INACCURACY OF VALERIUS ANTIAS.

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the unbroken silence, in the midst of which his voice of thunder uttered his defiance-the scorn with which he sneered and put out his tongue when no one accepted his challenge-the shame and grief of the noble Manlius-the struggle-the cutting off the monster's head, and the wreathing his own neck with the collar still reeking with blood.

It has been suggested that this historian received the surname Quadrigarius because, in the games of the circus, celebrated after the victory of Sulla, he won the prize in the chariot-race.

No Roman historian ever made greater pretensions to accuracy than Valerius Antias, and no one was less trustworthy. Livy, on one occasion,1 accuses him of either negligence or impudent exaggeration; but there is no doubt that he was guilty of the latter fault. Almost all the places in which he is quoted by Livy have reference to numbers, and in all he not only goes far beyond all other historians, but even transgresses the bounds of possibility. Livy never hesitates to call him a liar. In all cases he is guilty of falsehood; the only question is whether his falsehood is more or less moderate. The following examples are sufficient to convict him. He undertakes to assert that the exact number of the Sabine virgins was 527.3 If one historian states that 60 engines of war were taken, he makes the number 6,000;4 when all authors, Greek and Latin, unite in asserting that in A. U. C. 553, there was no memorable campaign, he says a battle was fought in which 12,000 of the enemy were slain and 1,200 taken prisoners. In another place 10,000 slain become 40,000; and a fine which Quadrigarius states was to be paid by instalments in thirty years, he distributes only over the space of ten. With matter of this unauthentic kind, he filled no less than seventy-five books, of which a large portion of passages have been preserved, especially by Livy.

Hitherto, with one doubtful exception, Latin historical composition was in the hands of the great and noble; the first histo

'Lib. xxx. 19.

2 There is one instance to the contrary, (Liv. xxxviii. 23,) in which Quadrigarius makes the number of the slain 40,000, Antias only 10,000.

3 Plut. Romulus, 14.

6 Lib. xxxiii. 10.

4 Liv. xxvi. 49.

7 Lib. xxxiii. 30.

5 Lib. xxxii. 6.

rian belonging to the order of the libertinei was L. Otacilius Pilitus. Suetonius' says, that he was not only originally a slave, but that he acted as porter, and, as was the custom, was chained to his master's door. Nothing is known of his works; it is probable, therefore, that they were of no merit.

Two more important names remain to be mentioned amongst the annalists of this period-L. Cornelius Sisenna and Q. Ælius Tubero. Sisenna, according to the testimony of Cicero,2 was born between B. C. 640 and B. c. 680, and filled the office of quæstor B. c. 676. He was, according to the same authority, a man of learning and taste, wrote pure Latin, was well acquainted with public business, and, although deficient in industry, surpassed all his predecessors and contemporaries in his talents as an historian. Probably his style of writing approached more nearly to that of the new school, although still below the Ciceronian standard. The testimony of Sallust is not so favourable, as he considers him not sufficiently impartial to fulfil adequately the duties of a contemporary historian.3

No fragments are extant of sufficient length to enable us to form any estimate of his merits, although, on account of the numerous unusual words which occur in his writings, no historian of this period has been more frequently quoted by the grammarians. The probability is that his twenty-three books are of little or no value, as they are never referred to in order to illustrate matters of historical or antiquarian interest.

Tubero was the contemporary of Cicero, and did not write his annals until after Cicero's consulship. Nevertheless he must be considered as belonging to the old school, and its last as well as one of its most worthy representatives. He was the father of L. Tubero, the legate of Q. Cicero, in Asia. Like Piso, he was a stout opponent of the Gracchic policy, and a firm supporter of the aristocracy. A stoic in philosophy, his life was in strict accordance with his creed, and his style of writing is said to have been marked with Catonian rudeness. He describes, in his history, the cruel tortures of Regulus by the Carthaginians, and relates the story of the wonderful serpent at Bagrada. once quoted by Dionysius and twice by Livy.

De Clar. Rhet. 3. 2 Brut. 64 and 88. 3 Jug. 95.

He is

• Gell. vi. 3,

4.

EARLY ROMAN ORATORY.

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CHAPTER XII.

EARLY ROMAN ORATORY-ELOQUENCE OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS CECUS-FUNERAL ORATIONS-DEFENCE OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR-SCIPIO AFRICANUS MINOR EMILIANUS ERA OF THE GRACCHI-THEIR CHARACTERS-INTERVAL BETWEEN THE GRACCHI AND CICERO-M. ANTONIUS-L. LICINIUS CRASSUS-Q. HORTENSIUSCAUSES OF HIS EARLY POPULARITY AND SUBSEQUENT FAILURE.

ELOQUENCE, though of a rude, unpolished kind, must have been in the very earliest times a characteristic of the Roman people. It is a plant indigenous to a free soil. Its infancy was nurtured in the schools of Tisias and Corax, when, on the dethronement of the tyrants, the dawn of freedom brightened upon Sicily; and, just as in modern times it has flourished, especially in England and America, fostered by the unfettered freedom of debate, so it found a congenial home in free Greece and republican Rome. He who could contrast in the most glowing colours the cruelty of the pitiless creditor, with the sufferings of the ruined debtorwho could ingeniously connect those patent evils with some defects in the constitution, some inequalities in political rights hitherto hidden and unobserved-would wield at will the affections of the people, and become the master-spirit amongst his fellow-citizens.

Occasions would not be wanting in a state where, from the earliest times, a struggle was continually maintained between a dominant and a subject race, for the use of those arts of eloquence which nature, the mistress of all art, suggests. The plebeians, in their conflicts with the patricians, must have had some leader, and eloquence, probably to a great extent, directed the selection, even though there was, in reality, no Menenius Agrippa to lead them back from the sacred mountain with his homely wisdom. Cases of oppression, doubtless, inspired some Icilius or Virginius with words of burning indignation, and many a Siccius Dentatus,

though he had never learnt technical rhetoric, used the rhetorical artifice of appealing to his honourable wounds and scars in front, which he had received in the service of his country, and to disgraceful weals with which his back was lacerated by the lash of the torturer. In an army where the personal influence of the general was more productive of heroism than the rules of a longestablished discipline, a short harangue often led the soldiers to victory. And, lastly, the relation subsisting between the two orders of patron and client taught a milder and more businesslike eloquence-that of explaining with facility common civil rights, and unravelling the knotty points of the constitutional law. Oratory, in fact, was the unwritten literature of active life, and recommended itself by its antagonistic spirit and its utility to a warlike and utilitarian people. Long, therefore, before the art of the historian was sufficiently advanced to record a speech, or to insert a fictitious one, as an embellishment or illustration of its pages, the forum, senate, the battle-field, the threshold of the jurisconsult, had been nurseries of Roman eloquence, or schools in which oratory attained a vigorous youth, and prepared for its subsequent maturity.

Tradition speaks of a speech recorded even before the poetry of Nævius was written, and this speech was known to Cicero. It was delivered against Pyrrhus by Appius Claudius the blind.1 He belonged to a house, every member of which, from the decemvir to the emperor, was born to bow down their fellow-men beneath their strong wills. Such a character, united with a poetical genius, implies the very elements of that oratory which would curb a nation accustomed to be restrained by force as much as by reason. On this celebrated occasion, the blind old man caused himself to be borne into the senate-house on a litter, that he might confront the wily Cineas whom Pyrrhus had sent to negotiate peace. The Macedonian minister was an accomplished speaker, and his memory, that important auxiliary to eloquence, was so powerful, that in one day he learnt to address

2

Appius Claudius Cæcus was also author of a moral poem on Pythagorean principles, which was extant in the time of Cicero, (Brutus, 16.)

SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR.

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all the senators and knights by name, yet it is said that he was no match for the energy of Appius, and was obliged to quit Rome.

Whilst the legal and political constitution of the Roman people gave direct encouragement to deliberative and judicial oratory, respect to the illustrious dead furnished opportunities for panegyric. The song of the bard in honour of the departed warrior gave place to the funeral oration, (laudatio.)

Before the commencement of the second Punic war,' Q. Metellus pronounced the funeral harangue over his father, the conqueror of Hasdrubal; history also speaks of him as a debator in the senate, and his address to the censors is found in the fourth decade of Livy.2 This funeral oration was admired even in the time of J. Cæsar, and Pliny3 has recorded the substance of one remarkable passage which it contained. The period of the second Punic war produced Corn. Cethegus. Cicero mentions him in his list of Roman orators; and although he had never seen a specimen of his style, he states that he retained his force and vigour even in his old age. Ennius also bears testimony to his eloquence in the following line:

Flos delibatus populi, suaviloquenti ore.

At the conclusion of the second war, Fabius Cunctator pronounced the eulogium3 of his elder son; and Cicero, although he denies him the praise of eloquence, states that he was a fluent and correct speaker.

Scipio Africanus Major, on that memorable day when his enemies called upon him to render an account of the moneys received from Antiochus, proved himself a consummate orator: he disdained to refute the malignant charges of his opponents, but spoke till dusk of the benefits which he had conferred upon his country. Thus it came to pass that the adjourned meeting was held on the anniversary of Zama. Livy has adorned the simple words of the great soldier with his graceful language, but A. Gellius has preserved the peroration almost in his own

1 About B. c. 221.

3 H. N. vii. 43, 44.

5 Cic. Cat. 4, 12; de Sen. 4; Brut. 14, 18.

2 Lib. xxxv. 8; xl. 46. 4 Brut. 14, 19, de Sen.

6 Noct. Attic. iv. 18.