The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome
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Title: The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome
Editor: Henry Cabot Lodge
Francis W. Halsey
Release date: May 28, 2007 [eBook #21629]
Language: English
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[Illustration: MARCUS AURELIUS]
[Illustration: CAESAR]
[Illustration: CICERO]
[Illustration: SENECA]
THE BEST
_of the_
WORLD'S CLASSICS
RESTRICTED TO PROSE
HENRY CABOT LODGE
_Editor-in-Chief_
FRANCIS W. HALSEY
_Associate Editor_
With an Introduction, Biographical and
Explanatory Notes, etc.
IN TEN VOLUMES
Vol. II
ROME
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
* * * * *
The Best of the World's Classics
VOL. II
ROME
234 B.C.--180 A.D.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
VOL. II--ROME
CATO THE CENSOR--(Born in 234 B.C., died in 149.)
Of Work on a Roman Farm. (From "De Re Rustica." Translated by Dr. E.
Wilson)
CICERO--(Born in 106 B.C., assassinated in 43.)
I The Blessings of Old Age.
(From the "Cato Major." Translated by Cyrus R. Edmonds)
II On the Death of His Daughter Tullia. (A letter to Sulpicius)
III Of Brave and Elevated Spirits.
(From Book I of the "Offices." Translated by Cyrus R. Edmonds)
IV Of Scipio's Death and of Friendship.
From the "Dialog on Friendship." (Translated by Cyrus R. Edmonds)
JULIUS CAESAR--(Born in 100 B.C., assassinated in 44.)
I The Building of the Bridge Across the Rhine.
(From Book IV of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War." Translated
by McDivett and W. S. Bohn)
II The Invasion of Britain.
(From Book V of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War." Translated by
McDivett and Bohn)
III Overcoming the Nervii.
(From Book II of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War." Translated
by McDivett and Bohn)
IV The Battle of Pharsalia and the Death of Pompey.
(From Book III of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War." Translated
by McDivett and Bohn)
SALLUST--(Born about 86 B.C., died about 34.)
I The Genesis of Catiline.
(From the "Conspiracy of Catiline." Translated by J. S. Watson)
II The Fate of the Conspirators.
(From the "Conspiracy of Catiline." Translated by J. S. Watson)
Livy--(Born in 59 B.C., died in 17 A.D.)
I Horatius Cocles at the Bridge.
(From Book II of the "History of Rome." Translated by D. Spillan
and Cyrus R. Edmonds)
II Hannibal's Crossing of the Alps.
(From Book XXI of the "History of Rome." Translated by Spillan and
Edmonds)
III Hannibal and Scipio at Zama.
(From Book XXX of the "History of Rome." Translated by Spillan and
Edmonds)
SENECA--(Born about 4 B.C., died in 65 A.D.)
I Of the Wise Man.
(From Book II of the "Minor Essays." Translated by Aubrey Stewart)
II Of Consolation for the Loss of Friends.
(From Book VI of the "Minor Essays." Translated by Aubrey Stewart)
III To Nero on Clemency.
(From the "Minor Essays." Translated by Aubrey Stewart)
IV The Pilot.
(From Epistle 85. Translated by Thomas Lodge)
V Of a Happy Life.
(From Book VII of the "Minor Essays." Translated by Aubrey Stewart)
PLINY THE ELDER--(Born in 23 A.D., perished in the Eruption of Vesuvius.)
I The Qualities of the Dog.
(From the "Natural History." Translated by Bostock and Riley)
II Three Great Artists of Greece.
(From the "Natural History." Translated by Bostock and Riley)
QUINTILIAN--(Born about 35 A.D., died about 95.)
The Orator Must Be a Good Man.
(From Book XII, Chapter I, of the "Institutes." Translated by J. S.
Watson)
TACITUS--(Born about 55 A.D., died about 117.)
I From Republican to Imperial Rome.
(From Book I of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised)
II The Funeral of Germanicus.
(From Book III of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised)
III The Death of Seneca.
(From Book XV of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised)
IV The Burning of Rome by Order of Nero.
(From Book XV of the "Annals." The Oxford translation revised)
V The Burning of the Capitol at Rome.
(From Book III of the "History." The Oxford translation revised)
VI The Siege of Cremona.
(From Book III of the "History." The Oxford translation revised)
VII Agricola.
(The Oxford translation revised)
PLINY THE YOUNGER--(Born in 63 A.D., died in 113.)
I Of the Christians in His Province.
(From the "Letters." The Melmoth translation revised)
II To Tacitus on the Eruption of Vesuvius.
(From the "Letters." The Melmoth translation revised)
SUETONIUS--(Lived in the first half of the second century A.D.)
I The Last Days of Augustus.
(From the "Lives of the Caesars." Translated by Alexander Thomson,
revised by Forester)
II The Good Deeds of Nero.
(From the "Lives of the Caesars." Translated by Thomson, revised by
Forester)
III The Death of Nero.
(From the "Lives of the Caesars." Translated by Thomson, revised by
Forester)
MARCUS AURELIUS--(Born in 121 A.D., died in 180.)
His Debt to Others.
(From the "Meditations." Translated by George Long)
* * * * *
ROME
234 B.C.--180 A.D.
* * * * *
CATO, THE CENSOR
Born in Tusculum, Italy, in 234 B.C., died in 149;
celebrated as statesman, general, and writer; questor under
Scipio in 204; Consul in 195; served in Spain in 194; censor
in 184; ambassador to Carthage in 150; one of the chief
instigators of the third Punic war; among his writings are
"De Re Rustica" and "Origines."[1]
OF WORK ON A ROMAN FARM[2]
When the owner of the farm and slaves visits his country villa, after
saluting the household god, he should the same day, if possible, go
round the farm; if not the same day, he should do so the day after. On
seeing how the farm is being cultivated, and what work has been done
or left undone, he should call for his steward and inquire for his
account of what work has been done and what remains to be done. He
should ask whether the work has been completed in good time and
whether what is left uncompleted can be finished. He should find what
wine has been made, and what wheat stored. When he has gone into these
particulars, he should ask for an account of the days spent in
accomplishing the work.
If the work does not seem satisfactory and the steward should excuse
himself by declaring that he has done his best, that the slaves were
good for nothing, that the weather was bad, that some slaves had run
away, that he himself had been called off on public service, and
should allege other such excuses, he should still be strictly called
to account. He should be asked if on rainy or tempestuous days he had
seen that indoor operations had been carried on. Had the wine-casks
been scoured and lined with pitch; had the house-cleaning been done;
had the grain been taken from the thrashing-floor to the granary; had
manure been thrown from the stables and cow-houses and piled into
heaps; had the seed been winnowed; had any rope been made; had the old
rope been repaired, and had he seen that the slaves mended their coats
and caps. He should be reminded that on religious festivals old
ditches might have been cleared out, the public road mended, briers
cut down, the garden dug over, the meadow cleared, the trees trimmed,
thorns pulled up by the roots, the grain ground and a general clearing
up carried through. He should also be told that when slaves were sick
their rations should be cut down.
When the matters have been settled to the master's satisfaction, he
should take measures to see that what has not been done be at once
accomplished. He should then proceed to consider the account of the
farm, and a consideration of the amount of grain which has been
prepared for fodder. He should have returns made of wine and
olive-oil, and learn how much has been consumed, how much sold, how
much is left over and may be put on sale. If there is a deficit any
year, he should order it to be made up from the outside, and whatever
is above the needs of the farm sold. If there is anything to let out
on contract, he should order this to be done, and concerning the work
which he wishes to be thus accomplished he should give his order in
writing. As regards the cattle he should order them to be sold by
auction, and in the same way should sell the oil, if the price of oil
has risen; likewise the superfluous wine and corn of the estate. He
should also order to be sold worn-out bulls, blemished cattle,
blemished sheep, wool, hides, any plow that is old, old tools, old
slaves, slaves who are diseased, or anything else which is useless,
for the owner of a farm must be a seller and not a purchaser.
The owner of a farm and of slaves must begin to study in early manhood
the cultivation and sowing of the land. He should, however, think a
long time before building his villa, but not about farming his
property, which he should set about at once. Let him wait until his
thirty-sixth year and then build, provided his whole property is under
cultivation. So build that neither the villa be disproportionately
small in comparison with the farm nor the farm in comparison with the
villa. It behooves a slave-owner to have a well-built country house,
containing a wine-cellar, a place for storing olive-oil, and casks in
such numbers that he may look forward with delight to a time of
scarcity and high prices, and this will add not only to his wealth,
but to his influence and reputation. He must have wine-presses of the
first order, that his wine may be well made. When the olives have been
picked, let oil be at once made or it will turn out rancid. Recollect
that every year the olives are shaken from the trees in great number
by violent storms. If you gather them up quickly and have vessels
ready to receive them, the storm will have done them no harm and the
oil will be all the greener and better. If the olives be on the ground
or even on the barn floor too long, the oil made from them will be
fetid. Olive-oil will be always good and sweet if it be promptly made.
The following are the duties of a steward: He must maintain strict
discipline, and see that the festivals are observed. While he keeps
his hands off the property of a neighbor, let him look well to his
own. The slaves are to be kept from quarreling. If any of them commits
a fault, he should be punished in a kindly manner. The steward must
see that the slaves are comfortable and suffer neither from cold nor
hunger. By keeping them busy he will prevent them from running into
mischief or stealing. If the steward sets his face against evil doing,
evil will not be done by them. His master must call him to task if he
let evil doing go unpunished. If one slave do him any service, he
should show gratitude that the others may be encouraged to do right.
The steward must not be a gadder or a diner-out, but must give all his
attention to working the slaves, and considering how best to carry out
his master's instructions....
It is at times worth while to gain wealth by commerce, were it not so
perilous; or by usury, were it equally honorable. Our ancestors,
however, held, and fixt by law, that a thief should be condemned to
restore double, a usurer quadruple. We thus see how much worse they
thought it for a citizen to be a money-lender than a thief. Again,
when they praised a good man, they praised him as a good farmer or a
good husbandman. Men so praised were held to have received the highest
praise. For myself, I think well of a merchant as a man of energy and
studious of gain; but it is a career, as I have said, that leads to
danger and ruin. However, farming makes the bravest men and the
sturdiest soldiers, and of all sources of gain is the surest, the most
natural, and the least invidious, and those who are busy with it have
the fewest bad thoughts.[3]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Cato was Rome's first thoroughly national author. He is
usually classed as the creator of Latin prose. Other Roman authors of
his time wrote in Greek. Cato bitterly opposed Greek learning,
declaring that, when Greece should give Rome her literature, she would
"corrupt everything." On Cato's mind no outside literary influence
ever prevailed. He has been called "the most original writer that Rome
ever produced."]
[Footnote 2: From "De Re Rustica." Translated for this work by Dr.
Epiphanius Wilson.]
[Footnote 3: The translation of this paragraph is taken from
Cruttwell's "History of Roman Literature."]
CICERO
Born in 106 B.C., assassinated in 43; celebrated as orator,
philosopher, statesman, and man of letters; served in the
social war in 89; traveled in Greece and Asia in 79-77;
questor in Sicily in 75; accused Verres in 70; praetor in 60;
as Consul supprest Catiline's conspiracy in 63; banished in
58; recalled in 57; proconsul in Cicilia in 51-50; joined
Pompey in 49; pronounced orations against Mark Antony in
44-43; proscribed by the Second Triumvirate in 43; of his
orations fifty-seven are extant, with fragments of twenty
others; other extant works include "De Oratore," "De
Republica," "Cato Major," "De Officiis," and four
collections of letters.
I
THE BLESSINGS OF OLD AGE[4]
Nor even now do I feel the want of the strength of a young man, no
more than when a young man I felt the want of the strength of the bull
or of the elephant. What one has, that one ought to use; and whatever
you do, you should do it with all your strength. For what expression
can be more contemptible than that of Milo[5] of Crotona, who, when he
was now an old man, and was looking at the prize-fighters exercising
themselves on the course, is reported to have looked at his arms,
and, weeping over them, to have said, "But these, indeed, are now
dead." Nay, foolish man, not these arms so much as yourself; for you
never derived your nobility from yourself, but from your chest and
your arms. Nothing of the kind did Sextus AElius ever say, nothing of
the kind many years before did Titus Coruncanius, nothing lately did
Publius Crassus; by whom instructions in jurisprudence were given to
their fellow citizens, and whose wisdom was progressive even to their
latest breath. For the orator, I fear lest he be enfeebled by old age;
for eloquence is a gift not of mind only, but also of lungs and
strength. On the whole, that melodiousness in the voice is graceful, I
know not how, even in old age; which, indeed, I have not lost, and you
see my years.
Yet there is a graceful style of eloquence in an old man,
unimpassioned and subdued, and very often the elegant and gentle
discourse of an eloquent old man wins for itself a hearing; and if you
have not yourself the power to produce this effect, yet you may be
able to teach it to Scipio and Laelius. For what is more delightful
than old age surrounded with the studious attention of youth? Shall we
not leave even such a resource to old age, as to teach young men,
instruct them, train them to every department of duty? an employment,
indeed, than which what can be more noble? But, for my part, I thought
the Cneius and Publius Scipios,[6] and your two grandfathers, L.
AEmilius and P. Africanus, quite happy in the attendance of noble
youths; nor are any preceptors of liberal accomplishments to be deemed
otherwise than happy, tho their strength hath fallen into old age and
failed; altho that very failure of strength is more frequently caused
by the follies of youth than by those of old age; for a lustful and
intemperate youth transmits to old age an exhausted body. Cyrus too,
in Xenophon, in that discourse which he delivered on his deathbed when
he was a very old man, said that he never felt that his old age had
become feebler than his youth had been. I recollect, when a boy, that
Lucius Metellus,[7] who, when four years after his second consulship
he had been made "pontifex maximus," and for twenty-two years held
that sacerdotal office, enjoyed such good strength at the latter
period of his life, that he felt no want of youth. There is no need
for me to speak about myself, and yet that is the privilege of old
age, and conceded to my time of life.
Do you see how, in Homer, Nestor very often proclaims his own virtues?
for he was now living in the third generation of men; nor had he
occasion to fear lest, when stating the truth about himself, he should
appear either too arrogant or too talkative; for, as Homer says, from
his tongue speech flowed sweeter than honey; for which charm he stood
in need of no strength of body; and yet the famous chief of Greece
nowhere wishes to have ten men like Ajax, but like Nestor; and he does
not doubt if that should happen, Troy would in a short time perish.
But I return to myself. I am in my eighty-fourth year. In truth I
should like to be able to make the same boast that Cyrus did; but one
thing I can say, that altho I have not, to be sure, that strength
which I had either as a soldier in the Punic war or as questor in the
same war, or as Consul in Spain, or, four years afterward, when as
military tribune I fought a battle at Thermopylae, in the consulship of
Marcus Acilius Glabrio; yet, as you see, old age has not quite
enfeebled me or broken me down: the senate-house does not miss my
strength, nor the rostra, nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my
guests; for I have never agreed to that old and much-praised proverb
which advises you to become an old man early if you wish to be an old
man long. I for my part would rather be an old man for a shorter
length of time than be an old man before I was one. And, therefore, no
one as yet has wished to have an interview with me to whom I have been
denied as engaged.
But I have less strength than either of you two. Neither even do you
possess the strength of Titus Pontius the centurion; is he, therefore,
the more excellent man? Only let there be a moderate degree of
strength, and let every man exert himself as much as he can; and in
truth that man will not be absorbed in regretting the want of
strength. Milo, at Olympia, is said to have gone over the course while
supporting on his shoulders a live ox. Whether, then, would you rather
have this strength of body, or Pythagoras' strength of intellect,
bestowed upon you? In a word, enjoy that blessing while you have it;
when it is gone, do not lament it, unless, indeed, young men ought to
lament the loss of boyhood, and those a little advanced in age the
loss of adolescence. There is a definite career in life, and one way
of nature, and that a simple one; and to every part of life its own
peculiar period has been assigned; so that both the feebleness of
boys, and the high spirit of young men, and the steadiness of now fixt
manhood, and the maturity of old age, have something natural which
ought to be enjoyed in their own time. I suppose that you hear,
Scipio, what your grandfather's host, Masinissa,[8] is doing at this
day, at the age of ninety. When he has commenced a journey on foot, he
never mounts at all; when on horseback, he never dismounts; by no
rain, by no cold, is he prevailed upon to have his head covered; that
there is in him the greatest hardiness of frame; and therefore he
performs all the duties and functions of a king. Exercise, therefore,
and temperance, even in old age, can preserve some remnant of our
pristine vigor.
Is there no strength in old age? neither is strength exacted from old
age. Therefore, by our laws and institutions, our time of life is
relieved from those tasks which can not be supported without strength.
Accordingly, so far are we from being compelled to do what we can not
do that we are not even compelled to do as much as we can. But so
feeble are many old men that they can not execute any task of duty or
any function of life whatever; but that in truth is not the peculiar
fault of old age, but belongs in common to bad health. How feeble was
the son of Publius Africanus, he who adopted you. What feeble health,
or rather no health at all, had he! and had that not been so, he would
have been the second luminary of the state; for to his paternal
greatness of soul a richer store of learning had been added. What
wonder, therefore, in old men if they are sometimes weak when even
young men can not escape that.
We must make a stand, Scipio and Laelius, against old age, and its
faults must be atoned for by activity; we must fight, as it were,
against disease, and in like manner against old age. Regard must be
paid to health; moderate exercises must be adopted; so much of meat
and drink must be taken that the strength may be recruited, not
opprest. Nor, indeed, must the body alone be supported, but the mind
and the soul much more; for these also, unless you drop oil on them as
on a lamp, are extinguished by old age. And our bodies, indeed, by
weariness and exercise, become opprest; but our minds are rendered
buoyant by exercise. For as to those of whom Caecilius speaks, "foolish
old men," fit characters for comedy, by these he denotes the
credulous, the forgetful, the dissolute, which are the faults not of
old age, but of inactive, indolent, drowsy old age. As petulance and
lust belong to the young more than to the old, yet not to all young
men, but to those who are not virtuous; so that senile folly, which is
commonly called dotage, belongs to weak old men, and not to all. Four
stout sons, five daughters, so great a family, and such numerous
dependents, did Appius manage, altho both old and blind; for he kept
his mind intent like a bow, nor did he languidly sink under the weight
of old age. He retained not only authority, but also command, over
his family; the slaves feared him; the children respected him; all
held him dear; there prevailed in that house the manners and good
discipline of our fathers. For on this condition is old age honored if
it maintains itself, if it keeps up its own right, if it is
subservient to no one, if even to its last breath it exercises control
over its dependents. For, as I like a young man in whom there is
something of the old, so I like an old man in whom there is something
of the young; and he who follows this maxim, in body will possibly be
an old man, but he will never be an old man in mind.
I have in hand my seventh book of Antiquities; I am collecting all the
materials of our early history; of all the famous causes which I have
defended; I am now completing the pleadings;[9] I am employed on a law
of augurs, of pontiffs, of citizens. I am much engaged also in Greek
literature, and, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, for the purpose
of exercising my memory, I call to mind in the evening what I have
said, heard, and done on each day. These are the exercises of the
understanding; these are the race-courses of the mind; while I am
perspiring and toiling over these, I do not greatly miss my strength
of body. I attend my friends, I come into the senate very often, and
spontaneously bring forward things much and long thought of, and I
maintain them by strength of mind, not of body; and if I were unable
to perform these duties, yet my couch would afford me amusement, when
reflecting on those matters which I was no longer able to do, but that
I am able is owing to my past life; for, by a person who always lives
in these pursuits and labors, it is not perceived when old age steals
on. Thus gradually and unconsciously life declines into old age; nor
is its thread suddenly broken, but the vital principle is consumed by
length of time.
Then follows the third topic of blame against old age, that they say
it has no pleasures. Oh, noble privilege of age! if indeed it takes
from us that which is in youth the greatest defect. For listen, most
excellent young men, to the ancient speech of Archytas[10] of
Tarentum, a man eminently great and illustrious, which was reported to
me when I, a young man, was at Tarentum with Quintus Maximus. He said
that no more deadly plague than the pleasure of the body was inflicted
on men by nature; for the passions, greedy of that pleasure, were in a
rash and unbridled manner incited to possess it; that hence arose
treasons against one's country, hence the ruining of states, hence
clandestine conferences with enemies--in short, that there was no
crime, no wicked act, to the undertaking of which the lust of
pleasure did not impel; but that fornications and adulteries and every
such crime were provoked by no other allurements than those of
pleasure. And whereas either nature or some god had given to man
nothing more excellent than his mind, that to this divine function and
gift, nothing was so hostile as pleasure; since where lust bore sway,
there was no room for self-restraint; and in the realm of pleasure,
virtue could by no possibility exist. And that this might be the
better understood, he begged you to imagine in your mind any one
actuated by the greatest pleasure of the body that could be enjoyed;
he believed no one would doubt but that so long as the person was in
that state of delight, he would be able to consider nothing in his
mind, to attain nothing by reason, nothing by reflection; wherefore
that there was nothing so detestable and so destructive as pleasure,
inasmuch as that when it was excessive and very prolonged, it
extinguished all the light of the soul.
Nearchus of Tarentum, our host, who had remained throughout in
friendship with the Roman people, said he had heard from older men
that Archytas held this conversation with Caius Pontius the Samnite,
the father of him by whom, in the Caudian[11] battle, Spurius
Postumius and Titus Veturius, the consuls, were overcome, on which
occasion Plato the Athenian had been present at that discourse; and I
find that he came to Tarentum in the consulship of Lucius Camillus and
Appius Claudius.[12] Wherefore do I adduce this? that we may
understand that if we could not by reason and wisdom despise pleasure,
great gratitude would be due to old age for bringing it to pass that
that should not be a matter of pleasure which is not a matter of duty.
For pleasure is hostile to reason, hinders deliberation, and, so to
speak, closes the eyes of the mind, nor does it hold any intercourse
with virtue. I indeed acted reluctantly in expelling from the senate
Lucius Flaminius, brother of that very brave man Titus Flaminius,[13]
seven years after he had been Consul; but I thought that his
licentiousness should be stigmatized. For that man, when he was Consul
in Gaul, was prevailed on at a banquet by a courtezan to behead one of
those who were in chains, condemned on a capital charge. He escaped in
the censorship of his brother Titus, who had immediately preceded me;
but so profligate and abandoned an act of lust could by no means be
allowed to pass by me and Flaccus, since with private infamy it
combined the disgrace of the empire.
I have often heard from my elders, who said that, in like manner,
they, when boys, had heard from old men, that Caius Fabricius was wont
to wonder that when he was ambassador to King Pyrrhus, he had heard
from Cineas the Thessalian that there was a certain person at Athens
who profest himself a wise man, and that he was accustomed to say that
all things which we did were to be referred to pleasure; and that
hearing him say so, Manius Curius and Titus Coruncanius were
accustomed to wish that that might be the persuasion of the Samnites
and Pyrrhus[14] himself, that they might the more easily be conquered
when they had given themselves up to pleasure. Manius Curius had lived
with Publius Decius, who, five years before the consulship of the
former, had devoted himself for the commonwealth in his fourth
consulship. Fabricius had been acquainted with him, and Coruncanius
had also known him, who, as well from his own conduct in life, as from
the great action of him whom I mention, Publius Decius, judged that
there was doubtless something in its own nature excellent and
glorious, which should be followed for its own sake, and which,
scorning and despising pleasure, all the worthiest men pursued....
But why do I refer to others? Let me now return to myself. First of
all, I always had associates in clubs; and clubs were established when
I was questor, on the Idaean worship of the great mother being adopted.
Therefore I feasted with my associates altogether in a moderate way,
but there was a kind of fervor peculiar to that time of life, and as
that advances, all things will become every day more subdued. For I
did not calculate the gratification of those banquets by the pleasures
of the body so much as by the meetings of friends and conversations.
For well did our ancestors style the reclining of friends at an
entertainment, because it carried with it a union of life, by the name
"convivium" better than the Greeks do, who call this same thing as
well by the name of "compotatio" as "concoenatio"; so that what in
that kind (of pleasures) is of the least value that they appear most
to approve of.
For my part, on account of the pleasure of conversation, I am
delighted also with seasonable entertainments, not only with those of
my own age, of whom very few survive, but with those of your age, and
with you; and I give great thanks to old age, which has increased my
desire for conversation, and taken away that of eating and drinking.
But even if such things delight any person (that I may not appear
altogether to have declared war against pleasure, of which perhaps a
certain limited degree is even natural), I am not aware that even in
these pleasures themselves old age is without enjoyment. For my part,
the presidencies established by our ancestors delight me; and that
conversation, which after the manner of our ancestors, is kept up over
our cups from the top of the table; and the cups, as in the Symposium
of Xenophon, small and dewy, and the cooling of the wine in summer,
and in turn either the sun, or the fire in winter--practises which I
am accustomed to follow among the Sabines also--and I daily join a
party of neighbors, which we prolong with various conversation till
late at night, as far as we can. But there is not, as it were, so
ticklish a sensibility of pleasures in old men. I believe it; but then
neither is there the desire. However, nothing is irksome unless you
long for it. Well did Sophocles, when a certain man inquired of him
advanced in age whether he enjoyed venereal pleasures, reply, "The
gods give me something better; nay, I have run away from them with
gladness, as from a wild and furious tyrant." For to men fond of such
things, it is perhaps disagreeable and irksome to be without them; but
to the contented and satisfied it is more delightful to want them than
to enjoy them; and yet he does not want who feels no desire; therefore
I say that this freedom from desire is more delightful than enjoyment.
But if the prime of life has more cheerful enjoyment of those very
pleasures, in the first place they are but petty objects which it
enjoys, as I have said before; then they are those of which old age,
if it does not abundantly possess them, is not altogether destitute.
As he is more delighted with Turpio Ambivius, who is spectator on the
foremost bench, yet he also is delighted who is in the hindmost; so
youth having a close view of pleasures is perhaps more gratified; but
old age is as much delighted as is necessary in viewing them at a
distance. However, of what high value are the following circumstances,
that the soul, after it has served out, as it were, its time under
lust, ambition, contention, enmities, and all the passions, shall
retire within itself, and, as the phrase is, live with itself? But if
it has, as it were, food for study and learning, nothing is more
delightful than an old age of leisure. I saw Caius Gallus, the
intimate friend of your father, Scipio, almost expiring in the
employment of calculating the sky and the earth. How often did
daylight overtake him when he had begun to draw some figure by night,
how often did night, when he had begun in the morning! How it did
delight him to predict to us the eclipses of the sun and the moon,
long before their occurrence! What shall we say in the case of
pursuits less dignified, yet, notwithstanding, requiring acuteness!
How Naevius did delight in his Punic war! how Plautus in his
Truculentus! how in his Pseudolus! I saw also the old man Livy,[15]
who, tho he had brought a play upon the stage six years before I was
born, in the consulship of Cento and Tuditanus, yet advanced in age
even to the time of my youth. Why should I speak of Publius Licinius
Crassus' study both of pontifical and civil law? or of the present
Publius Scipio, who within these few days was created chief pontiff?
Yet we have seen all these persons whom I have mentioned, ardent in
these pursuits when old men. But as to Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius
rightly called the "marrow of persuasion," with what great zeal did we
see him engage in the practise of oratory, even when an old man! What
pleasures, therefore, arising from banquets, or plays, or harlots, are
to be compared with these pleasures? And these, indeed, are the
pursuits of learning, which too, with the sensible and well educated,
increase along with their age; so that is a noble saying of Solon,
when he says in a certain verse, as I observed before, that he grew
old learning many things every day--than which pleasure of the mind,
certainly, none can be greater.
I come now to the pleasures of husbandmen, with which I am excessively
delighted, which are not checked by any old age, and appear in my
mind to make the nearest approach to the life of a wise man. For they
have relation to the earth, which never refuses command, and never
returns without interest that which it hath received; but sometimes
with less, generally with very great interest. And yet for my part it
is not only the product, but the virtue and nature of the earth itself
that delight me, which, when in its softened and subdued bosom it has
received the scattered seed, first of all confines what is hidden
within it, from which harrowing, which produces that effect, derives
its name (_occatio_); then, when it is warmed by heat and its own
compression, it spreads it out, and elicits from it the verdant blade,
which, supported by the fibers of the roots, gradually grows up, and,
rising on a jointed stalk, is now enclosed in a sheath, as if it were
of tender age, out of which, when it hath shot up, it then pours forth
the fruit of the ear, piled in due order, and is guarded by a rampart
of beards against the pecking of the smaller birds. Why should I, in
the case of vines, tell of the plantings, the risings, the stages of
growth? That you may know the repose and amusement of my old age, I
assure you that I can never have enough of that gratification. For I
pass over the peculiar nature of all things which are produced from
the earth; which generates such great trunks and branches from so
small a grain of the fig or from the grape-stone, or from the minutest
seeds of other fruits and roots; shoots, plants, twigs, quicksets,
layers, do not these produce the effect of delighting any one even to
admiration? The vine, indeed, which by nature is prone to fall, and is
borne down to the ground, unless it be propt, in order to raise
itself up, embraces with its tendrils, as it were with hands, whatever
it meets with, which, as it creeps with manifold and wandering course,
the skill of the husbandmen pruning with the knife, restrains from
running into a forest of twigs, and spreading too far in all
directions.
Accordingly, in the beginning of spring, in those twigs which are
left, there rises up as it were at the joints of the branches that
which is called a bud, from which the nascent grape shows itself,
which, increasing in size by the moisture of the earth and the heat of
the sun, is at first very acid to the taste, and then as it ripens
grows sweet, and being clothed with its large leaves does not want
moderate warmth, and yet keeps off the excessive heat of the sun; than
which what can be in fruit on the one hand more rich, or on the other
hand more beautiful in appearance? Of which not only the advantage, as
I said before, but also the cultivation and the nature itself delight
me; the rows of props, the joining of the heads, the tying up and
propagation of vines, and the pruning of some twigs, and the grafting
of others, which I have mentioned. Why should I allude to irrigations,
why to the diggings of the ground, why to the trenching by which the
ground is made much more productive? Why should I speak of the
advantage of manuring? I have treated of it in that book which I wrote
respecting rural affairs, concerning which the learned Hesiod has not
said a single word, tho he has written about the cultivation of the
land. But Homer, who, as appears to me, lived many ages before,
introduces Laertes soothing the regret which he felt for his son by
tilling the land and manuring it. Nor indeed is rural life delightful
by reason of corn-fields only and meadows and vineyards and groves,
but also for its gardens and orchards; also for the feeding of cattle,
the swarms of bees, and the variety of all kinds of flowers. Nor do
plantings only give me delight, but also graftings, than which
agriculture has invented nothing more ingenious....
Was then their old age to be pitied who amused themselves in the
cultivation of land? In my opinion, indeed, I know not whether any
other can be more happy; and not only in the discharge of duty,
because to the whole race of mankind the cultivation of the land is
beneficial; but also from the amusement, which I have mentioned, and
that fulness and abundance of all things which are connected with the
food of men, and also with the worship of the gods; so that, since
some have a desire for these things, we may again put ourselves on
good terms with pleasure. For the wine-cellar of a good and diligent
master is always well stored; the oil-casks, the pantry also, the
whole farmhouse is richly supplied; it abounds in pigs, kids, lambs,
hens, milk, cheese, honey. Then, too, the countrymen themselves call
the garden a second dessert. And then what gives a greater relish to
these things is that kind of leisure labor, fowling and hunting. Why
should I speak of the greenness of meadows, or the rows of trees, or
the handsome appearance of vineyards and olive grounds? Let me cut the
matter short. Nothing can be either more rich in use or more elegant
in appearance than ground well tilled, to the enjoyment of which old
age is so far from being an obstacle that it is even an invitation and
allurement. For where can that age be better warmed either by basking
in the sun or by the fire, or again be more healthfully refreshed by
shades or waters? Let the young, therefore, keep to themselves their
arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis-ball, swimmings, and races; to us
old men let them leave out of many amusements the _tali_ and
_tesserae_; and even in that matter it may be as they please, since old
age can be happy without these amusements....
What, therefore, should I fear if after death I am sure either not to
be miserable or to be happy? Altho who is so foolish, even if young,
as to be assured that he will live even till the evening? Nay, that
period of life has many more probabilities of death that ours has;
young men more readily fall into diseases, suffer more severely, are
cured with more difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old age. Did
not this happen so we should live better and more wisely, for
intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside in old men, and if
there had been none of them, no states could exist at all. But I
return to the imminence of death. What charge is that against old age,
since you see it to be common to youth also? I experienced not only in
the case of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers,
Scipio, men plainly marked out for the highest distinction, that death
was common to every period of life. Yet a young man hopes that he will
live a long time, which expectation an old man can not entertain. His
hope is but a foolish one; for what can be more foolish than to regard
uncertainties as certainties, delusions as truths? An old man indeed
has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than
a young one; since he has already attained what the other is only
hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long.
And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called
long? For allow the latest period; let us anticipate the age of the
kings of Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man
named Arganthonius at Gades;[16] who reigned for eighty years, and
lived 120. But to my mind, nothing whatever seems of long duration to
which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the time which has
passed has flown away; that only remains which you have secured by
virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and
months and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be
discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to
live, with that he ought to be content; for neither need the drama be
performed entire by the actor in order to give satisfaction, provided
he be approved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live
till the _plaudite_. For the short period of life is long enough for
living well and honorably, and if you should advance further, you need
no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of spring-time hath
passed, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the
time of youth, and gives promise of the future fruits; the remaining
seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now
the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and
abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth everything that
happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What,
however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die which even
is the lot of the young, tho nature opposes and resists. And thus it
is that young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame
is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the
exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any
force; and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the
trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their
lives from youths, maturity from old men--a state which to me indeed
is so delightful that the nearer I approach to death, I seem, as it
were, to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage,
to be just coming into harbor.
Of all the periods of life there is a definite limit; but of old age
there is no limit fixt; and life goes on very well in it, so long as
you are able to follow up and attend to the duty of your situation,
and, at the same time, to care nothing about death; whence it happens
that old age is even of higher spirit and bolder than youth. Agreeable
to this was the answer given to Pisistratus,[17] the tyrant, by Solon,
when on the former inquiring, "in reliance on what hope he so boldly
withstood him," the latter is said to have answered, "on old age." The
happiest end of life is this--when the mind and the other senses
being unimpaired, the same nature which put it together takes asunder
her own work. As in the case of a ship or a house, he who built them
takes them down most easily; so the same nature which has compacted
man most easily breaks him up. Besides, every fastening of glue, when
fresh, is with difficulty torn asunder, but easily when tried by time.
Hence it is that that short remnant of life should be neither greedily
coveted nor without reason given up; and Pythagoras forbids us to
abandon the station or post of life without the orders of our
commander, that is, of God.[18] There is indeed a saying of the wise
Solon in which he declares that he does not wish his own death to be
unattended by the grief and lamentation of friends. He wishes, I
suppose, that he should be dear to his friends. But I know not whether
Ennius does not say with more propriety,
"Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor
celebrate my funeral with mourning."
He conceives that a death ought not to be lamented when immortality
follows. Besides, a dying man may have some degree of consciousness,
but that for a short time, especially in the case of an old man; after
death, indeed, consciousness either does not exist or it is a thing to
be desired. But this ought to be a subject of study from our youth to
be indifferent about death, without which study no one can be of
tranquil mind. For die we certainly must, and it is uncertain whether
or not on this very day. He, therefore, who at all hours dreads
impending death, how can he be at peace in his mind? concerning which
there seems to be no need of such long discussion, when I call to mind
not only Lucius Brutus, who was slain in liberating his country; nor
the two Decii, who spurred on their steeds to a voluntary death; nor
Marcus Atilius,[19] who set out to execution that he might keep a
promise pledged to the enemy; nor the two Scipios, who even with their
very bodies sought to obstruct the march of the Carthaginians; nor
your grandfather Lucius Paulus,[20] who by his death atoned for the
temerity of his colleague in the disgraceful defeat at Cannae; nor
Marcus Marcellus,[21] whose corpse not even the most merciless foe
suffered to go without the honor of sepulture; but that our legions,
as I have remarked in my Antiquities, have often gone with cheerful
and undaunted mind to that place from which they believed that they
should never return. Shall, then, well-instructed old men be afraid of
that which young men, and they not only ignorant, but mere peasants,
despise? On the whole, as it seems to me indeed, a satiety of all
pursuits causes a satiety of life. There are pursuits peculiar to
boyhood; do therefore young men regret the loss of them? There are
also some of early youth; does settled age, which is called middle
life, seek after these? There are also some of this period; neither
are they looked for by old age. There are some final pursuits of old
age; accordingly, as the pursuits of the earlier parts of life fall
into disuse, so also do those of old age; and when this has taken
place, satiety of life brings on the seasonable period of death.
Indeed, I do not see why I should not venture to tell you what I
myself think concerning death; because I fancy I see it so much the
more clearly in proportion as I am less distant from it. I am
persuaded that your fathers, Publius Scipio and Caius Laelius, men of
the greatest eminence and very dear friends of mine, are living, and
that life too which alone deserves the name of life. For while we are
shut up in this prison of the body, we are fulfilling, as it were, the
function and painful task of destiny; for the heaven-born soul has
been degraded from its dwelling-place above, and, as it were, buried
in the earth, a situation uncongenial to its divine and immortal
nature. But I believe that the immortal gods have shed souls into
human bodies, that beings might exist who might tend the earth, and by
contemplating the order of the heavenly bodies might imitate it in the
manner and regularity of their lives. Nor have reason and argument
alone influenced me thus to believe, but likewise the high name and
authority of the greatest philosophers. I used to hear that Pythagoras
and the Pythagoreans, who were all but our neighbors, who were
formerly called the Italian philosophers, had no doubt that we
possess souls derived from the universal divine mind. Moreover, the
arguments were conclusive to me which Socrates delivered on the last
day of his life concerning the immortality of the soul--he who was
pronounced by the oracle of Apollo the wisest of all men. But why say
more? I have thus persuaded myself, such is my belief; that since such
is the activity of our souls, so tenacious their memory of things past
and their sagacity regarding things future, so many arts, so many
sciences, so many discoveries, that the nature which comprizes these
qualities can not be mortal; and since the mind is ever in action and
has no source of motion, because it moves itself, I believe that it
never will find any end of motion, because it never will part from
itself; and that since the nature of the soul is uncompounded, and has
not in itself any admixture heterogeneous and dissimilar to itself, I
maintain that it can not undergo dissolution; and if this be not
possible, it can not perish; and it is a strong argument that men know
very many things before they are born, since when mere boys, while
they are learning difficult subjects, they so quickly catch up
numberless ideas, that they seem not to be learning them then for the
first time, but to remember them, and to be calling them to
recollection. Thus did our Plato argue....
Let me, if you please, revert to my own views. No one will ever
persuade me that either your father, Paulus, or two grandfathers,
Paulus and Africanus, or the father of Africanus, or his uncle, or the
many distinguished men whom it is unnecessary to recount, aimed at
such great exploits as might reach to the recollection of posterity
had they not perceived in their mind that posterity belonged to them.
Do you suppose, to boast a little of myself, after the manner of old
men, that I should have undergone such great toils, by day and night,
at home and in service, had I thought to limit my glory by the same
bounds as my life? Would it not have been far better to pass an easy
and quiet life without any toil or struggle? But I know not how my
soul, stretching upward, has ever looked forward to posterity, as if,
when it had departed from life, then at last it would begin to live.
And, indeed, unless this were the case, that souls were immortal, the
souls of the noblest of men would not aspire above all things to an
immortality of glory.
Why need I adduce that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest
equanimity, the most foolish with the least? Does it not seem to you
that the soul, which sees more and further, sees that it is passing to
a better state, while that body whose vision is duller, does not see
it? I, indeed, am transported with eagerness to see your fathers, whom
I have respected and loved; nor in truth is it those only I desire to
meet whom I myself have known; but those also of whom I have heard or
read, and have myself written. Whither, indeed, as I proceed, no one
assuredly should easily force me back, nor, as they did with Pelias,
cook me again to youth. For if any god should grant me that from this
period of life I should become a child again and cry in the cradle, I
should earnestly refuse it; nor in truth should I like, after having
run, as it were, my course, to be called back to the starting-place
from the goal. For what comfort has life? What trouble has it not,
rather? But grant that it has; yet it assuredly has either satiety or
limitation (of its pleasures). For I am not disposed to lament the
loss of life, which many men, and those learned men too, have often
done; neither do I regret that I have lived, since I have lived in
such a way that I conceive I was not born in vain; and from this life
I depart as from a temporary lodging, not as from a home.
For nature has assigned it to us as an inn to sojourn in, not a place
of habitation. Oh, glorious day! when I shall depart to that divine
company and assemblage of spirits, and quit this troubled and polluted
scene. For I shall go not only to those great men of whom I have
spoken before, but also to my son Cato, than whom never was better man
born, nor more distinguished for pious affection, whose body was
burned by me, whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting that mine
should be burned by him. But his soul not deserting me, but oft
looking back, no doubt departed to those regions whither it saw that I
myself was destined to come. This, tho a distress to me, I seemed
patiently to endure; not that I bore it with indifference, but I
comforted myself with the recollection that the separation and
distance between us would not continue long. For these reasons, O
Scipio (since you said that you with Laelius were accustomed to wonder
at this), old age is tolerable to me, and not only not irksome, but
even delightful. And if I am wrong in this, that I believe the souls
of men to be immortal, I willingly delude myself; nor do I desire that
this mistake, in which I take pleasure, should be wrested from me as
long as I live; but if I, when dead, shall have no consciousness, as
some narrow-minded philosophers imagine, I do not fear lest dead
philosophers should ridicule this my delusion. But if we are not
destined to be immortal, yet it is a desirable thing for a man to
expire at his fit time. For, as nature prescribes a boundary to all
other things, so does she also to life. Now old age is the
consummation of life, just as of a play, from the fatigue of which we
ought to escape, especially when satiety is super-added. This is what
I had to say on the subject of old age, to which may you arrive! that,
after having experienced the truth of those statements which you have
heard from me, you may be enabled to give them your approbation.
II
ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER TULLIA[22]
Yes, my dear Servius, I could indeed wish you had been with me, as you
say, at the time of my terrible trial. How much it was in your power
to help me if you had been here, by sympathizing with, and I may
almost say, sharing equally in my grief, I readily perceive from the
fact that after reading your letter I now feel myself considerably
more composed; for not only was all that you wrote just what is best
calculated to soothe affliction, but you yourself in comforting me
showed that you too had no little pain at heart. Your son Servius,
however, has made it clear, by every kindly attention which such an
occasion would permit of, both how great his respect was for myself
and also how much pleasure his kind feeling for me was likely to give
you; and you may be sure that, while such attentions from him have
often been more pleasant to me, they have never made me more grateful.
It is not, however, only your arguments and your equal share--I may
almost call it--in this affliction which comforts me, but also your
authority; because I hold it shame in me not to be bearing my trouble
in a way that you, a man endowed with such wisdom, think it ought to
be borne. But at times I feel broken down, and I scarcely make any
struggle against my grief, because those consolations fail me which
under similar calamities were never wanting to any of those other
people whom I put before myself as models for imitation. Both Fabius
Maximus, for example, when he lost a son who had held the consulship,
the hero of many a famous exploit; and Lucius Paulus, from whom two
were taken in one week; and your own kinsman Gallus; and Marcus Cato,
who was deprived of a son of the rarest talents and the rarest
virtue--all these lived in times when their individual affliction was
capable of finding a solace in the distinctions they used to earn from
their country.
For me, however, after being stript of all those distinctions which
you yourself recall to me, and which I had won for myself by
unparalleled exertions, only that one solace remained which has been
torn away. My thoughts were not diverted by work for my friends, or by
the administration of affairs of state; there was no pleasure in
pleading in the courts; I could not bear the very sight of the Senate
House; I felt, as was indeed too true, that I had lost all the harvest
of both my industry and my success. But whenever I wanted to recollect
that all this was shared with you and other friends I could name, and
whenever I was breaking myself in and forcing my spirit to bear these
things with patience, I always had a refuge to go to where I might
find peace, and in whose words of comfort and sweet society I could
rid me of all my pains and griefs. Whereas now, under this terrible
blow, even those old wounds which seemed to have healed up are
bleeding afresh; for it is impossible for me now to find such a refuge
from my sorrows at home in the business of the state as in those days
I did in that consolation of home, which was always in store whenever
I came away sad from thoughts of state to seek for peace in her
happiness. And so I stay away both from home and from public life;
because home now is no more able to make up for the sorrow I feel when
I think of our country than our country is for my sorrow at home. I am
therefore looking forward all the more eagerly to your coming, and
long to see you as early as may possibly be; no greater alleviation
can be offered me than a meeting between us for friendly intercourse
and conversation. I hope, however, that your return is to take place,
as I hear it is, very shortly. As for myself, while there are abundant
reasons for wanting to see you as soon as possible, my principal one
is in order that we may discuss together beforehand the best method of
conduct for present circumstances, which must entirely be adapted to
the wishes of one man only, a man nevertheless who is far-seeing and
generous, and also, as I think I have thoroughly ascertained, to me
not at all ill-disposed and to you extremely friendly. But admitting
this, it is still a matter for much deliberation what is the line--I
do not say of action, but of keeping quiet--that we ought by his good
leave and favor to adopt. Farewell!
III
OF BRAVE AND ELEVATED SPIRITS[23]
A spirit altogether brave and elevated is chiefly discernible by two
characters. The first consists in a low estimate of mere outward
circumstances, since it is convinced that a man ought to admire,
desire, or court nothing but what is virtuous and becoming; and that
he ought to succumb to no man, nor to any perturbation either of
spirit or fortune. The other thing is that, possest of such a spirit
as I have just mentioned, you should perform actions which are great
and of the greatest utility, but extremely arduous, full of
difficulties and danger both to life and the many things which
pertain to life.
In the latter of those two characters consist all the glory, the
majesty, and, I add, the utility; but the causes and the efficient
means that form great men is in the former, which contains the
principles that elevate the soul, and gives it a contempt for
temporary considerations. Now, this very excellence consists in two
particulars: you are to deem that only to be good is to be virtuous,
and that you be free from all mental irregularity. For we are to look
upon it as the character of a noble and an elevated soul, to slight
all those considerations that the generality of mankind account great
and glorious, and to despise them, upon firm and durable principles;
while strength of mind and greatness of resolution are discerned in
bearing those calamities which, in the course of man's life, are many
and various, so as not to be driven from your natural disposition, nor
from the dignity of a wise man; for it is not consistent that he who
is not subdued by fear should be subjugated by passion, nor that he
who has shown himself invincible by toil should be conquered by
pleasure. Wherefore, we ought to watch and avoid the love of money;
for nothing so truly characterizes a narrow, groveling disposition as
to love riches; and nothing is more noble and more exalted than to
despise riches if you have them not, and if you have them, to employ
them in beneficence and liberality.
An inordinate passion for glory, as I have already observed, is
likewise to be guarded against; for it deprives us of liberty, the
only prize for which men of elevated sentiments ought to contend.
Power is so far from being desirable in itself that it sometimes ought
to be refused, and sometimes to be resigned. We should likewise be
free from all disorders of the mind, from all violent passion and
fear, as well as languor, voluptuousness, and anger, that we may
possess that tranquillity and security which confer alike consistency
and dignity. Now, many there are, and have been, who, courting that
tranquillity which I have mentioned here, have withdrawn themselves
from public affairs and taken refuge in retirement. Among these, some
of the noblest and most prominent of our philosophers; and some
persons, of strict and grave dispositions, were unable to bear with
the manners either of the people or their rulers; and some have lived
in the country, amusing themselves with the management of their
private affairs. Their aim was the same as that of the powerful, that
they might enjoy their liberty, without wanting anything or obeying
any person; for the essence of liberty is to live just as you
please....
But, since most persons are of opinion that the achievements of war
are more glorious than civil affairs, this judgment needs to be
restricted; for many, as generally is the case with high minds and
enterprising spirits, especially if they are adapted to military life
and are fond of warlike achievements, have often sought opportunities
of war from their fondness for glory; but if we are willing to judge
truly, many are the civil employments of greater importance, and of
more renown, than the military.
For tho Themistocles is justly praised--his name is now more
illustrious than that of Solon, and his glorious victory at Salamis
is mentioned preferably to the policy of Solon, by which he first
confirmed the power of the Areopagus--the one should not be considered
more illustrious than the other; for the one availed his country only
for once--the other is lastingly advantageous; because by it the laws
of the Athenians, and the institutions of their ancestors, are
preserved. Now, Themistocles could not have stated any respect in
which he benefited the Areopagus, but Solon might with truth declare
that Themistocles had been advantaged by him; for the war was carried
on by the counsels of that senate which was constituted by Solon.
We may make the same observation with regard to Pausanias[24] and
Lysander among the Lacedaemonians; for all the addition of empire which
their conquests are supposed to have brought to their country is not
to be compared to the laws and economy of Lycurgus; for indeed, owing
to these very causes they had armies more subordinate and courageous.
In my eyes, Marcus Scaurus (who flourished when I was but a boy) was
not inferior to Caius Marius;[25] nor, after I came to have a concern
in the government, Quintus Catulus[26] to Cneius Pompey. An army
abroad is but of small service, unless there be a wise administration
at home. Nor did that good man and great general Africanus perform a
more important service to his country when he razed Numantia than did
that private citizen P. Nasica[27] when at the same period he killed
Tiberius Gracchus. An action which it is true was not merely of a
civil nature; for it approaches to a military character, as being the
result of force and courage; but it was an action performed without an
army, and from political considerations....
Now all that excellence which springs from a lofty and noble nature is
altogether produced by the mental and not by the corporeal powers.
Meanwhile, the body ought to be kept in such action and order as that
it may be always ready to obey the dictates of reason and wisdom, in
carrying them into execution, and in persevering under hardships. But
with regard to that _honestas_ we are treating of, it consists wholly
in the thoughtful application of the mind, by which the civilians who
preside over public affairs are equally serviceable to their country
as they who wage wars. For it often happens that by such counsels wars
are either not entered into or they are brought to a termination;
sometimes they are even undertaken, as the third Punic war was by the
advice of Marcus Cato, whose authority was powerful, even after he was
dead.
Wisdom in determining is therefore preferable to courage in fighting;
but in this we are to take care that we are not swayed by an aversion
to fighting rather than by a consideration of expediency. Now in
engaging in war we ought to make it appear that we have no other view
than peace. But the character of a brave and resolute man is not to be
ruffled with adversity, and not to be in such confusion as to quit his
post, as we say, but to preserve a presence of mind, and the exercise
of reason, without departing from his purpose. And while this is the
characteristic of a lofty spirit, so this also is that of a powerful
intellect; namely, to anticipate futurity in thought, and to conclude
beforehand what may happen on either side, and, upon that, what
measures to pursue, and never be surprized so as to say, "I had not
thought of that." Such are the operations of a genius, capacious and
elevated; of such a one as relies on its own prudence and counsel; but
to rush precipitately into the field, and to encounter an enemy with
mere physical force has somewhat in it that is barbarous and brutal.
When the occasion, however, and its necessity compel it, we should
resist with force, and prefer death to slavery or dishonor.
IV
OF SCIPIO'S DEATH AND OF FRIENDSHIP[28]
Should I say that I am not distrest by the loss of Scipio,
philosophers may determine with what propriety I should do so; but
assuredly I should be guilty of falsehood. For I am distrest at being
bereaved of such a friend, as no one, I consider, will ever be to me
again, and, as I can confidently assert, no one ever was; but I am not
destitute of a remedy. I comfort myself, and especially with this
consolation, that I am free from that error by which most men, on the
decease of friends, are wont to be tormented; for I feel that no evil
has happened to Scipio; it has befallen myself, if indeed it has
happened to any. Now to be above measure distrest at one's own
troubles is characteristic of the man who loves not his friend, but
himself. In truth, as far as he is concerned, who can deny that his
end was glorious? for unless he had chosen to wish for immortality, of
which he had not the slightest thought, what did he fail to obtain
which it was lawful for a man to wish for? A man who, as soon as he
grew up, by his transcendent merit far surpassed those sanguine hopes
of his countrymen which they had conceived regarding him when a mere
boy, who never stood for the consulship, yet was made Consul twice; on
the first occasion, before his time; on the second, at the proper age
as regarded himself, tho for the commonwealth almost too late; who, by
overthrowing two cities,[29] most hostile to our empire, put an end
not only to all present but all future wars. What shall I say of his
most engaging manners; of his dutiful conduct to his mother; his
generosity to his sisters; his kindness to his friends; his
uprightness toward all? These are known to you; and how dear he was to
the state was displayed by its mourning at his death....
The authority of the ancients has more weight with me, either that of
our own ancestors, who paid such sacred honors to the dead, which
surely they would not have done if they thought those honors did in no
way affect them, or that of those who once lived in this country, and
enlightened, by their institutions and instructions, Magna Graecia[30]
(which now indeed is entirely destroyed, but then was flourishing),
or of him who was pronounced by the oracle of Apollo to be the wisest
of men, who did not say first one thing and then another, as is
generally done, but always the same; namely, that the souls of men are
divine, and that when they have departed from the body, a return to
heaven is opened to them, and the speediest to the most virtuous and
just. This same opinion was also held by Scipio; for he indeed, a very
few days before his death, as if he had a presentiment of it, when
Philus and Manilius were present, and many others, and you also,
Scaevola, had gone with me, for three days descanted on the subject of
government; of which discussion the last was almost entirely on the
immortality of souls, which he said he had learned in sleep through a
vision from Africanus. If this be the fact, that the spirit of the
best man most easily flies away in death, as from the prison-house and
chains of the body, whose passage to the gods can we conceive to have
been readier than that of Scipio? Wherefore, to be afflicted at this
his departure, I fear, would be the part rather of an envious person
than of a friend....
But yet I so enjoy the recollection of our friendship that I seem to
have lived happily because I lived with Scipio, with whom I had a
common anxiety on public and private affairs, and with whom my life
both at home and abroad was associated, and there existed that,
wherein consists the entire strength of friendship, an entire
agreement of inclinations, pursuits, and sentiments. That character
for wisdom, therefore, which Fannius a little while ago mentioned does
not so delight me, especially since it is undeserved, as the hope that
the recollection of our friendship will last forever. And it is the
more gratifying to me because scarcely in the history of the world are
three or four pairs of friends mentioned by name; and I indulge in the
hope that the friendship of Scipio and Laelius will be remembered....
I can only urge you to prefer friendship to all human possessions; for
there is nothing so suited to our nature, so well adapted to
prosperity or adversity. But first of all, I am of opinion that except
among the virtuous friendship can not exist; I do not analyze this
principle too closely, as they do who inquire with too great nicety
into those things, perhaps with truth on their side, but with little
general advantage; for they maintain that there is no good man but the
wise man. Be it so, yet they define wisdom to be such as no mortal has
ever attained to; whereas we ought to contemplate those things which
exist in practise and in common life, and not the subjects of fictions
or of our own wishes. I would never pretend to say that Caius
Fabricius, Marius Curius, and Titus Coruncanius, whom our ancestors
esteemed wise, were wise according to the standard of these moralists.
Wherefore let them keep to themselves the name of wisdom, both
invidious and unintelligible, and let them allow that these were good
men--nay, they will not even do that; they will declare that this can
not be granted except to a wise man.
Let us therefore proceed with our dull genius, as they say. Those who
so conduct themselves and so live that their honor, their integrity,
their justice, and liberality are approved; so that there is not in
them any covetousness, or licentiousness, or boldness; and that they
are of great consistency, as those men whom I have mentioned
above--let us consider these worthy of the appellation of good men, as
they have been accounted such, because they follow (as far as men are
able) nature, which is the best guide of a good life. For I seem to
myself to have this view, that we are so formed by nature that there
should be a certain social tie among all; stronger, however, as each
approaches nearer us. Accordingly, citizens are preferable to
foreigners, and relatives to strangers; for with the last-named,
Nature herself has created a friendly feeling, tho this has not
sufficient strength. For in this respect friendship is superior to
relationship, because from relationship benevolence can be withdrawn
and from friendship it can not; for with the withdrawal of benevolence
the very name of friendship is done away, while that of relationship
remains. Now how great the power of friendship is may be best gathered
from this consideration, that out of the boundless society of the
human race, which Nature herself has joined together, friendship is a
matter so contracted, and brought into so narrow a compass, that the
whole of affection is confined to two, or at any rate to very few.
Now friendship is nothing else than a complete union of feeling on all
subjects, divine and human, accompanied by kindly feeling and
attachment, than which, indeed, I am not aware whether, with the
exception of wisdom, anything better has been bestowed on man by the
immortal gods. Some men prefer riches, others good health, others
influence, others again honors, many prefer even pleasures; the last,
indeed, is the characteristic of beasts; while the former are fleeting
and uncertain, depending not so much on our own purpose as on the
fickleness of fortune. Whereas those who place the supreme good in
virtue, therein do admirably; but this very virtue itself both begets
and constitutes friendship; nor without this virtue can friendship
exist at all. Now let us define this virtue according to the usage of
life and of our common language; and let us not measure it, as certain
learned persons do, by pomp of language; and let us include among the
good those who are so accounted--the Paulli, the Catos, the Galli, the
Scipios, and the Phili; with these men ordinary life is content; and
let us pass over those who are nowhere found to exist. Among men of
this kind, therefore, friendship finds facilities so great that I can
scarcely describe them.
In the first place--to whom can life be "worth living," as Ennius
says, who does not repose on the mutual kind feeling of some friend?
What can be more delightful than to have one to whom you can speak on
all subjects just as to yourself? Where would be the great enjoyment
in prosperity if you had not one to rejoice in it equally with
yourself? And adversity would indeed be difficult to endure without
some one who would bear it even with greater regret than yourself. In
short, all other objects that are sought after are severally suited to
some one single purpose--riches, that you may spend them; power that
you may be courted; honors, that you may be extolled; pleasures, that
you may enjoy them; good health, that you may be exempt from harm, and
perform the functions of the body. Whereas friendship comprizes the
greatest number of objects possible; wherever you turn yourself, it is
at hand; shut out of no place, never out of season, never irksome; and
therefore we do not use fire and water, as they say, on more occasions
than we do friendship. And I am not now speaking of commonplace or
ordinary friendship (tho even that brings delight and benefit), but of
real and true friendship, such as belonged to those of whom very few
are recorded; for prosperity, friendship renders more brilliant, and
adversity more supportable, by dividing and communicating it.
And while friendship embraces very many and great advantages, she
undoubtedly surpasses all in this, that she shines with a brilliant
hope over the future, and never suffers the spirit to be weakened or
to sink. Besides, he who looks on a true friend looks, as it were,
upon a kind of image of himself; wherefore friends, tho absent, are
still present; tho in poverty, they are rich; tho weak, yet in the
enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, tho
dead they are alive; so entirely does the honor, the memory, the
regret of friends attend them; from which circumstance the death of
the one seems to be happy, and the life of the other praiseworthy;
nay, should you remove from nature the cement of kind feelings,
neither a house nor a city will be able to stand; even the cultivation
of the land will not continue. If it be not clearly perceived how
great is the power of friendship and concord, it can be distinctly
inferred from quarrels and dissensions; for what house is there so
established, or what state so firmly settled, that may not utterly be
overthrown by hatred and dissension? From which it may be determined
how much advantage there is in friendship. They relate, indeed, that a
certain learned man of Agrigentum[31] promulgated in Greek verses the
doctrine that all things which cohere throughout the whole world, and
all things that are the subjects of motion, are brought together by
friendship, and are dispelled by discord; and this principle all men
understand, and illustrate by their conduct. Therefore, if at any time
any act of a friend has been exhibited, either in undergoing or in
sharing dangers, who is there that does not extol such an act with the
highest praise?...
Now if such be the influence of integrity, that we love it even in
those whom we have never seen, and, what is much more, even in an
enemy, what wonder if men's feelings are affected when they seem to
discover the goodness and virtue of those with whom they may become
connected by intercourse? altho love is confirmed by the reception of
kindness, and by the discovery of an earnest sympathy, and by close
familiarity, which things being added to the first emotion of the mind
and the affections, there is kindled a large amount of kindly feeling.
And if any imagine that this proceeds from a sense of weakness, so
that there shall be secured a friend, by whom a man may obtain that
which he wants, they leave to friendship a mean and, indeed, if I may
so speak, anything but respectable origin, when they make her to be
born of indigence and want; were this the case, then in proportion as
a man judged that there were the least resources in himself, precisely
in that degree would he be best qualified for friendship, whereas the
fact is far otherwise. For just as a man has most confidence in
himself, and as he is most completely fortified by worth and wisdom,
so that he needs no one's assistance, and feels that all his resources
reside in himself, in the same proportion he is most highly
distinguished for seeking out and forming friendships. For what did
Africanus want of me? Nothing whatever, nor indeed did I need aught
from him; but I loved him from admiration of his excellence; he in
turn perhaps was attached to me from some high opinion which he
entertained of my character, and association fostered our affection.
But altho many and great advantages ensued, yet it was not from any
hope of these that the causes of our attachment sprang; for as we are
beneficent and liberal not to exact favor in return (for we are not
usurers in kind actions), but by nature are inclined to liberality,
thus I think that friendship is to be desired, not attracted by the
hope of reward, but because the whole of its profit consists in love
only. From such opinions, they who, after the fashion of beasts, refer
everything to pleasure, widely differ, and no great wonder, since they
can not look up to anything lofty, magnificent, or divine who east
all their thoughts on an object so mean and contemptible.
Therefore let us exclude such persons altogether from our discourse;
and let us ourselves hold this opinion, that the sentiment of loving
and the attachment of kind feelings are produced by nature when the
evidence of virtue has been established; and they who have eagerly
sought the last-named draw nigh and attach themselves to it, that they
may enjoy the friendship and character of the individual they have
begun to love, and that they may be commensurate and equal in
affection, and more inclined to confer a favor than to claim any
return. And let this honorable struggle be maintained between them; so
not only will the greatest advantages be derived from friendship, but
its origin from nature rather than from a sense of weakness will be at
once more impressive and more true. For if it were expediency that
cemented friendships, the same when changed would dissolve them; but
because nature can never change, therefore true friendships are
eternal....
Listen, then, my excellent friends, to the discussion which was very
frequently held by me and Scipio on the subject of friendship; altho
he indeed used to say that nothing was more difficult than that
friendship should continue to the end of life; for it often happened
either that the same course was not expedient to both parties or that
they held different views of politics; he remarked also that the
characters of men often changed, in some cases by adversity, in
others by old age becoming oppressive; and he derived an authority
for such notions from a comparison with early life, because the
strongest attachments of boys are constantly laid aside with the
praetexta; even if they should maintain it to manhood, yet sometimes it
is broken off by rivalry, for a dowried wife, or some other advantage
which they can not both attain. And even if men should be carried on
still further in their friendship, yet that feeling is often
undermined should they fall into rivalry for preferments; for there is
no greater enemy to friendship than covetousness of money, in most
men, and even in the best, an emulous desire of high offices and
glory, in consequence of which the most bitter enmities have often
arisen between the dearest friends. For great dissensions, and those
in most instances justifiable, arise when some request is made of
friends which is improper, as, for instance, that they should become
either the ministers of their lust or their supporters in the
perpetration of wrong; and they who refuse to do so, it matters not
however virtuously, yet are accused of discarding the claims of
friendship by those persons whom they are unwilling to oblige; but
they who dare to ask anything of a friend, by their very request seem
to imply that they would do anything for the sake of that friend; by
the complaining of such persons, not only are long-established
intimacies put an end to, but endless animosities are engendered. All
these many causes, like so many fatalities, are ever threatening
friendship, so that, he said, to escape them all seemed to him a proof
not merely of wisdom, but even of good fortune....
Let this, therefore, be established as a primary law concerning
friendship, that we expect from our friends only what is honorable,
and for our friends' sake do what is honorable; that we should not
wait till we are asked; that zeal be ever ready, and reluctance far
from us; but that we take pleasure in freely giving our advice; that
in our friendship, the influence of our friends, when they give good
advice, should have great weight; and that this be employed to
admonish not only candidly, but even severely, if the case shall
require, and that we give heed to it when so employed; for, as to
certain persons whom I understand to have been esteemed wise men in
Greece, I am of opinion that some strange notions were entertained by
them; but there is nothing which they do not follow up with too great
subtlety; among the rest, that excessive friendships should be
avoided, lest it should be necessary for one to feel anxiety for many;
that every one has enough, and more than enough, of his own affairs;
that to be needlessly implicated in those of other people is
vexatious; that it was most convenient to hold the reins of friendship
as loose as possible, so as either to tighten or slacken them when you
please; for they argue that the main point toward a happy life is
freedom from care, which the mind can not enjoy if one man be, as it
were, in travail for others.
Nay, they tell us that some are accustomed to declare, still more
unfeelingly (a topic which I have briefly touched upon just above),
that friendships should be cultivated for the purpose of protection
and assistance, and not for kind feeling or affection; and therefore
the less a man possesses of independence and of strength, in the same
degree he most earnestly desires friendships; that thence it arises
that women seek the support of friendship more than men, and the poor
more than the rich, and persons in distress rather than those who are
considered prosperous. Admirable philosophy! for they seem to take
away the sun from the world who withdraw friendship from life; for we
receive nothing better from the immortal gods, nothing more
delightful; for what is this freedom from care?--in appearances,
indeed, flattering; but, in many eases, in reality to be disdained.
Nor is it reasonable to undertake any honorable matter or action lest
you should be anxious, or to lay it aside when undertaken; for if we
fly from care, we must fly from virtue also; for it is impossible that
she can, without some degree of distress, feel contempt and
detestation for qualities opposed to herself; just as kind-heartedness
for malice, temperance for profligacy, and bravery for cowardice.
Accordingly, you see that upright men are most distrest by unjust
actions; the brave with the cowardly; the virtuous with the
profligate; and, therefore, this is the characteristic of a
well-regulated mind, both to be well pleased with what is excellent
and to be distrest with what is contrary. Wherefore, if trouble of
mind befall a wise man (and assuredly it will, unless we suppose that
all humanity is extirpated from his mind), what reason is there why we
should altogether remove friendship from life, lest because of it we
should take upon ourselves some troubles? for what difference is
there (setting the emotions of the mind aside), I do not say between a
man and a beast, but between a man and a stone, or log, or anything of
that kind? For they do not deserve to be listened to who would have
virtue to be callous and made of iron, as it were, which indeed is, as
in other matters, so in friendship also, tender and susceptible; so
that friends are loosened, as it were, by happy events, and drawn
together by distresses.
Wherefore the anxiety which has often to be felt for a friend is not
of such force that it should remove friendship from the world, any
more than that the virtues, because they bring with them certain cares
and troubles, should therefore be discarded. For when it produces
friendship (as I said above), should any indication of virtue shine
forth, to which a congenial mind may attach and unite itself--when
this happens, affection must necessarily arise. For what is so
unmeaning as to take delight in many vain things, such as preferments,
glory, magnificent buildings, clothing and adornment of the body, and
not to take an extreme delight in a soul endued with virtue, in such a
soul as can either love or (so to speak) love in return? for there is
nothing more delightful than the repayment of kindness and the
interchange of devotedness and good offices. Now if we add this, which
may with propriety be added, that nothing so allures and draws any
object to itself as congeniality does friendship, it will of course be
admitted as true that the good must love the good, and unite them to
them selves, just as if connected by relationship and nature; for
nothing is more apt to seek and seize on its like than nature.
Wherefore this certainly is clear, Fannius and Scaevola (in my
opinion), that among the good a liking for the good is, as it were,
inevitable; and this indeed is appointed by Nature herself as the very
fountain of friendship.
But the same kind disposition belongs also to the multitude; for
virtue is not inhuman, or cruel, or haughty, since she is accustomed
to protect even whole nations, and to adopt the best measures for
their welfare, which assuredly she would not do did she shrink from
the affection of the vulgar. And to myself, indeed, those who form
friendships with a view to advantage seem to do away with its most
endearing bond; for it is not so much the advantage obtained through a
friend as the mere love of that friend which delights; and then only
what has proceeded from a friend becomes delightful if it has
proceeded from zealous affection; and that friendship should be
cultivated from a sense of necessity is so far from being the case
that those who, being endowed with power and wealth, and especially
with virtue (in which is the strongest support of friendship), have
least need of another, are most liberal and generous. Yet I am not
sure whether it is requisite that friends should never stand in any
need; for wherein would any devotedness of mine to him have been
exerted if Scipio had never stood in need of my advice or assistance
at home or abroad? Wherefore friendship has not followed upon
advantage, but advantage on friendship.
Persons, therefore, who are wallowing in indulgence will not need to
be listened to if ever they shall descant upon friendship, which they
have known neither by experience nor by theory. For who is there, by
the faith of gods and men, who would desire, on the condition of his
loving no one, and himself being loved by none, to roll in affluence,
and live in a superfluity of all things? For this is the life of
tyrants, in which undoubtedly there can be no confidence, no
affection, no steady dependence on attachment; all is perpetually
mistrust and disquietude--there is no room for friendship. For who can
love either him whom he fears or him by whom he thinks he himself is
feared? Yet are they courted, solely in hypocrisy, for a time;
because, if perchance (as it frequently happens) they have been
brought low, then it is perceived how destitute they were of friends.
And this, they say, Tarquin[32] exprest; that when going into exile,
he found out whom he had as faithful friends, and whom unfaithful
ones, since then he could no longer show gratitude to either party;
altho I wonder that, with such haughtiness and impatience of temper,
he could find one at all. And as the character of the individual whom
I have mentioned could not obtain true friends, so the riches of many
men of rank exclude all faithful friendship; for not only is Fortune
blind herself, but she commonly renders blind those whom she
embraces....
He who, therefore, shall have shown himself in both cases, as regards
friendship, worthy, consistent, and stedfast; such a one we ought to
esteem of a class of persons extremely rare--nay, almost godlike. Now,
the foundation of that stedfastness and constancy, which we seek in
friendship, is sincerity. For nothing is stedfast which is insincere.
Besides, it is right that one should be chosen who is frank and
good-natured, and congenial in his sentiments; one, in fact, who is
influenced by the same motives, all of which qualities have a tendency
to create sincerity. For it is impossible for a wily and tortuous
disposition to be sincere. Nor in truth can the man who has no
sympathy from nature, and who is not moved by the same considerations,
be either attached or steady. To the same requisites must be added
that he shall neither take delight in bringing forward charges nor
believe them when they arise, all of which causes belong to that
consistent principle of which now for some time I have been treating.
Thus the remark is true which I made at first that friendship can
exist only among the good; for it is the part of a good man (whom at
the same time we may call a wise man) to observe these two rules in
friendship: first, that there shall be nothing pretended or simulated
(for even to hate openly better becomes the ingenuous man than by his
looks to conceal his sentiments); in the next place, that not only
does he repel charges when brought (against his friends) by any one,
but is not himself suspicious, ever fancying that some infidelity has
been committed by his friend. To all this there should be added a
certain suavity of conversation and manners, affording, as it does, no
inconsiderable zest to friendship. Now solemnity and gravity on all
occasions, certainly, carry with them dignity; but friendship ought to
be easier and more free and more pleasant, and tending more to every
kind of politeness and good nature....
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: From the "Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age." Translated by
Cyrus R. Edmonds. This work is composed in the form of a dialog, in
which, in the person of Cato the Censor as speaker, the benefits of
old age are pointed out.]
[Footnote 5: A famous athlete who was many times crowned at the
Pythian and Olympian games.]
[Footnote 6: Cneius Scipio was Consul in 222, and with Marcellus
completed the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul. He served with his brother
Publius Cicero against the Carthaginians in Spain, where, after
several victories, both were slain in 212 B.C.]
[Footnote 7: Lucius Metellus, a Roman general who defeated the
Carthaginians at Panormus, now Palermo, Sicily, in 250 B.C.]
[Footnote 8: Masinissa, king of a small territory in northern Africa,
was at first an ally of Carthage against Rome, but afterward became an
ally of Rome against Carthage.]
[Footnote 9: The translator explains that the speeches here referred
to, as collected and published by Cato, numbered about 150. Cato was
known to his contemporaries as "the Roman Demosthenes." Later writers
often referred to him as "Cato the orator."]
[Footnote 10: Archytas was a Greek philosopher, eminent also as
statesman, mathematician, and general. He lived about 400 B.C., and is
credited with having saved the life of Plato through his influence
with Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. He was seven times general of
the army of Tarentum and successful in all his campaigns; eminent also
for domestic virtues. He is pronounced by a writer in Smith's
"Dictionary" to have been "among the very greatest men of antiquity."
He was drowned while making a voyage in the Adriatic.]
[Footnote 11: Caudium was a Samnite town near which the Romans were
defeated by Pontius Herennius.]
[Footnote 12: Not the Appius Claudius from whom the Appian Way and one
of the great aqueducts were named. The older Appius Claudius, here
referred to, lived in the century that followed Plato.]
[Footnote 13: Titus Flaminius, general and statesman, was Consul in
198 B.C. It was not Titus, but Caius Flaminius, who built the famous
circus and road bearing his name. Caius lived at an earlier period.]
[Footnote 14: Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the eminent military genius,
who several times defeated the Romans before he was finally overthrown
by them at Beneventum in 275 B.C.]
[Footnote 15: Livius Andronicus, who lived in Rome about 240 B.C.]
[Footnote 16: A small island (now a peninsula), lying off the coast of
Spain. It is to-day called Cadiz, but anciently was known as Erythia,
Tartessus, and Gades. It was founded about 1100 B.C., by the
Phenicians, of whose western commerce it was the center.]
[Footnote 17: The tyrant of Athens who reigned thirty-three years and
died about 527 B.C.]
[Footnote 18: Melmoth has commented on this passage that, altho
suicide too generally prevailed among the Greeks and Romans, the
wisest philosophers condemned it. "Nothing," he says, "can be more
clear and explicit" than the prohibition imposed by Pythagoras,
Socrates, and Plato.]
[Footnote 19: Better known as the famous Regulus, whose alleged speech
to the "Conscript Fathers" has been declaimed by generations of
schoolboys.]
[Footnote 20: Lucius Paulus died at the battle of Cannae, which was
precipitated by his colleague Terentius Varro in 260 B.C., 40,000
Romans being killed by the Carthaginians.]
[Footnote 21: Marcellus, a Roman consul, who fought against Hannibal
and was killed in an ambuscade.]
[Footnote 22: Cicero's daughter was born about 79 B.C., and thrice
married, the last time to Dolabella, who has been described as "one of
the most profligate men of a profligate age." She was divorced from
Dolabella in 44 B.C., gave birth to a son soon afterward, and died in
the same year. Cicero's letter was written in reply to one which he
had received from Servius Sulpicius, a celebrated Roman jurist. Cicero
intended to erect a temple as a memorial to Tullia, but the death of
Caesar and the unsettled state of public affairs that ensued, and in
which Cicero was concerned, prevented him from doing so.]
[Footnote 23: From Book I of the "Offices." Translated by Cyrus R.
Edmonds.]
[Footnote 24: Pausanias, a Spartan general, was the son of
Cloembrotus, the king of Sparta, killed at the battle of Leuctra.
Pausanias commanded at Plataea; but having conducted a treasonable
correspondence with Xerxes, was starved to death as a punishment.]
[Footnote 25: The general who contended against Sulla in the Civil
war.]
[Footnote 26: Catulus was consul with Marius in 102 B.C. He acted with
Sulla during the Civil war.]
[Footnote 27: Nasica, "a fierce and stiff-necked aristocrat," was of
the family of Scipios. When the consuls refused to resort to violence
against Tiberius Gracchus, it was he who led the senators forth from
their meeting-place against the popular assembly outside, with whom
ensued a fight, in which Gracchus was killed by a blow from a club.
Nasica left Rome soon after, seeking safety. After spending some time
as a wandering exile, he died at Pergamus.]
[Footnote 28: From the Dialogue on "Friendship." Translated by Cyrus
E. Edmonds. Laelius, a Roman who was contemporary with the younger
Scipio, is made the speaker in the passage here quoted. Laelius, was a
son of Caius Laelius, the friend and companion of the elder Scipio,
whose actions are so interwoven with those of Scipio that a writer in
Smith's "Dictionary" says, "It is difficult to relate them
separately." The younger Laelius was intimate with the younger Scipio
in a degree almost as remarkable as his father had been with the
elder. The younger, immortalized by Cicero's treatise on Friendship,
was born about 186 B.C., and was a man of fine culture noted as an
orator. His personal worth was so generally esteemed that it survived
to Seneca's day. One of Seneca's injunctions to a friend was that he
should "live like Laelius."]
[Footnote 29: Scipio Africanus minor by whom Carthage was destroyed in
146 B.C., and Numantia, a town of Spain, was destroyed in 133 B.C.
From the letter he obtained the surname of Numantinus.]
[Footnote 30: Magna Graecia was a name given by the ancients to that
part of southern Italy which, before the rise of the Roman state, was
colonized by Greeks. Its time of greatest splendor was the seventh and
sixth centuries B.C.; that is, intermediate between the Homeric age
and the Periclean. Among its leading cities were Cumae, Sybaris, Locri,
Regium, Tarentum, Heraclea, and Paestum. At the last-named place
imposing ruins still survive.]
[Footnote 31: Empedocles, philosopher, poet, and historian, who lived
et Agrigentum in Sicily, about 490-430 B.C., and wrote a poem on the
doctrines of Pythagoras. A legend has survived that he jumped into the
crater of Etna, in order that people might conclude, from his complete
disappearance, that he was a god. Matthew Arnold's poem on this
incident is among his better-known works.]
[Footnote 32: Tarquinius Superbus, seventh and last King of Rome,
occupied the throne for twenty-five years, and as a consequence of the
rape of Lucretia by his son Sextus was banished about 509 B.C.]
JULIUS CAESAR
Born in 100 B.C.; assassinated in 44; famous as general,
statesman, orator, and writer; served in Mitylene in 80;
captured by pirates in 76; questor in 68; pontifex maximus
in 63; propretor in Spain in 61; member of the First
Triumvirate in 60; Consul in 59; defeated the Helvetii in
58; invaded Britain in 55 and 54; crossed the Rhine in 55;
crossed the Rubicon and began the Civil war in 49; dictator
from 49 to 45; defeated Pompey in 48; reformed the calendar
in 46; refused the diadem in 44; assassinated in the senate
house in 44.[33]
I
THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE RHINE[34]
Caesar, for those reasons which I have mentioned, had resolved to cross
the Rhine; but to cross by ships he neither deemed to be sufficiently
safe nor considered consistent with his own dignity or that of the
Roman people. Therefore, altho the greatest difficulty in forming a
bridge was presented to him, on account of the breadth, rapidity, and
depth of the river, he nevertheless considered that it ought to be
attempted by him, or that his army ought not otherwise to be led over.
He devised this plan of a bridge: he joined together, at the distance
of two feet, two piles, each a foot and half thick, sharpened a little
at the lower end, and proportioned in length to the depth of the
river.
After he had, by means of engines, sunk these into the river, and fixt
them at the bottom, and then driven them in with rammers, not quite
perpendicularly, like a stake, but bending forward and sloping, so as
to incline in the direction of the current of the river; he also
placed two [other piles] opposite to these, at the distance of forty
feet lower down, fastened together in the same manner, but directed
against the force and current of the river. Both these, moreover, were
kept firmly apart by beams two feet thick (the space which the binding
of the piles occupied), laid in at their extremities between two
braces on each side; and in consequence of these being in different
directions and fastened on sides the one opposite to the other, so
great was the strength of the work, and such the arrangement of the
materials, that in proportion as the greater body of water dashed
against the bridge, so much the closer were its parts held fastened
together. These beams were bound together by timber laid over them in
the direction of the length of the bridge, and were [then] covered
with laths and hurdles; and, in addition to this, piles were driven
into the water obliquely, at the lower side of the bridge, and these
serving as buttresses, and being connected with every portion of the
work, sustained the force of the stream; and there were others also
above the bridge, at a moderate distance, that if trunks of trees or
vessels were floated down the river by the barbarians for the purpose
of destroying the work, the violence of such things might be
diminished by these defenses, and might not injure the bridge.
Within ten days after the timber began to be collected, the whole work
was completed, and the whole army led over. Caesar, leaving a strong
guard at each end of the bridge, hastens into the territories of the
Sigambri. In the mean time, ambassadors from several nations come to
him, whom, on their suing for peace and alliance, he answers in a
courteous manner, and orders hostages to be brought to him. But the
Sigambri, at the very time the bridge was begun to be built, made
preparations for a flight (by the advice of such of the Tenchtheri and
Usipetes as they had among them), and quitted their territories and
conveyed away all their possessions, and concealed themselves in
deserts and woods.
Caesar, having remained in their territories a few days, and burned all
their villages and houses, and cut down their corn, proceeded into the
territories of the Ubii; and having promised them his assistance, if
they were ever harassed by the Suevi,[35] he learned from them these
particulars: that the Suevi, after they had by means of their scouts
found that the bridge was being built, had called a council, according
to their custom, and sent orders to all parts of their state to
remove from the towns and convey their children, wives, and all their
possessions into the woods, and that all who could bear arms should
assemble in one place; that the place thus chosen was nearly the
center of those regions which the Suevi possest; that in this spot
they had resolved to await the arrival of the Romans, and give them
battle there. When Caesar discovered this, having already accomplished
all these things on account of which he had resolved to lead his army
over--namely, to strike fear into the Germans, take vengeance on the
Sigambri, and free the Ubii from the invasion of the Suevi, having
spent altogether eighteen days beyond the Rhine, and thinking he had
advanced far enough to serve both honor and interest--he returned into
Gaul, and cut down the bridge.
II
THE INVASION OF BRITAIN[36]
The interior portion of Britain is inhabited by those of whom they say
that it is handed down by tradition that they were born in the island
itself; the maritime portion by those who had passed over from the
country of the Belgae[37] for the purpose of plunder and making war;
almost all of whom are called by the names of those states from which
being sprung they went thither, and having waged war, continued there
and began to cultivate the lands. The number of the people is
countless, and their buildings exceedingly numerous, for the most part
very like those of the Gauls; the number of cattle is great. They use
either brass or iron rings, determined at a certain weight, as their
money. Tin is produced in the midland regions; in the maritime, iron;
but the quantity of it is small; they employ brass, which is imported.
There, as in Gaul, is timber of every description, except beech and
fir. They do not regard it lawful to eat the hare and the cock and the
goose; they, however, breed them for amusement and pleasure. The
climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the cold being less severe.
The island is triangular in its form, and one of its sides is opposite
to Gaul. One angle of this side, which is in Kent, whither almost all
ships from Gaul are directed, [looks] to the east; the lower looks to
the south. This side extends about 500 miles. Another side lies toward
Spain,[38] and the west, on which part is Ireland, less, as is
reckoned, than Britain, by one half; but the passage [from it] into
Britain is of equal distance with that from Gaul. In the middle of
this voyage is an island which is called Mona;[39] many smaller
islands besides are supposed to lie [there], of which islands some
have written that at the time of the winter solstice it is night
there for thirty consecutive days. We, in our inquiries about that
matter, ascertained nothing, except that, by accurate measurements
with water, we perceived the nights to be shorter there than on the
continent. The length of this side, as their account states, is 700
miles. The third side is toward the north, to which portion of the
island no land is opposite; but an angle of that side looks
principally toward Germany. This side is considered to be 800 miles in
length. Thus the whole island is [about] 2,000 miles in circumference.
The most civilized of all these nations are they who inhabit Kent,
which is entirely a maritime district, nor do their customs differ
much from Gallic. Most of the inland inhabitants do not sow corn, but
live on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins. All the Britains,
indeed, dye themselves with wood, which occasions a bluish color, and
thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair
long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and
upper lip. Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and
particularly brothers among brothers, and parents among their
children; but if there be any issue by these wives, they are reputed
to be the children of those by whom respectively each was first
espoused when a virgin.
The horse and charioteers of the enemy contended vigorously in a
skirmish with our cavalry on the march; yet so that our men were
conquerors in all parts, and drove them to their woods and hills; but,
having slain a great many, they pursued too eagerly, and lost some of
their men. However, the enemy, after some time had elapsed, when our
men were off their guard, and occupied in the fortification of the
camp, rushed out of the woods, and making an attack upon those who
were placed on duty before the camp, fought in a determined manner;
and two cohorts being sent by Caesar to their relief, and these
severally the first of two legions, when these had taken up their
position at a very small distance from each other, as our men were
disconcerted by the unusual mode of battle, the enemy broke through
the middle of them most courageously, and retreated thence in safety.
That day, Q. Laberius Durus, a tribune of the soldiers, was slain. The
enemy, since more cohorts were sent against them, were repulsed.
In the whole of this method of fighting since the engagement took
place under the eyes of all and before the camp, it was perceived that
our men, on account of the weight of their arms, inasmuch as they
could neither pursue [the enemy when] retreating, nor dare quit their
standards, were little suited to this kind of enemy; that the horse
also fought with great danger, because they [the Britons] generally
retreated even designedly, and, when they had drawn off our men a
short distance from the legions, leapt from their chariots and fought
on foot in unequal [and to them advantageous] battle. But the system
of cavalry engagement is wont to produce equal danger, and indeed the
same, both to those who retreat and those who pursue. To this was
added, that they never fought in close order, but in small parties and
at great distances, and had detachments placed [in different parts],
and then the one relieved the other, and the vigorous and fresh
succeeded the wearied.
The following day the enemy halted on the hills, a distance from our
camp, and presented themselves in small parties, and began to
challenge our horse to battle with less spirit than the day before.
But at noon, when Caesar had sent three legions, and all the cavalry
with C. Trebonius, the lieutenant, for the purpose of foraging, they
flew upon the foragers suddenly from all quarters, so that they did
not keep off [even] from the standards and the legions. Our men,
making an attack on them vigorously, repulsed them; nor did they cease
to pursue them until the horse, relying on relief, as they saw the
legions behind them, drove the enemy precipitately before them, and,
slaying a great number of them, did not give them the opportunity
either of rallying, or halting, or leaping from their chariots. After
this retreat the auxiliaries departed; nor after that time did the
enemy ever engage with us in very large numbers.
Caesar, discovering their design, leads his army into the territories
of Cassivelaunus[40] to the river Thames, which river can be forded in
one place only, and that with difficulty. When he had arrived there,
he perceives that numerous forces of the enemy were marshaled on the
other bank of the river; the bank also was defended by sharp
stakes[41] fixt in front, and stakes of the same kind fixt under the
water were covered by the river. These things being discovered from
[some] prisoners and deserters, Caesar, sending forward the cavalry,
ordered the legions to follow them immediately. But the soldiers
advanced with such speed and such ardor, tho they stood above the
water by their heads only, that the enemy could not sustain the attack
of the legions and of the horse, and quitted the banks, and committed
themselves to flight.
Cassivelaunus, as we have stated above, all hope [rising out] of
battle being laid aside, the greater part of his forces being
dismissed, and about 4,000 charioteers only being left, used to
observe our marches and retire a little from the road, and conceal
himself in intricate and woody places, and in those neighborhoods in
which he had discovered we were about to march, he used to drive the
cattle and the inhabitants from the fields into the woods; and, when
our cavalry, for the sake of plundering and ravaging the more freely,
scattered themselves among the fields, he used to send out charioteers
from the woods by all the well-known roads and paths, and, to the
great danger of our horse, engaged with them; and this source of fear
hindered them from straggling very extensively. The result was that
Caesar did not allow excursions to be made to a great distance from the
main body of the legions, and ordered that damage should be done to
the enemy in ravaging their lands and kindling fires only so far as
the legionary soldiers could, by their own exertion and marching,
accomplish it.
In the mean time the Trinobantes,[42] almost the most powerful state
of those parts, from which the young man Mandubratius, embracing the
protection of Caesar, had come to the continent of Gaul to [meet] him
(whose father, Imanuentius, had possest the sovereignty in that state,
and had been killed by Cassivelaunus; he himself had escaped death by
flight) send ambassadors to Caesar, and promise that they will
surrender themselves to him and perform his command: they entreat him
to protect Mandubratius from the violence of Cassivelaunus, and send
to their state some one to preside over it, and possess the
government. Caesar demands forty hostages from them, and corn for his
army, and sends Mandubratius to them. They speedily performed the
things demanded, and sent hostages to the number appointed, and the
corn.
The Trinobantes, being protected and secured from any violence of the
soldiers, the Cenimagni, the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, the
Bibroci, and the Cassi, sending embassies, surrender themselves to
Caesar.[43] From them he learns that the capital town of Cassivelaunus
was not far from that place, and was defended by woods and morasses,
and a very large number of men and of cattle had been collected in it.
(Now the Britons, when they have fortified the intricate woods, in
which they are wont to assemble for the purpose of avoiding the
incursion of an enemy with an entrenchment and a rampart, call them a
town.) Thither he proceeds with his legions; he finds the place
admirably fortified by nature and art; he, however, undertakes to
attack it in two directions. The enemy, having remained only a short
time, did not sustain the attack of our soldiers, and hurried away on
the other side of the town. A great amount of cattle was found there,
and many of the enemy were taken and slain in their flight....
III
OVERCOMING THE NERVII[44]
Caesar, having sent his cavalry on before, followed closely after them
with all his forces; but the plan and order of the march were
different from that which the Belgae had reported to the Nervii.[45]
For as he was approaching the enemy, Caesar, according to his custom,
led on [as the van] six legions unencumbered by baggage; behind them
he had placed the baggage-trains of the whole army; then the two
legions which had been last raised closed the rear, and were a guard
for the baggage-train. Our horse, with the slingers and archers,
having passed the river, commenced action with the cavalry of the
enemy. While they from time to time betook themselves into the woods
to their companions, and again made an assault out of the wood upon
our men, who did not dare to follow them in their retreat further than
the limit to which the plain and open parts extended; in the mean time
the six legions which had arrived first, having measured out the work,
began to fortify the camp. When the first part of the baggage-train of
our army was seen by those who lay hidden in the woods, which had been
agreed on among them as the time for commencing action, as soon as
they had arranged their line of battle and formed their ranks within
the woods, and had encouraged one another, they rushed out suddenly
with all their forces and made an attack upon our horse. The latter
being easily routed and thrown into confusion, the Nervii ran down to
the river with such incredible speed that they seemed to be in the
woods, the river, and close upon us almost at the same time. And with
the same speed they hastened up the hill to our camp and to those who
were employed in the works.
Caesar had everything to do at one time: the standard to be displayed,
which was the sign when it was necessary to rim to arms; the signal to
be given by the trumpet; the soldiers to be called off from the works;
those who had proceeded some distance for the purpose of seeking
materials for the rampart, to be summoned; the order of battle to be
formed; the soldiers to be encouraged; the watchword to be given. A
great part of these arrangements was prevented by the shortness of
time and the sudden approach and charge of the enemy. Under these
difficulties two things proved of advantage: [first] the skill and
experience of the soldiers, because, having been trained by former
engagements, they could suggest to themselves what ought to be done as
conveniently as receive information from others; and [secondly] that
Caesar had forbidden his several lieutenants to depart from the works
and their respective legions before the camp was fortified. These, on
account of the near approach and the speed of the enemy, did not then
wait for any command from Caesar, but of themselves executed whatever
appeared proper.
Caesar, having given the necessary orders, hastened to and fro into
whatever quarter fortune carried him, to animate the troops, and came
to the tenth legion. Having encouraged the soldiers with no further
speech than that "they should keep up the remembrance of their wonted
valor, and not be confused in mind, but valiantly sustain the assault
of the enemy"; as the latter were not farther from them than the
distance to which a dart could be cast, he gave the signal for
commencing battle. And having gone to another quarter for the purpose
of encouraging [the soldiers], he finds them fighting. Such was the
shortness of the time, and so determined was the mind of the enemy on
fighting, that time was wanting not only for affixing the military
insignia, but even for putting on the helmets and drawing off the
covers from the shields. To whatever part any one by chance came from
the works (in which he had been employed), and whatever standards he
saw first, at these he stood, lest in seeking his own company he
should lose the time for fighting.
The army having been marshaled, rather as the nature of the ground and
the declivity of the hill and the exigency of the time than as the
method and order of military matters required, while the legions in
the different places were withstanding the enemy, some in one quarter,
some in another, and the view was obstructed by the very thick hedges
intervening, as we have before remarked, neither could proper reserves
be posted, nor could the necessary measures be taken in each part, nor
could all the commands be issued by one person. Therefore, in such an
unfavorable state of affairs, various events of fortune followed....
At the same time, our horsemen, and light-armed infantry, who had been
with those who, as I have related, were routed by the first assault of
the enemy, as they were betaking themselves into the camp, met the
enemy face to face, and again sought flight into another quarter; and
the camp-followers, who from the Decuman Gate, and from the highest
ridge of the hill had seen our men pass the river as victors, when,
after going out for the purposes of plundering, they looked back and
saw the enemy parading in our camp, committed themselves precipitately
to flight; at the same time there arose the cry and shout of those who
came with the baggage-train; and they (affrighted) were carried some
one way, some another. By all these circumstances the cavalry of the
Treviri were much alarmed (whose reputation for courage is
extraordinary among the Gauls, and who had come to Caesar, being sent
by their state as auxiliaries), and, when they saw our camp filled
with a large number of the enemy, the legions hard prest and almost
held surrounded, the camp-retainers, horsemen, slingers, and Numidians
fleeing on all sides divided and scattered, they, despairing of our
affairs, hastened home, and related to their state that the Romans
were routed and conquered, [and] that the enemy were in possession of
their camp and baggage-train.
Caesar proceeded, after encouraging the tenth legion, to the right
wing, where he perceived that his men were hard prest, and that in
consequence of the standards of the twelfth legion being collected
together in one place, the crowded soldiers were a hindrance to
themselves in the fight; that all the centurions of the fourth cohort
were slain, and the standard-bearer killed, the standard itself lost,
almost all the centurions of the other cohorts either wounded or
slain, and among them the chief centurion of the legion, P. Sextius
Baculus, a very valiant man, who was so exhausted by many and severe
wounds that he was already unable to support himself; he likewise
perceived that the rest were slackening their efforts, and that some,
deserted by those in the rear, were retiring from the battle and
avoiding the weapons; that the enemy [on the other hand], tho
advancing from the lower ground, were not relaxing in front, and were
[at the same time] pressing hard on both flanks; he perceived also
that the affair was at a crisis; and that there was not any reserve
which could be brought up; having therefore snatched a shield from one
of the soldiers in the rear (for he himself had come without a
shield), he advanced to the front of the line, and addressing the
centurions by name, and encouraging the rest of the soldiers, he
ordered them to carry forward the standards, and extend the companies,
that they might the more easily use their swords. On his arrival, as
hope was brought to the soldiers and their courage restored, while
every one for his own part, in the sight of his general, desired to
exert his utmost energy, the impetuosity of the enemy was a little
checked.
Caesar, when he perceived that the seventh legion, which stood close by
him, was also hard prest by the enemy, directed the tribunes of the
soldiers to effect a junction of the legions gradually, and make their
charge upon the enemy with a double front, which having been done
since they brought assistance the one to the other, nor feared lest
their rear should be surrounded by the enemy, they began to stand
their ground more boldly, and to fight more courageously. In the mean
time, the soldiers of the two legions which had been in the rear of
the army, as a guard for the baggage-train, upon the battle being
reported to them, quickened their pace, and were seen by the enemy on
the top of the hill; and Titus Labienus, having gained possession of
the camp of the enemy, and observed from the higher ground what was
going on in our camp, sent the tenth legion as a relief to our men
who, when they had learned from the flight of the horse and the
sutlers in what position the affair was, and in how great danger the
camp and the legion and the commander were involved, left undone
nothing [which tended] to despatch.
By their arrival, so great a change of matters was made that our men,
even those who had fallen down exhausted with wounds, leaned on their
shields, and renewed the fight; then the camp-retainers, tho unarmed,
seeing the enemy completely dismayed, attacked [them tho] armed; the
horsemen too, that they might by their valor blot out the disgrace of
their flight, thrust themselves before the legionary soldiers in all
parts of the battle. But the enemy, even in the last hope of safety,
displayed such great courage that when the foremost of them had
fallen, the next stood upon them prostrate, and fought from their
bodies; when these were overthrown, and their corpses heaped up
together, those who survived cast their weapons against our men
[thence] as from a mound, and returned our darts which had fallen
short between [the armies]; so that it ought not to be concluded that
men of such great courage had injudiciously dared to pass a very broad
river, ascend very high banks, and come up to a very disadvantageous
place; since their greatness of spirit had rendered these actions
easy, altho in themselves very difficult.
This battle being ended, and the nation and name of the Nervii being
almost reduced to annihilation, their old men, who together with the
boys and women we have stated to have been collected together in the
fenny places and marshes, on this battle having been reported to
them, since they were convinced that nothing was an obstacle to the
conquerors, and nothing safe to the conquered, sent ambassadors to
Caesar by the consent of all who remained, and surrendered themselves
to him; and in recounting the calamity of their state said that their
senators were reduced from 600 to three; that from 60,000 men they
[were reduced] to scarcely 500 who could bear arms, whom Caesar, that
he might appear to use compassion toward the wretched and the
suppliant, most carefully spared, and ordered them to enjoy their own
territories and towns, and commanded their neighbors that they should
restrain themselves and their dependents from offering injury or
outrage [to them]....
IV
THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA AND THE DEATH OF POMPEY[46]
(48 B.C.)
Pompey, because he was encamped on a hill, drew up his army at the
very foot of it, ever in expectation, as may be conjectured, that
Caesar would expose himself to this disadvantageous situation. Caesar,
seeing no likelihood of being able to bring Pompey to an action,
judged it the most expedient method of conducting the war to decamp
from that post, and to be always in motion; with this hope, that by
shifting his camp and removing from place to place, he might be more
conveniently supplied with corn, and also that by being in motion he
might get some opportunity of forcing them to battle, and might by
constant marches harass Pompey's army, which was not accustomed to
fatigue.[47] These matters being settled, when the signal for marching
was given, and the tents struck, it was observed that shortly before,
contrary to his daily practise, Pompey's army had advanced farther
than usual from his entrenchments, so that it appeared possible to
come to an action on equal ground. Then Caesar addrest himself to his
soldiers, when they were at the gates of the camp, ready to march out.
"We must defer," says he, "our march at present, and set our thoughts
on battle, which has been our constant wish; let us then meet the foe
with resolute souls. We shall not hereafter easily find such an
opportunity." He immediately marched out at the head of his troops.
Pompey also, as was afterward known, at the unanimous solicitation of
his friends, had determined to try the fate of a battle. For he had
even declared in council a few days before that, before the battalions
came to battle, Caesar's army would be put to the rout. When most
people exprest their surprize at it, "I know," says he, "that I
promise a thing almost incredible; but hear the plan on which I
proceed, that you may march to battle with more confidence and
resolution. I have persuaded our cavalry, and they have engaged to
execute it, as soon as the two armies have met, to attack Caesar's
right wing on the flank, and enclosing their army on the rear throw
them into disorder, and put them to the rout, before we shall throw a
weapon against the enemy. By this means we shall put an end to the
war, without endangering the legions, and almost without a blow. Nor
is this a difficult matter, as we far outnumber them in cavalry." At
the same time, he gave them notice to be ready for battle on the day
following, and since the opportunity which they had so often wished
for was now arrived, not to disappoint the opinion generally
entertained of their experience and valor....
Caesar, observing his former custom, had placed the tenth legion on the
right, the ninth on the left, altho it was very much weakened by the
battles at Dyrrachium.[48] He placed the eighth legion so close to the
ninth as almost to make one of the two, and ordered them to support
each other. He drew up on the field eighty cohorts, making a total of
twenty-two thousand men. He left two cohorts to guard the camp. He
gave the command of the left wing to Antonius, of the right to P.
Sulla, and of the center to Cn. Domitius; he himself took his post
opposite Pompey. At the same time, fearing, from the disposition of
the enemy which we have previously mentioned, lest his right wing
might be surrounded by their numerous cavalry, he rapidly drafted a
single cohort from each of the legions composing the third line,
formed of them a fourth line, and opposed them to Pompey's cavalry,
and, acquainting them with his wishes, admonished them that the
success of that day depended on their courage. At the same time, he
ordered the third line and the entire army not to charge without his
command; that he would give the signal whenever he wished them to do
so....
But our men, when the signal was given, rushed forward with their
javelins ready to be launched, but perceiving that Pompey's men did
not run to meet their charge, having acquired experience by custom,
and being practised in former battles, they of their own accord
repressed their speed, and halted almost midway, that they might not
come up with the enemy when their strength was exhausted, and after a
short respite they again renewed their course, and threw their
javelins, and instantly drew their swords, as Caesar had ordered them.
Nor did Pompey's men fail in this crisis, for they received our
javelins, stood our charge, and maintained their ranks; and, having
launched their javelins, had recourse to their swords. At the same
time, Pompey's horse, according to their orders, rushed out at once
from his left wing, and his whole host of archers poured after them.
Our cavalry did not withstand their charge; but gave ground a little,
upon which Pompey's horse prest them more vigorously, and began to
file off in troops, and flank our army. When Caesar perceived this, he
gave the signal to his fourth line, which he had formed of the six
cohorts. They instantly rushed forward and charged Pompey's horse with
such fury that not a man of them stood; but all wheeling about, not
only quitted their post, but galloped forward to seek a refuge in the
highest mountains. By their retreat the archers and slingers, being
left destitute and defenseless, were all cut to pieces. The cohorts,
pursuing their success, wheeled about upon Pompey's left wing, while
his infantry still continued to make battle, and attacked them in the
rear.
At the same time, Caesar ordered his third line to advance, which till
then had not been engaged, but had kept their post. Thus, new and
fresh troops having come to the assistance of the fatigued, and others
having made an attack on their rear, Pompey's men were not able to
maintain their ground, but all fled,[49] nor was Caesar deceived in his
opinion that the victory, as he had declared in his speech to his
soldiers, must have its beginning from those six cohorts, which he had
placed as a fourth line to oppose the horse. For by them the cavalry
were routed; by them the archers and slingers were cut to pieces; by
them the left wing of Pompey's army was surrounded, and obliged to be
the first to flee. But when Pompey saw his cavalry routed, and that
part of his army on which he reposed his greatest hopes thrown into
confusion, despairing of the rest, he quitted the field, and retreated
straightway on horseback to his camp, and calling to the centurions,
whom he had placed to guard the praetorian gate, with a loud voice,
that the soldiers might hear: "Secure the camp," says he, "defend it
with diligence, if any danger should threaten it; I will visit the
other gates, and encourage the guards of the camp." Having thus said,
he retired into his tent in utter despair, yet anxiously waiting the
issue.
Caesar having forced the Pompeians to flee into their entrenchment, and
thinking that he ought not to allow them any respite to recover from
their fright, exhorted his soldiers to take advantage of fortune's
kindness, and to attack the camp. Tho they were fatigued by the
intense heat, for the battle had continued till midday, yet, being
prepared to undergo any labor, they cheerfully obeyed his command. The
camp was bravely defended by the cohorts which had been left to guard
it, but with much more spirit by the Thracians and foreign
auxiliaries. For the soldiers who had fled for refuge to it from the
field of battle, affrighted and exhausted by fatigue, having thrown
away their arms and military standards, had their thoughts more
engaged on their further escape than on the defense of the camp. Nor
could the troops who were posted on the battlements long withstand the
immense number of our darts, but fainting under their wounds quitted
the place, and under the conduct of their centurions and tribunes
fled, without stopping, to the high mountains which adjoined the camp.
In Pompey's camp you might see arbors in which tables were laid, a
large quantity of plate set out, the floors of the tents covered with
fresh sods, the tents of Lucius Lentulus and others shaded with ivy,
and many other things which were proofs of excessive luxury, and a
confidence of victory, so that it might readily be inferred that they
had no apprehensions of the issue of the day, as they indulged
themselves in unnecessary pleasures, and yet upbraided with luxury
Caesar's army, distrest and suffering troops, who had always been in
want of common necessaries. Pompey, as soon as our men had forced the
trenches, mounting his horse, and stripping off his general's habit,
went hastily out of the back gate of the camp, and galloped with all
speed to Larissa. Nor did he stop there, but with the same despatch,
collecting a few of his flying troops, and halting neither day nor
night, he arrived at the seaside, attended by only thirty horse, and
went on board a victualing bark, often complaining, as we have been
told, that he had been so deceived in his expectation that he was
almost persuaded that he had been betrayed by those from whom he had
expected victory, as they began the flight.
Caesar, having possest himself of Pompey's camp, urged his soldiers not
to be too intent on plunder, and lose the opportunity of completing
their conquest. Having obtained their consent, he began to draw lines
round the mountain. The Pompeians distrusting the position, as there
was no water on the mountain, abandoned it, and all began to retreat
toward Larissa, which Caesar perceiving divided his troops, and
ordering part of his legions to remain in Pompey's camp, sent back a
part to his own camp, and, taking four legions with him, went by a
shorter road to intercept the enemy; and having marched six miles,
drew up his army. But the Pompeians, observing this, took a post on a
mountain, whose foot was washed by a river. Caesar having encouraged
his troops, tho they were greatly exhausted by incessant labor the
whole day, and night was now approaching, by throwing up works cut off
the communication between the river and the mountain, that the enemy
might not get water in the night. As soon as the work was finished,
they sent ambassadors to treat about a capitulation. A few senators
who had espoused that party made their escape by night.
At break of day, Caesar ordered all those who had taken post on the
mountain to come down from the higher grounds into the plain and pile
their arms. When they did this without refusal, and, with,
outstretched arms, prostrating themselves on the ground, with tears,
implored his mercy, he comforted them and bade them rise, and having
spoken a few words of his own clemency to alleviate their fears, he
pardoned them all, and gave orders to his soldiers that no injury
should be done to them, and nothing taken from them. Having used this
diligence, he ordered the legions in his camp to come and meet him,
and those which were with him to take their turn of rest, and go back
to the camp, and the same day went to Larissa.
In that battle, no more than two hundred privates were missing, but
Caesar lost about thirty centurions, valiant officers. Crastinus, also,
of whom mention was made before, fighting most courageously, lost his
life by the wound of a sword in the mouth, nor was that false which he
declared when marching to battle; for Caesar entertained the highest
opinion of his behavior in that battle, and thought him highly
deserving of his approbation. Of Pompey's army, there fell about
fifteen thousand; but upward of twenty-four thousand were made
prisoners; for even the cohorts which were stationed in the forts
surrendered to Sulla. Several others took shelter in the neighboring
states. One hundred and eighty stands of colors and nine eagles were
brought to Caesar. Lucius Domitius, fleeing from the camp to the
mountains, his strength being exhausted by fatigue, was killed....
Caesar thought he ought to postpone all business and pursue Pompey,
whithersoever he should retreat, that he might not be able to provide
fresh forces, and renew the war; he therefore marched on every day, as
far as his cavalry were able to advance, and ordered one legion to
follow him by shorter journeys. A proclamation was issued by Pompey at
Amphipolis[50] that all the young men of that province, Grecians and
Roman citizens, should take the military oath; but whether he issued
it with an intention of preventing suspicion, and to conceal as long
as possible his design of fleeing farther, or to endeavor to keep
possession of Macedonia by new levies, if nobody pursued him, it is
impossible to judge. He lay at anchor one night, and calling together
his friends in Amphipolis, and collecting a sum of money for his
necessary expenses, upon advice of Caesar's approach, set sail from
that place, and arrived in a few days at Mitylene.[51] Here he was
detained two days, and having added a few galleys to his fleet he went
to Cilicia, and thence to Cyprus. There he is informed that, by the
consent of all the inhabitants of Antioch[52] and Roman citizens who
traded there, the castle had been seized to shut him out of the town;
and that messengers had been dispatched to all those who were reported
to have taken refuge in the neighboring states, that they should not
come to Antioch; that if they did so, it would be attended with
imminent danger to their lives. The same thing had happened to Lucius
Lentulus, who had been Consul the year before, and to Publius
Lentulus, a consular senator, and to several others at Rhodes,[53] who
having followed Pompey in his flight, and arrived at the island, were
not admitted into the town or port; and having received a message to
leave that neighborhood, set sail much against their will; for the
rumor of Caesar's approach had now reached those states.
Pompey, being informed of these proceedings, laid aside his design of
going to Syria, and having taken the public money from the farmers of
the revenue, and borrowed more from some private friends, and having
put on board his ships a large quantity of brass for military
purposes, and two thousand armed men, whom he partly selected from the
slaves of the tax farmers, and partly collected from the merchants,
and such persons as each of his friends thought fit on this occasion,
he sailed for Pelusium.[54] It happened that King Ptolemy,[55] a
minor, was there with a considerable army, engaged in war with his
sister Cleopatra, whom a few months before, by the assistance of his
relatives and friends, he had expelled from the kingdom; and her camp
lay at a small distance from his. To him Pompey applied to be
permitted to take refuge in Alexandria, and to be protected in his
calamity by his powerful assistance, in consideration of the
friendship and amity which had subsisted between his father and him.
But Pompey's deputies, having executed their commission, began to
converse with less restraint with the king's troops, and to advise
them to act with friendship to Pompey, and not to think meanly of his
bad fortune. In Ptolemy's army were several of Pompey's soldiers, of
whom Gabinius[56] had received the command in Syria, and had brought
them over to Alexandria, and at the conclusion of the war had left
with Ptolemy the father of the young king.
The king's friends, who were regents of the kingdom during the
minority, being informed of these things, either induced by fear, as
they afterward declared, lest Pompey should corrupt the king's army,
and seize on Alexandria[57] and Egypt, or despising his bad fortune,
as in adversity friends commonly change to enemies, in public gave a
favorable answer to his deputies, and desired him to come to the king;
but secretly laid a plot against him, and dispatched Achillas, captain
of the king's guards, a man of singular boldness, and Lucius
Septimius, a military tribune, to assassinate him. Being kindly
addrest by them, and deluded by an acquaintance with Septimius,
because in the war with the pirates the latter had commanded a company
under him, he embarked in a small boat, with a few attendants, and was
there murdered by Achillas and Septimius. In like manner, Lucius
Lentulus was seized by the king's order, and put to death in
prison....
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 33: Cicero, whose praise of Caesar as a writer has been
shared by many readers since his time, described Caesar's works as
"unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, their ornament being stript
off as it were a garment." Caesar did his work so well that "he has
deterred all men of sound taste from touching him."]
[Footnote 34: From Book IV of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."
Translated by McDivett and W. S. Bohn. The site of this bridge is
believed to be in the neighborhood of Cologne.]
[Footnote 35: The Suevi were migratory Germans who, in Caesar's time,
occupied the eastern banks of the Rhine in and about the present
country of Baden.]
[Footnote 36: From Book V of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."]
[Footnote 37: The Belgae comprised various tribes that lived between
the Seine and the Rhine and were the most warlike of the Gauls.]
[Footnote 38: Caesar's error here has often been commented on, Spain
lying to the south, rather than to the west, of Britain.]
[Footnote 39: Now known as the Isle of Man.]
[Footnote 40: Cassivelaunus was a chieftain of the Britons who had
been entrusted with the supreme command against Caesar. His own
territory lay north of the Thames.]
[Footnote 41: Bede, the learned Benedictine, who lived in the eighth
century, says that, in his time, remains of these stakes were still to
be seen.]
[Footnote 42: These people occupied what are now the counties of Essex
and Middlesex.]
[Footnote 43: The translator notes that Tacitus has remarked that
Britain was surveyed, rather than conquered, by Caesar. He gives the
honor of its real conquest to his own father-in-law, Agricola. While
the Roman armies "owe much to the military virtues of Agricola as
displayed in England, Caesar," adds the translator, "did what no one
had done before him; he levied tribute upon the Britons and
effectually paved the way for all that Rome subsequently accomplished
in this island."]
[Footnote 44: From Book II of the "Commentaries on the Gallic War."]
[Footnote 45: The Nervii were one of the Belgic tribes and are
understood to have been the most warlike of them all.]
[Footnote 46: From Book III of the "Commentaries on the Civil War."
Pharsalia is a district of Thessaly in Greece. Caesar's army numbered
22,000 legionaries and 1,000 cavalry; Pompey's, 45,000 legionaries and
7,000 cavalry.]
[Footnote 47: Pompey's army having been recruited from aristocratic
families and their dependents, was not so much accustomed to the
severities of war as were the soldiers of Caesar, recruited largely
from the populace.]
[Footnote 48: The modern Durazzo, a seaport on the Adriatic in
Albania. It was founded by colonies from Corfu about 625 B.C. and
became important afterward as a terminus of one of the great Roman
roads. Pompey here defeated Caesar a short time before he was himself
defeated at Pharsalia.]
[Footnote 49: Caesar on this occasion is said to have advised his
soldiers to aim at the faces of Pompey's cavalry, who, being composed
principally of the young noblemen of Rome, dreaded a scar in the face
more than death itself.]
[Footnote 50: Amphipolis, a city of Macedonia, originally Thracian,
but colonized from Athens. It was situated three miles inland from the
AEgean Sea.]
[Footnote 51: Mitylene was the capital of the island of Lesbos, and an
important maritime power in ancient times.]
[Footnote 52: Arrowsmith describes Antioch as, not only the capital of
Syria, but at one time of Western Asia. It was for years the third
city of the world in beauty, size, and population. It was here that
the followers of Christ first received the name of Christians (in A.D.
39), having before been called Nazarenes and Galileans. In a
neighboring grove stood a famous temple to Apollo and Diana.]
[Footnote 53: Rhodes is the largest island in the AEgean Sea after
Crete and Euboea. Its capital, having the same name and situated
near the northern end of the island, was famous for a bronze statue of
the sun called the Colossus, which was one of the "seven wonders of
the world."]
[Footnote 54: Pelusium was an ancient city of Egypt, situated in the
delta of the Nile, strongly fortified and regarded as the gate to
Egypt, on its eastern frontier. It lay in the midst of marshes formed
by the overflow of the river, and continued its importance, in a
military sense, until the waters of the river found their way into the
Damietta branch.]
[Footnote 55: Ptolemy XII, who came to the throne of Egypt co-jointly
with his sister Cleopatra in 51 B.C. He expelled Cleopatra in 49, and
in 48 Caesar reinstated her. In the war which ensued, he was defeated
and drowned in the Nile.]
[Footnote 56: Gabinius was a Roman tribune who had proposed the
statute bearing his name which gave to Pompey command of the
Mediterranean coast for the suppression of pirates.]
[Footnote 57: Alexandria was founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the
Great. Its principal street, 2,000 feet wide, was adorned with "some
of the most costly edifices and structures of marble which perhaps the
world ever saw." Many of these marbles were subsequently taken to Rome
and Constantinople. Alexandria for a long period was the center of
commerce for all merchandise passing between Europe and the East. As a
city of learning, it possest a famous library, which at one period
comprized 700,000 volumes.]
SALLUST
Born in Italy about 86 B.C.; died about 34; elected tribune
in 52; expelled from the Senate by the censors in 50,
probably for being an active partizan of Caesar; accompanied
Caesar on his African campaign in 46; became governor of
Numidia, where he is said to have amassed a fortune
unjustly; author of histories of the Catiline conspiracy and
the war with Jugurtha.[58]
I
THE GENESIS OF CATILINE[59]
Of the city of Rome, as I understand, the founders and earliest
inhabitants were the Trojans, who, under the conduct of AEneas, were
wandering about as exiles from their country, without any settled
abode; and with these were joined the Aborigines, a savage race of
men, without laws or government, free, and owning no control. How
easily these two tribes, tho of different origin, dissimilar language,
and opposite habits of life, formed a union when they met within the
same walls is almost incredible. But when their state, from an
accession of population and territory and an improved condition of
morals, showed itself tolerably flourishing and powerful, envy, as is
generally the case in human affairs, was the consequence of its
prosperity. The neighboring kings and people, accordingly, began to
assail them in war, while a few only of their friends came to their
support; for the rest, struck with alarm, shrunk from sharing their
dangers. But the Romans, active at home and in the field, prepared
with alacrity for their defense. They encouraged one another, and
hurried to meet the enemy. They protected, with their arms, their
liberty, their country, and their homes. And when they had at length
repelled danger by valor, they lent assistance to their allies and
supporters, and procured friendships rather by bestowing favors than
by receiving them.
They had a government regulated by laws. The denomination of their
government was monarchy. Chosen men, whose bodies might be enfeebled
by years, but whose minds were vigorous in understanding, formed the
council of the state; and these, whether from their age, or from the
similarity of their duty, were called Fathers. But afterward, when the
monarchical power, which had been originally established for the
protection of liberty and for the promotion of the public interest,
had degenerated into tyranny and oppression, they changed their plan,
and appointed two magistrates, with power only annual; for they
conceived that, by this method, the human mind would be least likely
to grow overbearing through want of control.
At this period every citizen began to seek distinction, and to display
his talents with greater freedom; for, with princes, the meritorious
are greater objects of suspicion than the undeserving, and to them the
worth of others is a source of alarm. But when liberty was secured, it
is almost incredible how much the state strengthened itself in a short
space of time, so strong a passion for distinction had pervaded it.
Now, for the first time, the youth, as soon as they were able to bear
the toils of war, acquired military skill by actual service in the
camp, and took pleasure rather in splendid arms and military steeds
than in the society of mistresses and convivial indulgence. To such
men no toil was unusual, no place was difficult or inaccessible, no
armed enemy was formidable; their valor had overcome everything. But
among themselves the grand rivalry was for glory; each sought to be
first to wound an enemy, to scale a wall, and to be noticed while
performing such an exploit. Distinction such as this they regarded as
wealth, honor, and true nobility. They were covetous of praise, but
liberal of money; they desired competent riches, but boundless glory.
I could mention, but that the account would draw me too far from my
subject, places in which the Roman people, with a small body of men,
routed vast armies of the enemy; and cities which, tho fortified by
nature, they carried by assault....
By these two virtues, intrepidity in war and equity in peace, they
maintained themselves and their state; of their exercise of which
virtues, I consider these as the greatest proofs: that, in war,
punishment was oftener inflicted on those who attacked an enemy
contrary to orders, and who, when commanded to retreat, retired too
slowly from the contest, than on those who had dared to desert their
standards, or, when prest by the enemy, to abandon their posts; and
that, in peace, they governed more by conferring benefits than by
exciting terror, and, when they received an injury, chose rather to
pardon than to revenge it.
But when, by perseverance and integrity, the republic had increased
its power; when mighty princes had been vanquished in war; when
barbarous tribes and populous states had been reduced to subjection;
when Carthage, the rival of Rome's dominion, had been utterly
destroyed, and sea and land lay everywhere open to her sway, Fortune
then began to exercise her tyranny, and to introduce universal
innovation. To those who had easily endured toils, dangers, and
doubtful and difficult circumstances, ease and wealth, the objects of
desire to others, became a burden and a trouble. At first the love of
money, and then that of power, began to prevail, and these became, as
it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty,
integrity, and other honorable principles, and in their stead,
inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion, and general
venality. Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one
thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to
estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according
to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest
heart. These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes
restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had
spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the
government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became
rapacious and insupportable.
At first, however, it was ambition, rather than avarice, that
influenced the minds of men--a vice which approaches nearer to virtue
than the other. For of glory, honor, and power, the worthy is as
desirous as the worthless; but the one pursues them by just methods;
the other, being destitute of honorable qualities, works with fraud
and deceit. But avarice has merely money for its object, which no wise
man has ever immoderately desired. It is a vice which, as if imbued
with deadly poison, enervates whatever is manly in body or mind. It is
always unbounded and insatiable, and is abated neither by abundance
nor by want.
But after Lucius Sulla, having recovered the government by force of
arms, proceeded, after a fair commencement, to a pernicious
termination, all became robbers and plunderers; some set their
affections on houses, others on lands; his victorious troops knew
neither restraint nor moderation, but inflicted on the citizens
disgraceful and inhuman outrages. Their rapacity was increased by the
circumstance that Sulla, in order to secure the attachment of the
forces which he had commanded in Asia, had treated them, contrary to
the practise of our ancestors, with extraordinary indulgence and
exemption from discipline; and pleasant and luxurious quarters had
easily, during seasons of idleness, enervated the minds of the
soldiery. Then the armies of the Roman people first became habituated
to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire statues,
pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such objects alike in public
edifices and private dwellings; to spoil temples; and to cast off
respect for everything, sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly,
when once they obtained the mastery, left nothing to the vanquished.
Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would
those of debauched habits use victory with moderation....
In so populous and so corrupt a city, Catiline, as it was very easy to
do, kept about him, like a body-guard, crowds of the unprincipled and
desperate. For all those shameless, libertine, and profligate
characters who had dissipated their patrimonies by gaming, luxury, and
sensuality; all who had contracted heavy debts, to purchase immunity
for their crimes or offenses; all assassins or sacrilegious persons
from every quarter, convicted or dreading conviction for their evil
deeds; all, besides, whom their tongue or their hand maintained by
perjury or civil bloodshed; all, in fine, whom wickedness, poverty, or
a guilty conscience disquieted, were the associates and intimate
friends of Catiline. And if any one, as yet of unblemished character,
fell into his society, he was presently rendered, by daily intercourse
and temptation, similar and equal to the rest. But it was the young
whose acquaintance he chiefly courted, as their minds, ductile and
unsettled from their age, were easily ensnared by his stratagems. For
as the passions of each, according to his years, appeared excited, he
furnished mistresses to some, bought horses and dogs for others, and
spared, in a word, neither his purse nor his character, if he could
but make them his devoted and trustworthy supporters. There were some,
I know, who thought that the youth who frequented the house of
Catiline were guilty of crimes against nature; but this report arose
rather from other causes than from any evidence of the fact....
Depending on such accomplices and adherents, and knowing that the load
of debt was everywhere great, and that the veterans of Sulla,[60]
having spent their money too liberally, and remembering their spoils
and former victory, were longing for a civil war, Catiline formed the
design of overthrowing the government. There was no army in Italy;
Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world;[61] he himself had
great hopes of obtaining the consulship; the Senate was wholly off its
guard; everything was quiet and tranquil, and all these circumstances
were exceedingly favorable for Catiline....
II
THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS[62]
When the Senate, as I have stated, had gone over to the opinion of
Cato, the Consul, thinking it best not to wait till night, which was
coming on, lest any new attempts should be made during the interval,
ordered the triumvirs to make such preparations as the execution of
the conspirators required. He himself, having posted the necessary
guards, conducted Lentulus[63] to the prison; and the same office was
performed for the rest by the praetors.
There is a place in the prison, which is called the Tullian
dungeon,[64] and which, after a slight ascent to the left, is sunk
about twelve feet under ground. Walls secure it on every side, and
over it is a vaulted roof connected with stone arches; but its
appearance is disgusting and horrible, by reason of the filth,
darkness, and stench. When Lentulus had been let down into this place,
certain men, to whom orders had been given, strangled him with a
cord. Thus this patrician who was of the illustrious family of the
Cornelii, and who had filled the office of Consul at Rome, met with an
end suited to his character and conduct. On Cethegus, Statilius,
Gabinius, and Coeparius, punishment was inflicted in a similar
manner.
During these proceedings at Rome, Catiline, out of the entire force
which he himself had brought with him, and that which Manlius had
previously collected, formed two legions, filling up the cohorts as
far as his numbers would allow; and afterward, as any volunteers, or
recruits from his confederates, arrived in his camp, he distributed
them equally throughout the cohorts, and thus filled up his legions,
in a short time, with their regular number of men, tho at first he had
not had more than two thousand. But, of his whole army, only about a
fourth part had the proper weapons of soldiers; the rest, as chance
had equipped them, carried darts, spears, or sharpened stakes.
As Antonius[65] approached with his army, Catiline directed his march
over the hills, encamping, at one time, in the direction of Rome, at
another in that of Gaul. He gave the enemy no opportunity of fighting,
yet hoped himself shortly to find one, if his accomplices at Rome
should succeed in their objects. Slaves, meanwhile, of whom vast
numbers had at first flocked to him, he continued to reject, not only
as depending on the strength of the conspiracy, but as thinking it
impolitic to appear to share the cause of citizens with runagates.
When it was reported in his camp, however, that the conspiracy had
been discovered at Rome, and that Lentulus, Cethegus, and the rest
whom I have named had been put to death, most of those whom the hope
of plunder or the love of change had led to join in the war fell away.
The remainder Catiline conducted, over rugged mountains and by forced
marches, into the neighborhood of Pistoria, with a view to escape
covertly, by crossroads, into Gaul.
But Quintus Metellus Celer, who, with a force of three legions, had,
at that time, his station at Picenum, suspected that Catiline, from
the difficulties of his position, would adopt precisely the course
which we have just described. When, therefore, he had learned
Catiline's route from some deserters, he immediately broke up his
camp, and took his post at the very foot of the hills, at the point
where Catiline's descent would be, in his hurried march into Gaul.[66]
Nor was Antonius far distant, as he was pursuing, tho with a large
army, yet through plainer ground, and with fewer hindrances, the enemy
in retreat.
Catiline, when he saw that he was surrounded by mountains and by
hostile forces, that his schemes in the city had been unsuccessful,
and that there was no hope either of escape or of succor, thinking it
best, in such circumstances, to try the fortune of a battle, resolved
upon engaging, as speedily as possible, with Antonius....
When he had spoken, he ordered, after a short delay, the signal for
battle to be sounded, and led down his troops, in regular order, to
the level ground. Having then sent away the horses of all the cavalry,
in order to increase the men's courage by making their danger equal,
he himself, on foot, drew up his troops suitably to their numbers and
the nature of the ground. As a plain stretched between the mountains
on the left, with a rugged rock on the right, he placed eight cohorts
in front, and stationed the rest of his force, in close order, in the
rear. From among these he removed all the ablest centurions, the
veterans, and the stoutest of the common soldiers that were regularly
armed into the foremost ranks. He ordered Caius Manlius to take the
command on the right, and a certain officer of Faesulae on the left;
while he himself, with his freedmen and the colonists, took his
station by the eagle, which Caius Marius was said to have had in his
army in the Cimbrian war.
On the other side, Caius Antonius, who, being lame, was unable to be
present in the engagement, gave the command of the army to Marcus
Petreius, his lieutenant-general. Petreius ranged the cohorts of
veterans, which he had raised to meet the present insurrection, in
front, and behind them the rest of his force in lines. Then, riding
round among his troops, and addressing his men by name, he encouraged
them, and bade them remember that they were to fight against unarmed
marauders, in defense of their country, their children, their temples,
and their homes. Being a military man, and having served with great
reputation for more than thirty years, as tribune, prefect,
lieutenant, or praetor, he knew most of the soldiers and their
honorable actions, and, by calling these to their remembrance, roused
the spirits of the men.
When he had made a complete survey, he gave the signal with the
trumpet, and ordered the cohorts to advance slowly. The army of the
enemy followed his example; and when they had approached so near that
the action could be commenced by the light-armed troops, both sides,
with a loud shout, rushed together in a furious charge. They threw
aside their missiles, and fought only with their swords. The veterans,
calling to mind their deeds of old, engaged fiercely in the closest
combat. The enemy made an obstinate resistance; and both sides
contended with the utmost fury. Catiline, during this time, was
exerting himself with his light troops in the front, sustaining such
as were prest, substituting fresh men for the wounded, attending to
every exigency, charging in person, wounding many an enemy, and
performing at once the duties of a valiant soldier and a skilful
general.
When Petreius, contrary to his expectation, found Catiline attacking
him with such impetuosity, he led his praetorian cohort against the
center of the enemy, among whom, being thus thrown into confusion, and
offering but partial resistance, he made great slaughter, and ordered,
at the same time, an assault on both flanks. Manlius and the Faesulan,
sword in hand, were among the first that fell; and Catiline, when he
saw his army routed, and himself left with but few supporters,
remembering his birth and former dignity, rushed into the thickest of
the enemy, where he was slain, fighting to the last.
When the battle was over, it was plainly seen what boldness and what
energy of spirit had prevailed throughout the army of Catiline; for,
almost everywhere, every soldier, after yielding up his breath,
covered with his corpse the spot which he had occupied when alive. A
few, indeed, whom the praetorian cohort had dispersed, had fallen
somewhat differently, but all with wounds in front. Catiline himself
was found, far in advance of his men, among the dead bodies of the
enemy; he still breathed, and exprest in his countenance the
fierceness of spirit which he had shown during his life. Of his whole
army, neither in the battle, nor in flight, was any free-born citizen
made prisoner, for they had spared their own lives no more than those
of the enemy.
Nor did the army of the Roman people obtain a joyful or bloodless
victory; for all their bravest men were either killed in the battle or
left the field severely wounded.
Of many who went from the camp to view the ground or plunder the
slain, some, in turning over the bodies of the enemy, discovered a
friend, others an acquaintance, others a relative; some, too,
recognized their enemies. Thus, gladness and sorrow, grief and joy,
were variously felt throughout the whole army.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: Quintilian thought Sallust had rivaled Thucydides, but
it has generally been held that he rather imitated him. The
resemblance lies in the main in the language he employs. Cruttwell
remarks "that the deep insight of the Athenian into the connection of
events is far removed from the popular rhetoric in which the Roman
deplores the decline of virtue."]
[Footnote 59: From "The Conspiracy of Catiline." Translated by J. S.
Watson. Catiline came of an old but impoverished patrician family. In
the first Civil War, he had joined Sulla, and in the time of the
proscription is said to have killed with his own hand his
brother-in-law. In 67 B.C. he was governor of Africa; in 64 he joined
P. Antronius in an attempt to murder the consuls-elect; in 64 he was
himself defeated for the consulship.]
[Footnote 60: These were men to whom Sulla had given land as rewards
for services, but who from extravagance had fallen into debt. Cicero
said nothing could help them but the resurrection of Sulla from the
dead.]
[Footnote 61: Pompey was then conducting his campaign against
Mithridates.]
[Footnote 62: From "The Conspiracy of Catiline." Translated by J. S.
Watson.]
[Footnote 63: Lentulus, who came of the ancient and noble Cornelian
family, was one of the chiefs of the Catiline conspiracy. In 71 B.C.
he was Consul, but in the next year was ejected from the Senate for
"infamous life and manners."]
[Footnote 64: The Tullian dungeon at Rome was built by King Ancus
Martius and enlarged by Servius Tullius, from whom it derived its
name. It still exists as a subterranean chapel beneath the small
church of San Pietro in Carcere. The church tradition is that St.
Peter was imprisoned in this dungeon.]
[Footnote 65: Not the triumvir, but his uncle, Caius Antonius, a man
who after the conspiracy made a scandalous record, and in consequence
was surnamed "Hybrida." He was Consul with Cicero, and is believed to
have been one of the original Catiline conspirators, but Cicero gained
him over to his own side by promising him the rich province of
Macedonia. As Consul, Antonius was under the necessity of leading the
army against Catiline; but, owing to unwillingness to fight against
his former friend (Sallust says owing to lameness) he gave the
immediate command on the day of battle to his legate, Petreius. The
father of this Antonius and the grandfather of Mark Antony, the
triumvir, was Mark Antony, the orator, frequently referred to by
Cicero as one of the greatest of Roman orators.]
[Footnote 66: That is, northern Italy, which In ancient times had been
occupied by Gallic people. Pistoria was an Etruscan town lying at the
foot of the Apennines.]
LIVY
Born In Padua in 59 B.C.; died there in 17 A.D.; one of the
most famous of the Roman historians; his work, embracing the
period from the founding of the city, comprized one hundred
and forty-two books, of which only thirty-five have come
down to us; he spent over forty years in writing the
history; he wrote also philosophical dialogs and a work on
rhetorical training.[67]
I
HORATIUS COCLES AT THE BRIDGE[68]
(About 510 B.C.)
The Sublician bridge[69] well-nigh afforded a passage to the enemy,
had it not been for one man, Horatius Cocles, given by fortune on that
day as a defense of Rome. He happened to be posted on guard at the
bridge and when he saw the Janiculum taken by a sudden assault, and
that the enemy were pouring down thence in full speed, and that his
own party in terror and confusion were abandoning their arms and
ranks--laying hold of them one by one, standing in their way, and
appealing to the faith of gods and men, he declared "that their flight
would avail them nothing if they deserted their post; if they passed
the bridge and left it behind them, there would soon be more of the
enemy in the Palatium and Capitol than in the Janiculum; for that
reason he advised and charged them to demolish the bridge, by their
sword, by fire, or by any means whatever; that he would stand the
shock of the enemy as far as could be done by one man."
He then advanced to the first entrance of the bridge, and being easily
distinguished among those who showed their backs in retreating from
the fight, facing about to engage the foe hand to hand, by his
surprizing bravery he terrified the enemy. Two indeed a sense of shame
kept with him--Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius--men eminent for
their birth, and renowned for their gallant exploits.
With them he for a short time stood the first storm of the danger, and
the severest brunt of the battle. But as they who demolished the
bridge called upon them to retire, he obliged them also to withdraw to
a place of safety on a small portion of the bridge still left. Then
casting his stern eyes round all the officers of the Etrurians in a
threatening manner, he sometimes challenged them singly, sometimes
reproached them all: "the slaves of haughty tyrants, who, regardless
of their own freedom, came to oppress the liberty of others." They
hesitated for a considerable time, looking round one at the other, to
commence the fight; shame then put the army in motion, and a shout
being raised, they hurled their weapons from all sides on their single
adversary; and when they all stuck in the shield held before him, and
he with no less obstinacy kept possession of the bridge with firm
step, they now endeavored to thrust him down from it by one push, when
at once the crash of the falling bridge, at the same time a shout of
the Romans raised for joy at having completed their purpose, checked
their ardor with sudden panic. Then Cocles says, "Holy father
Tiberinus, I pray that thou wouldst receive these arms and this thy
soldier in thy propitious stream." Armed as he was, he leapt into the
Tiber, and, amid showers of darts hurled on him, swam across safe to
his party, having dared an act which is likely to obtain more fame
than belief with posterity. The state was grateful toward such valor;
a statue was erected to him in the Comitium, and as much land was
given to him as he plowed around in one day. The zeal of private
individuals also was conspicuous among the public honors. For amid the
great scarcity, each person contributed something to him according to
his supply at home, depriving himself of his own support.
II
HANNIBAL'S CROSSING OF THE ALPS[70] (218 B.C.)
From the Druentia, by a road that lay principally through plains,
Hannibal arrived at the Alps without molestation from the Gauls who
inhabit those regions. Then, tho the scene had been previously
anticipated from report (by which uncertainties are wont to be
exaggerated), yet the height of the mountains when viewed so near, and
the snows almost mingling with the sky, the shapeless huts situated on
the cliffs, the cattle and beasts of burden withered by the cold, the
men unshorn and wildly drest, all things, animate and inanimate,
stiffened with frost, and other objects more terrible to be seen than
described, renewed their alarm.
To them, marching up the first acclivities, the mountaineers appeared
occupying the heights overhead, who, if they had occupied the more
concealed valleys, might, by rushing out suddenly to the attack, have
occasioned great flight and havoc. Hannibal orders them to halt, and
having sent forward Gauls to view the ground, when he found there was
no passage that way, he pitches his camp in the widest valley he could
find, among places all rugged and precipitous. Then, having learned
from the same Gauls, when they had mixed in conversation with the
mountaineers, from whom they differed little in language and manners,
that the pass was only beset during the day, and that at night each
withdrew to his own dwelling, he advanced at the dawn to the heights,
as if designing openly and by day to force his way through the defile.
The day then being passed in feigning a different attempt from that
which was in preparation, when they had fortified the camp in the same
place where they had halted, as soon as he perceived that the
mountaineers had descended from the heights, and that the guards were
withdrawn, having lighted for show a greater number of fires than was
proportioned to the number that remained, and having left the baggage
in the camp, with the cavalry and the principal part of the infantry,
he himself with a party of light-armed soldiers, consisting of all the
most courageous of his troops, rapidly cleared the defile, and took
posts on those very heights which the enemy had occupied.
At dawn of light the next day the camp broke up, and the rest of the
army began to move forward. The mountaineers, on a signal being given,
were now assembling from their forts to their usual station, when
they suddenly behold part of the enemy overhanging them from above, in
possession of their former position, and the others passing along the
road. Both these objects, presented at the same time to the eye and
the mind, made them stand motionless for a little while; but when they
afterward saw the confusion in the pass, and that the marching body
was thrown into disorder by the tumult which itself created,
principally from the horses being terrified, thinking that whatever
terror they added would suffice for the destruction of the enemy, they
scramble along the dangerous rocks, as being accustomed alike to
pathless and circuitous ways. Then indeed the Carthaginians were
opposed at once by the enemy and by the difficulties of the ground;
and each striving to escape first from the danger, there was more
fighting among themselves than with their opponents. The horses, in
particular, created danger in the lines, which being terrified by the
discordant clamors that the groves and reechoing valleys augmented,
fell into confusion; and if by chance struck or wounded, they were so
dismayed that they occasioned a great loss both of men and baggage of
every description; and as the pass on both sides was broken and
precipitous, this tumult threw many down to an immense depth, some
even of the armed men; but the beasts of burden, with their loads,
were rolled down like the fall of some vast fabric.
Tho these disasters were shocking to view, Hannibal, however, held his
place for a little, and kept his men together, lest he might augment
the tumult and disorder: but afterward, when he saw the line broken,
and that there was danger that he should bring over his army preserved
to no purpose if deprived of their baggage, he hastened down from the
higher ground; and tho he had routed the enemy by the first onset
alone, he at the same time increased the disorder in his own army; but
that tumult was composed in a moment, after the roads were cleared by
the flight of the mountaineers, and presently the whole army was
conducted through, not only without being disturbed, but almost in
silence. He then took a fortified place, which was the capital of that
district, and the little villages that lay around it, and fed his army
for three days with the corn and cattle he had taken; and during these
three days, as the soldiers were neither obstructed by the
mountaineers, who had been daunted by the first engagement, nor yet
much by the ground, he made considerable way.
He then came to another state, abounding, for a mountainous country,
with inhabitants, where he was nearly overcome, not by open war, but
by his own arts of treachery and ambuscade. Some old men, governors of
forts, came as deputies to the Carthaginian, professing, "that having
been warned by the useful example of the calamities of others, they
wished rather to experience the friendship than the hostilities of the
Carthaginians; they would, therefore, obediently execute his commands,
and begged that he would accept of a supply of provisions, guides of
his march, and hostages for the sincerity of their promises."
Hannibal, when he had answered them in a friendly manner, thinking
that they should neither be rashly trusted nor yet rejected, lest if
repulsed they might openly become enemies, having received the
hostages whom they proffered, and made use of the provisions which
they of their own accord brought down to the road, followed their
guides, by no means as among a people with whom he was at peace, but
with his line of march in close order. The elephants and cavalry
formed the van of the marching body; he himself, examining everything
around, and intent on every circumstance, followed with the choicest
of his infantry. When they came into a narrower pass, lying on one
side beneath an overhanging eminence, the barbarians, rising at once
on all sides from their ambush, assail them in front and rear, both at
close quarters and from a distance, and roll down huge stones on the
army. The most numerous body of men prest on the rear; against whom
the infantry facing about and directing their attack made it very
obvious that, had not the rear of the army been well supported, a
great loss must have been sustained in that pass. Even as it was, they
came to the extremity of danger, and almost to destruction; for while
Hannibal hesitated to lead down his division into the defile, because,
tho he himself was a protection to the cavalry, he had not in the same
way left any aid to the infantry in the rear; the mountaineers,
charging obliquely, and on having broken through the middle of the
army, took possession of the road; and one night was spent by Hannibal
without his cavalry and baggage....
On the standards being moved forward at daybreak, when the army
proceeded slowly over all places entirely blocked up with snow, and
languor and despair strongly appeared in the countenances of all,
Hannibal, having advanced before the standards, and ordered the
soldiers to halt on a certain eminence, whence there was a prospect
far and wide, pointed out to them Italy and the plains of the Po,
extending themselves beneath the Alpine mountains; and said "that they
were now surmounting not only the ramparts of Italy, but also of the
city of Rome; that the rest of the journey would be smooth and
down-hill; that after one, or, at most, a second battle, they would
have the citadel and capital of Italy in their power and possession."
The army then began to advance, the enemy now making no attempts
beyond petty thefts, as opportunity offered. But the journey proved
much more difficult than it had been in the ascent, as the declivity
of the Alps, being generally shorter on the side of Italy, is
consequently steeper; for nearly all the road was precipitous, narrow,
and slippery, so that neither those who made the least stumble could
prevent themselves from falling, nor, when fallen, remain in the same
place, but rolled, both men and beasts of burden, one upon another.
They then came to a rock much more narrow, and formed of such
perpendicular ledges that a light-armed soldier, carefully making the
attempt, and clinging with his hands to the bushes and roots around,
could with difficulty lower himself down. The ground, even before very
steep by nature, had been broken by a recent falling away of the earth
into a precipice of nearly a thousand feet in depth. Here when the
cavalry halted, as if at the end of their journey, it was announced to
Hannibal, wondering what obstructed the march, that the rock was
impassable. Having then gone himself to view the place, it seemed
clear to him that he must lead his army, by however great a circuit,
through the pathless and untrodden regions around it. But this route
also proved impracticable; for while the new snow of a moderate depth
remained on the old, which had not been removed, their footsteps were
planted with ease as they walked upon the new snow, which was soft and
not too deep; but when it was dissolved by the trampling of so many
men and beasts of burden, they then walked on the bare ice below, and
through the dirty fluid formed by the melting snow. Here there was a
wretched struggle, both on account of the slippery ice not affording
any hold to the step, and giving way beneath the foot more readily by
reason of the slope; and whether they assisted themselves in rising by
their hands or their knees, their supports themselves giving way, they
would tumble again; nor were there any stumps or roots near by
pressing against which one might with hand or foot support oneself; so
that they only floundered on the smooth ice and amidst the melted
snow. The beasts of burden sometimes also cut into this lower ice by
merely treading upon it, at others they broke it completely through,
by the violence with which they struck in their hoofs in their
struggling, so that most of them, as if taken in a trap, stuck in the
hardened and deeply frozen ice.
At length, after the men and beasts of burden had been fatigued to no
purpose, the camp was pitched on the summit, the ground being cleared
for that purpose with great difficulty, so much snow was there to be
dug out and carried away. The soldiers being then set to make a way
down the cliff, by which alone a passage could be effected, and it
being necessary that they should cut through the rocks, having felled
and lopped a number of large trees which grew around, they make a huge
pile of timber; and as soon as a strong wind fit for exciting the
flames arose, they set fire to it, and, pouring vinegar on the heated
stones, they render them soft and crumbling. They then open a way with
iron instruments through the rock thus heated by the fire, and soften
its declivities by gentle windings, so that not only the beasts of
burden, but also the elephants, could be led down it. Four days were
spent about this rock, the beasts nearly perishing through hunger; for
the summits of the mountains are for the most part bare, and if there
is any pasture the snows bury it. The lower parts contain valleys, and
some sunny hills, and rivulets flowing beside woods, and scenes more
worthy of the abode of man. There the beasts of burden were sent out
to pasture, and rest given for three days to the men, fatigued with
forming the passage; they then descended into the plains, the country
and the dispositions of the inhabitants being now less rugged.
In this manner chiefly they came to Italy, in the fifth month (as some
authors relate) after leaving New Carthage, having crossed the Alps
in fifteen days. What number of forces Hannibal had when he had passed
into Italy is by no means agreed upon by authors. Those who state them
at the highest make mention of a hundred thousand foot and twenty
thousand horse; those who state them at the lowest, of twenty thousand
foot and six thousand horse. Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who relates
that he was made prisoner by Hannibal, would influence me most as an
authority did he not confound the number by adding the Gauls and
Ligurians. Including these (who, it is more probable, flocked to him
afterward, as some authors assert), he says that eighty thousand foot
and ten thousand horse were brought into Italy; and that he had heard
from Hannibal himself that, after crossing the Rhone, he had lost
thirty-six thousand men, and an immense number of horses and other
beasts of burden among the Taurini,[71] the next nation to the Gauls,
as he descended into Italy.
III
HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AT ZAMA[72]
(202 B.C.)
Hannibal had by this time arrived at Adrumetum,[73] from which place,
after employing a few days there in refreshing his soldiers, who had
suffered from the motion by sea, he proceeded by forced marches to
Zama, roused by the alarming statements of messengers, who brought
word that all the country round Carthage was filled with armed troops.
Zama is distant from Carthage a five days' journey. Some spies, whom
he had sent out from this place, being intercepted by the Roman guard,
and brought before Scipio, he directed that they should be handed over
to the military tribunes, and, after having been desired fearlessly to
survey everything, he conducted them through the camp wherever they
chose; then, asking them whether they had examined everything to their
satisfaction, he assigned them an escort, and sent them back to
Hannibal. Hannibal received none of the circumstances which were
reported to him with feelings of joy; for they brought word that, as
it happened, Masinissa had joined the enemy that very day, with six
thousand infantry and four thousand horse; but he was principally
dispirited by the confidence of his enemy, which, doubtless, was not
conceived without some ground. Accordingly, tho he himself was the
originator of the war, and by his coming had upset the truce which had
been entered into, and cut off all hopes of a treaty, yet, concluding
that more favorable terms might be obtained if he solicited peace
while his strength was unimpaired than when vanquished, he sent a
message to Scipio requesting permission to confer with him.
Their armed attendants having retired to an equal distance, they met,
each attended by one interpreter, being the greatest generals not only
of their own times, but of any to be found in the records of the times
preceding them, and equal to any of the kings or generals of any
nation whatever. When they came within sight of each other they
remained silent for a short time, thunderstruck, as it were, with
mutual admiration. At length Hannibal thus began:
"Since fate hath so ordained it, that I, who was the first to wage war
upon the Romans, and who have so often had victory almost within my
reach, should voluntarily come to sue for peace, I rejoice that it is
you, above all others, from whom it is my lot to solicit it. To you,
also, amidst the many distinguished events of your life, it will not
be esteemed one of the least glorious that Hannibal, to whom the gods
had so often granted victory over the Roman generals, should have
yielded to you; and that you should have put an end to this war, which
has been rendered remarkable by your calamities before it was by
ours. In this, also, fortune would seem to have exhibited a
disposition to sport with events, for it was when your father was
Consul that I first took up arms; he was the first Roman general with
whom I engaged in a pitched battle; and it is to his son that I now
come unarmed to solicit peace. It were, indeed, most to have been
desired that the gods should have put such dispositions into the minds
of our fathers, that you should have been content with the empire of
Italy, and we with that of Africa; nor, indeed, even to you, are
Sicily and Sardinia of sufficient value to compensate you for the loss
of so many fleets, so many armies, so many and such distinguished
generals.
"But what is past may be more easily censured than retrieved. In our
attempts to acquire the possessions of others, we have been compelled
to fight for our own; and not only have you had a war in Italy, and we
also in Africa, but you have beheld the standards and arms of your
enemies almost in your gates and on your walls, and we now, from the
walls of Carthage, distinctly hear the din of a Roman camp. What,
therefore, we should most earnestly deprecate, and you should most
devoutly wish for, is now the case: peace is proposed at a time when
you have the advantage. We who negotiate it are the persons whom it
most concerns to obtain it, and we are persons 'whose arrangements, be
they what they will, our states will ratify. All we want is a
disposition not averse from peaceful counsels. So far as relates to
myself, time (for I am returning to that country an old man which I
left a boy),[74] and prosperity, and adversity, have so schooled me
that I am more inclined to follow reason than fortune. But I fear your
youth and uninterrupted good fortune, both of which are apt to inspire
a degree of confidence ill comporting with pacific counsels. Rarely
does that man consider the uncertainty of events whom fortune hath
never deceived. What I was at Trasimenus and at Cannae that you are
this day. Invested with command when you had scarcely yet attained the
military age, tho all your enterprises were of the boldest
description, in no instance has fortune deserted you. Avenging the
death of your father and uncle, you have derived from the calamity of
your house the high honor of distinguished valor and filial duty. You
have recovered Spain, which had been lost, after driving thence four
Carthaginian armies. When elected Consul, tho all others wanted
courage to defend Italy, you crossed over into Africa, where, having
cut to pieces two armies, having at once captured and burned two camps
in the same hour, having made prisoner Syphax, a most powerful king,
and seized so many towns of his dominions and so many of ours, you
have dragged me from Italy, the possession of which I had firmly held
for now sixteen years....
"Formerly, in this same country, Marcus Atilius would have formed one
among the few instances of good fortune and valor, if, when
victorious, he had granted a peace to our fathers when they requested
it; but by not setting any bounds to his success, and not checking
good fortune, which was elating him, he fell with a degree of ignominy
proportioned to his elevation. It is, indeed, the right of him who
grants, and not of him who solicits it, to dictate the terms of peace;
but perhaps we may not be unworthy to impose upon ourselves the fine.
We do not refuse that all those possessions on account of which the
war was begun should be yours--Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, with all the
islands lying in any part of the sea, between Africa and Italy. Let us
Carthaginians, confined within the shores of Africa, behold you, since
such is the pleasure of the gods, extending your empire over foreign
nations, both by sea and land. I can not deny that you have reason to
suspect the Carthaginian faith, in consequence of their insincerity
lately in soliciting a peace and while awaiting the decision. The
sincerity with which a peace will be observed depends much, Scipio, on
the person by whom it is sought. Your Senate, as I hear, refused to
grant a peace, in some measure, because the deputies were deficient in
respectability. It is I, Hannibal, who now solicit peace, who would
neither ask for it unless I believed it expedient, nor will I fail to
observe it for the same reason of expedience on account of which I
have solicited it. And in the same manner as I, because the war was
commenced by me, brought it to pass that no one regretted it till the
gods began to regard me with displeasure, so will I also exert myself
that no one may regret the peace procured by my means."
In answer to these things the Roman general spoke nearly to the
following effect: "I was aware that it was in consequence of the
expectation of your arrival that the Carthaginians violated the
existing faith of the truce and broke off all hope of a peace. Nor,
indeed, do you conceal the fact; inasmuch as you artfully withdraw
from the former conditions of peace every concession except what
relates to those things which have for a long time been in our own
power. But as it is your object that your countrymen should be
sensible how great a burden they are relieved from by your means, so
it is incumbent upon me to endeavor that they may not receive, as the
reward of their perfidy, the concessions which they formerly
stipulated, by expunging them now from the conditions of the peace.
Tho you do not deserve to be allowed the same conditions as before,
you now request even to be benefited by your treachery. Neither did
our fathers first make war respecting Sicily, nor did we respecting
Spain. In the former case, the danger which threatened our allies, the
Mamertines, and in the present the destruction of Saguntum, girded us
with just and pious arms. That you were the aggressors, both you
yourselves confess and the gods are witnesses, who determined the
issue of the former war, and who are now determining, and will
determine, the issue of the present according to right and justice. As
to myself, I am not forgetful of the instability of human affairs, but
consider the influence of fortune, and am well aware that all our
measures are liable to a thousand casualties. But as I should
acknowledge that my conduct would savor of insolence and oppression
if I rejected you on your coming in person to solicit peace, before I
crossed over into Africa, you voluntarily retiring from Italy, and
after you had embarked your troops, so now, when I have dragged you
into Africa almost by manual force, notwithstanding your resistance
and evasions, I am not bound to treat you with any respect. Wherefore,
if in addition to those stipulations on which it was considered that a
peace would at that time have been agreed upon, and what they are you
are informed, a compensation is proposed for having seized our ships,
together with their stores, during a truce, and for the violence
offered to our ambassadors, I shall then have matter to lay before my
council. But if these things also appear oppressive, prepare for war,
since you could not brook the conditions of peace."
Thus, without effecting an accommodation, when they had returned from
the conference to their armies, they informed them that words had been
bandied to no purpose, that the question must be decided by arms, and
that they must accept that fortune which the gods assigned them.
When they had arrived at their camps, they both issued orders that
their soldiers should get their arms in readiness and prepare their
minds for the final contest; in which, if fortune should favor them,
they would continue victorious, not for a single day, but forever.
"Before tomorrow night," they said, "they would know whether Rome or
Carthage should give laws to the world; and that neither Africa nor
Italy, but the whole world, would be the prize of victory; that the
dangers which threatened those who had the misfortune to be defeated
were proportioned to the rewards of the victors." For the Romans had
not any place of refuge in an unknown and foreign land, and immediate
destruction seemed to await Carthage if the troops which formed her
last reliance were defeated. To this important contest, the day
following, two generals, by far the most renowned of any, and
belonging to two of the most powerful nations in the world, advanced
either to crown or overthrow, on that day, the many honors they had
previously acquired....
While the general was busily employed among the Carthaginians, and the
captains of the respective nations among their countrymen, most of
them employing interpreters among troops intermixed with those of
different nations, the trumpets and cornets of the Romans sounded; and
such a clamor arose that the elephants, especially those in the left
wing, turned round upon their own party, the Moors and Numidians.
Masinissa had no difficulty in increasing the alarm of the terrified
enemy, and deprived them of the aid of their cavalry in that wing. A
few, however, of the beasts which were driven against the enemy, and
were not turned back through fear, made great havoc among the ranks of
the velites, tho not without receiving many wounds themselves; for
when the velites, retiring to the companies, had made way for the
elephants, that they might not be trampled down, they discharged their
darts at the beasts, exposed as they were to wounds on both sides,
those in the van also keeping up a continual discharge of javelins;
until, driven out of the Roman line by the weapons which fell upon
them from all quarters, these elephants also put to flight even the
cavalry of the Carthaginians posted in their right wing. Laelius, when
he saw the enemy in disorder, struck additional terror into them in
their confusion.
The Carthaginian line was deprived of the cavalry on both sides, when
the infantry, who were now not a match for the Romans in confidence or
strength, engaged. In addition to this there was one circumstance,
trifling in itself, but at the same time producing important
consequences in the action. On the part of the Romans the shout was
uniform, and on that account louder and more terrific; while the
voices of the enemy, consisting as they did of many nations of
different languages, were dissonant. The Romans used the stationary
kind of fight, pressing upon the enemy with their own weight and that
of their arms; but on the other side there was more of skirmishing and
rapid movement than force.
Accordingly, on the first charge, the Romans immediately drove back
the line of their opponents; then pushing them with their elbows and
the bosses of their shields, and pressing forward into the places from
which they had pushed them, they advanced a considerable space, as tho
there had been no one to resist them, those who formed the rear urging
forward those in front when they perceived the line of the enemy
giving way, which circumstance itself gave great additional force in
repelling them. On the side of the enemy, the second line, consisting
of the Africans and Carthaginians, were so far from supporting the
first line when giving ground, that, on the contrary, they even
retired, lest their enemy, by slaying those who made a firm
resistance, should penetrate to themselves also. Accordingly, the
auxiliaries suddenly turned their backs, and facing about upon their
own party, fled some of them into the second line, while others slew
those who did not receive them into their ranks, since before they did
not support them, and now refused to receive them.
And now there were, in a manner, two contests going on together, the
Carthaginians being compelled to fight at once with the enemy and with
their own party. Not even then, however, did they receive into their
line the terrified and exasperated troops; but, closing their ranks,
drove them out of the scene of action to the wings and the surrounding
plain, lest they should mingle these soldiers, terrified with defeat
and wounds, with that part of their line which was firm and fresh. But
such a heap of men and arms had filled the space in which the
auxiliaries a little while ago had stood that it was almost more
difficult to pass t
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