every one a particular and separate judgment. Wherefore, if any one would convict him of partiality, he ought to pick out some one of those particular judgments; or say, in general, that he was mistaken in comparing such a Greek to such a Roman, when there were others more fit and nigher resembling, to parallel him to.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

orous appetites

lent.

THE STORY OF SPURINA.

PHILOSOPHY thinks she has not made an ill use of her talent when she has given the sovereignty of the soul, and Whether the am- the authority of restraining our appetites to are the most vio- reason. Amongst which, they who judge that there are none more violent than those which spring from love have this opinion, also, that they seize both body and soul, and possess the whole man, so that even health itself depends upon them, and medicine is sometimes constrained to pimp for them; but a man might also say, on the contrary, that the mixture of the body brings an abatement and weakening; for such desires are subject to satiety, and capable of material remedies.

Many, being determined to rid their soul from the continual alarms of this appetite, have made use of incision and amputation of the rebelling members; others have subdued their force and ardour by the frequent application of cold things, as snow and vinegar; the sackcloths of our ancestors were for this purpose, which is a cloth woven of horses'-hair, of which some of them made shirts, and others girdles to torture and correct their reins.

A prince, not long ago, told me that, in his youth, upon a

solemn festival in the court of King Francis the First, where everybody was very finely dressed, he took a fancy to put on his father's hair shirt, which was still kept in the house; but how great soever his devotion was, he had not patience to wear it till night, and was ill from it a long time after; adding withal, that he did not think there could be any youthful heat so fierce that the use of this recipe would not mortify; and yet perhaps he never essayed the most violent; for experience shows us that such emotions are often found under rude and slovenly clothes, and that a hair shirt does not always render those chaste that wear it.

Xenocrates proceeded with greater severity in this affair; for his disciples, to make trial of his continency, having slipped Laïs, that beautiful and famous courtezan, into his bed quite naked, excepting the arms of her beauty and her wanton allurements, her philters, finding that, in spite of his reason and philosophical rules, his unruly flesh began to mutiny, he caused those members of his to be burned that he found consenting to this rebellion.1 Whereas the passions which wholly reside in the soul, as ambition, avarice, and the rest, find the reason much more to do, because it cannot there be relieved but by its own means; neither are those appetites capable of satiety, but grow sharper and increase by fruition.

proof that ambi

The sole example of Julius Cæsar may suffice to demonstrate to us the disparity of those appetites; Cæsar's example a for never was man more addicted to amorous tion is harder to be delights than he. Of which the delicate care tamed than love. he had of his person, to that degree of effeminacy as to make use of the most lascivious means to that end then practised, as to have the hairs of his whole body plucked off, and to be larded all over with perfumes with the extremest nicety, is one testimony; and he was a beautiful person in himself, of a fair complexion, tall and sprightly, full faced, with quick hazel eyes, if we may believe Suetonius; for the statues that we see at Rome do not in all points answer this de1 Laertius, in Vitâ, iv. 7. 2 Suetonius, in Vitâ, c. 45. VOL. II.

2

32

scription. Besides his wives, whom he four times changed, without reckoning the amours of his childhood with Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, he had the maidenhead of the renowned Cleopatra, queen of Egypt; witness the little Cæsario that he had by her; he also made love to Eunoe, queen of Mauritania, and at Rome to Posthumia, the wife of Servius Sulpitius; to Lollia, the wife of Gabinius; to Tertulla, the wife of Crassus; and even to Mutia, wife to the great Pompey; which was the reason, the Roman historians say, that she was repudiated by her husband, which Plutarch confesses to be more than he knew; and the Curios, father and son, afterwards reproached Pompey, when he married Cæsar's daughter, that he had made himself son-in-law to a man who had made him a cuckold; and one that he himself was wont to call Egisthus; besides all these he entertained Servilia, Cato's sister, and mother to Marcus Brutus, whence every one believes, proceeded the great affection he had to Brutus, by reason that he was born at a time when it was likely he might be his son. So that I have reason, methinks, to take him for a man extremely given to this debauch, and of a very amorous constitution; but the other passion of ambition, with which he was exceedingly infected, arising in him to contend with it, it was soon compelled to give way.

8

And here calling to mind Mahomet, who won Constantinople, and finally exterminated the Grecian name, I do not know where these two passions were so evenly balanced; equally an indefatigable lecher and soldier; but where they both meet in his life, and jostle one another, the quarrelling ardour always gets the better of the amorous passion; and this, though it was out of its natural season, never regained an absolute sovereignty over the other till he was arrived at an extreme old age, and unable to undergo the fatigues of

war.

1 Plutarch, Life of Cæsar, c. 13.

2 Suetonius, in Vita, c. 50, 52, etc.

3 When he entered Rome on his trium

phal car, the soldiers cried

"Urbani. servate uxores: machum cal

vum adducimus."

Suetonius, in Vitå.

stronger than ambition.

What is related, for a contrary example of Ladislaus, king of Naples, is very remarkable; who being a A notable example great captain, valiant, and ambitious, proposed proving love to be to himself, for the principal end of his ambition, the execution of his pleasure, and the enjoyment of some rare beauty. His death was of a piece; for having by a close and tedious siege, reduced the city of Florence to so great distress that the inhabitants were compelled to capitulate about surrender, he was content to let them alone, provided they would deliver up to him a virgin of excelling beauty he had heard of in their city; they were forced to yield to it, and by a private injury to divert the public ruin. She was the daughter of a famous physician of his time, who, finding himself involved in so foul a necessity, resolved upon a high attempt. As every one was laying a hand to trick up his daughter, and to adorn her with ornaments and jewels, to render her more agreeable to this new lover, he also gave her a handkerchief most richly wrought, and of an exquisite perfume, which she was to make use of at their first approaches, an implement they never go without in those parts; this handkerchief, poisoned with his utmost art, coming to be rubbed between the chafed flesh and open pores, both of the one and the other, so suddenly infused the poison, that immediately converting their warm into a cold sweat, they presently died in one another's arms.1

Caesar's character.

But I return to Cæsar. His pleasures never made him steal one minute of an hour, nor step one step aside, from occasions that might conduce any way to his advancement; that passion was so sovereign in him over all the rest, and with so absolute an authority possessed his soul, that it guided him at pleasure. In truth, this troubles me, when, as to every thing else, I consider the greatness of this man, and the wonderful parts wherewith he was endued, learned to that degree in all sorts of knowledge, that there is hardly any one science of which he has not

1 Colenuccio, Hist. Neap. v., who throws a doubt over the story.

2

written;1 he was so great an orator, that many have preferred his eloquence to that of Cicero; and he, I conceive, did not think himself inferior to him in that particular, for his two Anti-Catos were chiefly written to counterbalance the elocution that Cicero had expended in his Cato. As to the rest, was ever soul so vigilant, so active, and so patient of labour as his? and doubtless it was embellished with many rare seeds of virtue, innate, natural, and not put on. He was singularly sober, and so far from being delicate in his diet, that Oppius relates, that having one day at table medicinal instead of common oil set before him in some sauce, he ate heartily of it that he might not put his entertainer out of countenance; another time he caused his baker to be whipped for serving him with a finer than ordinary sort of bread. Cato himself used to say of him that he was the first sober man that ever made it his business to ruin his country. And as to the same Cato calling him one day drunkard, it fell out thus: being both of them one day in the senate, at a time when Catiline's conspiracy was in question, of which Cæsar was suspected, one came and brought him a letter sealed up; Cato believing that it was something the conspirators gave him notice of, called to him to deliver it into his hand; which Cæsar was constrained to do to avoid further suspicion; it was, by chance, a love-letter that Servilia, Cato's sister, had written to him; which Cato having read, he threw it back to him saying, "There, drunkard." This, I say, was rather a word of disdain and anger than an express reproach of this vice; as we often rate those that anger us with the first injurious words that come into our mouths, though nothing due to those we are offended at; to which may be added, that the vice which Cato cast in his dish is wonderfully near akin to that wherein he had trapped

1 Suetonius, in his Life of Casar, speaks of his works in grammar, eloquence, history; his letters to the Senate, to Cicero, to his friends; his poems; a tragedy called Edipus; a collection of apothegins, which Augustus prohibited the publication of.

There has also been attributed to him a work Upon Augurs, and a Cosmography. 2 Apud Suetonius. The various illustrations of Cæsar which follow are taken from the same author.