Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

jure sepulcrum publice datum est." The senate agreed to this proposal; and the statue itself, as we are told by Pomponius, De Orig. Jur., remained to his time in the Rostra of Augustus.

This is a fair specimen of Cicero's eloquence of the middle kind, and the whole proceedings about the statues and the decrees, are full of antiquarian information with respect to manners, and curious illustration.

Cicero's correspondence is one of the most valuable legacies bequeathed to us by antiquity. The collection addressed to his friends and received from them, is full of political intelligence, and lets us more behind the scenes than all the other writings of the period put together. The letters to Atticus partake fully of that recommendation, besides which, they portray the writer's mind in its undress: for he there opens his heart in all the frankness of familiar intercourse and unlimited confidence. The strong attachment, the sorrow at parting, the desire of meeting, appear equally and with amiable fervour in both. Political confidence is followed up by unreserved communication of literary projects. Cicero says in one of his letters, "That part of yours pleases me, where you comfort yourself with the hope of our speedily meeting again. The same expectation chiefly supports me. I will write to you regularly, and by every possible opportunity; and will give you an account of every thing relating to Brutus. I will also send you shortly my Treatise on Glory; and finish for you the other work, to be locked up with your treasure." This last announcement of course refers to the

est, se, quod velletis, esse facturum, neque ejus sententiæ periculum vitaturum, cujus ipse auctor fuisset: quem exsequi mandata vestra properantem, mane postridie prosecuti sumus. . . Reddite igitur, patres conscripti, ei vitam, cui ademistis. vita enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita. perficite, ut is, quem vos ad mortem inşcii misistis, · immortalitatem habeat a vobis. cui si statuam in Rostris decreto vestro statueritis, nulla ejus legationem posteritatis inobscurabit oblivio."

With respect to his virtues, talents and general character, he says, "Nam reliqua Ser. Sulpicii vita multis erit præclarisque monumentis ad omnem memoriam commendata. . . . . hæc enim statua, mortis honestæ testis erit: illa, memoria vitæ gloriosæ ut hoc magis monumentum grati senatus, quam clari viri, futurum sit." He ends by proposing a decree, "Sulpicio statuam pedestrem æneam in Rostris ex hujus ordinis sententia statui, circumque eam statuam locum gladiatoribus liberos posterosque ejus quoquo versus pedes quinque habere, eamque causam in basi inscribi: Pansa, Hirtius, consules, alter, ambove, si eis videatur, quæstoribus urbanis imperent, ut eam basim statuamque faciendam et in Rostris statuendam locent: quantique locaverint, tantam pecuniam redemtori attribuendam solvendamque curent: cumque antea senatus auctoritatem suam in virorum fortium funeribus ornamentisque ostenderit; placere, eum quam amplissime supremo die suo efferri.

utique locum sepulcro in campo Esquilino C. Pansa consul, seu quo alio in loco videatur, pedes triginta quoquo versus adsignet, quo Ser. Sulpicius inferatur. quod sepulcrum, ipsius, liberorum, posterorumque ejus sit, uti quod optimo

jure sepulcrum publice datum est." The senate agreed to this proposal; and the statue itself, as we are told by Pomponius, De Orig. Jur., remained to his time in the Rostra of Augustus.

This is a fair specimen of Cicero's eloquence of the middle kind, and the whole proceedings about the statues and the decrees, are full of antiquarian information with respect to manners, and curious illustration.

Cicero's correspondence is one of the most valuable legacies bequeathed to us by antiquity. The collection addressed to his friends and received from them, is full of political intelligence, and lets us more behind the scenes than all the other writings of the period put together. The letters to Atticus partake fully of that recommendation, besides which, they portray the writer's mind in its undress for he there opens his heart in all the frankness of familiar intercourse and unlimited confidence. The strong attachment, the sorrow at parting, the desire of meeting, appear equally and with amiable fervour in both. Political confidence is followed up by unreserved communication of literary projects. Cicero says in one of his letters, "That part of yours pleases me, where you comfort yourself with the hope of our speedily meeting again. The same expectation chiefly supports me. I will write to you regularly, and by every possible opportunity; and will give you an account of every thing relating to Brutus. I will also send you shortly my Treatise on Glory; and finish for you the other work, to be locked up with your treasure." This last announcement of course refers to the

On the whole, great as is his fame, there is no character which has met with harder treatment than that of Cicero. His besetting sin was vanity: and it has raised up, both among his contemporaries and with posterity, a hue and cry against him which so venial a failing seldom encounters. With many drawbacks from the general infirmity of human nature, obliged to do many things from the extreme difficulty, danger, and perplexity of the times, which calm judgment and good feeling would have avoided, Cicero was one of the best as well as the greatest men of a crisis, when goodness was not thought necessary to greatness, and was more uncommon than it. If we wish to see the greatest lawyer that ever lived, we must look at Cicero in the Forum: if the most prompt and the bravest of chief magistrates in times of imminent danger, we must note Cicero in his consulship, and study well the conspiracy of Catiline: would we know who was the most just and the deepest thinker, most nearly approximating to the philosophy of Christianity, in the Gentile world, we must read Cicero's opinions on the immortality of the soul, and on a future state.

ON SENECA.

At Agrippina, ne malis tantum facinoribus notesceret, veniam exsilii pro Annæo Seneca, simul Præturam impetrat, lætum in publicum rata, ob claritudinem studiorum ejus, utque Domitii pueritia tali magistro adolesceret, et consiliis ejusdem ad spem dominationis uteretur: quia Seneca fidus in Agrippinam, memoria beneficii, et infensus Claudio, dolore injuriæ, credebatur.- CORNEL. TACIT. Annal. lib. xii. cap. 8.

THE family of the Senecas was Spanish. Spain was also proud of counting in those days, her Lucan, Quintilian, Silius, and Martial. The latter poet mentions the principal places in the provinces, whence eminent writers have come : —

Apollodoro plaudit imbrifer Nilus ;

Nasone Peligni sonant:

Duosque Senecas, unicumque Lucanum
Facunda loquitur Corduba.

Lib. i. epig. 62.

He mentions in the same epigram Verona, the second Venetian city, as the birthplace of Catullus, and Padua as that of Livy. He speaks of Seneca again :

Atria Pisonum stabant cum stemmate toto,
Et docti Senecæ ter numeranda domus.

Lib. iv. epig. 42.

« IndietroContinua »