for us; those gods, whose temples and altars the impious Tarquin has profaned by sacrifices, and libations made with polluted hands, polluted with blood, and with numberless unexpiated crimes committed against his subjects.

Ye gods, who protected our forefathers! ye genii, who watch for the preservation and glory of Rome! do you inspire us with courage and unanimity in this glorious cause, and we will to our last breath defend your worship from all profanation. Livy.

§ 35. Speech of ADHERBAL to the RoMAN SENATE, imploring their Assistance against JUGURTHA.

Fathers!

It is known to you that king Micipsa, my father, on his death-bed, left in charge to Jugurtha, his adopted son, conjunctly with my unfortunate brother Hiempsal and myself, the children of his own body, the administration of the kingdom of Numidia, directing us to consider the senate and people of Rome as proprietors of it. He charged us to use our best endeavours to be serviceable to the Roman commonwealth, in peace and war; assuring us, that your protection would prove to us a defence against all enemies, and would be instead of armies, fortifications, and trea

For a prince to be reduced, by villainy, to my distressful circumstances, is calamity enough; but my misfortunes are heightened by the consideration, that I find myself obliged to solicit your assistance, Fathers, for the services done you by my ancestors, not for any I have been able to render you in my own person. Jugurtha has put it out of my power to deserve any thing at your hands, and has forced me to be burdensome before I could be useful to you. And yet, if I had no

plea but my undeserved misery, who, from a powerful prince, the descendant of a race of illustrious monarchs, find myself without any fault of my own, tute of every support, and reduced to the necessity of begging foreign assistance against an enemy who has seized my throne and kingdom; if my unequalled distresses were all I had to plead, it would become the greatness of the Roman commonwealth, the arbitress of the world, to protect the injured, and to check the triumph of daring wickedness over helpless innocence. But, to provoke your vengeance to the utmost, Jugurtha has driven me from the very dominions which the senate, and people of Rome gave to my ancestors, and from which my grandfather and my father, under your um brage, expelled Syphax, and the Carthaginians. Thus, fathers, your kindness to our family is defeated; and Jugurtha, in injuring me, throws contempt on you.

O wretched prince! O cruel reverse of fortune! O father Micipsa! is this the consequence of your generosity, that he whom your goodness raised to an equality with your own children, should be the murderer of your children? Must then the royal house of Numidia always be a scene of havock and blood? While Carthage remained, we suffered, as was to be expected, all sorts of hardships from their hostile attacks; our enemy near; our only powerful ally, the Roman commonwealth, at a distance; while we were so circumstanced, we were always in arms, and in action. When that scourge of Africa was no more, we congratulated ourselves on the prospect of established peace. But instead of peace, behold the kingdom of Numidia drenched with royal blood, and the only surviving son of its late king flying from an adopted murderer, and seeking that safety in foreign parts, which he cannot command in his own kingdom.

Whither-O whither shall I fly! If I return to the royal palace of my ancestors, my father's throne is seized by the murderer of my brother. What can I there expect, but that Jugurtha should hasten to imbrue in my blood those hands which are now reeking with my brother's? If I were to fly for refuge, or for assistance, to any other courts, from what prince can I hope for protection, if the Roman com❤ monwealth gives me up? From my own family or friends I have no expectations. My royal father is no more: he is beyond the reach of violence, and out of hearing

him home again: but on ordinary days, when these morning visits were over, as they usually were before ten, he retired to his books, and shut himself up in his library without seeking any other diversion, but what his children afforded to the short intervals of his leisure. His supper was the greatest meal; and the usual season with all the great of enjoying their friends at table, which was frequently prolonged to a late hour of the night, yet he was out of his bed every morning before it was light; and never used to sleep again at noon, as all others generally did, and as it is commonly practised in Rome to this day.

But though he was so temperate and studious, yet when he was engaged to sup with others, either at home or abroad, he laid aside his rules, and forgot the invalid; and was gay and sprightly, and the very soul of the company. When friends were met together, to heighten the comforts of social life, he thought it inhospitable not to contribute his share to their common mirth, or to damp it by a churlish reservedness. But he was really a lover of chearful entertainments, being of a nature remarkably facetious, and singularly turned to raillery; a talent which was of great service to him at the bar, to correct the petulance of an adversary; relieve the satiety of a tedious cause; divert the minds of the judges; and mitigate the rigour of a sentence, by making both the bench and audience merry at the expence of the accuser.

The use of it was always thought fair, and greatly applauded in public trials: but in private conversations, he was charged sometimes with pushing his raillery too far; and through a consciousness of his perior wit, exerting it often intempewithout reflecting what cruel is his lashes inflicted. Yet of all astical jokes, which are transmit antiquity, we shall not obwhat were pointed against er ridiculous or profliespised for their follies, vices; and though he leen, and quicken ies more than was ai to his own ease, have hurt or lost he valued, by

if his wit ence,

and that several spurious collections of his sayings were handed about in Rome in his life-time, till his friend Trebonius, after he had been consul, thought it worth while to publish an authentic edition of them, in a volume which he addressed to Cicero himself. Cæsar likewise, in the height of his power, having taken a fancy to collect the Apophthegms, or memora ble sayings of eminent men, gave strict orders to all his friends who used to frequent Cicero, to bring him every thing of that sort, which happened to drop from him in their company. But Tiro, Cicero's freedman, who served him chiefly in his studies and literary affairs, published after his death the most perfect collection of his Sayings, in three books; where Quintilian however wishes that he had been more sparing in the number and ju dicious in the choice of them. None of these books are now remaining, nor any other specimen of the jests, but what are incidently scattered in different parts of his own and other people's writings: which, as the same judicious critic observes, through the change of taste in different ages, and the want of that action or gesture, which gave the chief spirit to many of them, could never be explained to advantage, though several had attempted it. How much more cold then and insipid must they needs appear to us, who are unacquainted with the particular characters and stories to which they relate, as well as the peculiar fashions, humour, and taste of wit in that age? Yet even in these, as Quintilian also tells us, as well as in his other compositions, people would sooner find what they might reject, thou what they could add to them.

He had a great number of fine houses in different parts of Italy; some writers reckon up eighteen ; which, excepting the family seat at Arpinum, seem to have been all purchased, or built by himself. They were situated generally near to the sea, and placed at proper distances along the lower coast, between Rome and Pom peii, which was about four leagues be yond Naples; and for the elegance of structure, and the delights of their sit tion, are called by him the eyes, or the beauties of Italy. Those in which he took the most pleasure, and usually spent some part of every year, were his Tusculum, Antium, Astura, Arpinum; his Formia. Cuman, Puteolan, and Pompeian villas all of them large enough for the recep

tion not only of his own family, but of his friends and numerous guests; many of whom, of the first quality, used to pass several days with him in their excursions from Rome. But besides these that may properly be reckoned seats, with large plantations and gardens around them, he had several little inns, as he calls them, or baiting-places on the road, built for his accommodation in passing from one house to another.

His Tusculum House had been Sylla's, the dictator; and in one of its apartments had a painting of his memorable victory near Nola, in the Marsic war, in which Cicero had served under him as a volunteer: it was about four leagues from Rome, on the top of a beautiful hill covered with the villas of the nobility, and affording an agreeable prospect of the city, and the country around it, with plenty of water flowing through his grounds in a large stream or canal, for which he paid a rent to the corporation of Tusculum. Its neighbourhood to Rome gave him the opportunity of a retreat at any hour from the fatigues of the bar or the senate, to breathe a little fresh air, and divert himself with his friends or family: so that this was the place in which he took the most delight, and spent the greatest share of his leisure; and for that reason improved and adorned it beyond all his other houses.

When a greater satiety of the city, or a longer vacation in the forum, disposed him to seek a calmer scene, and more undisturbed retirement, he used to remove to Antium or Astura. At Antium he placed his best collection of books, and as it was not above thirty miles from Rome, he could have daily intelligence there of every thing that passed in the city. Astura was a little island, at the mouth of a river of the same name, about two leagues farther towards the south, between the promontories of Antium and Circæum, and in the view of them both; a place peculiarly adapted to the purposes of solitude, and a severe retreat; covered with a thick wood cut out into shady walks, in which he used to spend the gloomy and splenetic moments of his life. In the height of summer, the mansionhouse at Arpinum, and the little island adjoining, by the advantage of its groves and cascades, afforded the best defence against the inconvenience of the heats; where, in greatest that he had ever remembered,

the

we

find him refreshing himself, as he writes' to his brother, with the utmost pleasure, in the cool stream of his Fibrenus. His other villas were situated in the more public parts of Italy, where all the best company of Rome had their houses of pleasure. He had two at Formic, a lower and upper villa; the one near to the port of Cajeta, the other upon the mountains adjoining. He had a third on the shore of Baia, between the lake Avernus and Puteoli, which he calls his Puteolan: a fourth on the hills of Old Cume, called his Cuman villa; and a fifth at Pompeii, four leagues beyond Naples, in a country famed for the pu rity of its air, fertility of its soil, and delicacy of its fruits. His Puteolan house was built after the plan of the Academy of Athens, and called by that name; being adorned with a portico and a grove, for the same use of philosophical conferences. Some time after his death, it fell into the hands of Antistius Vetus, who repaired and improved it; when a spring of warm water which happened to burst out in one part of it, gave occasion to the following epigram, made by Laurea Tullius, one of Cicero's freedmen.

of the complaints of his unhappy son. Were my brother alive, our mutual sympathy would be some alleviation: but he is hurried out of life in his early youth, by the very hand which should have been the last to injure any of the royal family of Numidia. The bloody Jugurtha has butchered all whom he suspected to be in my interest. Some have been destroyed by the lingering torment of the cross; others have been given a prey to wild beasts, and their anguish made the sport of men more cruel than wild beasts. If there be any yet alive, they are shut up in dungeons, there to drag out a life more into lerable than death itself.

Look down, illustrious senators of Rome! from that height of power to which you are raised, on the unexampled distresses of a prince, who is, by the cruelty of a wicked intruder, become an outcast from all mankind. Let not the crafty insinuations of him who returns murder for adoption, prejudice your judgment. Do not listen to the wretch who has butchered the son and relations of a king, who gave him power to sit on the same throne with his own sons.-I have been informed that he labours by his emissaries to prevent your determining any thing against him in his absence, pretending that I magnify my distress, and night for him have staid in peace in my own kingdom. But, if ever the time comes when the due vengeance from above shall overtake him, he will then dissemble as I do. Then he who now, hardened in wickedness, triumphs over those whom his violence has laid low, will in his turn feel distress, and suffer for his impious ingratitude to my father, and his blood-thirsty cruelty to my brother.

O murdered, butchered, brother! O dearest to my heart-now gone for ever from my sight! But why should I lament his death? He is indeed deprived of the blessed light of heaven, of life, and kingdom, at once, by the very person who ought to have been the first to hazard his own life in defence of any one of Micipsa's family. But as things are, my brother is not so much deprived of these comforts, as delivered from terror, from flight, from exile, and the endless train of miseries which render life to me a burden. He lies full low, gored with wounds, and festering in his own blood; but he lies in peace: he feels none of the miseries which rend my soul with agony and distraction, whilst

I am set up a spectacle to all mankind, of the uncertainty of human affairs. So far from having it in my power to revenge his death, I am not inaster of the means of securing my own life: so far from being in a condition to defend my kingdom from the violence of the usurper, I am obliged to apply for foreign protection for my own person.

Fathers! Senators of Rome! the arbi ters of the world!-to you I fly for refuge from the murderous fury of Jugurtha.-By your affection for your children, by your love for your country, by your own virtues, by the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, by all that is sacred, and all that is dear to you-- deliver a wretched prince from undeserved, unprovoked injury, and save the kingdom of Numidia, which is your own property, from being the prey of violence, usurpation, and cruelty. Sallust.

$ 36. Speech of CANULEIUS, a Romen' Tribune, to the Consuls; in which ke demands that the Plebeians may be ad mitted into the Consulship, and that the Law prohibiting Patricians and Plebeians from intermarrying, may be repealed.

What an insult upon us is this! If we are not so rich as the patricians, are we not citizens of Rome as well as they? inhabitants of the same country? members of the same community? The nations bordering upon Rome, and even strangers more remote, are admitted not only to marriages with us, but to what is of much greater importance, the freedom of the city. Are we, because we are commoners, to be worse treated than strangers?—And, when we demand that the people may be free to bestow their offices and dignities or whom they please, do we ask any thing unreasonable or new do we claim more than their original inherent right? What occasion then for all this uproar, as if the universe were falling to ruin!They were just going to lay violent hands upon me in the senate-house.

What! must this empire then be unavoidably overturned? must Rome of ne cessity sink at once, if a plebeian, worthy of the office, should be raised to the consulship? The patricians, I am persuaded, if they could, would deprive you of the common light. It certainly offends them that you breathe, that you speak,

that

that you have the shapes of men. Nay, but to make a commoner a consul, would be, say they, a most enormous thing. Numa Pompilius, however, without being so much as a Roman citizen, was made king of Rome: the elder Tarquin, by birth not even an Italian, was nevertheless placed upon the throne: Servius Tullius, the son of a captive woman (nobody knows who his father was) obtained the kingdom as the reward of his wisdom and virtue. In those days, no man in whom virtue shone conspicuous was rejected, or despised, on account of his race and descent. And did the state prosper less for that? were not these strangers the very best of all our kings? And supposing now, that a plebeian should have their talents and merit, must not he be suffered to go

vern us?

But, "we find that, upon the abolition "of the regal power, no commonner was "chosen to the consulate." And what of that! Before Numa's time there were no pontiffs in Rome. Before Servius Tullius's days there was no Census, no division of the people into classes and centuries. Who ever heard of consuls before the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud? Dictators, we all know, are of modern invention; and so are the offices of tribunes, ædiles, questors. Within those ten years we have made decemvirs, and we have unmade them. Is nothing to be done but what has been done before? That very law forbidding marriages of patricians with plebeians, is not that a new thing? was there any such law before the decemvirs enacted it? and a most shameful one it is in a free estate. Such marriages, it seems, will taint the pure blood of the nobility! why, if they think so, let them take care to match their sisters and daughters with men of their own sort. No plebeian will do violence to the daughter of a patrician; those are exploits for our prime nobles. There is no need to fear, that we shall force any body into a contract of marriage. But, to make an express law to prohibit marriages of patricians with plebeians, what is this but to shew the utmost contempt of us, and to declare one part of the community to be impure and unclean?

They talk to us of the confusion there will be in families, if this statute should be repealed. I wonder they do not make a law against a commoner's living near a nobleman, or going the same road that he is going, or being present at the same

feast, or appearing in the same marketplace they might as well pretend, that these things make confusion in families, as that intermarriages will do it. Does not every one know, that the child will be ranked according to the quality of his father, let him be a patrician or a plebeian ? In short, it is manifest enough, that we have nothing in view but to be treated as men and citizens; nor can they who oppose our demand, have any motive to do it, but the love of domineering. I would fain know of you, consuls and patricians, is the sovereign power in the people of Rome, or in you? I hope you will allow, that the people can, at their pleasure, either make a law or repeal one. And will you then, as soon as any law is proposed to them, pretend to list them immediately for the war, and hinder them from giving their suffrages, by leading them into the field?

Hear me, consuls: whether the news of the war you talk of be true, or whether it be only a false rumour, spread abroad for nothing but a colour to send the people out of the city, I declare, as tribune, that this people, who have already so often spilt their blood in our country's cause, are again ready to arm for its defence and its glory, if they may be restored to their natural rights, and you will no longer treat us like strangers in our own country: but if you account us unworthy of your alliance by intermarriages; if you will not suffer the entrance to the chief offices in the state to be open to all persons of merit indifferently, but will confine your choice of magistrates to the senate alone-talk of wars as much as ever you please; paint, in your ordinary discourses, the league and power of our enemies ten times more dreadful than you do now-I declare that this people, whom you so much despise, and to whom you are nevertheless indebted for all your victories, shall never more enlist themselves; not a man of them shall take arms; not a man of them shall expose his life for imperious lords, with whom he can neither share the dignities of the state, nor in private life have any alliance by marriage. Iooke.

$37. Character of CICERO.

The story of Cicero's death continued fresh on the minds of the Romans for many ages after it; and was delivered down to posterity, with all its circumstances, as