Although we learn the story of Catilina's wickedness chiefly from the mouth of his enemies, the popularity he enjoyed among a large class of licentious and dissolute young nobles may serve rather to confirm than to invalidate it. Rome was thronged with men of this character, who shrank from no atrocity in the prospect of plunder or advancement, and were ready to lend all their influence to a leader, however justly infamous, whose abilities might promote their selfish ends. A deeper shade of suspicion, however, has been thrown upon the genuineness of the colours with which Cicero and Sallust have painted the arch conspirator, from the fact of his having been a candidate for the consulship, and therefore we must suppose not altogether unacceptable to a much larger number of honourable citizens. Is it possible, we ask ourselves, that a man generally suspected of aiming at an abolition of debts no less than the subversion of institutions, could have hoped for a preponderance of suffrages among the citizens of any regulated community? In the face however of the concurrent testimony of all our authorities, we cannot doubt the general correctness of the charges against Catilina. Could they have been fairly questioned, we must suppose that Sallust, as a bitter enemy of his adversaries, would not have failed to suggest some extenuation of them. On the whole Sallust's history seems to be written with remarkable fairness. His character of his patron Cæsar exhibits no party bias, and his respect for Cato, the most determined of his opponents, is strongly felt and boldly expressed. He is accused of undervaluing Cicero's merit. It is difficult at least to fasten upon him any charge of overtly disparaging that statesman; though, were we to take Cicero's own account of the affair, or indeed those of some other writers, we should doubtless be disposed to rate the consul's importance at this time much higher than Sal

lust himself would allow us to understand. This is a point which must always be open to difference of opinion. It is not unreasonable, however, to believe that Cicero's influence has been generally overrated. The nobles had been long aware of the imminence of such an outbreak as that of Catilina: they were secretly well pleased at the opportunity it would give them to take up a bold attitude, and strike a blow, which, while it crushed the military faction, would inspire terror into both the Marians and the moderates. They were glad to use Cicero, as an able and popular man, but one who, as a new man, could be easily disowned and discarded if unsuccessful, as their instrument in this measure. Accordingly they helped to raise him to the consulship at the critical moment, to the surprise of all the world, and even of himself, such an elevation having never before been accorded to one of his rank, except to the great military champion Marius. As soon as their object was attained and the outbreak crushed, the nobles suffered Cicero to drop. When Pompeius returned from Asia, and encouraged the impeachment with which Clodius threatened him, for his stretch of the consular prerogative, they drew back from his defence, and he fell without an arm held forth to save him. It then appeared how totally devoid he was of personal influence or substantial power in the state. From that time, though suffered to return from his exile, his part in public affairs was only secondary, and became indeed daily more trivial. During the civil wars of Cæsar and Pompeius he was neglected, his counsel disregarded, and himself almost driven contemptuously from the camp of the oligarchs. Cæsar condescended to solicit his countenance, but received his refusal with the coldest indifference. The conspirators against Cæsar did not care to consult him, and after they had struck their blow were but little elated by

his tardy adhesion. It was not till the liberators, Brutus, Cassius, and the rest, had quitted Rome for the East, till Antonius had taken up arms in the north of Italy, till Octavius had repaired to his legions to watch him, till even the consuls Hirtius and Pansa had marched forth from the city, that Cicero became at last the first man in the senate and the forum For the few months, indeed, next ensuing he continued to take the lead in the domestic affairs of the republic; his influence within that sphere became really effective; he enacted a great part, and crowned his long political life with a glorious àporeía. It is no reflection upon the wisdom and integrity of Cicero's public conduct to point out the inferiority of the position he was allowed to hold among his contemporaries; on the contrary, it may serve to display more fully the contrast between his honourable character and the selfish corruption of his times, that neither his talents nor his genuine patriotism availed to place him on the eminence from whence he could save the state from its conflicting factions. It is due however to Sallust to shew that the secondary place he assigns him is not really below the truth, nor to be ascribed to any unworthy jealousy on the part of the historian.

The Jugurtha, it must be admitted, is a work of far less interest than the Catilina. Farther removed himself from the period to which it refers, and with no personal knowledge of the events and characters it brings before us, Sallust in the second of his histories enters into an unequal rivalry with his earlier achievement. Nevertheless there is much life and expression in his portraiture of the times at Rome; the ambition of the nobles and the growing corruption of the people, as there represented, prepare us for the crisis of the civil wars which was soon about to be developed. The early career of Marius and Sulla, their selfish ambition

and personal antagonism, serve as a preface to the records of slaughter and proscription with which their names were to become conspicuously blended. Jugurtha himself, the crafty Numidian, bold and active, with inexhaustible resources and devoid of scruples, combining the subtilty of the Carthaginian with the ferocity of the Moor, is interesting not only on his own account, but as a type of the African character, such as it was afterwards exemplified in Tacfarinas, and recently in Abd-el-kader. The struggle of the serpent and the eagle, so favourite a subject with poets and painters, has been delineated by no historian so vividly as by Sallust.

C. SALLUSTII

CATILINA.

I. OMNES1 homines, qui sese student2 præstare ceteris animalibus3, summa ope niti decet vitam silentio ne transeant, veluti pecora, quæ natura prona, atque ventri obedientia, finxit. Sed nostra omnis