquence, to de- 
 nounce, and the practical address completely to foil. His 
 conduct gave him the proud title of Father of his Country. 
 No one ever relished success more frankly than did Cicero. 
 He never wearied of sounding out the praises of his own con- 
 sulship. Cicero in fact was deeply encased with panoply 
 of self-complacency. This armor served him well for defense 
 against many an inward wound ; but Cicero's vanity and 
 an insincerity in him that was close of kin to vanity have 
 proved indelible blemishes on the fair face of his fame. 
 
 Out of the heart itself of the success achieved by him in the 
 matter of Catiline, sprang one of the greatest of the calamities 
 that marked Cicero's checkered, and at last tragical career. A 
 bill was introduced into the senate empowering Pompey, now 
 returned in triumph from the war against Mithridates, to 
 " restore the violated constitution." This ominous language 
 had Cicero for its aim. Cicero had put Roman citizens to 
 death without regular trial. Julius Csesar was demagogue 
 enough to support the bill. The bill failed in the senate, 
 but Cicero did not escape. A personal enemy of his got 
 the people of Rome to pass sentence of banishment upon 
 him. 
 
 But a great compensation awaited the disconsolate exile. 
 After a year and a half, Cicero was brought back to Rome like 
 a conqueror. No military triumph decreed him could have 
 done him half the honor or have yielded him half the generous 
 joy that now overflowingly filled his cup in the magnificent 
 popular ovation spontaneously prolonged to the returning 
 patriot through an imperial progress on his part of twenty- 
 four days from Brundusium to Rome. Cicero's heart swelled 
 with unbounded elation. The height of the joy was as 
 had been the depth of the sorrow. Let Cicero himself 
 describe his triumph for us: 
 
CICERO. 65 
 
 Who does not know what my return home was like? How 
 the people of Brundusium held out to me, as I might say, the right 
 hand of welcome on behalf of all my native land ? From thence 
 to Rome my progress was like a march of all Italy. There was no 
 district, no town, corporation, or colony, from which a public 
 deputation was not sent to congratulate me. Why need I speak of 
 my arrival at each place? how the people crowded the streets 
 in the towns ; how they flocked in from the country— fathers of 
 families with wives and children ? How can I describe those days, 
 when all kept holiday, as though it were some high festival of the 
 immortal gods, in joy for my safe return? That single day was to 
 me like immortality ; when I returned to my own city, when I saw 
 the senate and the population of all ranks come forth to greet me, 
 when Rome herself looked as though she had wrenched herself 
 from her foundations to rush to embrace her preserver. For she 
 received me in such sort, that not only all sexes, ages, and callings, 
 men and women of every rank and degree, but even the very 
 walls, the houses, the temples, seemed to share the universal joy. 
 
 Returning to Rome from a governorship in Cilicia, with the 
 mildglory of just and successful administration surrounding 
 him, he found the issue ready to be joined in deadly duel for 
 empire between Csesar and Pompey. He cast in his own lot 
 \vith Pompey. But he did not wholly trust Pompey. Indeed 
 he despaired of the republic— whichever might win, Pompey 
 or Caesar. Csesar won. But the term was brief of Caesar's 
 enjoyment of that supreme power which, as Pliny tells us the 
 conqueror himself used to say, it had cost a million and a half 
 of human lives, in Gaul alone, to win. Cicero was not one 
 of those who conspired against Csesar, but he rejoiced at the 
 great man's bloody death— openly, almost savagely, rejoiced. 
 He thought that the republic — that dream, that ideal, of his 
 love — was about to be restored. But he thought wrong and he 
 paid the price of his mistake with his blood. 
 
 The period during which, after Caesar's death, Cicero, with 
 his tongue, waged war against Antony, was the most truly 
 glorious of his life. Rufus Choate has celebrated it, with pomp 
 of numerous prose, beating in a rhythm answering to the 
 rhythm of Cicero himself, in a splendid discourse on the 
 
66 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN EN<^LlgII. 
 
 "Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods." Cicero was a true 
 hero now. His face, his form, his gait, are transfigured, lilie 
 those of 0-dys^seus at the gift of Pallas Ath-e^'ne. One is 
 pathetically comforted and glad, to behold the orator, the 
 statesman, the philosopher, the man — whom, before this, one 
 could not wholly admire— divested at length of the weakness 
 of vanity and of fear, marching forward erect and elate, like 
 a demigod out of Homer, and as with a kind of menacing and 
 triumphing welcome to his doom. His doom met him with 
 equal advancing steps. The story is familiar, but it bears to be 
 told again and again. 
 
 The triumvirate had triumphed over the republicans, and 
 therefore over Cicero. They made out a list for death, and 
 Antony included Cicero's name. It was the usurper's re- 
 venge for Cicero's philippics against him. Cicero was at his 
 Tusculan villa when he heard that he was proscribed. He 
 sought to escape from the country. But life was no longer 
 dear to him, and, after some irresolution, he decided to die by 
 his own act. He would first rest a while, and then go hence. 
 While he was resting, Antony's emissaries came. Cicero's 
 servants hastened with their master borne on a litter toward 
 the sea. But the soldiers were too quick for them. The 
 servants affectionately and bravely addressed themselves for 
 fight with their pursuers. But Cicero forbade them. He 
 stretched forth his head and neck from the litter, and sum- 
 moned the soldiers to take what they wanted. They wanted 
 his head and his hands. These they bore with speed to 
 Antony in the forum. Antony feasted his famished grudge 
 with the sight and had them fixed for general view on the 
 rostra from which, in better times, Cicero so often had spoken. 
 The tears that Rome shed were wept perhaps as much for her- 
 self, as for her Tully. 
 
 Tully's praises were silent during the time of Augustus— for 
 to praise Cicero would have been to blame the emperor— but 
 
CICERO. 67 
 
 they broke out again soon after, and they have since filled the 
 world. 
 
 Cicero's writings form what has been finely called a library 
 of reason and eloquence. They comprise orations, letters, and 
 essays in what is conventionally called philosophy. Let us 
 first deal with the orations. 
 
 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. 
 Readers who, in the companion volume to this, that on Greek 
 literature, study the eloquence of Demosthenes, may see the 
 Roman's style in a still stronger light by comparing and con- 
 trasting it with the style of the Greek. The English Burke, 
 we beUeve, consciously modeled his own oratory on the ora- 
 tory of Cicero. 
 
 To show Cicero first on that more gracious side of his oratory 
 with which the greater part of our citation from him will be 
 in bold, even violent, contrast, we present a very brief ex- 
 tract from his celebrated oration on Marcus Marcellus. Mar- 
 cellus had fought against Caesar in the civil war, and for that 
 reason now kept himself in exile. His cousin one day in full 
 senate prostrated himself before Caesar to implore the dicta- 
 tor's pardon for his kinsman. The whole body of the senators 
 did hkewise. Caesar yielded and pardoned the exile. Here- 
 upon Cicero responded in a speech which is preserved for us in 
 written form. We give only a single paragraph in specimen : 
 
 O Caius Csesar, those military glories of yours will be celebrated 
 not only in our own literature and language, but in those of al- 
 most 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 
 
68 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 the cries of the soldiers and the sound of the trumpets. But when 
 we hear or read of anything 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 victory, which is naturally 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 to preserve everything which the fortune of war has left 
 to the republic, O with what praises must we extol you ? with 
 what zeal must we follow you ? with what affection must we de- 
 vote ourselves to you ? The very walls, I declare, the very walls 
 of this senate-house appear to me eager to return you thanks : be- 
 cause, in a short time, you will have restored their ancient author- 
 ity to this venerable abode of themselves and of their ancestors. 
 
 Now no one can read intelligently the foregoing represent- 
 ative extract, inadequate through brevity as it is, 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. Caesar 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 adulation, 
 than pregnant wisdom of oratory and statesmanship. 
 
 Before — but not many years before — Caesar went to Gaul, 
 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 conspiracy. 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- 
 
CICERO. 69 
 
 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. 
 
 Cicero had proposed a new law against bribery. Catiline 
 felt himself aimed at and plotted against Cicero's hfe. Cicero 
 in open senate charged on him this design, and the consuls to 
 meet the emergency were by decree invested with dictatorial 
 powers. Catiline's hopes of election and his plot to assassin- 
 ate 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 political enemies 
 of the conspirators. Pompey's sons, however, were to be kept 
 alive as hostages to secure the proper behavior 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 
 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. CatiUne 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 
 deUvered 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 
 
60 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 character of the audience addressed and according to the ob- 
 ject sought to be accomplished by the orator. Here, then, is 
 a condensation of the 
 
 PIBST ORATION AGAINST CATIIilNE. 
 
 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 urbridled 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 vener- 
 able body here present, havo 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 Uves. 
 Lives! ay, he comes even into the senate. He takes a part in 
 the public deliberations ; 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 frenzied attacks. 
 
 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 Pontifex 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 Maelius 
 when plotting a revolution in the state. There was — there was 
 once such virtue in this republic, that brave men would repress 
 mischievous 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 
 
CICERO. 61 
 
 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 0-pim'i-us, the con- 
 sul, should take care that the republic suffered no injury. Not one 
 night elapsed. There was put to death, on some mere suspicion of 
 disaffection, Caius Gracchus, a man whose family had borne the 
 most unblemished 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 similar 
 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, be put to dea'th 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 acted tardily, 
 rather than that any one should aflarm 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 live 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 
 
62 CliASSIO LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 attack, 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 whUe 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 oflfend? 
 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 
 all of us, hates 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 unpunished 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. De- 
 
CICERO. 63 
 
 part, 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 re- 
 public 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 very temple. But as to you, 
 Catiline, while they are quiet they approve, 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 
 themselves 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 praetor — 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 bis 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 knights, so much unanimity in all good men, that you 
 shall see everything made plain and manifest by the departure 
 of Catiline — everything checked and punished. 
 
 With these omens, O Catiline, begone to your impious and nefari- 
 ous war, to the great safety of the republic, to your own misfortune 
 and injury, and to the destruction of those who have joined them- 
 selves 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 over- 
 whelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, 
 the robbers of Italy, men bound together by a treaty and infamous 
 alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal punishments. 
 
64 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 The effect of a speech so very unconventionally frank, 
 on 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 fiercely out of the temple. 
 
 Cicero had now a task of justifying himself before the people 
 of Kome. For CatiUne'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 pur- 
 sued with words, Lucius Catiline, mad with audacity, breathing 
 wickedness, impiously planning mischief to his country, threaten- 
 ing fire and sword to you and to this city. He is gone, he has 
 departed, he has disappeared, he has rushed out. No injury will 
 now be prepared against these walls within the walls themselves 
 by that monster and prodigy of wickedness. . . . 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 jaAvs, but which seems to me to rejoice 
 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 capi- 
 tal 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 ? 
 
ClCEtto. ^ 
 
 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 tranquilized, 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 sufl'er to spread to the ruin of the republic. Let them de- 
 part 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. 
 
 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 dic- 
 tators 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 vigor- 
 ous from constant exercise. . . . These are colonists, who, from 
 becoming possessed of unexpected and sudden wealth, boast them- 
 selves 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 banquets, have incurred such great 
 
68 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISit. 
 
 debts, that, if they would be saved, the^ must raise Sylla from the 
 dead. , , , Let them cease to be mad, and to think of proscrip- 
 tions 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. , i , 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 them- 
 selves. 
 
 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, beard- 
 less, 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 daybreak. 
 
 On the one side are fighting modesty, on the other, wanton- 
 ness ; 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, consistency, on the other, insanity ; 
 on the one, honor, on the other, baseness ; on the one, continence, 
 on the other, lust; iu short, equity, temperance, fortitude, pru- 
 dence, all the virtues, contend against iniquity with luxury, 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 contest and war of this sort, even if the zeal of 
 men were to fail, will not the immortal gods compel such numer- 
 ous 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 ai^d 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 
 
CICERO. 67 
 
 any attempt or design against the country, he shall feel that 
 there are in this city vigilant consuls, 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 wickedness of abandoned citizens, now that all 
 the forces of all enemies are defeated by land and sea, this city 
 which they have ordained to be the most beautiful and flourish- 
 ing 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 narrar 
 tion, the incidents of the discovery of full documentary 
 evidence against the conspirators. The Al-lob^ro-ges had at 
 the moment an embassy in Rome, with whom the conspirators 
 had tampered. But Cicero received from these Gallic en- 
 voys a hint of the approaches made to them. He bade 
 them go on and obtain full knowledge of the plans of the con- 
 spirators. 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 gainsay it, and one of them made a clean breast 
 
68 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 of the whole crime. Such in brief is what Cicero in this 
 admirable popular 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. 
 Cicero spoke in favor of the capital sentence. His weight and 
 eloquence prevailed. The conspirators were strangled by 
 torchlight in their underground 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." 
 
 From this fourth speech we extract briefly to show, ac- 
 cording to Cicero's statement of them, the tenor of Caesar's 
 remarks. The advice of Silanus, consul elect, to put the 
 conspirators to death, is contrasted with that of Julius Caesar, 
 thus: 
 
 The other [Caesar] 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 en- 
 countered it even voluntarily. But imprisonment, and that too 
 perpetual, was certainly invented for the extraordinary punish- 
 ment of nefarious wickedness: therefore he proposes that they 
 should be distributed among the municipal towns. This proposi- 
 tion 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 burgesses of the municipal town if any of 
 the prisoners escape ; he surrounds them with the most terrible 
 guard, and with everything 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 condem- 
 ning, by a vote of either the senate or the people. He takes 
 away even hope, which alone can comfort men in their miseries ; 
 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 
 
CICERO. 69 
 
 the wicked, men of old have believed that there were some punish- 
 ments 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 Csesar, 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. 
 
 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 destruction 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 companion in my address dear 
 and acceptable to the Roman people. 
 
 The coinity proper between senators is carefully observed in 
 Cicero's answer to Csesar. Nay, you feel that Cicero is con- 
 scious 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 
 displayed by Cicero, if, within himself, he indeed knew, what 
 Mommsen supposes to be certainly true, that Csesar was 
 all the time, by secret encouragement, in complicity with 
 tlie 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 ap- 
 pearance really work in the breasts of those engaged in it. 
 
 The range of Cicero's eloquence is so wide, that adequately 
 
70 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 itself, 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 appropriated 
 from the famous harangues of Demosthenes against 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 Csesar's death during which it remained doubtful what 
 course of public policy would be pursued by young Octavian 
 (Caesar Augustus), named in Csesar's will as his political 
 heir. Cicero still hoped that the destined future emperor 
 might be induced to restore the repubUo. 
 
 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 ne- 
 gotiation and collusion with the assassins — Liberators, it was 
 the fashion to call them — but he was evidently beginning to 
 revive Ceesarism by such contrivances of administration 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 re- 
 quested by Antony to do so, did not attend. He was against 
 the measure proposed. Antony, provoked, talked threaten- 
 ingly 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, deUvered a speech in dignified, mod- 
 erate, but quite firm, opposition to Antony. Provoked again, 
 Antony replied in a violent personal invective. To this, 
 
CICERO. 71 
 
 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 pubUshed 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 master- 
 piece of Cicero's eloquence. 
 
 The contrast in tone, in style, in matter, which this 
 philippic, in common with the rest of the series, presents 
 to the other orations of Cicero, not excepting even the vehe- 
 ment 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 
 Manilian 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. 
 
 Antony was, undoubtedly, one of the most shamelessly 
 profligate of men. Otherwise such accusations as Cicero 
 brought must have reacted with his audience against the 
 bringer. 
 
 We 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 republic without at the same time declaring war against me? 
 Nor is there any necessity for naming any particular person ; 
 you yourselves recollect instances in proof of my statement. They 
 have all hitherto suffered 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 in- 
 
72 CLASSIC LATIN COtfRSE IN fcNGLlStt. 
 
 jured by me, not even by a word, in order to appear 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 illustri- 
 ous 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 con- 
 tend with me in a rivalry 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 miserable, 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 ? especially when you 
 had scattered abroad all relics of the republic , when everything 
 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, be- 
 ing 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 drunkenness and debauchery, you were every day 
 performing all sorts of obscenities in that 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 hira 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 Antonius, 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 through- 
 out 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 
 
CICERO. 78 
 
 attacked me, think that I have forgotten my usual character. 
 I will not treaty 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 republic or the manner in which he was 
 elected, I am beyond all dispute 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 I 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 arma togoe — "let military yield to civil power." This is a 
 bit of verse from Cicero himself; Antony had evidently been rally- 
 ing 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 freedom of the Ro- 
 man 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 
 literature 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, inculpated 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, 
 
74 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 marriage of Hippia, that you were forced to vomit 
 the next day in the sight of the Roman people. O action disgrace- 
 ful 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 oflS^ce, 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 fragments 
 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 display 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 and deliber- 
 ately 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 
 assumption 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 everything and would find 
 no difficulty in being a slave ; but certainly you had no commis- 
 sion 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 I 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 
 
CICERO. 75 
 
 the glory of some most eminent men. Still my indignation shall 
 find a voice. What can be more scandalous 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 rejected 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, perpetual dictator; and that Caesar had refused to ac- 
 cept 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 Tar- 
 quinius 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 ventured 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 imita- 
 tion; 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 glorious action there is a certain 
 reward, still I do not consider immortality 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, 
 prudence, deliberation, and industry. He had performed exploits 
 in war which, though calamitous for the republic, were never- 
 theless mighty deeds. Having for many years aimed at being 
 a king, he had with great labor and much personal danger 
 accomplished what he intended. He 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 ad- 
 versaries 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. 
 
76 CliASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 republic 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 noble a thing it is as to the act, how 
 grateful it is as to the benefit done, how glorious as to the fame ac- 
 quired, tcy 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 
 consider the republic : think of the family of which you are born, 
 not of the men with whom you are living. Be reconciled to the re- 
 public. 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 Catiline ; 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 temple I asserted that death could not come 
 prematurely upon a man of consular 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 desirable, 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 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. 
 
 Our own great jurist and orator, Rufus Choate, speaking on 
 the general subject of "The Eloquence of Revolutionary 
 Periods," enters, at one point, without notice upon a mag- 
 nificent 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. 
 
CICERO. 77 
 
 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 ignominious— 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 down 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 I For you, the 
 people of Rome — you, whom the gods have appointed to rule 
 the world — for you to own a master is impious. 
 
 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 de- 
 votion 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 birthright and the distinction of the people 
 of Rome is liberty. 
 
 Our previous extracts were from the best translations ac- 
 cessible, but 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. With Mr. Choate's fine bit of translation, let us con- 
 sider our presentation of Cicero as orator closed. 
 
 Now for Cicero's letters. And first an extract from one 
 written to his friend Atticus about a visit of omnipotent 
 Csesar to Cicero's house. It needs to be explained that 
 there was apparently a tacit playful understanding between 
 Cicero and his half-Greek friend Atticus, that they should 
 freely interlard the text of their correspondence with phrases 
 
78 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 borrowed from Greek. Mr. Jeans, our translator, has, with 
 excellent judgment, sought to reproduce the effect for us, 
 by putting the Greek used by Cicero into an equivalent of 
 French. Those readers of ours who know French will readily 
 excuse it if, for the benefit of those readers of ours who do not, 
 we hint in English the meaning of the few foreign phrases 
 that here occur : 
 
 Oh, what a formidable guest to have had I and jetje n^en suispas 
 fdcM [I am not sorry], he was in such a very agreeable mood. But 
 after his arrival at Philippus's house, on the evening of the second 
 day of the Saturnalia, the whole establishment was so crowded 
 with soldiers that even the room where Caesar himself was to dine 
 could hardly be kept clear from them ; it is a fact that there 
 were two thousand men ! Of course I was nervous about what 
 might be the case with me next day, and so Cassius Barba came to 
 my assistance ; he gave me some men on guard. The camp was 
 pitched out of doors ; my villa was made secure. On the third day 
 of the Saturnalia he stayed at Philippus's till near one, and ad- 
 mitted nobody (accounts with Balbus, I suppose) ; then took a 
 walk on the beach. After two to the bath : then he heard about 
 Ma-mur'ra; he made no objection. He was then rubbed down 
 with oil, and dinner began. It was his intention se faire vomir [to 
 take a vomit], and consequently he ate and drank sans peur 
 [freely], and with much satisfaction. And certainly everything 
 was very good, and well served ; nay more, I may say that 
 " Though the cook was good, 
 'Twas Attic salt that flavored best the food." 
 
 There were three dining rooms besides, where there was a 
 very hospitable reception for the gentlemen of his suite ; while the 
 inferior class of freedmen and slaves had abundance at any rate ; 
 for as to the better class, they had a more refined table. In short, I 
 think I acquitted myself like a man. The guest, however, was not 
 the sort of person to whom you would say, **' I shall be most 
 delighted if you will come here again on your way back " ; once is 
 enough. As to our conversation, it was mostly like that of two 
 savants [men of letters] ; nothing was said au grand serieux [in 
 a very serious vein]. Well, I will only say that he was greatly 
 pleased and seemed to enjoy himself. He told me that he should 
 be one day at Puteoli, and the next near Baise. Here you have the 
 story of his visit— or shall I say ♦'billeting"?— which, I told 
 you, was a thing one would shrink from, but did not give much 
 trouble. I am for Tusculum next after a short stay here. 
 
CICERO. 79 
 
 When he was passing Dolabella's house, but nowhere else, the 
 whole guard was paraded in arms on either side of him as he rode ; 
 I have it from Nicias. 
 
 The allusion about Mamurra is obscure. Generally it is 
 taken to mean certain scathing epigrams on Csesar and 
 Mamurra, from the pen of the poet Catullus. "He never 
 changed countenance, '* is Middleton's rendering, in place 
 of Mr. Jeans's " he made no objection." 
 
 The taking of a vomit before and after meals was a not 
 uncommon Roman habit of the times. It was not only 
 an epicure's expedient for better enjoying, and enjoying more 
 safely, the pleasures of the table, but it was a current medical 
 prescription for improving the health. Csesar's purposed 
 post-prandial vomit (ante-prandial, Middleton makes it) 
 was not therefore an exceptional bit of epicurism. Rather, 
 it is to be regarded as good guestship on his part. Caesar 
 thus intimated to Cicero that he expected a good dinner, 
 and was intending to do his host's fare full dictatorial jus- 
 tice. 
 
 The quotation in verse is from Lucilius. Cicero has it 
 again in his De Finibus. "Or shall I say 'billeting'?" is 
 Cicero's way of implying to Atticus that Caesar's visit, having 
 been accepted rather than invited, might be looked upon as in 
 the nature of a military quartering of himself by Caesar on his 
 host's hospitality. We may venture however to guess, both 
 from Cicero's characteristic genial good nature and from his 
 shrewd eye to the main chance, that Caesar was not suffered to 
 feel any lack of seeming-spontaneous cordiality, in that 
 day's entertainment. 
 
 A letter of Sulpicius, included in Mr. Jeans's selection from 
 the correspondence of Cicero, is one of consolation to his illus- 
 trious friend on the death of his daughter Tullia. This is 
 a famous literary antique. It admirably shows what was 
 the best that ancient paganism could offer in the way of 
 
80 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 comfort to souls bereaved. Here is a specimen extract from 
 the letter of Sulpicius : 
 
 A reflection which was such as to afford me no light consolation I 
 cannot but mention to you, in the hope that it may be allowed 
 to contribute equally toward mitigating your grief. As I was 
 returning from Asia, when sailing from JE-gi'na in the direction of 
 Meg'a-ra, I began to look around me at the various places by 
 which I was surrounded. Behind me was ^gina, in front, Megara ; 
 on the right, the Piraeus, on the left, Corinth : all of these towns, 
 that in former days were so magnificent, are now lying prostrate 
 and in ruins before one's eyes. " Alas ! " I began to reflect to my- 
 self, ** we poor feeble mortals, who can claim but a short life in 
 comparison, complain as though a wrong was done us if one of our 
 number dies in the course of nature or has fallen on the field 
 of battle; and here in one spot are lying stretched out before 
 me the corpses of so many cities ! Servius, why do you not control 
 yourself, and remember that that is man's life into which you have 
 been born?" Believe me, 1 found myself in no small degree 
 strengthened by these reflections. Let me advise you, if you agree 
 with me, to put the same prospect before your eyes too. How 
 lately at one and the same time have many of our most illustrious 
 men fallen! how grave an encroachment has been made on the 
 rights of the sovereign people of Rome ! every country in the 
 world has been convulsed : if the frail life of a helpless woman has 
 gone too, who being born to our common lot must have died 
 in a few short years, even if the time had not come for her now, 
 are you thus utterly stricken down ? 
 
 Cicero replied as follows to the tender of sympathy and con- 
 solation from Sulpicius : 
 
 I join with you, my dear Sulpicius, in wishing that you had been 
 in Rome when this most severe calamity befell me. I am sensible 
 of the advantage I should have received from your presence, and I 
 had almost said your equal participation of my grief, by having 
 found myself somewhat more composed after I had read your 
 letter. It furnished me, indeed, with arguments extremely proper 
 to soothe the anguish of affliction and evidently flowed from a 
 heart that sympathized with the sorrows it endeavored to assuage. 
 But although I could not enjoy the benefit of your own good oflSces 
 in person, I had the advantage, however, of your son's, who gave 
 me proof, by every tender assistance that could be contributed 
 upon so melancholy an occasion, how much he imagined that 
 he was acting agreeably to your sentiments when he thus dis- 
 
CICERO. ' 81 
 
 covered the affection of his own. More pleasing instances of his 
 friendship I have frequently received, but never any that 
 were more obliging. As to those for which I am indebted 
 to yourself, it is not only the force of your reasonings and 
 the very considerable share you take in my afflictions, that have 
 contributed to compose my mind ; it is the deference, likewise, 
 which I always pay to the authority of your sentiments. For, 
 knowing, as I perfectly do, the superior wisdom with which 
 you are enlightened, I should be ashamed not to support my 
 distresses in the manner you think I ought ; I will acknowl- 
 edge, nevertheless, that they sometimes almost entirely over- 
 come me ; and I am scarce able to resist the force of my grief 
 when I reflect, that I am destitute of those consolations which 
 attended others, whose examples I propose to my imitation. Thus 
 Quintus Maximus lost a son of consular rank and distinguished by 
 many brave and illustrious actions ; Lucius Paulus was deprived 
 of two sons in the space of a single week; and your relation 
 Gallus, together with Marcus Cato, had both of them the unhappi- 
 ness to survive their respective sons, who were endowed with 
 the highest abilities and virtues. Yet these unfortunate parents 
 lived in times when the honors they derived from the republic 
 might, in some measure, alleviate the weight of their domestic 
 misfortunes. But as for myself, after having: been stripped of 
 those dignities you mention, and which I had acquired by the most 
 laborious exertion of my abilities, I had one only consolation 
 remaining— and of that I am now bereaved ! I could no longer di- 
 vert the disquietude of my thoughts, by employing myself in 
 the causes of my friends or the business of the state ; for I could no 
 longer, with any satisfaction, appear either in the forum or the 
 senate. In short, I justly considered myself as cut off from the 
 benefit of all those alleviating occupations in which fortune and 
 industry had qualified me to engage. But I considered, too, that 
 this was a deprivation which I suffered in common with yourself 
 and some others ; and, whilst I was endeavoring to reconcile my 
 mind to a patient endurance of those ills, there was one to whose 
 tender offices I could have recourse, and in the sweetness of whose 
 conversation I could discharge all the cares and anxiety of my 
 heart. But this last fatal stab to my peace has torn open those 
 wounds which seemed in some measure to have been tolerably 
 healed : for I can now no longer lose my private sorrows in the 
 prosperity of the commonwealth, as I was wont to dispel the 
 uneasiness I suffered upon the public account, in the happiness 
 I received at home. Accordingly, I have equally banished myself 
 from my house and from the public, — as finding no relief in either 
 from the calamities I lament in both. It is this, therefore, that 
 
82 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGIilSH. 
 
 heightens my desire of seeing you here ; as nothing can afford me 
 a more effectual consolation than the renewal of our friendly inter- 
 course ; a happiness which I hope, and am informed indeed, that I 
 shall shortly enjoy. Among the many reasons I have for im- 
 patiently wishing your arrival, one is, that we may previously 
 concert together our scheme of conduct in the present conjunc- 
 ture — which, however, must now be entirely accommodated to 
 another's will. This person [Caesar], it is true, is a man of great 
 abilities and generosity, and one, if I mistake not, who is by 
 no means my enemy — as I am sure he is extremely your friend. 
 Nevertheless, it requires much consideration, I do not say in what 
 manner we shall act with respect to public affairs, but by what 
 methods we may best obtain his permission to retire from them. 
 Farewell. 
 
 We go from Cicero the letter-writer to Cicero the philos- 
 opher. 
 
 In his quality of philosopher, Cicero wrote on morals. " De 
 OflSciis" ["Concerning Duties"] is the title of his great 
 treatise on this subject. A comparative estimate of Cicero's 
 De Officiis and of his philosophical writings in general, pre- 
 sented by Luther, will be read with interest. Out of this 
 great man's teeming "table talk" so-called, happily in 
 such large measure preserved to us, we take the following 
 extract : 
 
 " Cicero is greatly superior to Aristotle in philosophy and in 
 teaching. The OflScia of Cicero are greatly superior to the Ethica 
 of Aristotle ; and although Cicero was involved in the cares of 
 government and had much on his shoulders, he greatly excels 
 Aristotle, who was a lazy ass, and cared for nothing but money and 
 possessions, and comfortable, easy days. Cicero handled the 
 greatest and best questions in his philosophy, such as : Is there a 
 God ? What is God ? Does he give heed to the actions of men ? 
 Is the soul immortal ? etc. Aristotle is a good and skillful dialec- 
 tician, who has observed the right and orderly method in teaching, 
 but the kernel of matters he has not touched. Let those who wish 
 to see a true philosophy read Cicero. Cicero was a wise and indus- 
 trious man, and he suffered much and accomplished much. I 
 hope that our Lord God will be generous to him and the like of 
 him. Of this we are not entitled to speak with certainty. 
 Although the revealed word must abide : ' He who believeth, and 
 is baptized, shall be saved ' (Mark xvi., 16), yet it is possible that 
 
CICERO. 83 
 
 God may dispense with it in the case of the heathen. There will 
 be a new heaven and a new earth, much larger than the present ; 
 and he can give to every one according to his good pleasure.* 
 
 Cicero was an eminently practical man, a man of affairs, 
 a man of real life. The practical interest accordingly with 
 him always dominated the speculative. The De Offlciis is 
 by no means conceived as an exhaustive philosophical treatise 
 on the subject of ethics. It is rather a manual of maxims, 
 reasoned and elucidated maxims, adapted to guide the conduct 
 of a young man seeking to be a good citizen in the Roman 
 state and a candidate there for political preferment. 
 
 The work is divided into three books. The first book treats 
 the right, the second, the expedient, the third, the relation 
 between the right and the expedient. The main interest 
 of the De Offlciis centers in the third book, the book in which 
 the author treats of apparent conflicts between the expedi- 
 ent and the right. Let us go to that book ; but let us, while 
 going, cull here and there an interesting thing on the way. 
 
 " The first demand of justice,'^ says Cicero, " is that no one 
 do harm to another, unless provoked by injury. ^^ We italicize 
 the exceptive clause — the clause will occur a second time 
 toward the end of the treatise — as constituting a point of con- 
 trast between the De Offlciis and the New Testament. 
 
 Julius Caesar (dead at the date of this composition) is 
 more than once made by Cicero to do duty as an example 
 by way of warning. Generosity, as well as justice, is, accord- 
 ing to Cicero, a demand of morality. But the lavish munif- 
 icence of Caesar was not to be accounted generosity. Caesar 
 had taken wrongfully what he bestowed magnificently ; and 
 "nothing," insists Cicero, "is generous that is not at the 
 same time just." 
 
 Cicero himself was rich, but hardly rich with such a 
 spirit as to be condemned by his own sentiment, expressed 
 in the following words : 
 
84 CliASSIG LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Nothing shows so narrow and small a mind as the love of riches ; 
 nothing is more honorable and magnificent than to despise money, 
 if you have it not— if you have it, to expend it for purposes of 
 beneficence and generosity. 
 
 When, however, Cicero immediately went on, " The greed 
 of fame also must be shunned," perhaps he was, whether 
 he knew it or not, fairly hit by a boomerang return upon 
 himself of his own weapon. 
 
 "One person,'^ Cicero teaches, "ought, while another per- 
 son, under the same circumstances, ought not, to commit 
 suicide.'^ Elsewhere in his writings, he makes suicide 
 wrong. 
 
 Is not this that follows almost like the apostle Paul 
 giving instruction to the Corinthian Christians about the 
 use of the various supernatural "gifts" ? 
 
 It is better to speak fluently, if wisely, than to think, no 
 matter with what acuteness of comprehension, if the power of 
 expression be wanting; for thought begins and ends in itself, 
 while fluent speech extends its benefit to those with whom we 
 are united in fellowship. 
 
 Cicero, as from the foregoing might be inferred, insists 
 strongly on "altruism" — in the form of making self- 
 indulgence in study and culture severely subordinate to 
 activities that may tend to the good of one's fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 That is a wholesome inculcation, in which Cicero, discuss- 
 ing the expedient, teaches his son that, even for his own sake, 
 he ought to seek to be loved. He draws warning example 
 again, anonymously this time, from Csesar, and Ennius is 
 quoted (not for the first time in this treatise) : 
 
 But of all things nothing tends so much to the guarding and 
 keeping of resources as to be the object of afiection ; nor is any- 
 thing more foreign to that end than to be the object of fear. En- 
 nius says most fittingly : 
 
 " Hate follows fear ; and plotted ruin, hate." 
 
 It has been lately demonstrated, if it was before unknown, that 
 
CICKBO. 85 
 
 no resources can resist the hatred of a numerous body. It is 
 not merely the destruction of this tyrant , . , that shows how 
 far the hatred of men may prove fatal ; but similar deaths of other 
 tyrants, hardly one of whom has escaped a like fate, teach this 
 lesson. 
 
 Cicero constantly enlivens and enlightens his ethical page 
 with instance drawn by the writer from great resources of 
 knowledge in possession. Here is an example of this 
 method of his. He is pointing out how on the whole it is 
 for you yourself more profitable to exercise kindness toward 
 really good men than toward men simply well placed in 
 life : 
 
 I think a kindness better invested with good men than with men 
 of fortune. In fine, we should endeavor to meet the claims of 
 those of every class ; but if it come to a competition between rival 
 claimants for our service, Themistocles may be well quoted as 
 an authority, who, when asked whether he would marry his 
 daughter to a good poor man, or to a rich man of less respect- 
 able character, replied, ** I, indeed, prefer the man who lacks 
 money to the money that lacks a man." 
 
 Cicero holds good sound doctrine on financial questions. 
 Repudiation of debt, under whatever form proposed, and with 
 whatever pretext, excites his abhorrence. He has his thrust 
 at Julius Caesar again : 
 
 Nothing holds the state more firmly together than good faith, 
 which cannot possibly exist unless the payment of debts is obliga- 
 tory, . . . He, indeed, of late conqueror, but at that time 
 conquered [that is, when Catiline's conspiracy was suppressed — 
 Cicero assumes Caesar, deeply in debt at the moment, to 
 have taken part in the plot], carried out what he had then 
 planned after he had ceased to have any personal interest in it. So 
 great was his appetite for evil-doing, that the very doing of evil 
 gave him delight, even when there was no special reason for it. 
 From this kind of generosity, then — the giving to some what is 
 taken from others— those who mean to be guardians of the state 
 will refrain, and will especially bestow their efforts, that through 
 the equity of the laws and of their administration every man 
 may have his own property made secure, and that neither the 
 poorer may be defrauded on account of their lowly condition, 
 
86 CLASSIC L.ATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 nor any odium, may stand in the way of the rich in holding or 
 recovering what belongs to them. 
 
 The third book, as has been said, is occupied with the re- 
 lation of the right to the expedient. Cicero, with repetition 
 and with, emphasis, insists that there is never any conflict be- 
 tween these two — that always what is right is expedient, 
 and that never is anything expedient which is not right. 
 But he draws many distinctions and admits many qualificar 
 tions. A thing generally wrong may, under certain circum- 
 stances, be right. He instances Brutus's act in stabbing 
 Csesar, as an illustration in point : 
 
 What greater crime can there be than to kill not only a man, but 
 an intimate friend? Has one, then, involved himself in guilt 
 by killing a tyrant, however intimate with him? This is not 
 the opinion of the Roman people, who of all deeds worthy of 
 renown regard this as the most noble. Has expediency, then, 
 got the advantage over the right? Nay, but expediency has fol- 
 lowed in the direction of the right. 
 
 It is the Stoic philosophy that Cicero mainly follows in 
 
 the De Officiis, but, as disciple also of Plato, he claims 
 
 much latitude of view and discussion. Here is a noble 
 
 passage that will recall Paul's ethics, and even PauPs 
 
 rhetoric : 
 
 For a man to take anything wrongfully from another, and to in- 
 crease his own means of comfort by his fellow-man's discomfort, is 
 more contrary to nature than death, than poverty, than pain, than 
 anything else that can happen to one's body or his external condi- 
 tion. In the first place, it destroys human intercourse and society; 
 for if we are so disposed that every one for his own gain is ready to 
 rob or outrage another, that fellowship of the human race which is 
 in the closest accordance with nature must of necessity be broken in 
 sunder. As if each member of the body were so affected as to sup- 
 pose itself capable of getting strength by appropriating the strength 
 of the adjacent member, the whole body must needs be enfeebled 
 and destroyed, so if each of us seizes for himself the goods of 
 others, and takes what he can from every one for his own emolu- 
 ment, the society and intercourse of men must necessarily be 
 subverted. 
 
 To the same purport again : 
 
CICERO. 87 
 
 This, then, above all, ought to be regarded by every one as an es- 
 tablished principle, that the interest of each individual and that of 
 the entire body of citizens are identical, which interest if any 
 one appropriate to himself alone, he does it to the sundering of all 
 human intercourse. . . . Those, too, who say that account is to 
 be taken of citizens, but not of foreigners, destroy the common 
 sodality of the human race, which abrogated, beneficence, liber- 
 ality, kindness, justice, are removed from their very foundations. 
 
 The following fine anecdote illustrates Cicero's open-minded 
 hospitality toward what he found good in other nations than 
 the Roman : 
 
 The-mis'to-cles, after the victory in the Persian war, said in 
 a popular assembly, that he had a plan conducive to the public 
 good, but that it was not desirable that it should be generally 
 known. He asked that the people should name some one with 
 whom he might confer. Aristi'des was named. Themistocles 
 said to him that the fleet of the Lacedaemonians, which was drawn 
 ashore at Gy-the'um, could be burned clandestinely, and if that 
 were done, the power of the Lacedaemonians would be inevitably 
 broken. Aristides, having heard this, returned to the assembly 
 amidst the anxious expectation of all, and said that the measure 
 proposed by Themistocles was very advantageous, but utterly 
 devoid of right. Thereupon the Athenians concluded that what 
 was not right was not expedient, and they repudiated the entire 
 plan which they had not heard, on the authority of Aristides. 
 
 Several cases narrated or supposed by Cicero, and then 
 considered by him on the one side and on the other — cases 
 of apparent conflict between the right and the expedient — 
 give rise to discussion at his hands which strikingly shows 
 to what height of moral standard the conscience of man, 
 unassisted by Divine revelation, could attain. The now so 
 much vaunted ethics of Buddhism suffer cruelly in contrast 
 with Cicero's De Officiis. 
 
 With one brief sentence more from this remarkable volume, 
 we end our extracts from the De Officiis of Cicero. The 
 sentence is one which sums up, in a single blended expression, 
 at once the strange loftiness and the strange limitation of 
 Cicero's moral ideal ; 
 
88 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 If one would only develop the idea of a good man wrapped up in 
 his own mind, he would then at once tell himself that he is a good 
 man who benefits all that he can, and does harm to no one un- 
 less provoked by injury. 
 
 "Unless provoked by injury" ! The wings seemed strong 
 enough to raise their possessor quite clear of the ground ; but, 
 alas, there was a hopeless clog tied fast to the feet. How 
 easily that untaught young Judsean to be born a generation 
 later, will say : 
 
 ** Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good 
 to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite- 
 fully use you and persecute you." 
 
 The De Senectute (Concerning Old Age) of Cicero is an 
 essay such almost as Addison, for example, might have issued 
 in parts continued through several numbers of his Spectator. 
 It is a charming meditation on a theme that Cicero's time 
 of life when he wrote it inclined him and fitted him to 
 make the subject of discourse. It was probably written not 
 far from the date of the composition of the De Officiis. The 
 literary form is that of a dialogue after the manner of Plato, in 
 which Cato the Elder — an idealized and glorified man, as 
 Cicero finely misrepresents the sturdy but boorish old censor 
 of actual history — is the chief speaker. It is the gracious per- 
 sonality of the writer himself, rather than the repellent, 
 not to say repulsive, personality of the historic character 
 represented, which diffuses that indescribable charm over the 
 exquisite pages of the De Senectute. Cicero balances the good 
 and the ill of old age, with a serene and suave philosophy, 
 which, while you read, makes you feel as if it would be a 
 thing delightful to grow old. We take a single passage, only 
 too brief, from the concluding part of the dialogue. This pas- 
 sage will be found to disclose something of the spirit in which 
 the transmitted influence of Socrates and Plato enabled 
 Cicero, at least in his better, his more transfigured, mo- 
 
CICERO. 89 
 
 ments, to contemplate the prospect of death. It forms a bland 
 and beautiful contrast to the hideous squalor of the old 
 man depicted in Juvenal's satirical portrait. ' Cato is speaking 
 to his younger companions in conversation — sons they of illus- 
 trious sires. He alludes to a son of his own, deceased, — " my 
 Cato," he calls him, — with pathetic reminiscence reminding 
 one of Burke's uttered sorrow over his similar bereavement, 
 and of Webster's over his. What we give brings the dialogue 
 to its end : 
 
 I am transported with desire to see your fathers whom I revered 
 and loved ; nor yet do I long to meet those only whom I have 
 known, but also those of whom I have heard and read, and 
 about whom I myself have written. Therefore one could not 
 easily turn me back on my lifeway, nor would I willingly, like 
 Pelias, be plunged in the rejuvenating caldron. Indeed, were any 
 god to grant that from my present age I might go back to boyhood 
 or become a crying child in the cradle, I should steadfastly refuse ; 
 nor would I be willing, as from a finished race, to be summoned 
 back from the goal to the starting point. For what advantage 
 is there in life? Or rather, what is there of arduous toil that is 
 wanting to it? But grant all that you may in its favor, it still 
 certainly has its excess or its fit measure of duration. I am not, in- 
 deed, inclined to speak ill of life, as many and even wise men have 
 often done, nor am I sorry to have lived ; for I have so lived that I 
 do not think that I was born to no purpose. Yet I depart from life, 
 as from an inn, not as from a home ; for nature has given us here a 
 lodging for a sojourn, not a place of habitation. O glorious day, 
 when I shall go to that divine company and assembly of souls, and 
 when I shall depart from this crowd and tumult ! I shall go, not 
 only to the men of whom I have already spoken, but also to 
 my Cato, than whom no better man was ever born, nor one 
 who surpassed him in filial piety, whose funeral pile I lighted,— 
 the office which he should have performed for me, — but whose 
 soul, not leaving me, but looking back upon me, has certainly gone 
 into those regions whither he saw that I should come to him. 
 This my calamity I seemed to bear bravely. Not that I endured it 
 with an untroubled mind; but I was consoled by the thought 
 that there would be between us no long parting of the way and 
 divided life. For these reasons, Scipio, as you have said that 
 you and Lselius have observed with wonder, old age sits lightly 
 upon me. Not only is it not burdensome ; it is even pleasant. But 
 if I err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, I am glad 
 
90 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 thus to err, nor am I willing that this error in which I delight shall 
 be wrested from me so long as I live ; while if in death, as some 
 paltry philosophers think, I shall have no consciousness, the dead 
 philosophers cannot ridicule this delusion of mine. But if we are 
 not going to be immortal, it is yet desirable for man to cease living 
 in his due time ; for nature has its measure, as of all other things, 
 so of life. Old age is the closing act of life, as of a drama, and we 
 ought in this to avoid utter weariness, especially if the act has been 
 prolonged beyond its due length. I had these things to say about 
 old age, which I earnestly hope that you may reach, so that you can 
 verify by experience what you have heard from me. 
 
 We feel like performing an act of expiation. In preceding 
 pages, we gave hard measure in judgment of the Roman 
 character. We cannot revoke our sentence ; for our sentence, 
 we think, was mainly just. But we should like to strengthen 
 our recommendation to mercy. Cicero, both by what he him- 
 self was, and by noble things that he here and there reports of 
 his countrymen, inclines us, willingly persuaded, to relent 
 from our extreme severity. They were a great race, not un- 
 worthy of their fame, — those ancient Romans ; and Alpine 
 flowers of moral beauty bloomed amid the Alpine snow 
 and ice of their austere pride, their matter-of-fact selfishness. 
 
 As for Tully, his glory is secure. His own writings are 
 his imperishable monument. Spoken against he may be, but 
 he will continue to be read ; and as long as he is read, he will 
 enjoy his triumph. For no one can read Cicero, and not feel, 
 in the face of whatever faults discovered, irresistibly pro- 
 pitiated toward him. 
 
 If, in an historic view of Rome, one might call Caesar 
 the sun of Roman history, with not less truth certainly 
 might one call Cicero the sun of Roman literature. 
 
CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 Next to the Iliad of Homer, and hardly second to that, the 
 JEneid of Virgil is the most famous of poems. The two 
 poems, like the two poets, are joined forever in an inseparable 
 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 ^neid of 
 Virgil. For the ^neid partakes quite as much of the charac- 
 ter of the Odyssey as it does of the character of the Iliad. It 
 is, in fact, a composite reproduction of both those poems, Vir- 
 gil's poetic invention consisting rather in a cunning of com- 
 position 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. 
 
 The literary history of the JEneid is remarkable. There 
 has, in fact, happened no parenthesis of neglect in the 
 long sentence of study and approval which posterity has 
 pronounced on the genius and fame of this fortunate poet. 
 For it is Virgil's good fortune, not less than it is his merit, 
 that he is so safely and universally famous. Or 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 
 
 91 
 
92 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 he was loved, is the most important thing that we know 
 of Virgil the man. Publius Virgilius Maro was born (70 B. C.) 
 a country boy in the hamlet of Andes (Northern Italy), 
 near Mantua— whence " the Mantuan " has become a designa- 
 tion for him. He 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. 
 
 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 
 background, until some unscrupulous fellow thought it safe to 
 claim the verses for his own. The impostor was handsomely 
 rewarded. 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 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 be- 
 ginning four successive verses purposely left unfinished. 
 Here was a puzzle and a mystery. Augustus condescended to 
 require that the lines should be completed. Several attempts 
 to complete them ignominiously failed. Virgil at last revealed 
 
VIRGIL. 93 
 
 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 fortune 
 of the poet was made. 
 
 Virgil was, it is believed, a man of exceptionally pure life, 
 for a Roman of his time. His poetry agrees with this estimate 
 of his morals. Toward the close of his life, he lived chiefly at 
 Naples, Par-then^o-pe, as it used to be called. He ended 
 his 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 Puteoli, out from Naples. 
 
 Virgil's works consist of three classes of poems. The order 
 of production must be exactly inverted to give the order of 
 comparative importance. That is, Virgil's poetic achievement 
 formed a regular climax to its close. He was still, after finish- 
 ing the ^neid, younger than Milton was when he began 
 his Paradise Lost. Finishing, we say ; but, according to 
 the poet's own standard, the ^neid never was finished. It is 
 even reported that one of his parting directions was to 
 have the manuscript of the poem burned. Augustus inter- 
 vened to prevent the act of destruction. 
 
 We had better let our own order of treatment follow Virgil's 
 order of production. First, then, of Virgil's pastoral poems. 
 
 These are called sometimes bucolics (Greek for "pastorals," 
 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, averaging about 
 eighty lines each. They are written in the same meter as that 
 
94 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 of the ^neid, dactylic hexameter. The idea of such poems is 
 derived from a Greek original. Theocritus 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. This is pre-eminently the 
 case with the '* Pollio," so-called, which is short enough to 
 be presented in full. The "PolUo" happens to be the piece 
 least truly pastoral in its quality of all Virgil's pastoral 
 poems. 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 infiuences surrounding him. 
 
 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 retrospective 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 ex- 
 ist alleged to be authentic parts of the Sibylline oracles. But 
 we cannot be sure. Those oracles, 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 
 
 IraB, has a Une, 
 
 Teste David cum Sibylla, 
 
 —"David, along with the Sibyl, bearing witness "—which 
 
 keeps the idea of a Sibylline prophecy concerning Jesus fresh 
 
VIRGIIi. &5 
 
 in modern recollection. Cuma was the SibyPs dwelling- 
 place. 
 
 Here, then, is Virgil's " Pollio." We use the prose transla- 
 tion of Professor Conington, of whose fruitful labors on Virgil 
 we shall hereafter speak. The Muses of Sicily, you will ob- 
 serve, 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. 
 
 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 return- 
 ing to the reign of Saturn ; at length a new generation is descending 
 from heaven on high. Do but thou 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 length on his throne. In thy 
 consulship it is — in thine, PolUo — that this glorious time shall come 
 on, and the mighty months begin their march. Under thy con- 
 duct, any remaining trace of our national guilt shall become void, 
 and release the world from the thraldom of perpetual 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 every- 
 where, and Egyptian bean blending with the bright smiling 
 acanthus. Of themselves, the goats shall carry home udders dis- 
 tended 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 
 
96 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 as may prompt men to defy the ocean goddess with their ships, 
 to build towns with walls around them, to cleave farrows 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 greatness 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 exchange 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 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-^^arth and the expanse of sea and the deep of heaven— look 
 how all are rejoicing 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 
 Or'pheus of Thrace, nor by Linus though that were backed by 
 his mother, and this by his father— Orpheus 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. . . 
 
 Pope's "Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue, in imitation of Virgil's 
 Pollio," would prove interesting read in comparison with its 
 famous Latin original. 
 
 In the Georgics, we have a poem on fanning. 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 em- 
 pire 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 
 
VlRGlii. 97 
 
 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, 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 ani- 
 mals. The fourth book is given up to the topic of the 
 management of bees. An aggressive religious earnestness 
 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. 
 
 We give the opening lines, containing, first, what might be 
 called the argument and dedication, and, secondly, the invoca- 
 tion. We use Dryden's version — iambic pentameters, or 
 heroics, varied from uniformity by triplets, frequently re- 
 plaxjing 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 
 
98 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 his part, it might be a doubtful matter to determine. The 
 brevity and simplicity of the argument, as also of the dedica- 
 tion, are admirable in the original. The length and multi- 
 plicity, to say nothing of the adulatory blasphemy, of the in- 
 vocation, 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 com- 
 pliment to Augustus as large and as rich as the imperial 
 stomach could be supposed equal to digesting. Whether the 
 genius of the flatterer succeeded in sating the appetite of 
 the flattered, our readers may 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 thou, 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 ; 
 
VIRGIIi. 
 
 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 ; 
 
 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, Caesar, 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 seat, 
 
 And, importuned by Ceres to remove, 
 
 Prefers the fields below to those above), 
 
 Be thou propitious, Csesar ! guide my 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 : 
 
 While 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 ; 
 
100 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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. 
 
 We make now a bold bound forward and light upon the end 
 of VirgiPs Georgics. The last book, our readers will re- 
 member, 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 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 anything whatever, 
 past, present, or future, you may desire to know. The upshot 
 is that the bee-seeker is directed to slay four fine bulls and 
 four fair heifers and have their carcasses exposed. The won- 
 derful 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 bend- 
 ing 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 thunderbolt 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 Par- 
 
VIBGIIi. 101 
 
 thenope's delicious lap, embowered 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 thee, Tityrus, under the 
 spreading beechen shade. 
 
 The poetry of the Georgics is of a texture more finished than 
 is that of the poetry of the ^neid. Thomson's Seasons may 
 be read as in some respects a parallel for Virgil's Georgics. 
 
 We come to the ^neid. This great epic has attracted many 
 translators. We here shall have no doubt, no hesitation, in 
 choosing from among the number. Mr. Conington, the late 
 Professor John Conington, of Oxford, England, is unquestion- 
 ably our man. Other translators than he have their merits ; 
 but for exhaustive learned preparation, scholarlike accuracy, 
 divining insight, conscientious fidelity, sure good sense, re- 
 sourceful 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 English 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, ex- 
 pressions; 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 transformed by Mr. Conington into a quick, spring- 
 ing, eager, forward, 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 ^neid as if you were reading another Lady 
 
102 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 of the Lake. The flowing robes of the dactylic hexameter are 
 cinctured and retrenched into the neat, trim, smart frock of a 
 Scottish lassie. 
 
 The setting forth of the subject of the poem is excellent 
 literary art, in VirgiPs text. Mr. Conington translates as 
 follows : 
 
 Arms and the man I sing, who first, 
 By Fate of lUaa 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. 
 
 P^yden's rendering is this : 
 
 Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate, 
 And haughty 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 town ; 
 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. 
 
 The ^neid is of set deliberate purpose a national epic in the 
 strictest sense. Such the Iliad, Hellenic as that poem is 
 throughout, is not. The Iliad happened, as it were, to be 
 Greek. That is, it is Greek because Homer was Greek, not be- 
 cause the poet planned to produce a Greek poem. Virgil 
 expressly designed to produce a poem that should be Roman 
 and national. The ^neid 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 nothing less than the 
 
VlllGIL. 103 
 
 founding of Rome. The Iliad, personal by intention, is only 
 by accident national. The ^neid, national by intention, 
 is only by accident personal. Virgil is second and secondary 
 to Homer. But nobody can deny that the conception of 
 VirgiPs poem, as a whole, though it may lack the attribute of 
 spontaneity, may be cold-bloodedly intentional and conven- 
 tional, 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 -^neid 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 remained, 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 ^neid 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, iEneas, the hero of the poem, 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 ad- 
 ventures and wanderings. This narration occupies two more 
 books of the poem. The fourth book contains the episode 
 of the mutual passion between Dido and JEneas, ending 
 tragically for Dido in his faithless desertion of her and in her 
 death by cruel suicide. The fifth book describes the games 
 celebrated by the Trojans on the hospitable shores of Sicily in 
 honor of ^neas'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 
 JEneas in obtaining a settlement for the Trojans in Italy. 
 There is war. Against the invaders, a great Italian champion 
 appears, who serves the same purpose of foil to ^neas as long 
 
104 CliASSIC LATIN <X)URSB IN ENGLISrf. 
 
 before did Hector to Achilles. The end, of course, is victory 
 for jEneas. 
 
 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 -^neid, no more 
 finished versification, no more skillful narrative, no greater 
 wealth of quotable and quoted phrases, than are found in 
 the first book of the poem. We begin with a citation long 
 enough to include a fine example of Virgil's sublimity, appear- 
 ing in the description of a storm and shipwreck, ^neas, 
 with his companions, refugees from ruined Troy, is escaping 
 by sea when this tempest arises. 
 
 We need not tell our readers that the machinery with which 
 the raising and calming of the tempest are brought about, was 
 already in Virgil's time nearly as much an exploded super- 
 stition at Rome as is the case in our own day. There is in the 
 introduction, 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 ^olus in this 
 action is a transfer from Homer. JEolus has just responded 
 favorably to an appeal from Juno for his intervention against 
 the hated Trojans. 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 : 
 
VIRGIIi. 106 
 
 The stoutest warrior holds his hreath, 
 And looks as on the face of death. 
 At once -^neas 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 : 
 Where 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 
 
 Lays broad and bare the vessel's side ; 
 
 On comes a billow mountain- steep. 
 
 Bears down, and tumbles in a heap. 
 
 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-mound. 
 
 One, which erewhile from Lycia's shore 
 
 Orontes and his people bore. 
 
 E'en in ^neas'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 vast abyss are seen 
 
 The swimmers, few and far between, 
 
106 CLASSIC L.ATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 • 
 
 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. 
 
 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 revere, 
 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 "tempest-tossed JEneadse" (Trojans) struggle ashore, 
 and there make themselves as comfortable as they can. 
 ^neas 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 : 
 
VIRGIIi. 107 
 
 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 will 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. 
 
 The next day -^neas 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 .^neas 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 : 
 
108 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 ; 
 
 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 purpureal hue ; 
 Ambrosial tresses round her head 
 A more than earthly fragrance shed : 
 Her falling robe her footprints swept, 
 And showed the goddess as she stept. 
 
 She through the sky to Paphos moves, 
 And seeks the temple of her loves. 
 
 The two Trojans, JEneas 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 springtime 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 : 
 
 With toil the busy scene ferments, 
 
 And fragrance breathes from thymy scents. 
 
VIBGIIi. 109 
 
 ^neas — ^Achates is now neglected by the poet— looks about 
 him at his leisure. At length 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 appear- 
 ance. Invisible ^neas and Achates are overjoyed, but they 
 wait and listen while one of their Trojan friends delivers him- 
 self of an extremely well-conceived appeal, for favorable con- 
 sideration, to the queen and her subjects. The speaker makes 
 flowing promises of the most honorable conduct on the part of 
 his companions, and on that of the Trojans in general, by way 
 of return for the hospitality they crave. 
 
 The Carthaginian queen responds with the utmost grace 
 of majesty. She says she will send to seek their great ^neas. 
 ^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 
 JEneas does for her son what readers of the Odyssey will 
 remember Pallas Athene more than once did for her favorite 
 warrior and sage, Ulysses — she glorifies ^neas into godlike 
 grace and beauty. The transfiguration is beautifully por- 
 trayed by Virgil, and Mr. Conington as translator is not 
 wanting to the occasion : 
 
 JEneas 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. 
 
110 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGIjISH. 
 
 Radiant ^neas 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 by no means ^neas's forte, ^neas's specialty 
 was " piety " — piety in the sense of reverence for the gods and 
 for parents, and of regard for duties owed to country. Virgil's 
 attribution of piety to ^neas 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. Unconsciously, or in- 
 deed perhaps consciously, Virgil incorporated the very spirit 
 of the ideal Roman character in his hero JEneas. To this 
 "pious" man nothing could be wrong that would tend to 
 further his fortunes. But we anticipate. 
 
 Dido lavishes refreshment on the Trojan crews, and sets her 
 palace in order for the entertainment of their goddess-born 
 and godlike leader, JEneas. 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^n^-us. 
 
 This quest of the father's gives Venus a chance, not to be 
 lost. She plans a deceit. Her boy Cupid shall go personate 
 Ascanius and, nestling, at the feast to be, in the bosom of 
 Dido, shall infix ineradicably there a sweet sting of love for 
 ^neas. The true Ascanius, her grandson, the goddess trans- 
 ports 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 liove obeyed, his plumage stripped, 
 And, laughing, like lulus tripped. 
 
 Unconscious Dido at the feast caresses her doom. The 
 roguish Cupid having first 
 
VIBGIIi. Ill 
 
 satisfied the fond desire 
 Of that his counterfeited sire, 
 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 Sychseus' 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. 
 With her invocation of the Olympians, a full pledge in golden 
 wine was poured out. Then the part performed by Demodo- 
 cus at Homer's Phseacian banquet to Ulysses is repeated at this 
 Didonian feast given in honor of ^neas. I-o^pas is the name 
 of Virgil's bard. This name has never become so famous in 
 subsequent song and story as has the name Demodocus. 
 Nevertheless, 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 tend- 
 ency toward philosophical poetry. Lucretius drew him 
 strongly. Observe how he here makes lopas go, as it were phil- 
 osophically, 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 JEneas to 
 
 tell the company all about his own various fortune — with 
 
 which request ends book first of the -^neid. 
 
112 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 The second book, with the third, is made up of Eneas' s 
 autobiographical story. 
 
 He sets out with the incident of the celebrated Wooden 
 Horse. Of this incident, only alluded to in our treatment 
 of Homer, we proceed to 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 deserted 
 camp of the Greeks. One of them proposes that they draw 
 the colossal horse within the walls of the city. As to the ex- 
 pediency of this there are conflicting views, and La-oc'o-on — 
 note the name, there is a sequel awaiting associated with 
 this priest of Neptune — runs down to discountenance the proj- 
 ect. His speech is full of prophet's wisdom and fire. 
 
 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 beheved 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 sacrifice, for their 
 safe return from Troy. The upshot is that Sinon gets himself 
 believed. His fetters are stricken off and, at Priam's kindly 
 
VIBGIIi. 113 
 
 challenge, he has his desired chance to cheat the Trojans 
 to the full, under sanction of protestations volunteered 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 ingeniously 
 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 — from its seat in 
 the temple in Troy, and stained it with blood. The Greek 
 prophet Calchas [KaFkas], 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 oflfended 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 1 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, 
 
114 CliASSIC LiATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 neck, 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 to the unregardful skies 
 
 Sends up his agonizing cries : 
 
 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. 
 
 No wonder that the Trojans now, seeing an apparent pun- 
 ishment so dire befall Laocoon, are shocked into unqualified 
 credit of Sinon's tale. With resistless enthusiasm, they rush 
 to drag the fateful horse within the walls. VirgiPs description 
 of this madness and this action is instinct with fire. 
 
 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. 
 
 Thessander, Stheuelus, the first, 
 
 Slide down the rope ; Ulysses curst, 
 
VIRGIIi. 115 
 
 Thoas and Acamas are there, 
 And great Pelides' youthful heir, 
 Machaon, Menelaus, last 
 Epeus, who the plot forecast. 
 They seize the city, hurled deep 
 In floods of revelry and sleep, 
 Cut down the warders of the gates, 
 And introduce their conscious mates. 
 
 Among the touching incidents of the last night of Troy 
 with which the teeming invention of Virgil crowds his swift- 
 revolving kaleidoscopic narrative, there is, perhaps, no other so 
 pathetic 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 with vain 
 deprecation at the noble madness of the old man. 
 
 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 upbraided 
 the slayer as degenerate offspring of an illustrious sire. He 
 had even hurled against Pyrrhus an impotent weajwn. 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 
 His 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 : 
 
116 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 
 than poet. What consummate rhetoric is 
 
 A nameless trunk, a trunkless head ! 
 
 The sense is exactly Virgil's, the rhetoric exactly Conington's. 
 That repetition, in transposed order, of the word trunk — ^it is 
 brilliant, but it is rhetoric rather than poetry. 
 
 -^neas, trying to save his father, has trouble with the 
 spirited old man, who refuses to be saved. Whereupon 
 ^neas is as spirited as he, and, unrestrained by his wife 
 Cre-u''sa's entreaty, 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 
 grandfather Anchises is enraptured at the sight. He prays for 
 conflrmation 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 ^neas. 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, ^neas 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 farewell. She was not to be his 
 companion. He tried to embrace her, but he embraced empti- 
 ness. JEneas was wifeless. 
 
 The second book ends with JBueas's return to his father and 
 
VIRGIIi. 117 
 
 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 pass it 
 altogether. 
 
 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 you 
 pity indeed, but hardly respect. You feel more satisfaction in 
 heartily execrating ^neas 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 ^neas kind, and her crazy 
 objurgation of JEneas 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 sum of it is 
 that Dido is helplessly enamored of ^neas, that ^neas be- 
 trays 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 ^neas off 
 at sea. Thus is a quasi-historic reason found or feigned by 
 Virgil for the immortal enmity that subsisted between Cartha- 
 ginian and Roman blood. It should be said that the rascal 
 Olympian divinities come in to be, as usual, mutually an- 
 tagonist artificers of fraud. 
 
118 CLASSIC XATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 
 ancient 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 whom 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. 
 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 I 
 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. 
 
 Here is another fine passage. It is descriptive of night— the 
 calm night on which, while wakeful Dido communed with 
 herself about ways of yet regaining her lover, that lover, him- 
 self 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 ; 
 
VIRGIL. 119 
 
 '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 : 
 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. 
 
 The fifth book is largely occupied with an elaborate account 
 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's death. They have 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. 
 
 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 accompanying 
 circumstance and ceremony. Resort is had to the residence 
 of the Sibyl at Cumse (Cuma). This famous mythical person- 
 age is a well-known subject in the modern painter's art. She 
 is 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. 
 Each uttering forth the Sibyl's rede. 
 The sacred threshold now they trod : 
 " Pray for an answer I 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 the madness grows, 
 Her form looks larger to the eye, 
 
120 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGIilSH. 
 
 Unearthly peals her deep-toned cry, 
 As breathing nearer and more near 
 The god conies rushing on his seer. 
 " So slack," cried she, " at work divine? 
 Pray, Trojan, pray I not else the shrine 
 Its spellbound silence breaks." 
 
 Thus adjured, JEneas falls to praying with pious pagan zeal. 
 The result is 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 troubled, ending in conquest, for JEneas. 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 ^neas, 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 
 
VIBGIIi. 121 
 
 passport to the regions of the dead. With much ado, this 
 branch is found. Then sacrifice is offered and, with a warn- 
 ing cry, *'Back, ye unhallowed,'' to all besides, she invites 
 ^neas to follow her and plunges into the cave. 
 
 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 
 ^neas and his guide, he says : 
 
 Along the ilUmitable shade 
 
 DarkUng 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 hght. 
 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 
 
122 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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, 
 
 And into dark Cocy tus pours 
 
 The burden of its oozy stores. 
 
 Grim, squalid, foul, with aspect dire, 
 
 His eyeballs 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, 
 -^neas, startled at the scene. 
 Cries, " Tell me, priestess, what may mean 
 
 This concourse to the shore ? 
 
VIRGIL. 123 
 
 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 see. 
 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. 
 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 JEneas's part, with pilot 
 Palinurus lost overboard on the voyage, disconsolate because 
 his corpse lies unburied. The Sibyl promises the shade that 
 the coast where he perished 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 posthumous fame ! 
 
 The two adventurers, ^neas and the Sibyl, come in due 
 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 ^neas 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-tliroated bark 
 
 Makes all the region ring, 
 Stretched out along the cavern dark 
 
 That fronts their entering. 
 The seer perceived his monstrous head 
 
124 CLASSIC LATIN COUBSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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, 
 ^neas takes the vacant ground, 
 And quickly passes from the 'side 
 Of the irremeable tide. 
 
 ("Ir-re-'me-a-ble" (not to be repassed) is Virgil's own stately 
 Latin polysyllable, irremeabiliSj transferred almost without 
 change into English. In making this impressive transfer 
 Conington follows Dry den.) 
 
 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 bom. 
 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 I 
 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 
 
VIRGIL. 125 
 
 course, does not *' slip the occasion " — indeed it was probably 
 an occasion expressly created by the poet— to bring about 
 a dramatic encounter between JEneas and Dido. The total 
 effect commends Virgil's art ; for the reader is gratefully re- 
 lieved 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 ^neas 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 from 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 I 
 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 I 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 
 
126 CLASSIC L.ATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 And hies her, still with sullen face, 
 
 Into the embowering grove, 
 Where her first lord, Sychseus, shares 
 In tender interchange of cares 
 
 And gives her love for love ; 
 ^neas tracks her as she flies, 
 With bleeding heart and tearful eyes. 
 
 As soon as -^neas 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 efl*ect is produced 
 by the sight of ^neas : 
 
 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 ^neas and De-iph^o- 
 bus with reminder that the time was passing. Deiphobus 
 flees, and ^neas 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, 
 ^neas halted, and drank in 
 With startled ear 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 
 •' No soul from guilt's pollution clear 
 
 May yon foul threshold tread : 
 But me when royal Hecate made 
 Controller of the Avernian shade, 
 
VlRGlli. 127 
 
 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 those 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. 
 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 1 from the sky the Almighty Sire 
 
128 CLASSIC LATIN COUBSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 extsnd : 
 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. 
 Why should I name the Lapith 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) 
 With 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. 
 Ask not their doom, nor seek to know 
 
VIRGIIi. 129 
 
 What depth receives them there below. 
 Some roll huge rocks up rising ground, 
 Or hang, to whirling wheels fast bound : 
 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 ^neas, and they 
 go on to the dwelling place of the happy dead. At the en- 
 trance, ^neas deposits his golden bough. Virgil describes 
 Elysium and its inhabitants : 
 
 Green spaces, 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 fingers trill, 
 
 Or tremble 'neath his ivory quill. 
 
 Here dwell the chiefs from Teucer sprung, 
 
 Brave heroes, born when earth wa's young, 
 
 Ilus, Assaracus, and he 
 
 Who gave his name to Dardany. 
 
130 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Marveling, ^neas 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, 
 Whate'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 Pseans, blessed souls, 
 Amid a fragrant bay-tree grove, 
 Whence rising in the world above 
 Eridanus 'twixt bowing 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, 
 Musseus 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 liere, 
 
 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, 
 
VIBGIIi. 131 
 
 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 
 been not only the home of the beatified dead, but a waiting- 
 place, an ante-room, for those that were to live. Anchises 
 descries ^neas and salutes him. The son striving to embrace 
 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, 
 -^neas, 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. Headers 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 
 prophecy after the fact. There will be in it magnificent oppor- 
 
132 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 tunity 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 ^neas with the Sibyl to a ** specular 
 
 whence the eye 
 Might form and countenance descry, 
 As each one passed along. 
 
 Anchises then takes up the office of herald or usher, and an- 
 nounces the name and quality of the illustrious descendants 
 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 -^neas, 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 
 
VIRGIL. 133 
 
 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 Bola 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. 
 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 towera. 
 Around her knees a numerous line, 
 A hundred grandsons, all divine, 
 
 AU 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. 
 
134 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 : 
 Alcides 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 can 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, 
 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 TuUus 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? 
 He 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 ! howsoe'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, 
 
VIRGIIi. 136 
 
 Torquatus, too, with axe severe, 
 And great Camillus : mark him show 
 Rome's standards rescued from the foe I 
 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, 
 This kinsman rushing to the fight 
 From castellated Alpine height, 
 That leading his embattled might 
 
 From farthest morning star ! 
 Nay, children, nay, your hate unlearn. 
 Nor '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 w£iom my lifeblood runs ! 
 
 •'One, victor in Corinthian war, 
 Up Capitol shall drive his car. 
 
 Proud of Achaeans slain : 
 And one Mycenae shall o'erthrow, 
 The city of the Atridan foe. 
 And e'en ^acides destroy, 
 Achilles' long-descended boy. 
 In vengeance for his sires of Troy, 
 
 And Pallas' plundered fane. 
 "Who mighty Cato, Cossus, who 
 
 Would keep your names concealed 
 The Gracchi, and the Scipios two, 
 
 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 : 
 
136 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 But ye, my Romans, still 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 stabUsh 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." 
 Then spoke -^neas, 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 step, how proud ? 
 
VIKGIL. 137 
 
 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 roU 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 I 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. 
 And stirred his spirit into flame 
 At thought of centuries of fame, 
 With prophet power he 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 
 
138 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 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 dismisses the arduous subject of the sixth 
 book. No effort at unnaturally sustaining the tension beyond 
 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, inimitably, 
 Virgilian. 
 
 What remains of the poem we may fairly dispatch, as 
 necessarily we must, within very brief space, ^neas, thrifty 
 soul, secures for himself a royal matrimonial alliance, which, 
 however, involves him in war with a rival, Turnus by name. 
 This Turnus is the foil to ^neas. 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 ^Eneas 
 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 dialogues, it 
 is finally determined that Turnus and ^neas shall decide the 
 
VIRGIL. 139 
 
 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 ^neid, 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 ^neas, but begs to be sent back, living 
 or dead, to his father. Now Virgil (Turnus has previously 
 slain Pallas, a Trojan friend of ^neas, and is now wearing as 
 trophy the dead warrior's belt) : 
 
 Rolling his eyes, ^neas 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. 
 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 readers 
 the elaborate parallel that Pope, in the preface to his trans- 
 
140 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 lation 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 diligence in 
 working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces 
 it was capable of; and in particular never failed to bring 
 the sound of his line to a beautiful agreement with its sense. 
 [A celebrated instance of this occurs in the eighth i.book, 
 line 596 : 
 
 Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum, 
 to represent the measured numerous tread of galloping horses.] 
 If the Grecian poet has not been so frequently celebrated on 
 this account as the Roman, the only reason is that fewer critics 
 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 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 accordingly we 
 find it to have made his fable more extensive and copious than 
 any other, his manners more lively and strongly marked, his 
 
VIKGIL. 141 
 
 speeches more affecting and transported, his sentiments more 
 warm and sublime, his images and descriptions more full and 
 animated, his expression 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 prin- 
 cipal 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 inven- 
 tion, because Homer possessed a larger share of it ; each of 
 these great authors had more of both than perhaps any 
 man besides, and are only said to have less in comparison with 
 one 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 command- 
 ing 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 ^neas, appears un- 
 disturbed in the midst of the action, disposes all about him, 
 and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon 
 
142 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IX ENGLISH. 
 
 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 benevo- 
 lence, counseling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and 
 regularly ordering his whole creation." 
 
 The shade of a writer worthy to have been thus elaborately 
 paralleled by Pope with Homer might w^eU lament that his 
 great work in its original text should, in these latter times, 
 have come to be studied so much more as a means of drill 
 in language than as a consummate achievement in poetry. 
 
 But it is in the latter way, rather, that our readers have 
 here had their opportunity to study the ^neid. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LIVY. 
 
 Of Livy the man little is known, except that he wrote one 
 of the most delightful histories in the world. To him, more 
 perhaps than to any other writer, is due the traditional fame 
 of the Romans for traits of high character. Roman virtue is 
 not wholly a figment of fancy ; for of virtue', in the antique 
 sense of that word, the Romans, with the Spartans, certainly 
 possessed a large share. But Livy is of all men the man who 
 supplies the historic or mythologic material out of which the 
 current lofty ideal of Roman character has been constructed. 
 Cato, who lived before Livy, said that there were Roman 
 stories as well worthy of immortal remembrance as any stories 
 told of the Greeks — there wanted to Rome only the genius of 
 some great writer to tell those stories properly. That occasion 
 of reproach Li\'y took away. 
 
 Ti^'tus Liv'i-us Pat-arvi^'nus we know was born at Pad''ua, in 
 Italy. His last name was derived from the original Latin 
 designation, Pa-ta''vi-um, for that city. He was the great 
 prose poet of the Jeign of Augustus. Horace and Virgil were 
 coevals of his. He was a boy of fifteen years when Csesar fell 
 at the base of Pompey's statue. 
 
 Besides being a historian, Livy was something of a philoso- 
 pher. The things, however, that he wrote as philosopher 
 survive only in the mention of Sen-'e-ca. The two functions, 
 that of philosopher and that of historian, he kept quite dis- 
 tinct. He did not write history philosophically. 
 
 143 
 
144 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Livy's history was a majestic work, covering the whole sub- 
 ject of the fortunes of Rome from the founding of the city 
 down ahnost to the beginning of the Christian era. What an 
 epic in prose was there ! But of the hundred and fifty-two 
 books in which the work was written, only thirty-five books 
 remain. What we have is highly interesting ; but what we 
 have not, as well in quality as in quantity, would be a far 
 more precious possession. We have lost we know not what ; 
 but we guess with certainty that Livy's account of the Itahan 
 War and his account of the Civil War between Marius and 
 Sulla, which are among the many things missing, would have 
 thrown on those great chapters of Roman story such a light 
 as now is not to be collected from all other sources taken to- 
 gether. 
 
 Livy apparently published his work in installments. He 
 must have been occupied not less than twenty years in the 
 composition. This we gather from the fact that in the last 
 parts of the history there are events recorded that did not 
 take place until some twenty years subsequently to the issue 
 of the first installment. The history has been divided up into 
 sets of books, ten each in number, hence called "decades." 
 The thirty-five books that remain give us the first decade, the 
 third, and the fourth, entire, with half of the fifth. There are 
 detached fragments from the rest. 
 
 The first decade deals with about five hundred years of his- 
 tory, from the founding of Rome to the subjugation by Rome 
 of the Sam^nites. This portion of the work has little claim, 
 and it makes little claim, to the character of history. It is 
 confessedly mythical and legendary, rather than historical. 
 But most entertaining narrative Livy makes of his material. 
 "The brave days of old" hve again, with power — a power 
 communicated from vivific style — in his glowing pages. 
 
 One spirited legend out of Livy's treasury of such, and we 
 will pass to something of his that is better entitled to credit. 
 
MVY. 146 
 
 The story of Cur^'ti-us, as Livy tells it, well sums up the 
 Roman's ideal of civic wealth and civic virtue. The forum 
 yawned with a chasm in the midst. The gods said it would 
 close when the best that Rome owned was cast into the pit — 
 then, and not till then. She tried one precious thing after 
 another in vain. The bodeful chasm still stretched wide its 
 hungry jaws. Livy now : 
 
 Then young Marcus Curtius, a gallant soldier, chid them all for 
 doubting that there could be any better thing in Rome than good 
 weapons and a stout heart. He called for silence ; and looking to- 
 ward the temples of the immortal gods that crowned the forum, 
 and toward the capitol, he lifted his hands first to heaven, and then 
 stretching them downward, where the gulf yawned before him, in 
 supplication to the Powers below, he solemnly devoted himself to 
 death. Mounted on his horse, which he had clothed in the most 
 splendid trappings that could be found, he leaped, all armed, into 
 the chasm, while crowds of men and women showered in after 
 him precious gifts and fruits. 
 
 Of course, upon this costly act of self-sacrifice, there 
 nothing left for the chasm to do, but close up and hold fast 
 what it had got. The fable is a splendid allegory of what 
 patriots do by thousands upon thousands whenever they offer 
 themselves up in battle to die for their country. 
 
 There is probably no part of extant Livy more vividly inter- 
 esting, and interesting to a wider audience of modern minds, 
 than is the long and checkered story of that Punic War, so- 
 called, in which the figures of Han-'ni-bal, of Fa^bi-us, and of 
 Scipio [Sip^i-o] loom large and splendid, in mutually effective 
 and ennobling contrast. It was more, far more — that long 
 strife — ^than a conflict of individual leaders, of rival nations, 
 of antagonistic races. It was also a war of contending politi- 
 cal ideas, of opposing historical tendencies. It was now to be 
 decided what type of civilization, what spirit of civil polity, 
 should rule the future. The sympathies of readers will almost 
 certainly be enlisted on the side of Carthaginian Hannibal 
 doomed beforehand to final defeat. Such is the secret magic 
 
146 CiiASSiC LA-Tli^ course in fiNGLlSfi. 
 
 of a great human personality. But we may console ourselves. 
 It was far better that Rome should conquer, as she did. In 
 this case, at any rate, it was the fitter that survived. 
 
 Carthage, when the long duel between Carthage and Rome 
 commenced, was apparently a full equal of her enemy in 
 promised extent and duration of empire. Rome, indeed, had 
 now become supreme mistress of Italy. But Carthage, be- 
 sides her home possessions in Africa, had established impor- 
 tant connections with many points on the Mediterranean 
 coast. She was a maritime power, as Rome was not. She 
 had strong foothold in Spain. Sar-din''i-a was hers and 
 Cor^si-ca and the Ba-le-ar^ic Isles. She was stretching 
 a cordon of colonies along the border of Sicily, with de- 
 signs upon that great and rich island as a whole. This 
 might justly be deemed an indirect menace to Rome. Rome 
 had not long to wait for a desirable opportunity to take 
 up the gauntlet that Carthage threw down at her feet. The 
 two cities closed in a grapple that, having lasted twenty- 
 three years, left Rome in possession of Sicily. This struggle 
 is known in history as the First Punic War. (The Carthagin- 
 ians were Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians were by the 
 Romans called Poeni, whence "Punic" as the name of the 
 war.) 
 
 The Second Punic War was a greater. The Carthaginian 
 hero of it was Hannibal. It is of this second war between 
 Carthage and Rome that we shall here let Livy treat. The 
 historian had a generous idea of the magnitude of the strug- 
 gle. But his idea was not exaggerated. The fortune of the 
 world was decided by the event of this war. History 
 perhaps — or is this too much to suggest? — is Indo-European 
 instead of being Semitic, because Rome conquered and not 
 Carthage. Livy's language about this war will remind read- 
 ers of what Thu-cyd^i-des, with so much less justness, said four 
 hundred years earlier about the Peloponnesian War. The two 
 
LIVY. 147 
 
 historians' high estimate of the importance of the subjects 
 they undertook to treat, might be accepted as a pledge on 
 their part of devoting to the treatment the best exertions of 
 which they were capable. The result in either case was a 
 masterpiece of historical composition. What Livy, compared 
 with Thucydides, lacks in breadth of comprehension and 
 in depth of insight, he quite fully makes up in dash and 
 brilliancy of narrative. Livy has the advantage of Thucyd- 
 ides in largeness of theme to handle, and in splendor of 
 exploit to describe. The passage of Livy that we are about to 
 present, namely, the narrative of the Second Punic War, 
 stands as simply an important part of a much larger design, 
 while the " Peloponnesian War" of Thucydides was con- 
 ceived by its author as an historical monograph, complete in 
 itself. 
 
 Here is the preface that Livy prefixes to his account of the 
 Second Punic War. It marks the beginning of the third dec- 
 ade of his work ; that is, the beginning of his twenty-first 
 book : 
 
 I claim leave to preface a portion of my history by a remark 
 which most historians make at the beginning of their whole work. 
 I am about to describe the most memorable war ever waged, the 
 war which the Carthaginians, under the leadership of Hannibal, 
 waged against the people of Rome. Never have states or nations 
 with mightier resources met in arms, and never had these two 
 peoples themselves possessed such strength and endurance. The 
 modes of warfare with which they encountered one another were 
 not unfamiliar, but had been tested in the First Punic War. Again, 
 so varying was the fortune of battle, so doubtful the struggle, that 
 they who finally conquered were once the nearer to ruin. And 
 they fought, too, with a hate well-nigh greater than their strength. 
 Rome was indignant that the conquered should presume to attack 
 the conqueror, Carthage that the vanquished had, she thought, 
 been subjected to an arrogant and rapacious rule. 
 
 We must go on, and repeat the familiar story that immedi- 
 ately follows, of the oath taken by young Hannibal of enmity 
 to Rome. Readers will like to learn that Livy is a source and 
 
148 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 authority for this picturesque and grim legend of Carthagin- 
 ian patriotism : 
 
 There is a story, too, of Hannibal when, at nine years of age, he 
 was boyishly coaxing his father Ham-H'car to take him with him 
 to Spain (Hamilcar had just finished the African war, and was 
 sacrificing before transporting his army to that country), how the 
 child was set by the altar, and there, with his hand upon the 
 victim, was made to swear that, so soon as he could, he would be 
 the enemy of the Roman people. 
 
 Livy gives us a spirited portrait in words of one of the 
 most remarkable military geniuses the world has ever beheld. 
 In drawing this portrait, he goes back a little in retrospect of 
 Hannibal's years of youthful service under Hasdrubal after 
 the untimely death of his own father, Hamilcar : 
 
 Hannibal was sent to Spain, and instantly on his arrival attracted 
 the admiration of the whole army. Young Hamilcar was restored 
 to them, thought the veterans, as they saw in him the same ani- 
 mated look and penetrating eye, the same expression, the same 
 features. Soon he made them feel that his father's memory was 
 but a trifling aid to him in winning their esteem. Never had man 
 a temper that adapted itself better to the widely diverse duties of 
 obedience and command, till it was hard to decide whether he was 
 more beloved by the general or the army. There was no one 
 whom Hasdrubal preferred to put in command, whenever courage 
 and persistency were specially needed, no officer under whom the 
 soldiers were more confident and more daring. Bold in the ex- 
 treme in incurring peril, he was perfectly cool in its presence. Ko 
 toil could weary his body or conquer his spirit. Heat and cold he 
 bore with equal endurance ; the cravings of nature, not the pleas- 
 ure of the palate, determined the measure of his food and drink. 
 His waking and sleeping hours were not regulated by day and 
 night. Such time as business left him, he gave to repose ; but it 
 was not on a soft couch or in stillness that he sought it. Many a 
 man often saw him wrapped in his military cloak, lying on the 
 ground amid the sentries and pickets. His dress was not one whit 
 superior to that of his comrades, but his accoutrements and horses 
 were conspicuously splendid. Among the cavalry or the infantry 
 he was by far the first soldier ; the first in battle, the last to leave 
 it when once begun. 
 
 These great virtues in the man were equaled by monstrous vices, 
 inhuman cruelty, a worse than Punic perfidy. Absolutely false 
 
LIVY. 149 
 
 and irreligious, he had no fear of God, no regard for an oath, no 
 scruples. With this combination of virtues and vices, he served 
 three years under the command of Hasdrubal, omitting nothing 
 which a man who was to be a great general ought to do or to see. 
 
 Hannibal had attacked Sa-gun^tum. Saguntum was a 
 Spanish town on the E^bro. The question was to whom it be- 
 longed. Hannibal solved the question by laying siege to it 
 and taking it. Borne, disturbed too late, sent envoys to 
 Carthage. The Carthaginian senate must disavow the pro- 
 ceedings of Hannibal, or accept a state of war with Rome. 
 Parley was attempted by the Carthaginians, but Quin-'tus 
 Fa''bi-us, in the fashion that became him as Roman, did — 
 what Livy thus describes : 
 
 Upon this the Roman gathered his robe into a fold, and said : 
 " Here we bring you peace and war ; take which you please." 
 Instantly on the word rose a shout as fierce : *' Give us which you 
 please." The Roman, in reply, shook out the fold, and spoke 
 again: *' I give you war." The answer from all was: "We 
 accept it, and in the spirit with which we accept it, will we 
 wage it." 
 
 Hannibal was, like Napoleon, a child of destiny. He had a 
 dream which dominated him — a dream darkly prophetic of his 
 future. Livy relates it with a " so the story goes," to save his 
 own credit, at the same time that he saved an incident dear to 
 his romantic taste and to his pictorial style. The vision came 
 to Hannibal after he had resolved on crossing the Alps and 
 descending upon Italy. Here is Livy's account : 
 
 He saw in a dream, so the story goes, a youth of godlike shape, 
 who said that he had been sent by Jupiter to conduct the army 
 of Hannibal into Italy ; that he was, therefore, to follow and 
 nowhere turn his eyes away from him. At first Hannibal followed 
 trembling, neither looking around nor behind ; after awhile, with 
 the natural curiosity of the human mind, as he thought what it 
 could be on which he was forbidden to look back, he could not 
 restrain his eyes ; he then saw behind him a serpent of marvelous 
 size moving onward with a fearful destruction of trees and bushes; 
 close after this followed a storm-cloud with crashing thunder. 
 When he asked what was the monster and what the portent meant, 
 
150 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 he was told it was " the devastation of Italy ; let him go straight on 
 and ask no more questions, and leave the fates in darkness." 
 
 Pub^li-us Cor-ne^li-us Scipio, on the part of the Romans, ad- 
 vanced against advancing Hannibal. Hannibal was now just 
 twenty-six years of age. 
 
 The battle that impended was not one of the great battles of 
 the war ; but when it finally was joined, it went against the 
 Romans. Scipio, their general, was wounded. He was res- 
 cued by his son. That son was the great Scipio— to be sur- 
 named Africanus, in honor of the decisive victory that he will 
 hereafter win over Hannibal and the Carthaginians. 
 
 But where, it may be asked, did this hostile encounter 
 occur ? It was on the Italian side of the Alps. Hannibal had 
 previously performed one of the greatest military feats on 
 record, by crossing the Alps with his army. It will not quite 
 do to let this exploit of his pass in silence. We however limit 
 ourselves to giving a single feature only of the arduous under- 
 taking. The Carthaginian army had now reached the "last 
 and sharpest height" of their diflftculty. Livy says: 
 
 At last, when both men and beasts were worn out with fruitless 
 exertion, they encamped on a height, in a spot which with the 
 utmost difficulty they had cleared ; so much snoAV had to be dug 
 out and removed. The soldiers were then marched off to the work 
 of making a road through the rock, as there only was a passage 
 possible. Having to cut into the stone, they heaped up a huge pile 
 of wood from the great trees in the neighborhood, which they had 
 felled and lopped. As soon as there was strength enough in the 
 wind to create a blaze they lighted the pile, and melted the rocks, 
 as they heated, by pouring vinegar on them. The burning stone 
 was cleft open with iron implements, and then they relieved 
 the steepness of the slopes by gradual winding tracks, so that even 
 the elephants as well as the other beasts could be led down. Four 
 days were spent in this rocky pass, and the beasts almost perished 
 of hunger, as the heights generally are quite bare, and such herb- 
 age as grows is buried in snow. Amid the lower slopes were 
 valleys, sunny hills, too, and streams, and woods beside them, and 
 spots now at last more worthy to be the habitations of man. Here 
 they sent the beasts to feed, and the men, worn out with the toil of 
 
LitVY. 161 
 
 road-making, were allowed to rest. In the next three days they 
 reached level ground, and now the country was less wild, as was 
 also the character of the inhabitants. 
 
 Such on the whole was the march which brought them to Italy, 
 in the fifth month, according to some authors, after leaving New 
 Carthage, the passage of the Alps having occupied fifteen days. 
 
 The whole description in Livy is powerful ; but it lacks the 
 traits that would naturally mark description written by an 
 eye-witness and sharer of the scenes and experiences described. 
 It is conceived from the imagination alone, working with a 
 few points given, rather than from the memory and imaginar 
 tion working together, with all the material at command. It 
 contrasts in essential character with the lifelike delineations 
 of Xenophon, for example, in the Anabasis, who saw all and 
 was himself a great part. Livy's description is valuable, more 
 perhaps as rhetoric than as history. 
 
 Military operations, attended with various fortune, more 
 often favorable to the Carthaginians, followed that first battle 
 in which the Romans were beaten. The great battle, or rather 
 the great Roman disaster, of Thras-y-me''nus, was near. This 
 celebrated action we must presently let Livy describe at full. 
 
 It is a marked feature of Roman history, as Roman history 
 is written by Livy and by Tacitus, that chapters come in at 
 intervals throughout their works, recording omens that 
 occurred. The Romans were a profoundly superstitious 
 people. They lived under as it were a shadow of the sinister 
 supernatural all the time. We shall not be able to make a full 
 due impression of the effect which these recurring lists of 
 omens observed, produce on the mind of the reader of the 
 original works. To do so would require the reproduction of a 
 considerable number of these formidable and gloomy cata- 
 logues ; and that would occupy too much of our space. But it 
 is the quantity, not less than the quality, of such material, 
 together with what seems the periodicity of its return to view, 
 \hat oppresses the imagination of one occupied in reading the 
 
152 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 fall text of the native historians of Bome. We give at this 
 point a single catalogue of omens which must stand as 
 representative of its kind. The following passage occurs near 
 the opening of the second book of that third decade of Livy, 
 with which we are now concerned. The disaster of Thrasy- 
 menus (Tras-u-men^nus is the more recent orthography) 
 impended for the Romans. The Romans meantime were 
 oppressed with the gloomiest fears : 
 
 These fears were increased by the tidings of marvels which now 
 came from many places at once. Some soldiers' spears in Sicily 
 had burst into a blaze ; so too in Sardinia had the staff which an 
 officer held in his hand as he went his rounds inspecting the 
 sentries on the wall; two shields had sweated blood; certain 
 soldiers had been struck by lightning ; there had been seen an 
 eclipse of the sun ; at Prse-nes'te blazing stones had fallen from the 
 sky ; at Arpi shields had been seen in the sky, and the sun had 
 seemed to fight with the moon ; at Capua two moons had risen 
 in the daytime ; the stream at Cse're had flowed half blood ; gouts 
 of blood had been seen on the water that dripped from the spring of 
 Hercules ; reapers in the field near Antium had seen the ears fall 
 all bloody into the basket ; at Fa-le'ri-i the sky had seemed parted 
 by a huge cleft, while an overpowering light shone forth from 
 the opening ; certain oracle tablets had spontaneously shrunk, and 
 on one that fell out were the words, " Mars shakes his spear" ; 
 at the same time at Rome, sweat came out on the statue of Mars 
 that stands in the Appian Road by the images of the wolves ; at 
 Cap'u-a the sky had seemed to be on fire, and a moon to fall in 
 the midst of a shower. Then men began to believe less solemn 
 marvels. Some persons had had goats become sheep ; a hen 
 had changed into a cock, and a cock into a hen. The consul gave 
 the whole story at length, as it had been told him, at the same time 
 introducing into the senate those who vouched for it, and asked the 
 opinion of the house on the religious aspect of the matter. 
 
 Readers will wish to see what the practical Romans con- 
 sidered ought to be done under such gruesome circum- 
 stances : 
 
 It was resolved that such expiation should be made as these 
 portents demanded, with victims, some of which should be full- 
 grown, some sucklings , that public prayers should be offered 
 during three days at every shrine. Everything else was to be done 
 
LIVY. 153 
 
 after the College of the Ten had inspected the holy books, in such 
 fashion as they might declare from the prophecies to be pleasing to 
 the gods. They ordered that the first oflfering, of gold weighing 
 fifty pounds, should be made to Jupiter, that to Juno and Mi- 
 ner' va offerings of silver should be presented ; that full-grown 
 victims should be sacrificed to Juno the Queen on the Av' en- tine 
 Hill, and to Juno the Preserver at La-nu'vi-um ; that the matrons, 
 collecting a sum of money, as much as it might be convenient 
 for each to contribute, should carry it as an offering to Juno the 
 Queen on the Aventine ; that a religious feast should be held, and 
 that even the very freedwomen should raise contributions accord- 
 ing to their means for a gift to the goddess Feronia. After all this 
 the College of the Ten sacrificed full-grown victims in the market 
 place at Ardea. Last of all, as late as December, a sacrifice was 
 made at the temple of Saturn in Rome ; a religious feast was 
 ordered (furnished by the senators) and a public banquet; and 
 a festival of Saturn to last a day and a night proclaimed throughout 
 Rome. This day the people were enjoined to keep and observe as 
 a holiday forever. 
 
 All did not avail. The overhanging ruin fell. 
 
 Hannibal struggled forward in invasion against adverse 
 circumstances that might well have cowed a less resolute 
 spirit. Fla-min-'i-us, the Roman consul in command, will 
 presently afford the Carthaginian his coveted opportunity. 
 Flaminius was a headstrong and fiery soul that could brook 
 neither opposition nor delay. Defying every expostulation 
 dissuasive from the plan, he resolved on giving Hannibal 
 battle. His soldiers believed in Flaminius but too well. Their 
 trust was their ruin and his own. 
 
 Fiercely from the council of war unanimous against him, the 
 foolhardy Flaminius burst forth with orders to pluck up the 
 standard and advance upon Hannibal. The sequel shall be 
 told in Livy's own words : 
 
 Flaminius himself leapt upon his horse, when lo ! in a moment 
 the horse fell, throwing the consul over his head. Amid the terror 
 of all who stood near — for this was an ill omen for the beginning of 
 a campaign— came a message to say that the standard could not 
 be wrenched from the ground, though the standard-bearer had ex- 
 erted all his strength. Turning to the messenger, the consul said, 
 
154 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 "Perhaps you bring me a dispatch from the senate, forbidding me 
 to fight. Go tell them to dig the standard out, if their hands are so 
 numb with fear that they cannot wrench it up." The army then 
 began its march. The superior officers, not to speak of their 
 having dissented from the plan, were alarmed by these two 
 portents ; the soldiers generally were delighted with their head- 
 strong chief. Full of confidence, they thought little on what their 
 confidence was founded. 
 
 Hannibal devastated, with all the horrors of war, the country be- 
 tween Cor-to'na and Lake Trasumennus, seeking to infuriate the 
 Romans into avenging the suff"erings of their allies. They had 
 now reached a spot made for an ambuscade, where the lake comes 
 up close under the hills of Cortona. Between them is nothing but 
 a very narrow road, for which room seems to have been purposely 
 left. Farther on is some comparatively broad, level ground. 
 From this rise the hills, and here in the open plain Hannibal 
 pitched a camp for himself and his African and Spanish troops 
 only ; his slingers and other light-armed troops he marched to the 
 rear of the hills ; his cavalry he stationed at the mouth of the de- 
 file, behind some rising ground which conveniently sheltered 
 them. When the Romans had once entered the pass and the 
 cavalry had barred the way, all would be hemmed in by the 
 lake and the hills. 
 
 Flaminius had reached the lake at sunset the day before. On the 
 morrow, without reconnoitering and while the light was still 
 uncertain, he traversed the narrow pass. As his army began to 
 deploy into the widening plain, he could see only that part of the 
 enemy's force which was in front of him ; he knew nothing of the 
 ambuscade in his rear and above his head. The Carthaginian saw 
 his wish accomplished. He had his enemy shut in by the lake and 
 the hills and surrounded by his own troops. He gave the signal 
 for a general charge, and the attacking columns flung themselves 
 on the nearest points. To the Romans the attack was all the more 
 sudden and unexpected because the mist from the lake lay thicker 
 on the plains than on the heights, while the hostile columns on the 
 various hills had been quite visible to each other, and had, 
 therefore, advanced in concert. As for the Romans, with the shout 
 of battle rising all around them, before they could see plainly, they 
 found themselves surrounded, and fighting begun in their front 
 and their flanks before they could form in order, get ready their 
 arms, or draw their swords. 
 
 Amidst universal panic the consul showed all the courage that 
 could be expected in circumstances so alarming. The broken 
 ranks, in which every one was turning to catch the discordant 
 shouts, he reformed as well as time and place permitted, and, a^ 
 
LIVY. 165 
 
 far as his presence or his voice could reach, bade his men stand 
 their ground and fight. "It is not by prayers," he cried, "or 
 entreaties to the gods, but by strength and courage that you 
 must win your way out. The sword cuts a path through the midst 
 of the battle ; and the less fear, there for the most part, the less 
 danger." But such was the uproar and confusion, neither en- 
 couragements nor commands could be heard ; so far were the men 
 from knowing their standards, their ranks, or their places, that 
 they had scarcely presence of mind to snatch up their arms and 
 address them to the fight, and some found them an overwhelming 
 burden rather than a protection. So dense too was the mist that 
 the ear was of more service than the eye. The groans of the 
 wounded, the sound of blows on body or armor, the mingled 
 shouts of triumph or panic, made them turn this way and that 
 an eager gaze. Some would rush in their flight on a dense knot of 
 combatants and become entangled in the mass ; others, returning 
 to the battle, would be carried away by the crowd of fugitives. 
 But after awhile, when charges had been vainly tried in every 
 direction, when it was seen that the hills and the lake shut them in 
 on either side, and the hostile lines in front and rear, when it was 
 manifest that the only hope of safety lay in their own right hands 
 and swords, then every man began to look to himself for guidance 
 and for encouragement, and there began afresh what was indeed a 
 new battle. No battle was it with its three ranks of combatants, 
 its vanguard before the standards, and its second line fighting 
 behind them, with every soldier in his own legion, cohort, or com- 
 pany: chance massed them together, and each man's impulse 
 assigned him his post, whether in the van or rear. So fierce was 
 their excitement, so intent were they on the battle, that not one of 
 the combatants felt the earthquake which laid whole quarters of 
 many Italian cities in ruins, changed the channels of rapid streams, 
 drove the sea far up into rivers, and brought down enormous land- 
 slips from the hills. 
 
 For nearly three hours they fought fiercely everywhere, but 
 with especial rage and fury round the consul. It was to him 
 that the flower of the army attached themselves. He, wherever he 
 found his troops pressed hard or distressed, was indefatigable in 
 giving help ; conspicuous in his splendid arms, the enemy assailed 
 and his fellow-Romans defended him with all their might. At 
 last an Insubrian trooper (his name was Ducarius), recognizing 
 him also by his face, cried to his comrades, " See ! this is the man 
 who slaughtered our legions, and laid waste our fields and our 
 city ; I will offer him as a sacrifice to the shades of my countrymen 
 whom he so foully slew." Putting spurs to his horse, he charged 
 through the thickest of the enemy, struck down the armor-bearer 
 
156 CliASSIC I.ATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 who threw himself in the way of his furious advance, and ran the 
 consul through with his lance. When he would have stripped the 
 body, some veterans thrust their shields between and hindered 
 him. 
 
 Then began the flight of a great part of the army. And now 
 neither lake nor mountain checked their rush of panic ; by every 
 defile and height they sought blindly to escape, and arms and men 
 were heaped upon each other. Many finding no possibility of 
 flight, waded into the shallows at the edge of the lake, advanced 
 until they had only head and shoulders above the water, and at 
 last drowned themselves. Some in the frenzy of panic endeavored 
 to escape by swimming ; but the endeavor was endless and hope- 
 less, and they either sunk in the depths when their courage failed 
 them, or they wearied themselves in vain till they could hardly 
 struggle back to the shallows, where they were slaughtered in 
 crowds by the enemy's cavalry which had now entered the water. 
 Nearly six thousand of the vanguard made a determined rush 
 through the enemy, and got clear out of the defile, knowing 
 nothing of what was happening behind them. Halting on some 
 high ground, they could only hear the shouts of men and clashing 
 of arms, but could not learn or see for the mist how the day was 
 going. It was when the battle was decided that the increasing 
 heat of the sun scattered the mist and cleared the sky. The 
 bright light that now rested on hill and plain showed a ruinous de- 
 feat and a Roman army shamefully routed. Fearing that they 
 might be seen in the distance and that the cavalry might be sent 
 against them, they took up their standards and hurried away with 
 all the speed they could. The next day, finding their situation 
 generally desperate, and starvation also imminent, they capitu- 
 lated to Hannibal, who had overtaken them with the whole of his 
 cavalry, and who pledged his word that if they would surrender 
 their arms, they should go free, each man having a single garment. 
 The promise was kept with Punic faith by Hannibal, who put them 
 all in chains. 
 
 Such was the famous fight at Trasumennus, memorable as few 
 other disasters of the Roman people have been. Fifteen thousand 
 men fell in the battle ; ten thousand, flying in all directions over 
 Etruria, made by difierent roads for Rome. Of the enemy two 
 thousand five hundred fell in the battle. Many died afterwards of 
 their wounds. Other authors speak of a loss on both sides many 
 times greater. I am myself averse to the idle exaggeration to 
 which writers are so commonly inclined, and I have here followed, 
 as my best authority, Fabius, who was actually contemporary with 
 the war. Hannibal released without ransom all the prisoners who 
 claimed Latin citizenship ; the Romans he imprisoned. He had 
 
LIVY. • 157 
 
 the corpses of his own men separated from the vast heaps of dead, 
 and buried. Careful search was also made for the body of Fla- 
 minius, to which he wished to pay due honor, but it could not be 
 found. 
 
 At Rome the first tidings of this disaster brought a terror- 
 stricken and tumultuous crowd into the forum. The matrons 
 wandered through the streets and asked all whom they met what 
 was this disaster of which news had just arrived, and how the 
 army had fared. A crowd, thick as a thronged assembly, with eyes 
 intent upon the senate-house, called aloud for the magistrates, till at 
 last, not long before sunset, the praetor, Mar'cus Pom-po'ni-us, 
 said, "We have been beaten in a great battle." Nothing more 
 definite than this was said by him ; but each man had reports with- 
 out end to tell his neighbor, an d the news which they carried back 
 to their homes was that the consul had perished with a great part 
 of his troops, that the few who had survived were either dispersed 
 throughout Etruria, or taken prisoners by the enemy. 
 
 The mischances of the beaten army were not more numerous 
 than the anxieties which distracted the minds of those whose 
 relatives had served under Flaminius. All were utterly ignorant 
 how this or that kinsman had fared ; no one even quite knew what 
 to hope or to fear. On the morrow, and for some days after, there 
 stood at the gates a crowd in which the women even outnumbered 
 the men, waiting to see their relatives or hear some tidings about 
 them. They thronged round all whom they met, with incessant 
 questions, and could not tear themselves away, least of all leave 
 any acquaintance, till they had heard the whole story to an end. 
 Different indeed were their looks as they turned away from the 
 tale which had filled them either with joy or grief, and friends 
 crowded round to congratulate or console them as they returned to 
 their homes. The women were most conspicuous for their trans- 
 ports and their grief. Within one of the very gates, a woman un- 
 expectedly meeting a son who had escaped, died, it is said, in his 
 embrace ; another who had had false tidings of her son's death and 
 sat sorrowing at home, expired from excessive joy when she 
 caught sight of him entering the house. The praetors for some 
 days kept the senate in constant session from sunrise to sunset, de- 
 liberating who was to lead an army, and what army was to be led 
 against the victorious foe. 
 
 Other reverses to Boman arms followed close upon the over- 
 throw of Trasumennus. A dictator was created, the dictator 
 being Fabius Maximus. This is that memorable master of 
 delay, destined at last to save Rome by a long course of 
 
158 • CL.ASSIO L.ATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 strongly doing nothing. He stood simply a rock on which 
 Hannibal dashed himself to pieces — rather he was a yielding 
 mountain of sand on which the sea sought in vain to deliver 
 a shock. 
 
 Mar^cus Min-u^'ci-us Rufus was joined to Fabius, as master 
 of horse. It was harnessing together in one team a restive 
 and a restless steed — a steed that would not stir, and a steed 
 that would not stand still. The Romans, with all their prac- 
 tical genius for war and statesmanship, made, from the founda- 
 tion of the Republic down to the foundation of the Empire, 
 the singular, the almost inexplicable, blunder — such it seems 
 to us now — of dividing administrative responsibility between 
 two men, placed together at the head of affairs. 
 
 The policy, and the effects of the policy, adopted by Fabius 
 Cunctator (Fabius Delayer), are thus sketched by Livy : 
 
 Always reconnoitering his ground most carefully, he advanced 
 against the enemy, resolved nowhere to risk anything more than 
 necessity might compel. The first day that he pitched his camp in 
 sight of the enemy (the place was not far from Arpi), Hannibal, 
 without a moment's delay, led out his men and offered battle. 
 When he saw that all was quiet in the Roman army, and that 
 there was no sign of any stir in their camp, he returned to his 
 quarters, loudly exclaiming that at last the martial spirit of Rome 
 was broken — they had made open confession of defeat and yielded 
 the palm of glory and valor. But in his heart was a secret fear 
 that he had now to deal with a general very different from Flamin- 
 ius or Sempronius, and that, taught by disasters, the Romans had 
 at last found a general equal to himself. He felt at once afraid of 
 the wariness of the new dictator ; of his firmness he had not yet 
 made trial, and so began to harass and provoke him by repeatedly 
 moving his camp and wasting under his eyes the territory of the 
 aUies. At one time he would make a rapid march and disappear ; 
 at another he would make a sudden halt, concealed in some wind- 
 ing road, where he hoped that he might catch his antagonist de- 
 scending to the plain. Fabius continued to move his forces along 
 high ground, preserving a moderate distance from the enemy, 
 neither letting him out of his sight nor encountering him. He 
 kept his soldiers within their camp, unless they were required for 
 some necessary service. When they went in quest of forage or 
 wood, it was not in small parties or at random. Pickets of cavalry 
 
liiVY. 159 
 
 and light troops were told off and kept in readiness to meet sudden 
 alarms, a constant protection to his own troops, a constant terror to 
 the vagrant marauders of the enemy. He refused to stake his all 
 on the hazard of a general engagement, but slight encounters, of 
 little importance with a refuge so near, could be safely ventured 
 on; and a soldiery demoralized by former disasters were thus 
 habituated to think more hopefully of their own courage and good 
 luck. 
 
 The relation in which Rufus placed himself to Fabius is in- 
 dicated by Livy in the following sentences : 
 
 But these sober counsels found an adversary not only in Hannibal 
 but quite as much in his own master of the horse, who, headstrong 
 and rash in counsel and intemperate in speech, was kept from 
 ruining his country only by the want of power. First to a few 
 listeners, then openly before the ranks of the army, he stigmatized 
 his commander as more indolent than deliberate, more cowardly 
 than cautious, fastening on him failings which were akin to his 
 real virtues, and seeking to exalt himself by lowering his chief— a 
 vile art, which has often thriven by a too successful practice. 
 
 Hannibal spread consternation among the Italian allies of 
 Rome, but they stood fast in their loyalty. Their steadfast- 
 ness inspires Livy to make the following patriotically self- 
 complacent remark : 
 
 The truth was that they were under a righteous and moderate 
 rule, and they yielded — and this is the only true bond of loyalty — 
 a willing obedience to their betters. 
 
 Fabius had anything but a tranquil time of it in keeping 
 resolutely quiet. Rufus was constantly a thorn in the side of 
 his impassible commander. Livy invents for this man — your 
 ideal demagogue he was, according to Livy — some very 
 spirited harangues in character, from one of which we must 
 have a representative sentence or two. The Roman army 
 sitting still, while under their very eyes fire and sword in 
 Carthaginian hands were wasting Roman allies, Rufus broke 
 out: 
 
 " Have we come hither to see, as though it were some delightful 
 spectacle, our allies wasted by fire and sword ? ... It is folly 
 to think that the war can be finished by sitting still and praying. 
 
160 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 You must take your arms ; you must go down to the plain ; you 
 must meet the enemy man to man. It is by boldness and action 
 that the power of Rome has grown, not by these counsels of indo- 
 lence, which only cowards call caution." 
 
 The effect of seditious utterances like these from Eufus was 
 vicious, but it served only to set the firmness of Fabius in 
 stronger light. Livy says : 
 
 Fabius had to be on his guard against his own men just as much 
 as against the enemy, and made them feel that they could not con- 
 quer his resolution. Though he knew well that his policy of delay 
 was odious, not only in his own camp, but also at Rome, yet he 
 steadfastly adhered to the same plan of action, and so let the 
 summer wear away. 
 
 Hannibal was a famous master of stratagem. Here is a 
 specimen of his ready resource in that kind. The expedient 
 described was adopted by Hannibal to extricate himself from 
 a desperate situation in which he became involved, a situation 
 much resembling the situation in which he had himself pre- 
 viously involved the Romans. Now Livy : 
 
 The deception was thus arranged. — Firewood was collected from 
 all the country round, and bundles of twigs and dry fagots were 
 fastened to the horns of oxen, of which he had many, from the 
 plundered rural districts, both broken and unbroken to the plow. 
 Upward of two thousand oxen were thus treated, and Hasdrubal 
 was intrusted with the business of driving this herd, with their 
 horns alight, on to the hills, more particularly, as he best could, to 
 those above the passes occupied by the enemy. 
 
 In the dusk of evening, he silently struck his camp ; the oxen 
 were driven a little in front of the standards. When they reached 
 the foot of the mountain, where the roads narrowed, the signal 
 was immediately given to hurry the herd with their horns alight 
 up the slope of the hills. They rushed on, goaded into madness 
 by the terror of the flames which flashed from their heads, and by 
 the heat which soon reached the flesh at the root of their horns. 
 At this sudden rush all the thickets seemed to be in a blaze, and 
 the very woods and mountains to have been fired ; and when the 
 beasts vainly shook their heads, it seemed as if men were running 
 about in every direction. The troops posted in the pass, seeing 
 fires on the hill-tops and above them, fancied that they had been 
 surrounded, and left their position. They made for the loftiest 
 heights as being their safest route, for it was there that the fewest 
 
lilVY. 161 
 
 flashes of light were visible ; but even there they fell in with some 
 of the oxen which had strayed from their herd. When they saw 
 them at a distance, they stood thunderstruck at what seemed to be 
 the miracle of oxen breathing fire. As soon as it was seen to be 
 nothing but a human contrivance, they suspected some deep 
 stratagem and fled in wilder confusion than ever. They also 
 fell in with some of the enemy's light-armed troops, but both sides 
 were equally afraid in the darkness to attack, and so they re- 
 mained until dawn. Meanwhile Hannibal had led his whole army 
 through the pass, cutting off", as he went, some of his opponents, 
 and pitched his camp in the territory of Allifse. 
 
 Fabius did not conduct his command in a manner to suit 
 the wishes of Hannibal. In fact, Fabius did not suit any- 
 body's wishes in his manner of carrying on the war. His own 
 soldiers chafed, and his countrymen at home were indignant 
 and restless. Hannibal artfully contrived to exasperate the 
 prevalent feeling against Fabius still more. What the Car- 
 thaginian wanted was a foe that would fight. He hoped by 
 making Fabius unpopular at Rome to have that general ousted 
 from his command. The chance then was that the senate 
 would send some general against him that he could entice 
 into battle. The following was the deep trick that Hannibal 
 played. Livy : 
 
 Deserters had pointed out to him the dictator's estate, and he had 
 given orders that, while everything round it was leveled to the 
 ground, it should be kept safe from fire and sword and all hostile 
 violence, hoping that this forbearance might be thought the con- 
 sideration for some secret agreement. 
 
 But the virtue of Fabius was more than a match for the 
 cunning of Hannibal. That very estate of the Roman, so 
 insidiously spared by his crafty antagonist, became, without 
 design or consciousness perhaps on Fabius's part, the means of 
 his own complete vindication. There had been an exchange 
 of prisoners between the two armies. One stipulation was 
 that whichever party received back the greater number of 
 men, should pay money to the other, at the rate of two 
 pounds and a half of silver for every head in excess. Hanni- 
 
162 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 bal brought Fabius in debt for the ransom of two hundred 
 and forty-seven prisoners. The senate, taking offense, be- 
 cause not previously consulted, were slow to hand over the 
 money. Fabius thereupon, through his son, sold the estate 
 that Haimibal had spared and, thus enabled to do so, dis- 
 charged the public obligation out of his own private fortune. 
 But the Commons of Rome added to the burden that 
 Fabius was bearing for his country. A bill was passed, ad- 
 vancing the factious master of horse to equality in command 
 with the dictator himself. Livy very finely describes the 
 splendid serenity of conscious power and of conscious patri- 
 otism, with which, under the sting of this indignity inflicted 
 by his countrymen upon him, Fabius pauselessly pursued his 
 way back to his army from his visit to Rome : 
 
 AH men, whether at Rome or in the army, whether friends or 
 foes, took the bill as an intentional insult to the dictator. Not so 
 the dictator himself. In the same dignified spirit in which he had 
 borne the charges made against him before the populace, he now 
 bore the wrong which the Commons inflicted in their rage. The 
 dispatch from the senate announcing the equalization of military 
 authority reached him on his way. Confident that the com- 
 mander's skill could not be equalized along with the right to 
 command, he returned to the army with a soul that neither his 
 fellow-citizens nor the enemy could subdue. 
 
 If Rufus was delighted, not less delighted was Hannibal. 
 The Roman army was divided, and two separate camps were 
 formed. This latter idea was the preference of Rufus. Livy 
 has few more eloquent passages than that in which he de- 
 scribes the result. The result was almost too striking to be 
 true. It reads more like poetry than like history. Here it 
 is in Livy's incomparable narrative : 
 
 Hannibal was now doubly delighted, and not a single movement 
 of his foe escaped him. The deserters told him much, and he 
 learnt much from his own spies. He would entrap in his own 
 fashion the frank rashness of Minucius, while the experienced 
 Fabius had lost half of his strength. There was some rising 
 ground between the camp of Minucius and that of the Cartha- 
 
LIVY. 163 
 
 ginians, and it was clear that whoever should occupy it, would 
 thereby make the enemy's position less favorable. It was not 
 so much Hannibal's desire to gain this without fighting, though 
 that would have been worth the attempt, as to find in it the 
 occasion of a battle with Minucius, who would, he was quite sure, 
 sally forth to oppose him. All the ground between them seemed at 
 first sight useless for purposes of ambush. Not only had it no 
 vestige of wood about it, but it was without even a covering of 
 brambles. In reality, nature made it to conceal an ambush, all the 
 more because no hidden danger could be feared in so bare a valley. 
 In its windings were caverns, some of them large enough to hold 
 two hundred armed men. Into these hiding places, wherever 
 there was one which could be conveniently occupied, he intro- 
 duced five thousand infantry and cavalry. Still in so exposed a 
 valley the stratagem might be discovered by the incautious move- 
 ment of a single soldier, or by the gleam of arms, and he therefore 
 sent a few troops at early dawn to occupy the hill mentioned 
 before, and so to distract the attention of the enemy. To see them 
 was to conceive at once a contempt for their scanty numbers. 
 Every man begged for the task of dislodging the enemy and 
 occupying the place. Conspicuous among these senseless braggarts 
 was the general himself, as he called his men to arms and assailed 
 the enemy with idle threats. First he sent his light troops, then 
 his cavalry in close array ; at last seeing that the enemy were 
 receiving re-enforcements, he advanced with his legions in order of 
 battle. 
 
 Hannibal, too, as the conflict waxed fiercer and his troops 
 were hard pressed, sent again and again infantry and cavalry to 
 their support, till his line of battle was complete, and both sides 
 were fighting with their whole strength. First of all the Roman 
 light-armed troops, attacking, as they did, from below an elevation 
 already occupied, were repulsed and thrust back, carrying panic 
 with them into the cavalry behind and flying until they reached 
 the standards of the legions. It was the infantry that alone stood 
 firm amidst the route and seemed likely, if once they had had 
 to fight a regular battle in face of the enemy, to be quite a match 
 for him. The successful action of a few days before had given 
 them abundance of courage; but the ambushed troops un- 
 expectedly rose upon them, charged them on the flank and in 
 the rear, and spread such confusion and panic that they lost all 
 heart for fighting and all hope of escape. 
 
 Fabius first heard the cry of terror ; then saw from afar the 
 broken lines. " It is true," he cried, " disaster has overtaken rash- 
 ness, but not sooner than I feared. They made him equal to 
 Fabius, but he sees that Hannibal is his superior both in courage 
 
164 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 and in good fortune. Another time, however, will do for angry 
 reproof and censure ; now advance the standards beyond the 
 rampart. Let us wring from the enemy his victory, from our 
 countrymen the confession of error." 
 
 Many had already fallen and many were looking for the chance 
 to fly, when the army of Fabius, as suddenly as if it had dropped 
 from heaven, appeared to help them. Before javelins were thrown 
 or swords crossed it checked the Romans in their headlong flight, 
 the enemy in the fierce eagerness of their attack. Where the 
 ranks had been broken and the men scattered hither and thither, 
 they hurried from all sides to the unbroken lines ; larger bodies 
 had retreated together, these now wheeled round to face the enemy 
 and formed square, sometimes slowly retiring, sometimes stand- 
 ing in firm and close array. By the time that the beaten army and 
 the unbroken army had all but combined into a single force and 
 were advancing against the enemy, Hannibal gave the signal for 
 retreat, thus openly confessing that, as he had conquered Minucius, 
 so he had himself been worsted by Fabius. 
 
 Returning to the camp late on this day of checkered fortune, 
 Minucius assembled his troops. "Soldiers," he said, " I have 
 often heard that the best man is he who can tell us himself what is 
 the right thing ; that next comes he who listens to good advice ; 
 and that he who cannot advise himself or submit to another, 
 has the meanest capacity of all. Since the best blessing of heart 
 and understanding has been denied us, let us hold fast that next 
 best gift which is between the two, and, while we learn to rule, 
 make up our minds to obey the wise. Let us join our camp to the 
 camp of Fabius. When we have carried our standards to his head- 
 quarters, and I have given him the title of parent, so well deserved 
 by the service which he has done us, and by his high position, you, 
 my soldiers, will salute as the authors of your freedom the men 
 whose right hands and swords lately saved you. So this day will 
 give us, if nothing else, yet at least the credit of having grateful 
 hearts." 
 
 The signal was given, and proclamation made to collect the camp 
 equipage. Then they started and marched in regular array to the 
 dictator's camp, much to his wonder and that of those who stood 
 round him. When the standards were set up before the hustings, 
 the master of the horse stepped forward and called Fabius by the 
 name of "father," while the whole array saluted as "authors of 
 their freedom" the soldiers as they stood grouped around their 
 commander. " Dictator," he said, " I have put thee on a level with 
 my parents by this name, and it is all that speech can do ; but while 
 I owe to them life only, to thee I owe the safety of myself and of all 
 these. Therefore I am the first to reject and repeal that decree 
 
LIVY. 165 
 
 which has been to me a burden rather than an honor, and praying 
 that this act may be prospered to thee and me and to these thy 
 armies, the preserver and the preserved alike, I put myself again 
 under thy command and fortunes, and restore to thee these stand- 
 ards and legions. Forgive us, I pray, and allow me to keep my 
 mastership of the horse, and each of these his several rank." 
 
 There was a general clasping of hands ; and when the assembly 
 was dismissed, the soldiers were kindly and hospitably invited by 
 strangers as well as friends. Thus a day which but a few hours 
 before had been full of sorrow and almost of unspeakable disaster 
 became a day of merriment. In Rome, as soon as the news of this 
 incident arrived, followed and confirmed by letters, not only from 
 the generals but from many persons in either army, every one 
 joined in extolling Maximus to the skies. Hannibal and the Car- 
 thaginians equally admired him. They felt at last that it was with 
 Romans and in Italy that they were fighting. For the last two 
 years they had so despised both the generals and the soldiers of 
 Rome that they could scarcely believe themselves to be fighting 
 with that same people of whom they had heard so terrible a report 
 from their fathers. Hannibal, too, they say, exclaimed, as he was 
 returning from the field, " At last the cloud which has been dwell- 
 ing so long upon the hills, has burst upon us in storm and rain." 
 
 For our specimen extracts from Livy we use the version 
 made in partnership by Messrs. Church and Brodribb, re- 
 spectively of Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England. 
 This is a version worthy to be compared for workmanship with 
 the best English transcripts in existence from the ancient 
 classics, Latin or Greek. The same accomplished translators 
 have given us Tacitus also in a style equally admirable. 
 
 The six months' dictatorship of Fabius is now nearing its 
 close. The savior of his country hands over his army to the 
 consuls, who pursue the policy of the dictator for the rest of 
 that campaign. 
 
 Consuls Paulus and Varro were yoked together like Fabius 
 and Rufus. Repetition of the folly thus committed will be 
 followed by repetition of the punishment to Rome. Cannae 
 is now close at hand. The two consuls bicker, but Varro the 
 rash has support instead of Paulus the prudent. Now for a 
 good stretch of Livy again ; 
 
166 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 The judgment of the majority prevailed, and the army moved 
 out to make Cannse, for so destiny would have it, famous forever 
 for a great Roman defeat. Hannibal had pitched his camp near that 
 village, so as not to face the wind called Vul-tur'nus, which, blow- 
 ing across plains parched with drought, carries with it clouds of 
 dust. The arrangement was most convenient for the camp, and 
 was afterwards found to be of similar advantage when they mar- 
 shaled their troops for battle. Their own faces were turned away 
 and the wind did but blow on their backs, while the enemy with 
 whom they were to fight was blinded by volumes of dust. 
 
 The consuls, after duly reconnoitering the roads, followed the 
 Carthaginians till they reached Cannse, where they had the enemy 
 in sight. They then intrenched and fortified two camps, separating 
 their forces by about the same distance as before at Ger-e-o'ni-um. 
 The river Au'fi-dus, which flowed near both camps, furnished 
 water to both armies, the soldiers approaching as they most conven- 
 iently could, not, however, without some skirmishing. From the 
 smaller camp, which had been pitched on the farther side of the 
 Aufidus, the Romans procured water with less difficulty, as the 
 opposite bank was not held by any hostile force. Hannibal saw his 
 hope accomplished, that the consuls would offer battle on ground 
 made for the action of cavalry, in which arm he was invincible. 
 He drew up his men, and sought to provoke his foe by throwing 
 forward his Numidian troopers. Then the Roman camp was once 
 more disturbed by mutiny among the troops and disagreement be- 
 tween the consuls. Paulus taunted Varro with the rashness of 
 Sempronius and Flaminius ; Varro reproached Paulus with copy- 
 ing Fabius, an example attractive to timid and indolent command- 
 ers, and called both gods and men to witness that it was no fault of 
 his if Hannibal had now a prescriptive possession of Italy. "I," 
 said he, " have my hands tied and held fast by my colleague. My 
 soldiers, furious and eager to fight, are stripped of their swords and 
 arms. ' ' Paulus declared that if any disaster befell the legions reck- 
 lessly thrown and betrayed into battle without deliberation or fore- 
 thought, he would share all their fortunes, while holding himself 
 free from all blame. " Let Varro look to it that they whose tongues 
 were so ready and so bold, had hands equally vigorous in the day 
 of battle." 
 
 While they thus wasted the time in disputing rather than in 
 deliberating, Hannibal, who had kept his lines drawn up till late 
 in the day, called back the rest of his troops into his camp, but 
 sent forward the Numidian cavalry across the river to attack 
 the water-parties from the smaller of the two Roman camps. 
 Coming on with shouting and uproar they sent the undisciplined 
 (jrowd flying before they had even reached th© bank, and rode 
 
IiIVY. 167 
 
 on till they came on an outpost stationed before the rampart 
 and close to the very camp-gates. So scandalous did it seem that a 
 Roman camp should be alarmed by some irregular auxiliaries that 
 the only circumstance which hindered the Romans from imme- 
 diately crossing the river and forming their line of battle was, that 
 the supreme command that day rested with Paulus. But the next 
 day Varro, without consulting his colleague, gave the signal to en- 
 gage, and drawing up his forces led them across the river. Paulus 
 followed him ; he could withhold his sanction from the movement, 
 but not his support. The river crossed, they joined to their own 
 the forces retained by them in the smaller camp, and then formed 
 their lines. On the right wing (the one nearer to the river) they 
 posted the Roman cavalry and next the infantry. On the extreme 
 flank of the left wing were the allied cavalry, next the allied 
 infantry, side by side with the Roman legions in the center. 
 Slingers and other light-armed auxiliaries made up the first line. 
 Paulus commanded the left wing ; Varro the right ; Ge-min'i-us 
 Ser-vil'i-us had charge of the center. 
 
 At dawn Hannibal, sending in advance his slingers and light- 
 armed troops, crossed the river, assigning each division its position 
 as it crossed. His Gallic and Spanish cavalry he posted near the 
 river bank on the left wing, facing the Roman horse ; the right 
 wing was assigned to the Numidian cavalry ; the center showed 
 a strong force of infantry, having on either side the African troops, 
 with the Gauls and Spaniards between them. These Africans 
 might have been taken for a Roman force ; so largely were they 
 equipped with weapons taken at Trebia, and yet more at Trasu- 
 mennus. The Gauls and Spaniards had shields of very nearly the 
 same shape, but their swords were widely different in size and 
 form, the Gauls having them very long and pointless, while the 
 Spaniards, who were accustomed to assail the enemy with thrusts 
 rather than with blows, had them short, handy, and pointed. 
 These nations had a specially terrible appearance, so gigantic 
 was their stature and so strange their look. The Gauls were naked 
 above the navel ; the Spaniards wore tunics of linen bordered with 
 purple, of a whiteness marvelously dazzling. The total number of 
 the infantry who were that day ranged in line was forty thousand, 
 that of the cavalry ten thousand. Hasdrubal commanded the left 
 wing ; Maharbal the right ; Hannibal himself, with his brother 
 Mago, was in the center. The sun — whether the troops were 
 purposely so placed, or whether it was by chance — fell very con- 
 veniently sideways on both armies, the Romans facing the south, 
 the Carthaginians the north. The wind (called Vulturnus by the 
 natives of those parts) blew straight against the Romans and 
 whirled clouds of dust into their faces till they could see nothing. 
 
168 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 With a loud shout the auxiliaries charged, the light troops 
 thus beginning the battle. Next the Gallic and Spanish horse 
 of the left wing encountered the right wing of the Romans. The 
 fight was not at all like a cavalry engagement; they had to 
 meet face to face ; there was no room for maneuvering, shut in 
 as they were by the river on one side and the lines of infantry 
 on the other. Both sides pushed straightforward till, with their 
 horses brought to a stand and crowded together in a mass, each 
 man seized his antagonist and strove to drag him from his seat. 
 The struggle now became mainly a struggle of infantry ; but the 
 conflict was rather fierce than protracted. The Roman cavalry 
 were defeated and put to flight. Just before the encounter of 
 the cavalry came to an end, the fight between the infantry began. 
 The two sides were well matched in strength and courage, as long 
 as the Gauls and Spaniards kept their ranks unbroken ; at last the 
 Romans, after long and repeated eflbrts, sloped their front and 
 broke, by their deep formation, the enemy's column, which, 
 advanced as it was from the rest of the line, was shallow and there- 
 fore weak. Pursuing the broken and rapidly retreating foe, 
 they made their way without a halt through the rout of panic- 
 stricken fugitives till they reached, first, the center of the line, and 
 then, meeting with no check, the reserves of the African troops. 
 These had been stationed on the wings which had been somewhat 
 retired, while the center, where the Gauls and Spaniards had been 
 posted, was proportionately advanced. As that column fell back, 
 the line became level ; when they pushed their retreat, they made 
 a hollow in the center. The Africans now overlapped on either 
 side, and as the Romans rushed heedlessly into the intervening 
 space, they first outflanked them and then, extending their own 
 formation, actually hemmed in their rear. Upon this the Romans, 
 who had fought one battle to no purpose, quitted the Gauls and 
 Spaniards, whose rear they had been slaughtering, and began 
 a new conflict with the Africans, a conflict unfair, not only because 
 they were shut in with foes all round them, but because they were 
 wearied, while the enemy was fresh and vigorous. 
 
 On the left wing of the Romans the cavalry of the allies had been 
 posted against the Numidians. Here, too, battle had been joined, 
 though with little spirit for a time, the first movement being a Car- 
 thaginian stratagem. Nearly five hundred Numidians who, be- 
 sides their usual armor and missiles had swords hidden under 
 their cuirasses, rode out from their own line with their shields 
 slung behind their backs as though they had been deserters, leaped 
 in haste from their horses and threw their shields and javelins 
 at the feet of the Romans. They were received into the center 
 Qf the line, taken to the extreme rear, and bidden to keep their 
 
lilVY. 169 
 
 place behind. While the battle spread from place to place they re- 
 mained motionless ; but as soon as all eyes and thoughts were 
 intent on the conflict, they seized the shields which lay scattered 
 everywhere among the piles of dead, and fell on the Roman 
 line from the rear. They wounded the backs and legs of the men, 
 and while they made a great slaughter, spread far greater panic 
 and confusion. While there was terror and flight on the right, and 
 in the center an obstinate resistance, though with little hope, 
 Hasdrubal, who was in command in this quarter, withdrew the 
 Numidians from the center, seeing that they fought with but little 
 spirit, and having sent them in all directions to pursue the enemy, 
 re-enforced with the Spanish and Gallic cavalry the African troops, 
 wearied as they now were with slaughter rather than with fight- 
 ing. 
 
 Paulus was on the other side of the field. He had been seriously 
 wounded at the very beginning of the battle by a bullet from 
 a sling, but yet he repeatedly encountered Hannibal with a 
 compact body of troops, and at several points restored the fortune 
 of the day. He was protected by the Roman cavalry, who at last 
 sent away their horses when the consul became too weak to 
 manage his charger. Some one told Hannibal that the consul had 
 ordered the cavalry to dismount. '* He might better hand them 
 over to me bound hand and foot," said he. The horsemen fought 
 on foot as men were likely to fight, when, the victory of the enemy 
 being beyond all doubt, the vanquished preferred dying where 
 they stood to flight, and the victors, furious with those who delayed 
 their triumph, slaughtered the foes whom they could not move. 
 Move them, however, they did— that is, a few survivors, exhausted 
 with wounds and fatigue. All were then scattered, and such as 
 were able sought to recover their horses and fly. Cn. [Cne'i-us] 
 Len'tu-lus, as he galloped by, saw the consul sitting on a stone and 
 covered with blood. ** Lucius -^milius," he cried, " the one man 
 whom heaven must regard as guiltless of this day's calamity, take 
 this horse while you have some strength left, and I am here to 
 be with you, to lift you to the saddle, and to defend you. Do 
 not make this defeat yet sadder by a consul's death. There is 
 weeping and sorrow enough without this." The consul replied, 
 '"Tis a brave thought of thine, Cn. Cornelius; but waste not 
 the few moments you have for escaping from the enemy in fruitless 
 pity. My public message to the senators is that they must fortify 
 Rome and make its garrison as strong as may be before the victori- 
 ous enemy arrives. My private message to Quintus Fabius is that 
 Lucius ^milius remembered his teaching in life and death. As 
 for me, let me breathe my last among my slaughtered soldiers. I 
 would not again leave my consulship to answer for my life, nor 
 
170 CLASSIC LATIN COUBSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 would I stand up to accuse my colleague, and by accusing another 
 protect my own innocence." 
 
 While they thus talked together, they were overtaken, first by a 
 crowd of Roman fugitives and then by the enemy. These last 
 buried the consul under a shower of javelins, not knowing who he 
 was. Lentulus galloped off in the confusion. The Romans now 
 fled wildly in every direction. Seven thousand men escaped into 
 the smaller, ten thousand into the larger camp, ten thousand more 
 into the village of Cannae itself. These last were immediately sur- 
 rounded by Car'tha-lo and the cavalry, for no fortification pro- 
 tected the place. The other consul, who, whether by chance or of 
 set purpose, had not joined any large body of fugitives, fled 
 with about five hundred horsemen to Ve-nu'si-a. Forty-five thou- 
 sand five hundred infantry, two thousand seven hundred cavalry, 
 and almost as many more citizens and allies are said to have fallen. 
 Among these were the quaestors of both consuls, Lucius Atilius and 
 Furius Bi-bac'u-lus, twenty-nine tribunes of the soldiers, and not 
 a few ex-consuls, ex- praetors, and ex-sediles (among them Cn. Ser- 
 vilius and Marcus Minucius, who the year before had been the 
 master of the horse, and consul some years before that), eighty who 
 were either actual senators or had filled such offices as made them 
 eligible for the senate, and who had volunteered to serve in the 
 legions. In this battle three thousand infantry and one thousand 
 five hundred cavalry are said to have been taken prisoners. 
 
 Such was the battle of Cannae, as famous as the disaster at the 
 AUia, and though less serious in its consequences, thanks to the 
 inaction of the enemy, yet in loss of men still more ruinous 
 and disgraceful. The flight at the Allia lost the city but saved the 
 army ; at Cannae the consul who fled was followed by barely 
 fifty men ; with the consul who perished, perished nearly the 
 whole army. 
 
 Livy perhaps was mistaken, but, according to Livy, Hanni- 
 bal did not quite prove a match to the greatness of his own 
 triumph — the excess of his victory defeated him. Livy thus 
 relates what one can only guess how he knew : 
 
 Round the victorious Hannibal crowded his officers with con- 
 gratulations and entreaties that now that this mighty war was 
 finished he should take what remained of that day and the follow- 
 ing night for rest, and give the same to his wearied soldiers. Ma- 
 harbal, the general of his cavalry, thought that there should be no 
 pause. "Nay," he cried, "that you may know what has been 
 achieved by this victory, you shall hold a conqueror's feast within 
 five days in the Capitol. Pursue them ; I wiU go before you with 
 
LIVY. 171 
 
 my cavalry, and they shall know that you are come before, they 
 know that you are coming." Hannibal felt that his success was 
 too great for him to be able to realize it at the moment. " He com- 
 mended," he said, "Maharbal's zeal, but he must take time to 
 deliberate." Maharbal replied, *' Well, the gods do not give all 
 gifts to one man. Hannibal, you know how to conquer ; not how 
 to use a conquest." That day's delay is believed to have saved 
 Rome and its empire. 
 
 Scipio, destined to be Scipio Af-ri-ca-'nus, now makes a 
 grand theatric entrance upon the scene — amid the general dis- 
 may the one figure at Rome that rose greater than the great- 
 ness of the ruin around him. Always equal to his most 
 Roman occasion, Livy thus shows "Scipio, the highth of 
 Rome," striding out into the blaze of history, like a trium- 
 ph"ant tragedian saluting his audience from behind the foot- 
 lights upon the boards where he reigns : 
 
 The supreme command was unanimously assigned to Scipio, 
 who was a very young man, and to Claudius. They were holding 
 council with a few friends about the state of affairs, when Publius 
 Furius Philus, whose father was an ex-consul, said that it was idle 
 for them to cling to utterly ruined hopes. The State, he declared, 
 was given over for lost. Certain young nobles with Lu'ci-us 
 Cse-cil'i-us Me-tel'lus at their head, were thinking of flying be- 
 yond sea and deserting their country for the service of some for- 
 eign king. In face of a peril, terrible in itself, and coming with 
 fresh force after so many disasters, all present stood motionless in 
 amazement and stupefaction. They proposed that a council should 
 be called to consider the matter, but the young Scipio, Rome's 
 predestined champion in this war, declared that it was no time for 
 a council. "We must dare and act," he said, " not deliberate, in 
 such awful calamity. Let all who desire the salvation of their 
 country, come armed with me. No camp is more truly a camp of 
 the enemy than that in which men have such thoughts." He 
 immediately started with a few followers for the house of Metellus ; 
 there he found a gathering of the youths of whom he had heard. 
 Drawing his sword over the heads of the conspirators, " It is my 
 fixed resolve," he cried, " as I will not myself desert the common- 
 wealth of Rome, so not to suffer any other Roman citizen to desert 
 it; if I knowingly fail therein, almighty and merciful Jupiter, 
 smite me, my house, and fortunes with utter destruction. I insist 
 that you, Lucius Csecilius, and all others present, take this oath 
 
172 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 after me. Whoever takes it not may be sure this sword is drawn 
 against him." They were as frightened as if they saw the victori- 
 ous Hannibal before them, and to a man they swore and delivered 
 themselves to the custody of Scipio. 
 
 Was not this Scipio a born master of men ? Or, if he was 
 not really such, did not Livy nobly imagine him such ? 
 
 Some small remnant of the Roman force escaped from the 
 destruction at Cannae. But (Livy again now, in description 
 of the state of things existing in the capital): 
 
 At Rome report said that no such mere remnant of citizens and 
 allies survived, but that the army with the two consuls had been 
 utterly destroyed, and that the whole force had ceased to exist. 
 Never before, with Rome itself still safe, had there been such panic 
 and confusion within our walls. I shall decline the task of attempt- 
 ing a lengthened description which could not but be far inferior to 
 the truth. The year before a consul with his army had perished 
 at Trasumennus; it was not wound after wound, but multiplied 
 disasters that were announsed. Two consuls and the armies of two 
 consuls had perished. Rome had now no camp, no general, no 
 soldiers. Hannibal was master of Apulia, of Saranium, of nearly 
 the whole of Italy. Certainly there was not a nation in the world 
 which would not have been overwhelmed by such a weight of 
 calamity. Compare, for instance, the blow which the Carthagin- 
 ians received in the sea-fight at the JE-ga'tes Islands, a blow which 
 made them evacuate Sicily and Sardinia and allow themselves to be 
 burdened with indemnity and tribute ; compare again the defeat in 
 Africa, by which Hannibal himself was subsequently crushed. In 
 no respect are they comparable with Cannae, except because they 
 were borne with less courage. 
 
 How Livy rejoices to pluck a garland of glory for Rome off 
 the very acme and summit of her utmost disaster ! And un- 
 questionable fact abundantly justifies the historian's audacity. 
 Rome was truly a wonderful nation — the very incarnation of 
 virtue, as she conceived virtue, and as virtue, under the tuition 
 of her conquering power, came, in pagan antiquity, to be uni- 
 versally conceived. The sound itself, of her name, is a spell 
 to call up the idea of such character. 
 
 The allies of Rome began to forsake her. Livy gives a 
 formidable list of these losses to Rome. He then loftily adds : 
 
liivY. 178 
 
 Yet all these disasters and defections never made the Romans so 
 much as mention peace, either before the consul returned to Rome, 
 or after his return had renewed the remembrance of the terrible 
 loss sustained. On this latter occasion, indeed, such was the high 
 spirit of the country, that when the consul returned after this great 
 disaster of which he had himself been the chief cause, all classes 
 went in crowds to meet him, and he was publicly thanked because 
 "he had not despaired of the commonwealth." 
 
 Livy contis^ts, with all confidence certainly, and probably 
 
 with truth, what, in a different case, would have befallen the 
 
 consul : 
 
 Had he been a Carthaginian general, they knew that' there was 
 no torture which he would not have had to suffer. 
 
 We have now got to the end of the second book of Livy's 
 third decade. But we shall not fairly have presented the state 
 of things created at Rome by the disaster of Cannae, without 
 mention of the fact that there were fearful omens observed by 
 the Romans and fearful expiations accomplished to the gods. 
 Livy seems to shudder rhetorically as he gives his account of 
 the latter: 
 
 In obedience to the books of Fate, some unusual sacrifices were 
 off"ered. Among them were a man and a woman of Gaul, and a 
 man and a woman of Greece, who were buried" alive in the Ox- 
 market in a stone-vaulted chamber, not then for the first time 
 polluted by what Roman feeling utterly abhorred, human sacrifice. 
 
 The rest of the story of Hannibal stretches out too long for 
 us to give it here in any detail. He has now reached the height 
 of his prosperity. It remains for him henceforth to the end of 
 his protracted career to display his greatness under adversity. 
 He was tried, in every vicissitude of fortune, by every experi- 
 ment of situation, and he was seldom, perhaps never, found 
 wanting. He was more than simply a great general. He was 
 a truly great man. 
 
 From Italy the war at length was, by Scipio's motion and 
 under his conduct, transferred into Africa. Carthage, who 
 would not support her illustrious son abroad, now summoned 
 
174 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 that son to her own support at home. Hannibal loyally came 
 at the call of his country and joined, with his brilliant antago- 
 nist, Scipio, the great battle of Za^ma. Scipio conquered, and 
 Carthage was at the mercy of Rome. Hannibal, without an 
 army, and a fugitive from land to land, was still formidable 
 to his ancient foe. But the stars in their courses fought 
 against the indomitable Carthaginian. What — ^after having 
 first sought in vain to inspire the stolid mercantile oligarchy 
 of Carthage with his own spirit of patriotic hostility to Rome, 
 and then in vain to make An-ti^o-chus of Asia let him demon- 
 strate how Rome might yet be conquered— what, we say, after 
 all this, Hannibal finally attempted and suffered, we may 
 hope many of our readers will be incited to learn for them- 
 selves, exploring in the full text of Livy translated. 
 
 In the course of doing this, they will find that Livy sup- 
 plied to his countrymen, in his story of Rome, an unsurpassed 
 text-book of lofty example, of nobly inspiring national and 
 individual tradition. 
 
CHAPTEE Yin. 
 
 TACITUS. 
 
 A VERY diflferent writer of history from Livy, is Tacitus. 
 Tacitus, however, though different, is not less interesting than 
 Livy. He has an equally entertaining story to tell, and he tells 
 his story every whit as admirably. It is not romance, it is 
 history, with Tacitus. The color is not rose any longer. It 
 is stern, often livid, likeness to life. If Livy is Claude Lor- 
 raine, Tacitus is Salvator Kosa : if Livy is Titian, Tacitus is 
 Rembrandt. You read Lhry, and you are inspired. You read 
 Tacitus, and you are oppressed. But the oppression somehow 
 at length leaves you, by reaction, braced ; while the inspira- 
 tion somehow at length leaves you, as if through too much 
 elixir, languid. For the inspiration is the effect of romance, 
 and the oppression is the effect of reality. Reality is generally 
 much more somber than romance, and Tacitus is far more 
 somber than Livy. 
 
 When Livy wrote, the Roman Empire was young. It had 
 the halo of uncertain hope about it. Augustus had brought 
 back peace to a distracted commonwealth, and Livy wrote in 
 the sunrise of a new era that perhaps would be glorious. 
 When Tacitus wrote, the aureole was gone, for the empire 
 was now a hundred years old. There had been Tiberius, 
 Caligula, Claudius, Nero. No wonder if now, for the writing 
 of Roman history, grim realism took the place of blithe 
 romance. 
 
 Of Caius Cornelius Tacitus himself we know very little. 
 
 175 
 
176 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 We do not know where he was born. We do not know when 
 he was born. He was probably born about the year 50 of the 
 Christian era. A town in Umbria is named as his birthplace. 
 Pliny was a younger friend, a loyal and affectionate admirer, 
 of the historian. From Pliny we derive what knowledge we 
 possess concerning his elder and more illustrious compeer; 
 except, indeed, that Tacitus himself makes us know that he 
 held public office in a constantly ascending scale under Ves- 
 pasian, under Titus, and under Domitian. Later, Tacitus was 
 consul; for there was still a titular consulship, even under 
 the empire. He was also senator ; for there was still a titular 
 senate. With the accession of Trajan, the political activity of 
 Tacitus seems to have terminated. That great prince was too 
 strong for individual subjects under his sway to enjoy much 
 freedom of political action. But he was also too strong to feel 
 any necessity of greatly abridging his subjects' freedom of 
 speech. Romans might say what pleased themselves, on the 
 simple condition that they would do what pleased their empe- 
 ror. Tacitus accordingly turned now decisively from politics to 
 literature ; and well it is for us that he did so. Near two centu- 
 ries from his time will pass, and there will then ascend the 
 throne of the world an emperor who, bearing the same name, 
 the name of Tacitus, will fondly trace his lineage back to this 
 prince in literature, so to derive for himself a prouder than 
 imperial ancestry. 
 
 Tacitus had probably, before Trajan's accession, already pro- 
 duced his Dialogue on Oratory. Shortly after Trajan's acces- 
 sion, he published his life of Agricola, his own father-in-law. 
 His tract on Germany, we may suppose, soon followed. The 
 principal historical works of Tacitus are two ; the History, or 
 Histories, distinctively so called, and the Annals. The Annals, 
 though subsequent in composition, treat of an earlier period 
 than the History. The History Tacitus seems never to have 
 completed according to his original design for that work. He 
 
TACITUS. 17^ 
 
 alludes to projects in history entertained by him, of which, if 
 he ever fulfilled them, we have utterly lost the fulfillment. 
 But on the basis of that which survives of writing actually 
 accomplished by him, Tacitus stands forth to-day an historian 
 confessedly without superior in the republic of letters. If he 
 does not flash like Livy, he burns as steady and as strong as 
 Thucydides. No more weighty, no more serious, no more 
 penetrating, no sounder, truer, manlier mind than Tacitus, 
 perhaps, ever wrote history. 
 
 We shall chiefly draw from the Annals, to give our 
 readers their taste of the quality of Tacitus. But first from 
 the great other work of his hand let us show the majestic sen- 
 tences in which, at the beginning of the work, the historian 
 sets forth the object proposed by him, and passes in rapid re- 
 view the whole course of the history. The reader will flnd it 
 very interesting and suggestive to compare the opening of 
 Macaulay's History of England. Tacitus : 
 
 I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, fright- 
 ful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. 
 Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil 
 wars ; there were more with foreign enemies ; there were often 
 wars that had both characters at once. There was success in the 
 East, and disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyri- 
 cum ; Gaul wavered in its allegiance ; Britain was thoroughly sub- 
 dued and immediately abandoned ; the tribes of the Suevi and the 
 Sarmatse rose in concert against us; the Dacians had the glory 
 of inflicting as well as suffering defeat ; the armies of Parthia were 
 all but set in motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero. Now, too, 
 Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that 
 recurred only after a long succession of ages ; cities in Campania's 
 richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed j Rome was 
 wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the 
 Capitol itself flred by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were pro- 
 faned ; there was profligacy in the highest ranks ; the sea was 
 crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In 
 the capital there were yet worse horrors. Nobility, wealth, the re- 
 fusal or the acceptance of office, were grounds for accusation, and 
 virtue insured destruction. The rewards of the informers were no 
 less odious than their crimes ; for while some seized on consulships 
 
i78 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLlStt. 
 
 and priestly oflaces, as their share of the spoil, others on procurator- 
 ships, and posts of more confidential authority, they robbed and 
 ruined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror. Slaves 
 were bribed to turn against their masters, and freedmen to betray 
 their patrons ; and those who had not an enemy were destroyed by 
 friends. 
 
 Yet the age was not so barren in noble qualities, as not also to ex- 
 hibit examples of virtue. Mothers accompanied the flight of their 
 sons ; wives followed their husbands into exile ; there were brave 
 kinsmen and faithful sons-in-law ; there were slaves whose fidelity 
 defied even torture ; there were illustrious men driven to the last 
 necessity, and enduring it with fortitude; there were closing 
 scenes that equaled the famous deaths of antiquity. Besides 
 the manifold vicissitudes of human affairs, there were prodigies in 
 heaven and earth, the warning voices of the thunder, and other in- 
 timations of the future, auspicious or gloomy, doubtful or not to be 
 mistaken. Never, surely, did more terrible calamities of the 
 Roman people, or evidence more conclusive, prove that the gods 
 take no thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment. 
 
 I think it proper, however, before I commence my purposed 
 work, to pass under review the condition of the capital, the temper 
 of the armies, the attitude of the provinces, and the elements 
 of weakness and strength which existed throughout the whole em- 
 pire, that so we may become acquainted, not only with the vicissi- 
 tudes and the issues of events, which are often matters of chance, 
 but also with their relations and their causes. 
 
 The clause, ** with their relations and their causes," reveals 
 a feature of the method of Tacitus in which he differs from 
 Livy. Livy is a romantic, whereas Tacitus is a philosophical, 
 historian. History, in the handling of Tacitus, becomes phi- 
 losophy teaching by example. History, in the handling of 
 Livy, was largely the imagination delighting by pictures, 
 whether pictures of fact or of fancy. The pathetic gravity, 
 the sententious density, of the foregoing passage from Tacitus, 
 would be better appreciated by the reader who could turn 
 back to it, and peruse it again, after having first gone through 
 the details which it compresses in that marvelous brevity 
 of statement. The preface thus prefixed to the History will 
 be found to fit the Annals nearly as well. 
 
 We said that Tacitus has a story to tell not less entertaining 
 
TACITUS. 179 
 
 than the story told by Livy. This is true whether understood 
 of his History or of his Annals. Tacitus himself, how- 
 ever, felt that he wrote at disadvantage, as contrasted with 
 preceding historians, because his subject was less heroic, less 
 glorious. He was at heart an aristocrat of the elder times. 
 The degeneracy of the senate of his own days, he bewailed, as 
 one kindred in spirit with that proud oligarchy of which, 
 a hundred years before Livy had sung in lyric prose his 
 ** passionate ballad, gallant and gay." Still Tacitus was, 
 under the circumstances that he found existing, a good 
 enough imperiahst. Doubtless he thought the new order, that 
 had established itself, better than the old order which, because 
 it was no longer worthy, had lapsed. You hear, however, the 
 undertone of pathos for the long-gone and irrecoverable 
 past, mingled with superb disdain for the ignoble present, run- 
 ning through the whole course of the history of Tacitus. In- 
 dignant pessimism is the keynote everywhere to his writing. 
 
 The Annals, a work, as already said, to be distinguished 
 from the History, embraced the interval between the years 
 14 and 68 of the Christian era. The concluding part, that is, 
 the part covering the last three years of the reign of Nero, is 
 lost. Parts also in the midst of the work have perished. The 
 whole narrative is depressing. It is a melancholy monotony 
 of m^isery and crime. But Tacitus writes with such art that 
 you are fascinated to read it from beginning to end. He 
 holds you with his ghttering eye. 
 
 The story of Nero is, perhaps, the part .most familiar of all 
 to the modern reader. This might seem a reason for choosing 
 some other part, some part more novel, to be presented here. 
 But the evil tale of Nero is the most familiar, because it is the 
 most interesting. We should commit a mistake, to be de- 
 terred from it by that very fact about it which proves it the 
 most attractive. Let us then, undoubtingly, make choice of 
 Nero for the hero of what we draw here from the Annals of 
 
180 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Tacitus. There will be found, by intelligent readers, a consid- 
 erable compensation for the sense of familiarity experienced, 
 in the satisfaction they will derive from the consciousness of 
 having now to do with an original source of information on 
 the subject treated. 
 
 The story of Nero, as told by Tacitus, is a long story. Let 
 us take a plunge at once into the midst of things. There are 
 three associate personages of the plot, to share, almost equally 
 with Nero, the interest of the reader. These three are Burrus, 
 Seneca, and, above all, A-grip-pi^na, the emperor's mother. 
 Of A-fra^ni-us Burrus and An-nse'us Seneca — this is the 
 famous philosopher — Tacitus says : 
 
 These two men guided the emperor's youth with a unity of pur- 
 pose seldom found where authority is shared, and though their 
 accomplishments were wholly different, they had equal influence. 
 Burrus, with his soldier's discipline and severe manners, Seneca, 
 with lessons of eloquence and a dignified courtesy, strove alike to 
 confine the frailty of the prince's youth, should he loathe virtue, 
 within allowable indulgences. They had both alike to struggle 
 against the domineering spirit of Agrippina. 
 
 One of the earliest among the public acts of the youthful 
 emperor Nero, was to pronounce a funeral oration on his 
 predecessor, Claudius. Tacitus's account of this, with charac- 
 teristic comment of his own interspersed, lets out some 
 secrets of Nero's disposition and of the current temper of the 
 time — not less, perhaps, also, of the historian's own individual 
 humor : 
 
 On the day of the funeral the prince pronounced Claudius's 
 panegyric, and while he dwelt on the antiquity of his family and 
 on the consulships and triumphs of his ancestors, there was enthu- 
 siasm both in himself and his audience. The praise of his grace- 
 ful accomplishments, and the remark that during his reign no 
 disaster had befallen Rome from the foreigner, were heard with 
 favor. When the speaker passed on to his foresight and wisdom, 
 no one could refrain from laughter, though the speech, which was 
 composed by Seneca, exhibited much elegance, as indeed that 
 famous man had an attractive genius which suited the popular ear 
 of the time. Elderly men, who amuse their leisure with compar- 
 
TACITUS. 
 
 181 
 
 ing the past and the present, observed that Nero was the first 
 emperor who needed another man's eloquence. The dictator 
 Caesar rivaled the greatest orators, and Augustus had an easy and 
 fluent way of speaking, such as became a sovereign. Tiberius, 
 too, thoroughly understood the art of balancing words, and was 
 sometimes forcible in the expression of his thoughts, or else in- 
 tentionally obscure. Even Caius Caesar's disordered intellect did 
 not wholly mar his faculty of speech. Nor did Claudius, when he 
 spoke with preparation, lack elegance. Nero from early boyhood 
 turned his lively genius in other directions ; he carved, painted, 
 sang, or practiced the management of horses, occasionally com- 
 posing verses which showed that he had the rudiments of learning. 
 
 Nero began apparently well. He promised to restore to the 
 senate something of its ancient prerogative, and Tacitus says 
 he was true to his word. But the evil presiding spirit of his 
 mother resisted the young emperor. It is almost incredible, 
 but, according to Tacitus, the senators used to be summoned 
 to the imperial palace in order that she, Agrippina, " might 
 stand close to a hidden door behind them screened by a cur- 
 tain which was enough to shut her out of sight but not out of 
 hearing." Nero was scarcely more than seventeen years of 
 age. It seems a cruelty of fortune that, at such an age, still 
 under the tuition of such a mother, this pampered boy 
 should have been forced into the most dangerous and the 
 most conspicuous position in the world. The passions of a 
 young man were of course not wanting to a young emperor. 
 He fell in love with a freed woman and got two fashionable 
 young fellows to act as his panders. What Tacitus tells of 
 this, and of Nero's relation to his mother, is fraught with sad 
 instruction : 
 
 Without the mother's knowledge, then in spite of her opposition, 
 they [the two young fellows just referred to] had crept into his 
 favor by debaucheries and equivocal secrets, and even the prince's 
 older friends did not thwart him, for here was a girl who without 
 harm to any one gratified his desires, when he loathed his wife 
 Octavia, high born as she was, and of approved virtue, either from 
 some fatality, or because vice is overpoweringly attractive. . . 
 
 Agrippina, however, raved with a woman's fury about having a 
 
182 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 freedwoman for a rival, a slave girl for a daughter-in-law, with 
 like expressions. Nor would she wait till her son repented or 
 wearied of his passion. The fouler her reproaches, the more 
 powerfully did they inflame him, till, completely mastered by the 
 strength of his desire, he threw off all respect for his mother, and 
 put himself under the guidance of Seneca, one of whose friends, 
 Annaeus Serenus, had veiled the young prince's intrigue in its be- 
 ginning by pretending to be in love with the same woman, and 
 had lent his name as the ostensible giver of the presents secretly 
 sent by the emperor to the girl. Then Agrippina, changing her 
 tactics, plied the lad with various blandishments, and even 
 offered the seclusion of her chamber for the concealment of in- 
 dulgences which youth and the highest rank might claim. She 
 went further ; she pleaded guilty to an ill-timed strictness, and 
 handed over to him the abundance of her wealth, which nearly 
 approached the imperial treasures, and from having been of late 
 extreme in her restraint of her son, became now, on the other hand, 
 lax to excess. The change did not escape Nero ; his most intimate 
 friends dreaded it, and begged him to beware of the arts of a 
 woman who was always daring and was now false. 
 
 But mother and son were equally, for both of them were 
 supremely, selfish, and they could not be solidly reconciled 
 with each other. The breach between them soon became 
 open and wide. The mother bethought herself of a resource 
 against her son. There was Claudius's son, Bri-tan^'ni-cus, 
 younger step-brother to Nero. Britannicus had the blood of a 
 Caesar in his veins. Nero was Agrippina's son by a former 
 husband, not by Claudius. He was, therefore, not natural 
 heir to the empire. Tacitus relates : 
 
 Agrippina rushed into frightful menaces, sparing not the prince's 
 ears her solemn protest "that Britannicus was now of full age, 
 he who was the true and worthy heir of his father's sovereignty, 
 which a son, by mere admission and adoption, was abusing in 
 outrages on his mother. She shrank not from an utter exposure of 
 the wickedness of that ill-starred house, of her own marriage, 
 to begin with, and of her poisoner's craft. All that the gods 
 and she herself had taken care of was that her stepson was yet 
 alive; with him she would go to the camp, where on one side 
 should be heard the daughter of Germanicus ; on the other, the 
 crippled Burrus and the exile Seneca, claiming, forsooth, with dis- 
 figured hand, and a pedant's tongue, the government of the 
 
TACITUS. 183 
 
 world." As she spoke, she raised her hand in menace and heaped 
 insults on him, as she appealed to the deified Claudius, to the 
 infernal shades of the Silani, and to those many fruitless crimes. 
 
 The "fruitless crimes" were crimes of Agrippina's own 
 committing — fruitless, since the obstinacy of her own boy 
 balked her of her purpose in committing them. She had 
 meant to be empress of the world. But Nero unexpectedly 
 had developed a liking for the game, as well as the name, 
 of emperor. He now, stung by the taunts and threats of 
 his mother, entered headlong on his unparalleled career of 
 crime. Tacitus : 
 
 Nero was confounded at this, and as the day was near on which 
 Britannicus would complete his fourteenth year, he reflected, now 
 on the domineering temper of his mother, and now again on 
 the character of the young prince, which a trifling circumstance 
 had lately tested, suflQ.cient however to gain for him wide popu- 
 larity. During the feast of Saturn, amid other pastimes of his 
 playmates, at a game of lot-drawing for king, the lot fell to Nero, 
 upon which he gave all his other companions different orders, and 
 such as would not put them to the blush ; but when he told Britan- 
 nicus to step forward and begin a song, hoping for a laugh at 
 the expense of a boy who knew nothing of sober, much less 
 of riotous, society, the lad with perfect coolness commenced some 
 verses which hinted at his expulsion from his father's house 
 and from supreme power. This procured him pity, which was the 
 more conspicuous, as night with its merriment had stripped off all 
 disguise. Nero saw the reproach and redoubled his hate. Pressed 
 by Agrippina's menaces, having no charge against his brother and 
 not daring openly to order his murder, he meditated a secret device 
 and directed poison to be prepared through the agency of Julius 
 PoUio, tribune of one of the praetorian cohorts, who had in his 
 custody a woman under sentence for poisoning, Locusta by name, 
 with a vast reputation for crime. That every one about the person 
 of Britannicus should care nothing for right or honor, had long ago 
 been provided for. He actually received his first dose of poison 
 from his tutors and passed it off" his bowels, as it was either rather 
 weak or so qualified as not at once to prove deadly. But Nero, im- 
 patient at such slow progress in crime, threatened the tribune and 
 ordered the poisoner to execution for prolonging his anxiety while 
 they were thinking of the popular talk and planning their own 
 defense. Then they promised that death should be as sudden as if 
 
184 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 it were the hurried work of the dagger, and a rapid poison of 
 previously tested ingredients was prepared close to the emperor's 
 chamber. 
 
 It was customary for the imperial princes to sit during their 
 meals with other nobles of the same age, in the sight of their kins- 
 folk, at a table of their own, furnished somewhat frugally. There 
 Britannicus was dining, and as what he ate and drank was always 
 tested by the taste of a select attendant, the following device 
 was contrived, that the usage might not be dropped or the crime 
 betrayed by the death of both prince and attendant. A cup as yet 
 harmless, but extremely hot and already tasted, was handed to 
 Britannicus ; then, on his refusing it because of its warmth, poison 
 was poured in with some cold water, and this so penetrated his en- 
 tire frame that he lost alike voice and breath. There was a stir 
 among the company; some, taken by surprise, ran hither and 
 thilher, while those whose discernment was keener, remained 
 motionless, with their eyes fixed on Nero, who, as he still reclined 
 in seeming unconsciousness, said that this was a common occur- 
 rence, from a periodical epilepsy, with which Britannicus had been 
 afflicted from his earliest infancy, and that his sight and senses 
 would gradually return. As for Agrippina, her terror and con- 
 fusion, though her countenance struggled to hide it, so visibly 
 appeared, that she was clearly just as ignorant as was Octavia, 
 Britannicus's own sister. She saw, in fact, that she was robbed of 
 her only remaining refuge, and that here was a precedent for 
 parricide. Even Octavia, notwithstanding her youthful inexperi- 
 ence, had learned to hide her grief, her affection, and indeed every 
 emotion. And so after a brief pause the company resumed its 
 mirth. 
 
 *' Of all things human," remarks Tacitus, "the most preca- 
 rious and transitory is a reputation for power which has no 
 strong support of its own." This he says on occasion of 
 the disgrace of Agrippina, whom her son now sent away from 
 the palace and deprived of her military guard. The wretched 
 woman, in her weakness, did not fail of enemies to accuse her 
 to her son. One accusation, naturally to her son the heaviest, 
 was that she was plotting against his emperorship. A certain 
 Plautus, so the accusation ran, was encouraged by Agrippina 
 to pretend to the throne of the Csesars. Against him and the 
 emperor's mother, one Paris was found a willing informer. 
 Tacitus now (let readers not miss the indications incidentally 
 
TACITUS. 186 
 
 dropped by the historian, as to his method in treating his 
 authorities) : 
 
 Night was far advanced and Nero was still sitting over his cups, 
 when Paris entered, who was generally wont at such times to 
 heighten the emperor's enjoyments, but who now wore a gloomy 
 expression. He went through the whole evidence in order, and so 
 frightened his hearer as to make him resolve not only on the 
 destruction of his mother and of Plautus, but also on the removal 
 of Burrus from the command of the guards, as a man who 
 had been promoted by Agrippina's interest, and was now show- 
 ing his gratitude. We have it on the authority of Fabius Rusticus 
 that a note was written to Cse-ci'na Tuscus, intrusting to him 
 the charge of the praetorian cohorts, but that through Seneca's 
 influence that distinguish ed post was retained for Burrus. Accord- 
 ing to Plinius and Cluvius, no doubt was felt about the com- 
 mander's loyalty. Fabius certainly inclines to the praise of 
 Seneca, through whose friendship he rose to honor. Proposing as 
 I do to follow the consentient testimony of historians, I shall give 
 the differences in their narratives under the writers' names. Nero, 
 in his bewilderment and impatience to destroy his mother, could 
 not be put off till Burrus answered for her death, should she be 
 convicted of the crime, but '* any one," he said, " much more a 
 parent, must be allowed a defense. Accusers there were none 
 forthcoming , they had before them only the word of a single 
 person from an enemy's house, and this the night with its darkness 
 and prolonged festivity and every thing savoring of recklessness 
 and folly, was enough to refute." 
 
 Having thus allayed the prince's fears, they went at day-break to 
 Agrippina, that she might know the charges against her, and either 
 rebut them or suffer the penalty. Burrus fulfilled his instructions 
 in Seneca's presence, and some of the freedmen were present to 
 witness the interview. Then Burrus, when he had fully explained 
 the charges with the authors' names, assumed an air of menace. 
 Instantly Agrippina, calling up all her high spirit, exclaimed, " I 
 wonder not that Silana, who has never borne offspring, knows 
 nothing of a mother's feelings. Parents do not change their 
 children as lightly as a shameless woman does her paramours. . . . 
 Only let the man come forward who can charge me with having 
 tampered with the praetorian cohorts in the capital, with having 
 sapped the loyalty of the provinces, or, in a word, with having 
 bribed slaves and freedmen into any wickedness. Could I have 
 lived with Britannicus in the possession of power? And if Plautus 
 or any other were to become master of the State so as to sit in 
 judgment on me, accusers forsooth would not be forthcoming to 
 
186 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 charge me not merely with a few incautious expressions prompted 
 by the eagerness of affection, but with guilt from which a son alone 
 could absolve me." 
 
 There was profound excitement among those present, and they 
 even tried to soothe her agitation, but she insisted on an interview 
 with her son. Then, instead of pleading her innocence, as though 
 she lacked confidence, or her claims on him by way of reproach, 
 she obtained vengeance on her accusers and rewards for her friends. 
 
 Agrippina enjoyed her momentary triumph. But her dread- 
 ful doom was only postponed. 
 - Nero was well on the downward road. Facilis descensus, 
 
 mm 
 
 and the rate of descent already was swift. Read the record 
 (remember that still there was the titular consulship, and that 
 still, as of old, the years of the empire were reckoned by 
 the names of the consuls) : 
 
 In the consulship of Quintus Vo-lu'si-us and Publius Scipio, 
 there was peace abroad, but a disgusting licentiousness at home on 
 the part of Nero, who in a slave's disguise, so as to be unrecog- 
 nized, would wander through the streets of Rome, to brothels and 
 taverns, with comrades, who seized on goods exposed for sale 
 and inflicted wounds on any whom they encountered, some of 
 these last knowing him so little that he even received blows 
 himself and showed the marks of them in his face. When it 
 was notorious that the emperor was the assailant, and the insults 
 on men and women of distinction were multiplied, other persons, 
 too, on the strength of a license once granted under Nero's name, 
 ventured with impunity on the same practices, and had gangs 
 of their own, till night presented the scenes of a captured city. 
 
 Julius Mon-ta'nus, a senator, but one who had not yet held 
 any office, happened to encounter the prince in the darkness, 
 and because he fiercely repulsed his attack and then on recog- 
 nizing him begged for mercy, as though this was a reproach, 
 was forced to destroy himself. Nero was for the future more 
 timid, and surrounded himself with soldiers and a number of 
 gladiators, who, when a fray began on a small scale and seemed a 
 private affair, were to let it alone, but, if the injured persons 
 resisted stoutly, they rushed in with their swords. 
 
 **Was forced to destroy himself." Compulsory suicide 
 became the favorite form of executing a capital sentence 
 issuing from the arbitrary will of the emperor. Tacitus is 
 
TACITUS. 187 
 
 full of instances which vary the monotony of imperial murder 
 with every conceivable permutation of incident. Pathetically 
 instructive it is, to come, as one glances along these pages 
 dense with tragedy, upon occasional sentences like the follow- 
 ing : " Still there yet remained some shadow of a free State.'' 
 Again, disdaining to do more than merely mention the erec- 
 tion of a great amphitheater, Tacitus says: "We have 
 learned that it suits the dignity of the Roman people to re- 
 serve history for great achievements, and to leave such details 
 to the city's daily register." Such expressions as the preceding 
 from Tacitus strikingly reveal the character of their author. 
 
 The climax of Nero's wickedness, as the general opinion 
 rates it, was his conspiracy to murder his mother. This 
 crime is now near at hand. A woman was the immediate 
 cause. That woman was the infamous Pop-pae^a. Let Taci- 
 tus sketch her for us : 
 
 Poppsea had everything but a right mind. Her mother, who 
 surpassed in personal attractions all the ladies of her day, had 
 bequeathed to her alike fame and beauty. Her fortune adequately 
 corresponded to the nobility of her descent. Her conversation was 
 charming and her wit anything but dull. She professed virtue, 
 while she practiced laxity. Seldom did she appear in public, and it 
 was always with her face partly veiled, either to disappoint men's 
 gaze or to set off her beauty. Her character she never spared, 
 making no distinction between a husband and a paramour, while 
 she was never a slave to her own passion or to that of her lover. 
 Wherever there was a prospect of advantage, there she transferred 
 her favors. 
 
 Poppsea was married and had a son, but this did not prevent 
 her intriguing, and intriguing successfully, for the hand of 
 Otho, that favorite of Nero's. She now had what she needed 
 in order to get what she wanted, which was — power over 
 Nero. Through Otho, used as tool or as accomplice, she got 
 access to the emperor. Her shameless arts of seduction, and 
 her cool triangulation toward her object, are thus described 
 by Tacitus : 
 
188 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Poppsea won her way by artful blandishments, pretending 
 that she could not resist her passion and that she was captivated 
 by Nero's person. Soon as the emperor's love grew ardent she 
 would change and be supercilious, and [artfully tantalizing her in- 
 fatuated imperial lover] would say again and again that she was a 
 married woman and could not give up her husband, attached as 
 she was to Otho by a manner of life which no one equaled. " His 
 ideas and his style were grand ; at his house everything worthy of 
 the highest fortune was ever before her eyes. Nero, on the con- 
 trary, with his slave-girl mistress, tied down by his attachment to 
 Acte, had derived nothing from his slavish associations but what 
 was low and degrading." 
 
 The historian, with judicial impartiality, makes commenda- 
 tory notes of certain equitable measures adopted by Nero for 
 the administration of the empire, adding that they ** for a 
 short time were maintained and were subsequently dis- 
 regarded." It seems to have been Tacitus's feeling that 
 Nero should have — he certainly needed— all the credit that 
 belonged to good attempts on his part, of any kind, how- 
 ever momentary. 
 
 The fourteenth book of the Annals covers a period of three 
 years, from 59 A. D. to 62. The beginning of the book is 
 occupied with narration and description too absorbingly inter- 
 esting to be much abridged or interrupted. We transfer a 
 long passage, which will not seem long, to these pages. (We 
 need to forewarn readers that here, as occasionally elsewhere 
 in Tacitus, they will come upon things said and suggested 
 by the historian which, for an exercise of reading aloud in 
 a mixed company, would require to be touched upon very 
 lightly. Such things we should gladly have omitted ; but we 
 could not, omitting them altogether, even hint, adequately, 
 what Tacitus is, and what is the dreadful story that Tacitus 
 had it for his mission to tell. It will be noted that he 
 always describes vice after the manner of a man strongly 
 siding with virtue.) 
 
 In the year of the consulship of Caius Vip-sta'nus and Caius 
 
TACITUS. 189 
 
 Fon-te'i-us, Nero deferred no more a long-meditated crime. 
 Length of power had matured his daring, and his passion for 
 Poppsea daily grew more ardent. As the woman had no hope 
 of marriage for herself or of Octavia's divorce while Agrippina 
 lived, she would reproach the emperor with incessant vituperation 
 and sometimes call him in jest a mere ward who was under 
 the rule of others, and was so far from having empire that he 
 had not even his liberty. " Why," she asked, " was her marriage 
 put off? Was it, forsooth, her beauty and her ancestors, with their 
 triumphal honors, that failed to please ; or her being a mother, and 
 her sincere heart ? No ; the fear was that as a wife at least she 
 would divulge the wrongs of the Senate, and the wrath of the 
 people at the arrogance and rapacity of his mother. If the only 
 daughter-in-law Agrippina could bear was one who wished evil to 
 her son, let her be restored to her union with Otho. She would go 
 anywhere in the world, where she might hear of the insults heaped 
 on the emperor, rather than witness them, and be also involved in 
 his perils." 
 
 These and the like complaints, rendered impressive by tears and 
 by the cunning of an adulteress, no one checked, as all longed 
 to see the mother's power broken, while not a person believed that 
 the son's hatred would steel his heart to her murder. 
 
 Cluvius relates that Agrippina in her eagerness to retain her 
 influence went so far that more than once at midday, when Nero, 
 even at that hour, was flushed with wine and feasting, she pre- 
 sented herself attractively attired to her half -intoxicated son. . . . 
 When kinsfolk observed wanton kisses and caresses, portending in- 
 famy, it was Seneca who sought a female's aid against a woman's 
 fascinations, and hurried in Acte, the freed-girl, who alarmed at 
 her own peril, and at Nero's disgrace, told him that the incest was 
 notorious, as his mother boasted of it, and that the soldiers would 
 never endure the rule of an impious sovereign. Fabius Rusticus 
 tells us that it was not Agrippina, but Nero who lusted for the 
 crime, and that it was frustrated by the adroitness of that same 
 freed-girl. Cluvius' s account, however, is also that of all other 
 authors, and popular belief inclines to it, whether it was that 
 Agrippina really conceived such a monstrous wickedness in her 
 heart, or perhaps because the thought of a strange passion seemed 
 comparatively credible in a woman, who in her girlish years had 
 allowed herself to be seduced by Lepidus in the hope of winning 
 power, had stooped with a like ambition to the lust of Pallas, and 
 had trained herself for every infamy by her marriage with her 
 uncle. 
 
 Nero accordingly avoided secret interviews with her, and when 
 she withdrew to her gardens or to her estates at Tusculum and An- 
 
190 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 tium, he praised her for courting repose. At last, convinced that 
 she would be too formidable, wherever she might dwell, he re- 
 solved to destroy her, merely deliberating whether it was to be 
 accomplished by poison, or by the sword, or by any other violent 
 means. Poison at first seemed best, but, were it to be administered 
 at the imperial table, the result could not be referred to chance 
 after the recent circumstances of the death of Britannicus. Again, 
 to tamper with the servants of a woman who, from her familiarity 
 with crime, was on her guard against treachery, appeared to be ex- 
 tremely difficult, and then, too, she had fortified her constitution 
 by the use of antidotes. How again the dagger and its work were 
 to be kept secret, no one could suggest, and it was feared too 
 that whoever might be chosen to execute such a crime would 
 spurn the order. 
 
 An ingenious suggestion was offered by An-i-ce'tus, a freedman, 
 commander of the fleet at Mi-se'num, who had been tutor to Nero 
 in boyhood and had a hatred of Agrippina which she reciprocated. 
 He explained that a vessel could be constructed, from which a part 
 might by a contrivance be detached, when out at sea, so as to 
 plunge her unawares into the water. "Nothing," he said, "al- 
 lowed of accidents so much as the sea, and should she be overtaken 
 by shipwreck, who would be so unfair as to impute to crime an 
 offense committed by the winds and waves ? The emperor would 
 add the honor of a temple and of shrines to the deceased lady, 
 with every other display of filial affection." 
 
 Nero liked the device, favored as it also was by the particular 
 time, for he was celebrating Minerva's five days' festival at Bai'se. 
 Thither he enticed his mother by repeated assurances that children 
 ought to bear with the irritability of parents and to soothe their 
 tempers, wishing thus to spread a rumor of reconciliation and 
 to secure Agrippina' s acceptance through the feminine credulity, 
 which easily believes what gives joy. As she approached, he went 
 to the shore to meet her (she was coming from Antium), welcomed 
 her with outstretched hand and embrace, and conducted her to 
 Bauli. This was the name of a country house, washed by a bay of 
 the sea, between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baise. 
 Here was a vessel distinguished from others by its equipment, 
 seemingly meant, among other things, to do honor to his mother ; 
 for she had been accustomed to sail in a trireme, with a crew 
 of marines. And now she was invited to a banquet, that night 
 might serve to conceal the crime. It was well known that some- 
 body had been found to betray it, that Agrippina had heard of the 
 plot, and in doubt whether she was to believe it, was conveyed 
 to Baise in her litter. There some soothing words allayed her fear ; 
 she was graciously received, and seated at table above the emperor. 
 
TACITUS. 191 
 
 Nero prolonged the banquet with various conversation, passing from 
 a youth's playful familiarity to an air of constraint, which seemed to 
 indicate serious thought, and then, after protracted festivity, escorted 
 her on her departure, clinging with kisses to her eyes and bosom, 
 either to crown his hypocrisy or because the last sight of a mother on 
 the eve of destruction caused a lingering even in that brutal heart. 
 
 A night of brilliant starlight with the calm of a tranquil sea was 
 granted by heaven, seemingly, to convict the crime. The vessel 
 had not gone far, Agrippina having with her two of her intimate 
 attendants, one of whom, Cre-pe-re'ius Gallus, stood near the 
 helm, while A-cer-ro'ni-a, reclining at Agrippina's feet as she 
 reposed herself, spoke joyfully of her son's repentance and of the 
 recovery of the mother's influence, when at a given signal the ceil- 
 ing of the place, which was loaded with a quantity of lead, fell in, 
 and Crepereius was crushed and instantly killed. Agrippina and 
 Acerronia were protected by the projecting sides of the couch, 
 which happened to be too strong to yield under the weight. But 
 this was not followed by the breaking up of the vessel ; for all 
 were bewildered, and those too, who were in the plot, were 
 hindered by the unconscious majority. The crew then thought 
 it best to throw the vessel on one side and so sink it, but they could 
 not themselves promptly unite to face the emergency, and others, 
 by counteracting the attempt, gave an opportunity of a gentler fall 
 into the sea. Acerronia, however, thoughtlessly exclaiming that 
 she was Agrippina, and imploring help for the emperor's mother, 
 was dispatched with poles and oars, and such naval implements as 
 chance offered. Agrippina was silent and was thus the less recog- 
 nized; still, she reaeived a wound in her shoulder. She swam, 
 then met with some small boats which conveyed her to the Lucrine 
 lake, and so entered her house. 
 
 There she reflected how for this very purpose she had been 
 invited by a lying letter and treated with conspicuous honor, how 
 also it was near the shore, not from being driven by winds or 
 dashed on rocks, that the vessel had in its upper part collapsed, 
 like a mechanism anything but nautical. She pondered too the 
 death of Acerronia ; she looked at her own wound, and saw that 
 her only safeguard against treachery was to ignore it. Then she 
 sent her freedman A-ger-i'nus to tell her son how by heaven's 
 favor and his good fortune she had escaped a terrible disaster ; that 
 she begged him, alarmed, as he might be, by his mother's peril, to 
 put off the duty of a visit, as for the present she needed repose. 
 Meanwhile, pretending that she felt secure, she applied remedies to 
 her wound, and fomentations to her person. She then ordered 
 search to be made for the will of Acerronia, and her property to be 
 sealed, in this alone throwing off disguise. 
 
192 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Nero, meantime, as he waited for tidings of the consummation 
 of the deed, received information that she had escaped with the 
 injury of a slight wound, after having so far encountered the* 
 peril that there could be no question as to its author. Then, par- 
 alyzed with terror and protesting that she would show herself the 
 next moment eager for vengeance, either arming the slaves or 
 stirring up the soldiery, or hastening to the senate and the people, 
 to charge him with the wreck, with her wound, and with the de- 
 struction of her friends, he asked what resource he had against all 
 this, unless something could be at once devised by Burrus and 
 Seneca, He had instantly summoned both of them, and possibly 
 they were already in the secret. There was a long silence on their 
 part ; they feared they might remonstrate in vain, or believed the 
 crisis to be such that Nero must perish, unless Agrippina were at 
 once crushed. Thereupon Seneca was so far the more prompt as to 
 glance back on Burrus, as if to ask him whether the bloody deed 
 must be required of the soldiers. Burrus replied "that the prae- 
 torians were attached to the whole family of the Caesars, and re- 
 membering Ger-man'i-cus would not dare a savage deed on his 
 offspring. It was for Anicetus to accomplish his promise." 
 
 Ajiicetus, without a pause, claimed for himself the consumma- 
 tion of the crime. At those words, Nero declared that that day 
 gave him empire, and that a freedman was the author of this 
 mighty boon. " Gro," he said, "with all speed and take with you 
 the men readiest to execute your orders." He himself, when he had 
 heard of the arrival of Agrippina' s messenger, Agerinus, contrived 
 a theatrical mode of accusation, and, while the man was repeating 
 his message, threw down a sword at his feet, then ordered him to 
 be put in irons, as a detected criminal, so that he might invent a 
 story how his mother had plotted the emperor's destruction; and 
 in the shame of discx)vered guilt had, by her own choice, sought 
 death. 
 
 Meantime, Agrippina' s peril being universally known and taken 
 to be an accidental occurrence, everybody, the moment he heard 
 of it, hurried down to the beach. Some climbed projecting piers ; 
 some the nearest vessels ; some, again, stood with outstretched 
 arms, while the whole shore rung with wailings, with prayers and 
 cries, as different questions were asked and uncertain answers 
 given. A vast multitude streamed to the spot with torches, and as 
 soon as all knew that she was safe they at once prepared to wish 
 her joy, till the sight of an armed and threatening force scared 
 them away. Anicetus then surrounded the house with a guard, 
 and having burst open the gates, dragged off the slaves who met him, 
 till he came to the door of her chamber, where a few still stood, 
 after the rest had fled in terror at the attack. A small lamp was 
 
TACITUS. 193 
 
 in the room, and one slave-girl with Agrippina, who grew more 
 and more anxious, as no messenger came from her son, not even 
 Agerinus, while the appearance of the shore was changed, a solitude 
 one moment, then sudden bustle and tokens of the worst catastro- 
 phe. As the girl rose to depart, she exclaimed, " Do you, too, for- 
 sake me?" and looking round saw Anicetus, who had with him the 
 captain of the trireme, Her-cu-le'ius, and 0-bar'i-tus, a centurion 
 of marines. " If," said she, ** you have come to see me, take back 
 word that I have recovered, but if you are here to do a crime, I 
 believe nothing about my son; he has not ordered his mother's 
 murder." 
 
 The assassins closed in round her couch, and the captain of the 
 trireme first struck her head violently with a club. Then, as the 
 centurion bared his sword for the fatal deed, presenting her person, 
 she exclaimed, "Smite my womb," and with many wounds she 
 was slain. . . . 
 
 But the emperor, when the crime was at last accomplished, re- 
 alized its portentous guilt. The rest of the night, now silent and 
 stupefied, now and still oftener starting up in terror, bereft of 
 reason, he awaited the dawn as if it would bring with it his doom. 
 He was first encouraged to hope by the flattery addressed to him, 
 at the prompting of Burrus, by the centurions and tribunes, who 
 again and again pressed his hand and congratulated him on his 
 having escaped an unforeseen danger and his mother's daring 
 crime. Then his friends went to the temples, and, an example 
 having once been set, the neighboring towns of Campania testified 
 their joy with sacrifices and deputations. He himself, with an ap- 
 posite phase of hypocrisy, seemed sad, and almost angry, at his 
 own deliverance, and shed tears over his mother's death. But 
 as the aspects of places change not, as do the looks of men, and as 
 he had ever before his eyes the dreadful sight of that sea with 
 its shores (some, too, believed that the notes of a funeral trumpet 
 were heard from the surrounding heights, and wailings from the 
 mother's grave), he retired to Neapolis, and sent a letter to the 
 Senate, the drift of which was that Agerinus, one of Agrippina' s 
 confidential freedmen, had been detected with the dagger of an as- 
 sassin, and that in the consciousness of having planned the crime 
 she had paid its penalty. 
 
 He even revived the charges of a period long past, how she 
 had aimed at a share of empire, and at inducing the praetorian 
 cohorts to swear obedience to a woman, to the disgrace of the 
 Senate and people ; how, when she was disappointed, in her fury 
 with the soldiers, the Senate, and the populace, she opposed the 
 usual donative and largess, and organized perilous prosecutions 
 against distinguished citizens. What efforts had it cost him to 
 
194 CliASSIO liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 hinder her from bursting into the Senate-house and giving answers 
 to foreign nations! He glanced, too, with indirect censure at 
 the days of Claudius, and ascribed all the abominations of that 
 reign to his mother, thus seeking to show that it was the State's 
 good fortune which had destroyed her. For he actually told the 
 story of the shipwreck ; but who could be so stupid as to believe 
 that it was accidental, or that a shipwrecked woman had sent one 
 man with a weapon to break through an emperor's guards and 
 fleets? So now it was not Nero, whose brutality was far beyond 
 any remonstrance, but Seneca, who was in ill-repute, for having 
 written a confession in such a style. 
 
 Still there was a marvelous rivalry among the nobles in de- 
 creeing thanksgivings at all the shrines, and the celebration 
 with annual games of Minerva's festival, as the day on which 
 the plot had been discovered ; also, that a golden image of 
 Minerva, with a statue of the emperor by its side, should be set 
 up in the Senate-house, and that Agrippina's birthday should be 
 classed among the inauspicious days. Thrasea Paetus, who had 
 been used to pass over previous flatteries in silence or with 
 brief assent, then walked out of the Senate, thereby imperiling 
 himself, without communicating to the other senators any impulse 
 toward freedom. 
 
 Can anything be conceived of more incredible than such 
 
 wickedness as Nero's? Yes. The baseness exhibited in 
 
 view of Nero's wickedness, by the senate, and by the people 
 
 of Rome, was more incredible still. Tacitus : 
 
 While Nero was lingering in the towns of Campania, doubting 
 how he should enter Rome, whether he would find the Senate sub- 
 missive and the populace enthusiastic, all the vilest courtiers, and 
 of these never had a court a more abundant crop, argued against 
 his hesitation, by assuring him that Agrippina's name was hated, 
 and that her death had heightened his popularity. *' He might 
 go without a fear," they said, ** and experience in his person men's 
 veneration for him." They insisted at the same time on preceding 
 him. They found greater enthusiasm than they had promised, the 
 tribes coming forth to meet him, the Senate in holiday attire, 
 troops of their children and wives arranged according to sex 
 and age, tiers of seats raised for the spectacle, where he was to pass, 
 as a triumph is witnessed. Thus elated and exulting over his 
 people's slavery, he proceeded to the Capitol, performed the 
 thanksgiving, and then plunged into all the excesses, which, 
 though ill-restrained, some sort of respect for his mother had for 
 awhile delayed. 
 
TACITUS. 195 
 
 "Some sort of respect for his mother" ! There follows 
 hnmediately now from the hand of Tacitus as dreadful a 
 picture of omnipotent and frolicsome despotism as ever was 
 drawn. It is almost an adequate punishment of the infamy, 
 to have the infamy thus pitilessly damned to everlasting 
 contempt : 
 
 He had long had a fancy for driving a four-horse chariot, and a no 
 less degrading taste for singing to the harp, in a theatrical fashion, 
 when he was at dinner. This he would remind people was a royal 
 custom, and had heen the practice of ancient chiefs ; it was 
 celebrated too in the praises of poets and was meant to show honor 
 to the gods. Songs, indeed, he said, were sacred to Apollo, and 
 it was in the dress of a singer that that great and prophetic 
 deity was seen in Roman temples as well as in Greek cities. He 
 could no longer be restrained, when Seneca and Burrus thought it 
 best to concede one point that he might not persist in both. A 
 space was inclosed in the Vatican valley where he might 
 manage his horses, without the spectacle being public. Soon he 
 actually invited all the people of Rome, who extolled him in their 
 praises, like a mob which craves for amusements and rejoices 
 when a prince draws them the same way. However, the public 
 exposure of his shame acted on him as an incentive instead of sick- 
 ening him, as men expected. Imagining that he mitigated the 
 scandal by disgracing many others, he brought on the stage de- 
 scendants of noble families, who sold themselves, because they 
 were paupers. As they have ended their days, I think it due 
 to their ancestors not to hand down their names. And indeed the 
 infamy is his who gave them wealth to reward their degradation 
 rather than to deter them from degrading themselves. He pre- 
 vailed too on some well-known Roman knights, by immense 
 presents, to offer their services in the amphitheater ; only pay 
 from one who is able to command carries with it the force of 
 compulsion. 
 
 Still, not yet wishing to disgrace himself on a public stage, he in- 
 stituted some games under the title of "juvenile sports," for which 
 people of every class gave in their names. Neither rank nor 
 age nor previous high promotion hindered any one from practicing 
 the art of a Greek or Latin actor, and even stooping to gestures and 
 songs unfit for a man. Noble ladies too actually played disgusting 
 parts, and in the grove, with which Augustus had surrounded the 
 lake for the naval fight, there were erected places for meeting and 
 refreshment, and every incentive to excess was offered for sale. 
 
196 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Money, too, was distributed, which the respectable had to spend 
 under sheer compulsion and which the profligate gloried in 
 squandering. Hence a rank growth of abomination and of all 
 infamy. Never did a more filthy rabble add a worse licentiousness 
 to our long corrupted morals. Even with virtuous training, purity 
 is not easily upheld ; far less amid rivalries in vice could modesty 
 or propriety or any trace of good manners be preserved. Last 
 of all, the emperor himself came on the stage, tuning his lute 
 with elaborate care and trying his voice with his attendants. 
 There were also present, to complete the show, a guard of soldiers 
 with centurions and tribunes, and Burrus, who grieved and yet 
 applauded. Then it was that Roman knights were first enrolled 
 under the title of Augustani, men in their prime and remarkable 
 for their strength, some from a natural frivolity, others from the 
 hope of promotion. Day and night they kept up a thunder of 
 applause, and applied to the emperor's person and voice the 
 epithets of deities. Thus they lived in fame and honor, as if on the 
 strength of their merits. 
 
 Nero, however, that he might not be known only for his accom- 
 plishments as an actor, also affected a taste for poetry, and drew 
 round him persons who had some skill in such compositions, but 
 not yet generally recognized. They used to sit with him, stringing 
 together verses prepared at home, or extemporized on the spot, and 
 fill up his own expressions, such as they were, just as he threw 
 them off. This is plainly shown by the very character of the 
 poems, which have no vigor or inspiration, or unity in their flow. 
 
 He would also bestow some leisure after his banquets on the 
 teachers of philosophy, for he enjoyed the wrangles of opposing 
 dogmatists. And some there were who liked to exhibit their 
 gloomy faces and looks, as one of the amusements of the court. 
 
 It is some relief to the long monotony of shame which 
 draws out in Tacitus the story of Nero, to read of distant wars 
 and expeditions that meanwhile continued the great career of 
 the empire. Cor^bu-lo is a Roman general, destined to a 
 tragical end, who, till near the close of Nero's reign, figured 
 conspicuously as conqueror in the East We have here no 
 room for more than this mere mention of Corbulo's name. 
 The name of London, scarcely disguised as Londinium, 
 catches the eye. The place is spoken of as "much frequented 
 by a number of merchants and trading vessels." Little did 
 the Roman historian dream that, one day, his history would 
 
' TACITUS. . 197 
 
 be read by Londoners who could justly claim that their town 
 was a city greater than Rome at its height ever was. The 
 British queen, Bo-a-di-ce^a, careers for a moment into the 
 pages of Tacitus : 
 
 Boadicea, with her daughters before her in a chariot, went up to 
 tribe after tribe, protesting that it was indeed usual for Britons to 
 fight under the leadership of women. " But now," she said, '* it is 
 not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the 
 people, that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the 
 outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far 
 that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity, are left un- 
 polluted. But heaven is on the side of a righteous vengeance ; a 
 legion which dared to fight has perished ; the rest are hiding them- 
 selves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They 
 will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, 
 much less our charge and our blows. If you weigh well the 
 strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that 
 in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman's re- 
 solve ; as for men, they may live and be slaves." 
 
 Burrus makes his figure in the pages of Tacitus, rather 
 through the praises bestowed upon him by the historian, 
 than through any recital of things that he achieved. His 
 end was not without accompaniment of tragedy. The tale 
 is, with that suggestion of pathos so characteristic of Tacitus, 
 and in him so effective, thus briefly told by the historian : 
 
 While the miseries of the State were daily growing worse, its 
 supports were becoming weaker. Burrus died, whether from 
 illness or from poison was a question. It was supposed to be 
 illness from the fact that from the gradual swelling of his throat 
 inwardly and the closing up of the passage he ceased to breathe. 
 Many positively asserted that by Nero's order his throat was 
 smeared with some poisonous drug under the pretense of the 
 application of a remedy, and that Burrus, who saw through the 
 crime, when the emperor paid him a visit, recoiled with horror 
 from his gaze, and merely replied to his question, *' I indeed am 
 well." Rome felt for him a deep and lasting regret, because of the 
 remembrance of his worth, because too of the merely passive 
 virtue of one of his successors and the very flagrant iniquities of 
 the other. 
 
 The fall from power of Seneca was as graceful, decorous, and 
 
198 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 dignified a piece of acting, as a scene well presented out of the 
 French classic drama of the seventeenth century. Readers 
 will think of Wolsey and King Henry the Eighth. Tacitus : 
 
 The death of Burrus was a blow to Seneca's power, for virtue 
 had not the same strength when one of its champions, so to say, 
 was removed, and Nero too began to lean on worse advisers. They 
 assailed Seneca with various charges, representing that he con- 
 tinued to increase a wealth which was already so vast as to be 
 beyond the scale of a subject, and was drawing to himself the 
 attachment of the citizens, while in the picturesqueness of his 
 gardens and the magnificence of his country-houses he almost sur- 
 passed the emperor. They further alleged against him that he 
 claimed for himself alone the honors of eloquence, and composed 
 poetry more assiduously, as soon as a passion for it had seized 
 on Nero. " Openly inimical to the prince's amusements, he dis- 
 paraged his ability in driving horses, and ridiculed his voice 
 whenever he sang. When was there to be an end of nothing being 
 publicly admired but what Seneca was thought to have originated ! 
 Surely Nero's boyhood was over, and he was all but in the prime 
 of youthful manhood. He ought to shake off a tutor, furnished as 
 he was with sufficiently noble instructors in his own ancestors." 
 
 Seneca meanwhile, aware of these slanders, which were revealed 
 to him by those who had some respect for merit, coupled with the 
 fact that the emperor more and more shunned his intimacy, be- 
 sought the opportunity of an interview. This was granted, and he 
 spoke as follows : 
 
 " It is fourteen years ago, Caesar, that I was first associated with 
 your prospects, and eight years since you have been emperor. 
 In the interval you have heaped on me such honors and riches that 
 nothing is wanting to my happiness but a right use of it. I will 
 refer to great examples taken not from my own but from your 
 position. Your great-grandfather Augustus granted to Marcus 
 Agrippa the calm repose of Mit-y-le'ne, to Caius Maecenas what 
 was nearly equivalent to a foreign retreat in the capital itself. One 
 of these men shared his wars; the other struggled with many 
 laborious duties at Rome; both received rewards which were 
 indeed splendid, but only proportioned to their great merits. For 
 myself, what other recompense had I for your munificence than 
 a culture nursed, so to speak, in the shade of retirement, and to 
 which a glory attaches itself, because I thus seemed to have helped 
 on the early training of your youth, an ample reward for the 
 service. 
 
 *• You on the other hand have surrounded me with vast influ- 
 
TACITUS. 199 
 
 ence and boundless wealth, so that I often think within myself, 
 Am I, who am but of an equestrian and provincial family, 
 numbered among the chief men of Rome ? Among nobles who 
 can show a long succession of glories, has my new name become 
 famous ? Where is the mind once content with an humble lot ? Is 
 this the man who is building up his garden terraces, who paces 
 grandly through the suburban parks, and revels in the afl3.uence of 
 such broad lands and such widely spread investments ? Only one 
 apology occurs to me, that it would not have been right in me 
 to have thwarted your bounty. 
 
 ** And yet we have both filled up our respective measures, you in 
 giving as much as a prince can bestow on a friend, and I in re- 
 ceiving as much as a friend can receive from a prince. All else 
 only" fosters envy, which, like all things human, sinks powerless 
 beneath your greatness, though on me it weighs heavily. To me 
 relief is a necessity. Just as I should implore support if exhausted 
 by warfare or travel, so in this journey of life, old as I am and un- 
 equal even to the lightest cares, since I cannot any longer bear the 
 burden of my wealth, I crave assistance. Order my property to be 
 managed by your agents and to be included in your estate. Still I 
 shall not sink myself into poverty, but having surrendered the 
 splendors which dazzle me, I will henceforth again devote to 
 my mind all the leisure and attention now reserved for my gar- 
 dens and country houses. You have yet before you a vigorous 
 prime, and that on which for so many years your eyes were fixed, 
 supreme power. We, your older friends, can answer for our quiet 
 behavior. It will likewise redound to your honor that you have 
 raised to the highest places men who could also bear moderate 
 fortune." 
 
 Nero's reply was substantially this: "My being able to meet 
 your elaborate speech with an instant rejoinder is, I consider, 
 primarily your gift, for you taught me how to express myself 
 not only after reflection but at a moment's notice. My great- 
 grandfather Augustus allowed Agrippa and Maecenas to enjoy rest 
 after their labors, but he did it at an age carrying with it an 
 authority sufficient to justify any boon, of any sort, he might have 
 bestowed. But neither of them did he strip of the rewards he had 
 given. It was by war and its perils they had earned them ; for in 
 these the youth of Augustus was spent. And if I had passed 
 my years in arms, your sword and right hand would not have 
 failed me. But, as my actual condition required, you watched 
 over my boyhood, then over my youth, with wisdom, counsel, and 
 advice. And indeed your gifts to me will, as long as life holds out, 
 be lasting possessions ; those which you owe to me, your parks, in- 
 vwtments, your country houses, are liable to accidents. Though 
 
200 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGIilSH. 
 
 they seem much, many far inferior to you in merit have obtained 
 more. I am ashamed to quote the names of freedmen who parade 
 a greater wealth. Hence I actually blush to think that, standing 
 as you do first in my affections, you do not as yet surpass all in 
 fortune. 
 
 " Yours too is still a vigorous manhood, quite equal to the labors 
 of business and to the fruit of those labors ; and, as for myself, 
 I am but treading the threshold of empire. But perhaps you 
 count yourself inferior to "Vitellius, thrice a consul, and me to 
 Claudius. Such wealth as long thrift has procured for Volusius, 
 my bounty, you think, cannot fully make up to you. "Why not 
 rather, if the frailty of my youth goes in any respect astray, call 
 me back and guide yet more zealously with your help the man- 
 hood which you have instructed ? It will not be your moderation, 
 if you restore me your wealth, not your love of quiet, if you 
 forsake your emperor, but my avarice, the fear of my cruelty, 
 which will be in all men's mouths. Even if your self-control were 
 praised to the utmost, still it would not be seemly in a wise man to 
 get glory for himself in the very act of bringing disgrace on his 
 friend." 
 
 To these words the emperor added embraces and kisses ; for 
 he was formed by nature and trained by habit to veil his hatred 
 under delusive flattery. Seneca thanked him, the usual end of an 
 interview with a despot. But he entirely altered the practices 
 of his former greatness ; he kept the crowds of his visitors at a 
 distance, avoided trains of followers, seldom appeared in Rome, as 
 though weak health or philosophical studies detained him at home. 
 
 It is quite impossible, within the space at our command, 
 to make anything like an adequate impression of the dreadful 
 and shameful tragedy that drags itself interminably along, 
 through all the pages of Tacitus that tell the story of Nero. 
 Shame after shame, crime after crime, file before your eyes 
 in ghastly procession. You shudder, but you are fascinated 
 to gaze. 
 
 Marie Antoinette had in some respects her ancient coun- 
 terpart in Octavia, the fair young wife of Nero. Poppsea 
 was intolerant of any rival to her claim of absolute power 
 over the emperor. Octavia must be driven from Nero's 
 side, that Poppsea may marry him. For this purpose, an 
 infamous accusation of intrigue on her part with a slave, is 
 
TACITUS. 201 
 
 brought against Octavia. Her slave-girls were tortured to 
 make them swear against their mistress. But one of them 
 bravely swore that her mistress's person was purer than the 
 mouth of the man who accused her. Octavia could not be 
 condemned ; but the emperor could divorce her. Divorced 
 she was, and banished. The common people muttered 
 dangerously in her favor, and the coward tyrant was fain 
 to take her back. But the populace proved imprudent friends 
 to Octavia. They flung down the statues of Poppsea and 
 decked the images of the empress. They even rioted into the 
 palace, with menacing shouts of joy. The soldiers dispersed 
 them thence. But the popular triumph had already been 
 carried too far. The reaction was fatal to Octavia. 
 
 A new crime was charged upon her. The emperor sum- 
 moned Anicetus, the man that before had helped make away 
 with his mother, and suborned him to confess an intrigue with 
 Octavia. He should be secured from evil consequence and be 
 well rewarded ; if he refused, he should die. Anicetus was 
 not wanting to the emperor's wish. Tacitus, with that con- 
 densed pessimistic sarcasm of his, simply adds : *'He [Ani- 
 cetus] was then banished to Sardinia, where he endured exile 
 without poverty and died a natural death." One is reminded 
 of Juvenal's kindred remark concerning an infamous exile, 
 prospering in spite of his crimes, that he ** basked in the 
 wrath of heaven." 
 
 Octavia was branded adulteress by the false husband's own 
 perjury, and sent in exile to an obscure island. Tacitus, with 
 noble restrained pathos, says : 
 
 No exile ever filled the eyes of beholders with tears of greater 
 compassion. Some still remembered Agrippina, banished by 
 Tiberius, and the yet fresher memory of Julia, whom Claudius 
 exiled, was present to men's thoughts. But they had life's prime 
 for their stay ; they had seen some happiness, and the horror of the 
 moment was alleviated by recollections of a better lot in the past. 
 For Octavia, from the first, her marriage-day was a kind of funeral, 
 
!»2 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 brought, as she was, into a house where she had nothing but scenes 
 of mourning, her father and, an instant afterward, her brother, 
 having been snatched from her by poison ; then, a slave-girl raised 
 above the mistress ; Poppsea married only to insure a wife's ruin, 
 and, to end all, an accusation more horrible than any death. 
 
 The brief sequel is unspeakably sad : 
 
 And now the girl, in her twentieth year, with centurions and 
 soldiers around her, already removed from among the living by 
 the forecast of doom, still could not reconcile herself to death. 
 After an interval of a few days she received an order that she was 
 to die, although she protested that she was now a widow and only a 
 sister, and appealed to their common ancestors, the Germanici, and 
 finally to the name of Agrippina, during whose life she had en- 
 dured a marriage, which was miserable enough indeed, but not 
 fatal. She was then tightly bound with cords, and the veins of 
 every limb were opened ; but as her blood was congealed by terror 
 and flowed too slowly, she was killed outright by the steam of an 
 intensely hot bath. To this was added the yet more appalling 
 horror of Poppaea beholding the severed head which was con- 
 veyed to Rome. 
 
 If there were wanting anything to complete the shame and 
 horror of such deeds, the servile senate supplied the defi- 
 ciency. Tacitus, now, speaking with a scorn too scornful 
 to condescend to express itself explicitly : 
 
 And for all this ofierings were voted to the temples. I record the 
 fact with a special object. Whoever would study the calamities of 
 that period in my pages or those of other authors, is to take it for 
 granted that as often as the emperor directed banishments or 
 executions, so often was there a thanksgiving to the gods, and 
 what formerly commemorated some prosperous event, was then 
 a token of public disaster. Still, if any decree of the Senate was 
 marked by some new flattery, or by the lowest servility, I shall 
 not pass it over in silence. 
 
 Foils to the indescribable baseness of the senate, and reliefs 
 to the indescribable depravity of the emperor, are provided by 
 Tacitus, not only in the names of Burrus and Seneca, but also 
 in the name of now and then a solitary example of surviving 
 Roman virtue, like Memmius, Reg^u-lus, Thra-se^a. The 
 whole effect resulting is scarcely more than to deepen a little 
 
TACITUS. 203 
 
 the dark of the picture by contrast of bright. Corbulo like- 
 wise moves with the air of antique Roman grandeur, through 
 that part of the imperial drama which meantime is enacted in 
 the East. The reverberation of his wars reaches Rome like 
 the sound of '* thunder heard remote." We have no space in 
 these pages to introduce the nobler background against which, 
 on the canvas of Tacitus, Nero's effeminacy and depravity 
 show conspicuous with a shame the more fatal to his memory. 
 But consider in mercy — what boy ever came to " that heritage 
 of woe,'' supreme despotic power, under auspices blacker than 
 those which frowned on the youth of this imperial wretch ? 
 The destruction of Pompeii (pe-'-yi) is thus briefly narrated : 
 
 An earthquake too demolished a large part of Pompeii, a 
 populous town in Campania. 
 
 Nero had a daughter born to him by Poppsea. The little 
 creature's life happily was brief, but the eager servility of the 
 senate, and the drunken pride of the despot, alike at her birth 
 and at her death, appear in strong colors. Tacitus : 
 
 The place of Poppsea' s confinement was the colony of Antium, 
 where the emperor himself was born. Already had the Senate 
 commended Poppaea's safety to the gods, and had made vows in 
 the State's name, which were rei)eated again and again and duly 
 discharged. To these was added a public thanksgiving, and a 
 temple was decreed to the goddess of fecundity, as well as games 
 and contests after the type of the ceremonies commemorative of 
 Actium, and golden images of the two Fortunes were to be set 
 up on the throne of Jupiter of the Capitol. Shows too of the circus 
 were to be exhibited in honor of the Claudian and Domitian 
 families at Antium, like those at Bo-vil'lse in commemoration 
 of the Ju'li-i. Transient distinctions all of them, as within four 
 months the infant died. Again there was an outburst of flattery, 
 men voting the honors of deification, of a shrine, a temple, and 
 a priest. 
 
 The emperor, too, was as excessive in his grief as he had been in 
 his joy. It was observed that when all the Senate rushed out 
 to Antium to honor the recent birth, Thrasea was forbidden to 
 go, and received with fearless spirit an afl'ront which foreboded his 
 doom. Then followed, ^s rumor says, an expression from the em- 
 
204 CLASSIC LATIN COUBSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 peror, in which he boasted to Seneca of his reconciliation with 
 Thrasea, on which Seneca congratulated him. And now hence- 
 forth the glory and the peril of these illustrious men grew greater. 
 
 There still recur at intervals those interludes of distant 
 thunder muttered on the frontier of the empire, in the war- 
 like operations of Corbulo. Frequently the eye is caught 
 with dense and weighty sayings of the historian, which the 
 temptation is great to transfer to these pages. But the effect 
 would be, of course, much impaired by removal from the 
 setting in which they originally appear. Of Corbulo's man- 
 ner in public discourse Tacitus — himself, let it be remembered, 
 of the highest repute as an orator — says, "He spoke with 
 much impressiveness, which in him, as a military man, was 
 as good as eloquence." Macaulay might have said that of the 
 Duke of Wellington. 
 
 Nero took the pleasures of empire with a boyish delight 
 that was not far off from malignity. It was perhaps an 
 emotion as much malicious as insane, the gratification he 
 experienced in making the proud patricians of Eome applaud 
 him while he disgraced himself in their eyes by appearing, in 
 private and in public, as a singer. (It was now the year 64, 
 and Nero was a young fellow of about twenty-six.) But 
 Tacitus says of Nero, that " even amid his pleasures there was 
 no cessation to his crimes." It is only because the limits 
 of our space forbid, that we omit to tell how instance after 
 instance occurs of Romans, the most conspicuous for virtue, 
 forced under imperial pressure to make away with themselves 
 by suicide — the preferred method of which suicide was to open 
 the veins, or the arteries, and bleed to death. 
 
 Thus is related the famous infamy of the burning of Rome 
 
 under Nero, with its horrible sequel : 
 
 A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously con- 
 trived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both 
 accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which 
 have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire. It had its 
 
TACITUS. 205 
 
 beginning in that part of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and 
 Cselian hills, where, amid the shops containing inflammable wares, 
 the conflagration both broke out and instantly became so flerce and 
 so rapid from the wind that it seized in its grasp the entire length 
 of the circus. For here there were no houses fenced in by solid 
 masonry, or temples surrounded by walls, or any other obstacle to 
 interpose delay. The blaze in its fury ran first through the level 
 portions of the city, then rising to the hills, while it again devas- 
 tated every place below them, it outstripped all preventive 
 measures; so rapid was the mischief and so completely at its 
 mercy the city, with those narrow winding passages and irregular 
 streets, which characterized old Rome. Added to this were the 
 wailings of terror-stricken women, the feebleness of age, the help- 
 less inexperience of childhood, the crowds who sought to save 
 themselves and others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for 
 them, and by their hurry in the one case, by their delay in the 
 other, aggravating the confusion. Often, while they looked behind 
 them, they were intercepted by flames on their side or in their 
 face. Or if they reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was 
 seized by the fire, they found, that even places which they had 
 imagined to be remote, were involved in the same calamity. At 
 last, doubting what they should avoid or whither betake them- 
 selves, they crowded the streets or flung themselves down in the 
 fields, while some who had lost their all, even their very daily 
 bread, and others out of love for their kinsfolk, whom they had 
 been unable to rescue, perished, though escape was open to them. 
 And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant 
 menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing 
 of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and 
 kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either 
 seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders. 
 
 Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome 
 until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect 
 the palace with the gardens of Maecenas. It could not, however 
 be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and every thing 
 around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as 
 they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martins and the 
 public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised 
 temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude. Supplies 
 of food were brought up from Ostia and the neighboring towns, and 
 the price of corn was reduced to three sesterces a peck. These acts, 
 though popular, produced no effect, since a rumor had gone forth 
 every where that, at the very time that the city was in flames, the em- 
 peror appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, 
 comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity. 
 
206 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the 
 foot of the Esquiline hill, by the destruction of all buildings on a 
 vast space, so that the violence of the fire was met by clear ground 
 and open sky. But before people had laid aside their fears, the 
 flames returned, with no less fury this second time, and especially 
 in the spacious districts of the city. Consequently, though there 
 was less loss of life, the temples of the gods, and the porticoes 
 which were devoted to enjoyment, fell in a yet more wide-spread 
 ruin. And to this conflagration there attached the greater infamy 
 because it broke out on the JEmilian property of Tigellinus, and it 
 seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city 
 and calling it by his name. Rome, indeed, is divided into fourteen 
 districts, four of which remained uninjured, three were leveled to 
 the ground, while in the other seven were left only a few shattered, 
 half-burnt relics of houses. 
 
 Tacitus relates that Nero ** availed himself of his country's 
 desolation, and erected a mansion in which the jewels and 
 gold, long familiar objects, quite vulgarized by our extrava- 
 gance, were not so marvelous as the fields and lakes, with 
 woods on one side to resemble a wilderness, and, on the other, 
 open spaces and extensive views." Many audacious public 
 works were undertaken, some of them in absolute defiance of 
 the laws of nature. The city was splendidly rebuilt, and the 
 gods were elaborately propitiated — in vain. Tacitus says— and 
 here occurs the sole mention deemed necessary by the historian 
 to be made, of a certain religious sect, destined, however little 
 he dreamed it, to multiply, and to endure, untold centuries 
 after that imperial Rome of which he wrote should have be- 
 come a name and a memory — Tacitus says : 
 
 All human efl'orts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the 
 propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the 
 conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid 
 of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most ex- 
 quisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called 
 Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had 
 its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of 
 Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pon'ti-us Pi-la' tus, 
 and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the 
 moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the 
 
TACITUS. 207 
 
 evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful 
 from every part of the world find their center and become popular. 
 Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty ; 
 then, upon their information, an immense multitude was con- 
 victed, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred 
 against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their 
 deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs 
 and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the 
 flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight 
 had expired. 
 
 Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a 
 show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress 
 of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals 
 who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a 
 feeling of compassion ; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public 
 good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed. 
 
 The world now was ransacked and plundered to glut the 
 passion of the emperor for profuse expenditure. The temples 
 of the gods did not escape. Seneca felt that his own person 
 was in danger, should he stick at committing sacrilege at the 
 beck of the emperor. He, therefore—" it was said," as Tacitus 
 cautiously relates it—: 
 
 To avert from himself the obloquy of sacrilege, begged for the 
 seclusion of a remote rural retreat, and, when it was refused, 
 feigning ill health, as though he had a nervous ailment, would not 
 quit his chamber. A(;cording to some writers, poison was pre- 
 pared for him at Nero's command by his own freedman, whose 
 name was Cleonnicus. This Seneca avoided through the freed- 
 man's disclosure, or his own apprehension, while he used to sup- 
 port life on the very simple diet of wild fruits, with water from » 
 running stream when thirst prompted. 
 
 Wantonness of despotism, such as Nero's, could not but pro- 
 voke conspiracy against the despot. Tacitus gives a circum- 
 stantial account of a plot which, having gone near to success, 
 failed, at the critical point, through the perfidy of a freedman. 
 The fidelity unto death of a freed woman aflTords a striking 
 contrast. Tacitus thus admiringly describes this woman's 
 conduct : 
 
 Nero, meanwhile, remembering that E-pich'ar-ris was in custody 
 
208 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 on the information of Vo-lu'si-us Proc'u-lus, and assuming that a 
 woman's frame must be unequal to the agony, ordered her to be 
 torn on the rack. But neither the scourge nor fire, nor the fury of 
 the men as they increased the torture that they might not be a 
 woman's scorn, overcame her positive denial of the charge. Thus 
 the first day's inquiry was futile. On the morrow, as she was 
 being dragged back on a chair to the same torments (for with her 
 limbs all dislocated she could not stand), she tied a band, which 
 she had stript off her bosom, in a sort of noose to the arched back 
 of the chair, put her neck in it, and then straining with the whole 
 weight of her body, wrung out of her frame its little remaining 
 breath. All the nobler was the example set by a freedwoman at 
 such a crisis in screening strangers and those whom she hardly 
 knew, when freeborn men, Roman knights, and senators, yet un- 
 scathed by torture, betrayed, every one, his dearest kinsfolk. 
 
 Following the exposure of the plot, comes a sickening list of 
 horrors in revenge, enacted under order of Nero. These in- 
 volve the doom, now no longer to be postponed, of Seneca, the 
 philosopher. Seneca was not a convicted conspirator. He 
 was, perhaps, not even seriously suspected of conspiring. 
 But Nero hated him, and would at all cost be rid of him. 
 Seneca was reported to have said, ambiguously and darkly, 
 concerning a man involved in the plot : '* I will not talk with 
 him, but my own safety is bound up in his." This was 
 enough. Seneca was given the opportunity, at his option, to 
 acknowledge or to repudiate the language attributed to him. 
 He answered proudly and bravely. Nero, on receiving the 
 report of his answer, asked, " Is he meditating suicide ? " The 
 officer said he saw in Seneca no signs of fear and no signs 
 of low spirits. He was bidden go back and tell Seneca to 
 make away with himself. Now Tacitus : 
 
 Seneca, quite unmoved, asked for tablets on which to inscribe 
 his will, and, on the centurion's refusal, turned to his friends, 
 protesting that as he was forbidden to requite them, he bequeathed 
 to them the only, but still the noblest, possession yet remaining to 
 him, the pattern of his life, which, if they remembered, they 
 would win a name for moral worth and steadfast friendship. At 
 the same time [braced, beyond doubt, by the remembered example 
 of Socrates], he called them back from their tears to manly resolu- 
 
TACITUS. 209 
 
 tion, now with friendly talk, and now with the sterner langpiage of 
 rebuke. '* Where," he asked again and again, " are your maxims 
 of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years' study against 
 evils to come ? Who knew not Nero's cruelty ? After a mother's 
 and a brother's murder, nothing remains but to add the destruction 
 of a guardian and a tutor." 
 
 Having spoken these and like words, meant, so to say, for all, he 
 embraced his wife ; then softening awhile from the stern resolution 
 of the hour, he begged and implored her to spare herself the 
 burden of perpetual sorrow, and, in the contemplation of a life 
 virtuously spent, to endure a husband's loss with honorable con- 
 solations. She declared, in answer, that she too had decided to 
 die, and claimed for herself the blow of the executioner. There- 
 upon Seneca, not to thwart her noble ambition, from an affection 
 too which would not leave behind him for insult one whom he 
 dearly loved, replied: *' I have shown you ways of smoothing 
 life ; you prefer the glory of dying. I will not grudge you such a 
 noble example. Let the fortitude of so courageous an end be alike 
 in both of us, but let there be more in your decease to win fame." 
 
 Then by one and the same stroke they sundered with a dagger 
 the arteries of their arms. Seneca, as his aged frame, attenuated 
 by frugal diet, allowed the blood to escape but slowly, severed also 
 the veins of his legs and knees. Worn out by cruel anguish, afraid 
 too that his sufferings might break his wife's spirit, and that, as 
 he looked on her tortures, he might himself sink into irresolution, 
 he persuaded her to retire into another chamber. Even at the last 
 moment his eloquence failed him not ; he summoned his secretaries, 
 and dictated much to them which, as it has been published for all 
 readers in his own words, I forbear to paraphrase. 
 
 Seneca's wife was not thus to die with her husband. She 
 must survive him ; and must so incur a reaction of suspicion 
 against herself, that will cloud the fame of her courage. 
 Nero, not hating her, and not wishing to aggravate with 
 the people the odium of his cruelty, forbade her to die. 
 Tacitus again : 
 
 At the soldiers' prompting her slaves and freedmen bound up 
 her arms, and stanched the bleeding, whether with her knowledge 
 is doubtful. For as the vulgar are ever ready to think the 
 worst, there were persons who believed that, as long as she 
 dreaded Nero's relentlessness, she sought the glory of sharing 
 her husband's death, but that after a time, when a more soothing 
 prospect presented itself, she yielded to the charms of life. To 
 
210 CliASSIC LATIN CJOURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 this she added a few subsequent years, with a most praiseworthy 
 remembrance of her husband, and with a countenance and frame 
 white to a degree of pallor which denoted a loss of much vital 
 energy. 
 
 The historian returns to finish the slow suicide of Seneca : 
 
 Seneca meantime, as the tedious process of death still lingered 
 on, begged Sta'ti-us An-nse'us, whom he had long esteemed for his 
 faithful friendship and medical skill, to produce a poison with 
 which he had some time before provided himself, the same drug 
 which extinguished the life of those who were condemned by 
 a public sentence of the people of Athens. It was brought to him 
 and he drank it in vain, chilled as he was throughout his limbs, 
 and his frame closed against the e^cacy of the poison. At last 
 he entered a pool of heated water, from which he sprinkled the 
 nearest of his slaves, adding the exclamation, " I offer this liquid 
 as a libation to Jupiter the Deliverer." He was then carried into a 
 bath, with the steam of which he was suffocated, and he was 
 burned without any of the usual funeral rites. So he had directed 
 in a codicil of his will, when even in the height of his wealth 
 and power he was thinking of his life's close. 
 
 Rumor could not fail to breed plentifully in the teeming 
 
 ferment of such crime and such tragedy. Subrius Flavus 
 
 was a chief conspirator from among the soldiers of Nero, 
 
 while Piso was the figure-head put forward as pretender to 
 
 the empire in Nero's room. Now let Tacitus give us, in his 
 
 own words, a popular rumor affecting these two men, in 
 
 connection with Seneca: 
 
 There was a rumor that Subrius Flavus had held a secret consul- 
 tation with the centurions, and had planned, not without Seneca's 
 knowledge, that when Nero had been slain by Piso's instrumental- 
 ity, Piso also was to be murdered, and the empire handed over 
 to Seneca, as a man singled out for his splendid virtues by all 
 persons of integrity. Even a saying of Flavus was popularly cur- 
 rent, " that it mattered not as to the disgrace if a harp-player were 
 removed and a tragic actor succeeded him." For as Nero used 
 to sing to the harp, so did Piso in the dress of a tragedian. 
 
 Subrius Flavus did not escape. But he died at last with 
 
 a scornful bravery that has immortalized his fame. Tacitus : 
 
 Questioned by Nero as to the motives which had led him on 
 to forget his oath of allegiance, *' I hated you," he replied ; " yet 
 
TACITUS. 211 
 
 not a soldier was more loyal to you while you deserved to be loved. 
 I began to hate you when you became the murderer of your 
 mother and your wife, a charioteer, an actor, and an incendiary." 
 I have given the man's very words, because they were not, like 
 those of Seneca, generally published, though the rough and vigor- 
 ous sentiments of a soldier ought to be no less known. 
 
 Throughout the conspiracy nothing, it was certain, fell with more 
 terror on the ears of Nero, who was as unused to be told of the 
 crimes he perpetrated as he was eager in their perpetration. The 
 punishment of Flavus was intrusted to Ve-ia'ni-us Niger, a 
 tribune. At his direction, a pit was dug in a neighboring field. 
 Flavus, on seeing it, censured it as too shallow and confined, 
 saying to the soldiers around him, " Even this is not according to 
 military rule." When bidden to offer his neck resolutely, *' I 
 wish," said he, "that your stroke may be as resolute." The 
 tribune trembled greatly, and having only just severed his head at 
 two blows, vaunted his brutality to Nero, saying that he had slain 
 him with a blow and a half. 
 
 The opportunity seemed favorable to Nero for clearing off 
 at once the score of his personal hatreds. Ves-ti''nus, the 
 consul, could not be brought under any show of suspicion. 
 But the emperor hated him as a boon companion " who often 
 bantered him with that rough humor which [an observation 
 showing the historian wise in human nature], when it draws 
 largely on facts, leaves a bitter memory behind it." Nero 
 used his imperial reserve of outright and peremptory despot- 
 ism, for the destruction of Vestinus. The soldiers came upon 
 the consul in the midst of a banquet, at which he was enter- 
 taining friends in his own house. The tribune announced his 
 sentence. Now Tacitus : 
 
 He rose without a moment's delay, and every preparation was at 
 once made. He shut himself into his chamber ; a physician was at 
 his side ; his veins were opened ; with life still strong in him, 
 he was carried into a bath, and plunged into warm water, without 
 uttering a word of pity for himself. Meanwhile the guards sur- 
 rounded those who had sat at his table, and it was only at a late 
 hour of the night that they were dismissed, when Nero, having 
 pictured to himself and laughed over their terror at the expectation 
 of a fatal end to their banquet, said that they had suffered enough 
 punishment for their consul's entertainment. 
 
212 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 The poet Lucan, author of the ** PharsaUa," an epic poem 
 on the civil war between Csesar and Pompey, was another 
 victim. He died at twenty-seven years of age, with theatric 
 circumstance well befitting the type of his genius. Tacitus : 
 
 As the blood flowed freely from him, and he felt a chill creeping 
 through his feet and hands, and the life gradually ebbing from his 
 extremities, though the heart was still warm and he retained 
 his mental power, Lu-ca'nus recalled some poetry he had com- 
 posed in which he had told the story of a wounded soldier 
 dying a similar kind of death, and he recited the very lines. 
 These were his last words. 
 
 The abjectness of Eome amid this carnival of blood passes 
 belief. " One after another," so Tacitus relates, ** on the 
 destruction of a brother, a kinsman, or a friend, would return 
 thanks to the gods, deck his house with laurels, prostrate 
 himself at the knees of the emperor, and weary his hand 
 with kisses." 
 
 ** Poppsea died," so Tacitus relates, ** from a casual outburst 
 of rage in her husband, who felled her with a kick when 
 she was pregnant." Nero eulogized her publicly from the 
 rostra. 
 
 We break into the gloomy catalogue of imperial crimes 
 recounted by Tacitus, to give the story, surpassing in tragedy, 
 of the threefold associate death of Lucius Vetus, of Sextia, his 
 mother-in-law, and of Pollutia, his daughter. Pollutia was 
 the widow of a man formerly murdered by Nero. She in- 
 terceded in vain with the emperor on her father's behalf. 
 Tacitus says : 
 
 He was at the same time informed that judicial proceedings 
 in the Senate and a dreadful sentence were hanging over him. 
 Some there were who advised him to name the emperor as his chief 
 heir, and so secure the remainder for his grandchildren. But 
 he spurned the notion, and unwilling to disgrace a life which 
 had clung to freedom by a final act of servility, he bestowed on his 
 slaves all his ready money, and ordered each to convey away 
 for himself whatever he could carry, leaving only three couches for 
 the last scene. Then in the same chamber, with the same weapon, 
 
TACITUS. 213 
 
 they sundered their veins, and speedily hurried into a bath, 
 covered each, as delicacy required, with a single garment, the 
 father gazing intently on his daughter, the grandmother on her 
 grandchild, she again on both, while with rival earnestness they 
 prayed that the ebbing life might have a quick departure, each 
 wishing to leave a relative still surviving, but just on the verge of 
 death. Fortune preserved the due order ; the oldest died first, then 
 the others according to priority of age. They were prosecuted after 
 their burial, and the sentence was that "they should be punished 
 in ancient fashion." Nero interposed his veto, allowing them 
 to die without his interference. Such were the mockeries added to 
 murders already perpetrated. 
 
 Storms accompanied, and pestilence, to signalize, more 
 gloomily still, this year of shameful human deeds. Tacitus 
 interrupts himself, amid his narrative of horrible things, to 
 say: 
 
 Even if I had to relate foreign wars and deaths encountered 
 in the service of the State with such a monotony of disaster, I 
 should myself have been overcome by disgust, while I should look 
 for weariness in my readers, sickened as they would be by the 
 melancholy and continuous destruction of our citizens, however 
 glorious to themselves. But now a servile submissiveness and 
 so much wanton bloodshed at home fatigue the mind and paralyze 
 it with grief. The only indulgence I would ask from those 
 who will acquaint themselves with these horrors is, that I be 
 not thought to hate men who perished so tamely. Such was the 
 wrath of heaven against the Roman State that one may not pass 
 over it with a single mention, as one might the defeat of armies and 
 the capture of cities. Let us grant this privilege to the posterity of 
 illustrious men, that just as in their funeral obsequies such men are 
 not confounded in a common burial, so in the record of their end 
 they may receive and retain a special memorial. 
 
 A singular case of gay and gallant greeting to compulsory 
 death occurred — without mention of which, our picture of the 
 time would want something of proper contrast to make it 
 complete. Of this incident, Caius Pe-tro-'ni-us was the hero. 
 A certain literary interest attaches to the name of Petronius. 
 He was putative author of a phrase that is one of the most 
 familiar commonplaces of literature — " curious felicity," as it 
 is transferred, rather than translated, from the original Latin, 
 
214 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 curiosa felidtas. The words thus combined were meant to ex- 
 press the idea of that perfection in phrase which is the result 
 of great care, joined to excellent good luck, in the choice of 
 language to match your thought. Tacitus says : 
 
 With regard to Caius Petronius, I ought to dwell a little on 
 his antecedents. His days he passed in sleep, his nights in the 
 business and pleasures of life. Indolence had raised him to fame, 
 as energy raises others, and he was reckoned not a debauchee 
 and spendthrift, like most of those who squander their substance, 
 but a man of refined luxury. And indeed his talk and his doings, 
 the freer they were and the more show of carelessness they ex- 
 hibited, were the better liked, for their look of a natural simplicity. 
 Yet as proconsul of Bithynia, and soon afterward as consul, 
 he showed himself a man of vigor and equal to business. Then 
 falling back into vice, or affecting vice, he was chosen by Nero 
 to be one of his few intimate associates, as a critic in matters of 
 taste, while the emperor thought nothing charming or elegant 
 in luxury unless Petronius had expressed to him his approval of it. 
 Hence jealousy on the part of Tigellinus, who looked on him as a 
 rival and even his superior in the science of pleasure. And so 
 he worked on the prince's cruelty, which dominated every other 
 passion, charging Petronius with having been the friend of Scse- 
 vi'nus, bribing a slave to become informer, robbing him of the 
 means of defense, and hurrying into prison the greater part of his 
 domestics. 
 
 It happened at the time that the emperor was on his way to Cam- 
 pania, and that Petronius, after going as far as Cumse, was there 
 detained. He bore no longer the suspense of fear or hope. Yet he 
 did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made 
 an incision in his veins and then, according to his humor, bound 
 them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his 
 friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win for him 
 the glory of courage. And he listened to them as they repeated, 
 not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories 
 of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some 
 of his slaves he gave liberal presents, a flogging to others. He 
 dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, though forced on him, 
 might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, 
 as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or 
 any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described 
 fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male 
 and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and 
 sent the account under seal to Nero. Then he broke his signet- 
 
a?ACi'rus. 215 
 
 ring, that it might not be subsequently available for imperiling 
 others. 
 
 One cannot help indulging a transient admiration of some- 
 thing in the dying of this Roman exquisite, of an evil time, 
 that goes toward redeeming the ignoble of his life. 
 
 Thra-se^'a is almost as much the chosen historical favorite of 
 Tacitus, as William of Orange notoriously was of Macaulay. 
 The story of the end of this " noblest Roman of them all" 
 the historian begins with this impressive preface : " Nero, 
 after having butchered so many illustrious men, at last 
 aspired to extirpate virtue itself by murdering Thrasea 
 Paetus and Ba-re^'a So-ra^'nus." 
 
 How Thrasea died is thus related by Tacitus : 
 
 As evening approached, the consul's quaestor was sent to 
 . Thrasea, who was passing his time in his garden. He had had 
 a crowded gathering of distinguished men and women, giving 
 special attention to Demetrius, a professor of the Cynic philosophy. 
 With him, as might be inferred from his earnest expression of face 
 and from words heard when they raised their voices, he was specu- 
 lating on the nature of the soul and on the separation of the spirit 
 from the body, till Domitius Cse'cil-i-a'nus, one of his intimate 
 friends, came to him and told him in detail what the Senate had 
 decided. When all who were present wept and bitterly com- 
 plained, Thrasea urged them to hasten their departure and not 
 mingle their own perils with the fate of a doomed man. Arria too 
 who aspired to follow her husband's end and the example of Arria, 
 her mother, he counseled to preserve her life, and not rob the 
 daughter of their love of her only stay. 
 
 Then he went out into a colonnade, where he was found by 
 the quaestor, joyful rather than otherwise, as he had learned 
 that Hel-vid'i-us, his son-in-law, was merely excluded from Italy. 
 When he heard the Senate's decision, he led Helvidius and Deme- 
 trius into a chamber, and having laid bare the arteries of each arm, 
 he let the blood flow freely, and, as he sprinkled it on the ground, 
 he called the quaestor to his side and said : " We pour out a libation 
 to Jupiter the Deliverer. Behold, young man, and may the gods 
 avert the omen, but you have been born into times in which it 
 is well to fortify the spirit with examples of courage." Then as 
 the slowness of his end brought with it grievous anguish, turning 
 his eyes on Demetrius. . . . 
 
216 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 The "Annals " of Tacitus, as they exist to moderns, end ab- 
 ruptly thus, on a sentence unfinished, with Thrasea in the 
 unfinished act of dying. The rest of Nero's reign, a period of 
 two years, we lose from the incomparable record of Tacitus. 
 That living bulwark of the empire, Corbulo, fell a victim 
 to the jealousy of the emperor, being met at Corinth on his 
 return from the East with the imperial sentence to suicide. 
 In A. D. 68, Nero, risen against by his subjects, and himself 
 now under sentence of death from the senate, died wretchedly 
 at last by his own hand. 
 
 A Rome how different from the Rome of Livy, is the Rome 
 that Tacitus describes ! But the degeneracy, so great, of later 
 Rome was, after all, only a ripeness in the fruit, of a disease 
 that lurked from the first in the heart of the flower. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 
 
 We put Plautus and Terence together in treatment, both be- 
 cause we have not room to treat them separately, and because 
 they are naturally associated, as being to us the two sole 
 surviving representatives of the ancient Boman drama. Plau- 
 tus was the elder. Plautus, in fact, is the very eldest Roman 
 writer known to moderns by any complete work remaining 
 from his hand. He was not many years before Terence ; 
 but Terence, by something more modern in his manner, 
 seems two or three literary generations nearer to our time. 
 
 Plautus as well as Terence borrowed freely from the 
 Greek. By a curious fortune in survival, the Greek Menan- 
 der lives now only, or almost only, in the reproductions of 
 his works proceeding from these two Roman borrowers. 
 Menander was a very different writer of comedy from Aris- 
 tophanes. The colossal drollery, the personal hard-hitting, the 
 illimitable freedom, of Aristophanes, were in Menander ex- 
 changed for something much nearer to that decent raillery 
 at current morals and manners which is the prevailing 
 character of modern comedy. The "New Comedy," Me- 
 nander's school was called, to distinguish it from the school 
 of Aristophanes, which was called the "Old," in contrast. 
 We have in part to guess how much Plautus and Terence 
 owed to Menander. It seems clear that, as between the 
 two, Plautus contributed more than did Terence, of the 
 personal, and more, likewise, of the national, element, to 
 
 217 
 
218 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 qualify his adaptations from the Greek. In both cases alike, 
 however, the result is a mixed product, rather puzzling to our 
 natural sense of fitness and consistency. The Roman play 
 had its scene laid somewhere in Hellas, the names of 
 persons were chiefly Greek, the life represented was rather 
 Greek than Roman ; and yet Roman civil institutions and 
 Roman traits of manners were introduced, quite as if the 
 comic writer were unconscious of unkindly mixing things 
 that diflfered ; or else as if this very mixing itself were trusted 
 to by him for enhancing his comic eflfect. Probably both 
 writer and spectator were sufficiently uncritical, neither, on 
 the one hand, to be disturbed by the incongruity, nor, on the 
 other hand, distinctly to enjoy the incongruity, as an element 
 of humor. We know from Terence that his audience was 
 difficult ; but it was by no means to their being over-critical 
 that the difficulty of his audience was due. Quite to the con- 
 trary. They were childish and frisky to a degree. Terence, 
 in one of his comedies, begs his audience to give him a chance 
 with them. They had, it would seem, those halfH3ivilized 
 Romans, a reprehensible habit of flinging out of the play- 
 house upon occasion, in the midst of the play — if, for example, 
 they happened to hear the sound outside of anything going 
 forward (boxing, it might be, rope-dancing, a gladiatorial 
 show, a procession in the street) that promised diversion at 
 less cost to them of brain than the comedy in progress 
 required. So the comedist of Terence's time had his trials. 
 Plautus was of the people. Terence was cultivated some- 
 what away from the people. There is a considerably stronger 
 smack of real Roman character and life in Plautus than in 
 Terence. Plautus lived to old age, and produced a good many 
 plays. Terence died young, and brought out only six plays in 
 all. Plautus had to work for his daily bread. Terence be- 
 came the favorite of the great and lived very much at his ease. 
 Neither poet was a native Roman. Plautus was of the 
 
PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 219 
 
 district of Umbria, in Italy. Terence is said to have been 
 a Carthaginian. Plautus is a nickname, meaning "flatfoot." 
 The name Terence — Te-ren^tius is the Latin form — was prob- 
 ably given to the bearer from the name of his patron, the 
 Roman patrician that freed him. For Terence was either born 
 slave, or else had become slave by fortune of war. Titus 
 Mac^ci-us Plautus was the full name of the one— Publius 
 Terentius A^fer [African] of the other. 
 
 Plautus was a natural dramatist. He is full of movement 
 and life. There is in his comedies an incessant bustle of 
 change going forward. The plot may stand still, but the play 
 does not. There is at least activity, if there is no action. 
 Your attention is never suffered for a moment to flag. 
 
 Terence, on the other hand, depends more upon what the 
 eye cannot see. There is an element of reflection introduced. 
 Terence, herein, as we guess, more nicely responds, than does 
 Plautus, to the genius and method of their common Greek 
 original, Menander. Both writers are suflaciently coarse ; but 
 Plautus, as more Roman, is coarser than Terence. Neither 
 seems to care for any moral lesson to be enforced. Each seeks 
 to amuse, not at all to amend, his audience. There can be 
 little doubt that the practical tendency of both alike was to 
 deprave the moral tone of Roman character. The influence 
 exerted for bane by such importations from Greece as Plautus 
 and Terence purveyed for the amusement of Rome, may be 
 likened to the influence exerted by licentious French ballets 
 and licentious French operas, working, through English 
 adaptations, to debauch the taste and morals of England or 
 America. It was an evil hour for Rome, when she began to be 
 accustomed to see reverend old age flouted in the comic thea- 
 ter, and to laugh there at trickeries and knaveries, practiced at 
 the expense of everything that was holy in home life and 
 in the conjugal relation. It is a sad lesson in enlightened 
 pagan manners, the lesson that we learn from Plautus and 
 
220 CliASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Terence. The canker is in them somewhat opened to view, 
 that secretly worked beneath the gallant show of full- 
 flowering Roman life and character. 
 
 We are limited in our choice from among the works of 
 Plautus and Terence, by the inseparable moral character of 
 their comedies. Hardly, indeed, could any single play out of 
 the whole number be presented here entire. We must use 
 care in choosing, and then we must also expurgate with care. 
 On the whole, we shall go pretty safely, if, for Plautus, we 
 take the play selected some time ago for representation by 
 the young ladies of Washington University, in St. Louis. 
 This is "Rudens," or "The Shipwreck," as the name some- 
 times is given. Rudens means "rope." A fisherman's rope 
 plays an important part in the action. A violent tempest 
 at sea occurs, whence the title "Shipwreck." One almost 
 ventures to be reminded of The Tempest of Shakespeare. 
 (By permission, we here use the Washington University 
 translation, throughout the play.) 
 
 The speaker of the prologue is Arc-tu-'rus, a star, supposed to 
 bode wind and storm. Probably the actor who personated 
 Arcturus displayed a decoration in the form of a brilliant star. 
 The appointments of the comic theater in Rome were simple 
 and rude. In the time of Plautus and Terence, there was 
 not even a permanent building devoted to theatric representar 
 tion. A wooden structure, hastily thrown together, and 
 temporary in its design, was made to answer the purpose. 
 Not until Pompey's time was there a durable theater of 
 stone. Imagine, then, an actor designated and illustrated 
 with a star, perhaps on his forehead, appearing before the 
 expectant audience, and, at the beginning of the representa- 
 tion, delivering himself of the following prologue : 
 
 Splendid and glowing, a subject am I 
 Of the king of the bright constellations, 
 Rising as pleases my own sovereign will, 
 
PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 
 
 Both on earth and above in the heavens. 
 
 Nightly I shine in the clear azure sky, 
 
 And there with celestials hold converse ; 
 
 Daily I walk midst the dwellings of men, 
 
 And am worshiped on earth as Arcturus. 
 
 Now I will show you the reason I came, 
 
 And will tell you the plot of this story. 
 
 Diph'i-lus wished that the name of this town 
 
 (To the right of you here) be Cyrene. 
 
 Here in this villa o'erlooking the sea. 
 
 Dwells one Daemones, exiled from Athens. 
 
 Not on account of his own wicked deeds, 
 
 But through services rendered to others, 
 
 Lost he his fortune and lost he his home, 
 
 And grows gray here in want and in sorrow. 
 
 Once a young daughter had smoothed from his brow 
 
 Every wrinkle that care might have wrought there ; 
 
 She in her youth had been stolen away. 
 
 And been sold to a wicked slave-dealer. 
 
 Fate had ordained that the girl should be brought 
 
 To this town near the home of her father. 
 
 Here, while returning one day from her school, 
 
 She was seen by the youth Ples-i-dip'pus ; 
 
 Beauty and grace gave her wonderful charms. 
 
 And in haste to her master he hurried. 
 
 Purchased the girl for himself with bright gold, 
 
 And bound with an oath the slave-dealer. 
 
 This one, however, did shame to his trade. 
 
 If he cared e'en a straw for his pledges. 
 
 He had a guest, a Sicilian old man. 
 
 Who had fled from his home, Ag-ri-gen'tum : 
 
 This one declares that the place in the world. 
 
 Which is best for his host and his business, 
 
 Sicily, home of his youth and his crime. 
 
 Is the market for slaves and slave-dealers. 
 
 Soon he obtains the vile master's consent. 
 
 And they hire a ship, but in secret ; 
 
 That which is needed by night they convey 
 
 To the ship, and make ready for starting. 
 
 Vows to the temple of Venus, he says 
 
 To the youth, are the cause of his going. 
 
 (This is the temple at which he pretends 
 
 He is going to pay his devotions.) 
 
 Thither he asks that the youth will soon come, 
 
 And invites him to join him at breakfast. 
 
222 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGIilSH. 
 
 Others make clear to the youth what this means, 
 
 That the scoundrel has only deceived him. 
 
 He, when he comes to the harbor, perceives 
 
 That the ship is quite lost in the distance. 
 
 I, since I know that the girl has by fraud 
 
 Been taken away from Cyrene, 
 
 Raise a great storm that both brings her swift aid. 
 
 And destruction at once to her master, 
 
 He and his guest are thrown out by the waves. 
 
 And barely escape death by swimming. 
 
 She and a hand-maid leap into a skiff. 
 
 And are driven ashore by the tempest. 
 
 Here by the house of her father unknown, 
 
 Whose tiling the storm-wind has injured. 
 
 This is his slave who is just coming out, 
 
 And the youth Plesidippus, the lover. 
 
 Soon will appear. Fare you well, and be strong. 
 
 That your enemies all may be vanquished. 
 
 The "Argument" prefixed to the play is further helpful 
 to the understanding of the dramatic design : 
 
 "A fisherman drew up from the sea with liis net a wallet, 
 which contained the trinkets of his master's daughter, who 
 having been stolen in her youth, was now owned by a slave- 
 dealer. Thrown ashore in a shipwreck, she came, without her 
 knowledge, under the protection of her own father. She was 
 recognized and married to her lover, Ples-i-dip^pus." 
 
 Sce-par^'nio is a slave of Dse-'mon-es. Daemones is the man 
 to whom the lost girl of the play will be restored, as his 
 daughter. Sceparnio, with Dsemones, stands on the shore 
 watching the fortunes of a skiff struggling in the surf. His 
 description of what he sees is life-like. It is a very good 
 specimen of dramatic vision. *' What is it you see?" asks 
 Dsemones. Sceparnio replies : 
 
 /Sceparnio. Two women seated alone in a skiff! Poor wretches ! 
 how they are tossed about ! Well done ! Well done ! First-rate ! 
 The wave has turned the skiff from the rock toward the shore ! 
 No pUot could have done better. I never saw higher waves. 
 They're all right, if they avoid those waves. Now ! now, look out ! 
 See how one of them is thrown out ! But she's in shallow water. 
 
PLAUTUS AND TEBENCE. 228 
 
 She will easily swim out. Well done ! She's all right. She has 
 got out of the water. Now she's on the shore. The other one has 
 jumped from the skifif into the water. See her fall on her knees in 
 the water ! There, she is up ! If she turns this way, she's safe. If 
 she goes to the right, she'll be badly off! She'll wander around 
 to-day, I guess. 
 
 Dcemones, What difference does it make to you, Scepamio ? 
 
 /Sfc. If she falls down from that rock whither she is going, she'll 
 shorten her wandering. 
 
 DcB, If you're going to dine with them to-day, Sceparnio, look 
 after them, of course ; but if you are going to eat with me, I wish 
 you'd attend to me. 
 
 iSc, That's only fair. 
 
 DcB, Then follow me. 
 
 /Sc. All right. 
 
 The cool indifference exhibited by the master Dsemones is 
 well contrasted against the lively interest, of sympathy, or of 
 curiosity, shown by the slave Sceparnio. If readers find pro- 
 vincialisms in the English rendering, such provincialisms 
 they may take to represent the unconventional freedom of 
 the original Latin. 
 
 The two women — one of whom is Pa-l8es''tra, the lost 
 daughter, still claimed by the slave-dealer La^'brax as his 
 property — finally get safe to land, but separately, each think- 
 ing the other is drowned. The coming together of the two 
 must have been a very amusing representation, as managed 
 by the playwright and the scene-master between them, A 
 ledge or cliff of rock kept the two women from seeing each, 
 other, while still they could hear each the other's voice. 
 The audience, meantime, could see both the two persons of 
 the action. Each has been soliloquizing aloud, within hear- 
 ing of the other— when Palaestra speaks : 
 
 Palaestra. Whose voice sounds near me ? 
 Ampelisca. 1 am afraid ; who is talking here ? 
 Pa. Good Hope, I beg you come to my aid. 
 
 Am. It is a woman; a woman's voice reaches my ears. Wont 
 you free me, wretch that I am, from this dread? 
 Pa. Surely it's a woman's voice I hear. Isit Am-pe-lis'ca, pray? 
 Am, Do I hear you, Palaestra ? 
 
224 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Pa. Why don't I call her by her name, so that she'll know me? 
 Ampelisca ! 
 
 Am, Hem ! Who is it ? 
 
 Pa. It is I. 
 
 Am. Is that you, Palaestra ? 
 
 Pa, Yes. 
 
 Am. Where are you ? 
 
 Pa. By Pollux, in the greatest evil. 
 
 Am. I'm no better off myself. But I long to see you. 
 
 Pa. And I you. 
 
 Am. Let's follow the voice with the footsteps. Where are you ? 
 
 Pa. Here I am. Come this way. 
 
 Am. I'm coming as well as I can. 
 
 Pa. Give me your hand. 
 
 Am. Here it is. 
 
 Pa. Are you alive? Speak, pray. 
 
 Am. You make me want to live, now that I have you. I can 
 scarcely believe that I do have you. Embrace me, my love. 
 How you relieve me of all my troubles. 
 
 Pa, That was what I was going to say. 
 
 The humor of the foregoing passage, of course, lies in the 
 situation rather than in the dialogue. The success of it 
 with an audience would depend upon the scenery and the 
 acting. Still the merit of the conception — ^whatever that 
 merit may be — belongs to the original inventor. Who the 
 original inventor was, nobody knows. Perhaps Plautus him- 
 self, perhaps Menander, Diph^i-lus, or some other Greek now 
 nameless. 
 
 The two girls make their way to a temple of Venus not 
 far off, where they are kindly welcomed by the priestess. 
 
 There are some gaps in the text of Plautus, and, besides 
 this, the translators whom we follow, very judiciously make, 
 as we have said, omissions here and there. The scene now 
 to be given is on the border-line between proper and im- 
 proper ; but it will afford an instructive hint of what Roman 
 comedists purveyed for their audience. Ampelisca, Palaestra's 
 companion in shipwreck and in hair-breadth escape, has been 
 despatched by the priestess of Venus to fetch water from the 
 
PL.AUTUS AND TERENCE. 225 
 
 house of Dsemones. She raps at the door and is answered 
 by our friend the slave Sceparnio. 
 
 Sceparnio. Who's making such a racket at our door ? 
 
 Ampelisca. I am. 
 
 Sc. Ha ! What good fortune is this ? By Pollux, what a pretty 
 woman ! 
 
 Am. Good morning, young man. 
 
 Sc, You're welcome, my lady. 
 
 Am. I'm coming to your house, 
 
 iSc, I'll receive you hospitably ; but what do you want, my pretty 
 one? 
 
 Am. O, you* re too familiar. {He chucks her under the chin.) 
 
 Sc, Immortal gods ! she's the very image of Venus ! What 
 lovely eyes ! What a pretty figure I She's quite dark— I mean 
 to say, a handsome brunette. 
 
 Am, I'm no dish for the village. Take your hands off me ! 
 
 tSc, Can't one touch you prettily, my pretty one ? 
 
 Am. At another time I'll give you opportunity for a flirtation. 
 Now I'd like you to say yes or no to the errand I'm sent on. 
 
 JSc, What do you want ? 
 
 Am, Any one with good sense would know by what I carry. 
 
 Sc. And any one with good sense would know my errand by my 
 attire. 
 
 Am, The priestess of Venus told me to ask for water here. 
 
 Sc, But I'm of royal descent, and wont give you a drop unless 
 you beg me. We dug this well at our own risk and with our own 
 tools. You wont get a drop from me without a great deal of 
 coaxing. 
 
 Am. Why are you so stingy with your water, which even an 
 enemy gives an enemy? 
 
 Sc. And why are you so stingy with your love, which a citizen 
 gives a citizen ? 
 
 Am. Well, my darling, I'll do everything you wish. 
 
 Sc. Good! I'm all right now; she calls me her darling. I'll 
 give you water ; you sha'n't love me in vain ; give me your pitcher. 
 
 Am. Take it. Hasten, pray, and bring it back. 
 
 Sc. Wait ; I'll soon be back, my dear. (Exit Sceparnio.) 
 
 While Sceparnio is gone for the water— to Ampelisca's dis- 
 may, Labrax, the slave-dealer, appears on the shore. Am- 
 pelisca had thought he was happily drowned and out of the 
 way. She runs off, and Sceparnio coming back finds her 
 gone. He had been chuckling to himself over his luck in 
 
226 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 having a chance to flirt with Ampelisca. When he reappears 
 
 with the water, he is speaking aloud : 
 
 iSc. O, immortal gods ! I never believed there was so much 
 pleasure in drawing water; with how much delight I drew it. 
 The well never seemed so shallow ; why, I got it up without a 
 bit of trouble. Haven't I been a fool never to have fallen in 
 love before! Here's your water, my beauty. There, I want you 
 to carry it off with as much pleasure as I bring it ; so that you may 
 please me. But where are you, my dear? Take this water, if you 
 please. Where are you ? I believe she's in love with me ! She's 
 hiding. Where are you? Wont you take this pitcher? Where 
 are you ? {Gets more earnest.) You play nicely, but now really be 
 serious. Wont you take the pitcher ? {Begins to get angry.) Where 
 in the world are you? I don't see her anywhere; by Hercules, 
 she's making game of me ! {In a rage.) I'll put this pitcher right 
 down in the middle of the road. {Starts off but comes back slowly^ 
 reflecting.) But what if some one should carry off this sacred urn 
 of Venus ? It might get me into trouble. By Hercules, I fear lest 
 this woman has laid some plot that I may be caught with the 
 sacred urn of Venus in my possession. The officers would, very 
 justly, make me die in prison, if any one should see me have this. 
 {Examines it more closely.) For here's an inscription on it ; this 
 tells whose it is! Now, by Hercules, I'll call the priestess of 
 Venus out of doors to take the pitcher. {Goes up and knocks at the 
 temple.) Halloo ! Ptol-e-mo-cra'tia ! If you please, come and 
 take this pitcher. Some woman or other brought it to me. It must 
 be carried in. {Aside.) I have found work enough, if I'm to carry 
 water in to them. {Goes into the temple.) 
 
 One can hear the roars of Roman laughter with which this 
 scene would be greeted. The drollery is broad enough to 
 be appreciated by eveiybody, as the acting would bring the 
 points sharply out. 
 
 There is a scene now between Labrax, the slave-dealer, 
 and his friend Char^'mi-des. These worthies, having lost 
 everything, bemoan themselves and chide each other. La- 
 brax had had a wallet that contained all his valuables. This 
 is gone now, and the two pretty slave-girls are gone. Labrax 
 is wretched. Slave-dealer we have called this fellow, but he 
 in truth was slave-dealer of a particular sort, a sort especially 
 infamous even with the ancients. He was a procurer. 
 
PliAUTUS AND TEBENCE. 227 
 
 Scepamio, coming out of the temple, meets Labrax and 
 Charmides. There is some ra<;y talk between him and them, 
 in which Sceparnio vents his ill-humor amusingly at their ex- 
 pense. But he lets out the secret that Labrax's slave-girls are 
 in sanctuary within. 
 
 We have thus got through two acts of the comedy. The 
 third act introduces another set of characters. Plesidippus, 
 Palaestra's lover, a young Athenian, appears upon the scene — 
 first, however, by proxy, in the person of his confidential slave 
 Tra-cha^lio. Trachalio raises an uproarious hue and cry in 
 the street. Cyrenians all are adjured to render help. The in- 
 coherent alarum of his outcry engages the attention of Dse- 
 mones. Very diverting is the back and forth between these 
 two, while Daemones tries to learn from Trachalio what the 
 pother is all about. The upshot is that several slaves of 
 Dsemones rush into the temple to rescue the girls and to 
 thrash Labrax. The sound of this is heard outside. The 
 girls meantime issue from the temple and Trachalio seeks to 
 reassure them. There follows a long scene of brisk dialogue, 
 with Dsemones, Trachalio, and Labrax for interlocutors. It is 
 a triangular contest of menace, abuse, and braggadocio. The 
 frank brutality of it would no doubt be highly refreshing to 
 the groundlings of the ancient comic theater. The fiavor is 
 rich and strong. Of course, Labrax has, on the whole, the 
 worst of it. He gives up getting his slave property by force. 
 
 Plesidippus is now at hand in person. Labrax, in vain 
 imploring help, spurned as he is from every quarter, is 
 dragged off to be tried for fraud committed by him in taking 
 earnest-money trom Plesidippus for Palaestra, and then run- 
 ning off with her to sea. The lively dialogue through which 
 the foregoing result is reached, brings out contrasted character 
 admirably. Plautus is a true dramatist. 
 
 The fourth act hints the approaching denouement. Gripus, 
 fisherman, makes his appearance. Gripus has fished up La- 
 
228 CLASSIC 1.ATIN COURSE IN ENGIilSH. 
 
 brax's lost wallet with its valuable contents. This wallet will 
 turn out to contain the keepsake trinkets proving Palaestra the 
 long-lost daughter of Dsemones. Gripus is in the act of hiding 
 his treasure-trove, all the while purring aloud to himself over 
 his good luck, when Trachalio comes up. There is an amus- 
 ing confabulation between the two men, too long drawn out 
 for us to print here, but animated and very racy of character. 
 The result is that Trachalio, having caught sight of Gripus's 
 find, succeeds, by dint of threat and persistency, in getting 
 that fisherman to submit the question of ownership in the 
 wallet to Dsemones, as convenient arbiter. Gripus is well con- 
 tent to have it so — Dsemones, although the other does not 
 know this, being Gripus's indulgent master. The scene that 
 ensues, when the matter is referred to Dsemones, has in- 
 terest enough, both of dramatic dialogue and of dramatic 
 development, to be shown our readers. It will very well illus- 
 trate the lively bustle of movement that fills a comedy of 
 Plautus. The cruel relation of master and slave has a grateful 
 relief— probably true to many instances of real life — in the 
 representation of Gripus's freedom of manner with Dsemones. 
 The kindliness happily then as now inborn in some natures, 
 was not always quite spoiled by the evil influence of despotic 
 power, such as the master possessed over his slave. 
 
 Dsemones is just answering the appeal of the shipwrecked 
 girls, as the fourth scene of the fourth act opens. At the 
 self-same moment, the contestants, Gripus and Trachalio, 
 arrive. It is a duel between these two, which of them shaU. 
 get the ear of Dsemones. Now the text of the play, con- 
 densed : 
 
 Gr. Hail, master ! 
 
 DcB. Hail, what's going on ? 
 
 Tr, Is this fellow your slave ? 
 
 Chr. He's not ashamed of it. 
 
 Tr. I'm not talking to you. 
 
 Or, Then go away from here, I beg. 
 
PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 229 
 
 Tr. Pray, answer, old gentleman, is this your slave ? 
 Dee, He is. 
 
 Gr. Really, if you had any shame, you'd go away from here. 
 
 DcB. Gripus, pay attention, and be silent. 
 
 Gr, And he speak first ? 
 
 Dob, {To Gripus) Listen. {To Trachalio) You speak. 
 
 Gr. Will you let another's slave speak before your own ? 
 
 Tr, Pshaw ! how hard it is to check that fellow. As I began to 
 say, this one has the wallet of the slave-dealer whom you thrust 
 out of the temple of Venus a short time ago. 
 
 Gr. If I caught it in the sea with my net, how is it more 
 yours than mine? 
 
 Tr, Until the first speaker gets through, silence this fellow, 
 pray, if he 's yours. 
 
 Gr, What, you wish that inflicted on me which your master 
 is accustomed to administer to you ? If he 's used to checking you 
 that way, not so my master. 
 
 Dee, He 's got ahead of you in that speech. What do you want 
 now? Tell me. 
 
 Tr, There is in that wallet a little casket belonging to this 
 woman, who, I lately said, had been free. . . . Those trinkets, 
 which she had long ago as a child, are in the casket. That slave of 
 yours has no use for this, and it will afford help to that wretched 
 girl, if he will give her that by which she may find her parents. 
 
 DcB, I'll make him give it up ; be quiet. 
 
 Gr, By Hercules, I'm not going to give anything to him. 
 
 Tr. I demand nothing but the casket and the trinkets. 
 
 Gr, What, if these are golden ? 
 
 Tr, What is that to you ? Gold will be given for gold, silver for 
 silver. 
 
 Gr, Let me see the gold ; then I'll let you see the casket. 
 
 DcB. {To Gripus) Take care and hold your tongue. {To Tra- 
 chalio) You proceed as you began. 
 
 Tr. I ask of you one thing, that you pity this woman, if this 
 is the wallet of that slave- dealer, as I suspect. I do not affirm this 
 as a certainty, but I think it is. 
 
 Gr, Do you see how the villain is laying his snares ? 
 
 Tr. Permit me to speak, as I began. If this wallet belongs 
 to that rascal whom I have named, the articles can be identified ; 
 order him to show them to these girls. 
 
 Gr. What do you say ? To show them ? 
 
 Doe. He asks but what is just— that the wallet be shown. 
 
 Gr, Nay, by Hercules, it is flagrantly unjust. 
 
 Doe* Why, pray ? 
 
230 CliASSIO LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Or. Because, if I show it, straightway they will declare that 
 they recognize it. 
 
 Tr. Source of villainy, do you judge all men by yourself? 
 Fount of perjury ! 
 
 Qr. I can grin and bear your abuse, if only my master sides 
 with me. 
 
 Tr. But now he 's on the other side ; he will get the truth out 
 of the wallet. 
 
 Doe. {To Chripus) Gripus, pay attention. {To Trachalio) State 
 briefly what you want. 
 
 Tr. I have said truly ; but if you didn't understand I'll say 
 it again. Both of these girls, as I said a short time ago, ought to be 
 free. This maiden, when a child, was stolen from Athens. 
 
 Gr. May Jupiter and the gods destroy you I What are you say- 
 ing, hangman ? What, are those girls dumb, that they can't speak 
 for themselves? . . . {To Dcemones) Pray, am I to talk at all 
 to-day ? 
 
 Dee. If you say one word more, I'll break your head. 
 
 Tr. As I began to say, old gentleman, I beg you would order 
 this slave to return the casket to them. If he asks any reward for 
 this, it shall be given. Whatever else there is in it he can have for 
 himself. 
 
 Gr. Now, at length, you say that, since you see it is my right. 
 A while ago you claimed half. 
 
 Dee. Can't I check you without a beating ? 
 
 Gr. If he is silent, I will be silent ; if he speaks, let me speak in 
 my own behalf. 
 
 Dee. Give me now the wallet, Gripus. 
 
 Gfr. I will trust it to you, but on the condition that if none of 
 those things are in it, it shall be returned. 
 
 Dee. It shall be returned. 
 
 Gr. Take it. {He gives Deemones the wallet.) 
 
 Dee. Hear now, Palaestra and Ampelisca, what I say : Is this 
 the wallet in which he said your casket was? 
 
 Pa. I will easily make this thing clear to you. There must be 
 in this matter a wooden casket. I will call over the names of every 
 thing therein ; you will show nothing to me. If I shall speak 
 falsely, I shall speak to no purpose. Then you will have for your- 
 self whatever there is in it. But if I speak the truth, then I beg 
 you, that my property may be returned to me. 
 
 Dee. That pleases me. I think you speak fairly. 
 
 Gr. By Hercules, I think she speaks very unfairly. What, if 
 she is a sorceress or a witch, and shall mention truly the names of 
 all things therein ? Shall the witch have it ? 
 
PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 231 
 
 Doe, She'll not take it off, unless she speaks the truth. She'll 
 act the witch in vain. Open the wallet, then, that as soon as 
 possible I may know the truth. 
 
 Chr. He has it ; it is open. Ah, I am. lost ! I see the casket. 
 
 Dee. Is this it? {Dcemones takes out the casket.) 
 
 Pa. It is. O, my parents, here I hold you inclosed. Here I 
 have my hope and means of finding you stored away. 
 
 Gr. Then the gods should be angry with you, whoever you 
 are, for having boxed your parents up in such a narrow place. 
 
 Dee. Gripus, come here; your interests are at stake. You, 
 maiden, tell from where you are, what is within this, and of what 
 appearance it is ; mention everything. If, by Hercules, you shall 
 make a mistake, you'll not be able hereafter to rectify it ; you will 
 lose your labor in the attempt. 
 
 Gr. You ask simple justice. 
 
 Tr. {To Gripus) By Pollux, he doesn't ask it of you, for you 
 are unjust. 
 
 DcB. Speak, now, girl. Gripus, pay attention and be quiet. 
 
 Pa. There are trinkets in it. 
 
 Dee. Yes, I see them. 
 
 Gr, I am killed by the first shot ; hold on, don't show them. 
 
 Doe, Of what sort are they ? answer in order. 
 
 Pa, First, a little golden sword engraved with letters. 
 
 Doe, Tell me now what letters are on that sword. 
 
 Pa, The name of my father. Next was a small two-edged 
 battle-ax, likewise golden, and also engraved. On the little ax 
 was my mother's name. 
 
 Doe. Stay. Tell me, what is the name ofyour father on this sword. 
 
 Pa. Dsemones. 
 
 Doe. Immortal gods, where are my hopes ? 
 
 Chr, Nay, rather, by Pollux, where are mine? 
 
 Dee. Continue, I beg you, at once. 
 
 Gr, Softly, or go to perdition. 
 
 Doe. Speak, what is your mother's name on the little battle-ax? 
 
 Pa, Daedalis. 
 
 Doe. The gods desire my safety. 
 
 Gr, But my destruction. 
 
 Doe. This must be my daughter, Gripus. 
 
 Gr. She may be, for all I care. ( To Trachalio) May the gods 
 destroy you who saw me to-day, and myself, fool that I was, not to 
 look around a hundred times to take care that none saw me, before 
 I drew this from the water. 
 
 Pa. Then a little silver sickle and two little hands joined, and a 
 windlass. 
 
 Gr, Confound you with your pigs and swine. 
 
232 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Pa. And a golden bulla that my father gave me on my birthday. 
 
 DcB, It is she, truly. I cannot be restrained from embracing 
 her. Hail, my daughter ! I am your father ; I am Dsemones ; and 
 here within is your mother, Dsedalis. 
 
 Pa. Hail, my unlooked-for father ! 
 
 Dee. Hail ! with what pleasure I embrace you. 
 
 Tr, It is pleasant that your piety has met its reward. 
 
 Dee. Come, Trachalio, carry in the wallet. 
 
 Tr. See the knavery of Gripus ; since you've had bad luck, I 
 congratulate you, Gripus. 
 
 Doe. Come, my daughter, let us go to your mother. She can 
 more minutely examine the matter, for she took care of you, and 
 knows all about you. 
 
 Tr. Let us all go within, since we give joint assistance. 
 
 Pa. Follow me, Ampelisca. 
 
 Am. It is a pleasure to me that the gods befriend you. 
 
 The fifth act has little to do but to wind up the play, with 
 the happiest results accruing all around to the parties con- 
 cerned. Gripus learns that his master is minded to restore the 
 wallet to the slave-dealer. Here is a bit of the colloquy about 
 it between master and slave : 
 
 Gr. That's the reason you're poor, because you're too awfully 
 honest. 
 
 DcB. O, Gripus, Gripus ! shall I conceal what 's brought to me, 
 when I know it belongs to somebody else? Our Dsemones can't 
 do that sort of thing anyhow. It is proper for wise men always to 
 look out for this, not to be partners in guilt with their slaves. 
 I care nothing for money, except when I'm gaming. 
 
 Or. I've seen actors in just that very way get off wise saws and 
 be applauded, when they recommended these fine morals to the 
 people. But when afterwards everybody went home, no one acted 
 in the way they advised. 
 
 Dae. Go into the house ; don't be bothersome ; hold your tongue, 
 I'll not give you anything ; don't you be mistaken. 
 
 Gr. Then I pray the gods, that whatever there is in that wallet, 
 whether gold or silver, it may all go to the dogs. 
 
 This free-spoken slave had, for the purpose at least of that 
 petulant moment, a low opinion of the teaching power of 
 the drama. His petulance did not, perhaps, in this case lead 
 him widely astray. 
 
 Gripus is by no means at the end of his shifts to make some- 
 
PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 233 
 
 thing yet out of that wallet. He meets Labrax and drives 
 with him a sharp bargain, according to which, for a handsome 
 consideration in gold, he on his own part engages to get the 
 lost wallet restored to its owner ; Gripus will thus profit by his 
 master's declared purpose to make the restitution. He binds 
 Labrax by a tremendous oath to make the promised pay- 
 ment of money. Labrax, however, though he swore with his 
 lips, kept his mind unsworn. Having got back his wallet 
 and, in voluntary requital to Daemones, relinquished all claim 
 on Palaestra, he snaps his fingers at Gripus, refusing to pay 
 that party in interest any fraction of what he had promised. 
 Dsemones overhears the two bandying words in altercation, 
 and intervenes to get justice done. The way in which all 
 is accomplished afibrds good dramatic opportunity for enter- 
 taining dialogue and lively exhibition of character. Gripus is 
 kept in suspense, but even he says ** All right " at last : 
 
 DcB, Did you promise money to this slave ? 
 
 La, I confess, I did. 
 
 Dee. What you promised my slave ought to belong to me. 
 Slave-dealer, don't you think you can use a slave-dealer's faith 
 here ; you can't do it. 
 
 Or. Now do you think you have found a man whom you can 
 cheat ? Good money must be paid to me ; I'll give it over to this 
 one right ofif, that he may set me free. 
 
 Dee. Inasmuch, therefore, as I have been liberal to you, and 
 these things have been saved to you through my aid — 
 
 Or. Nay, by Hercules, through mine, don't you say yours ! 
 
 Doe. {Aside to Oripus) If you're sharp, you'll keep still. {To 
 Labrax) Then it is only fair for you to be liberal to me, well 
 deserving it. 
 
 La. Are you forsooth seeking my rights ? 
 
 Dee. It 's a wonder I don't seek from you your rights at your 
 own peril. 
 
 Or. I'm safe, the rascal 's wavering ; I foresee my freedom. 
 
 DcB. This one here found your wallet ; he is my slave. Further- 
 more, I have preserved this for you with a great sum of money. 
 
 La. 1 am grateful to you ; and as for that talent which I swore to 
 this fellow here, there 's no reason but that you should have it. 
 
 Or. Here you, give it to me, then, if you're wise. 
 
Z64: CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Dee. Will you keep still or not ? 
 
 Gr, You are just pretending to plead my suit. By Hercules, you 
 sha'n't cheat me out of this, if I did have to lose the rest of the find. 
 
 Dee. You shall have a beating if you add another word. 
 
 Or. By Hercules, you may kill me! I'll never be silenced in 
 any other way than by a talent. 
 
 La. {To Gripus) Indeed, he is aiding you, keep still. 
 
 Dee. Come this way, slave-dealer. 
 
 La. All right. 
 
 Or. Do this business openly now, I don't want any muttering 
 nor whispering. 
 
 D(B. Tell me, how much did you pay for that other little woman 
 of yours, Ampelisca? 
 
 La. A thousand didrachms. 
 
 DcB. Are you willing for me to make you a handsome offer ? 
 
 La. Certainly. 
 
 DcB. I'll divide a talent— 
 
 La. All right. 
 
 DcB. And you keep half for this other woman, that she may 
 be free, and give half to this boy here. 
 
 La. Very good. {Pays Dcemones a half talent.) 
 
 Dee. For that half I'll free Gripus, through whom you found 
 your waUet, and I my daughter. 
 
 La, You do well, I thank you much. 
 
 Gh". How soon, then, is the money going to be given to me ? 
 
 Dee. The affair is settled, Gripus, I've got the money. 
 
 Or. Yes, I know you've got it, but I want it, by Hercules I 
 
 Dee. Nothing of this goes to you, and don't expect it. I want 
 that you should give him a release from his oath. 
 
 Gh'. By Hercules, I'm done for! Unless I hang myself, I'm 
 lost. Never shall you cheat me again after this day. 
 
 Dee. Sup here to-day, slave- dealer. 
 
 La. All right ; I'm delighted with the invitation. 
 
 Dee. Follow me within. Spectators, I would invite you also 
 to supper, if I had anything to give, and there was enough at home 
 for a feast, and I did not believe you had been invited elsewhere to 
 supper. But if you are willing to give kind applause to this play, 
 then do you all come and banquet with me sixteen years hence. 
 You two shall sup here to-night. 
 
 Gr. All right. 
 
 All. Farewell, dear friends, now give applause. 
 And happy live by fate's fixed laws. 
 
 A very satisfactory upshot to the action of the comedy, we 
 are sure all readers will admit. 
 
PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 235 
 
 Of Terence very brief presentation must suffice. Let us 
 take for our specimen the play entitled " The Brothers." For 
 this play, we have the good fortune to possess a translation in 
 verse by George Colman the elder. Though now near a 
 hundred years old, it is free from archaic quality, and it 
 runs off with smoothness and ease. 
 
 The prologue is a signally honest piece of writing. The 
 frank-spokenness of it propitiates one. The author, who out- 
 right thus proclaims his own borrowing, is at least no sneak 
 of a plagiarist. It will be observed that Terence's prologue 
 differs from Plautus's in not explaining, as that did, the plot 
 of the play. The anonymous allusion to Scipio, as reported 
 collaborator with Terence in production of comedy, will not 
 escape the attention of the reader : 
 
 The bard, perceiving his piece caviU'd at 
 By partial critics, and his adversaries 
 Misrepresenting what we're now to play. 
 Pleads his own cause : and you shall be the judges, 
 Whether he merits praise or condemnation. 
 
 The Synapothnescontes is a piece 
 By Diphilus, a comedy which Plautus, 
 Having translated, call'd Commokientes. 
 In the beginning of the Grecian play 
 There is a youth, who rends a girl perforce 
 From a procurer : and this incident. 
 Untouched by Plautus, render' d word for word. 
 Has our bard interwoven with his Brothers — 
 The new piece which we represent to-day. 
 Say then if this be theft, or honest use 
 Of what remained unoccupied. For that 
 Which malice tells, that certain noble persons 
 Assist the bard, and write in concert with him ; 
 That which they deem a heavy slander, he 
 Esteems his greatest praise : that he can please 
 Those who please you, who all the people please ; 
 Those who in war, in peace, in council, ever 
 Have rendered you the dearest services, 
 And ever borne their faculties so meekly. 
 
 Expect not now the story of the play : 
 Part the old men, who first appear, will open ; 
 
236 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Part will in act be shown. Be favorable ; 
 And let your candor to the poet now 
 Increase his future earnestness to write ! 
 
 We give an explication of the plot, in the words of an " In- 
 troduction " prefixed to the play as printed for the use of 
 the students in the University of Michigan when these enter- 
 prising young men represented the piece in Latin : 
 
 ** Its name, * The Brothers,' is derived from the two pairs of 
 brothers with whose fortunes the play is chiefly concerned ; 
 Mi^ci-o, a town-bred, good-natured old bachelor ; De^'me-a, a 
 thrifty farmer and stern parent, and the two sons of the latter. 
 One of these, ^s^chi-nus, adopted by Micio, had been al- 
 lowed by his indulgent uncle to fall into all kinds of excesses ; 
 the other, Ctes^i-pho, brought up on the farm, was believed by 
 his rigorous father to be a pattern of all virtues, but had, in 
 fact, fallen in love with a music-girl in the city, ^schinus, 
 whose fondness for his brother is one of the happiest touches 
 in the play, in order to put the girl in Ctesipho's possession 
 and shield him from exposure, removes her by force from 
 the slave-merchant's house. It is at this point of time that 
 the play begins. Demea, who has just heard the story of 
 the abduction, meets Micio and lays upon him the blame of 
 JEschinus's misdeeds. At the same time Sostrata, hearing the 
 rumor, infers that he has deserted her daughter Pamphila, 
 whom he had promised to marry, and appeals to Hegio, an 
 old friend of the family, to see that ^schinus is brought to 
 a sense of his duty. Demea, on his way back to the farm, 
 learns from Hegio of ^schinus's relations with Pamphila, 
 and returning to find Micio, is sent on a fool's errand to 
 various parts of the city by the cunning slave Syrus. Upon 
 his return to the house of Micio he finds that the latter has 
 given his consent to the marriage of JEschinus with Pam- 
 phila, and also discovers, to his great astonishment, that 
 Ctesipho has outwitted him, and has been all the time at his 
 
PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 237 
 
 uncle's. In the fifth act Demea becoming convinced that his 
 brother is in the right, suddenly changes character, becomes 
 the most indulgent of fathers, and the comedy ends, as all com- 
 edies should, with the marriage of the parties most interested." 
 
 We shall not be able here to follow the course of the ac- 
 tion throughout. The play is pitched on a low key of mo- 
 rality. No doubt the fashion of its time is truly mirrored in 
 it. The spirit in which the Greek authors wrote is that of 
 easy-going, rather good-hearted. Epicureanism. The philos- 
 ophy of life recommended is * Make the best of things about 
 as they are ; do not worry yourself trying to improve them/ 
 Roman strictness was already in the way of sadly relaxing its 
 tone, when it could contentedly listen and see, while such 
 maxims of conduct were set forth. We shall no doubt best 
 serve our readers by presenting to them at once, with little 
 retrenchment, the fifth, the closing, act of the comedy. 
 
 Demea, the country churl, of the two brothers, is repre- 
 sented as becoming at last an out-and-out convert to the 
 smiling wisdom of Micio, the dweller in the city. The sud- 
 denness and the completeness of the conversion, but es- 
 pecially, too, the startlingly aggressive propagandist, or 
 missionary, phase which the conversion takes on, are an 
 essential element in the comic effect. Demea soliloquizes 
 and resolves to adopt his popular brother's universal com- 
 plaisance. Those who have grown used to only surliness 
 from Demea, are amazed at the change. A sentence of very 
 worldly wisdom from Micio seems to have done the business 
 for Demea. 'Demea,' says Micio, in effect, 'the boys will 
 come out right when they grow up. Spendthrift youth quite 
 naturally becomes miserly old age. That is the law.' 
 
 O my dear Demea, in all matters else 
 
 Increase of years increases wisdom in us ; 
 
 This only vice age brings along with it ; 
 
 * We're all more worldly-minded than there's need : * 
 
 Which passion age, that kills all passions else, 
 
238 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Will ripen in your sons, too. 
 
 Demea resists at the moment, but the words work in his 
 
 mind, as seems to show the following soliloquy, opening 
 
 the fifth act : 
 
 Never did man lay down so fair a plan. 
 
 So wise a rule of life, but fortune, age, 
 
 Or long experience, made some change in it ; 
 
 And taught him, that those things he thought he knew 
 
 He did not know, and what he held as best, 
 
 In practice he threw by. 
 
 Striving to make a fortune for my sons, 
 
 I have worn out my prime of life and health : 
 
 And now, my course near finished, what return 
 
 Do I receive for all my toil ? Their hate. 
 
 Meanwhile, my brother, without any care, 
 
 Reaps all a father's comforts. Him they love. 
 
 — Well, then, let me endeavor in my turn 
 
 To teach my tongue civility, to give 
 
 With open-handed generosity. 
 
 Since I am challeng'd to 't ! — and let me, too. 
 
 Obtain the love and reverence of my children ! 
 
 And if 'tis bought by bounty and indulgence, 
 
 I will not be behindhand. Cash will fail : 
 
 What 's that to me, who am the eldest bom ? 
 
 Demea has prompt opportunity to put his new scheme of 
 
 conduct into operation. Syrus, the sly slave, who has, with 
 
 his tricks, cost Demea so much bootless trouble, comes in, 
 
 bringing a message from Micio to his brother. Demea 
 
 swallows a great qualm of loathness and greets the knavish 
 
 fellow fair : 
 
 Demea. Who' s there ? 
 
 What, honest Syrus ! save you : how is 't with you ? 
 How goes it? 
 Syrus. Very well, sir. 
 
 De. {Aside) Excellent ! 
 
 Now for the first time I, against my nature. 
 Have added these three phrases, " Honest Syrus ! 
 How is 't? — How goes it ! " — {To Syrus) You have proved 
 
 yourself 
 A worthy servant. I'll reward you for it. 
 Sy. I thank you, sir. 
 
PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 239 
 
 De. I will, I promise you ; 
 
 And you shall be convinc'd on 't very soon. 
 
 Geta, another slave, not Demea's own (as also Syrus was 
 not), is the next surprised person. He has just respectfully 
 saluted Demea, when, Demea replying, the following passage 
 between them, spiced to spectators with asides from the 
 strangely modified man, occurs : 
 
 De. Geta, I this day have found you 
 
 To be a fellow of uncommon worth : 
 
 For sure that servant's faith is well approved 
 
 Who holds his master's interest at heart, 
 
 As I perceived that you did, Geta I Wherefore, 
 
 Soon as occasion offers I'll reward you. 
 
 {Aside) I am endeavoring to be affable, 
 
 And not without success. 
 Ge, 'Tis kind in you 
 
 To think of your poor slave, sir. 
 De. {Aside) First of all, 
 
 I court the mob, and win them by degrees. 
 
 ^schinus, the scrapegrace son of Demea — spoiled, as the 
 
 father thinks, through the indulgence of the uncle who has 
 
 brought him up — now takes his turn of being astonished at 
 
 Demea' s new humor, ^schinus is impatiently waiting to be 
 
 married : 
 
 ^schinus. They murder me with their delays ; and while 
 They lavish all this pomp upon the nuptials. 
 They waste the live-long day in preparation. 
 Demea. How does my son ? 
 
 JE. My father ! Are you here? 
 
 De. Ay, by affection, and by blood your father. 
 Who love you better than my eyes. But why 
 Do you not call the bride? 
 
 ^. ' Tis what I long for : 
 
 But wait the music and the singers. 
 
 De. Pshaw ! 
 
 Will you for once be rul'd by an old fellow ? 
 
 ^. Well? 
 
 De. Ne'er mind singers, company, lights, music ; 
 
 But tell them to throw down the garden wall, 
 As soon as possible. Convey the bride 
 That way, and lay both houses into one. 
 
240 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Bring, too, the mother, and whole family, 
 
 Over to us. 
 JE. I will. O charming father ! 
 
 De. {Aside) Charming ! See there ! he calls me charming now. 
 
 — My brother's house will be a thoroughfare ; 
 
 Throng' d with whole crowds of people ; much expense 
 
 Will follow ; very much ; what's that to me ? 
 
 I am called charming^ and get into favor. 
 
 Ho ! order Babylo immediately 
 
 To pay him twenty minae. Prithee, Syrus, 
 
 Why don't you execute your orders ? 
 Sy. What? 
 
 De. Down with the wall ! {Eidt Syrus)— Yovl, Geta, go and 
 bring 
 
 The ladies over. 
 Ge. Heaven bless you, Demea, 
 
 For all your friendship to our family ! {Exit Geta.) 
 De. They're worthy of it.— What say you to this? {to 
 
 JEschinus.) 
 JE. I think it admirable. 
 De. 'Tis much better 
 
 Than for a poor soul, sick and lying-in. 
 
 To be conducted through the street. 
 JE. I never 
 
 Saw anything concerted better, sir. 
 De. 'Tisjust my way.— But here comes Micio. 
 
 Perhaps the most wonder-stricken man of all, was Micio hear- 
 ing of Demea's extravagant proposal for the nuptials. Micio is 
 destined, however, to be still further impressed ; for Demea, in 
 the overflow of his vicarious universal benevolence, is even 
 going to make his bachelor brother marry the mother of ^sch- 
 inus's bride. The following scenes show this matrimonial 
 charity successfully enforced upon Micio's consent (the lady in 
 the case not being consulted at all), with a comic profusion of 
 other kindnesses scattered freely about, at the instance of the 
 whimsically altered Demea ; wherewithal — the audience, be 
 sure, sympathetically amused and delighted— the comedy ends : 
 
 Micio. {At entering) My brother order it, d'ye say? Where is 
 he? 
 —Was this your order, Demea ? 
 De. 'Twas my order ; 
 
 And by this means, and every other way, 
 
PtiAi;1?U^ AND ^EitiJNCE. 241 
 
 1 would unite, serve, cherish, and oblige, 
 
 And join the family to ours ! 
 ^. {ToMicio) Pray do, sir. 
 
 Mi. I don't oppose it. 
 De, Nay, but 'tis our duty. 
 
 First, there 's the mother of the bride — 
 Mi. What then? 
 
 De. Worthy and modest. 
 Mi. So they say. 
 
 De. In years. 
 
 Mi. True. 
 De. And so far advanced that she is long 
 
 Past child-bearing, a poor lone woman too, 
 
 With none to comfort her. 
 Mi. What means all this ? 
 
 De. This woman 'tis your place to marry, brother ; 
 
 And yours {to ^schinus) to bring him to 't. 
 Mi. I marry her ? 
 
 De. You. 
 Mi. I? 
 
 De, Yes, you, I say. 
 
 Mi. Ridiculous ! 
 
 De. {To ^schinus) If you're a man, he'll do 't. 
 JS. {ToMieio) Dear father! 
 
 Mi. How! 
 
 Do you then join him, fool ? 
 
 De. Nay, don't deny. 
 
 It can't be otherwise. 
 Mi. You've lost your senses ! 
 
 ^. Let me prevail upon you, sir ! 
 
 Mi. You're mad. 
 
 Away! 
 De. Oblige your son. 
 
 Mi. Have you your wits ? 
 
 I a new-married man at sixty-five ! 
 
 And marry a decrepid poor old woman ! 
 
 Is that what you advise me ? 
 uE. Do it, sir ! 
 
 I've promis'd them. 
 Mi. You've promised them, indeed I 
 
 Prithee, boy, promise for yourself. 
 De. Come, come ! 
 
 What if he asked still more of you ? 
 Mi. As if 
 
 This was not even the utmost. 
 De. Nay, comply I 
 
CiiASSIC iiATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 JE. Be not obdurate I 
 
 De. Come, come, promise him. 
 
 Jfi*. Won't you desist? 
 
 ^. No, not till I prevail. 
 
 Mi. This is mere force. 
 
 De. Nay, nay, comply, good Micio I 
 
 Mi. Though this appears to me absurd, wrong, foolish, 
 And quite repugnant to my scheme of life, 
 Yet, if you're so much bent on 't, let it be ! 
 
 ^. Obliging father, worthy my best love ! 
 
 De. (Aside) What now? This answers to my wish. What 
 more? 
 Hegio 's their kinsman, {to Micio) our relation, too, 
 And very poor. We should do him some service. 
 
 Mi. Do what? 
 
 De. There is a little piece of ground, 
 
 Which you let out near town. Let's give it him 
 To live upon. 
 
 Mi. So little, do you call it ? 
 
 De. Well, if 'tis large, let 's give it. He has been 
 Father to her ; a good man ; our relation. 
 It will be given worthily. In short. 
 That saying, Micio, I now make my own, 
 Which you so lately and so wisely quoted : 
 " It is the common failing of old men. 
 To be too much intent on worldly matters : " 
 Let us wipe off that stain. The saying 's true, 
 And should be practiced. 
 
 Mi. Well, well, be it so. 
 
 If he requires it. {Pointing to ^schinus.) 
 
 JE7. I beseech it, father. 
 
 De. Now you're indeed my brother, soul and body. 
 
 Mi. I'm glad to find you think me so. 
 
 De. {Aside) I foil him 
 
 At his own weapons. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 {To them Syrus.) 
 iSyncs, I have executed 
 
 Your orders, Demea. 
 De. A good fellow !— Truly, 
 
 Syrus, I think, should be made free to-day. 
 Mi. Made free! He ?— Wherefore ? 
 
 De, O, for many reasons. 
 
 /Sy. O Demea, you're a noble gentleman. 
 
PliAUTUS AND TERENCE. 248 
 
 I've taken care of both your sons from boys ; 
 
 Taught them, instructed them, and given them 
 
 The wholesomest advice that I was able. 
 De. The thing 's apparent: and these offices : 
 
 To cater ; — bring a wench in, safe and snug ; — 
 
 Or in midday prepare an entertainment ; — 
 
 All these are talents of no common man. 
 Sy. O, most delightful gentleman ! 
 De. Besides, 
 
 He has been instrumental, too, this day, 
 
 In purchasing the music-girl. He manag'd 
 
 The whole affair. We should reward him for it. 
 
 It will encourage others. — In a word, 
 
 Your -lEschinus would have it so. 
 Mi, Do you 
 
 Desire it ? 
 ^, Yes, sir. 
 
 Mi. "Well, if you desire it — 
 
 Come hither, Syrus ! — Be thou free ! 
 (Syrus kneels: Micio strikes him^ being the ceremony of manu- 
 mission^ or giving a slave his freedom.) 
 
 Sy. I thank you : 
 
 Thanks to you all ; but most of all, to Demea ! 
 De. I'm glad of your good fortune. 
 ^. So am I. 
 
 iSy. I do believe it ; and I wish this joy 
 
 Were quite complete, and I might see my wife, 
 
 My Phrygia, too, made free, as well as I. 
 De. The very best of women ! 
 Sy. And the first 
 
 That suckled my young master's son, your grandson. 
 De. Indeed ! the first who suckled him ! — Nay, then, 
 
 Beyond all doubt she should be free. 
 Mi. For what? 
 
 De. For that. Nay, take the sum, whate'er it be, 
 
 Of me. 
 Sy. Now all the powers above grant all 
 
 Your wishes, Demea. 
 Mi. You have thriv'd to-day 
 
 Most rarely, Syrus. 
 De. And besides this, Micio, 
 
 It would be handsome to advance him something, 
 
 To try his fortune with. He'll soon return it. 
 Mi. Not that. {Snapping his fingers.) 
 
 ^, He 's honest. 
 
244 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Sy, Faith, I will return it. 
 
 Do but advance it. 
 
 ^. Do, sir. 
 
 Mi. Well, I'll think on 't. 
 
 De, {To /Syrus.) I'll see that he shall do 't. 
 
 Sy, Thou best of men ! 
 
 ^. My most indulgent father ! 
 
 Mi, What means this ? 
 
 Whence comes this hasty change of manners, brother ? 
 Whence flows all this extravagance ? and whence 
 This sudden prodigality ? 
 
 De. I'll tell you : 
 
 To show you that the reason why our sons 
 Think you so pleasant and agreeable. 
 Is not from your deserts, or truth, or justice, 
 But your compliance, bounty, and indulgence. 
 — Now, therefore, if I'm odious to you, son. 
 Because I'm not subservient to your humor, 
 In all things, right or wrong : away with care ! 
 Spend, squander, and do what you will — ^but if. 
 In those affairs where youth has made you blind. 
 Eager, and thoughtless, you will suffer me 
 To counsel and correct — and in due season 
 Indulge you — I am at your service. 
 
 ^, Father, 
 
 In all things we submit ourselves to you. 
 What 's fit and proper, you know best. — But what 
 Shall come of my poor brother ! 
 
 De. I consent 
 
 That he shall have her : let him finish there. 
 
 ^. All now is as it should be. {To the audience) Clap your 
 hands. 
 
 In this play of Terence's a considerable advance from Plautus 
 toward the modern type of comedy will readily be found. 
 
 The glimpses that, through Roman adaptations, we catch of 
 the New Comedy of Athens, make us feel how much we lost 
 in losing the originals. As it is, modern comedy, best, no 
 doubt, in the French language, has been not a little indebted 
 to inspiration and example derived, through Plautus and 
 Terence, from Menander and his peers. Ancient Greece 
 reaches long hands in many directions, to mold for us the 
 forms, and to dictate to us the spirit, of our literature and art. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 liUCRETIUS. 
 
 An Epicurean, but an Epicurean very different in motive 
 and in tone from merry-making Terence, was the grave, 
 earnest, intent poet Lu-cre-'tius. Dramatist, and scarce poet 
 at all, though, he wrote in verse, was Terence. Philosopher 
 principally (or expounder of philosophy), but true poet, too — 
 incidentally and as it were involuntarily — ^was Lucretius. 
 The Lucretian philosophy — science call it rather, or attempted 
 science — has perished utterly ; the Lucretian poetry survives, 
 to perish never. Such sport are we mortals of a power not 
 ourselves, a power greater than we ! What Lucretius mainly 
 meant, has come to naught. What he at times hardly seems 
 to have meant at all, is his chief title to living human praise. 
 A great poet he was, wrecked in seeking to be a great ex- 
 pounder of philosophy — ^a great poet, let us shortly say, who 
 did not write a great poem. 
 
 Titus Lucretius Carus was a contemporary of Caesar and 
 of Cicero. But, except this bare fact of date, we know almost 
 nothing of the man. He scarcely belonged to the age in 
 which he lived. His sympathies were all with an earlier 
 time. He felt the existing political order crumbling about 
 him ; but, though of knightly blood, he took no part in 
 shaping the new political order that should succeed. Roman 
 in character, he seems somehow not to have been Roman in 
 aim and scheme of life. He made philosophy — that is, sci- 
 ence—his chief motive. This was not Roman. The Roman 
 course would have been to choose politics for the chief thing, 
 
 245 
 
246 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 and let philosophy take its chance as a thing incidental. 
 
 But nobody can separate himself completely from his times. 
 And Lucretius, though insular, was yet in the sea. The sea 
 around Lucretius was irreligion, skepticism, atheism. Olym- 
 pianism was, indeed, still a ritual ; but it was no longer a 
 creed. The prevailing unbelief involved Lucretius. Nay, 
 unbelief is not the word to describe the state of this man's 
 mind. He was not an unbeliever, he was a disbeliever. He 
 was a vehement disbeliever. What in others was an apathy, 
 in him was a passion. He disbelieved in the gods so in- 
 tensely, that he almost rehabilitated the gods, that he might 
 hate them the better. 
 
 The title of Lucretius' s poem is De Rerum Natura, Con- 
 cerning the Nature of Tilings. The scheme of the poem is 
 as large as the vagueness of the title would seem to imply. 
 The poet, as just said, attempts nothing less than to explain 
 the universe. His motive ostensibly is didactic, not poetic. 
 He will establish atheism upon an impregnable basis of 
 strict science. His subject is not for the sake of a poem. 
 His poem is severely for the sake of his subject ; as, finally, 
 his subject itself is for the sake of his object. 
 
 It is constantly to be understood that, like his Roman 
 literary brethren all, Lucretius was a copious borrower from 
 the Greek. He does not pretend to be the inventor of the 
 cosmical system that he expounds. He derives all from Epi- 
 curus, and he attributes all to Epicurus. For our knowledge 
 in detail of what Epicurus taught, we are largely indebted 
 to Lucretius. The great master's own works, multifarious 
 as these were, have nearly all perished. 
 
 Lucretius begins his poem rather curiously, for an atheist. 
 He begins it with an ostensibly dutiful invocation of Venus. 
 We are, of course, to suppose that he meant his Venus to 
 be simply a poetical personification of the principle of fecun- 
 dity and grace. This invocation is one of the most celebrated 
 
LUCRETIUS. 247 
 
 passages in Latin poetry. Mr. Lowell speaks, strongly, thus 
 of it: 
 
 "The invocation of Venus, as the genetic force of nature, 
 by Lucretius, seems to me the one sunburst of purely poetic 
 inspiration which the Latin language can show." 
 
 So famous a passage must be shown our readers. Here it 
 is, first in the consummately fine prose version of Mr. Munro, 
 acknowledged the best English translator of Lucretius : 
 
 Mother of the Aeneadae, darling of men and gods, increase- 
 giving Venus, who beneath the gliding signs of heaven fillest 
 with thy presence the ship-carrying sea, the com- bearing lands, 
 since through thee every kind of living things is conceived, 
 rises up and beholds the light of the sun. Before thee, goddess, 
 flee the winds, the clouds of heaven, before thee and thy advent ; 
 for thee earth manifold in works puts forth sweet-smelling flowers ; 
 for thee the levels of the sea do laugh and heaven propitiated shines 
 with outspread light. For soon as the vernal aspect of day is dis- 
 closed, and the birth-favoring breeze of favonius unbarred is blow- 
 ing fresh, first the fowls of the air, o lady, show signs of thee 
 and thy entering in, throughly smitten in heart by thy power. 
 Next the wild herds bound over the glad pastures and swim 
 the rapid rivers : in such wise each made prisoner by thy charm 
 follows thee with desire, whither thou goest to lead it on. Yes 
 throughout seas and mountains and sweeping rivers and leafy 
 homes of birds and grassy plains, striking fond love into the 
 breasts of all thou constrainest them each after its kind to continue 
 their races with desire. Since thou then art sole mistress of the 
 nature of things, and without thee nothing rises up into the divine 
 borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or lovely, I would have 
 thee for a helpmate in writing the verses which I essay to pen 
 on the nature of things for our own son of the Memmii, whom 
 thou, goddess, hast willed to have no peer, rich as he ever is in 
 every grace. Wherefore all the more, o lady, lend my lays an 
 overliving charm. Cause meanwhile the savage works of war to 
 be lulled to rest throughout all seas and lands ; for thou alone canst 
 bless mankind with calm peace, seeing that Mavors lord of battle 
 controls the savage works of war, Mavors who often flings himself 
 into thy lap quite vanquished by the never-healing wound of 
 love. . . . While, then, lady, he is reposing . . . shed thy- 
 self about him and above, and pour from thy lips sweet discourse, 
 asking, glorious dame, gentle peace for the Romans. For neither 
 can we in our country's day of trouble with untroubled mind 
 
248 CLASSIC LATIN COtJRSE iN fiNGLiSH. 
 
 think only of our work, nor can the illustrious oflfeet of Memmius 
 in times like these be wanting to the general weal. 
 
 In printing the preceding extract, we have followed exactly 
 the somewhat peculiar typography adopted by Mr. Munro for 
 his translation of Lucretius. 
 
 The rest of our citations we shall take where we can from 
 Mr. W. H. Mallock's metrical rendering. 
 
 The following is the fashion in which Lucretius at the same 
 time acknowledges his discipleship to Epicurus, and vents his 
 hatred of religion, as religion was understood by the Romans : 
 
 When human life, a shame to human eyes, 
 
 Lay sprawling in the mire in foul estate, 
 A cowering thing without the strength to rise, 
 
 Held down by fell religion's heavy weight — 
 Religion scowling downward from the skies, 
 
 With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate — 
 First did a man of Greece presume to raise 
 His brows, and give the monster gaze for gaze. 
 
 Him not the tales of all the gods in heaven. 
 Nor the heaven's lightnings, nor the menacing roar 
 
 Of thunder daunted. He was only driven, 
 By these vain vauntings, to desire the more 
 
 To burst through Nature's gates, and rive the unriven 
 Bars. And he gained the day ; and, conqueror, 
 
 His spirit broke beyond our world, and past 
 
 Its flaming walls, and fathomed all the vast. 
 
 And back returning, crowned with victory, he 
 Divulged of things the hidden mysteries. 
 
 Laying quite bare what can and cannot be. 
 How to each force is set strong boundaries. 
 
 How no power raves unchained, and nought is free. 
 So the times change ; and now religion lies 
 
 Trampled by us ; and unto us 'tis given 
 
 Fearless with level gaze to scan the heaven. 
 
 Lucretius lays it down as his great first principle, that 
 "no object is ever divinely produced out of nothing." This 
 might seem only to mean that there must have been matter, 
 prior to any creative act of a divine being. But Lucretius 
 
LUCRETIUS. 249 
 
 means more than that. For he speaks presently of being able 
 also to show **the manner in which all things are done 
 without the hand of the gods." "The hand of the gods" 
 being thus out of the question, the universe, since it now 
 exists, must always have existed. Always, but not always in 
 its present state. There was a first state diflTerent from the 
 present. That first state consisted of particles, particles 
 moving, particles moving in a vacuum. Such was the uni- 
 verse in the beginning. Imagine a universal snow-storm. 
 The spectacle of those falling flakes of snow will very well 
 represent the spectacle of the universe in its Lucretian pri- 
 mordial condition. How the infinitesimal ultimate atoms, 
 supposed by Lucretius, came first to exist, he does not ex- 
 plain ; as no more does he explain how those atoms came to 
 be in motion. That such, however, was the primal state 
 of things, he is quite sure. And he makes nothing of telling 
 how, from the chaos of atoms moving in void, the present 
 cosmos sprang into being. It is simply on this wise : One 
 moving atom had some slight, very slight, deflection — whence 
 received, does not appear — from its straight course, and so, im- 
 pinging on a fellow atom, adhered thereto — why adhered, is 
 left unsaid — or else, bounding ofl" repelled, attached itself to its 
 neighbor on the other side. Thus at length by chance the 
 infinite multitude of individual atoms arranged themselves 
 into the existing order of the universe. " A fortuitous con- 
 course of atoms," and no god, did the whole business for 
 Lucretius then ; as the great principle of " evolution," and no 
 God, does the whole business now — for some. And of these 
 two attempts to solve the problem of the universe, one perhaps 
 is as truly philosophical as the other. 
 
 That characteristically Roman sentiment, desire of deathless 
 literary fame, is acknowledged by Lucretius, in the following 
 strain of genuine, nay, of exquisite, poetry. The poet has been 
 avowing his sense of the difficulty of his subject ; "yet," he says : 
 
250 CliASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Yet my heart, smarting with desire for praise, 
 
 Me urges on to sing of themes like these, 
 And that great longing to pour forth my lays 
 
 Constrains me, and the loved Pierides, 
 Whose pathless mountain-haunts I now explore, 
 And glades where no man's foot has fallen before. 
 
 Ah sweet, ah sweet, to approach the untainted springs, 
 And quaff the virgin waters cool and clear. 
 
 And cull the flowers that have been unknown things 
 To all men heretofore I and yet more dear 
 
 When mine shall be the adventurous hand that brings 
 A crown for mine own brows, from places where 
 
 The Muse has deigned to grant a crown for none. 
 
 Save for my favored brows, and mine alone. 
 
 Such a passage as that, presenting the writer in the char- 
 acter of conscious and confessed poetical aspirant — " garland 
 and singing robes about him" — almost makes one give up 
 holding that Lucretius was in aim and ambition pre- 
 eminently philosopher. That passage at least reads quite 
 like the authentic outburst of a distinctively and predomi- 
 nantly poetic aspiration pent up in the breast of the man. 
 
 Toward the end of book first, Lucretius reaches, in a kind 
 of resumption of his argument, the following statement of his 
 theory of atoms and void : 
 
 For blindly, blindly, and without design. 
 Did these first atoms their first meetings try ; 
 
 No ordering thought was there, no will divine 
 To guide them ; but through infinite time gone by 
 
 Tossed and tormented they essayed to join. 
 And clashed through the void space tempestuously. 
 
 Until at last that certain whirl began, 
 
 Which slowly formed the earth and heaven and man. 
 
 The second book opens with a celebrated passage : 
 
 'Tis sweet when tempests roar upon the sea 
 To watch from land another's deep distress 
 
 Amongst the waves — his toil and misery : 
 Not that his sorrow makes our happiness. 
 
 But that some sweetness there must ever be 
 Watching what sorrows we do not possess : 
 
LUCRETIUS. 251 
 
 So, too, 'tis sweet to safely view from far 
 Gleam o'er the plains the savage ways of war. 
 
 But sweeter far to look with purged eyes 
 Down from the battlements and topmost towers 
 
 Of learning, those high bastions of the wise, 
 And far below us see this world of ours, 
 
 The vain crowds wandering blindly, led by lies, 
 Spending in pride and wrangling all their powers. 
 
 So far below— the pigmy toil and strife, 
 
 The pain and piteous rivalries of life. 
 
 O peoples miserable ! O fools and blind ! 
 
 What night you cast o'er all the days of man ! 
 And in that night before you and behind 
 
 What perils prowl ! But you nor will nor can 
 See that the treasure of a tranquil mind 
 
 Is all that Nature pleads for, for this span. 
 So that between our birth and grave we gain 
 Some quiet pleasures, and a pause from pain. 
 
 In the following stanza, removed from those just quoted by 
 only a short interval, a genuine feeling for the beauty of 
 nature will be recognized, feeling such as was not common 
 in the literary world before Lucretius — in fact, a modern- 
 seeming sentiment, a quality almost Wordsworthian : 
 
 The grass is ours, and sweeter sounds than these, 
 As down we couch us by the babbling spring, 
 
 And overhead we hear the branching trees 
 That shade us, whisper ; and for food we bring 
 
 Only the country's simple luxuries. 
 Ah, sweet is this, and sweetest in the spring. 
 
 When the sun goes through all the balmy hours, 
 
 And all the green earth's lap is filled with flowers ! 
 
 The love of nature thus exemplified from Lucretius may be 
 said to constitute in him almost a characteristic trait. Virgil 
 might conceivably have written his descriptions from pictures 
 of what he describes. Lucretius could not have written his 
 descriptions otherwise than directly from nature herself. Not 
 sentiment, however, and not fancy, not indeed poetry in any 
 form, but scientific discussions and explanations compose the 
 main tissue of Lucretius's work. 
 
252 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGIjISH. 
 
 Our poet-philosopher applies his atomic theory to explain 
 the origin and reason of different tastes to the palate. The 
 different tastes are due to the different shapes of the atoms 
 of which the sapid substances consist. Lucretius (according 
 to Mr. Munro) : 
 
 The liquids honey and milk excite a pleasant sensation of tongue 
 when held in the mouth ; but, on the other hand, the nauseous na- 
 ture of wormwood and of harsh centaury writhes the mouth with 
 a noisome flavor ; so that you may easily see that the things which 
 are able to affect the senses pleasantly, consist of smooth and round 
 elements ; while all those, on the other hand, which are found to be 
 bitter and harsh, are held in connexion by particles that are more 
 hooked and for this reason are wont to tear open passages into our 
 senses, and in entering in to break through the body. 
 
 Lucretius blithely undertakes to tell a great secret of the 
 universe. ** Let us now sing," he says — we make a long skip 
 forward to the fifth book, to find this extract — " Let us now 
 sing what causes the motions of the stars : " 
 
 In the first place, if the great sphere of heaven revolves, we must 
 say that an air presses on the pole at each end and confines it 
 on the outside and closes it in at both ends ; and then that a third 
 air streams above and moves in the same direction in which roll on 
 as they shine the stars of the eternal world ; or else that this third 
 air streams below in order to carry up the sphere in the contrary 
 direction ; just as we see rivers turn wheels and water-scoops. It 
 is likewise quite possible too that all the heaven remains at rest, 
 while at the same time the glittering signs are carried on ; either 
 because rapid heats of ether are shut in and whirl round while 
 seeking a way out and roll their fires in all directions through 
 heaven's vast quarters; or else an air streaming from some part 
 from another source outside drives and whirls the fires ; or else 
 they may glide on of themselves going whithersoever the food 
 of each calls and invites them, feeding their flamy bodies every- 
 where throughout heaven. For which of these causes is in opera- 
 tion in this world, it is not easy to aflfirm for certain ; but what can 
 be and is done throughout the universe in various worlds formed 
 on various plans, this I teach, and I go on to set forth several 
 causes which may exist throughout the universe for the motions of 
 stars ; one of which however must in this world also be the cause 
 that imparts lively motion to the signs ; but to dictate which of them 
 it is, is by no means the duty of the man who advances step by step. 
 
LUCRETIUS. 5253 
 
 Memmius, that friend of the poet to whom the poem is 
 inscribed and addressed, must have felt embarrassingly free 
 to choose, among so many proffered alternatives of explana- 
 tion — all about equally good. If he was of a poetical turn, as 
 there is grave reason to fear he was not, he probably pre- 
 ferred — we do, we confess — among the various conjectures 
 proposed by Lucretius, the pleasing bucolic view of the case, 
 the idea, namely, that the stars are at large in a kind of 
 celestial pasture, that they "glide on of themselves, going 
 whithersoever the food of each calls and invites them, 
 feeding their flamy bodies everywhere throughout heaven." 
 
 The intrepid poet does not shrink from attacking, in the 
 sixth book, the problem of thunder and lightning. He pro- 
 ceeds on an easier plan than that adopted so long after by 
 Franklin. Instead of going out in a thunder-storm, to try, 
 as Franklin did, a dangerous experiment with the clouds, 
 Lucretius retires into the safe recesses of his own mind and 
 evolves his explanation on a priori principles. If the facts of 
 nature chanced not to correspond with the theory, why, so 
 much the worse for the facts. In the case, however, of Lu- 
 cretius, the poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, must have seen 
 things in the sky that perhaps escaped the ken of the more 
 practical American philosopher. Otherwise, how could the 
 poet have described, with such power as is displayed in the 
 passage we are about to quote ? (It is uniformly the incom- 
 parable prose translation of Munro, whenever the form is 
 prose in which we present Lucretius.) One imagines Mem- 
 mius "burning with high hope" of true enlightenment at 
 last, as he reads the fair and fine promise of explanation, and 
 no mistake this time, with which his poet-friend committed 
 himself in the prefatory words now following : 
 
 And now in what way these [thunderbolts] are begotten and are 
 formed with a force so resistless as to be able with their stroke 
 to burst asunder towers, throw down houses, wrench away beams 
 
254 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 and rafters, and cast down and burn up the monuments of men, to 
 strike men dead, prostrate cattle far and near, by what force 
 they can do all this and the like, I will make clear and will 
 not longer detain you with mere professions. 
 
 Thunderbolts we must suppose to be begotten out of dense clouds 
 piled up high ; for they are never sent forth at all when the sky 
 is clear or when the clouds are of a slight density. . . . 
 
 I have shown above [in a passage not here reproduced] that 
 hollow clouds have very many seeds of heat, and they must also 
 take many in from the sun's rays and their heat. On this account 
 when the same wind which happens to collect them into any 
 one place, has forced out many seeds of heat and has mixed itself 
 up with that fire, then the eddy of wind forces a way in and whirls 
 about in the straitened room and points the thunderbolt in the 
 fiery furnaces within ; for it is kindled in two ways at once ; it 
 is heated by its own velocity and from the contact of fire. After 
 that, when the force of the wind has been thoroughly heated and the 
 impetuous power of the fire has entered in, then the thunderbolt 
 fully forged, as it were, suddenly rends the cloud, and their heat 
 put in motion is carried on traversing all places with flashing 
 lights. Close upon it follows so heavy a clap that it seems to crush 
 down from above the quarters of heaven which have all at once 
 sprung asunder. Then a trembling violently seizes the earth and 
 rumblings run through high heaven ; for the whole body of the 
 storm then without exception quakes with the shock and loud roar- 
 ings are aroused. After this shock follows so heavy and copious a 
 rain that the whole ether seems to be turning into rain and then to 
 be tumbling down and returning to a deluge ; so great a flood of it 
 is discharged by the bursting of the cloud and the storm of wind, 
 when the sound flies forth from the burning stroke. At times too 
 the force of the wind aroused from without falls on a cloud hot 
 with a fully forged thunderbolt ; and when it has burst it, forth- 
 with there falls down yon fiery eddying whirl which in our native 
 speech we call a thunderbolt. . . . 
 
 The velocity of thunderbolts is great and their stroke powerful, 
 and they run through their course with a rapid descent, because 
 their force when aroused first in all cases collects itself in the clouds 
 and gathers itself up for a great effort at starting ; then when the 
 cloud is no longer able to hold the increased moving power, their 
 force is pressed out and therefore flies with a marvellous moving 
 power, like to that with which missiles are carried when discharged 
 from powerful engines. Then too the thunderbolt consists of small 
 and smooth elements, and such a nature it is not easy for anything 
 to withstand ; for it flies between and passes in through the porous 
 ; therefore it is not checked and delayed by many col- 
 
IjUCREtius. 256 
 
 lisions, and for this reason it glides and flies on with a swift 
 moving power. . . . 
 
 It passes too through things without injuring them, and leaves 
 many things quite whole after it has gone through, because the 
 clear bright fire flies through by the pores. And it breaks to pieces 
 many things, when the first bodies of the thunderbolt have fallen 
 exactly on the first bodies of these things, at the points where they 
 are intertwined and held together. Again it easily melts brass and 
 fuses gold in an instant, because its force is formed of bodies 
 minutely small and of smooth elements, which easily make their 
 way in and when they are in, in a moment break up all the 
 knots and untie the bonds of union. 
 
 Lucretius certainly had a genius for description more mag- 
 nificent than Virgil could boast — ^more magnificent, perhaps, 
 than any other ancient poet whatever. It must, we think, be 
 evident to every reader, that the poet tends often to get the 
 better of the philosopher, with Lucretius. The complacency, 
 however, with which Lucretius regarded his treatment of the 
 present matter considered as pure science, is unmistakable : 
 
 This is the way to see into the true nature of the thunderbolt and 
 to understand by what force it produces each effect. 
 
 Through a page or so following, Lucretius laughs merci- 
 lessly at the idea of Jupiter's being launcher of thunderbolts — 
 Jupiter, and his fellow-Olympians. '* Why aim they at soli- 
 tary places," he asks, '* and spend their labor in vain ? Or are 
 they then practicing their arms and strengthening their 
 sinews?" It reads not unlike Elijah chaffing the prophets 
 of Baal. We wish we had room to give here the raking 
 and riddling fire of sarcastic interrogation with which, at 
 his leisure, Lucretius pursues and persecutes his afflicted 
 theme. He triumphs and glories in jubilant atheism — ^more 
 exactly, in rioting anti-Olympianism. It is to "the gods," 
 rather than to God, that Lucretius opposes himself so fiercely. 
 
 Atheist though he was, the gods whom he denied were 
 the gods of Olympus. He hated religion ; but the religion 
 that he hated was the hateful religion of Greece and of Rome. 
 
256 CLASSIC LATIN COUBSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Who can say how Lucretius might have borne himself toward 
 the unknown God, had there, in his time, been the apostle 
 Paul to declare to him that God; how Lucretius might 
 have borne himself toward Christianity, could he have met, 
 in Christianity, a system of doctrine not less intensely, — ^and 
 so much more effectively ! — hostile to Olympianism than 
 was the Lucre tian philosophy itself? 
 
 It is needless to say that Lucretius was a thorough-paced 
 materialist. Death with him ended all. Powerful, and 
 drearily powerful, not untouched with pathos, is the strain 
 in which he announces and reasons this dreadful creed — as 
 will amply show the following stanzas of translation by 
 Mr. Mallock : 
 
 Death is for us then but a noise and name, 
 Since the mind dies, and hurts us not a jot ; 
 
 And as in bygone times when Carthage came 
 To battle, we and ours were troubled not, 
 
 Nor heeded though the whole earth's shuddering frame 
 Reeled with the stamp of armies, and the lot 
 
 Of things was doubtful, to which lords should fall 
 
 The land and seas and all the rule of all ; 
 
 So, too, when we and ours shall be no more, 
 And there has come the eternal separation 
 
 Of flesh and spirit, which, conjoined before. 
 Made us ourselves, there will be no sensation ; 
 
 We should not hear were all the world at war ; 
 Nor shall we, in its last dilapidation. 
 
 When the heavens fall, and earth's foundations flee : 
 
 We shall nor feel, nor hear, nor know, nor see. 
 
 That indestructible instinct in man, by virtue of which he 
 divinely "doubts against the sense," and, in spite of appear- 
 ance, still dreams of "soul surviving breath," Lucretius 
 recognizes, and deals with, as follows : 
 
 Perplexed he argues, from the fallacy 
 
 Of that surviving self not wholly freed. 
 Hence he bewails his bitter doom — to die ; 
 
 Nor does he see that when he dies indeed. 
 No second he will still remain to cry, 
 
LUCRETIUS. 257 
 
 Watching its own cold body burn or bleed. 
 O fool ! to fear the wild-beast's ravening claw,. 
 Or that torn burial of its mouth and maw. 
 
 For lo ! if this be fearful, let me learn 
 Is it more fearful than if friends should place 
 
 Thy decent limbs upon the pyre and burn 
 Sweet frankincense? or smother up thy face 
 
 With honey in the balm-containing urn ? 
 Or if you merely lay beneath the rays 
 
 Of heaven on some cold rock ? or damp and cold 
 
 If on thine eyelids lay a load of mold ? 
 
 * Thou not again shalt see thy dear home's door, 
 
 Nor thy dear wife and children come to throw 
 Their arms round thee, and ask for kisses more, 
 
 And through thy heart make quiet comfort go : 
 Out of thy hands hath slipped the precious store 
 
 Thou hoardedst for thine own,' men say, * and lo, 
 All thou desired is gone ! ' but never say, 
 
 * All the desire as well hath passed away.* 
 
 Ah, could they only see this, and could borrow 
 True words, to tell what things in death abide thee ! 
 
 * Thou shalt lie soothed in sleep that knows no morrow. 
 
 Nor ever cark nor care again betide thee : 
 Friend, thou wilt say thy long good-bye to sorrow. 
 
 And ours will be the pangs, who weep beside thee. 
 And watch thy dear familiar body burn. 
 And leave us but the ashes and the urn.* 
 
 With emphasis, in dismissing the subject of this chapter, we 
 call attention to the remarkable poem, entitled " Lucretius," 
 of Tennyson. For the full understanding of that poem, 
 one needs to remember the tradition transmitted by St. 
 Jerome, the Latin Christian father (the sole tradition extant 
 concerning Lucretius's end), to the effect that his wife, jealous 
 of him, for whatever reason — perhaps only because he made 
 himself too much the bridegroom of his vocation as philos- 
 opher and poet — resorted to a professor of magic arts and 
 procured a potion supposed of power to win for herself her 
 husband's love. This love-philter, administered without the 
 poet's knowledge, worked a madness in his brain, under 
 
258 CliASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGMSH. 
 
 the influence of which, in the prime of manhood, at forty- 
 seven years of age, he committed suicide. 
 
 Lucretius and Tennyson seem almost to be brethren in 
 genius and temperament. Tennyson is perhaps the one 
 English mind of our day who could, by exchange of time and 
 place, conceivably have mingled poetry and philosophy, in 
 a production hke the De Berum Natura of Lucretius. 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Horace is not one of the great poets of the world. But 
 he is, emphatically, one of the best known. He does not 
 overawe us with a vastness in his genius. But he satisfies us 
 with far-sought perfection in his workmanship. If Homer, 
 if Virgil, if Dante, if Milton, are each like a great statue, like 
 a Phidian Jove — Horace is like an exquisite cameo, dehghting 
 us, not with mass, but with fineness, not with majesty, but 
 with grace. His lines are not large, but they are clean and 
 clear. You may use the microscope and discover no flaw. 
 One must not look for the great thought that "strikes along 
 the brain and flushes all the cheek." To this height Horace 
 does not aspire. One must not even look for plenitude and 
 variety of wisdom. Horace is wise, but he is narrowly, he is, 
 as it were, penuriously, wise. He is worldly-wise. His re- 
 flections cling faithfully to the ground. Occasionally there is 
 a bold stretch of wing, and a rising as if to try the eagle's 
 flight. But the poet soon recollects himself, and descends, 
 with conscious grace of self-control, to the safe lower level that 
 he loves. 
 
 Horace's odes are, many of them, perhaps the most of them, 
 occasional poems. Few escape the quality that thus naturally 
 belongs to them as being done to order. They are works of 
 labor, quite as much as works of love. But then Horace's 
 genius was so well trained, so obedient to its owner's will, that 
 there is no revolt at task-work apparent. Deliberateness al- 
 
 259 
 
260 CliASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 most becomes spontaneousness. The artist's delight in ex- 
 ecution almost becomes equivalent to the poet's delight in con- 
 ception. Art, in short, is nature, with Horace. 
 
 It follows from this character in Horace, that he suffers 
 more than most other poets from translation. There is not, 
 and there cannot be, any adequate transcript, in another lan- 
 guage, of his verse. Thought, image, you can translate, but 
 you cannot translate form. And form is more, than is any 
 thing besides form, in Horace's odes. There is considerable 
 monotony of topic and sentiment. And the sentiments that 
 keep recurring are not very numerous, not very profound, not 
 very novel. They are in truth the obvious, the commonplace 
 itself, of pagan life. * Life is short, is uncertain. Death ends 
 all. It is not best to fret. Take things as they come. Be 
 contented. Moderation is wisdom. Keep the golden mean. 
 Wealth will not make you happy.' These ideas revolve con- 
 stantly into view, as you read the odes of Horace. But you 
 do not see them in this bareness and baldness. As in a 
 kaleidoscope, they undergo various permutation of arrange- 
 ment and they take on beauty, when Horace sings them for 
 you in his verse. This magician in metre could go on repeat- 
 ing himself forever, and the repetition should never weary 
 you. You would scarcely think of its being repetition — this 
 continuous flow from form to form of the same ideas, in the 
 shaken kaleidoscope of Horace's verse. 
 
 The experience we describe belongs, however, exclusively to 
 the man reading the original Latin itself. No aft of transla- 
 tion can make an equivalent experience possible to the reader 
 of Horace in English. The Latin scholar finds the very 
 aspect of the Horatian verse a refection to the eye. It is like 
 looking at the fine lines of a perfect medallion, or a gem ex- 
 quisitely engraved. Not in the whole round of ancient classic 
 literature have we encountered any author from whom a 
 greater proportion of his individual quality is lost, than is lost 
 
HORACE. 261 
 
 from Horace, in an English translation. A discouraging 
 statement, do you say ? Perhaps, say we in reply ; but one 
 obtains a truer impression of Horace by knowing this, to 
 begin with, about him, than would be possible with any illu- 
 sion in the mind of the contrary. What we have said applies, 
 however, to the properly lyrical productions of Horace. His 
 satires and his epistles are capable of being translated with less 
 loss. 
 
 Horace is chiefly his own biographer. We know little, and 
 there is little that we need to know, of his life, beyond what 
 his writings reveal. Horace is a perfectly frank egotist, the 
 best-bred and the most agreeable of the tribe. He does not 
 scruple to write himself, anywhere it may happen, into his 
 verse. His audience were almost all of them personally 
 known to the poet. He met them familiarly, at the court of 
 Augustus, or on the streets, and in the baths, of Rome. He 
 held a well-established and a universally recognized position, 
 as the laureate of the empire and the lyrist and the satirist of 
 Roman society. His natural complaisance was well supported 
 by an unperturbed complacency. He went smiling through 
 his easy and fortunate experience of life, the happiest, or the 
 least unhappy, of Romans. He was a courtier ; but never was 
 courtier compelled to pay less for what he enjoyed, than was 
 Horace. To Horace's honor let it be also recorded, that never 
 perhaps was successful courtier less inclined to pay any thing 
 that could justly be judged misbecoming to himself. With 
 apparently faultless suavity in manner, he maintained an en- 
 tire manliness of bearing toward his patron Maecenas and his 
 emperor Augustus. It reflects credit, almost equally, both 
 upon patronizer and patronized, this admirable relation, 
 steadfastly sustained on the one side, and scrupulously 
 respected on the other, between the freedman bachelor poet 
 and those two high-placed formidable friends of his. 
 
 Freedman, we say, but Horace was removed by one gen- 
 
262 CliASSIC L.ATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 eration from the freedman's condition. It was his father that 
 had once been a slave and from being a slave had been raised 
 to a freedman. Horace praised his father with reason. The 
 son owed much to the father. Freedman though he was, the 
 elder Horace had ideas that became a Roman citizen. He 
 gave his boy the best chance that Rome could supply. He 
 tasked his own resources to situate him well and to educate 
 him as if he were the son of a Roman knight. According to 
 the easy ethical standard that prevailed at Rome, possibly 
 above that standard, Horace's father and, after him, Horace, 
 seem to have been both of them true and good men. This 
 does not mean that bachelor Horace kept himself unspotted, 
 either in life, or in his verse. No, he did things, and he 
 wrote things, that only to mention would now be an offense. 
 The world is already somewhat better, when it is under sense 
 of compulsion to seem to be better. And Christianity, since 
 Horace's time, has at least enforced on vice a heavy fine 
 in the form of fair pretense. Vice must now put on, however 
 loth, a mask of virtue. 
 
 Horace, as a young man, was not incapable of enthusiasm. 
 He experienced an attack of such emotion, at the time when, 
 Caesar having been slain, there was a moment of promise that 
 the Republic would be restored. He joined the republicans 
 and fought on their side at Phihppi. In one of his odes, he 
 alludes, with not unthrifty humor, to his conduct on the 
 occasion. He threw away his shield, he says, and ran for dear 
 life. In such frank raillery at his own expense, he had per- 
 haps his purpose. His republicanism, he would have it 
 understood, was not serious enough to be either dangerous or 
 offensive to the conquerors. Horace left the ardor of enthusi- 
 asm behind him with his youth. Never, so far as we know, 
 after that affair at Philippi, did he do any thing out of the 
 safely moderate and regular. He did not cravenly fling away 
 his spirit, but he kept his spirit in good training. He was. 
 
HORACE. 263 
 
 we say, a prosperous courtier ; still he remained a man you 
 could respect. If Maecenas hinted to him that he did not 
 show himself enough at Rome, Horace replied, with perfect 
 temper, that he had his reasons, and that he would rather re- 
 sign the bounty that he owed to the grace of the great minis- 
 ter, than leave the country for the city when those reasons 
 forbade. Maecenas had given him a modest estate of land in 
 the Sabine country, for which Horace — he having, as republi- 
 can, lost his all through confiscation — was properly grateful to 
 his patron. He addressed Maecenas in many appreciative and 
 laudatory odes. He paid similar tribute to Augustus ; but not 
 through any gracious imperial condescension, did Augustus 
 prevail to beguile the wary poet into one moment's perilous 
 parting with the subject's safe and proper distance from 
 the sovereign. Horace basked continuously and blessedly 
 in the sunshine of court favor, never once pushed off 
 for discipline into the outward cold, but also never once 
 tempted too near into the scorching heat. The remaining in- 
 cidents and relations of his life will sufficiently come out, by 
 occasion, in connection with the pieces that we shall bring 
 forward to illustrate his genius. 
 
 Horace's poems are classified as odes, epodes (odes, simply, 
 under an arbitrary alternative name), satires, and epistles. 
 
 The odes are most of them very short. The stanza in them 
 is prevailingly either Sapphic or Alcaic. Horace was like 
 Roman writers generally in being open debtor to the Greek. 
 He subdued the difficult metres he borrowed, with signal suc- 
 cess, to his use. 
 
 The first ode is inscribed to Maecenas. It is not boldly 
 eulogistic, though, all the more agreeably, eulogy is implied. 
 It simply says, ' Every man to his taste ; I, for my part, like 
 to make verses. Rank me thou, Maecenas, among thy lyric 
 bards, and I shall be supremely proud and happy.' 
 
 The second ode is a tribute to Caesar Augustus. In it occurs 
 
264 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 the famous phrase, so familiar in quotation, Serus in coelum 
 redeas ! (' Late return thou to the skies ! ') The emperor is 
 begged by the poet indulgently to cherish a fondness for being 
 styled father and prince to his people. 
 
 The third ode is addressed to the ship that was to have Virgil 
 for passenger to Athens. The wind is charged to bear him 
 safely on his way. It takes but two stanzas out of the ten com- 
 posing the ode, to express adequately this sentiment of the 
 poet's. The other eight stanzas are occupied with the suggested 
 idea of the daring of man in attempting navigation of the 
 dreadful sea. There is no return to what, from the title of the 
 ode, should seem the proper controlling motive to the poem. 
 We venture to think the ode wanting in unity and consistency 
 of interest. It breathes perhaps of Pindar, in its bold follow- 
 ing of far suggestion. Here are the two opening stanzas, those 
 in which alone there is allusion to Virgil. We give them in 
 the version of Dr. Philip Francis, an admirable, and formerly 
 a very popular, work : 
 
 So may the Cyprian queen divine, 
 And the twin stars with saving lustre shine ; 
 
 So may the father of the wind 
 All others, but the western breezes, bind, 
 
 As you, dear vessel, safe restore 
 Th' intrusted pledge to the Athenian shore, 
 
 And of my soul the partner save. 
 My much-loved Virgil, from the raging wave. 
 
 The fourth ode furnishes one of those familiar quotations of 
 which Horace is a famously abundant source of supply to 
 literature. There is a solemn roll, as of muffled drums, a 
 solemn beat, as of slow footsteps keeping time, in the rhythm 
 of the original verse, which no translation reproduces. We 
 are not sure but plain prose translation, closely literal, will 
 here be the best reflex of Horace's sense and sound : " Pale 
 death, with equal foot, knocks at the cottages of the poor and 
 at the palaces of kings." The sentiment indeed is common- 
 
HOBACE. 265 
 
 « 
 
 place, but the Horatian expression seems to the Latinist in- 
 imitable. 
 
 The next ode is one of Horace's amatory pieces. These, in 
 general, are justly not very pleasing to the modern taste. 
 Horace seemed to know nothing of women, except by the less 
 favorable specimens of their sex. The fifth ode, however, is a 
 comparatively innocent erotic effusion. It enjoys exceptional 
 English fame from having been translated by Milton. Milton's 
 Puritan conscience and imagination have unconsciously almost 
 moraUzed the ode in rendering it. No English translator of 
 Horace can ever pass this ode of his poet, without dipping his 
 colors to Milton as he goes by. In his earlier editions. Pro- 
 fessor Conington simply adopted Milton's rendering, without 
 attempting any independent version of his own. Sir Theo- 
 dore Martin, incidentally in a note, calls Milton's rendering 
 an "overrated" piece of work — a judgment, on his part, 
 rather bold than wise. Here is Milton's version — a little diffi- 
 cult perhaps, but not more difficult than the original : 
 
 What slender youth, bedew' d with liquid odours 
 Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, 
 
 Pyrrha ? For whom bind' st thou 
 In wreaths thy golden hair, 
 Plain in thy neatness ? O, how oft shall he 
 On faith and changed gods complain, and seas 
 
 Rough with black winds, and storms 
 
 Unwonted, shall admire I 
 Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, 
 Who always vacant, always amiable 
 
 Hopes thee, of flattering gales 
 
 Unmindful. Hapless they 
 To whom thou untried seem'st fair ! Me in my vow'd 
 Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung 
 
 My dank and drooping weeds 
 
 To the stern god of sea. 
 
 A parallel, interesting for coincidence as well as for contrast, 
 is that between odes of invitation, like the ninth of Horace, 
 first book (also the twelfth, fourth book), and the sonnets 
 
266 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 of invitation by Milton, inscribed respectively, ** To Mr. 
 Laurence" and "To Cyriack Skinner." Horace (according 
 to Mr. Martin again) : 
 
 Pile up fresh logs upon the hearth, 
 
 To thaw the nipping cold, 
 And forth from Sabine jar, to wing 
 Our mirth, the ruddy vine-juice bring 
 
 Four mellowing summers old. 
 
 Let not to-morrow's change or chance 
 
 Perplex thee, but as gain 
 Count each new day ! Let beauty's glance 
 Engage thee, and the merry dance. 
 
 Nor deem such pleasures vain ! 
 
 The other ode of invitation just mentioned is additionally 
 interesting as being addressed to Virgil. Virgil and Horace 
 were fast friends. Tennyson's epistolary poem to his friend, 
 F. D. Maurice, may also be compared. Horace half-playfully, 
 half in good earnest, conditions his invitation to Virgil. Vir- 
 gil must bring some rare perfume, to pay for the rich wine 
 that will be broached on the occasion at Horace's expense. 
 The Romans were as fond of fragrance, as of flavor, at their 
 feasts. Horace now (translated by Sir Theodore Martin) : 
 
 Yes, a small box of nard from the stores of Sulpicius 
 
 A cask shall elicit, of potency rare 
 To endow with fresh hopes, dewy-bright and delicious. 
 
 And wash from our hearts every cobweb of care. 
 
 If you'd dip in such joys, come— the better the quicker !- 
 But remember the fee — for it suits not my ends, 
 
 To let you make havoc, scot-free, with my liquor, 
 As though I were one of your heavy-pursed friends. 
 
 To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy ! — 
 In the flames of the pyre these, alas I will be vain. 
 
 Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly, — 
 'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane ! 
 
HORACE. 267 
 
 Milton unbends in a manner very different from the fore- 
 going. His conscience never lets up even in his most relaxed 
 literary moods. Horace did not keep a conscience. He was 
 simply a man of honor, as the world went, the world of his 
 day and place. 
 
 Another poem to Virgil, very diffferent from the one last 
 quoted, is the famous twenty-fourth ode of the first book — a 
 lyric of sorrow and consolation on occasion of the death of 
 a common beloved friend. There is not, there cannot be, any 
 adequate rendering of this fine ode. "What shame should 
 there be, or limit, to the sense of loss indulged for so dear a 
 head?" — thus Horace begins. "So then Quinctilius the 
 perpetual slumber plies!" "Quinctilius — to him, ah, when 
 will Purity, and — sister she to Justice — inviolate Faith, and 
 Truth unclad, find ever any equal ? " How bald, how harsh, 
 the literal English of the consummate Latin looks ! The 
 charm dwells in the first perfect form. It is felt there by 
 the scholar, but it is not, we suppose, transferable thence to 
 any other than he. We have known an inimitably fine effect 
 to be produced by apt quotation of the first two stanzas, 
 untranslated, of this ode, for an occasion, the academic at- 
 mosphere of which made the classic Latin itself appropriate. 
 
 A very vengeful allusion to Cleopatra — vengeful, but re- 
 lenting at last into Roman admiration of the spirit she dis- 
 played in her disaster, in daring suicidal death as preferable to 
 the disgrace of being driven In triumph through the streets of 
 Rome — occurs in the thirty-seventh of the first book of odes. 
 It will remind our readers of Tennyson's stanzas on the same 
 subject, in his Dream of Fair Women. Here are the conclud- 
 ing stanzas (according to Dr. Francis) : 
 
 With fearless hand she dared to grasp 
 The writhings of the wrathful asp, 
 And suck the poison through her veins, 
 Resolved on death, and fiercer from its pains. 
 Then scorning to be led the boast 
 
268 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Of mighty Caesar's naval host, 
 And arm'd with more than mortal spleen, 
 Defrauds a triumph, and expires a queen. 
 
 The tenth of the second book is too characteristic of the 
 writer, too good in itself, too celebrated, and it has been by 
 the poet Cowper too happily translated, not to be given by 
 us here entire. It is a eulogy of the " golden mean '' : 
 
 Receive, dear friends, the truths I teach, 
 So shalt thou live beyond the reach 
 
 Of adverse Fortune's power ; 
 Not always tempt the distant deep, 
 Nor always timorously creep 
 
 Along the treacherous shore. 
 
 He that holds fast the golden mean 
 And lives contentedly between 
 
 The little and the great. 
 Feels not the wants that pinch the poor. 
 Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, 
 
 Imbittering all his state. 
 
 The tallest pines feel most the power 
 Of wintry blasts ; the loftiest tower 
 
 Comes heaviest to the ground ; 
 The bolts that spare the mountain's side 
 His cloud-capt eminence divide, 
 
 And spread the ruin round. 
 
 The well-informed philosopher 
 Rejoices with a wholesome fear. 
 
 And hopes in spite of pain ; 
 If winter bellow from the north 
 Soon the sweet spring comes dancing forth. 
 
 And Nature laughs again. 
 
 What if thine heaven be overcast ? 
 The dark appearance will not last ; 
 
 Expect a brighter sky. 
 The god that strings a silver bow 
 Awakes sometimes the Muses too. 
 
 And lays his arrows by. 
 
 If hindrances obstruct thy way, 
 Thy magnanimity display. 
 
HORACE. 269 
 
 And let thy strength be seen : 
 But O ! if Fortune fill thy sail 
 With more than a propitious gale, 
 
 Take half thy canvas in. 
 
 Christian Cowper was unable to translate so earth-bound 
 a poetic philosophy of life as the foregoing, without being 
 moved to monitory reflection. He moralizes, in a rhymed 
 sequel, as follows : 
 
 And is this all ? Can Reason do no more 
 
 Than bid me shun the deep and dread the shore ? 
 
 Sweet moralist ! afloat on life's rough sea, 
 
 The Christian has an art unknown to thee : 
 
 He holds no parley with unmanly fears ; 
 
 Where duty bids he confidently steers. 
 
 Faces a thousand dangers at her call. 
 
 And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all. 
 
 In the eleventh of the second book of odes, appears a touch, 
 a mere touch, on the topic of advancing old age, that reminds 
 one, by subtle association, of our own half-Horatian American 
 poet of occasions, Oliver Wendell Holmes. We all know the 
 humorous-pathetic fondness of Dr. Holmes's verse for this 
 theme. And then, besides, the convivial spirit here conjoined 
 is not alien to the parallel. Horace (according to Sir Theodore 
 Martin) : 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 Say, why should we not, flung at ease 'neath this pine, 
 
 Or a plane-tree's broad umbrage, quaff gayly our wine. 
 While the odours of Syrian nard and the rose 
 Breathe sweet from locks tipp'd, and just tipp'd, with Time's 
 snows. 
 
 It was one of the fortunes of Horace's life to escape death, 
 on a certain occasion, very narrowly, from the accidental 
 falling of a tree. He makes the occurrence the subject of 
 an ode, the thirteenth of the second book. The opening 
 stanzas are maledictory. He thinks the planter of that tree 
 must have been a man of many crimes, actual or potential. 
 After an imaginary list of such, he says (Martin) : 
 
270 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 All this he must have done — or could— 
 I'm sure— the wretch, that stuck thee down, 
 
 Thou miserable stump of wood, 
 To topple on thy master's crown, 
 
 Who ne'er designed thee any harm. 
 
 Here on my own, my favorite farm. 
 
 A strain follows, of higher mood : 
 
 How nearly in her realms of gloom 
 
 I dusky Proserpine had seen, 
 Seen -ffiacus dispensing doom. 
 
 And the Elysian fields serene, 
 Heard Sappho to her lute complain 
 Of unrequited passion's pain : 
 
 Heard thee, too, O Alcseus, tell. 
 
 Striking the while thy golden lyre, 
 "With fuller note and statelier swell. 
 
 The sorrows and disasters dire 
 Of warfare and the ocean deep, 
 And those that far in exile weep. 
 
 While shades round either singer throng, 
 
 And the deserved tribute pay 
 Of sacred silence to their song. 
 
 Yet chiefly crowd to hear the lay 
 Of battles old to story known, 
 And haughty tyrants overthrown. 
 
 What wonder they, their ears to feast, 
 Should thickly throng, when by these lays 
 
 Entranced, the hundred-headed beast 
 Drops his black ears in sweet amaze. 
 
 And even the snakes are charmed, as they 
 
 Among the Furies' tresses play. 
 
 Nay even Prometheus, and the sire 
 
 Of Pelops, cheated of their pains. 
 Forget awhile their doom of ire 
 
 In listening to the wondrous strains ; 
 Nor doth Orion longer care 
 To hunt the lynx or lion there. 
 
 Allusion to this nigh-fatal tree recurs often throughout 
 the odes. 
 In the fifteenth of the second book of odes, Horace appears 
 
HORACE. 271 
 
 as upbraider of his own degenerate times. He inveighs 
 against the growing luxury of private landscape gardening 
 and architecture. Sir Theodore Martin renders : 
 
 It was not so when Romulus 
 
 Our greatness fostered in its prime, 
 Nor did our great forefathers thus, 
 
 In unshorn Cato's simple time. 
 
 Men's private fortunes then were low. 
 
 The public income great ; in these 
 Good times no long-drawn portico 
 
 Caught for its lord the northern breeze. 
 
 Nor did the laws our sires permit 
 
 Sods dug at random to despise 
 As for their daily homes unfit ; 
 
 And yet they bade our cities rise 
 
 More stately at the public charge, 
 
 And did, to their religion true. 
 The temples of the gods enlarge, 
 
 And with fair-sculptured stone renew. 
 
 There is a note struck here that rings in the sense like that 
 querulous line of Wordsworth, 
 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more ! 
 
 The first ode of the third book, entitled ** In Praise of Con- 
 tentment," is in part a very fine variation of this. But the 
 motive of the poem last alluded to — it is a motive familiar 
 with Horace — is different. See the following extracts from 
 Martin's rendering: 
 
 Ye rabble rout, avaunt I 
 
 Your vulgar din give o'er, 
 Whilst I the Muses' own hierophant. 
 To the pure ears of youths and virgins chant 
 
 In strains unheard before ! 
 
 The fish are conscious that a narrower bound 
 Is drawn the seas around 
 By masses huge hurl'd down into the deep ; 
 
272 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 There at the bidding of a lord, for whom 
 Not all the land he owns is ample room, 
 Do the contractor and his laborers heap 
 Vast piles of stone, the ocean back to sweep. 
 But let him climb in pride, 
 
 That lord of halls unblest, 
 
 Up to his lordly nest, 
 Yet ever by his side 
 
 Climb Terror and Unrest ; 
 Within the brazen galley's sides 
 
 Care, ever wakeful, flits, 
 And at his back, when forth in state he rides, 
 
 Her withering shadow sits. 
 
 If thus it fare with all ; 
 If neither marbles from the Phrygian mine 
 Nor star-bright robes of purple and of pall 
 
 Nor the Falernian vine, 
 Nor costliest balsams, fetch' d from farthest Ind, 
 
 Can soothe the restless mind ; 
 
 Why should I choose 
 To rear on high, as modem spendthrifts use, 
 
 A lofty hall, might be the home for kings, 
 With portals vast, for Malice to abuse, 
 Or Envy make her theme to point a tale ; 
 
 Or why for wealth, which new-born trouble brings. 
 Exchange my Sabine vale ? 
 
 One of the happiest bits of Sir Theodore Martin's workman- 
 ship chances to coincide with one of the most characteristic, 
 and one of the best, felicities of the original master himself. 
 We take a few stanzas out of the sixteenth of the second book 
 of odes :..... 
 
 He lives on little, and is blest, 
 On whose plain board the bright 
 Salt-cellar shines, which was his sires' delight, 
 
 Nor terrors, nor cupidity's unrest, 
 Disturb his slumbers light. 
 
 Why should we still project and plan, 
 
 We creatures of an hour ? 
 
 Why fly from clime to clime, new regions scour? 
 Where is the exile, who, since time began. 
 
 To fly from self had power ? 
 
HORACE. 273 
 
 Fell care climbs brazen galleys' sides i 
 
 Nor troops of horse can fly 
 
 Her foot, which than the stag's is swifter, ay, 
 Swifter than Eurus, when he madly rid^s 
 
 The clouds along the sky. 
 
 Careless what lies beyond to know, 
 
 And turning to the best 
 
 The present, meet life's bitters with a jest. 
 And smile them down ; since nothing here below 
 
 Is altogether blest. 
 
 In manhood's prime Achilles died, 
 
 Tithonus by the slow 
 
 Decay of age was wasted to a show. 
 And Time may what it hath to thee denied 
 
 On me perchance bestow. 
 
 To me a farm of modest size, 
 
 And slender vein of song. 
 
 Such as in Greece flowed vigorous and strong. 
 Kind fate has given, and spirit to despise 
 
 The base, malignant throng. 
 
 There is Horace's philosophy of life, summed up in an ode. 
 
 With the epicurean's optimistic pessimism, exemplified in 
 the foregoing ode, Horace united the Roman's thirst for 
 posthumous fame. And of posthumous fame, an immortality 
 of it, Horace was, in his own mind, not less sure than was 
 contemporary Ovid. The twentieth of the second book, in- 
 scribed " To Maecenas," deals with this topic, expressing 
 boldly the poet's confidence of his own future renown. We 
 take, however, a shorter variation on the same theme, the 
 thirtieth of the third book, a still more celebrated ode of 
 Horace's, which is well rendered by Sir Theodore Martin : 
 
 I've reared a monument, my own. 
 
 More durable than brass. 
 Yea, kingly pyramids of stone 
 
 In height it doth surpass. 
 
 Rain shall not sap, nor driving blast 
 Disturb its settled base, 
 
274 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Nor countless ages rolling past 
 Its symmetry deface. 
 
 I shall not wholly die. Some part, 
 
 Nor that a little, shall 
 Escape the dark destroyer's dart, 
 
 And his grim festival. 
 
 For long as with his Vestals mute 
 
 Rome's Pontifex shall climb 
 The Capitol, my fame shall shoot 
 
 Fresh buds through future time. 
 
 Where brawls loud Aufidus, and came 
 
 Parch' d Daunus erst, a horde 
 Of rustic boors to sway, my name 
 
 Shall be a household word ; 
 
 As one who rose from mean estate. 
 
 The first with poet fire 
 -^olic song to modulate 
 
 To the Italian lyre, i 
 
 Then, grant, Melpomene, thy son 
 
 Thy guerdon proud to wear. 
 And Delphic laurels duly won 
 
 Bind thou upon my hair ! 
 
 The Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, so familiar a 
 quotation of patriotism, is a sentiment and expression of 
 Horace's, occurring in the second of the third book of odes. 
 The whole ode is very fine. 
 
 There is no loftier moral height touched anywhere by the 
 wing of the Horatian muse, than that of the opening of the 
 third ode of the third book. Justum et tenacem propositi 
 virunij is the lordly first line. How it fills the mouth that 
 utters it ! The sound is almost enough to convey the sense, 
 even to English ears unskilled of Latin. Here is Martin's 
 resonant rendering of the first two stanzas : 
 
 He that is just, and firm of will 
 
 Doth not before the fury quake 
 Of mobs that instigate to ill, 
 Nor hath the tyrant's menace skill 
 
 His fixed resolve to shake ; 
 
HORACE. 275 
 
 Nor Auster, at whose wild command 
 
 The Adriatic billows dash, 
 Nor Jove's dread thunder-launching hand. 
 Yea, if the globe should fall, he'll stand 
 
 Serene amidst the crash. 
 
 ("Auster " is the name of a wind.) 
 
 Like, in the lofty Roman spirit of it, is the fifth of book 
 third, which sings Regulus. Livy, become lyrist, might have 
 written such an ode. The story of Regulus will be recalled by 
 our readers. Taken prisoner by the Carthaginians in the First 
 Punic War, he was, after years of captivity, despatched to 
 Rome (under his promise to return, if unsuccessful in his 
 embassy) charged from his captors to recommend peace on 
 conditions humiliating to his country. He stoutly advised 
 his countrymen to reject the terms proposed. Returning to 
 Carthage, he was, with cruel torture, put to death. This 
 latter part of the story of Regulus is now not generally 
 credited. Horace makes fine use of the proud, if in part 
 doubtful, tradition. We again let Sir Theodore translate for 
 us. He certainly does upon occasion take fire from his 
 original, and kindle into true poet's flame. Horace has just 
 bemoaned. the poltroon degeneracy of his countrymen : 
 
 Ah, well he feared such shame for us. 
 The brave, far-seeing Regulus, 
 When he the vile conditions spurn' d. 
 That might to precedent be turn'd, 
 With ruin and disaster fraught 
 To after times, should they be taught 
 Another creed than this,—" They die 
 Unwept, who brook captivity ! " 
 
 "I've seen," he cried, " our standards hung 
 In Punic fanes, our weapons wrung 
 From Roman hands without a blow ; 
 Our citizens, I've seen them go 
 With arms behind their free backs tied, 
 (rates I have seen flung open wide, 
 
276 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Ay, Roman troops I've seen disgraced 
 To till thrplains they had laid waste ! 
 
 *' Will he return more brave and bold, 
 The soldier you redeem with gold ? 
 You add but loss unto disgrace. 
 Its native whiteness once efface 
 With curious dyes ; you can no more 
 That whiteness to the wool restore ; 
 Nor is true valor, once debased. 
 In souls corrupt to be replaced ! 
 
 •' If from the tangled meshes freed. 
 The stag will battle, then indeed 
 May he conspicuous valor show, 
 Who trusted the perfidious foe, — 
 He smite upon some future field 
 The Carthaginian, who could yield 
 In fear of death his arms to be 
 Bound up with thongs submissively ! 
 Content to draw his caitiff breath, 
 Nor feel such life is worse than death ! 
 O shame I O mighty Carthage, thou 
 On Rome's fallen glories towerest now ! " 
 
 From his chaste wife's embrace, they say. 
 And babes, he tore himself away. 
 As he had forfeited the right 
 To clasp them as a freeman might ; 
 Then sternly on thef ground he bent 
 His manly brow ; and so he lent 
 Decision to the senate's voice. 
 That paused and waver' d in its choice. 
 And forth the noble exile strode. 
 Whilst friends in anguish lined the road. 
 
 Noble indeed ! for, though he knew 
 What tortures that barbarian crew 
 Had ripe for him, he waved aside 
 The kin that did his purpose chide, 
 The thronging crowds, that strove to stay 
 His passage, with an air as gay, 
 As though at close of some decree 
 Upon a client's lawsuit he 
 Its dreary coil were leaving there, 
 To green Venafrum to repair 
 
HORACE. 277 
 
 Or to Tarentum's breezy shore 
 
 Where Spartans built their town of yore. 
 
 We shall supply a lively contrast to the tense high strain 
 of the preceding odes, by introducing here the ninth of the 
 third book. This is an Am-oe-be''an ode, so-called — one, that 
 is, composed of alternately responsive stanzas. It is a very 
 famous little piece. It will indicate the variety of genius and 
 character that Horace has, in every age, attracted to illustrate 
 his verse— at the same time exhibiting our ode in a really fine 
 version of it — if we take Bishop Atterbury's rendering, not 
 obsolete, though executed so long ago as 1700 : 
 
 Horace. While I was fond, and you were kind, 
 Nor any dearer youth, reclined 
 On your soft bosom, sought to rest, 
 Phraates was not half so bless'd. 
 
 Lydia, While you ador'd no other face, 
 
 Nor loved me in the second place, 
 My happy celebrated fame 
 Outshone e'en Ilia's envied flame. 
 
 H. Me Chloe now possesses whole, 
 
 Her voice and lyre command my soul ; 
 Nor would I death itself decline, 
 Could her life ransom' d be with mine. 
 
 L. For me young lovely Calais burns. 
 
 And warmth for warmth my heart returns, 
 Twice would I life with ease resign. 
 Could his be ransom' d once with mine. 
 
 H. What if sweet love, whose bands we broke, 
 Again should tame us to the yoke ; 
 Should banished Chloe cease to reign. 
 And Lydia her lost power regain ? «• 
 
 L. Though Hesperus be less fair than he. 
 Thou wilder than the raging sea. 
 Lighter than down ; yet gladly I 
 With thee would live, with thee would die. 
 
 We have now done with the odes of Horace. In thus dis- 
 missing them, let us keep ourselves in countenance with our 
 readers by quoting, from the preface to his English Horace, 
 
278 CliASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 an expression of Mr. Conington's to confirm our own at once 
 disparaging and admiring appreciation of these celebrated 
 Latin lyrics : 
 
 ** It is only the attractiveness of the Latin, half real, half per- 
 haps arising from association and the romance of a language 
 not one's own, that makes us feel this ' lyrical commonplace' 
 more supportable than commonplace is usually found to be." 
 
 The satires proper of Horace — his satires, we mean, ex- 
 pressly so named — ^for the Horatian satiric vein runs also 
 through the poetical epistles of this author — we shall have 
 room, as in fact we shall have need, to detain but very briefly 
 under notice. Of the epistles we shall perforce content our- 
 selves with the merest mention. We simply now, for insertion 
 here, detach from the sixth satire, second book, of Horace, the 
 fable of The Town and Country Mouse. This is well rendered 
 in rattling octosyllabics by Martin ; but we present instead a 
 version which, besides being more exactly literal than that, 
 is conformed in metre to the hexameter Latin original. (We 
 ought to explain that, at one point in the story, Horace 
 humorously incorporates, for mock-heroic effect, a Virgilian 
 assemblage of words to mark the hour of midnight. By way 
 of exception to our own literal exactness in rendering, we 
 have ventured to reproduce (in English) this stroke of Horatian 
 humor, by making conscript a slow-moving spondaic line of 
 Milton's ** Paradise Lost," to serve the same purpose.) 
 
 The fable translated is playfully introduced by Horace, 
 as a threadbare story told by a guest, at a banquet imagined to 
 take place in the country, where high themes are discussed. 
 Cervus, a neighbor of Horace's, is one of those men whose 
 idea of helping on conversation is to contribute a story. Some 
 one has remarked on the anxious wealth of Arellius, when 
 Cervus snuffs his chance and begins : 
 
 Once, runs the story, a mouse of the country within his poor 
 cavern 
 
HOBACE. 279 
 
 Welcomed a mouse of the city— old cronies they each of the other- 
 Manners uncouth, sharp eye to his hoard, yet disposed notwith- 
 standing, 
 Acting the host, his close heart to unbind. Why multiply words ? 
 
 He 
 Neither the stored-away chick-pea grudged, nor his longest oat- 
 kernel. 
 Forth in his mouth he, bringing the dry plum, also his nibbled 
 Bacon-bits, gave them, eager with various banquet to vanquish 
 Niceness of guest scarce touching with tooth of disdain any viand : 
 While, stretched on fresh litter of straw, he, lord of the household. 
 Ate him a spelt-grain or darnel, the choicer provisions not sharing. 
 
 Finally, city -bred says to the other: ** What is it, companion. 
 Tempts you, enduring, to live on the ridge abrupt of the forest? 
 You, too— will you prefer men and town to the fierce savage wild- 
 wood? 
 Up and away — trust, comrade, to me ; since creatures terrestrial 
 Live allotted a mortal portion of breath, nor is any 
 Refuge from death to great or to small : so, my excellent fellow, 
 While it is granted you, live in agreeable wise, well-conditioned ; 
 Live recollecting of span how brief you are ! " 
 
 Soon as these speeches 
 Wrought on the swain, he out of his dwelling lightly leaps forth : 
 
 thence 
 Press they, the pair, on the journey proposed, being keenly desirous 
 Under the walls of the city to creep as night-farers. And night now 
 • Half-way up hill this vast sublunar vault ' clomb, when 
 Each of the mice set foot in a palace resplendent, where drapings 
 Tinctured crimson in grain were glowing on ivory couches. 
 Numberless dishes remaining from yesterday's sumptuous supper 
 There at remove stood in panniers loftily built like a turret. 
 
 So when now he has placed at his ease on a couch-spread of purple 
 Countryman mouse, obsequious host he runs hither and thither, 
 Course after course the supper prolongs, and, with flourish of 
 
 service. 
 Does all the honors in form, whatever he offers foretasting. 
 He, reclining, rejoices in altered estate, and in plenty 
 Plays you the part of jolly good fellow — when, sudden, a mighty 
 Rumble of doors rolling open both of them shook from their 
 
 couches : 
 Helter-skelter scampering went they, stricken with terror — 
 Growingly breathless with panic they quake, while rings the great 
 
 mansion 
 
280 CLASSIC liATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Loud to the baying of mastiflfs Molossian. 
 
 Then countryman mouse said : 
 " Life such as this I've no use for ; good-bye to you : me, with the 
 
 lowly 
 Vetch, shall the woods, and a cave secure from surprises, make 
 
 happy." 
 
 It is the contrast of the leisurely and remote conversation 
 conceived thus as passing at the supposed banquet in the 
 country — the contrast of this with the hurried and exciting 
 scenes and occasions of life in the city, that affords the mild 
 flavor of satire discoverable in this composition of Horace's. 
 
 Among the Epistles of Horace, there are two decidedly more 
 interesting and more valuable for modern readers than any 
 of the others. These are the Epistle to Augustus and that 
 to the Pisos. The latter is generally called "The Art of 
 Poetry," such being in fact the didactic subject of the epistle. 
 Horace's " Ars Poetica" enjoys a high repute for the sound- 
 ness of its inculcation on the subject which it treats. We 
 cannot do more than thus ceremoniously salute this piece in 
 passing it. We may, however, suggest to our readers that if 
 they will study Pope's ** Essay on Criticism," they will find 
 that a lively and agreeable way of getting at the spirit, and 
 at no small part also of the wisdom, of the ancient production. 
 
 The facility with which Horace lends himself to such adap- 
 tations as Pope's, may serve to remind one how fundamentally 
 the same from age to age, and from race to race, our common 
 human nature remains. It may serve also to show that 
 Horace was in this at least a poet for all time. He took hold 
 of what is permanent in the constitution of our human frame. 
 
 Both as man, and as man of letters, Horace was of the 
 world, eminently so, and the world will always love its 
 own. His fame will easily last as long as the world lasts — 
 or as the fashion of the world lasts. And no one will grudge 
 so accomplished and so agreeable a man his merited reward. 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 JUVENAIi. 
 
 If Tacitus had been a poet, he would have been a poet like 
 Ju''ve-nal. If Juvenal had been an historian, he would have 
 been an historian like Tacitus. Both alike were satirists. 
 The difference is that Tacitus satirized incidentally, and in 
 prose, while Juvenal satirized expressly, and in verse. 
 
 It was noted by the Romans themselves that satire was a 
 literary form — the only one — of their own origination. Juve- 
 nal was by no means the first in time, though he is so far the 
 first in power, among Roman satirists. Horace was a satirist 
 before Juvenal, as Lucilius was a satirist before Horace. Of 
 Lucilius, true founder of Roman satire, only fragments re- 
 main. Between Horace and Juvenal came Persius, but those 
 two are for us the representative satirists of Rome. 
 
 Horace's satires have the character of amateur performances, 
 in comparison with the satires of Juvenal. Horace had not 
 depth enough of nature, had not strength enough of conviction, 
 to make him a really powerful satirist. He experimented, he 
 toyed, with the satiric vein. Juvenal satirized in dead earnest. 
 He did not play at his task. He wrought at it with might and 
 main. His whole soul was in it, and his soul was large and 
 strong. Satire, in his hands, was less a lash, even a Roman 
 lash, than a sword. It did not sting. It cut. It did not cut 
 simply the skin. It cut the flesh. It cut the flesh to the bone. 
 It clove the bone to the marrow. Hardly ever, in the history 
 of literature, has such a weapon been wielded by any writer. 
 
282 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 "Who was Juvenal? No one knows. He was this satirist. 
 That is all we know of him. As a man, he is nothing but 
 a name. Not that there are not traditions about Juvenal. 
 But there are no traditions that we can trust. When he lived, 
 is uncertain. We know only that it was about the close of the 
 first century after Christ. He had seen the empire under 
 several emperors. Some think that, having written earlier, 
 he finally published under Trajan — a ruler great enough, and 
 strong enough, and wise, as well as generous, enough, to let 
 the satirist say his say, unhindered and unharmed. Not quite 
 to the end, however, unharmed — if we are to trust the legend 
 which relates that Juvenal was honorably, and as it were 
 satirically, punished for the freedom of his pen, by being sent 
 to Egypt at eighty years of age to command a cohort stationed 
 in that province. He there soon died of his vexation and 
 chagrin. Such is the story ; but the story has no voucher. 
 Juvenal is personally a great unknown. But can the man 
 justly be called unknown who has written what Juvenal has 
 written? The incidents of his life, the traits of his personal 
 appearance, we are ignorant of— but do we not know Juvenal 
 by what is far more central and essential in his character ? 
 
 The answer to that question depends upon whether we take 
 Juvenal's satires to shadow forth the real sentiments of the 
 satirist, or to have been written by him in mere wanton play 
 of wit, "without a conscience or an aim." Opposite views 
 have been contended for on this point, but the present writer 
 is sure he feels the pulse of personal sincerity beating strong in 
 Juvenal's satires. It was the morals, much more than it was 
 the manners, of the Roman empire, that engaged the genius 
 of Juvenal. That the satirist himself remained a model of 
 virtue, amid the general corruption that rotted around him, 
 we should be far from maintaining. But Juvenal's conscience 
 was on the side of virtue — his conscience, or at least his Roman 
 pride and scorn. He truly despised vice, if he did not truly 
 
 m 
 
JUVENAIi. 283 
 
 reprobate vice. Scorn edged the blade, and scorn urged the 
 blow. 
 
 It is a pity, but for reasons of propriety, we cannot show our 
 readers the one satire in particular which staggers, for many, 
 their faith in Juvenal, but by which, we confess, our own 
 faith in Juvenal is confirmed. Vice was so flagrant in impe- 
 rial Rome, that only to name what was done there would now 
 be an intolerable offense. But Juvenal named it, and never 
 flinched. He painted it with colors dipped in hell. You look 
 at the picture aghast. No wonder if for a moment you feel 
 such a picture to be as wicked as that itself was, of which this 
 is a picture. The picture breathes and burns. It is not like 
 life — it is life. The artist has not depicted sin — he has com- 
 mitted sin. 
 
 But look again. There is no enticement here. You are not 
 allured. You are revolted. It was not because he secretly 
 loved them, that this man dwelt on images of evil. He dwelt 
 on them because he hated, or at least despised, them, and 
 would do his utmost to make them everywhere hateful or 
 despicable. So at least we read Juvenal. But we will speak 
 no more of what we must not show. 
 
 Happily what we can show of Juvenal is one of the best of 
 his satires — one of the best, and, on the whole, perhaps quite 
 the most celebrated. There are sixteen satires in all, and this 
 is the tenth of the series. Dr. Samuel Johnson has given it 
 added fame for English readers by his powerful imitative 
 poem, " The Vanity of Human Wishes." It will be interest- 
 ing to study the original and the imitation together. 
 
 It is wise always in the reader to remember that satires, like 
 comedies, necessarily depend for their interest so much on 
 that atmosphere of incident and event in which they were 
 produced, as to be sadly deprived of color and tone through 
 lapse of time and change of place. The full text of Juvenal's 
 Tenth Satire would thus, we fear, notwithstanding the ex- 
 
284 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 I 
 
 traordinary merit of the poem, prove but dull reading to 
 many. We shall need to be select and to be short. 
 
 The motive of the piece is tolerably well expressed in John- 
 son's title, ' * The Vanity of Human Wishes. ' ' That expression, 
 however, is ambiguous. It might be understood to convey the 
 idea that human wishes are vain, as impotent to bring about 
 their own fulfillment. The satirist's true thought is rather, 
 not that human wishes are weak, but that human wishes are 
 blind and unwise. We wish at foolish cross-purposes. We 
 desire our own bane, we dread our own blessing. 
 
 There is a recent prose translation, published by Macmillan 
 & Co., very good, and interesting the more because coming to 
 us from our antipodes. The translators are English scholars 
 who date their work from the University of Melbourne, in 
 Australia. We resist the temptation to seem fresh by using 
 this version, and go back to the pentameter couplets of Gif- 
 ford. The rehef of verse and of rhyme will be found grateful. 
 Juvenal's point will seem sharper, than it would do sheathed 
 in scholarlike, but not literary, prose. 
 
 Let Observation, with extensive view, 
 Survey mankind from China to Peru, 
 
 is Johnson's familiar beginning. The tautologous verbosity of 
 this has often been pointed out. It is an extreme specimen of 
 Johnson at his worst. Juvenal gave Johnson the hint, but 
 Johnson is himself responsible for suffering the hint to carry 
 him so far. What Juvenal says is (as our AustraUan transla- 
 tors give it), "In all the world — from Gades [Cadiz] to the 
 land of the Morning and its Ganges." Gifford rhymes it : 
 
 In every clime, from Ganges' distant stream 
 To Gades, gilded by the western beam. 
 
 Juvenal says that ** in every clime " from West to East, the 
 rule is for men to wish what, if granted, will probably injure 
 them. For example, the universal craving is for wealth, but 
 how often has wealth been the ruin of its possessor ! The rich, 
 
JUVENAL. 286 
 
 under bad emperors, became the prey of those emperors, while 
 the poor escaped by their own obscurity. The satirist recalls 
 historic instances (Giflfbrd's translation) : 
 
 For this, in other times, at Nero's word, 
 The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword, 
 Rushed to the swelling coffers of the great, 
 Chased Lat-e-ra'nus from his lordly seat, 
 Besieged too- wealthy Seneca's wide walls, 
 And closed, terrific, round Lon-gi'nus' halls : 
 While sweetly in their cocklofts slept the poor, 
 And heard no soldier thundering at their door. 
 
 The traveller, freighted with a little wealth 
 Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth : 
 Even then, he fears the bludgeon and the blade, 
 And starts and trembles at a rush's shade ; 
 While, void of care, the beggar trips along. 
 And, in the spoiler's presence, trolls his song. 
 
 Juvenal thinks that if, in their own times, De-moc^ri-tus 
 could laugh incessantly, and Her-a-cli''tu8 could incessantly 
 weep, over the follies of their fellow-creatures, those philoso- 
 phers would find much more food for laughter and for tears, 
 were they to enjoy a resurrection under the Roman empire as 
 he himself saw the Roman empire. The laughter of Democ- 
 ritus, by the way, Juvenal says, was intelligible — anybody 
 could laugh ; but where could anybody get brine enough to 
 keep him going in tears ? This is the fashion in which Juve- 
 nal derided the pomp of civic processions and military tri- 
 umphs in Rome : 
 
 Democritus, at every step he took. 
 His sides with unextinguished laughter shook. 
 Though, in his days, Abdera's simple towns 
 No fasces knew, chairs, litters, purple gowns. 
 What ! had he seen, in his triumphal car. 
 Amid the dusty Cirque, conspicuous far. 
 The Prsetor perched aloft, superbly dress' d 
 In Jove's proud tunic, with a trailing vest 
 Of Tyrian tapestry, and o'er him spread 
 A crown, too bulky for a mortal head. 
 Borne by a sweating slave, maintained to ride 
 
1 
 
 aJ6 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 In the same car, and mortify his pride ! 
 Add now the bird, that, with expanded wing, 
 From the raised sceptre seems prepared to spring ; 
 And trumpets here ; and there the long parade 
 Of duteous friends, who head the cavalcade ; 
 Add, too, the zeal of clients robed in white, 
 Who hang upon his reins, and grace the sight, 
 Unbribed, unbought — save by the dole, at night ! 
 
 Juvenal alludes at some length to the striking fate of Seja''- 
 nus. Sejanus, an imperial favorite under Tiberius, became a 
 pretender to the throne, and so a conspirator against his sov- 
 ereign. He was found out, was strangled, and the populace rent 
 his dead body into fragments, which they flung into the Tiber. 
 The statues of the fallen man were tumbled down and melted 
 up in fierce fires, kindled on the street. The rabble meantime 
 ignorantly exchanged gibes, in their street talk, at the very 
 man whom, had he but succeeded, they would have hailed em- 
 peror with uproarious cheers. Now Juvenal, from the point at 
 which the fire is kindled for melting up the bronze Sejanus : 
 
 Then roar the fires ! the sooty artist blows. 
 And all Sejanus in the furnace glows ; 
 Sejanus, once so honored, so adored. 
 And only second to the world's great lord. 
 Runs glittering from the mould, in cups and cans. 
 Basins and ewers, plates, pitchers, pots, and pans. 
 
 •* Crown all your doors with bay, triumphant bay. 
 Sacred to Jove, the milk-white victim slay ; 
 For lo ! where great Sejanus by the throng, 
 A joyful spectacle ! is dragged along. 
 What lips ! what cheeks ! ha, traitor ! — for my part, 
 I never loved the fellow— in my heart." 
 ** But tell me ; Why was he adjudged to bleed ? 
 And who discovered ? and who proved the deed ? " 
 *' Proved !— a huge, w^ordy letter came to-day 
 From Capreae." Good ! what think the people ? They ! 
 They follow fortune, as of old, and hate. 
 With their whole souls, the victim of the state. 
 Yet would the herd, thus zealous, thus on fire, 
 Had Nurscia met the Tuscan's fond desire. 
 And crushed tlie unwary prince, have all combined. 
 And hailed Sejanus, Master of mankind ! 
 
JTJVENAIi. 26t 
 
 At this point occurs one of the most memorable of all Juve- 
 nal's satirical strokes. The satirist contrasts former popular 
 freedom with present popular servitude. The same Roman 
 people, he says, that once proudly by its votes conferred every 
 privilege and every distinction, now confines its aspiration to 
 the one cry for bread to stop its mouth, and for the games 
 of the circus to set its eyes agape. Panem et circenses / Food 
 and fun at the public expense, were, in Juvenal's time, suffi- 
 cient to content the degenerate citizens of the empire. 
 * ' Panem et circenses, " is a famous phrase of quotation. * Say, ' 
 exclaims Juvenal, suddenly — as would seem — bethinking him- 
 self that he had introduced Sejanus for a purpose, ' say, would 
 you like Sejanus's power, bought at Sejanus's price? ' 
 
 From Sejanus, Juvenal goes back farther for historic instan- 
 ces, to Crassus, to Pompey, to Caesar : 
 
 What wrought the Crassi, what the Pompey s' doom, 
 And his, who bowed the stubborn neck of Rome? 
 What but the wild, the unbounded wish to rise, 
 Heard, in malignant kindness, by the skies. 
 Few kings, few tyrants, find a bloodless end, 
 Or to the grave, without a wound, descend. 
 
 Wealth and power are not the only objects foolishly craved 
 by men. The ambition and the prayer to be eloquent are also 
 disguised and unconscious invocations of doom — witness the 
 examples of Demosthenes and Cicero : 
 
 The child, with whom a trusty slave is sent, 
 Charged with his little scrip, has scarcely spent 
 His mite at school, ere all his bosom glows 
 With the fond hope he nevermore foregoes, 
 To reach Demosthenes' or TuUy's name. 
 Rival of both in eloquence and fame ! — 
 Yet, by this eloquence, alas ! expired 
 Each orator, so envied, so admired ! 
 Yet, by the rapid and resistless sway 
 Of torrent genius, each was swept away ! 
 Genius, for that, the baneful potion sped. 
 And lopped, from this, the hands and gory head : 
 
1 
 
 288 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 While meaner pleaders unmolested stood, 
 
 Nor stained the rostrum with their wretched blood. 
 
 In the gibe, now to follow, of Juvenal, at Cicero's jingling 
 braggadocio verse, our readers will note how ingeniously the 
 effect on the ear, of the Latin line laughed at by the satirist, 
 is imitated by Mr. Gifford in his translation. Juvenal avers 
 that, f'^r Cicero's own happiness, it would have been better for 
 him to write nothing but such stuff as even that ludicrous line 
 of poetry, than it was to launch at Antony the flaming bolt of 
 eloquence which cost the orator his life : 
 
 •' How forhtNATTi A NATAii day was thine, 
 In that liATE conswiiATE, O Borne, of mine /" 
 Oh, soul of eloquence ! had all been found 
 An empty vaunt, like this, a jingling sound, 
 Thou might* st, in peace, thy humble fame have borne, 
 And laughed the swords of Antony to scorn ! 
 Yet this would I prefer— the common jest- 
 To that which fired the fierce triumvir's breast, 
 That second scroll, where eloquence divine 
 Burst on the ear from every glowing line. 
 And he too fell, whom Athens, wondering, saw 
 Her tierce democracy, at will, o'erawe. 
 And ** fulmine over Greece ! " Some angry Power 
 Scowled, with dire influence, on his natal hour. 
 Bleared with the glowing mass, the ambitious sire. 
 From anvils, sledges, bellows, tongs, and fire. 
 From temp' ring swords, his own more safe employ. 
 To study RHETORIC, sent his hopeful boy. 
 
 Macaulay thinks that Johnson's passage, parallel to the fore- 
 going—a passage descriptive of the disappointments that dog 
 the literary life — is finer than the original which it imitates. 
 
 The topics successively treated by Juvenal are Wealth, 
 Power, Eloquence, Military Fame, Long Life, Personal Beauty, 
 as objects of human desire likely, even if gained, to involve 
 the gainer in special disappointment and misery. Hannibal, 
 Alexander, Xerxes, are the historical examples adduced, of 
 thirst for the vain delight of warlike renown. A wild desire, 
 Juvenal declares it, and says (Gifford's translation) : 
 
J UVKNAIi. XBV 
 
 Yet has this wild desire, in other days, 
 This boundless avarice of a few for praise, 
 This frantic rage for names to grace a tomb, 
 Involved whole countries in one general doom ; 
 Vain " rage ! *' the roots of the wild fig-tree rise, 
 Strike through the marble, and their memory dies ! 
 
 The " wild fig-tree " of Juvenal is, no doubt, the allusion in- 
 tended in Tennyson's " Princess " : 
 
 •• thoujjh the rough kex break 
 The starred mosaic, and the wild goat hang 
 Upon the pillar, and the wild fig-tree split 
 Their monstrous idols." 
 
 Juvenal's passage about Hannibal is one of the finest in the 
 satire. The words, * * Expende Hannibalem ' ' meaning "Weigh 
 Hannibal" — that is, weigh the inurned ashes, or the buried 
 dust, that alone remain as relic of the living man — these two 
 words have become a not infrequent literary quotation used to 
 set forth the '* little measure " to which the mightiest dead are 
 shrunk. Hodgson dilutes, but dilutes rather successfully, as 
 follows : 
 
 How are the mighty changed to dust ! How small 
 The urn that holds what once was Hannibal ! 
 
 Now Gifford's version of Juvenal's satirical homily on Han- 
 nibal : 
 
 Produce the urn that Hannibal contains, 
 And weigh the mighty dust, which yet remains : 
 And is this all ? Yet this was once the bold, 
 The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold. 
 Though stretched in breadth from where the Atlantic roars, 
 To distant Nilus, and his sun-burnt shores ; 
 In length, from Carthage to the burning zone. 
 Where other Moors, and elephants are known. 
 — Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds : 
 Nature opposed her everlasting mounds, 
 Her Alps, and snows ; o'er these, with torrent force. 
 He pours and rends through rocks his dreadful course. 
 Already at his feet Italia lies ; — 
 
 Yet thundering on, *' Think nothing done," he cries, 
 " Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls. 
 
290 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 And Afric's standards float along her walls ! " 
 
 Big words !— but view his figure !— view his face ! 
 
 O, for some master-hand the lines to trace. 
 
 As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increased, 
 
 The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast ! 
 
 But what ensued ? Illusive Glory, say. 
 Subdued on Zama's memorable day. 
 He flies in exile to a petty state, 
 With headlong haste ! and, at a despot's gate, 
 Sits, mighty suppliant ! of his life in doubt, 
 Till the Bithynian's morning nap be out. 
 
 No swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled, 
 Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world : 
 The vengeance due to Cannae's fatal field. 
 And floods of human gore, a ring shall yield ! 
 Fly, madman, fly ! at toil and danger mock, 
 Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock, 
 To please the rhetoricians, and become 
 A DECLAMATION for the boys of Rome ! 
 
 Charles XII. of Sweden serves Johnson for his modern 
 instance, matched against the Eoman's Hannibal. On Charles 
 for text, Johnson is fired to preach in sonorous rhymes his 
 very best sermon. "Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to John- 
 son's Charles," says Macaulay. But let our readers judge. 
 Here is Johnson : 
 
 On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 
 How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide. 
 A frame of adamant, a soul of fire. 
 No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; 
 O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 
 Unconquer'd lord of pleasure and of pain ; 
 No joys to him pacific sceptres yield. 
 War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field. 
 Behold surrounding kings their pow'rs combine, 
 And one capitulate, and one resign : 
 Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ; 
 • Think nothing gain'd,' he cries, ' till naught remain. 
 On Moscow' s walls till Gothic standards fly, 
 And all be mine beneath the polar sky.' 
 The march begins, in military state. 
 And nations on his eye suspended wait ; 
 Stern Famine guards the solitary coast. 
 
 ^ 
 
JUVENAL. 291 
 
 And Winter barricades the realms of Frost ; 
 He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay ! — 
 Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day : 
 The vanquish' d hero leaves his broken bands, 
 And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 
 Condemn' d a needy supplicant to wait, 
 While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. 
 But did not Chance at length her error mend ? 
 Did not subverted empire mark his end ? 
 Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? 
 Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 
 His fall was destin'd to a barren strand, 
 A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 
 He left the name at which the world grew pale, 
 To point a moral, or adorn a tale. 
 
 So much perhaps will do in the way of paralleling Johnson 
 with Juvenal. In what remains, from this point onward to 
 the end, of the two poems, both poets are at their best in 
 fecund conception and in felicitous execution. We, however, 
 will refrain from Johnson and confine ourselves to Juvenal. 
 At the same time, we cordially commend to readers that have 
 the taste and the leisure for the purpose, a continued compari- 
 son of the modern with the ancient poem. 
 
 Juvenal's satiric genius fairly revels in describing the 
 wretchedness of old age. The desire of long life, he says, 
 entails, if gratified, unnumbered ills. These ills certainly 
 were never more powerfully portrayed than they are here 
 portrayed by Juvenal : 
 
 Strength, beauty, and a thousand charms beside, 
 With sweet distinction, youth from youth divide ; 
 While age presents one universal face ; 
 A faltering voice, a weak and trembling pace, 
 An ever-dropping nose, a forehead bare, 
 And toothless gums to mumble o'er its fare. 
 Poor wretch ! behold him, tottering to his fall. 
 So loathsome to himself, wife, children, all. 
 That those who hoped the legacy to share, 
 And flattered long — disgusted, disappear. 
 The sluggish palate dulled, the feast no more 
 Excites the same sensations as of yore ; 
 
292 CLASSIC LATIN COUBSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 Taste, feeling, all, a universal blot, 
 
 The dearest joys of sense remembered not. 
 
 Another loss ! — no joy can song inspire, 
 Though famed Seleucus lead the warbling quire : 
 The sweetest airs escape him ; and the lute, 
 Which thrills the general ear, to him is mute. 
 He sits, perhaps, too distant : bring him near ; 
 Alas ! 'tis still the same : he scarce can hear 
 The deep-toned horn, the trumpet's clanging sound, 
 And the loud blast which shakes the benches round. 
 Even at his ear, his slave must bawl the hour. 
 And shout the comer's name, with all his power ! 
 
 These their shrunk shoulders, those their hams bemoan ; 
 This hath no eyes, and envies that with one : 
 This takes, as helpless at the board he stands. 
 His food, with bloodless lips, from others' hands ; 
 While that, whose eager jaws, instinctive, spread 
 At every feast, gapes feebly to be fed, 
 Like Progne's brood, when, laden with supplies. 
 From bill to bill the fasting mother flies. 
 
 But other ills, and worse, succeed to those : 
 His limbs long since were gone ; his memory goes. 
 Poor driveler ! he forgets his servants quite. 
 Forgets, at morn, with whom he supped at night ; 
 Forgets the children he begot and bred ; 
 And makes a strumpet heiress in their stead. 
 
 The allusion to Prog'^ne is the translator's, not Juvenal's 
 own. Progne was one of Ovid's women, changed to a swallow. 
 
 Two or three lines of Johnson's imitation are too good not, 
 after all, to be quoted here : 
 
 Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage. 
 
 From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow. 
 And Swift expires a driveler and a show. 
 
 Juvenal prolongs his detail of the miseries unconsciously 
 invoked in prayers for longevity, through a hundred lines 
 or so additional to those which we have given. Out of 
 Homer, Nestor is cited as a witness, and Ulysses's father, 
 Laertes, and Pc'leus, father to Achilles— all living to deplore 
 
JUVENAIi. 293 
 
 their children dead or lost ; Priam, too, surviving the glory 
 of Troy, and Hec'uba transformed to a barking bitch. 
 Mithrida^'tes, then, is summoned, and Crcesus with the 
 legend of Solon admonishing him ; and aged Marius bereft 
 of everything but life ; and Pompey recovering from a Cam- 
 panian fever, only to encounter in Egypt a worse doom of 
 death. By the mocking irony of fate, conspirators Len^tu-lus, 
 Ceth-e^gus, Cat^i-line escaped at least the indignity of bodily 
 mutilation in dying. Readers depressed by all this remorse- 
 less realism of the satirist describing old age, may turn the 
 pages of the present volume and, from Cicero's store, refresh 
 themselves as they can, with the suave consolations of the 
 philosopher treating the same subject. 
 
 The last topic treated in the satire is that of Personal 
 Beauty. Juvenal, with great power, exhibits the spectacle, 
 80 familiar in history, of 
 
 Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand 
 The downward slope to death. 
 
 We shall not follow the satirist in this part of his poem. 
 Some of the strongest strokes in it are of a nature that unfits 
 them to be reproduced in these pages. And we need to 
 say that the dotted lines in previous extracts, have, more than 
 once, marked the omission of verses which we could not 
 properly show. In barely a single instance foregoing — where, 
 for completion of thought, it seemed necessary to retain the 
 line — we even ventured on a silent change of half a dozen 
 words, in order so to make the frankness of Juvenal less 
 intolerable to modern taste. 
 
 Here is a couplet of Gifford's, translating with spirit a 
 sentence of Juvenal's, in the latter part of his satire, that well 
 deserves its fame : 
 
 A woman scorned is pitiless as fate, 
 
 For there the dread of shame adds stings to hate. 
 
 Every student of history is qualified, but a Roman under 
 
294 CLASSIC LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 the empire was peculiarly qualified, to appreciate the justness 
 of the sentiment. Congreve's couplet will naturally occur 
 to some minds : 
 
 Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, 
 Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. 
 
 The conclusion of all is well-nigh Christian— in spirit, 
 though at points the form is pagan enough. We present it in 
 the prose translation, which is very readable, furnished in 
 Bohn's Classical Library : 
 
 Is there then nothing for which men shall pray ? If you will 
 take advice, you will allow the deities themselves to determine 
 what may be expedient for us, and suitable to our condition. For 
 instead of pleasant things, the gods will give us all that is most fit- 
 ting. Man is dearer to them than to himself. We, led on by the 
 impulse of our minds, by blind and headstrong passions, pray 
 for wedlock, and issue by our wives ; but it is known to them what 
 our children will prove ; of what character our wife will be ! Still, 
 that you may have somewhat to pray for, and vow to their shrines 
 the entrails and consecrated mincemeat of the white porker, your 
 prayer must be that you may have a sound mind in a sound body. 
 Pray for a bold spirit, free from all dread of death ; that reckons 
 the closing scene of life among nature's kindly boons ; that can en- 
 dure labor, whatever it be ; that knows not the passion of anger ; 
 that covets nothing ; that deems the gnawing cares of Hercules, 
 and all his cruel toils, far preferable to the joys of Venus, rich 
 banquets, and the downy couch of Sar-dan-a-pa'lus. I show thee 
 what thou canst confer upon thyself. The only path that surely 
 leads to a life of peace lies through virtue. If we have wise fore- 
 sight, thou^ Fortune, hast no divinity. It is we that make thee 
 a deity, and place thy throne in heaven ! 
 
 As might, from the foregoing, be guessed, the well-worn 
 phrase, mens sana in corpore sanOj " a sound mind in a sound 
 body," is JuvenaPs. In proposing the combination thus 
 named, as a good of life proper to be prayed for, Juvenal 
 makes the impression of being himself a well-attempered mind 
 judging as soundly as a pagan could, of the chief earthly 
 human need. 
 
 There is a note struck in the conclusion to Juvenal's great 
 
JUVENAIi. 295 
 
 masterpiece of satire, not far out of chord with the closing 
 lines of Bryant's Thanatopsis. One word alone in the Ameri- 
 can's strain distinguishes it in tone from the Roman's. That 
 word is ** trust." But trust, in prospect of death, is a Christian 
 idea, and Juvenal was no Christian. To face death without 
 fear, but also without trust,— that was Roman ; and Roman of 
 Romans was Juvenal. How one sighs, and vainly sighs, with 
 desire to have sweetened the bravery and the scorn of many of 
 those majestic men of Rome with the meekness of trust and 
 obedience toward Jesus ! 
 
^ 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 This chapter will somewhat resemble the inscription on a 
 cenotaph. If we had left ourselves room for the purpose, we 
 should have been glad to go far enough beyond the limit fixed 
 in our choice of title for this volume, to provide, from the 
 admirable post-classic writer Quintilian, such retrospective 
 commentary on Latin literature taken in its entirety as would 
 constitute a true epilogue to the present work. As it is, we 
 must content ourselves with simply directing our readers to 
 the place where what may be considered at least a kind of 
 epilogue may be found. That place is in the Classic French 
 Course in English, a book of the same series with this, 
 devoted to the exhibition of one, the chief one, of those great 
 modern literatures which have used for their vehicle of ex- 
 pression various languages modified from the ancient Latin » 
 as their common original. 
 
 The Roman Empire in giving a language to the literature 
 which was finally to be in the largest and most important 
 section of the imperial province of Gaul, gave also in some 
 sense a law and a spirit to that literature. This relation it is 
 of French letters to Latin that warrants us in suggesting, by 
 way of present farewell to our readers, that in the above- 
 mentioned volume they may find, not indeed a formal, but a 
 virtual, epilogue to what has been submitted for their con- 
 sideration in the foregoing pages. 
 
 296 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, 22, 88. 
 iEschines, 10. 
 Alexander the Great, 288. 
 Antony, Mark, 55, 56, 70 ff., 94. 
 Aristophanes, 217. 
 Aristotle, 82. 
 Atterbury, Bishop, 277. 
 Augustus, Caesar, 11, 12, 21, 56, 92, 93, 
 
 94, 96, 98, 136, 175, 261, 263. 
 Bryant, William Cullen, 295. 
 Burke, Edmund, 57. 
 C^SAR, Julius, 9, 11, 13, 14, 20, 27, 28- 
 
 50, 54, 68, 69, 75, 83, 85, 86, 90, 143, 245. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 10. 
 Catiline, 13, 31, 53, 58ff. 
 Cato (the Censor), 9, 10, 11, 88, 89. 
 Charles XII. (of Sweden), 290. 
 Choate, Rufus, 55, 76, 77. 
 Church and Brodribb, 165. 
 Cicero (Tully), 8, 10, 51-90, 106, 245, 287, 
 
 288, 293. 
 Cicero, Quintus, 43, 44, 48. 
 Columbus, Christopher, 49. 
 Congreve, William, 294. 
 Conington, John, 95 ff., 278. 
 Cortes, 49. 
 Dante, 259. 
 Democritus, 285. 
 Demosthenes, 10, 57, 70, 287. 
 DeQuincey, Thomas, 50. 
 Dryden, John, 97, 102, 124. 
 Ennius, 8, 10, 84. 
 Epicurus, 246. 
 Francis, Dr. PhiUp, 264, 267. 
 Gifford, WilUam, 284-293 freq. 
 Gracchi, The, 11. 
 Hannibal, 146 ff., 288, 289, 290. 
 Havelock, Sir Henry, 44. 
 
 Heraclitus, 285. 
 
 Hesiod, 97. 
 
 Hirtius, 49. 
 
 Hodgson, 289. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 269. 
 
 Homer, 11, 27, 56, 91, 97, 102, 103, 112. 
 
 140, 141, 142, 259, 292. 
 Horace, 8, 9, 12, 21, 259-280, 281. 
 Hortensius, 10, 11. 
 Jerome, Saint, 257. 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 283-292. 
 Jugurtha, 13ff. 
 Juvenal, 9, 89, 281-295. 
 Livius, Andronicus, 8. 
 LiVY, 11, 21, 143-174, 175. 
 Lowell, J. R., 12. 
 Lucan, 212. 
 Lucilius, 79, 281. 
 Lucretius, 8, 111, 245-258. 
 Luther, Martin, 82. 
 Macaulay (Lord), 177, 204, 215, 288, 290. 
 Msecenas, 12, 21, 261, 263. 
 Mallock, W. H., 248, 256. 
 Marie Antoinette, 200. 
 Marius, 13 ff., 30, 51, 144. 
 Martin, Sir Theodore, 265, 266, 269, 
 
 271, 278. 
 Maurice, F. D., 266. 
 Menander, 9, 217, 244. 
 Milton, John, 22, 93, 259, 265, 266, 267, 
 
 278. 
 Mommsen, Theodor, 31. 
 Munro (translator of Lucretius), 247, 
 
 248, 252, 253. 
 Nsevius, 8, 9. 
 
 Napoleon (the Great), 149. 
 Napoleon III., 32. 
 Nepos, 11. 
 
 297 
 
I 
 
 298 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nero, 48, 179ff. 
 
 Ovid, 12, 13, 21-27, 292. 
 
 Paul (the Apostle), 84, 86, 256. 
 
 Persius, 281. 
 
 Philip (of Macedon), 70. 
 
 Pindar, 264. 
 
 PlaUTUS, 9, 217-234, 244. 
 
 Pliny, 55, 176. 
 
 Plutarch, 40. 
 
 Pompey, the Great, 54, 55, 59, 143. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 21, 96, 130, 142, 280. 
 
 Quintilian, 12. 
 
 Sallust, 11, 13-20, 21. 
 
 Scipio (AfWcanus Major), 150. 
 
 Scipio (Africanus Minor), 151, 171-174. 
 
 iScott, Sir Walter, 101. 
 
 Seneca, 143, 180, 197, 208ff. 
 
 Suetonius, 11, 48. 
 
 Sulpicius, 79, 80. 
 
 Sylla, 13flf., 144. 
 
 Tacitus, 8, 11, 165, 175-216, 281. 
 
 Tennyson, Lord, 257, 258, 266, 267, 289. 
 
 Terence, 9, 217-244, 245. 
 
 Theocritus, 94, 95. 
 
 Thomson, Jaipes, 101. 
 
 Thucydides, 176. 
 
 Virgil, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 21, 27, 91-142, 
 
 255, 259, 266, 267. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 204. 
 William (of Orange), 215. 
 Wordsworth, William, 271. 
 Xenophon, 151. 
 Xerxes, 288. 
 
IC 49407