Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Book.C. 143. His famous treatise De Officiis was the groundwork of Cicero's book; who says that he was in every way worthy of the intimate friendship with which he was honored by Scipio and Lælius. Cic., de Fin., iv., 9; Or., i., 11; De Off., pass. Hor., i., Od. xxix., 14. The title of his book is περὶ τοῦ καθήκοντος. He also wrote De Providentia, De Magistratibus. [1579] _Bello secundo_, i. e., the Second Punic War (from B.C. 218-201), a period pre-eminently rich in great men. Not to mention their great generals, Marcellus, Scipio, etc., this age saw M. Porcius Cato; the historians Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus; the poets Livius Andronicus, Ennius, Nævius, Pacuvius, Plautus, etc.; and among the Greeks, Archimedes, Chrysippus, Eratosthenes, Carneades, and the historians Zeno and Antisthenes. [1580] _Sententia dia._ Hor., i., Sat. ii., 31, "Macte Virtute esto, inquit _sententia dia_." [1581] _Prisci Catonis._ Priscus is, as Dusa shows on the authority of Plutarch, not the _epithet_, but the _name_ of Cato, by which he was distinguished. So Horace, iii. Od., xxi., 11, "Narratur et Prisci Catonis sæpe mero caluisse virtus." (But cf. Hor., ii., Ep. ii., 117.) [1582] _Catonis._ Both Horace and Sulpicia have imitated Lucilius, "Valerî sententia dia." Fr. incert., 105. [1583] _Staret._ Nasica, as Sallust tells us, in spite of Cato's "Delenda est Carthago," was always in favor of the preservation of Carthage; as the existence of the rival republic was the noblest spur to Roman emulation. [1584] _Defendere._ Livy shows throughout, that the only periods of respite from intestine discord were under the immediate pressure of war from without. The particular allusion here is probably to the time of Hannibal. So Juv., vi., 286, _seq._, "Proximus Urbi Hannibal et stantes Collinâ in turre mariti." Liv., xxvi., 10. Sil. Ital., xii., 541, _seq._ Sallust has the same sentiment, "Metus hostilis in bonis artibus civitatem retinebat." Bell. Jug., 41. [1585] _Convenit._ The next four lines are hopelessly corrupt. The following emendations have been adopted: _domus arxque movetur_ for _Arce Monetæ_: _pax secura_ for _apes secura_: _laborum_ for _favorum_: _patres_que for _mater_, or the still older reading, _frater_; of which last Dusa says, "Neque istud verbum emissim titivillitio." [1586] _Exitium pax._ Juv., vi., 292, "Sævior armis Luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem." Compare the beautiful passage in Claudian (de Bell. Gild., 96), "Ille diu miles populus qui præfuit orbi," etc. [1587] _Romulidarum._ Cf. ad Pers., i., 31. [1588] _Smyrna peribat._ Smyrna was attacked by Gyges, king of Lydia, but resisted him with success. It was compelled, however, to yield to his descendant, Alyattes, and in consequence of this event, it sunk into decay and became deserted for the space of four hundred years. Alexander formed the project of rebuilding the town in consequence of a vision. His design was executed by Antigonus and Lysimachus. Vid. Herod., i., 14-16. Paus., Bœot., 29. Strabo, xiv., p. 646. (An allusion to Phocæa or Teos would have been more intelligible. Cf. Herod., i., 165, 168. Hor., Epod. xvi., 17.) The next three lines are corrupt: the reading followed is, "Vel denique quid vis: Te, Dea, quæso illud tantum." [1589] _Caleno._ Calenus, the husband of Sulpicia, probably derived his name from Cales in Campania, now Calvi. (Hor., i., Od. xx., 9. Juv., i., 69.) It was the cognomen of Q. Fufius, consul, B.C. 47. The readings in the next line vary: _pariter ne obverte_; _pariterque averte_; _pariterque adverte_. Dusa's explanation is followed in the text. Sulpicia prays that her husband may not be induced by the allurements of inglorious ease to remain longer in Rome or its neighborhood, now that all that is really good and estimable has been driven from it by the tyranny of the emperor. In line 66, read _ecce_ for _hæc_: _in ore_ for _honore_. If "dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori," Hor., iv., Od. viii., 28, so he may be said "Doubly dying to go down to the vile dust from whence he sprung," who lives only in the sarcasm of the satirist. [1590] _Laureta Numæ._ Cf. ad Juv., iii., 12, _seq._, the description of Umbritius' departure from Rome. [1591] _Comite Ægeria._ It is not impossible there may have been some allusion to Numa and Egeria in Sulpicia's lost work on conjugal affection; and hence Mart., x., Ep. xxxv., 13, "Tales Egeriæ jocos fuisse Udo crediderim Numæ sub antro." [1592] _Apollo._ Hor., i., Ep. iii., 17, "Scripta Palatinus quæcunque recepit Apollo." Juv., vii., 37. FRAGMENTS OF LUCILIUS.[1593] INTRODUCTION. If but little is known of the personal character and life of the other Satirists of Rome, it is unfortunately still more the case with Lucilius. Although the research and industry of modern scholars have collected nearly a hundred passages from ancient writers where his name is mentioned, the information that can be gleaned from them with respect to the events of his life is very scanty indeed; and even of these meagre statements, there is scarcely one that has not been called in question by one or more critics of later days. It will be therefore, perhaps, the most satisfactory course to present in a continuous form the few facts we can gather respecting his personal history; and to mention afterward the doubts that have been thrown on these statements, and the attempts of recent editors to reconcile them with the accredited facts of history. Caius Lucilius, then, was born, according to the testimony of S. Hieronymus (in Euseb., Chron.), B.C. 148, in the first year of the 158th Olympiad, and the 606th of the founding of the city (Varronian Computation), in the consulship of Spurius Posthumius Albinus and Lucius Calpurnius Piso. There was a plebeian Lucilian gens, as well as a patrician, but it was to the latter that the family of the poet undoubtedly belonged. Horace says of himself (ii. Sat, i., 74), "Quidquid sum ego, quamvis infrà Lucili censum ingeniumque tamen me cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque Invidia." Porphyrion, in his commentary on the passage, says Lucilius was the great uncle of Pompey the Great; Pompey's grandmother being the poet's sister. But Acron says he was Pompey's grandfather. Velleius Paterculus (ii., 29), on the other hand, says that Lucilia, the mother of Pompey, was daughter of the brother of Lucilius and of senatorian family. His birthplace was Suessa, now Sessa, capital of the Aurunci, in Campania; hence Juvenal (Sat. i., 19) says, "Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo, per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus, Si vacat et placidi rationem admittitis edam;" and Ausonius (Ep. xv.), "Rudes Camænas qui Suessæ prævenis." At the age of fifteen, B.C. 134, he accompanied his patron, L. Scipio Africanus Æmilianus, to the Numantine war, where he is said to have served as eques. Vell. Pat., ii., 9, 4. Here he met with Marius, now about in his twenty-third year, and the young |