licity to produce the moft glorious contemner, as well as the moft illuftrious improver, of the arts and eloquence of Rome. He made no figure, therefore, in the gown, nor had any other way of fuftaining his authority in the city, than by cherishing the natural jealoufy between the fenate and the people; that by this declared enmity to the one he might always be at the head of the other; whofe favour he managed, not with any view to the public good, for he had nothing in him of the ftateman or the patriot, but to the advancement of his private intereft and glory. In fhort, he was crafty, cruel, covetous, and perfidious; of a temper and talents greatly serviceable abroad, but turbulent and dangerous at home: an implacable enemy to the nobles, ever fecking occafions to mortify them, and ready to facrifice the republic, which he had faved, to his ambition and revenge. After a life spent in the perpetual toils of foreign and domeftic wars, he died at laft in his bed, in a good old age, and in his feventh confulship; an honour that no Roman before him ever attained. Middleton. wholly in camps; where he learnt the firft rudiments of war, under the greatest mafters of that age, the younger Scipio, who deftroyed Carthage; till by long fervice, diftinguished valour, and a peculiar hardinefs and patience of difcipline, he advanced himfelf gradually through all the fteps of military honour, with the reputation of a brave and compleat foldier. The obfcurity of his extraction, which depreffed him with the nobility, made him the greater favourite of the people; who, on all occafions of danger, thought him the only man fit to be trufted with their lives and fortunes; or to have the command of a difficult and defperate war: and in truth, he twice delivered them from the most defperate, with which they had ever been threatened by a foreign enemy. Scipio, from the obfervation of his martial talents, while he had yet but an inferior command in the army, gave a kind of prophetic teftimony of his future glory; for being afked by fome of his officers, who were fupping with him at Numantia, what general the republic would have, in cafe of any accident to himself? That man, replied he, pointing to Marius at the bottom of the table. In the field he§ 3. ROMULUS to the people of Rome, after was cautious and provident; and while he was watching the most favourable opportunities of action, affected to take all his mcafures from augurs and diviners; nor ever gave battle, till by pretended omens and divine admonitions he had infpired his foldiers with a confidence of victory; fo that his enemies dreaded him as fomething more than mortal; and both friends and foes believed him to act always by a peculiar impulfe and direction from the gods. His merit however was wholly military, void of every accomplishment of learning, which he openly affected to defpife; fo that Arpinum had the lingular fe building the City. If all the ftrength of cities lay in the height of their ramparts, or the depth of their ditches, we should have great reafon to be in fear for that which we have now built. But are there in reality any walls too high to be fcaled by a valiant enemy? and of what ufe are ramparts in inteftine divifions? They may ferve for a defence against fudden incurfions from abroad; but it is by courage and prudence chiefly, that the invafions of foreign enemies are repelled; and by unanimity, fe * Arpinum was alfo the native city of Cicero. briety, and juftice, that domeftic feditions are prevented. Cities fortified by the strongeft bulwarks have been often feen to yield to force from without, or to tumults from within. An exact military discipline, and a steady obfervance of civil polity, are the surest barriers against thefe evils, had exercised the moft bloody tyranny: but nothing was thought to be greater in his character, than that, during the three years in which the Marians were mafters of Italy, he neither diffembled his refolution of purfuing them by arms, nor neglected the war which he had upon his hands; but thought it his duty, firft to chaftife a foreign enemy, before he took his revenge upon citizens. His family was noble and patrician, which yet, through the indolency of his ancestors, had made no figure in the republic, for many generations, and was almoft funk into obfcurity, till he produced it again into light, by afpiring to the honours of the state. He was a lover and patron of polite letters, having been carefully inftituted himself in all the learning of Greece and Rome; but from a peculiar gaiety of temper, and fondness for the company of mimics and players, was drawn, when young, into a life of luxury and pleafure; fo that when he was fent quæftor to Marius, in the Jugurthine war, Marius complained, that in fo rough and defperate a fervice chance had given him fo foft and delicate a quæftor. But, whether roufed by the example, or ftung by the reproach of his general, he behaved himself in that charge with the greatest vigour and courage, fuffering no man to outdo him in any part of military duty or labour, making himself equal and familiar even to the loweft of the foldiers, and obliging them by all his good offices and his money; fo that he foon acquired the favour of his army, with the character of a brave and fkilful comdic-mander; and lived to drive Marius himfelf, banished and profcribed, into that very province where he had been contemned by him, at firft as his quæftor. He had a wonderful faculty of conccaling his paffions and pur But there is ftill another point of great importance to be confidered. The profperity of fome rifing colonies, and the fpeedy ruin of others, have in a great measure been owing to their form of goverment. Were there but one manner of ruling ftates and cities that could make them happy, the choice would not be difficult; but I have learnt, that of the various forms of government among the Greeks and Barbarians, there are three which are highly extolled by thofe who have experienced them; and yet, that no one of thefe is in all refpects perfect, but each of them has fome innate and incurable defect. Chufe you, then, in what manner this city fhall be governed. Shall it be by one man? fhall it be by a felect number of the wifeft among us or fhall the legiflative power be in the people? As for me, I fhall fubmit to whatever form of administration you fhall pleafe to establish. As I think myself not unworthy to command, fo neither am I unwilling to hey. You having chofen me to be the leader of this colony, and your calling the city after my name, are honours fufficient to content me; honours of which, living or dead, I never can be deprived, Hooke, 84 The Character of SYLLA. Sylla died after he had laid down the tatorship, and restored liberty to the republic, and, with an uncommon greatnefs of mind, lived many months as a private fenator, and with perft fecurity, in that city where he pofes; and was fo different from himself in different circumstances, that he seemed as it were to be two men in one: no man was ever more mild and moderate before victory; none more cruel and bloody after it. In war, he practifed the fame art that he had feen fo fuccefsful to Marius, of railing a kind of enthusiasm and contempt of dan ger in his army, by the forgery of aufpices and divine admonitions; for which end, he carried always about with him a little statue of Apollo, taken from the temple of Delphi; and whenever he had refolved to give battle, used to embrace it in the fight of the foldiers, and beg the speedy confirmation of its promifes to him. From an uninterrupted courfe of fuccefs and profperity, he affumed a furname, unknown before to the Romans, of Felix, or the Fortunate; and would have been fortunate indeed, fays Velleius, if his life had ended with his victories. Pliny calls it a wicked title, drawn from the blood and oppreffion of his country; for which pofterity would think him more unfortunate, even than thofe whom he had put to death. He had one felicity, however, peculiar to himself, of being the only man in hiftory, in whom the odium of the most barbarous cruelties was extinguished by the glory of his great acts. Cicero, though he had a good opinion of his caufe, yet detefted the inhumanity of his victory, and never fpeaks of him with respect, nor of his government but as a proper tyranny; calling him, "a master of three moft peftilent vices, "luxury, avarice, cruelty." He was the firft of his family whofe dead body was burnt: for, having ordered Marius's remains to be taken out of his grave, and thrown into the river Anio, he was apprehenfive of the fame infult upon his own, if left to the Since fate has fo ordained it, that I, who began the war, and who have been so often on the point of ending it by a complete con queft, should now come of my own motion to afk a peace; I am glad that it is of you, Scipio, I have the fortune to afk it. Nor will this be among the leaft of your glories, that Hannibal, victorious over fo many Roman generals, fubmitted at last to you. I could with, that our fathers and we had confined our ambition within the limits which nature feems to have preferibed to it; the thores of Africa, and the fhores of Italy. The gods did not give us that mind. On both fides we have been fo eager after foreign poffeffions, as to put our own to the hazard of war. Rome and Carthage have had, each in her turn, the enemy at her gates. But fince errors paft may be more early blamed than corrected, let it now be the work of you and me to put an end, if poffible, to the obftinate contention. For my own part, my years, and the experience I have had of the instability of fortune, inclines me to leave nothing to her determination, which reafon can decide, But much I fear, Scipio, that your youth, your want of the like experience, your uninterrupted fuccefs, may render you averfe from the thoughts of peace. He whom fortune has never failed, rarely reflects upon her inconftancy. Yet, without recurring to former ex amples, amples, my own may perhaps fuffice to teach you moderation. I am that fame Hannibal, who, after my victory at Cannæ, became mafter of the greateft part of your country, and deliberated with myfelf what fate I should decree to Italy and Rome. And now-fee the change! Here, in Africa, I am come to treat with a Roman, for my own prefervation and my country's. Such are the fports of fortune. Is he then to be trufted because the fmiles? An advantageous peace is preferable to the hope of victory. The one is in your own power, the other at the pleafure of the gods. Should you prove victorious, it would add little to your own glory, or the glory of your country: if vanquished, you lofe in one hour all the honour and reputation you have been fo many years acquiring. But what is my aim in all this that you should content yourfelf with our ceffion of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and all the islands between Italy and Africa. A peace on thefe conditions will, in my opinion, not only fecure the future tranquillity of Carthage, but be fufficiently glorious for you, and for the Roman name. And do not tell me, that fome of our citizens dealt fraudulently with you in the late treaty it is I, Hannibal, that now afk a peace: Jak it, because I think it expedient for my country; and, thinking it expedient, I will inviolably maintain it. Hooke. 6. SCIPIO's Anfwer. I knew very well, Hannibal, that it was the hope of your return which emboldened the Carthaginians to break the truce with us, and to lay afide all thoughts of a peace, when it was just upon the point of being concluded; and your prefent propofal is a proof of it. You retrench from their conceffions every thing but what we arc, and have been long, poffeffed of. But as it is your care, that your fellow-citizens fhould have the obligations to you, of being eafed from a great part of their burden, fo it ought to be mine, that they draw no advantage from their perfidioufnefs. Nobody is more fenfible than I am of the weak nefs of man, and the power of fortune, and that whatever we enterprize is fubject to a thousand chances. If, before the Romans paffed into Africa, you had of your own accord quitted Italy, and made the offers you now make, I believe they would not have been rejected. But as you have been forced out of Italy, and we are mafters here of the open country, the fituation of things is much altered. And, what is chiefly to be confidered, the Carthaginians, by the late treaty which we entered into at their requeft, were, over and above what you offer, to have reftored to us our prifoners without ranfor, delivered up their fhips of war, paid us five thoufand talents, and to have given hoftages for the performance of all. The fenate accepted thefe conditions, but Carthage failed on her part; Carthage deceived us. then is to be done? Are the Carthaginians to be released from the most important articles of the treaty, as a reward of their breach of faith? No, certainly. If, to the conditions before agreed upon, you had added fome new articles to our advantage, there would have been matter of reference to the Roman people; but when, inftead of adding, you retrench, there is no room for deliberation. The Carthaginians, therefore, muft fubmit to us at difcretion, or muft vanquish us in battle. Ibid. What his genius had not drawn him to the more dazzling glory of arms; yet he pleaded fes veral caufes with applaufe, in the defence of his friends and clients; and fome of them in conjunction with Cicero. His language was copious and clevated; his fentiments juft; his voice fweet; his actions noble, and full of dignity. But his talents were better formed for arms than the gown; for though in both he obferved the fame difcipline, a perpetual modefty, temperance, and gravity of outward behaviour; yet in the licence of camps the example was more rare and ftriking. His the constitution of the republic, neceffarily made him great; a fame and fuccefs in war, fuperior to what Rome had ever known in the moft celebrated of her generals. He had triumphed, at three feveral times, over the three different parts of the known world, Europe, Afia, Africa; and by his victories had almost doubled the extent, as well as the revenues, of the Roman dominions; for, as he declared to the people on his return from the Mithridatic war, he had found the leffer Afia the boundary, but left it the middle of their empire. He was about fix years older than Cafar, and while Cæfar, immersed in plea-perfon was extremely graceful, and imprintfures, oppreffed with debts, and fufpected by ng refpect; yet with an air of referved all honeft men, was hardly able to thew his haughtinefs, which became the general better head, Pompey was flourishing in the height of than the citizen. His parts were plausible, power and glory; and, by the confent of all rather than great; fpecious, rather than pe parties, placed at the head of the republic.netrating; and his views of politics but narThis was the post that his ambition feemed to aim at, to be the first man in Rome; the leader, not the tyrant of his country; for he more than once had it in his power to have made himself the mafter of it without any rifk, if his virtue, or his phlegm at left, had not reftrained him: but he lived in a perpetual expectation of receiving from the gift of the people, what he did not care to feize by force; and, by fomenting the diforders of the city, hoping to drive them to the neceflity of creating him dictator. It is an obfervation of all the hiftorians, that while Cæfar made no difference of power, whether it was conferred or ufurped, whether over those who loved, or thofe who feared him; Pompey feemed to value none but what was offered; nor to have any defire to govern, but with the good-will of the governed. What leifure he found from his wars, he employed in the ftudy of polite letters, and especially of eloquence, in which he would have acquired great fame, if row; for his chief inftrument of governing was diffimulation; yet he had not always the art to conceal his real fentiments. As he was a better foldier than a ftatefman, fo what he gained in the camp he usually loft in the city; and though adored when abroad, was often affronted and mortified at home, till the imprudent oppofition of the fenate drove him to that alliance with Craffus and Cæfar, which proved fatal both to himself and the republic. He took in these two, not as the partners, but the minifters rather of his power; that by giving them fome share with him, he might make his own authority uncontrollable: he had no reason to apprehend that they could ever prove his rivals; fince neither of them had any credit or character of that kind which alone could raife them above the laws; a fuperior fame and experience in war, with the militia of the empire at their devotion: all this was purely his own; till, by cherishing Cæfar, and throwing into his hands the only |