_ 61 Scaligerana prima_, p. 144.
62 Πολυγραφωτατος. _Epist. ad Attic._ Lib. III. Ep. 18.
63 Cicero, _De Divinat._ Lib. I. c. 18. Seneca, _Epist._ 98.
64 Suetonius, _De Illust. Grammat._ c. 1.
65 Suetonius (_De Illust. Gram._) says, that he was sent by Attalus, at
the moment of the death of Ennius. Now, Ennius died in 585, at which
time Eumenes reigned at Pergamus, and was not succeeded by Attalus
till the year 595; so that Suetonius was mistaken, either as to the
year in which Crates came to Rome, or the king by whom he was sent—I
rather think he was wrong in the latter point; for, if Crates was
the first Greek rhetorician who taught at Rome, which seems
universally admitted, he must have been there before 593, in which
year the rhetoricians were expressly banished from Rome, along with
the philosophers.
66 Suetonius, c. 2.
67 Court de Gebelin, _Monde Primitif_, T. VI. Disc. Prelim. p. 12.
_ 68 Epist. ad Attic._ Lib. XIII. Ep. 12.
69 Ibid. Lib. XIII. Ep. 18.
_ 70 Epist. Famil._ Lib. IX. Ep. 8.
71 Aulus Gellius, Lib. I. c. 18
72 See also as to the Celtic derivations, Court de Gebelin, _Monde
Primitif_. Disc. Prelim. T. VI. p. 23.
73 Jupiter, Juno, Saturnus, Vulcanus, Vesta, et alii plurimi quos Varro
conatur ad mundi partes sive elementa transferre. (_St August.
Civit. Dei_, Lib. VIII. c. 5.)
74 Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ Lib. I. c. 6.
75 Bolingbroke, _Use and Study of History_, Lett. 3.
76 Au. Gellius, Lib. XIV. c. 7.
77 St Augustine, _De Civitat. Dei_, Lib. XIX. c. 1.
78 Antiochus of Ascalon, a teacher of the old Academy.
79 Fabricius, _Biblioth. Latin._ Lib. I. c. 7.
80 Au. Gellius, _Noct. Attic._ Lib. XIII. c. 11.
_ 81 Ibid._ Lib. VII. c. 16.
82 Tom. I. p. 241.
83 It was long believed, that Pope Gregory the First had destroyed the
works of Varro, in order to conceal the plagiarisms of St Augustine,
who had borrowed largely from the theological and philosophic
writings of the Roman scholar. This, however, is not likely. That
illustrious Father of the Christian Church is constantly referring
to the learned heathen, without any apparent purpose of concealment;
and he extols him in terms calculated to attract notice to the
subject of his eulogy. Nor did St Augustine possess such meagre
powers of genius, as to require him to build up the city of the true
God from the crumbling fragments of Pagan temples.
_ 84 Academ. Poster._ Lib. I. c. 3.
85 Morhof, _Polyhistor_. Tom. I. Lib. I. Falsterus, _Hist. Rei Liter.
ap. Roman._
86 Middendorp, _De Academ._ Lib. III.
87 Tiraboschi, _Stor. dell Lett. Ital._ Part III. Lib. III. c. 8.
88 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ Lib. XVIII. c. 3.
89 Plutarch, _in Paul. Æmil._
90 Id. _in Sylla_.
91 Plutarch, _in Lucullo_.
_ 92 Ibid._
_ 93 Epist. ad Attic._ Lib. IV. Ep. 4 and 8.
_ 94 Epist. ad Quint. Frat._ Lib. II. Ep. 4. According to some writers,
it was a younger Tyrannio, the disciple of the elder, who arranged
Cicero’s library, and taught his nephew.—Mater, _Ecole
d’Alexandrie_, Tom. I. p. 179.
95 Suidas, _Lexic._
96 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ Lib. VII. c. 30.
97 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ Lib. XXXV. c. 14.
98 Au. Gellius, Lib. IV. c. 9.
99 Plutarch, _in Cicero._
_ 100 Chron. Euseb._
101 Suetonius, _in August._ c. 94.
102 Au. Gellius, _Noct. Attic._ Lib. XIX. c. 14.
_ 103 Ibid._
104 Au. Gellius, Lib. X. c. 4.
105 See farther, with regard to Nigidius Figulus, Bayle, _Dict. Histor._
Art. Nigidius, and _Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions_, Tom. XXIX. p.
190.
106 Au. Gellius, _Noct. Attic._ Lib. XIII. c. 9.
107 Griffet, _De Arte Regnandi_.
_ 108 De Oratore_, Lib. II. c. 13.
109 Vopiscus, _Vit. Taciti Imp._
_ 110 Römische Geschichte_, Tom. I. p. 367.
111 Cicero, _De Oratore_, Lib. II. c. 13.
112 Lib. I. c. 2.
113 Quæ in Commentariis Pontificum aliisque publicis privatisque erant
monumentis, incensâ urbe, pleræque interîere. Livy, Lib. VI. c. 1.
114 Livy, Lib. VI. c. 1.
115 Polybius, Lib. III. c. 22, 25, 26.
_ 116 Epist._ Lib. II. Ep. 1.
117 Lib. IV. p. 257. ed. Sylburg, 1586.
118 Lib. II. p. 111.
119 Lib. III. p. 174.
120 Lib. IV. c. 7.
121 Lib. III. c. 22.
_ 122 Hist. Nat._ Lib. XXXIV. c. 14.
_ 123 Hist. Nat._ Lib. XXXIV. c. 14.
124 Livy, Lib. IV. c. 23.
125 Dionys. Halic. Lib. I. p. 60.
126 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ Lib. XXXV. c. 2.
_ 127 In Numa_.
128 Lib. VIII. c. 40.
129 His laudationibus historia rerum nostrarum est facta mendosior.
Multa enim scripta sunt in iis, quæ facta non sunt—falsi triumphi,
plures consulatus, genera etiam falsa. _Brutus_, c. 16.
130 Lib. III. c. 20.
_ 131 L’Evesque, Hist. Critique de la Republique Romaine_, T. I.
132 Livy, Lib. V. c. 21.
133 Bankes, _Civil History of Rome_, Vol. I.
_ 134 Brutus_, c. 11.
135 Livy, Lib. II. c. 40.
136 The question concerning the authenticity or uncertainty of the Roman
history, was long, and still continues to be, a subject of much
discussion in France.—“At Paris,” said Lord Bolingbroke, “they have
a set of stated paradoxical orations. The business of one of these
was to show that the history of Rome, for the four first centuries
was a mere fiction. The person engaged in it proved that point so
strongly, and so well, that several of the audience, as they were
coming out, said, the person who had set that question had played
booty, and that it was so far from being a paradox, that it was a
plain and evident truth.”—SPENCE’S _Anecdotes_, p. 197. It was
chiefly in the _Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions_, &c. that
this literary controversy was plied. M. de Pouilly, in the Memoirs
for the year 1722, produced his proofs and arguments against the
authenticity. He was weakly opposed, in the following year, by M.
Sallier, and defended by M. Beaufort, in the Memoirs of the Academy,
and at greater length in his _Dissert. sur l’Incertitude des cinq
premiers siècles de l’Hist. Romaine_, (1738,) which contains a clear
and conclusive exposition of the state of the question. The dispute
has been lately renewed in the Memoirs of the Institute, in the
proceedings of which, for 1815, there is a long paper, by M.
Levesque, maintaining the total uncertainty of the Roman history
previous to the invasion of the Gauls; while the opposite side of
the question has been strenuously espoused by M. Larcher. This
controversy, though it commenced in France, has not been confined to
that country. Hooke and Gibbon have argued for the certainty,
(_Miscell. Works_, Vol. IV. p. 40,) and Cluverius for the
uncertainty, of the Roman history, (_Ital. Antiq._ Lib. III. c. 2.)
Niebuhr, the late German historian of Rome, considers all before
Tullus Hostilius as utterly fabulous. The time that elapsed from his
accession to the war with Pyrrhus, he regards as a period to be
found in almost every history, between mere fable and authentic
record. Beck, in the introduction to his German translation of
Ferguson’s Roman Republic, _Ueber die Quellen der altesten Römischen
Geschichte und ihren Werth_, has attempted to vindicate the
authenticity of the Roman history to a certain extent; but his
reasonings and citations go little farther than to prove, what never
can be disputed, that there is much truth in the general outline of
events—that the kings were expelled—that the Etruscans were finally
subdued; and that consuls were created. He admits, that much rested
on tradition; but tradition, he maintains, is so much interwoven
with every history, that it cannot be safely thrown away. The
remainder of the treatise is occupied with a feeble attempt to show,
that more monuments existed at Rome after its capture by the Gauls,
than is generally supposed, and that Fabius Pictor made a good use
of them.
137 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ Lib. XXXV. c. 4.
138 Hankius, _De Romanar. Rerum Scriptor._ Pars I. c. 1.
139 Lib. VII.
140 Lib. IV. p. 234.
_ 141 In Romulo_.
142 Lib. III. c. 9.
143 Lib. I.
144 Lib. III. c. 8.
145 Ernesti has attempted, but I think unsuccessfully, to support the
authenticity of the Annals of Fabius against the censures of
Polybius, in his dissertation, entitled, _Pro Fabii Fide adversus
Polybium_, inserted in his _Opuscula Philologica_, Leipsic,
1746—Lugd. Bat. 1764. He attempts to show, from other passages, that
Polybius was a great detractor of preceding historians, and that he
judged of events more from what was probable and likely to have
occurred, than from what actually happened, and that no historian
could have better information than Fabius. To the interrogatories
which Polybius puts to Fabius, with regard to the causes assigned by
him as the origin of the second Punic war, Ernesti replies for him,
that the Senate of Carthage could no more have taken the command
from Hannibal in Spain, or delivered him up, than the Roman Senate
could have deprived Cæsar of his army, when on the banks of the
Rubicon; and as to the support which Hannibal received while in
Italy, it is answered, that it was quite consistent with political
wisdom, and the practice of other nations, for a government
involuntarily forced into a struggle, by the disobedience or evil
counsels of its subjects, to use every exertion to obtain ultimate
success, or extricate itself with honour, from the difficulties in
which it had been reluctantly involved.
146 Lib. I. p. 64.
147 Fabium æqualem temporibus hujusce belli potissimum auctorem habui.
Lib. XXII. c. 7.
_ 148 Brutus_, c. 27.
_ 149 Hist. Nat._ Lib. XI. c. 53.
_ 150 Noct. Attic._ Lib. XI. c. 14.
151 He also probably suggested to Sallust a phrase which has given much
scandal in so grave a historian. Cicero says, in one of his letters,
(_Epist. Famil._ Lib. IX. Ep. 22,) “At vero Piso, in annalibus suis,
queritur, adolescentes peni deditos esse.”
_ 152 Römische Geschichte_, Tom. I. p. 245.
As his account of Roman affairs was written in Greek, I omit in the
list of Latin annalists Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who was
contemporary with Fabius, having been taken prisoner by Hannibal
during the second Punic war. But though his history was in Greek, he
wrote in Latin a biographical sketch of the Sicilian Rhetorician
Gorgias Leontinus, and also a book, _De Re Militari_, which has been
cited by Au. Gellius, and acknowledged by Vegetius as the foundation
of his more elaborate Commentaries on the same subject.
_ 153 Brutus_, c. 26.
154 The passage is a fragment from the first book of Sallust’s lost
history. Mar. Victorinus _in prim. Ciceronis de Inventione_.
_ 155 De Fontibus et Auctoritate Vitarum Parallel. Plutarchi_, p. 134.
Gotteng. 1820.
156 Lib. I. c. 7.
_ 157 Brutus_, c. 26.
158 Lib. I. c. 7.
159 Æl. Spartianus, _in Hadriano_.
160 Au. Gellius, _Noct. Attic._ Lib. II. c. 13.
_ 161 De Legibus_, Lib. I. c. 2.
162 Lib. V. c. 18.
_ 163 Brutus_, c. 35.
_ 164 Noct. Attic._ Lib. IX. c. 13.
_ 165 Noct. Attic._ Lib. XIII. c. 28.
166 Ibid. Lib. VII. c. 19.
_ 167 Noct. Attic._ Lib. VI. c. 8.
168 See above, Vol. I. p. 322.
_ 169 Brutus_, c. 63.
170 Lib. II. c. 9.
_ 171 Jugurtha_, c. 95.
_ 172 Brutus_, c. 63.
_ 173 De Legibus_, Lib. I. c. 2.
_ 174 Brutus_, c. 29. Some persons have supposed that Cicero did not here
mean Xenophon’s _Cyropædia_, but a life of Cyrus, written by
Scaurus. This, indeed, seems at first a more probable meaning than
that he should have bestowed a compliment apparently so extravagant
on the Memoirs of Scaurus; but his words do not admit of this
interpretation.—“Præclaram illam quidem, sed neque tam rebus nostris
aptam, nec tamen Scauri laudibus anteponendam.”
175 Lib. VII.
_ 176 In Mario_.
177 Lib. II. c. 13.
178 Lib. II. c. 5. Lib. VI. c. 4.
179 Plutarch, _in Lucullo_.
180 Plutarch, _In Sylla_.—Appian.
_ 181 In Mario_.
_ 182 Memoirs of the Court of Augustus_, Vol. I.
_ 183 In Vespasiano_, c. 8.
184 Malheureux sort de l’histoire! Les spectateurs sont trop peu
instruits, et les acteurs trop interessés pour que nous puissions
compter sur les recits des uns ou des autres.—GIBBON’S _Miscell.
Works_, Vol. IV.
_ 185 Noct. Att._ Lib. XVII. c. 18.
186 Nardini, _Roma Antica_. Lib. IV. c. 7.
187 Steuart’s _Sallust_, Essay I.
_ 188 Classical Tour_, Vol. II. c. 6.
_ 189 Sat._ Lib. I. Sat. 2.
190 Suetonius, _De Grammaticis_.
_ 191 Leben des Sallust_.
192 Bankes, _Civil Hist. of Rome_, Vol. II.
193 The authors of the Universal History suppose that these books were
Phœnician and Punic volumes, carried off from Carthage by Scipio,
after its destruction, and presented by him to Micipsa; and they
give a curious account of these books, of which some memory still
subsists, and which they conjecture to have formed part of the royal
collection of Numidia.
194 Senec. _Epist._ 114.
195 It is curious into what gross blunders the most learned and accurate
writers occasionally fall. Fabricius, speaking of these letters,
says, “Duæ orationes (sive epistolæ potius) de Rep. ordinandâ ad
Cæsarem missæ, cum in Hispanias proficisceretur contra Petreium et
Afranium, _victo Cn. Pompeio_.”—_Bibliothec. Latin._ Lib. I. c. 9.
_ 196 Lectiones Subsecivæ_, Lib. I. c. 3. Lib. II. c. 2.
197 Asinius Pollio, however, as we learn from Suetonius, thought that
the Commentaries were drawn up with little care or accuracy, that
the author was very credulous as to the actions of others, and that
he had very hastily written down what regarded himself, with the
intention, which he never accomplished, of afterwards revising and
correcting.—Sueton. _in Cæsar._ c. 56.
198 Bankes, _Civil Hist. of Rome_, Vol. II.
199 Neque Druides habent, qui rebus divinis præsint; neque sacrificiis
student. Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt, et quorum
opibus aperte juvantur—Solem, et Vulcanum, et Lunam: reliquos ne
famâ quidem acceperunt. Lib. VI. c. 21.
200 Deorum maximè Mercurium colunt, cui, certis diebus, humanis quoque
hostiis, litare fas habent. Herculem ac Martem concessis animalibus
placant ... Lucos ac nemora consecrant, deorumque nominibus
appellant Secretum illud, quod solâ reverentia vident. _De Mor.
Germ._ c. 9.
_ 201 Germ. Antiqua_, Lib. I. c. 3.
_ 202 Brutus_, c. 72.
203 See Plutarch _In Cæsare_, where it is related that Cæsar wrote
verses and speeches, and read them to the pirates by whom he was
taken prisoner, on his return to Rome from Bithynia, where he had
sought refuge from the power of Sylla.
_ 204 Hist. Critic. Ling. Lat._ p. 537.
_ 205 Epist. ad Attic._ Lib. XII. ep. 40.
206 Middleton’s _Life of Cicero_, Vol. II, p. 347, 2d ed.
_ 207 Hist. Nat._ Lib. XVIII. c. 26.
208 Sueton. _In Cæsar._ c. 56.
209 Cicero, _Brutus_ c. 72.
210 Au. Gellius, _Noct. Attic._ Lib. I. c. 10.
211 Charisius, Lib. I.
212 Au. Gellius, Lib VII, c. 9.
213 Sueton. _In Cæsar._ c. 56.
214 Ibid.
215 See above, Vol. I. p. 204.
216 See also Blondellus, _Hist. du Calendrier Romain_. Paris, 1682, 4to;
Bianchinus, _Dissert. de Calendario et Cyclo Cæsaris_, Rom. 1703,
folio; and Court de Gebelin, _Monde Primit._ T. IV.
217 Mihi non illud quidem accidit, ut Alexandrino atque Africano bello
interessem; quæ bella tamen ex parte nobis Cæsaris sermone sunt
nota. _De Bell. Gall._ Lib. VIII.
218 Imperfecta ab rebus gestis Alexandriæ confeci, usque ad exitum, non
quidem civilis dissensionis, cujus finem nullum videmus, sed vitæ
Cæsaris. _De Bell. Gall._
_ 219 De Hist. Lat._ Lib. I. c. 13.
220 Sueton. _In Cæsar._ c. 72.
_ 221 Epist. Famil._ Lib. V. Ep. 12.
222 Lib. IV. Ep. 6.
_ 223 De Ling. Lat._ Lib. IV.
_ 224 Hist. Nat._ Lib. VIII. c. 2.
_ 225 Epist. Famil._ Lib. VI. Ep. 7.
226 “Duæ sunt artes,” says Cicero, “quæ possunt locare homines in
amplissimo gradu dignitatis: una imperatoris, altera oratoris boni:
Ab hoc enim pacis ornamenta retinentur; ab illo belli pericula
repelluntur.” _Orat. pro Muræna_, c. 14.
227 Ratio ipsa in hanc sententiam ducit, ut existimem sapientiam sine
eloquentia parum prodesse civitatibus. _Rhetoricorum_, Lib. I. c. 1.
228 Lib. II.
_ 229 Brutus_, c. 22.
_ 230 De Orat._ Lib. I. c. 60.
_ 231 Rhetoric. seu De Inventione_, Lib. I. c. 1.
232 Plutarch, _In Tiber. Graccho_.
233 Plutarch, _In Tiber. Graccho_.
_ 234 Noct. Attic._ Lib. X. c. 3.
235 Plutarch, _In Tib. Graccho_.
_ 236 De Orator._ Lib. III. c. 60. Plutarch and Cicero’s accounts of the
eloquence of C. Gracchus, seem not quite consistent with what is
delivered on the subject by Gellius.
237 Funccius, _De Virili Ætate Lat. Ling._ c. 1. § 24.
238 Lib. IV. Od. 1.
239 Cicero, _De Oratore_, Lib. II. c. 2.
240 Valer. Maxim. Lib. VII. c. 3.
241 Valer. Maxim. Lib. III. c. 7; and Lib. VI. c. 8.
_ 242 De Oratore_, Lib. II. c. 28, 29, 48, 49.
_ 243 Id._ Lib. II. c. 47.
244 Plutarch _In Mario_. Valerius Maximus, Lib. VIII. c. 9.
245 Cicero, _De Oratore_, Lib. III. c. 3.
_ 246 Id._ Lib. I. c. 33.
247 Cicero, _De Orat._. Lib. I. c. 26, 27.
248 Cicero, _De Orat._ Lib. II. c. 1.
249 Plutarch, _In Sylla_.
_ 250 De Oratore_, Lib. III. c. 3.
251 Plutarch, _In Sylla_.
_ 252 De Oratore_, Lib. III. c. 3.
_ 253 Brutus_, c. 89.
_ 254 Brutus_, c. 63.
255 Ibid.
_ 256 De Oratore_, Lib. III. c. 61.
257 Cicero, _Brutus_, c. 89.
258 Ibid.
259 Ibid.
260 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ Lib. XVII. c. 1.
261 Ibid. Lib. XXXIII. c. 11.
262 Nardini, _Roma Antica_, Lib. VI. c. 15.
263 Sueton. _in Augusto_, c. 72.
264 Varro, _De Re Rustica_, Lib. III. c. 6.
265 Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, Lib. III. c. 13.
266 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ Lib. XIV. c. 14.
267 Ibid. Lib. XXV. c. 11.
268 Varro, _De Re Rustica_, Lib. III. c. 3.
269 Ibid. Lib. III. c. 17.
270 Ibid.
271 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ Lib. IX. c. 55.
272 Cicer. _Academica_, Lib. II. c. 25, 31, 33.
273 Bonstetten, _Voyage dans le Latium_, p. 152–160. Nibby, _Viaggio
Antiquario ne contorni di Roma_, T. II.
274 Varro, _De Re Rustica_, Lib. III. c. 13.
275 Cicero, _Brutus_, c. 95.
276 Varro, _De Re Rustica_. Cicero, _Epist. ad Attic._ Lib. V. Ep. 2.
277 Seren. Samonicus, _De Medicina_, c. 15.
278 Cicero, _Epist. Familiares_, Lib. VIII. Ep. 2.
_ 279 Dio__ Cassius_, Lib. XXXIX.
280 Quint. _Inst. Orat._ Lib. XI. c. 3.
_ 281 Epist. ad Atticum_, Lib. III. Ep. 9, &c.
282 As a proof of his astonishing memory, it is recorded by Seneca,
that, for a trial of his powers of recollection, he remained a whole
day at a public auction, and when it was concluded, he repeated in
order what had been sold, to whom, and at what price. His recital
was compared with the clerk’s account, and his memory was found to
have served him faithfully in every particular. Senec. _Præf._ Lib.
I. _Controv._
283 Aulus Gellius, _Noct. Attic._ Lib. I. c. 5.
284 Valerius Maximus, Lib. VIII. c. 10.
285 Ibid.
286 Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, Lib. III. c. 13.
287 Ibid.
288 Meiners, _Decadence des Mœurs chez les Romains_.
289 Hortensius was first married to a daughter of Q. Catulus, the
orator, who is one of the speakers in the Dialogue _De Oratore_.
(Cicero, _De Oratore_, Lib. III. c. 61.) He afterwards asked, and
obtained from Cato, his wife Marcia; who, having succeeded to a
great part of the wealth of Hortensius on his death, was then taken
back by her former husband. (Plutarch, _In Catone_.) By his first
wife, Hortensius had a son and daughter. In his son Quintus, he was
not more fortunate than his rival, Cicero, in his son Marcus.
Cicero, while Proconsul of Cilicia, mentions, in one of his letters,
the ruffian and scandalous appearance made by the younger Hortensius
at Laodicea, during the shows of gladiators.—“I invited him once to
supper,” says he, “on his father’s account; and, on the same
account, only once.” (_Epist. Ad Attic._ Lib. VI. Ep. 3.) Such,
indeed, was his unworthy conduct, that his father at this time
entertained thoughts of disinheriting him, and making his nephew,
Messala, his heir; but in this intention he did not persevere.
(Valer. Maxim. Lib. V. c. 9.) After his father’s death, he joined
the party of Cæsar, (Cicero, _Epist. Ad Att._ Lib. X. Ep. 16, 17,
18,) by whom he was appointed Proconsul of Macedonia; in which
situation he espoused the side of the conspirators, subsequently to
the assassination of Cæsar. (Cicero, _Philip._ X. c. 5 and 6.) By
order of Brutus, he slew Caius Antonius, brother to the Triumvir,
who had fallen into his hands; and, being afterwards taken prisoner
at the battle of Philippi, he was slain by Marc Antony, by way of
reprisal, on the tomb of his brother. (Plutarch, _In M. Bruto_.)
Hortensia, the daughter, inherited something of the spirit and
eloquence of her father. A severe tribute having been imposed on the
Roman matrons by the Triumvirs, Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, she
boldly pleaded their cause before these noted extortioners, and
obtained some alleviation of the impost. (Valer. Maxim. Lib. VIII.
c. 3.)
Quintus, the son of the orator, left two children, Q. Hortensius
Corbio, and M. Hortensius Hortalus. The former of these was a
monster of debauchery; and is mentioned by his contemporary,
Valerius Maximus, among the most striking examples of those
descendants who have degenerated from the honour of their ancestors.
(Lib. III. c. 5.) This wretch, not being likely to become a father,
and the wealth of the family having been partly settled on the wife
of Cato, partly dissipated by extravagance, and partly confiscated
in the civil wars, Augustus Cæsar, who was a great promoter of
matrimony, gave Hortensius Hortalus a pecuniary allowance to enable
him to marry, in order that so illustrious a family might not become
extinct. He and his children, however, fell into want during the
reign of his benefactor’s successor. Tacitus has painted, with his
usual power of striking delineation, that humiliating scene, in
which he appeared, with his four children, to beg relief from the
Senate; and the historian has also recorded the hard answer which he
received from the unrelenting Tiberius. Perceiving, however, that
his severity was disliked by the Senate, the Emperor said, that, if
they desired it, he would give a certain sum to each of Hortalus’s
male children. They returned thanks; but Hortalus, either from
terror or dignity of mind, said not a word; and, from this time,
Tiberius showing him no favour, his family sunk into the most abject
poverty: (Tacit. _Annal._ Lib. II. c. 37 and 38.) And such were the
descendants of the orator with the park, the plantations, the ponds,
and the pictures!
290 Catull. _Carm._ 53.
291 Pliny, _Epist._ Lib. I. ep. 2.
_ 292 Brutus_, c. 80.
293 Ibid.
294 According to some authorities it was a short while before, and
according to others a short while after, the expulsion of Tarquin.
295 “Exactis deinde regibus leges hæ exoleverunt; iterumque cœpit
populus Romanus incerto magis jure et consuetudine ali, quam per
latam legem.”—POMPON. LÆTUS, _De Leg._ II. § 3.
296 Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, c. 44.
_ 297 De Legibus_, Lib. II. c. 23. _De Oratore_, Lib. I, c. 42.
298 “Decem tabularum leges,” says Livy, “nunc quoque, in hoc immenso
aliarum super aliis acervatarum legum cumulo, fons omnis publici
privatique est juris.”
299 Cicero, _De Oratore_, Lib. II. c. 33.
300 Saint Prix, _Hist. du Droit Romain_, p. 23. Ed. Paris, 1821.
_ 301 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, c. 44.
302 Cicero, _De Orat._ Lib. I. c. 57.
303 Ibid. Lib. I. c. 58.
304 It must be admitted, however, that Cicero, in other passages of his
works, has given the study of civil law high encomiums, particularly
in the following beautiful passage delivered in the person of
Crassus: “Senectuti vero celebrandæ et ornandæ quid honestius potest
esse perfugium, quàm juris interpretatio? Equidem mihi hoc subsidium
jam inde ab adolescentiâ comparavi, non solum ad causarum usum
forensem, sed etiam ad decus atque ornamentum senectutis; ut cùm me
vires (quod fere jam tempus adventat) deficere cœpissent, ab
solitudine domum meam vindicarem.” (_De Oratore_, Lib. I. c. 45.)
Schultingius, the celebrated civilian, in his dissertation _De
Jurisprudentia Ciceronis_, tries to prove, from various passages in
his orations and rhetorical writings, that Cicero was well versed in
the most profound and nice questions of Roman jurisprudence, and
that he was well skilled in international law, as Grotius has
borrowed from him many of his principles and illustrations, in his
treatise _De Jure Belli et Pacis_.
_ 305 De Oratore_, Lib. I.
_ 306 Ibid._ Lib. II. c. 49.
307 “An non pudeat, certam creditam pecuniam periodis postulare, aut
circa stillicidia affici?”—Quint. _Inst. Orat._ Lib. VIII. c. 3.
308 Polletus, _Historia Fori Romani, ap. Supplement. ad Graevii et
Gronov. antiquitat._ T. I. p. 351.
_ 309 In Verrem_, Act. I. c. 14.
310 Nardini, _Roma Antica_, Lib. V. c. 2, &c.