these works, he is said to have composed five books of " Metamorphoses," which are the prototypes of those of Ovid, and were closely copied in those of Antonius Liberalis; and to have written several historical pieces, especially, "A history of Colophon," a work entitled "Etolics," and a general history of Europe; so that his various knowledge seems to have merited the eulogies which were passed upon him in several epigrams, in the first book of the "Anthologia." A great number of editions of the two poems first mentioned, in Greek and in Latin versions, have been printed at different times and places. The best are those of Aldus, 1522; Bandini, 1764; and Schnider, 1792, 8vo.

ASCLEPIADES, a celebrated physician among the ancients, was a native of Prusa, in Bithynia, and practised physic at Rome, about B. C. 96. He was the head of a sect; and by prescribing wine and cold water for the cure of the sick, acquired a very great reputation. He wrote several books, which are frequently mentioned by Galen, Celsus, and Pliny; but they are now lost.

PERIOD XV.

FROM SPARTACUS TO CALIGULA.

[B. C. 100.]

REMARKABLE FACTS, EVENTS AND DISCOVERIES.

88 Rome besieged by the Marian faction.

83 Sylla created perpetual dictator.

69 A census at Rome: 450,000 citizens.

66 Catiline's conspiracy.

55 Julius Cæsar's first expedition into Britain. Crassus defeated and killed by the Parthians.

51 Gaul reduced to a Roman province.

50 A census at Rome: 320,000 citizens.

48 The battle of Pharsalia, between Cæsar and Pompey, in which the latter is defeated. The Alexandrian library, consisting of 400,000

valuable books, burnt by accident.

45 The war of Africa, in which Cato kills himself. The solar year introduced by Cæsar.

44 Cæsar, after having fought fifty pitched battles, and slain [1,192,000 men, killed in the senate house.

42 The republicans defeated at Philippi.

31 The battle of Actium fought, in which Marc Antony and Cleopatra are totally defeated by Octavius.

30 Alexandria taken by Octavins, upon which Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves, and Egypt is reduced to a Roman province.

29 A census at Rome : 4,101,017 citizens.

27 Octavius, by a decree of the senate, obtains the title of Augustus Cæsar, and an absolute exemption from the Laws. The Pantheon at Rome built.

19 Rome at the height of its glory. The temple of Jerusalem rebuilt by Herod. The magnificent aqueducts at Rome, constructed by Agrippa.

8 A census at Rome: 42,333,000 citizens.

5. The temple of Janus shut by Augustus, as an emblem of universal peace.

DURING this period the kingdom of Judæa fell under the power of Rome. This state owed the loss of its liberty to the same cause that had ruined several others, namely, calling in the Romans to be arbitrators between two contending parties. The two sons of Alexander Jannæus, Hyrcanæus and Aristobulus, contended for the kingdom. Aristobulus, being defeated by the party of Hyrcanæus, applied to the Romans. Pompey the Great, who acted as ultimate judge in this affair, decided against Aristobulus, but at the same time deprived Hyrcanæus of all power as a king, not allowing him even to assume the

regal title, or to extend his territory beyond the ancient borders of Judæa. He even obliged him to give up all those cities in Cœlo-Syria and Phoenicia, which had been gained by his predecessors, and added them to the newly acquired Roman province of Syria. Thus the Romans became masters of all the eastern parts of the world, from the Mediterranean sea to the borders of Parthia.

In the west, however, the Gauls were still free, and the Spanish nations bore the Roman yoke with great impatience. The Gauls infested the territories of the republic by their frequent incursions, which were sometimes very terrible; and though several attempts had been made to subdue them, they always proved insufficient till the time of Julius Cæsar. By him they were totally reduced, from the Rhine to the Pyrenean mountains, and many nations almost exterminated.— He carried his arms also into Germany and the southern parts of Britain; but in neither of these parts did he make any permanent conquests. The civil wars between him and Pompey gave him an opportunity of seizing on the kingdom of Mauritania, and those parts of Numidia which had been allowed to retain their liberty.

The kingdom of Egypt remained alone independent, but to it nothing belonged except the country properly so called. Cyrenaica was bequeathed by will to the Romans, and Cyprus was seized by them without any pretence, about the year B. C. 58. Egypt continued for some time longer free, which must be ascribed partly to the internal dissensions of the republic, but more especially to the amours of Pompey, Julius Cæsar, and Marc Antony, with Cleopatra. The battle of Actium, however, determined the fate of Antony, Cleopatra, and Egypt itself, which was reduced to a Roman province, B. Ĉ. 9.

While the Romans embraced every opportunity of reducing the world to their obedience, they were making one another feel the same miseries at home, which they inflicted upon other nations abroad. The first civil dissensions took their rise at the siege of Numantia in Spain. This small city had resisted the power of the Romans for six years. Once they gave them a most terrible and disgraceful defeat, wherein thirty thousand Romans fled before four thousand Numantines, twenty thousand were killed in the battle, and the other ten thousand were so shut up that it was not possible to escape. In this extremity they were obliged to negociate with the enemy, and a peace was concluded upon the following terms. 1. That the Numantines should suffer the Romans to retire unmolested; and, 2. That Numantia should maintain its independence, and be reckoned among the Roman allies. The Roman senate, with an injustice and ingratitude hardly to be matched, broke this treaty, and in return ordered the commander of their army to be delivered up to the Numantines: but they refused to accept of him, unless his army was delivered along with him; upon which the war was renewed, and ended in the tragical manner above related.

The fate of Numantia, however, was soon avenged. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, brother in law to Scipio Africanus the younger, had been a chief promoter of the peace with the Numantines, and of consequence had been in danger of being delivered up to them along with the commander-in-chief. This disgrace he never forgot, and in revenge, undertook the cause of the plebeians against the patricians,

by whom the former were greatly oppressed. He began with reviving an old law which had enacted that no Roman citizen should possess more than five hundred acres of land. The overplus he proposed to distribute among those who had no lands, and to reimburse the rich out of the public treasury. This law met with great opposition, bred many tumults, and at last ended in the murder of Gracchus, and the persecution of his friends, several hundreds of whom were put to cruel deaths without any form of law.

These disturbances did not cease with the death of Gracchus. New contests ensued on account of the Sempronian law, and the giving to the Italian allies the privilege of Roman citizens. This last not only produced great commotions in the city, but occasioned a general revolt of the states of Italy against the republic of Rome. This rebellion was not quelled without the utmost difficulty, and in the mean time the city was deluged with blood by the contending factions of Sylla and Marius; the former of whom took part with the patricians, and the latter with the plebeians. These disturbances ended in the perpetual dictatorship of Sylla, about the year B. C. 80.

From this time we may date the loss of the Roman liberty; for though Sylla resigned his dictatorship two years after, the succeeding contests between Cæsar and Pompey proved equally fatal to the republic. These contests were decided by the battle of Pharsalia, by which Cæsar became master of the empire, B. C. 48. Without loss of time he then crossed over into Africa; totally defeated the republican army in that continent, and by reducing Mauritania to a Roman province, completed the Roman conquests in those parts. His victory over the sons of Pompey at Miurda, B. C. 40, secured him from any further apprehension of a rival. Being, therefore, sole master of the Roman empire, and having all the power of it at his command, he projected the greatest schemes; tending, according to some, not less to the happiness than to the glory of his country; when he was assassinated in the senate house in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and B. C. 44.

From the transactions which had long preceded, as well as those which immediately followed the murder of Cæsar, it is evident that Rome was incapable of longer preserving its liberty, and that the people had become unfit for being free. The efforts of Brutus and Cassius were therefore unsuccessful, and ended in their own destruction, and that of great numbers of their followers in the battle of Philippi. The defeat of the republicans was followed by numberless disturbances, murmurs, proscriptions, &c., till at last Octavianus, having cut off all who had the courage to oppose him, and finally got the better of his rivals by the victory at Actium put an end to the republic in the year B. C. 31.

The destruction of the Roman republic proved advantageous to the few nations of the world who still retained their liberty. That outrageous desire of conquest, which had so long marked the Roman character, now in a great measure ceased; because ambitious men could not gratify their desire, by courting the favour of the emperor. After the final reduction of the Spaniards, therefore, and the conquest of Mæsia, Parmonia, and some other countries adjacent to the Roman territories, and which in a manner seemed naturally to belong to them, the empire enjoyed for some time a profound peace.

GOVERNMENT.

SPARTACUS, one of the scourges of Roman tyranny and cruelty, a native of Thrace, was born of very low parents, entered the army, and afterwards became a deserter, and a robber. Being taken, he was confined as a gladiator in a receptacle at Capua with those unfortunate men whose lives were devoted to the pleasure of the Roman people. He escaped the horrid den, and placing himself at the head of a body of gladiators and fugitive slaves, he took a fortified place in the year B. C. 72, whence he made predatory excursions throughout Campania. His force daily increased, and he defeated several commanders who were sent against him. He marched into Cisalpine Gaul, in order to give the slaves in his army, who were mostly Thracians and Gauls, an opportunity of returning home. Part of them, however, greedy of pillage, separated themselves from their commander, and were cut to pieces. The consul Lentulus, upon this success, which was extremely partial, pursued Spartacus, who turned about and gave him a total defeat; and then, in his turn, becoming the aggressor, he marched against the other consul, Gellius, drove him from the field, and obliged him to take shelter in the walled towns. He retaliated the cruelty of the Romans towards the gladiators, by obliging a number of his captives to fight with each other round the funeral pyre of one of his commanders. He was now at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men, and with these he ravaged most of the provinces of Italy, and struck such a terror at Rome, that Crassus, at that time one of the greatest commanders in the city, was sent against him. He soon confined Spartacus in Lucania, and cut off some of his detachments, so that he would gladly have crossed over to Sicily, but being prevented, he took a post in a peninsula near Rhegium, where Crassus enclosed him by a rampart drawn from sea to sea. Spartacus, however, found means to break through this barrier, and gain the open country, but he was here deserted by a large body of his followers, who became the victims of Crassus. Spartacus now retreated towards the mountains, and repulsed with loss some of his pursuers. This success was, however, his ruin; for his men insisted upon his return to give battle to Crassus in the open field. Before the commencement of the engagement, Spartacus stabbed his horse, exclaiming, " if I am victorious, I can easily get another; if vanquished, I shall not want any. After a long contest, the Roman discipline prevailed. Spartacus, during extraordinary exertions of valour, was surrounded, and fell, pierced with a multitude of wounds. He was unquestionably a brave man, and something more than a courageous barbarian. "He had," says Plutarch, "not only