Book 8

1.pr. NOTORIOUS DEFENDANTS, AND THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THEY WERE ACQUITTED OR CONDEMNED Now, in order that the doubtful turns of trials may be borne with a more even mind, let us recall, in the case of those labouring under prejudice, on what grounds they were either acquitted or condemned.

1a.1. M. Horatius, condemned by king Tullus on the charge of having killed his sister, was acquitted when the judgment was referred to the people on appeal. The one verdict the atrocity of the killing moved, the other the cause bent, because it judged the untimely love of the maiden to have been punished severely rather than impiously. And so his brother's right hand, freed by a brave punishment, was able to draw as much glory from a kinsman's blood as from an enemy's.

1a.2. The Roman people showed itself then a keen guardian of chastity, afterwards a judge milder than was just. When Ser. Galba was being vehemently rebuked before the rostra by Libo, tribune of the plebs, because as praetor in Spain he had destroyed a great band of Lusitanians after pledging his faith, and M. Cato, in the extreme of old age, was supporting the tribune's prosecution with his speech, which he included in his Origins, the defendant, now refusing nothing on his own behalf, began weeping to commend his little children and a son joined to him by the blood of a Gaul; and by this deed the assembly was softened, and one who by the consensus of all had been about to perish had almost no hostile vote. Pity, then, governed that inquiry, not equity, since the acquittal which could not be granted to his innocence was given in consideration of the children.

1a.3. In keeping is what follows. A. Gabinius, in the greatest blaze of his ill repute, exposed to the votes of the people with C. Memmius as accuser, seemed to be of broken hope, since both the accusation displayed its part fully, and the defences of his case rested on weak faith, and those who judged, stirred by anger, eagerly sought the man's punishment. Therefore the constable and the prison hovered before his eyes, when meanwhile all this was scattered by the intervention of favourable fortune: for Sisenna, the son of Gabinius, driven on by his consternation, threw himself a suppliant at the feet of Memmius, seeking some assuaging of the storm from the very quarter whence the whole onset of the tempest had burst forth. The insolent victor, repelling him with grim countenance and shaking the ring from his hand, allowed it to lie on the ground for some time. This spectacle brought it about that Laelius, tribune of the plebs, with the approval of all, ordered Gabinius to be released, and a lesson was given that one ought neither to abuse insolently the windfall of prosperity nor to be crushed prematurely by adversity; and this is equally clear from the next example.

1a.4. App. Claudius—I do not know whether his injury to religion or to his country was the greater, since indeed he neglected the most ancient custom of the one and lost the most beautiful fleet of the other—exposed to a hostile people, when it was believed that he could in no way escape his due punishment, was kept safe from condemnation by the benefit of a suddenly arisen shower: for, the inquiry being broken off, it did not seem good to begin another afresh, as though the gods were interposing. Thus to him to whom a storm at sea had brought the pleading of his cause, a storm from heaven brought safety.

1a.5. By the same kind of aid the chastity of the Vestal virgin Tuccia, accused of the crime of unchastity, emerged though darkened by the cloud of ill repute. She, certain in the consciousness of her own integrity, dared to seek the hope of safety by a doubtful proof: for, seizing a sieve, she said, "Vesta, if I have always brought chaste hands to your rites, bring it about that with this I may draw water from the Tiber and carry it to your temple." Nature herself yielded to the rashly and boldly cast vows of the priestess.

1a.6. Likewise L. Piso, accused by L. Claudius Pulcher of having inflicted grave and intolerable injuries on the allies, avoided the fear of undoubted ruin by a chance aid: for at that very time when grim sentences were being passed upon him, a sudden violence of cloudburst fell, and when he, prostrate on the ground, kissed the feet of the judges, he filled his mouth with mud. The sight of this transferred the whole inquiry from severity to clemency and gentleness, because they thought that he had already given the allies penalties grave enough, reduced to such necessity that he was forced to throw himself down so suppliantly and lift himself up so unsightly.

1a.7. I shall append two acquitted by the fault of their own accusers. Q. Flavius, brought to trial before the people by C. Valerius the aedile, when he had been condemned by the votes of fourteen tribes, cried out that he, an innocent man, was being crushed. To him Valerius, in an equally loud voice, replied that it made no difference to him whether a guilty or an innocent man perished, provided that he perished. By the violence of this saying he gave the remaining tribes to his adversary. He had cast down his enemy; the same man, while he believed him assuredly ruined, raised him up again, and lost his victory in the very moment of victory.

1a.8. C. Cosconius too, a defendant under the Servilian law, beyond all doubt guilty on account of his very many and most evident crimes, was raised up by a poem of his accuser Valerius Valentinus, recited at the trial, in which by a poetic jest he had indicated that a boy of free birth in the purple-bordered toga and a freeborn maiden had been corrupted by him; since indeed the judges thought it unjust to dismiss as victor one who deserved not to carry off the palm from another, but to grant it concerning himself. Valerius, indeed, was condemned in the acquittal of Cosconius more than Cosconius was freed in his own case.

1a.9. I shall touch too on those whose safety, overwhelmed by their own crimes, was granted to the distinction of their kinsmen. A. Atilius Calatinus, a defendant most notorious on a charge of betraying the town of Sora, was rescued from the peril of imminent condemnation by a few words of his father-in-law Q. Maximus, by which he affirmed that, if he had himself found him guilty of that charge, he would have broken off the connection: for at once the people yielded to the judgment of one man their own almost already settled opinion, thinking it unworthy not to trust the testimony of a man to whom in the most difficult times of the state it remembered that it had well trusted its armies.

1a.10. M. Aemilius Scaurus too, a defendant on a charge of extortion, brought into court a defence so desperate and lamented that, when the accuser said that by the law it was allowed him to summon a hundred and twenty men to testify, and that he would not refuse Scaurus's acquittal if he should name as many men from whom he had taken nothing in his province, Scaurus could not avail himself of so good a condition. Nevertheless, on account of his most ancient nobility and the recent memory of his father, he was acquitted.

1a.11. But just as the splendour of the most eminent men availed very much in protecting defendants, so in crushing them it availed not really much; nay, even when men were evidently guilty, by attacking them too keenly it did them good. P. Scipio Aemilianus accused Cotta before the people. His case, though pierced by the gravest charges, was adjourned seven times, and at last in the eighth trial was acquitted, because men feared lest his condemnation should be thought to have been granted to the outstanding eminence of his accuser. I should believe that they said this among themselves: "We do not wish a man seeking the life of another to carry into court triumphs and trophies and spoils and the beaks of conquered ships: let him be terrible by these against the enemy, but let him not pursue the safety of a citizen propped up by so great a clamour of glory."

1a.12. The judges were as vehement against a most distinguished accuser as they were mild toward a defendant of far inferior fortune. Calidius of Bononia, caught at night in the bedroom of a married man, when on that account he pleaded a charge of adultery, emerged from among the greatest and gravest waves of disgrace, embracing, like a plank of shipwreck, a very flimsy kind of defence: for he affirmed that he had been led there by love of a boy slave. Suspect was the place, suspect the time, suspect the person of the matron, suspect too his own youth; but a confession of intemperance freed him from the charge of unchastity.

1a.13. This is an example of milder material, that following of somewhat graver. When the brothers Caelii were pleading a charge of parricide—men born in a distinguished place at Tarracina, whose father T. Caelius, resting in his bedroom, with his sons lying one on either bed, had been killed, and neither any slave nor free man could be found to whom the suspicion of the murder applied—they were acquitted on this one ground, because it was made plain to the judges that they had been found asleep with the door open. Sleep, the surest token of guiltless tranquillity, brought help to the wretched men: for it was judged that the nature of things did not admit that, their father being slain, they could take rest above his wounds and his blood.

1d.1. We shall now run through those whom in the pleading of their case the things outside the inquiry harmed more than their own innocence helped. L. Scipio, after a most splendid triumph led over king Antiochus, was condemned just as though he had received money from him. Not, I think, because he had been corrupted by a bribe to remove beyond Mount Taurus that man, lord of all Asia and already laying victorious hands on Europe. But a man otherwise of the most sincere life and far removed from this suspicion, he could not resist the prejudice which then dwelt in the famous surnames of the two brothers.

1d.2. And to Scipio indeed the greatest brilliance of fortune brought ruin; but to C. Decianus, a man of approved integrity, his own voice brought destruction: for when he was accusing P. Furius, a man of most defiled life, before the rostra, because in a certain part of his pleading he had dared to lament the death of L. Saturninus, he both failed to condemn the defendant and besides paid the penalties assigned to him.

1d.3. A like mischance laid Sex. Titius low too. He was innocent, he was popular with the people for the agrarian law he had carried; nevertheless, because he had kept an image of Saturninus at home, the whole assembly crushed him with their votes.

1d.4. Let there be added to these Claudia, whom, innocent of the charge of which she was accused, an impious vow overturned, because, when on her way home from the games she was being crushed by the crowd, she had wished that her brother—the chief loss of our naval power—might come back to life and, made consul more often, might by his unlucky leadership diminish the too-great crowding of the city.

1d.5. We can pass also by a brief detour to those whom the onset of condemnation snatched away for trivial causes. M. Mulvius, Cn. Lollius, and L. Sextilius, the three commissioners, because they had come too slowly to put out a fire that had broken out in the Sacred Way, were condemned before the people by the tribunes of the plebs on the appointed day.

1d.6. Likewise P. Villius, the night-commissioner, accused by P. Aquilius, tribune of the plebs, fell by the people's judgment, because he had made his round of the watches too negligently.

1d.7. Of a very severe stamp too was that judgment of the people, when it afflicted with a heavy fine M. Aemilius Porcina, accused by L. Cassius on the charge of a villa built too lofty in the Alsian territory.

1d.8. Nor must the condemnation of that man be suppressed, who, seized by too great a love of his little boy, being asked by him in the country that he should order tripe to be made for dinner, since there was no means of buying beef nearby, killed a tamed ox and so satisfied his desire, and on that account was crushed by a public inquiry—innocent, had he not been born in so old-fashioned an age.

1A.1. And, that we may report also those who, brought into peril of their life, were neither condemned nor acquitted: before M. Popilius Laenas the praetor a certain woman pleaded her case, because she had killed her mother by a blow with a club. Concerning her sentences were passed in neither direction, because it was abundantly clear that she, moved by grief for her children poisoned to death—whom the grandmother, hostile to her daughter, had made away with—had avenged the parricide by a parricide. Of these acts the one was judged not worthy of vengeance, the other not worthy of acquittal.

1A.2. By the same hesitation the mind of Publius Dolabella too, holding Asia with proconsular command, wavered. A matron of Smyrna killed her husband and her son, when she had learned that by them a young man of the best disposition, whom she had borne by a former husband, had been slain. This matter, brought to him, Dolabella referred to Athens for the cognizance of the Areopagus, because he himself could neither acquit a woman contaminated by two murders nor punish one driven on by so just a grief. Thoughtful and gentle was this magistrate of the Roman people; but the Areopagites too no less wisely, who, after inspecting the case, ordered both accuser and accused to return to them after a hundred years, moved by the same feeling as Dolabella. But he by transferring the inquiry, they by deferring it, avoided the inextricable hesitation of condemning and acquitting.

2.pr. ON NOTABLE PRIVATE TRIALS To public trials I shall add private ones, in which the equity of the inquiries can please the reader rather than an immoderate multitude offend him.

2.1. Claudius Centumalus, ordered by the augurs to lower the height of his house, which he had on the Caelian Hill, because it obstructed them as they took the augury from the citadel, sold it to Calpurnius Lanarius and did not disclose what had been commanded by the college of augurs. Calpurnius, forced by them to demolish the house, brought M. Porcius Cato, the father of the famous Cato, as arbiter with Claudius, under the formula "whatever it was right for him to give or do in good faith." Cato, when he had been instructed that Claudius had deliberately suppressed the priests' injunction, at once condemned him in favour of Calpurnius—with the greatest equity indeed, because a seller in good faith ought neither to raise the hope of advantages nor to obscure the knowledge of disadvantages.

2.2. I have recalled a trial famous in its own time; but I shall report none that has even been blotted out by silence. C. Visellius Varro, seized by a grave illness, allowed three hundred thousand sesterces to be entered as owed by him to Otacilia Laterensis, with whom he had had a commerce of lust, with this design: that, if he died, she might demand that sum from his heirs—which he wished to be a kind of legacy, colouring a lustful liberality under the name of a debt. Then he escaped from that storm, contrary to the prayers of Otacilia. Offended that she had not, by his death, brought her hope of plunder to ripeness, she suddenly, from a compliant mistress, began to act the stripped-for-action money-lender, demanding the coins which she had caught at with as shameless a front as with an empty stipulation. In this matter C. Aquilius, a man of great authority and excelling in the knowledge of the civil law, having been brought in as judge, with the leading men of the state called to his counsel, by his prudence and conscientiousness repelled the woman. And if by the same formula Varro could both have been condemned and acquitted by his adversary, I do not doubt that he too would gladly have chastised his shameful and forbidden error: as it was, he himself checked the calumny of the private action, and left the crime of adultery to be punished by a public inquiry.

2.3. With much more spirit, and as was worthy of a military temper, did C. Marius conduct himself in a like kind of trial: for when C. Titinius of Minturnae was trying to despoil of her dowry his wife Fannia, whom he had deliberately married unchaste, after divorcing her on that charge, Marius, taken as judge between them, with the inquiry held in his presence, led Titinius aside and advised him to desist from his undertaking and restore the dowry to the woman. When he had done this several times in vain, forced by him to pronounce sentence, he condemned the woman of unchastity to one sesterce, and Titinius to the sum of the whole dowry, declaring beforehand that he had followed this manner of judging because it was clear to him that Titinius, plotting against the patrimony of Fannia, had sought marriage with an unchaste woman. And this Fannia is the one who afterwards, when Marius had been judged a public enemy by the senate, and smeared with the mud of the marsh from which he had been dragged, and was now being led into her house at Minturnae to be guarded, helped him with whatever aid she could—mindful that, because she had been judged unchaste, it should be set down to her own character, and that, because she had kept her dowry, to his conscientiousness.

2.4. Much talk flowed even from that trial in which a certain man was condemned of theft who, on a horse the use of which had been lent to him as far as Aricia, had ridden up the further slope of that town. What else can we praise here than the scrupulousness of that age, in which such tiny departures from modesty were punished?

3.pr. WHAT WOMEN PLEADED CAUSES BEFORE MAGISTRATES FOR THEMSELVES OR FOR OTHERS Not even those women must be passed over in silence whom the condition of their nature and the modesty of the matron's robe could not restrain from keeping silent in the forum and the courts.

3.1. Maesia of Sentinum, as a defendant, pleaded her own cause, with the praetor L. Titius convening the court, before a very great concourse of the people, and, having carried out all the modes and measures of a defence not only diligently but even bravely, was acquitted both at the first hearing and by almost all the votes. Because under the appearance of a woman she bore a manly spirit, they called her Androgyne.

3.2. C. Afrania, moreover, the wife of the senator Licinius Bucco, prompt to contract lawsuits, always spoke for herself before the praetor, not because she was lacking in advocates, but because she abounded in shamelessness. And so, by constantly exercising the tribunals with barkings unaccustomed in the forum, she became the most notorious example of feminine calumny, so much so that as a reproach for the depraved characters of women the name of C. Afrania is cast in their teeth. She prolonged her breath to the second consulship of C. Caesar and P. Servilius: for of such a monster it is rather the time at which it was extinguished than that at which it arose that should be handed down to memory.

3.3. Hortensia, moreover, the daughter of Q. Hortensius, when the order of matrons had been burdened with a heavy tax by the triumvirs, and none of the men dared to lend them his patronage, pleaded the cause of the women before the triumvirs both steadfastly and successfully: for, her father's eloquence being reproduced, she obtained that the greater part of the money imposed should be remitted to them. Q. Hortensius then lived again in his female offspring and breathed in the words of his daughter; and if his male descendants had been willing to follow her force, so great an inheritance of Hortensian eloquence would not have been cut off by a single woman's pleading.

4.pr. ON INTERROGATIONS UNDER TORTURE And, that we may carry through all the modes of trials, let us report interrogations under torture which were either not believed or rashly trusted.

4.1. Alexander, the slave of M. Agrius the banker, was charged with having killed the slave of A. Fannius, and on that account, tortured by his master, most steadfastly maintained that he had committed that crime. And so, handed over to Fannius, he was punished. Then, a very little time intervening, the very man of whose murder it had been believed returned home.

4.2. On the contrary, Alexander, the slave of P. Atinius, when he had come under suspicion of the murder of C. Flavius, a Roman knight, tortured six times, persistently denied that he had been an accomplice to that crime; but just as though he had confessed, he was condemned by the judges and driven to the cross by L. Calpurnius the commissioner.

4.3. Likewise, when Fulvius Flaccus was pleading his case, his slave Philippus, on whom the whole inquiry rested, tortured eight times, uttered absolutely no word by which his master could be implicated; and yet the defendant was condemned, although one man tortured eight times offered a surer proof of innocence than eight men tortured once would have offered.

5.1. ON WITNESSES It follows that I should recall examples relating to witnesses. When Cn. and Q. Servilius Caepio, born of the same parents and advanced through all the grades of honours to the highest eminence, and likewise the brothers Metelli, Quintus and Lucius, both consular and censorian, one also triumphal, were giving testimony most keenly against Q. Pompeius, son of Aulus, a defendant on a charge of extortion, their credit was not annulled by the acquittal of Pompeius, but it was provided that they should not seem to have crushed an enemy by their power.

5.2. M. Aemilius Scaurus too, the leader of the senate, pursued C. Memmius, a defendant on a charge of extortion, with unsheathed testimony, and likewise tore to pieces C. Flavius, accused under the same law, as a witness; and he tried openly to crush C. Norbanus, subjected to a public inquiry on a charge of treason. Yet neither by his authority, in which he was most powerful, nor by his conscientiousness, of which no one doubted, could he ruin any one of them.

5.3. L. Crassus too, as great among the judges as Aemilius Scaurus among the conscript fathers—for he governed their votes by the most robust and successful campaigns of eloquence, and was as much the leader of the forum as the other of the senate-house—when he had hurled a most vehement thunderbolt of testimony against M. Marcellus, a defendant, appeared grave in his onset, but empty in its outcome.

5.4. Come now: Q. Metellus Pius, L. and M. Lucullus, Q. Hortensius, M'. Lepidus—how they not only burdened the safety of C. Cornelius, a defendant on a charge of treason, with their testimony, but even, declaring that with him unharmed the state could not stand, demanded his punishment! These ornaments of the state—it is shameful to relate—were repelled by the judicial buckler.

5.5. What of M. Cicero, who by his forensic campaigning attained the highest honours and the most ample place of dignity—was he not, in the very camp of his own eloquence, cast aside as a witness, when he swore that P. Clodius had been at Rome with him, while Clodius defended his sacrilegious outrage by the single argument of his absence? Since indeed the judges preferred to free Clodius from a charge of unchastity rather than Cicero from the infamy of perjury.

5.6. Of so many witnesses set at naught I shall report one, by whose new method of entering the trial his authority was confirmed. P. Servilius, consular, censorian, triumphal, who added to the titles of his ancestors the surname Isauricus, when, passing by the forum, he had seen witnesses being produced against a defendant, took his stand in the place of a witness, and, amid the greatest admiration of both the patrons and the accusers alike, began thus: "This man, judges, who is pleading his case—of what country he is, or what life he has led, or how deservedly or undeservedly he is accused, I do not know: this only I know, that when he met me as I was making a journey on the Laurentine Way, in a very narrow place, he was unwilling to dismount from his horse. Whether this has any bearing on your conscientious duty, you yourselves will judge: I did not think it should be suppressed." The judges, the rest of the witnesses scarcely heard, condemned the defendant: for there prevailed with them both the eminence of the man and his grave indignation at his slighted dignity, and they believed that one who did not know how to revere the leading men would rush into any crime whatsoever.

6.pr. THOSE WHO COMMITTED THEMSELVES WHAT THEY HAD PUNISHED IN OTHERS Let us not allow even those to lie hidden who committed themselves what they had punished in others.

6.1. C. Licinius, surnamed Hoplomachus, demanded of the praetor that his father be interdicted from his goods on the ground that he was squandering them; and indeed he obtained what he had sought, but a little later, the old man being dead, he hastily consumed the ample money left by him. He went free from the reciprocal penalty, since he preferred to use up the inheritance rather than to do away with the heir.

6.2. C. Marius, moreover, when he had played the part of a great and salutary citizen of the state in crushing L. Saturninus—by whom, in the manner of a flag, a cap had been displayed to slavery for the taking up of arms—when L. Sulla was bursting into the city with his army, fled to the aid of the slaves by raising the cap. And so, while he imitated the crime which he had punished, he found another Marius, by whom he should be cast down.

6.3. C. Licinius Stolo, moreover, by whose benefit power was given to the plebs of seeking the consulship, when he had sanctioned by law that no one should possess more than five hundred jugera of land, himself acquired a thousand, and, to disguise the crime, emancipated half to his son. On which account, accused by M. Popilius Laenas, he was the first to fall by his own law, and taught that nothing ought to be enjoined except what each man has first commanded for himself.

6.4. Q. Varius, moreover, surnamed Hybrida on account of his doubtful right of citizenship, as tribune of the plebs carried through, against the veto of his colleagues, a law which ordered an inquiry into those by whose malicious deceit the allies had been forced to take up arms—with great disaster to the state: for first he stirred up the war with the allies, then the civil war. But while he played the part of a pestilent tribune of the plebs before that of a sound citizen, his own law, binding him in domestic snares, destroyed him.

7.pr. ON ZEAL AND INDUSTRY Why do I delay to recall the strength of industry, by whose lively spirit the campaigns of military service are strengthened, forensic glory is kindled, all studies received into its faithful bosom are nourished, and whatever is admirable in mind, in hand, in tongue, is brought to the summit of praise? And since it is the most perfect virtue, it is confirmed by the hardening of itself.

7.1. Cato, in his eighty-sixth year, while with a youthful spirit he persisted in protecting the state, accused by his enemies on a capital charge, pleaded his own cause; and no one observed either his memory the slower, or the firmness of his lungs shaken in any part, or his mouth hampered by hesitation, because he kept all these in their condition by an even and continuous industry. Nay, even at the very end of a life lived to its utmost length, he set his own defence against the accusation of the most eloquent orator Galba, on behalf of Spain. The same man longed to be instructed in Greek letters: how late, let us judge from this, that he learned Latin letters too almost in old age; and when he had won great glory by his eloquence, he took pains that he should also be most skilled in the civil law.

7.2. His wonderful descendant Cato, nearer to our age, so burned with a desire for learning that not even in the senate-house, while the senate was being convened, did he refrain from reading Greek books. By this industry indeed he showed that some men lack time, and others lack the will to use their time.

7.3. Terentius Varro, moreover, having completed the span of human life not in the years by which he equalled the time of a century, was more long-lived with his pen than with his breath: for on the same couch both his breath and the course of his excellent works were extinguished.

7.4. Of like perseverance was Livius Drusus, who, failed by the strength of his years and the sharpness of his eyes, interpreted the civil law most kindly to the people, and composed most useful records for those desiring to learn it: for as nature could make him old and fortune blind, so neither could prevent his mind from both seeing and being vigorous.

7.5. Publilius the senator and Lupus Pontius, a Roman knight, famous pleaders of cases in their own times, having lost their sight, carried out their forensic campaigns with the same industry. And so they were even heard more frequently, some flocking to them because they were delighted by their talent, others because they admired their steadfastness: for those who, struck by such a misfortune, seek retirement, double their darkness by adding the voluntary to the accidental.

7.6. Then P. Crassus, when as consul he had come to Asia to make an end of the war against king Aristonicus, grasped with such care the knowledge of the Greek tongue in his mind that he thoroughly knew it, divided into five kinds, through all its parts and measures. This thing won him the greatest love of the allies, since to each who had made a petition before his tribunal in his own tongue, he gave back his decrees in that same tongue.

7.7. Let not even Roscius be withdrawn, a most notable example of stage industry, who never dared to bring out, before a watching people, any gesture which he had not rehearsed at home. Wherefore it was not the player's art that commended Roscius, but Roscius the player's art; nor did he embrace only the favour of the crowd, but even the intimacies of the leading men. These are the rewards of an attentive and anxious study that never ceases, on account of which the person of an actor inserted itself, not shamelessly, among the praises of such great men.

7e.1. Greek industry too, since it has profited ours much, let it receive from the Latin tongue the fruit it deserves. Demosthenes, at the mention of whose name the consummation of the greatest eloquence rises before the hearer's mind, when in the beginning of his youth he could not pronounce the first letter of the art he aimed at, overcame the defect of his mouth with such zeal that no one rendered that letter more distinctly than he. Then, on account of its excessive thinness, harsh to the ear, he brought his voice by continual exercise to a mature sound pleasing to the ears. Failed also by the firmness of his lungs, the strength which his bodily constitution had denied him he borrowed from toil: for he would embrace many verses in a single breath, and pronounce them as he climbed steep places at a rapid pace, and, standing on shoaling shores, deliver declamations against the roaring of the waves, so that, his ears hardened by endurance, he might use them against the clamour of excited assemblies. He is said too to have been accustomed to speak much and long with pebbles inserted in his mouth, that, free of them, it might be the readier and more loosened. He fought with the nature of things, and indeed went off the victor, overcoming its malice by the most persistent strength of his mind. And so his mother brought forth one Demosthenes, industry another.

7e.2. And, to pass to a more ancient example of industry, Pythagoras, having entered upon the most perfect work of wisdom from his youth, and likewise with a desire of perceiving all that was honourable—for nothing which is to reach its furthest end fails to begin both early and eagerly—made for Egypt, where, accustomed to the letters of that people, scrutinizing the commentaries of the priests of past ages, he came to know the observations of countless centuries. Thence, setting out for the Persians, he handed himself over to be moulded by the most exact prudence of the Magi, from whom he drank in with a docile mind the motions of the heavenly bodies and the courses of the stars, and the force, property, and effect of each one, most kindly demonstrated. Then he sailed to Crete and Lacedaemon, and, having inspected their laws and customs, came down to the Olympic contest; and when, amid the greatest admiration of all Greece, he had given a specimen of his manifold knowledge, being asked by what surname he should be reckoned, he declared himself not a wise man—for the seven outstanding men had already taken that—but a lover of wisdom, that is, in Greek, "philosopher." He proceeded also into that part of Italy which was then called Magna Graecia, in which by his very many and most opulent cities he approved the results of his studies. His burning pyre the town of Metapontum gazed upon with eyes full of veneration, a monument nobler and more famous of Pythagoras than of its own ashes.

7e.3. Plato, moreover, having obtained Athens as his country and Socrates as his teacher—both a place and a man most fruitful in learning—equipped also with a divine abundance of talent, when he was now held the wisest of all mortals, even to such a degree that, if Jupiter himself had come down from heaven, he would not seem likely to use either more elegant or more blessed eloquence, traversed Egypt, while he learned from the priests of that people the manifold numbers of geometry and the method of the celestial observations. And at the very time when Athens was being sought by zealous young men eagerly looking for Plato as their teacher, he himself, the disciple of Egyptian old men, was surveying the inextricable banks of the river Nile and its vast plains, the spreading barbarian land and the winding circuits of the canals. The less do I wonder that he crossed into Italy, to receive from Archytas at Tarentum, and from Timaeus and Arion and Echecrates at Locri, the precepts and institutions of Pythagoras: for so great was the force, so great the abundance of letters to be gathered from every side, that they could be scattered and spread abroad in turn throughout the whole world. Even in his eighty-first year, dying, he is said to have had the mimes of Sophron under his head. Thus not even his last hour was free from the activity of study.

7e.4. But Democritus, when he could have been rated by his riches—which were so great that his father could easily give a feast to the army of Xerxes—in order that with a more unencumbered mind he might be occupied in the studies of letters, keeping only a very small sum, gave his patrimony to his country. Having stayed at Athens for several years, devoting all the moments of his time to perceiving and exercising learning, he lived unknown to that city, as he himself testifies in a certain volume. The mind is amazed in admiration of so great industry, and now passes to another.

7e.5. Carneades, a laborious and long-serving soldier of wisdom—since indeed, ninety years being completed, the same was the end for him both of living and of philosophizing—had so wonderfully devoted himself to the works of learning that, when he had reclined for the sake of taking food, clinging to his thoughts, he would forget to stretch out his hand to the table. But Melissa, whom he kept in place of a wife, with a tempered care of not interrupting his studies and of relieving his fasting, fitted his right hand to its necessary uses. Therefore he enjoyed life only in his mind, but was surrounded by his body as by something alien and superfluous. The same man, about to dispute with Chrysippus, used first to purge himself with hellebore, to bring forth his own talent more attentively and to refute that of the other more keenly. What draughts industry has made to be sought after by those desirous of solid praise!

7e.6. With what zeal, moreover, do we believe Anaxagoras to have burned? Who, when he had sought his country again after a long sojourn abroad and had seen his possessions deserted, said, "I should not be safe, unless these had perished." A voice possessed of the wisdom it sought! For if he had had leisure for the cultivation of his estates rather than of his talent, the master of his property would have remained within his household gods, and no such great Anaxagoras would have returned to them.

7e.7. I should call the industry of Archimedes too fruitful, had not the same both given him life and taken it away: for when Syracuse was taken, Marcellus, although he felt that his victory had been long and much hindered by his contrivances, nevertheless, delighted by the man's outstanding prudence, proclaimed that his life should be spared, placing almost as much glory in Archimedes saved as in Syracuse crushed. But he, while with mind and eyes fixed on the earth he was drawing his figures, to the soldier who had burst into his house for the sake of plunder and, with sword drawn over his head, was asking who he was, on account of his too great desire of investigating what he was seeking, could not declare his own name, but, protecting the dust with his hands, said, "Do not, I beg, disturb that," and, just as though heedless of the conqueror's command, was cut down and confounded with his own blood the outlines of his art. So it came about that on account of the same study he was now granted his life, now robbed of it.

7e.8. It is agreed too that Socrates, advanced in age, began to give his effort to the handling of the lyre, judging it better to learn the use of that art late than never. And how small an addition to his knowledge would that have been to Socrates? But the man's persistent industry wished that even the cheapest element of musical theory should be added to the so great riches of his learning. Therefore, while he always believed himself poor for learning, he made himself most wealthy for teaching.

7e.9. And, to gather, as it were into one heap, examples of long and fortunate industry, Isocrates composed his most noble book, which is entitled Panathenaicus, in his ninety-fourth year, as he himself indicates—a work full of an ardent spirit. From which it appears that, the limbs growing old, the minds of the learned within retain, by the benefit of industry, the flower of youth. Nor did he close the limits of his life with this pen: for he reaped the fruit of admiration for it for five years.

7e.10. The vivacity of Chrysippus turned the bounds of a nearer age, but of no small span nevertheless: for in his eightieth year he left a thirty-ninth volume of his Logical works, begun, of the most exact subtlety. His zeal in handing down the monuments of his talent undertook so much trouble and labour that to come to know thoroughly the things he wrote, a long life is needed.

7e.11. You too, Cleanthes, drinking in wisdom so laboriously and handing it down so persistently, the very deity of industry looked up to with admiration, when it saw you as a young man sustaining your poverty by the trade of drawing water in the night time, while by day you had leisure for taking in the precepts of Chrysippus, and the same man instructing your hearers with attentive care to your ninety-ninth year: for by a double labour you filled the span of a single century, leaving it uncertain whether you were the more praiseworthy as a pupil or as a teacher.

7e.12. Sophocles too had a glorious contest with the nature of things, displaying to it his wonderful works as generously as it bestowed on him liberally the time for those works: for he reached almost his hundredth year, having, at the very passage to death, written his Oedipus at Colonus, by which one play alone he was able to snatch away the glory of all the poets of the same pursuit. And his son Iophon did not wish this to be unknown to posterity, inscribing on his father's tomb what I have related.

7e.13. Simonides the poet, moreover, in his eightieth year boasts that he both taught songs and entered them in a contest. Nor was it unjust that he should long reap pleasure from his talent, since he was to hand it down to be enjoyed in every age.

7e.14. For with how great industry Solon burned, he both embraced in verses, by which he signifies that he grows old learning something every day, and confirmed on the last day of his life; for, when friends were sitting by and discussing some matter among themselves, with his head now pressed down by the fates, he raised it and, being asked why he had done this, replied, "That, when I have learned that, whatever it is, which you are discussing, I may die." Sloth would surely have departed from among men, if they entered life with the spirit with which Solon left it.

7e.15. How industrious, moreover, was Themistocles, who, occupied as he was with the care of the greatest matters, nevertheless grasped in his memory the names of all his fellow citizens; and, driven from his country by the greatest injustice and forced to flee to Xerxes, whom a little before he had conquered, before he came into his sight accustomed himself to the Persian speech, so that he might bring to the royal ears, by a recommendation procured by toil, a sound of voice familiar and accustomed.

7e.16. The praise of both these kinds of industry two kings divided between them, Cyrus by learning the names of all his soldiers, Mithridates the languages of the twenty-two peoples that were under his rule, the one that he might salute his army without a prompter, the other that he might address those over whom he ruled without an interpreter.

8.pr. ON LEISURE Leisure, which seems most contrary to industry and study, ought especially to be appended—not that by which virtue fades, but that by which it is refreshed: for the one must be avoided even by the inert, the other must sometimes be sought even by the energetic, by those lest they pass their life unarmed in idleness, by these that by a timely intermission of labour they may become more vigorous for labouring.

8.1. The pair of true friendship most distinguished were Scipio and Laelius, joined to each other by the bond of love and also by the partnership of all the virtues; and as they followed the path of an active life with an equal step, so too in the relaxations of the mind they rested in common: for it is agreed that they, wandering on the shores of Caieta and Laurentum, used to gather little shells and sea-snails; and P. Crassus often declared that he had heard this from his father-in-law Scaevola, who was the son-in-law of Laelius.

8.2. Scaevola, moreover, the surest witness of their rest and relaxation, is reported to have played ball excellently, because, of course, he used to transfer to this diversion his mind wearied by forensic services. He is said too to have had leisure sometimes for the board and the dice, when he had well and long ordered the laws of the citizens and the ceremonies of the gods: for as in serious matters he acted Scaevola, so in his games he acted the man whom the nature of things does not allow to be capable of continuous labour.

8e.1. And this Socrates saw, to whom no part of wisdom was obscure; and therefore he did not blush when, with a reed put between his legs, playing with his little children, he was laughed at by Alcibiades.

8e.2. Homer too, the prophet of a heavenly genius, felt nothing different when he fitted melodious strings to the most vehement hands of Achilles, so that their martial strength might be relaxed by the gentle pursuit of peace.

9.pr. HOW GREAT IS THE POWER OF ELOQUENCE The power of eloquence, although we observe it to avail very greatly, it is yet fitting to review under its proper examples, so that, of course, its strength may become better attested.

9.1. When the kings had been driven out, the plebs, at variance with the senators, encamped in arms by the bank of the river Anio on the hill which is called Sacred; and the condition of the state was not only deformed but most wretched, since the rest of the body was divided from its head by a pestilent sedition. And had not the eloquence of Valerius come to the rescue, the hope of so great an empire would have collapsed almost at its very birth: for he, recalling by a speech the people that was rashly rejoicing in a new and unaccustomed liberty to better and saner counsels, subjected it to the senate—that is, he joined the city to the city. To eloquent words, then, anger, consternation, and arms gave way.

9.2. These restrained even the Marian and Cinnan swords raging with desire to pour out civil blood: for soldiers sent by the most savage leaders to slay M. Antonius, stunned by his speech, returned their already drawn and brandished swords, empty of blood, to their scabbards. When they had departed, P. Annius—for he alone had stood at the entrance untouched by Antonius's eloquence—carried out the cruel command by a savage service. How eloquent, then, may we think him to have been, whom not even any of his enemies could bear to kill, who had only been willing to admit his voice to his ears?

9.3. The deified Julius too, the most perfect summit as much of heavenly power as of human genius, expressed properly the force of eloquence by saying, in his accusation of Cn. Dolabella, whom he prosecuted, that a most excellent cause was being wrested from him by the advocacy of L. Cotta—since indeed the greatest eloquence of that time then complained of the force of eloquence. Mention of his having been made, since I could add no greater domestic example, we must go abroad.

9e.1. Pisistratus is reported to have prevailed so much by speaking that the Athenians, captivated by his oration, permitted him royal power, although on the opposing side the most patriotic Solon strove. But the harangues of the one were more wholesome, those of the other more eloquent. So it came about that a state otherwise most prudent preferred slavery to liberty.

9e.2. Pericles, moreover, equipped with the most fortunate gifts of nature, polished with the greatest zeal under the teacher Anaxagoras, imposed the yoke of slavery on the free necks of Athens: for he drove and turned that city at his own pleasure, and when he spoke against the will of the people, his voice was none the less pleasant and popular. And so the abusive tongue of the old comedy, though it desired to censure the man's power, nevertheless confessed that a charm sweeter than honey dwelt on the man's lips, and declared that there were left, as it were, certain stings in the minds of those who had heard him. It is reported that a certain man, when, very old, he was present at the first harangue of the youthful Pericles, and as a young man had heard Pisistratus, now decrepit, haranguing, could not restrain himself from crying out that one ought to beware of that citizen, because his oration was very like the oration of Pisistratus. Nor did either the estimate of his eloquence or the augury of his character deceive the man. For what was there between Pisistratus and Pericles, except that the one bore tyranny in arms, the other without arms?

9e.3. How greatly do we judge eloquence to have availed Hegesias the Cyrenaic philosopher? Who so represented the evils of life that, by inserting a pitiable image of them in the breasts of his hearers, he engendered in many a desire of meeting a voluntary death; and therefore he was forbidden by king Ptolemy to discourse further on this matter.

10.pr. HOW GREAT IMPORTANCE THERE IS IN DELIVERY AND FITTING MOVEMENT OF THE BODY The ornaments of eloquence consist in a delivery apt and suitable and in movement of the body. Equipped with these, it assails men in three ways, by invading their minds itself, and by giving to one its ears, to the other its eyes, to be charmed.

10.1. But, that the trustworthiness of the proposition may be displayed in illustrious persons, C. Gracchus, a young man of more fortunate eloquence than purpose—since, with a most ardent genius, when he could best protect the state, he impiously preferred to throw it into confusion—as often as he harangued before the people, kept behind him a slave skilled in the art of music, who secretly with an ivory pipe shaped the modulations of his delivery, either by exciting it when too languid or by recalling it when more excited than was right, because the heat and impulse of the pleading did not allow him to be an attentive judge of this tempering.

10.2. Q. Hortensius, moreover, believing that much was placed in the graceful movement of the body, expended almost more zeal in elaborating it than in cultivating eloquence itself. And so you would not know whether men flocked more eagerly to hear him or to watch him: so much did the orator's appearance serve his words, and again his words serve his appearance. It is agreed that Aesopus and Roscius, most skilled in the player's art, often stood by in the ring while he was pleading cases, so that they might carry to the stage the gestures sought in the forum.

10.3. M. Cicero, moreover, in his speech which he delivered for Gallius, indicated how great importance there is in each of the things of which we speak, by reproaching M. Calidius the accuser, because, when he affirmed that he would prove by witnesses, written documents, and interrogations under torture that poison had been prepared for him by the defendant, he had used a relaxed countenance, a languid voice, and a loose kind of oratory; and at once he both uncovered the orator's fault and added a proof for the imperilled defendant, by thus closing this whole passage: "Would you, M. Calidius, plead that thus, unless you were inventing it?"

10e.1. In keeping with this is the judgment of Demosthenes, who, when he was asked what was most effective in speaking, replied, "Delivery." Then, interrupted again a second and a third time, he said the same, confessing that he owed almost all to it. Rightly, therefore, did Aeschines, when on account of a judicial disgrace he had left Athens and made for Rhodes, and there, at the request of the city, had recited first his own speech against Ctesiphon, then that of Demosthenes for the same man, in a most clear and most pleasant voice—when all were admiring the eloquence of both volumes, but somewhat more that of Demosthenes—say, "What, if you had heard the man himself?" So great an orator, and a little before so hostile an adversary, so looked up to the force and ardour of his enemy's speaking that he declared himself too inadequate a reader of his writings, having experienced the keenest vigour of his eyes, the terrible weight of his countenance, the sound of voice fitted to single words, the most effective movements of his body. Therefore, although nothing can be added to his work, yet in Demosthenes a great part of Demosthenes is absent, because he is read rather than heard.

11.pr. HOW GREAT THE EFFECTS OF THE ARTS ARE The effects of the arts too, to review them, can bring some pleasure; and forthwith it will be clear both how usefully they were devised, and matters worthy of mention will be placed in a clear light, and the labour in setting them forth will not lack its own fruit.

11.1. The very great zeal of Sulpicius Gallus in perceiving every kind of learning profited the state very much: for when he was the legate of L. Paulus, who was waging war against king Perses, and on a clear night the moon was suddenly eclipsed, and our army, terrified by it as by some dire portent, had lost the confidence to engage with the enemy, by disputing most skilfully about the nature of the heavens and the character of the stars, he sent it eager into the battle line. And so the liberal arts of Gallus gave access to that famous Paulian victory, because, unless he had conquered the fear of our soldiers, the commander could not have conquered the enemy.

11.2. Of Spurinna too the knowledge in conjecturing the warnings of the gods appeared more effective than the city of Rome would have wished. He had foretold to C. Caesar that he should beware the next thirty days as though they were fatal, of which the last was the Ides of March. When on that day both happened to meet in the morning at the house of Calvinus Domitius to pay their respects, Caesar said to Spurinna, "Do you know at all that the Ides of March have now come?" But he said, "Do you know at all that they have not yet passed?" The one had cast off fear as though the suspected time were spent, the other thought that not even its last part was free from peril. Would that security had deceived the soothsayer about his augury rather than the father of his country!

11e.1. But, to scrutinize a foreign example, when, the sun being suddenly darkened, Athens, bathed in unaccustomed shadows, was tormented with anxiety, believing that destruction was being portended to it by a heavenly announcement, Pericles came forth into their midst and discoursed on what he had received from his teacher Anaxagoras concerning the course of the sun and moon, and did not allow his fellow citizens to tremble further with vain fear.

11e.2. How great dignity, moreover, do we suppose was assigned to art by king Alexander, who wished to be painted by Apelles alone and modelled by Lysippus only?

11e.3. The Vulcan fashioned by the hands of Alcamenes holds those who view it at Athens: for besides the other tokens of the most perfect art running through it, men admire also this, that it stands, lightly representing under its garment the trace of a dissembled lameness, so that it is shown gracefully, not as a fault reproached, but as a sure and proper mark of the god.

11e.4. His consort Praxiteles placed in marble, as though breathing, in the temple of the Cnidians, too little safe, on account of the beauty of the work, from the lustful embrace of a certain man. The more excusable, therefore, is the error of the horse which, on seeing the picture of a mare, was forced to neigh, and the barking of dogs roused by the sight of a painted dog, and the bull at Syracuse driven to love and union with a bronze cow by the incitement of too great a likeness: for why should we wonder that creatures void of reason were deceived by art, when we see that the sacrilegious desire of a man was excited by the outlines of mute stone?

11e.5. THAT CERTAIN THINGS CAN BE ACHIEVED BY NO ART But nature, just as it often suffers art to be the rival of its powers, so sometimes dismisses it baffled with weary labour. This the hands of the supreme artist Euphranor felt: for when he was painting at Athens the twelve gods, he embraced the image of Neptune in the most excellent colours of majesty he could, intending to represent that of Jupiter as somewhat more august. But, all the impulse of his thought being spent on the former work, his later attempts could not rise to where they aimed.

11e.6. What of that other equally noble painter, representing the mournful sacrifice of Iphigenia, when he had set Calchas sad, Ulysses grieving, Menelaus lamenting around the altar—did he not, by veiling the head of Agamemnon, confess that the bitterness of the deepest grief could not be expressed by art? And so his picture is wet with the tears of the soothsayer, the friend, and the brother, but he left the father's weeping to be estimated by the feeling of the beholder.

11e.7. And, to add an example of the same pursuit, a painter of outstanding art had captured, by the labour of his industry, a horse coming all but alive from its exercise. Desiring to add foam to its nostrils, so great an artist was much and long worn out in vain over so tiny a matter. Then, kindled with indignation, he seized a sponge soaked in all the colours, which happened to be placed beside him, and dashed it against the panel as though about to spoil his own work. Fortune, directing it to the very nostrils of the horse, forced it to fulfil the painter's desire. And so what art could not sketch, chance imitated.

12.pr. THAT EACH MAN IS THE BEST AUTHORITY AND DISPUTANT OF HIS OWN ART That each man is the best authority and disputant of his own art, lest we doubt it, let us be reminded by a few examples.

12.1. Q. Scaevola, the most famous and most reliable prophet of the laws, as often as he was consulted about the law concerning surety for the state's property, would refer his consultors to Furius and Cascellius, because they were devoted to this knowledge. By this deed indeed he commended his own moderation rather than diminished his authority, confessing that that business could be more aptly explained by those who were expert in it by daily practice. The wisest professors of their art, therefore, are those by whom both their own studies are modestly and the studies of others shrewdly appraised.

12e.1. The most erudite breast of Plato too this thought touched, who ordered the contractors of a sacred altar, who had tried to confer with him about its size and form, to go to Euclid the geometer, yielding to his knowledge—nay, to his profession.

12e.2. Athens glories in its arsenal, and not without cause: for that work is to be viewed both for its expense and its elegance. Its architect Philo, it is agreed, gave the account of his construction in the theatre so eloquently that the most eloquent people awarded no less praise to his eloquence than to his art.

12e.3. Wonderfully too did that artist, who, having allowed himself to be corrected in his work by a shoemaker about the sandal and its little straps, when the man began to dispute also about the leg, forbade him to climb above the sole.

13.pr. ON OLD AGE Old age too, advanced to its furthest limit, has been observed in this same work among the examples of industry in several famous men. Let it nevertheless have a separate and proper heading, lest he to whom the especial indulgence of the immortal gods was present should be thought to have lacked our honoured mention; and at the same time, that there may be given, as it were, certain supports for the hope of a longer life, leaning on which one may make oneself more eager by regard for ancient happiness, and from time to time may confirm by trust the tranquillity of our age, than which none was ever more blessed, by prolonging the safety of our salutary prince to the longest limits of the human condition.

13.1. M. Valerius Corvinus completed his hundredth year. Between his first and sixth consulships forty-six years intervened; and he was sufficient, with the strength of his body unimpaired, not only for the most splendid public services, but also for the most exact cultivation of his own fields—a model to be desired both as a citizen and as a head of a household.

13.2. The span of his life Metellus equalled, and in the fourth year after his consular commands, when very old, being created pontifex maximus, he carried the guardianship of the ceremonies for twenty-two years, neither with his mouth hesitating in pronouncing the vows nor with a trembling hand in performing the sacrifices.

13.3. Q. Fabius Maximus, moreover, held the priesthood of the augurate for sixty-two years, having attained it at an already robust age. And these two periods, if they be brought together into one, would easily fill out the measure of a century.

13.4. Now what shall I say of M. Perpenna? Who survived all those whom he had as consul summoned into the senate, and saw remaining among the conscript fathers only the seven whom, as censor, with L. Philippus as colleague, he had chosen—more long-lived than the whole most ample order.

13.5. The age of Appius indeed I should measure by his calamity, because he passed an infinite number of years deprived of his sight, had he not, burdened by this misfortune, most bravely governed four sons, five daughters, very many dependents, and finally the state. Nay, even when now weary of living, he ordered himself to be carried in a litter into the senate-house, to prevent a disgraceful peace from being made with Pyrrhus. Let someone call this man blind, by whom his country, itself too little discerning of what was honourable, was forced to perceive it through him!

13.6. The span of women's lives too appeared no less long in several, of whom it will be enough for me to have related a few briefly: for both Livia, wife of Rutilius, completed her ninety-seventh year, and Terentia, wife of Cicero, her hundred and third, and Clodia, wife of Aufilius, having lost fifteen sons before, her hundred and fifteenth.

13e.1. I shall join to these two kings, whose long life was most useful to the Roman people. Hiero, ruler of Sicily, reached his ninetieth year. Masinissa, king of Numidia, exceeded this measure, having traversed a reign of sixty years, and admirable beyond all men for the strength of his old age. It is agreed that he—as Cicero relates in the book which he wrote On Old Age—could never be induced, by any rain or any cold, to cover his head with a garment. They report too that he was wont to stand for several hours in the same spot, not moving his foot before he had wearied young men with a like exertion; and if anything had to be done by him seated, he would often, the whole day through, hold out in his chair without turning his body in any direction. He even, mounted on his horse, would lead his armies, joining night to day for the most part, and omitted absolutely nothing of those toils which he had been accustomed as a young man to bear, that he might pass his old age more softly. He flourished also so always in the use of love that after his eighty-sixth year he begot a son, whose name was Methymnus. The land too, which he had received vast and deserted, he left fruitful by perpetual zeal of cultivation.

13e.2. Gorgias of Leontini too, the teacher of Isocrates and of very many men of great genius, was in his own opinion most happy: for when he was in his hundred and seventh year, being asked why he wished to remain so long in life, he said, "Because I have nothing of which to accuse my old age." What is either longer or more blessed than that stretch of years? Having now entered upon a second century, he neither found in this any complaint nor left any in the other.

13e.3. Two years younger was Xenophilus of Chalcis, a Pythagorean, but not inferior in good fortune, since indeed, as Aristoxenus the musician says, free of every human misfortune, he was extinguished in the highest splendour of the most perfect learning.

13e.4. Arganthonius of Gades, moreover, reigned as long as it would have been abundantly enough even to have lived to satiety: for he ruled his country for eighty years, having come to the throne forty years old. Of this matter there are sure authorities. Asinius Pollio too, no slight part of the Roman pen, in the third book of his Histories records that he completed a hundred and thirty years—himself no small example of a sinewy vivacity.

13e.5. The completion of this king's years the Ethiopians make less wonderful, whom Herodotus writes to pass the hundred and twentieth year, and the Indians, of whom Ctesias relates the same, and Epimenides of Cnossos, whom Theopompus says lived a hundred and fifty-seven years.

13e.6. Hellanicus, moreover, says that certain men of the people of the Epii, which is a part of Aetolia, complete two hundred years each, and Damastes subscribes to him, affirming this further, that a certain Litorius of these, of the greatest strength and outstanding stature, heaped up his three-hundredth year.

13e.7. Alexander, indeed, in that volume which he composed about the Illyrian region, affirms that a certain Dando advanced to his five-hundredth year, in no part growing old. But much more generously does Xenophon, whose Periplus is read: for he bestowed eight hundred years of life on the king of the island of the Latmii. And, lest his father should seem too little generously received, he assigned to him too six hundred years.

14.pr. ON THE DESIRE OF GLORY But whence glory arises, or what is its character, or by what means it ought to be acquired, and whether it is better neglected by virtue as not necessary—let those see who wear away their care in contemplating such things, and to whom it has fallen to express eloquently what they have prudently observed. I, content in this work to render their deeds to authors and their deeds to the authors, shall try to demonstrate by their proper examples how great the desire of it is wont to be.

14.1. The elder Africanus wished an image of the poet Ennius to be placed among the monuments of the Cornelian house, because he judged that his own deeds had been made illustrious by the man's genius—not, indeed, ignorant that, as long as the Roman empire flourished and Africa lay subjected at the feet of Italy and the Capitoline citadel held the highest summit of the whole world, the memory of them could not be extinguished, but esteeming it of great worth that to them the light of letters too should be added—a man worthier of a Homeric than of a rude and unpolished herald.

14.2. Similarly honoured was the mind toward the poet Accius of D. Brutus, a leader famous in his own times, who, delighted by his familiar attentions and ready praise, adorned with verses the entrances of the temples which he had consecrated from his spoils.

14.3. Not even Pompey the Great was averse from this passion for glory, who presented Theophanes of Mitylene, the writer of his deeds, with citizenship in an assembly of his soldiers, accompanying the benefit, ample in itself, with a careful and attested speech as well. By which it was effected that no one should doubt that he was repaying gratitude rather than beginning it.

14.4. L. Sulla, moreover, although he directed his attention to no writer, nevertheless claimed for himself so eagerly the whole credit of Jugurtha being handed over by king Bocchus to Marius, that he had that surrender engraved on the signet ring which he used. And how great he afterwards became, who despised not even the least trace of glory!

14.5. And, to append to commanders the glory-loving spirit of a soldier: when Scipio was distributing military gifts to those who had displayed energetic service, T. Labienus advised him to bestow golden armlets on a brave horseman, and when Scipio denied that he would do this, lest a camp honour should be profaned in one who a little before had been a slave, Labienus himself bestowed on the horseman gold from the Gallic plunder. Nor did Scipio take this in silence: for to the horseman he said, "You will have the gift of a rich man." And when the man received it, throwing the gold before the feet of Labienus, he cast down his face. The same man, when he heard Scipio saying, "The commander presents you with silver armlets," went off eager with joy. There is, then, no humility so great that it is not touched by the sweetness of glory.

14.6. But this was sometimes sought even by famous men from the most humble matters: for what did C. Fabius, a most noble citizen, mean, who, when he had painted the walls in the temple of Salus, which C. Junius Bubulcus had dedicated, inscribed on them his own name? For this alone was wanting to the ornament of a family most renowned for consulships and priesthoods and triumphs. But a mind given over to a sordid pursuit was unwilling that that labour of his, whatever it was, should be blotted out in silence—following, of course, the example of Phidias, who enclosed his own likeness in the shield of Minerva, in such a way that, if it were torn out, the whole binding-together of the work would be loosened.

14e.1. But somewhat better, if he was captivated by imitation of another, would he have emulated the ardour of Themistocles, who, they say, driven on by the goads of virtue, and on that account passing restless nights, replied to those who asked why he was abroad at that hour, "Because the trophies of Miltiades rouse me from sleep." Marathon, surely, was urging on his mind by silent torches to make illustrious Artemisium and Salamis, names fertile in naval glory. The same man, going to the theatre, when he was asked whose voice would be most pleasant to him to hear, said, "His by whom my deeds shall be best sung." The sweetness of glory—I almost added, glorious!

14e.2. For the breast of Alexander was insatiable of praise, who, when his companion Anaxarchus, on the authority of his teacher Democritus, related that there were innumerable worlds, said, "Alas, wretched me, that I have not yet made myself master even of one!" A narrow possession for the man, which is sufficient for the dwelling of all the gods.

14e.3. To the most ardent desire of the king and young man I shall append the like thirst of Aristotle in grasping at praise: for he had presented to his pupil Theodectes the books of the oratorical art to publish as his own, and afterwards, taking it ill that their title had thus passed to another, in a volume of his own, dwelling on certain matters, he added that these had been treated more plainly by himself in the books of Theodectes. Did not the modesty of so great and so widely extending a knowledge restrain me, I should say that he was a philosopher worthy that the establishing of his morals should be handed over to a philosopher of loftier mind. But glory is neglected not even by those who try to introduce contempt of it, since indeed they diligently add their own names to their very volumes, so that what they belittle by their profession they may attain by the usurpation of memory. But the dissimulation of these, of whatever sort, is far more tolerable than the purpose of those who, in order to attain eternal memory, did not hesitate to become notorious even by crimes.

14e.4. Of whose number I do not know whether Pausanias should not be reported among the first: for when he had inquired of Hermocles how he could suddenly become famous, and he had replied that, if he killed some illustrious man, it would come about that his glory would overflow to him, he at once slew Philip, and indeed attained what he had sought: for he made himself as known to posterity by his murder as Philip by his virtue.

14e.5. But that desire of glory was sacrilegious: for there was found one who wished to burn the temple of Diana at Ephesus, so that, the most beautiful work being consumed, his name might be spread throughout the whole world; which madness of mind he disclosed when placed on the rack. And the Ephesians had well consulted by a decree abolishing the memory of the most foul man, had not the genius of Theopompus of great eloquence embraced him in his histories.

15.pr. THE MAGNIFICENT THINGS THAT BEFELL EACH MAN To candid minds, moreover, the magnificent things which deservedly befell each man, placed in view, will afford pleasure, because the contemplation of the rewards of virtue is as pleasant as that of its works, nature herself supplying us with eagerness, when we see honour industriously sought and gratefully discharged. But although the mind in this place is borne at once with all its impulse to the Augustan house, that most beneficent and most honoured temple, it will better be restrained, since to him for whom the ascent into heaven lies open, the things that are bestowed on earth, however great, are yet less than is due.

15.1. To the elder Africanus the consulship was given before the lawful time, because the army admonished the senate by letter that it ought to be done. So you would not know whether the authority of the conscript fathers or the counsel of the soldiers added the more distinction to him: for the toga created Scipio leader against the Carthaginians, but arms demanded it. The chief things assigned to him in his life it would be both long to relate, because they are many, and not necessary, because they have for the most part already been related. And so I shall add what even today receives outstanding honour. He has an image placed in the chamber of Jupiter Best and Greatest, which, as often as any funeral of the Cornelian house is to be celebrated, is sought from there; and to him alone the Capitol serves as an entrance-hall:

15.2. as much, by Hercules, as the senate-house does as the entrance-hall of the image of the elder Cato, which is brought out for the services of his kind. A grateful order, which wished to have a senator most useful to the state all but always dwelling with it—rich in every measure of virtue, and great rather by his own desert than by the benefit of fortune, by whose counsel rather than by Scipio's command Carthage was destroyed.

15.3. A rare specimen of honour arises in Scipio Nasica too: for the senate wished the goddess summoned from Pessinus at the warning of Pythian Apollo to be received by his hands and household gods, while he was not yet even a quaestor, because by the same oracle it had been enjoined that these services should be rendered to the Mother of the gods by the most blameless man. Unroll the whole calendar, set up all the triumphal chariots, yet you will find nothing more splendid than a primacy of character.

15.4. From time to time the Scipios furnish us with their distinctions to be recorded: for the people made Aemilianus consul out of a candidate for the aedileship. The same man, when at the quaestorian elections he had come down into the Campus as a supporter of Q. Fabius Maximus, his brother's son, it brought back as consul a second time. To him the senate twice gave a province without the lot, first Africa, then Spain—and these things neither to an ambitious citizen . . . a senator, as not only the most severe course of his life but even his death, brought by secret treachery, declared.

15.5. M. Valerius too the gods and his fellow citizens alike rendered conspicuous by two notable things, the gods by sending a raven as his champion when he was fighting hand to hand with a certain Gaul, the citizens by granting him the consulship when he had entered his twenty-third year. The one of these distinctions a family of ancient origin, of best name, has embraced and assumes, taking the surname Corvinus; the other it joins to its highest ornament, glorying as much in the speed as in the beginning of the consulship.

15.6. Nor indeed is the glory of Q. Scaevola, whom L. Crassus had as colleague in the consulship, too little illustrious, who held Asia so uprightly and so bravely that the senate afterwards set forth Scaevola by its decree as the model and norm of duty to magistrates going to that province.

15.7. To a single saying of the younger Africanus there cling the seven consulships of C. Marius and his two most ample triumphs: for to his very pyre he exulted with joy that, when at Numantia he was serving cavalry campaigns under Scipio as leader, and by chance at dinner a certain man had asked Scipio, if anything happened to him, what equally great commander the state would have, Scipio, looking back at him reclining above himself, said, "This man here." Whether by this augury the most perfect virtue saw more surely or kindled more effectively the greatest rising virtue can scarcely be weighed: that military dinner, surely, omened the most splendid dinners that were to be Marius's throughout the whole city: for after the news that the Cimbri had been destroyed by him came at the beginning of the night, there was no one who did not pour a libation to him, as to the immortal gods, at the sacred rites of his own table.

15.8. Now the things both ample and new that were heaped upon Cn. Pompeius resound in the monuments of letters, here with the assent of favour, there with the murmur of envy. A Roman knight, he was sent as proconsul into Spain against Sertorius with an equal command alongside Pius Metellus, the leading man of the state. Having as yet taken the auspices of no curule honour, he triumphed twice. He took the beginnings of his magistracies from the highest command. His third consulship, by decree of the senate, he held alone. Over Mithridates and Tigranes, over many kings besides and very many states and peoples and pirates, he led a single triumph.

15.9. Q. Catulus too the Roman people exalted by its own voice almost to the very stars: for when he asked by them before the rostra whether, if he had persisted in placing everything in the one Pompey the Great, in whom he would have hope should the onset of a sudden mischance carry him off, with the highest consensus they cried out, "In you." A power of honoured judgment to be admired! Since indeed it equalled to Catulus Pompey the Great, with all the ornaments which I have related, enclosed within the space of two syllables.

15.10. The landing of M. Cato too, returning from Cyprus with the royal money, at the bank of the city may seem memorable, to whom, as he disembarked from his ship, the consuls and the other magistrates and the whole senate and the Roman people were present for the sake of paying respect—rejoicing not that he brought a great weight of gold and silver, but that that fleet had brought M. Cato safe.

15.11. But I do not know whether L. Marcius is not the chief example of unusual distinction, whom, a Roman knight, two armies, torn by the death of P. and Cn. Scipio and the victory of Hannibal, chose as their leader, at a time when their safety, reduced to the utmost straits, left no place for ambition.

15.12. Deservedly to the commemoration of these men is added Sulpicia, daughter of Servius Paterculus, wife of Q. Fulvius Flaccus, who, when the senate, the Sibylline books having been inspected by the decemvirs, had decreed that an image of Venus Verticordia should be consecrated, so that the mind of maidens and women might more easily be turned from lust to chastity, and that out of all the matrons a hundred, and out of the hundred ten chosen by lot, should make judgment about the most blameless woman—was preferred to all in chastity.

15e.1. But since, without any diminution of Roman majesty, foreign distinctions too can be regarded, we shall pass over to them. To Pythagoras so great veneration was granted by his hearers that they thought it sacrilege to bring into dispute what they had received from him. Nay, even when challenged to render a reason, they answered only this, that he himself had said it. A great honour, but only within the school: that other was granted by the votes of cities. With earnest zeal the people of Croton begged of him that he should suffer their senate, which consisted of a thousand men, to use his counsels; and that most opulent state, having venerated his so well-frequented house, made it after his death a shrine of Ceres; and as long as that city flourished, both the goddess was worshipped in the memory of the man and the man in the religion of the goddess.

15e.2. To Gorgias of Leontini, indeed, surpassing all the men of his age in the studies of letters—so much so that he was the first to dare in an assembly to ask about what matter each man wished to hear—all Greece set up in the temple of Delphic Apollo a statue of solid gold, whereas up to that time it had placed gilded ones of others.

15e.3. The same people with the highest consensus bent itself to honouring Amphiaraus, reducing the place where he was buried to the form and condition of a temple, and there establishing the receiving of oracles. His ashes possess the same honour that is given to the Pythian tripod, to the bronze of Dodona, to the fountain of Hammon.

15e.4. Of Berenice too the honour was not common, to whom alone of all women it was permitted to be present at a gymnastic spectacle, when she had brought her son Eucles to enter the contest at Olympia—herself born of an Olympic victor as father, and with brothers who had attained the same palm girding her sides.