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magistrates, and we plebeian: our enemies take heart, grow elated and presumptuous. In the name of the immortal gods, what is it, Romans, you would have? You desired tribunes; for the sake of peace, we granted them. You were eager to have decemvirs; we consented to their creation. You grew weary of these decemvirs; we obliged them to abdicate. Your hatred pursued them when reduced to private men; and we suffered you to put to death, or banish, patricians of the first rank in the republic. You insisted upon the restoration of the tribuneship; we yielded; we quietly saw consuls of your own faction elected. You have the protection of your tribunes, and the privilege of appeal; the patricians are subjected to the decrees of the commons. Under pretence of equal and impartial laws, you have invaded our rights; and we have suffered it, and we still suffer it. When shall we see an end of discord? When shall we have one interest, and one common country? Victorious and triumphant, you show less temper than we under defeat. When you are to contend with us, you can seize the Aventine hill, you can possess yourselves of the Mons Sacer.

12. CHRYSOSTOM, ON THE DECEITFULNESS OF WORLDLY

GRANDEUR.

Where is now that splendor of the most exalted dignities? Where are those marks of honor and distinction? What has become of that pomp of feasting and rejoicings? What is the issue of those frequent acclamations, and extravagantly flattering encomiums, lavished by a whole people assembled in the circus to see the public shows? A single blast of wind has stripped that proud tree of all its leaves; and, after shaking its very roots, has forced it in an instant out of the earth. Where are those false friends, those vile flatterers, those parasites so assiduous in making their court, and in discovering a servile attachment by their words and actions? All this is gone and fled away, like a dream, like a flower, like a shadow.

Had I not just reason to set before Eutropius the inconstancy of riches? He now has found, by his own experience, that, like fugitive slaves, they have abandoned him, and are become, in some measure, traitors and murderers, since they are the principal cause of his fall. I often repeated to him that he ought to have a greater regard to my admonitions, how grating soever they might appear, than to the insipid praises which flatterers were perpetually lavishing on him, because, “faithful

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are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

Had I not just reason to address him in this manner? What has become of the crowd of courtiers? They have turned their backs; they have renounced his friendship; and are solely intent upon their own interest and security, even at the expense of his. We submitted to his violence, in the meridian of his fortune, and, now he is fallen, we support him to the utmost of our power. The church, against which he has warred, opens its bosom to receive him; and the theatres, the eternal object of his favor, which had so often drawn down his indignation upon us, have abandoned and betrayed him.

I do not speak this to insult the misfortunes of him who is fallen, nor to open and make wounds smart that are still bleeding; but in order to support those who are standing, and teach them to avoid the like evils. And the only way to avoid these, is, to be fully persuaded of the frailty and vanity of worldly grandeurs. To call them a flower, a blade of grass, a smoke, a dream, is not saying enough, since they are even below nothing. Of this we have a very sensible proof before our eyes.

What man ever rose to such a height of grandeur? Was he not immensely rich? Did he not possess every dignity? Did not the whole empire stand in fear of him? And now, more deserted, and trembling still more, than the meanest of unhappy wretches, than the vilest slave, than the prisoners confined in dungeons; having perpetually before his eyes, swords unsheathed to destroy himself; torments and executioners! deprived of daylight at noonday, and expecting, every moment, that death which perpetually stares him in the face!

You were witnesses, yesterday, when people came from the palace in order to drag him hence, how he ran to the holy altars, shivering in every limb, pale and dejected, scarce uttering a word but what was interrupted by sobs and groans, and rather dead than alive. I again repeat, I do not declaim in this manner in order to insult his fall, but to move and affect you by the description of his calamities, and to inspire you with tenderness and compassion for one so wretched.

13. FROM CICERO'S FIRST ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

How far wilt thou, Oh Catiline! abuse our patience? How long shall thy madness outbrave our justice? To what extremities art thou resolved to push thy unbridled insolence of

guilt! Canst thou behold the nocturnal arms that watch the palatium, the guards of the city, the consternation of the citizens; all the wise and worthy clustering into consultation; this impregnable situation of the seat of the senate, and the reproachful looks of the fathers of Rome? Canst thou, I say, behold all this, and yet remain undaunted and unbashed? Art thou sensible that thy measures are detected?

Art thou sensible that this senate, now thoroughly informed, comprehend the full extent of thy guilt? Point me out the senator ignorant of thy practices, during the last and the preceding night; of the place where you met, the company you summoned, and the crime you concerted. The senate is conscious, the consul is witness to this: yet mean and degenerate! the traitor lives! Lives! did I say? He mixes with the senate; he shares in our counsels; with a steady eye he surveys us; he anticipates his guilt; he enjoys his murderous. thoughts, and coolly marks us out for bloodshed. Yet we, boldly passive in our country's cause, think we act like Roman's if we can escape his frantic rage.

Long since, Oh Catiline! ought the consul to have doomed thy life a forfeit to thy country; and to have directed upon thy own head the mischief thou hast long been meditating for ours. Could the noble Scipio, when sovereign pontiff, as a private Roman, kill Tiberius Gracchus for a slight encroachment upon the rights of his country; and shall we, her consuls, with persevering patience endure Catiline, whose ambition is to desolate a devoted world with fire and sword?

There was there was a time, when such was the spirit of Rome, that the resentment of her magnanimous sons more sternly crushed the Roman traitor, than the most inveterate enemy. Strong and weighty, Oh Catiline! is the decree of the senate we can now produce against you; neither wisdom is wanting in this state, nor authority in this assembly; but we, the consuls, we are defective in our duty.

14. FROM CICERO'S FOURTH ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

I perceive, conscript fathers, that every look, that every eye is fixed upon me. I see you solicitous not only for your own, and your country's danger, but was that repelled, for mine also. This proof of your affection is grateful to me in sorrow, and pleasing in distress; but, by the immortal gods! I conjure you to lay it all aside; and without any regard to my safety, think

only of yourselves, and of your families. For should the condition of my consulship be such as to subject me to all manner of pains, hardships and sufferings, I will bear them not only resolutely but cheerfully, if by my labors I can secure your dignity and safety, with that of the people of Rome. Such, conscript fathers, has been the fortune of my consulship, that neither the forum, that centre of all equity; nor the field of Mars, consecrated by consular auspices; nor the senate-house, the principal refuge of all nations; nor domestic walls, the common asylum of all men; nor the bed, destined to repose; nay, nor even this honorable seat, this chair of state, have been free from perils, and from the snares of death. Many things have I dissembled, many have I suffered, many have I yielded to, and many struggled with in silence, for your quiet. But if the immortal gods would grant that issue to my consulship, of saving you, conscript fathers, and the people of Rome, from a massacre; your wives, your children, and the vestal virgins, from the bitterest persecutions; the temples and altars of the gods, with this our fair country, from sacrilegious flames; and all Italy from war and desolation; let what fate soever attend me, I will be content with it. For if Publius Lentulus, upon the report of soothsayers, thought his name portended the ruin of the state; why should not I rejoice that my consulship has been as it were reserved by fate for its preservation.

Wherefore, conscript fathers, think of your own safety; turn your whole care upon the state; secure yourselves, your wives, your children, your fortunes; guard the lives and dignity of the people of Rome, and cease your concern and anxiety for me. For first, I have reason to hope, that all the gods the protectors of this city, will reward me according to my deserts. Then, should any thing extraordinary happen, I am prepared to die with an even and constant mind. For death can never be dishonorable to the brave, nor premature to one who has reached the dignity of consul, nor afflicting to the wise.

15. GERMANICUS TO HIS MUTINOUS SOLDIERS.

My wife and children are ever dear to me, but not more so than my father and the commonwealth. But the emperor will be safe in his own imperial dignity, and the commonwealth has other armies to fight her battles. For my wife and children, if from their destruction you might derive additional glory, I could yield them up a sacrifice in such a cause: at present

If horrors are

I remove them from the rage of frantic men. still to multiply, let my blood glut your fury. The great grandson of Augustus, and the daughter-in-law of Tiberius, need not be left to fill the measure of your iniquity. Without that horrible catastrophe the scene of guilt may end. But let me ask you, in these last few days what have you not attempted? What have you left unviolated? By what name shall I now address you? Shall I call you soldiers? Soldiers! Who have dared to besiege the son of your emperor! who have made him a prisoner in his own entrenchments! Can I call you citizens? Citizens who have trampled under your feet the authority of the senate; who have violated the most awful sanctions, even those which hostile states have ever held in respect, the rights of ambassadors and the law of nations! Julius Cæsar by a single word was able to quell a mutiny: he spoke to the men who resisted his authority: he called them Romans, and they became his soldiers. Augustus showed himself to the legions who fought at Actium, and the majesty of his countenance awed them to obedience. The distance between myself and these illustrious characters, I know is great; and yet, descended from them, with their blood in my veins, I should resent with indignation a parallel outrage from the soldiers of Syria, or of Spain: and will you, ye men of the first legion, who received your colors from the hand of Tiberius; and you, ye men of the twentieth, his fellow-warriors in the field, his companions in so many victories, will you thus requite him for all the favors so graciously bestowed upon you? From every other quarter of the empire, Tiberius has received nothing but joyful tidings; and must I wound his ear with the news of your revolt? Must he hear from me, that neither the soldiers raised by himself, nor the veterans who fought under him, are willing to own his authority? Must he be told that neither dismissions from the service, nor money lavishly granted, can appease the fury of ungrateful men? Must I inform him, that here centurions are murdered; that, in this camp, the tribunes are driven from their post; that here the ambassadors of Rome are detained as prisoners? That the entrenchments present a scene of slaughter; that rivers are discolored with our blood; and that a Roman general leads a precarious life, at the mercy of men inflamed with an epidemic madness?

Why, the other day, when I endeavored to address you, why was the sword which I aimed at my breast, why in that moment was it wrested from me? Oh! my mistaken friends! the man who presented his sword dealt more kindly by me. I could then have closed my eyes in peace. I should not have

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