sentence bears on its face its own emphasis, giving the same effect to the eye that the best reader or speaker in English can to the ear.

Thus the first paragraph of the oration for Roscius (above cited) shows its emphasis as follows: "I SUPPOSE (conceding something he will presently contradict or explain) you (who do not, as I do, know or think of the state of things) wonder why it is that, etc., but the fact is (implied as the antithesis of the em phatic credo)," etc. Again, omnes is emphatic, i.e. " I am not the only one, but all would speak were it not for circumstances,* which he proceeds to mention. Even videtis has an emphatic position: "who, as you see, are in attendance." Again, putant oportere defendi, i.e. "THINK (though they do nothing) ought to be averted by a defence, but to make the defence themselves," etc.

If we take the beginning of the oration for Milo, there is the same artistic arrangement: "Though I am AFRAID,' gentlemen, that it is not quite BECOMING, when I get up to speak for a very brave man, to be alarmed, and that it is particularly unbecoming, when TITUS ANNIUS himself is more alarmed for the welfare of the state than for his own, that I in his case cannot show an equally lofty spirit, nevertheless this strange form of a strange court terrifies me as I gaze on it, for wherever my eyes fall they miss the customary appearance of the Forum and the old established style of courts."

It is only by attention to this feature of Latin style that the full force of the author, with all the implications, connotations, and hints, can be clearly seen.

1 As we might say, "I am afraid you won't like it, but I have done so

and so."

V. DELIVERY.

THE delivery of a Latin oration was marked by a fire and force of which we have small conception. Though the Romans were an extremely dignified and formal race, yet beneath the surface they had all the violent emotions which we in modern times associate with the Mediterranean nations. The actio or delivery occupies one of the first places in ancient treatises on oratory (actio in dicendo una dominatur, de Or. III, lvi, 213). The range of expressed emotion was much wider than is usual with us, not only in pitch of voice and inflection of tone, but also in bodily activity, sometimes going beyond what the best orators of the time regarded as becoming. Violent movements of the arms, stamping of the feet, changes of position, gestures of the whole body, so that sometimes the knee would touch the ground, were not infrequent. The Latin language, however, did not have that violent and sudden stress with which we are familiar, and on which we depend for spasmodic force. It had instead a more sustained and singing tone, capable of infinite variations. The syllabic accent, too, was very slight, and almost merged in a kind of rhythmic ictus depending on the quantity of the syllables.

Hence particular attention was paid to the numerus, or succession of long and short syllables, so as to give, along with varying tones of emphasis, an agreeable musical cadence which is foreign to the spirit of most modern languages. The most emphatic words were indicated by an intensity of tone throughout, as in modern music, and the less emphatic, coming at the end, were pronounced with a full, orotund utterance, so as to round out the period, but with a descending stress rather than with a rising one such as we have in English. Such a close as těměrĭtās fili cōmprobăvit was regarded as especially effective. So quin ējūsděm hominis sit qui improbōs probēt probōs improbārě is praised by Cicero as an ideal cadence.

VI. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION.

IN the time of Cicero the Roman " State" had technically a republican constitution, that is, every citizen had a share in the government. But not every citizen had an equal share, partly from fixed constitutional principles, and partly from differentiations in social prominence which affected constitutional rights.

I. CITIZENSHIP AND ORDERS IN THE STATE.

Accordingly there were among Roman citizens three social (and in a manner political) ranks (ordines): the Senatorial Order (ordo senatorius), the Equestrian Order (ordo equestris), and the People (populus, in the narrower sense). The first two of these made up the Roman aristocracy.

I. SENATORIAL ORDER. - The Ordo Senatorius was strictly speaking only another name for the Senate, the members of which, by virtue of their life tenure of office, their privileges and insignia, and their esprit de corps, formed a kind of Peerage. The list of Senators, regularly numbering 300, was in early times made up by the Censors at their discretion from among those who had held high magistracies. But after the reforms of Sulla (B.C. 80) every person who had held the quæstorship -- the lowest grade of the regular magistracy (see below, p. lix) — was lawfully entitled to a seat in the Senate. This aristocracy was therefore an official or bureaucratic class. Their number fluctuated, running up to five or six hundred.

Nobility, however, did not really depend on holding offices oneself, but on being descended from an ancestor who had held a curule office.1 When any person not so descended was chosen a magistrate, he was called a novus homo,2 and, though he of course became a member of the Senatorial Order, he was not regarded as a noble. His posterity, however, would belong to the nobility. But such instances were very uncommon; for the Senate and the magistrates had such control over the elections that it was very difficult for any person not already a member of the nobility to be chosen to any office entitling him to enter the Senate. Hence the Senatorial Order and the Nobility were practically identical, and “ new men

1 Whoever held any curule office- that is, dictator, consul, interrex, prætor, magister equitum, or curule ædile-secured to his posterity the jus imaginum; that is, the right to place in the hall and carry at funeral processions a wax mask of this ancestor, as well as of any other deceased members of the family of curule rank. (See Def. of Milo, sect. 33, p. 185, l. 14.)

2 Examples are Cato the Censor, Marius, and Cicero.

became necessarily identified with the class to which their posterity would belong, rather than that from which they themselves had come. This double relation of Cicero a member of the Senate, but sprung from the Equestrian Order- goes a great way to explain what is inconsistent and vacillating in his political career.

II. EQUESTRian Order. - The title Equites was originally applied to the members of the eighteen centuries equitum equo publico under the Servian constitution, to whom a horse was assigned by the state, together with a certain sum of money yearly for its support, and who constituted the old Roman cavalry. Those who served equo publico had to have the equestrian census,1 i.e. possess a fortune of 400,000 sesterces ($20,000); and the horses were assigned by the Censors, as a rule, to the young men of senatorial families. These centuriae equitum were therefore composed of young noblemen. When they entered, the Senate, they were (in the later years of the republic) obliged to give up the public horse. Therefore, on becoming Senators, they voted in the centuries of the first class, not with the Equites (see p. lv, below). This aristocratic body had, however, long before Cicero's time, ceased to serve in the field; they formed a parade corps (somewhat like the Royal Guards in England), from which active officers of the legion, tribuni militum, were taken.2

During the time that the equites equo publico still served in the field as cavalry, another body grew up by their side, consisting of equites equo privato: that is, persons of the equestrian census (having a property of 400,000 sesterces), who had not received a horse from the state, but who volunteered with horses of their own. This body consisted mainly of young men of wealth who did not belong to noble (that is, senatorial) families. No very distinct line was, however, drawn between the two classes until the Lex Judiciaria of C. Gracchus (B.c. 123), which prescribed that the judices should not, as heretofore, be taken from the Senators (see p. lxv), but from those who possessed the equestrian census, and at the same time were not members of the Senate. This law did not formally exclude nobles who were not members of the Senate; but the entire body of nobility was so far identified in spirit and interest with the Senate, that an antagonism immediately grew up between them and this new judicial class. A principal cause of the antagonism was that members of the Senate were prohibited from being engaged in any trade or business;

1 This requirement grew up only after the establishment of the equites equo privato.

2 When the Roman equites ceased to serve as cavalry, troops of horse were demanded of the allies; and in the time of Cæsar we find that the Roman legion consisted exclusively of infantry, the cavalry being made up of such auxiliaries,

while, as has been shown above, the Senate, by its control over the elec tions, virtually filled its own vacancies, of course from the ranks of the nobility. Hence, as rich men of non-senatorial families were excluded from a political career, and so from the nobility, while Senators were excluded from a business life, there were formed during the last century of the republic two powerful aristocracies, the nobles, or Senatorial Order, a governing aristocracy of rank, and the Equestrian Order, an aristocracy of wealth, corresponding to the moneyed aristocracy of our day. The name Ordo Equestris was given to the latter body because its members possessed the original equestrian census: that is, that amount of property which would have entitled them to a public horse. From the ranks of the nobility were taken the oppressive provincial governors: the Equestrian Order, on the other hand, furnished the publicani, the equally oppressive tax-gatherers.

The Equestrian Order, Ordo Equestris, is therefore not merely distinct from the centuriae equitum, but strongly contrasted with them. The former is the wealthy middle class, the latter are the young nobility. The term equites is sometimes applied to both indiscriminately, although the strictly correct term for the members of the Equestrian Order was judices.

III. POPULUS. - Below these two aristocratic orders, in estate and so in social position, were all the rest of the free-born citizens not possessing a census of 400,000 sesterces. Among these there was naturally great variety in fortune, cultivation, and respectability; but they all had a status superior to that of the libertini (freedmen) and the foreign residents. It was this third class which was under the control of the tribuni plebis and which by its turbulence brought on all the disturbances which ultimately resulted in the overthrow of the republic. It must not be supposed, however, that these humbler citizens were debarred from political preferment except by their want of money, and in fact many of them rose to positions of wealth and influence.

The populus (in the narrower sense) was often confounded with the plebs, but in reality the distinction between the plebs and the patricians was in Cicero's time historical rather than political. The patricians had been originally a privileged class of hereditary nobility, entirely different from the later senatorial nobility; but only a few patrician families remained, and these, though still proud of their high birth, had no special privileges and had been practically merged in the Senatorial Order. Opposed to the patricians had been originally the plebs, a class of unknown origin (probably foreign residents) destitute of all political rights. These had gradually, in the long controversies of the earlier Republican times, acquired all the rights and privileges of full citizens, and a majority of the Senatorial and Equestrian Orders were of plebeian origin. In time plebs in an enlarged