the untutored democracy. The crowd ruled the roost. Likewise at Rome, so long as the constitution was unsettled, so long as the country kept wearing itself out with factions and dissensions and disagreements, so long as there was no peace in the forum, no harmony in the senate, no restraint in the courts of law, no respect for authority, no sense of propriety on the part of the officers of state, the growth of eloquence was doubtless sturdier, just as untilled soil produces certain vegetation in greater luxuriance. But the benefit derived from the eloquence of the Gracchi did not make up for what the country suffered from their laws, and too dearly did Cicero pay by the death he died for his renown in oratory. In the same way what little our orators have left them of the old forensic activities goes to show that our civil condition is still far from being ideally perfect. Does any one ever call us lawyers to his aid unless he is either a criminal or in distress? Does any country town ever ask for our protection except under pressure either from an aggressive neighbor or from internal strife? Are we ever retained for a province where robbery and oppression have not been at work? Yet surely it were better to have no grievances than to need to seek redress. If a community could be found in which nobody ever did anything wrong, orators would be just as superfluous among saints as doctors among those that need no physician. Just as the healing art, I repeat, is very little in demand and makes very little progress in countries where people enjoy good health and strong constitutions, so oratory has less prestige and smaller consideration where people are well behaved and ready to obey their rulers. What is the use of long arguments in the senate, when good citizens agree so quickly? What is the use of one harangue after another on public platforms, when it is not the ignorant multitude that decides a political issue, but a monarch who is the incarnation of wisdom? What is the use of taking a prosecution on one's own shoulders when misdeeds are so few and so trivial, or of making oneself unpopular by a defence of inordinate length, when the defendant can count on a gracious judge meeting him half-way. Believe me, my friends, you will have all the eloquence that the times require: if you had lived in bygone days, or if the orators who rouse our admiration had lived to-day,-if some deity, I say, had suddenly made you change places in your lives and epochs, you would have attained to their brilliant reputation for eloquence just as surely as they would show your restraint and self-control. As things are, since it is impossible for any body to enjoy at one and the same time great renown and great repose, let every one make the most of the blessings his own times afford without disparaging any other age. -WILLIAM PETERSON. HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS SILIUS ITALICUS [From the Punica, Book III] Silius Italicus (about 25 to 101) withdrew from a successful public career, in which he had reached the consulship, to devote himself to elaborating an epic poem on the historical subject of the second Punic war. He seems to have been the author also of a metrical abridgement of the Iliad. Beyond the Pyrenean's lofty bound, Through blackening forests shagged with pine around, The Carthaginian passed; and, fierce, explored The Volcan champaign with his wasting sword. Then trod the threatening banks, with hastening force, Tossed its white eddies on the frothy strand, Where Rhone high-swelling rolls its sweeping course. From Alpine heights, and steep rocks, And, sullen, murmured on its chafing capped with snow, Gushes the Rhone, where Gaul is stretched below, sand. Now stretched the onward host their long array Cleaves with a mighty surge the foaming Through the Tricastine plains; and plain, And with broad torrent rushes in the main. Swollen Arar mingles slow its lingering tide, That, silent gliding, scarcely seems to glide: Caught in wound their way O'er smooth ascents, and where Vocontia yields The level champaign of her verdant fields. Athwart their easy march Druentia spread the headlong whirlpool, The devastation of its torrent bed: breaks away, Turbid with stones and trunks of trees, descends Snatched through the plains, and start ing from delay; Plunged in the deep the hurried stream is tost, And in the greater flood its name is lost. Alert the troops the bridgeless current brave, With head and neck upraised above the wave, Secure their steely swords; or firm divide, With sinewy arms, the strong and boisterous tide. The war-steed, bound on rafts, the river treads; Nor the vast elephant retarding dreads To tempt the ford; while scattered earth they strow O'er the hid planks, that hide the stream below. Loosed from the banks the gradual cord extends, And on the flood the unconscious beast descends. The Alpine stream; the ashen forests rends; Rolls mountain fragments, crumbling to the shock, And beats with raving surge the channelled rock. Of nameless depth its ever-changing bed Betrays the fording warrior's faithless tread; The broad and flat pontoon is launched in vain, High swells the flood with deluges of rain; Snatched with his arms the staggering soldier slides, And mangled bodies toss in gulfy tides. But now, the o'erhanging Alps, in prospect near, Efface remembered toils in future fear. While with eternal frost, with hailstones piled, The ice of ages grasps those summits wild. As the trooped quadrupeds, down-sliding Stiffening with snow the mountain soars slow, Launched on the stream that, quivering, dashed, below; Beneath the incumbent weight, with starting tide, The rapid Rhone poured back on every side: in air, many a cloud, While sinking rocks beneath his footsteps bowed: And striving, leave the vanquished steeps below, Where never foot had touched the eternal snow. Did Taurus, piled on Athos, pierce the skies; And Mimas, heaved on Rhodope, arise; Hæmus its steepy mass on Othrys roll; And Pelion, reared on Ossa, shade the pole; Mountain on mountain would in vain be hurled, And lessening shrink beside the Alpine world. A lingering holy dread the soldier bound; His step hung doubtful, as on sacred ground: It seemed that Nature's self the access denied; And concrete frost the whitening cliff bespread; Through the reluctant ice his arm explored The upward track, that opened to his sword. Oft the thawed surface from the footstep shrank; Sucked in the absorbing gulf the war riors sank; Or from high ridge the mass of rushing snow In humid ruin whelmed the ranks below. On dusky wings the west-wind swept the heaven; Dull in their face the snowy whirls were driven; Now from their empty grasp the arms are torn, And sudden on the howling whirlwind borne; Snatched on the blast, the wrested weapons fly, And wheel in airy eddies round the sky. When, striving o'er the ascent, the height they gain With planted foot, increasing toils remain: Yet other heights their upward view surprise, And opening mountains upon mountains rise. No joy results from breathless efforts past; The plains are won, yet still the mountains last: Repeated summits fright their aching eyes, While one white heap of frost in circling prospect lies. Thus in mid-sea, the mariner explores, With fruitless longing, the receded shores: When no fresh wind, with spirit-stirring gale, Bends the tall mast, or fills the flagging sail; O'er boundless deeps his eyes exhausted rove, wrote in the times of Vespasian. His epic poem called Argonautica gives evidence of power in the analysis and delineation of character, an ability characteristic of many of the writers of the latter part of the first century. Romantic love as a theme for literature is rare in Greek and Roman poetry. Valerius Flaccus was influenced, as Virgil had been before him, by Apollonius of Rhodes, who is unique among the ancients in his treatment of the motive. Trembling within her chamber walls, afraid Of her own deeds, remained the Colchian maid. The threats and furies of her father rise In flitting vision to her wandering eyes: No more the azure deeps inflict dismay, And no far land to her is far away. Whate'er the bark, whate'er the ocean be, She pants to climb the deck, nor fears the sea. Then on her virgin fillets she bestowed A last, last kiss; while tears in torrents flowed: Clung with fond arms round that deserted bed; And rent her cheeks and hair: for, ere she fled, The traces of her ancient dream again Rose wildering on her melancholy brain. On the prest couch her grovelling form she throws, And, thus exclaiming, breathes her parting woes. "Oh did my father these embraces give, And fondly bless the wretched fugitive! Oh could'st thou, most revered Æetes! see Those streaming tears! for not more loved is he; No trust me, father! not more dear than thee! Oh! that the swelling waves might close above, And I might perish with the man I love! My prayers I leave thee: may thy reign endure To long old age, in placid rest secure: And other children, oh my father! be Worthier thy trust, and kinder far than me!" She said; and drew from caskets, fraught with death, Drugs prized by Jason to his latest breath: The magic poisons intricate inrolled Within her virgin vesture's bosom fold; With these her jewelled necklace, artful, stored, And in her mantle wrapped the murderous sword. Then forth she leaped; as if the Furies urged Her haste, and with their twisted serpents scourged. So with scared foot the flying Ino leaps, Clasping the unheeded babe, among the deeps: With vain pursuit the husband stretches o'er The isthmus sands, and raging stamps the shore. The hero, first, had sought the grove; and stood, |