Quod vero recepta isthæc lectio, commissum cum Cuphitis prælium memorat, de quo apud reliquos scriptores qui res Alexandri memoriæ prodiderunt, altum quidem silentium est; (quamquam nemo sit illorum qui hoc prælium commissum esse negaverit;) an hoc, inquam, nos ad sollicitandam constantem codicum lectionem inducere debeat, ut pro commisso prælio illud omissum esse, Justinum diserte cogamus pronuntiare? Ego quidem necessitatem nullam video. Quod si hæc licentia daretur arti criticæ, ut si quæ in aliquo scriptore facta legimus commemorata, quæ ab aliis silentio involvantur, illa statim expungenda, aut per contortam emendationem in contrarium plane sensum forent convertenda, nihil fere certum aut constans in historicorum scriptorum commentariis reperiretur. Quominus autem tuani, vir nobilissime, emendationem admittere possim duæ potissimum obstant rationes: altera est, quod admissa tua emendatione, reliquæ Justini orationi sua non amplius ratio constet: sed integrum illud comma

foret

mention of a battle with the Cuphites, concerning which the other historians of Alexander are silent. But ought this silence to make us alter Justin's text, especially as none of these historians deny such a battle to have happened? If such licence be indulged to critics, that they may expunge or alter the words of an historian, because he is the sole relater of a particular event, we shall leave few materials for authentic history. Two reasons strongly militate against your correction: the first, that if it be admitted, there will no longer be any consistency in Justin's narrative; and the whole clause

foret expungendum: quid enim sibi vellet omissis hostibus in castra REVERTERUNT, quæ cur unquam relinquerent, admissa tua emendatione, nulla ratio aut necessitas fuit? Altera vero ratio, quæ istam tuam emendationem respuere videtur, hæc est, quod phrasis omittere hostes, omissis hostibus, Justino admodum trita, nusquam eodem sensu, quo tu adhibes, quantum quidem memini, apud Justinum occurrit: nusquam enim MILITES dicuntur omittere hostes, sed belli duces penes quos summum imperium est, non illi quorum est imperata facere, et qui hoc ipso loco deprecati sunt, ne juberentur amplius cum hoste congredi: accedit quod phrasis illa omissis hostibus aliis in locis non FINEM belli sed MUTATIONEM involvit: inspice locum a temet excitatum, lib. xxvii. c. 3. § 6. Sed omisso externo hoste in mutuum exitium BELLUM reparant. Addo

ego

clause must be expunged which mentions the return of the Macedonians into their camp; which, if they did not mean to fight, it was not necessary for them to leave. The second reason is, that the phrase omittere hostes, though frequently used by Jusun, is never, that I know, applied by him in the sense which you give to it. The generals entitled to direct military measures are said omittere hostes; but never the soldiers, whose duty it is to obey orders; and who, in the passage under consideration, request that they may not be ordered to renew the engagement with the enemy. To this may be added, that wherever this phrase, omissis hostibus, occurs in Justin, it denotes not an end, but only a change of the war. Turn to the passage which you formerly referred to, lib. xxvii. c. 3. § 6. "They left off fighting against their foreign enemy, and made war on each other:" to which you will find a parallel in lib. xxix. c. 2. § 7. By this oration he prevailed

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ego locum alterum, lib. xxix. c. 2. § 7. Hujuscemodi oratione impulit Philippum ut, omissis Ætolis, BELLUM Romanis inferret, &c. Cæterum sufficit Orosium suo tempore apud Justinum legisse cæsis hostibus, quo recepta lectio mirifice confirmatur, perinde ut illa magnopere vacillaret, si in ejus ætatis Justini codicibus omissis hostibus fuisse lectum constat.

De Syriæ civitatibus jure belli factis P. R. quod, iis quæ hactenus in hanc rem disputata sunt, addam, non habeo.

Moves denique, vir nobilissime, ne eadem semper chorda oberremus, neve amicæ disputationi materia desit, novam quæstionem circa I. Jul. Cæsaris consulatum, quem adiit Kal. Jan. A. U. C. DCXCV. anno ætatis XLI., quum per annales leges nemini licuerit, hunc magistratum petere ante annum ætatis XLIII. At vero hanc Villii, ut

cæteras

with Philip to leave off fighting against the Etolians, and to make war on the Romans." But it is sufficient that Orosius read casis hostibus in the copies of Justin which he made use of. If, by saying omissis hostibus, Orosius confirmed your conjecture, the reading in the text would be doubtful indeed.

I have nothing farther to add to my observations concerning the cities of Syria which the Romans acquired by the right of war. That we may not always harp on the old string, but have new matter for our friendly contest, you raise a difficulty concerning the first consulship of Julius Cæsar; which happened on the first of January, in the six hundred and ninety-fifth year of Rome, and in the forty-first of his age; although by the laws ascertaining the age of candidates, no person was entitled to crave that honour before his forty-third year. But this law, which was proposed by Villius,

VOL. I.

I I

cæteras annales leges, non fuisse perpetuæ observationis, et fasti et historiarum monumenta docent: apud Liv. lib. viii. c. 4. relatum legimus, C. Mario Rutilo et Q. Servilio Ahala coss. plebiscito cautum, ne quis eundem magistratum intra X annos capesséret: non tamen videtur aut lex ista perlata aut postea quicquam valuisse. Occurrit enim II. post istos coss. anno apud Fastorum conditores ipsumque T. Livium, T. Manlius Torquatus, qui IV. ante annos; postea M. Valerius Corvus, qui VIII.; L. Papirius Crassus, qui VI. coss. fuerant. Immo unus L. Papirius Cursor intra VIII annos quaternos consulatus gessit: quod fieri, lata hac lege, vel certe salva, non poterat. Huc etiam pertinent, quæ Dio Cass. lib. xl. § 56. de alia lege annali memorat: Pompeius, inquit, restituit legem de Comitiis, quæ jubet, ut magistratum aliquem ambientes ad ipsa

omnino

Villius, appears not, any more than other laws appertaining to the same object, to have been of perpetual authority; as we learn, both from the Roman historians and from the consular Fasti. Livy, lib. viii. c. 4, says, that in the consulship of C. Marius Rutilus and Q. Servilius Ahala, it was provided by a law of the people, that no person should bear the same magistracy twice in the space of ten years. But this law seems either not to have been confirmed, or not to have remained in force: for we afterwards find both in the Fasti and in Livy, that T. Manlius Torquatus was a second time consul in the space of four years; M. Valerius Corvus, in eight; and L. Papirius Crassus, in six: L. Papirius Cursor was four times consul in eight years: which things are inconsistent with this law. To this subject may be referred what Dio Cassius says concerning another law of the same kind, in his fortieth book, sect, 56. "Pompey restored the law of the Comitia, which prohibited any person from being elected

omnino Comitia præsto sint, (ώσε μηδένα ἀπένα αἱρεῖσθαι) neglectam omnino renovavit; et S. C. paulo prius factum, ut qui in urbe magistratus gessissent, externas provincias, ante V anni exitum, ne sortirentur, confirmavit. Nec vero puduit Pompeium, qui tum eas promulgacerat, ipsum Hispaniæ imperium in aliud quinquennium paulo post accipere: et Casari (cujus amici indignissime has leges ferebant) absenti quoque consulatus petendi potestatem eodem decreto concedere, &c. Quod vero jam ad Villianam illam annalem legem attinet, nec eam constanter ita fuisse observatam, ut nunquam migraretur, vel ex ipso Ciceronis loco, Orat. contra Rullum, colligi potest, ubi gloriatur quod ex nocis hominibus primus, et quidem prima petitione, anno suo, hoc honore fuerit auctus; cum qui ante ipsum ex hoc hominum genere, anno suo petierint, sine repulsa,

non

elected into any office of magistracy in his absence; a law which had fallen into total disuse; and confirmed another, which had been a short time before enacted by the senate, forbidding any man who had been a magistrate in the city to command in any foreign province before the expiration of five years. Yet Pompey, who had just past these laws, was not ashamed to accept his command in Spain for five years longer; and to grant, by the same decree, to Cæsar (whose friends impatiently brooked such regulations) the permission of being candidate for the consulship in his absence," &c. That the law proposed by Villius was not uniformly observed, appears from Cicero's oration against Rullus; where the orator boasts that he was the first man, not graced by ancient nobility, who had obtained the consulship in the year that he was entitled to solicit it: but this passage does not inform