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nihil de periculo, neque de sævitia amissum, quin turbines etiam crebriores, et cœlum atrum, et fumigantes globi, et figuræ quædam nubium metuendæ, quas rupavas vocabant, impendere imminereque, ac depressuræ navem videbantur."

MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM CICERO.

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NIHIL habet nec fortuna tua majus, quam ut possis; nec natura tua melius, quam ut velis servare quam plurimos." This was addressed to Cæsar, in the oration for Q. Ligarius. A more elegant compliment was never paid.

Cicero justly mentions the following as an instance of weakness in a great man: but surely Cicero might have looked at home:- "Leviculus sane noster Demosthenes, qui illo susurro delectari se dicebat aquam ferentis mulierculæ, ut mos in Græcia est, insusurrantisque alteri, Hic est ille Demosthenes. Quid hoc levius? At quantus orator? Sed apud alios loqui videlicet didicerat, non multum ipse secum." - Tusc. Quæst. lib. v. cap. 36.

Erskine in his glory would probably have been no less delighted with the admiration of a milkmaid. Diogenes Laertius tells us, that Diogenes the Cynic once administered to the great orator's vanity, by pointing him out with his finger to some strangers who had expressed a great desire to see him but this was only done in mockery; and we are not told that Demosthenes was deceived by it, or that he betrayed any pleasure in the curiosity of the strangers.

Zeno, the founder and leader of the Stoic sect, was in the habit of applying this whimsical illustration that eloquence and logic were respectively like the open hand and the closed fist; inasmuch as the aim of the orator was to give his arguments all the extension and amplification possible, that of the logician to propound them in terms the most strict and narrow:-" Zenonis est, inquam, hoc Stoici. omnem vim loquendi, ut jam ante Aristoteles, in duas tributam esse partes; rhetoricam, palmæ; dialecticam, pugno similem esse dicebat, quod latius loquerentur rhetores, dialectici autem compressius." De Finibus, lib. ii.

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Of all the miserable and ludicrous superstitions which the enlightened and politic priesthood and augural college of Rome palmed on the ignorant simplicity of the vulgar, the humbug of the Tripudium solistimum and the mountebank character of the Pullarius seem to be the perfection of folly and impudence: Quæ aves? aut, ubi? Attulit, inquit, in cavea pullos is, qui ex eo ipso nominatur pullarius. Hæ sunt igitur aves internuntiæ Jovis : quæ pascantur, necne, quid refert? nihil ad auspicia: sed quia, cum pascuntur, necesse est, aliquid ex ore cadere, et terram pavire, terripavium primo, post terripudium dictum est: hoc quidem jam tripudium dicitur. cum igitur offa cecidit ex ore pulli, tum auspicanti tripudium solistimum nuntiant." De Divinat. lib. ii

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The name of Moneta was given to Juno by the Romans a monendo : Atque etiam scriptum a multis est, cum terræ motus factus esset, Ut sue plena procuratio fieret, vocem ab æde Junonis ex arce exstitisse: quocirca Junonem illam appellatam Monetam."- Cic. de Divinat. lib. i.

This

temple of Juno Moneta was on the descent from the capitol, and in consequence of the mint being afterwards established near the same spot, the pieces coined there took the name of Moneta: and to this trivial accident do we trace the etymology of that universal and important word, money.

POETICAL GENEALOGIES AND EXPLOITS OF FABULOUS PERSONAGES.

PORPHYRION was the son of Sisyphus. He is mentioned by Claudian in his Gigantomachy :

Ecce autem medium spiris delapsus in æquor,
Porphyrion trepidam conatur rumpere Delon,
Scilicet ad superos ut torqueat improbus axes:
Horruit Ægæus: stagnantibus exsilit antris
Longævo cum patre Thetis; desertaque mansit
Ripa Neptuni, famulis veneranda profundis.

Damastor is another of the giants, in some authors improperly called Adamastor, also mentioned in the Gigantomachy of Claudian :

Ille, procul subitis fixus sine vulnere nodis,

Ut se letifero sensit durescere visu,

(Et steterat jam pæne lapis) " Quo vertimur ?" inquit: "Quæ serpit per membra silex? qui torpor inertem Marmorea me peste ligat?" Vix pauca locutus, Quod timuit, jam totus erat: sævusque Damastor, Ad depellendos jaculum dum quæreret hostes, Germani rigidum misit, pro rupe, cadaver.

Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius, and Freinshemius, on Quintus Curtius, make King Porus out to be an actual giant.

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