plotter, which was thinking no evil, when one of the two was driving in a chariot wrapped up in a mantle, with his wife sitting by his side. It is hard to say which was the greatest hindrance to him, his dress, or his carriage, or his wife. How could a man be less ready for battle than when he was entangled in a mantle as in a net, hampered with a carriage, and fettered as it were by his wife clinging to him? Look, on the other hand, at Clodius, first setting out from his villa; all on a sudden: why? It was evening. Why was he forced to set out at such a time? Going slowly. What was the object of that, especially at that time of night? He turns aside to the villa of Pompeius. To see Pompeius? He knew that he was near Alsium. To see the villa? He had been in it a thousand times. What, then, was his object? Delay; he wanted to waste time. He did not choose to leave the spot till Milo arrived.

Come now, compare the journey of this unencumbered bandit with all the hindrances which beset Milo. Before this time he always used to travel with his wife; now he was without her. He invariably went in a carriage; now he was on horseback. His train were a lot of Greeklings wherever he was going; even when he was hastening to the camp in Etruria; but this time there were no triflers in his retinue. Milo, who was never in the habit of doing so, did by chance. have with him some musical slaves belonging to his wife, and troops of maid servants. The other man, who was always carrying with him prostitutes, worn-out debauchees both men and women, this time had no one with him except such a band that you might have. thought every one of them picked men. Why, then, was he defeated? Because the traveller is not always murdered by the robber; sometimes the robber is killed by the traveller; because, although Clodius in a state of perfect prepara

tion was attacking men wholly unprepared, still it was the case of a woman falling upon men. And, indeed, Milo was never so utterly unprepared for his violence, as not to be nearly sufficiently prepared. He was always aware how greatly it concerned the interest of Publius Clodius that he should be slain, how greatly he hated him, and how great was his daring. Wherefore, he never exposed his life to danger without some sort of protection and guard, knowing that it was threatened, and that a large price, as it were, was set upon it.

Add to this consideration all the chances; add the always uncertain result of a battle, and the common fortune of Mars, who often overthrows the man who is already exulting and stripping his enemy, and strikes him to the ground by some mean agent; and the blundering conduct of a leader who had dined and

drank, and who drank, and who was yawning and drowsy; who, when he had left his enemy cut off in the rear, never thought of his companions on the outskirts of his train; and then when he fell among them inflamed with anger, and despairing of saving the life of their master, he fell on that punishment which the faithful slaves inflicted on him as a retribution for their master's death. Why, then, has Milo emancipated them? He was afraid, I suppose, lest they should give information against him; lest they should be unable to bear pain; lest they should be compelled by tortures to confess that Publius Clodius was slain in the Appian road by the slaves of Milo.

What need is there of any torturer? What do you want to know? whether he was slain? He was slain. Whether he was slain lawfully or unlawfully? That is beyond the province of the torturer. For the rack can only inquire into the fact; it is the bench of judges that must decide on the law. . . .

Nor, indeed, is it without good reason that Milo's cause has always been ap

proved of by the senate. For these wisest of men took into consideration the whole circumstances of the case; Milo's presence of mind, and vigour in defending himself. Have you forgotten, O judges, when the news of Clodius's death was still recent, the opinions and the language which was held, not only by Milo's enemies, but also by other ignorant people? They said that he would not return to Rome at all. For if he had committed the deed in a passionate and excited mood, so that he had slain his enemy while under the influence of strong hatred, they thought that he would consider the death of Publius Clodius an event of such importance, that he would bear being deprived of his country with equanimity, as he had sated his hatred in th blood of his enemy; or, if he had deliberately intended to deliver his country by the slaughter of Clodius, then they thought that he, as a brave man, would not hesitate, after having brought safety to his country at his own risk, to submit with equanimity to the laws, to carry off with himself everlasting renown, and to leave those things to us to enjoy which he had preserved for us himself.

Many also spoke of Catiline and the monsters of his train. "We shall have another Catiline breaking out. He will occupy some strong place; he will make war on his country." Wretched sometimes is the fate of those citizens who have faithfully served the republic! when men not only forget the illustrious exploits which they have performed, but even suspect them of the most nefarious designs! Therefore, all those things those things were false, which would certainly have turned out true, if Milo had committed any action which he could not defend with honour and truth. . . .

And if people are even now afraid of Milo, we are not now under apprehension because of the charge respecting Clodius, but we are shuddering at your suspicions, at yours, I say, O Cnæus

Pompeius (for I address you yourself, and I speak loudly so that you may be able to hear me). If you are afraid of Milo,— if you believe that he either now cherishes wicked designs against your life, or that he ever has entertained such; if the levying of troops throughout Italy, as some of your recruiting-sergeants pretend,-if these arms,-if these cohorts in the Capitol,-if these watchmen, these sentinels,—if this picked body of youths, which is the guard of your person and your house, is all armed against an attack on the part of Milo; and if all these measures have been arranged, and prepared, and aimed against him alone,then certainly he must be a man of great power, of incredible courage; surely it must be more than the power and resources of one single man which are attributed to him, if the most eminent of our generals is invested with a command, and all Italy is armed against this one man. But who is there that does not understand that all the diseased and feeble parts of the republic were entrusted to you, O Pompeius, that you might heal and strengthen them with your arms? And if an opportunity had been afforded to Milo, he would, doubtless, have proved to you yourself, that no man was ever more dear to another than you are to him; that he had never shunned any danger which might be of service in promoting your dignity; that he had often contended against that most foul pest on behalf of your glory; that his conduct in his tribuneship had been entirely regulated by your counsels for the protection of my safety, which was an object very dear to you; that he afterwards had been defended by you when in danger of his life, and had been assisted by you when a candidate for the prætorship; and that he had always believed that the two firmest friends whom he had were you and I,-you, as shown by the kindness of your behaviour to him, and I, secured to him by the serv

ices which he himself had done me. And if he could not convince you of this,if that suspicion had sunk so deep in your mind that it could not possibly be eradicated; if, in short, Italy was never to have any rest from those levies, nor the city from arms, till Milo was ruined, then no doubt, he, without hesitation, would have departed from his country, a man born to make such sacrifices and accustomed to make them; but still he would have cited you, O Magnus, as a witness in his favour, as he now does.

See, now, how various and changeable is the course of human life,-how fickle and full of revolutions is fortune; what instances of perfidy are seen in friends, how they dissemble and suit their behaviour to the occasion; when dangers beset one, how one's nearest connexions fly off, and what cowardice they show. The time will come, ay, will most certainly come, that day will surely dawn some time or other, when you, though your affairs are all, as I trust they will be, in a really sound condition, though they may, perhaps, wear an altered appearance in consequence of some commotion of the times, such as we are all liable to (and how constantly such things happen we may know from experience),when you, I say, may be in need of the good-will of one who is most deeply attached to you, and the good faith of a man of the greatest weight and dignity, and the magnanimity of the very bravest man that ever lived in the world. Although, who would believe that Cnæus Pompeius, a man most thoroughly versed in public law, in the usages of our ancestors, and in all the affairs of the republic, after the senate had entrusted to him the charge of taking care "that the republic suffered no injury," by which one. line the consuls have always been sufficiently armed, even though no warlike weapons were given to them,-that he, I say, after having had an army and a levy

of troops given to him, would wait for a legal decision to repress the designs of that man who was seeking by violence to abolish the courts of justice themselves?

It was sufficiently decided by Pompeius, quite sufficiently, that all those charges were falsely brought against Milo; when he passed a law by which, as I conceive, he was bound to be acquitted by you,—at all events, as all men allow, might legally be acquitted. But when he sits in that place, surrounded by all those bands of public guards, he declares plainly enough that he is not striking terror into you (for what could be less worthy of him than to condemn a man whom he himself might punish if guilty, both by his own authority and in strict accordance with the precedents of our ancestors?), but that he keeps them about him for the sake of protection; that you may be aware that it is allowed to you to decide with freedom according to your own opinions, in contradiction to that assembly of the people which was held yesterday.

Nor, O judges, am I at all moved by the accusation respecting Clodius, nor am I so insane, and so ignorant of, and inexperienced in, your feelings, as not to be aware what your opinions are about the death of Clodius, concerning which, if I were unwilling to do away with the accusation in the manner in which I have done away with it, still I assert that it would have been lawful for Milo to proclaim openly, with a false but glorious boast, "I have slain, I have slain, not Spurius Mælius, who fell under the suspicion of aiming at kingly power by lowering the price of corn, and by squandering his own family estate, because by that conduct he was thought to be paying too much court to the common people; not Tiberius Gracchus, who out of a seditious spirit, abrogated the magistracy of his own colleague; whose slayers have filled the whole world with the renown of their name; but him" (for

he would venture to name him when he had delivered his country at his own risk) "who was detected in the most infamous adultery in the most sacred shrine, by most noble women; him, by the execution of whom the senate has repeatedly resolved that solemn religious observances required to be propitiated; him whom Lucius Lucullus, when he was examined on the point, declared on his oath that he had detected in committing unhallowed incest with his own sister; him, who by means of armed bands of slaves drove from the country that citizen whom the senate, whom the Roman people, whom all nations had declared to be the saviour of the city and of the lives of all the citizens; him, who gave kingdoms, took them away, and distributed the whole world to whomsoever he pleased; him who, after having committed numberless murders in the forum, drove a citizen of the most extraordinary virtue and glory to his own house by violence and by arms; him, to whom nothing was ever too impious to be done, whether it was a deed of atrocity or of lust; him, who burnt the temple of the nymphs, in order to extinguish the public record of the census which was committed to the public registers; lastly, him who acknowledged no law, no civil rights, no boundaries to any man's possessions, who sought to obtain other people's estates, not by actions at law and false accusations, not by unjust claims and false oaths, but by camps, by an army, by regular standards and all the pomp of war,-who, by means of arms and soldiers, endeavoured to drive from their possessions, not only the Etrurians, for he thoroughly despised them, but even this Publius Varius, that most gallant man and most virtuous citizen, one of our judges,-who went into other people's villas and grounds with architects and surveyors, who limited his hopes of acquiring possessions by Janiculum and the Alps; him, who, when he

was unable to prevail on an estimable and gallant Roman knight, Marcus Paconius, to sell him his villa on the Prelian Lake, suddenly conveyed timber, and lime, and mortar, and tools in barques to the island, and while the owner of the island was looking at him from the opposite bank, did not hesitate to build a house on another man's land; who said to Titus Furfanius-O ye immortal gods, what a man! (for why should I mention that insignificant woman, Scantia, or that youth Aponius, both of whom he threatened with death if they did not abandon to him the possession of their villas?) but he dared to say to Furfanius, that if he did not give him as much money as he demanded, he would carry a dead body into his house, and so raise a storm of unpopularity against him; who turned his brother Appius, a man connected with me by the most faithful friendship, while he was absent, out of the possession of his farm; who determined to run a wall across the vestibule of his sister's house in such a manner, and to draw the line of foundation in such a direction, as not only to deprive his sister of her vestibule, but of all access to her house, and of her own threshold."

Although all these things appeared such as might be endured,-although he attacked with equal fury the republic, and private individuals, and men who were at a distance, and men who were near, people who had no connexion with him, and his own relations; yet somehow or other the incredible endurance of the state had by long use grown hardened and callous. But as for the things which were at hand, and were impending over you, in what manner was it possible for you either to avert them or to bear them? If he had once obtained real power,-I say nothing of our allies, of foreign nations, and kings, and tetrarchs; for you would have prayed that he might turn himself against them rather than against

your possessions, your houses, and your money; money, do I say? your children, rather, I solemnly swear he would never have restrained himself from your children and from your wives. Do you think that these things are inventions of mine? They are evident; they are notorious to every one; they are proved. Is it an invention of mine that he was about to enlist an army of slaves in the city, by whose instrumentality he might take possession of the whole republic, and of the private fortune of every one?

Wherefore, if Titus Annius, holding in his hand a bloody sword, had cried out, "Come hither, I beg of you, and listen to me, O citizens: I have slain Publius Clodius; with this sword and with this right hand I have turned aside from your necks the frenzied attacks of that man whom we were unable to restrain by any laws, and by any judicial proceedings whatever; by my single efforts has it been brought to pass that right, and equity, and laws, and liberty, and modesty, and chastity remain in this city;" would there in truth have been any reason to fear in what manner the city would receive this announcement? For now, as it is, who is there who does not approve of what has been done? who does not praise it? who does not both say and feel that of all men to whom recollection can reach back, Titus Annius has done the republic the greatest service; that of all men he has diffused the greatest joy among the Roman people, and over the whole of Italy, and throughout all nations? I cannot form a conception of what would have been the old-fashioned joy of the Roman people. Already our age has seen many, and those most illustrious victories, won by consummate generals; but not one of them has brought with it a joy that either lasted so long, or that was so excessive while it did last.

-C. D. YONGE.

THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR 1

CÆSAR

[From the Civil War, Book I]

Cæsar takes advantage of a very remarkable introduction to a military narrative to make plain his own political conduct. He very skillfully defends his position, in undertaking war on the government as represented by the senate, while seeming merely to picture the unyielding attitude of the opposing faction. In the Civil War, Cæsar narrates the campaigns from the crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C. to the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalus in 48. For Cæsar, see above p. 108.

When Cæsar's dispatch had been handed to the consuls, the tribunes, with difficulty and after much wrangling, gained their permission for it to be read in the senate, but they could not obtain consent for a motion to be brought before the senate on the subject of the dispatch. The consuls bring forward a motion of the state of public affairs. The consul L. Lentulus puts pressure on the senate, and promises that he will not fail the republic if the senators are willing to express their opinions with boldness and resolution; but if they pay regard to Cæsar and try to win favour with him as they have done on previous occasions, he says that he will consider his own interests and will not obey their authority. "I too," said he, "can shelter myself under the favour and friendship of Cæsar." Scipio expresses himself in similar terms-that Pompeius is inclined not to desert the republic if the senate follows him; but if it delays and acts remissly, it will in vain solicit his aid should it wish to do so in the future.

This speech of Scipio appeared to come from the mouth of Pompeius himself, since the senate was meeting in the city and Pompeius was close at hand. Some

1 From the Loeb Classical Library, by permission.