son, surnamed Faliscus, may claim a place beside the Halieutica of Ovid, on account of its subject, but not on the score of genius, poetry, or language. Nothing is known respecting this author, except that Ovid speaks of him as a contemporary. The poem is heroic, and consists of 536 lines; its style is hard and prosaic; it describes the weapons and arts of the chase, horses, and hounds; but the science is rather Greek than Italian, and the information contained in it is principally derived from Xenophon.2

5

PEDO ALBINOVANUS.

3

Another poet of the Ovidian age was his trusty friend, C. Pedo Albinovanus. He was of equestrian rank, and, unlike most of his contemporaries, an epic poet. Ovid, in his Epistles from Pontus, which are addressed to him, applies to him the epithet "Sidereus," either because he had written an astronomical poem, or because his sublime language soared into the starry heavens. Martial speaks of him as having written epigrams which extend to the length of two pages. A fragment of an epic poem, describing the voyage of Germanicus related by Tacitus, is preserved by Seneca. Three elegies are usually ascribed to him; but their style is that of more modern times, and the authority. for their genuineness very suspicious.

A. SABINUS.

Another contemporary of Ovid was A. Sabinus; but all that is known respecting him is derived from two passages in the works of the former poet. In one of these,' he tells us that Sabinus wrote answers to six of the epistles of the Heroides. None of these, however, are extant. The three which profess to be written by him, entitled Ulysses to Penelope, Demophoon to Phyllis, and Paris to none, are the work of Angelus Sabinus,10 a philologer and poet of the fifteenth century.

Two other works are attributed to him by Ovid in a passage in which he speaks of his death." One of these, entitled Trozen, was probably an epic poem of which Theseus was the hero; the other, Dierum Opus, was a continuation of Ovid's Fasti. Other elegiac poets flourished at this period, such as Proculus and Montanus; but their poetical talents were of two common-place a cha

1 Ep. ex Pont. iv. 16, 33. 4 Quint. x. 8

7 Ann. ii. 23; Suasor. 1.

10 Bernhardy, 451.

2 See Bernhardy, Gr. 440.
5 Ibid. iv. 16, 6.

8 Ex. Pont. iv. 16, 13.
"Ep. ex Pont. iv. 16, 13.

12 Smith's Dict. Glaser. im Rhein. Mus. N. F. i. 437.

3 Bern. 409.

6 Ep. ii. 77.

9 Amor. ii. 18, 27.

racter to deserve special mention. They confer no obligation on literature, and contribute nothing towards the illustration of the literary character of their times.

M. MANILIUS.

The astronomical and astrological poem of Manilius furnishes a series of those historical problems which have never yet been satisfactorily solved. The author has been in turn confounded with every one whom Roman records mention as bearing that name, and in all cases with equally little reason. No one knows when he flourished, where he lived, and of what place he was a native. Bentley determined that he was an Asiatic; Huet that he was a Carthaginian. Internal evidence renders it most probable that he lived in the reign of Tiberius; and yet neither he nor his poem is ever mentioned by any ancient author. His work was never discovered until the beginning of the fifteenth century; probably it had never been published, but only a few copies had been made, some of which have been marvellously preserved.

The philosophical principles of the poem are those of a Stoical Pantheism. As one principle of life pervades the whole universe, there is a close connection between things celestial and things terrestrial. In consequence of this relation, the astrologer can determine the course of the latter by observation of the heavenly bodies. Together with all the assumptions and absurdities of astrology are mingled extensive knowledge of the state of astronomical science in his day; gleams of truth shoot like meteors athwart the darkness. The subject which he has chosen is as unpromising for poetical effect and embellishment as that of Lucretius; but he does not handle it so successfully; he has neither the boldness of thought, the dignity of language, nor the imaginative grandeur which marked the old poet philosopher. The poem is incomplete; and probably owes some of its roughness and obscurity to its never having been corrected for publication.

Lib. i. 798-897; iv. 763.

C CHAPTER IX.

PROSE WRITERS-INFLUENCE OF CICERO UPON THE LANGUAGE-HIS CONVERSE WITH HIS FRIENDS HIS EARLY LIFE-PLEADS HIS FIRST CAUSE-IS QUÆSTOR, ÆDILE, PRÆTOR AND CONSUL-HIS EXILE, RETURN, AND PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION—HIS VACILLATING CONDUCT-HE DELIVERS HIS PHILIPPICS-IS PROSCRIBED AND ASSASSINATED-HIS

CHARACTER.

As oratory gave to Latin prose-writing its elegance and dig nity, Cicero is not only the representative of the flourishing period of the language, but also the instrumental cause of its arriving at perfection. Circumstances may have been favorable to his influence. The national mind may have been in that stage of progress which only required a master-genius to develop it; but still it was he who gave a fixed character to the language, who showed his countrymen what eloquence especially was in its combination of the precepts of art and the principles of natural beauty; what the vigor of Latin was, and of what elegance and polish it was capable.

His age was not an age of poetry; but he paved the way for poetry by investing the language with those graces which are indispensable to its perfection. He freed it from all coarseness and harshness, and accustomed the educated classes to use language, even in their every-day conversation, which never called up gross ideas, but was fit for pure and noble sentiments. Before his time, Latin was plain-spoken, and therefore vigorous; but the penalty which was paid for this was, that it was sometimes gross and even indecent. The conversational language of the upper classes became in the days of Cicero in the highest degree refined; it admitted scarcely an offensive expression. The truth of this assertion is evident from those of his writings which are of the familiar character-from his graphic Dialogues, in which he describes the circumstances as naturally as if they really occurred; from his letters to Atticus, in which he lays open the secret thoughts of his heart to his most intimate friend, his second self. Cicero purified the language morally as well as aesthetically. It was the licentious wantonness of the poets which degraded the

PHILOSOPHICAL CONVERSATIONS.

279

pleasures of the imagination by pandering to the passions at first in language delicately veiled, and then by open and disgusting sensuality.

It is difficult for us, perhaps, to whom religion comes under the aspect of revelation separate from philosophy, and who consider the philosophical investigation of moral subjects as different from the religious view of morals, to form an adequate conception of the pure and almost holy nature of the conversations of Cicero and his distinguished contemporaries. To them philosophy was the contemplation of the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being. The metaphysical analysis of the internal nature of man was the study of immortality and the evidence for another life. Cato, for example, read the Phædo of Plato in his last moments in the same serious spirit in which the Christian would read the words of inspiration. The study of ethics was that of the sanctions with which God has supported duty and enlightened the conscience. They were the highest subjects with which the mind of man could be conversant. For men to meet together, as was the habitual practice of Cicero and his friends, and pass their leisure hours in such discussions, was the same as if Christians were to make the great truths of the gospel the subjects of social

converse.

Again, if we examine the character of their lighter conversations, when they turned from philosophy to literature-it was not mere gossip on the popular literature of the day—it was not even confined to works written in their native tongue-it embraced the whole field of the literature of a foreign nation. They talked of poets, orators, philosophers, and historians, who were ancients to them as they are to us. They did not then think the subject of a foreign and ancient literature dull or pedantic. They did not consider it necessary that conversation should be trifling or frivolous in order to be entertaining.

Nor was the influence which Cicero exercised on the literature of his day merely extensive, but it was permanent. The great men of whom he was the leader and guide caught his spirit. His influence survived until external political causes destroyed eloquence, and its place was supplied by a cold and formal rhetoric: it was felt almost until the language was corrupted by the admixture of barbarisms. It may be discerned in the soldier-like plainness of Cæsar, in the Herodotean narrative of Livy, and its sweetness without its diffuseness occasionally adorns the reflective pages of Tacitus.

It is difficult in a limited space to do justice to Cicero, even as a literary man; such was his versatility of genius, such his inde

fatigable industry, so vast the range of subjects which he touched and adorned. Of course, therefore, it is impossible to do more than rapidly glance at the leading events of his political career, or at his public character, since his history is, in fact, a history of his stirring and critical times.

M. TULLIUS CICERO (BORN B. c. 106).

On the banks of the noiseless and gently-flowing1 Liris (Garigliano), near Arpinum, the birthplace of Marius, lived a Roman knight named M. Tullius Cicero. A competent hereditary estate enabled him to devote his time to literary pursuits. He had two sons; the elder, who bore his father's name, was born January 3d, B. c. 106. The other, Quintus, was about four years younger. As both, and Marcus especially, displayed quick talents and a lively disposition, and gave promise of inheriting their father's taste for learning, he migrated to Rome when Marcus was about fourteen years of age. The boys were educated with their cousins, the young Aculei. Q. Elius taught them grammar; learned Greeks instructed them in philosophy; and the poet Archias exercised them in the technical rules of verse, although he did not succeed in giving them the inspiration of poetry. Quintus prided himself on his poetic skill; and a poem by him, on the twelve zodiacal signs, is still extant. Cicero also had in his boyhood some poetical taste; and there is great elegance in the translations from the Greek which we meet with in his works. He wrote a poem in hexameters, entitled "Pontius Glaucus," as a sort of juvenile exercise, which was extant in the time of Plutarch; and also when he was a young man in praise of Marius.

5

After assuming the toga virilis at sixteen years of age, M. T. Cicero attended the forum diligently; and, by carefully exercising himself in composition, made the eloquence of the celebrated orators whom he heard his own, whilst from the lectures and advice of Q. Mucius Scævola, he acquired the principles of Roman jurisprudence.

He served but little in the armies of his country: his only

Her. Od. I. xxxi.

2 Cicero, notwithstanding his opposite politics, admired Marius, to whom he was distantly related, and thought it an honor to have been born near Arpinum. He quotes a saying of Pompey's (Cic. de Leg. ii. 3), that Arpinum had produced two citizens who had preserved Italy. Valerius Maximus thinks that Arpinum, in this respect, enjoyed a singular privilege :-Conspicuæ felicitatis Arpinum unicum, sive litterarum gloriosissimum contemptorem, sive abundantissimum fontem intueri velis.

3 De Orat. ii. 1.

5 Meyer, Anthol. Rom. 66.

4 Brut. 56.