you are eminent and renowned among other nations, excite in me the greatest apprehensions against the tyranny of Sylla, lest, either by disbelieving concerning others what you yourselves think nefarious, you should allow imposition to be practised upon you, (especially since all his hopes depend on dishonesty and perfidy, nor does he otherwise deem himself safe, than by becoming more abandoned and infamous1 than even your fears can forebode, so that, when you are thoroughly made subject to him, your sufferings may suppress in you all care of recovering your liberty;) or lest, if you foresee his machinations, you should occupy your thoughts rather in guarding against them than in taking revenge for them.

"His satellites, men of the highest name, and with the noblest examples of their forefathers for their imitation, sacrifice their own freedom (I cannot sufficiently wonder at their conduct) as a price for the power of domineering over you, and prefer slavery and tyranny without laws, to liberty under the best laws. Illustrious descendants of the Bruti, Emilii, and Lutatii, born to overthrow what the virtue of their ancestors established! For what was it that was defended against Pyrrhus, and Hannibal, and Philip, and Antiochus, but liberty, and the security of our homes, and obedience to nothing but the laws? But all these privileges this cruel Romulus withholds from us, as spoils torn from foreign enemies; nor is he satiated with the destruction of so many armies, of a consul5, and of other eminent men

observes that this exordium is an imitation of that of the Corinthians to the Lacedæmonians, Thucyd. i., 68: Τὸ πιστὸν, ὑμᾶς, ὦ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, gc. " The trustiness and policy of your intercourse amongst yourselves, Lacedæmonians, renders you the more distrustful with regard to others, if we say anything against them; and from this you have a character for sober-mindedness, but betray too great ignorance with regard to foreign affairs." Dale's Translation: Bohn's Cl. Library.

1 Infamous] Intestabilior. See Jug., c. 67. 2 Philip] King of Macedonia.

3 Security of our homes] Suce cuique sedes.

4 This cruel Romulus] Savus iste Romulus. He thus designates Sylla, as being, like Romulus, bent upon maintaining his power by violence. But the term would have been more applicable to him before he resigned his dictatorship.

5 Of a consul] Consulis. "He seems to speak of the younger Marius." Crispinus. Gerlach observes that three consuls, Carbo, Marius, and Norbanus, were killed in the civil war, and thinks that the reading consulum, which is in some copies, ought to be adopted.

whom the fortune of war has sunk in death, but grows still more bloodthirsty at a time when victory converts the fury of most commanders into compassion. He is the only one, in the memory of man, that has appointed punishments for children yet unborn1, to whom suffering is insured before life. He revels in his atrocities, defended as yet by the enormity of his crimes; whilst you, through dread of heavier servitude, are deterred from making an effort to recover your liberty.

"Such despotism, my fellow-citizens, you must exert yourselves to oppose, that your spoils may not remain in the hands of the oppressor; you must not delay, or think of trusting for relief to prayers; unless, perchance, you expect that, growing at length tired or ashamed of his tyranny, he will venture on the greater hazard2 of resigning what he has unjustly usurped. But he has proceeded to such a point, that he thinks no conduct glorious but such as conduces to his safety, and deems everything laudable that assists to preserve his power. That peace and tranquillity, therefore, which, with the enjoyment of liberty, many good men have sought in preference to toil with honours, it is in vain for you to expect; you must either be slaves or rulers, my fellow-citizens; you must either be subjects of terror or objects of it. For what else is left to you? What human objects of desire remain? Or does anything divine continue inviolate? The people of Rome, lately the lords of other nations, but now deprived of empire, dignity, and authority, and rendered helpless and despicable, find not even left to them the allowance made to slaves. The vast multitude of the allies and Latins3, whom you presented with the civic franchise for their many honourable services, are excluded from it by the will of a single individual; whose small

1 For children yet unborn] In post futuros. The children of the proscribed. See note on Cat., c. 37.

2 On the greater hazard] Periculosiùs. Thus Pericles says to the Athenians, respecting their sovereignty over their dependents, "You now hold it as a tyranny, which it seems wrong to have assumed, but dangerous to give up." Thucyd. ii., 63. From this expression, and from the following sentence, most readers would surely be inclined to conclude that Sylla was still actually dictator. 3 Allies and Latins] "To lessen the number of citizens, Sylla took away from the allies and Latins the right of citizenship, which they had obtained by the Social War." Burnouf.

band of satellites have seized, as the rewards of their villanies, the patrimonial lands of the innocent commonalty. The laws, the administration of justice, the treasury, the provinces, tributary princes, are all under the direction of one man. You have seen even human sacrifices1 offered by him, and tombs dyed with the blood of Roman citizens. And is anything left, then, for those who would act as men, but to put an end to such injustice, or to die honourably in attempting it? For nature has appointed one end to all men, even though encased in steel; nor will any one, unless he has but the heart of a woman, await the last necessity without an effort.

"But I, according to Sylla's representations, am a promoter of sedition, because I complain of the rewards obtained by civil commotions; and a lover of war, because I seek to recover the privileges of peace. To make such a charge, is to say that you cannot be safe or secure under his government, unless Vettius Picens2, and Cornelius the accountants, be allowed to squander what others have honourably acquired, and unless you approve of all the proscriptions of the innocent for the sake of their wealth, of the torturing of illustrious citizens, of the depopulation of the city by banishment and slaughter, and of the practice of selling or giving away, like spoils taken from the Cimbri, the possessions of your unfortunate countrymen. He, however, objects to me further, that I have myself a share in the property of those proscribed; but that I have such a share is the very greatest proof of his tyranny,

1 Human sacrifices] Humanas hostias. "He refers to those who were killed at the tombs of the followers of Sylla, that their shades might not wander unrevenged, as Lucan says of Crassus; but he seems to refer especially to the sad end of Marius Gratidianus, who was sacrificed at the sepulchre of the Lutatian gens. Val. Max. ix., 20; Sen. de Irâ iii., 18; Florus iii., 21." Cortius. Catiline was a great instrument in this butchery; see note on Cat., c. 5.

2 Vettius Picens] "An obscure man, doubtless; but he seems to be the same from whom Cicero bought the villa of Catulus; and whom, ad Att. vi., 1, he calls manceps, and Pro Col. 30, stuprator Clodia. Comp. in Vatin. 10, and ad Att. iii., 24." Gerlach.

"Cornelius Chrysogonus, the

3 Cornelius the accountant] Scriba Cornelius. freedman of Sylla, of whom Cicero says so much in his speech for Rosc. Amer. He had been a scriba, that is, he had taken account, by order of Sylla, of the prices given or offered at the sale of the property of those proscribed. De Brosses thinks that it is he who is meant in Cic. de Off. ii., 8: Alter qui in eâ dictaturâ scriba fuerat, in hac [Cæsaris] fuit quæstor urbanus.” Burnouf.

since neither I, nor any one of us all, would have been safe from his vengeance if we had strictly adhered to honesty. Yet that very property, which I then bought under the influence of terror, I am ready to restore, on repayment of the purchase-money, to the rightful owners; as it is not my design to sanction the spoliation of my fellow-citizens. Let the sufferings be sufficient which have resulted from the indulgence of our angry passions, from allowing Roman armies to encounter each other, and from turning our arms from our enemies against ourselves. Let there be an end of injustice and outrage; of which, however, Sylla himself is so far from repenting, that he glories in the perpetration of it, and would pursue it with greater avidity if he had greater power.

"But I am not so much concerned about the opinion which you may have of his character, as about the courage which you may feel to oppose him. I am apprehensive lest, while each waits for his neighbour to begin to act, you should all be absolutely reduced to subjection (not indeed by his power, which is weakened and impaired, but by your own indolence) before you can proceed against him, and before he can venture to flatter himself with the hopes of such success. For, except his corrupt partisans, who joins in approving his proceedings? Or who does not wish that every part of his course had been of a different character, except his victorys? Do the

1 I am ready to restore, on repayment of the purchase-money, to the rightful owners] Pretio soluto, jure dominis tamen restituo. The sense of these words may be altered, in some degree, by the mode in which an editor may think proper to point them; for "he may join," as Gerlach observes, "pretio soluto, or soluto jure, and, as some think, jure dominis." I have followed Cortius, Wasse, and Burnouf, who take the last method, considering jure dominis to be for justis dominis; though I do not think it at all certain that Sallust intended such a junction. But in whatever way the words be taken, the variation in the sense will be of no extraordinary importance.

2 And before he can venture to flatter himself with the hopes of such success] Et (ante) quàm audeat tam videri felicem. These words are somewhat obscure, as all the commentators have remarked. Gerlach, who calls the accusative durissimum, interprets them (ante) quàm audeat sperare tantam felicitatem. The construction must be, if the text be correct, antequam audeat videri sibi (se fore, or se posse esse) tam felicem; "before he can venture to represent himself to himself as being (likely to be) so fortunate." There is an allusion to Sylla's assumption of the title Felix. See Jug., c. 95.

3 Except his victory] Præter victoriam. "He means that the victory of Sylla was good, and might have given full freedom to the commonwealth; but

soldiers, by whose blood wealth has been gained for Tarrula and Scyrrus, the worst of slaves? Or do those, to whom, in competition for office, Fufidius, a disgrace to his sex1, and a dishonour to every magistracy, was preferred? To the victorious army, accordingly, I look for the strongest support, by whom, through so many sufferings and hardships, nothing has been gained but an oppressor; unless we suppose, indeed, that they took the field purposely to destroy the tribunicial power which was established by their ancestors, or to divest themselves of their own privileges and right of judicature2. Glorious, in truth, was their recompense, when, banished to woods and marshes, they found reproach and hatred their own portion, and saw the spoils of conquest in the hands of an oligarchy!

"How is it, then, that he presents himself before us with such a train of followers, and with such audacity? Because success throws a wonderful veil over vice; (though, should fortune fail him, he will be as much despised as he is now dreaded;) unless, perchance, he seeks to delude you with a prospect of concord and peace, names which he himself has given to his wickedness and treachery, saying that Rome can never have an end of war, unless the commonalty continue expelled from their lands (a calamitous prey of civil war), and the power and judicial authority in all matters, which once belonged to the Roman people, be vested in himself alone. If such an arrangement be thought peace and concord, give your approval, I pray you, to the most extravagant disturbances and alterations of the state; grant your sanction to the laws which are imposed upon you; accept tranquillity and servitude; and afford an example to posterity for enslaving the people of Rome by the hire of their own blood3.

that the abuse of it, and the establishment of a tyranny by it, was the grievance, as appears from what follows." Cooke.

66

1 A disgrace to his sex] Ancilla turpis. "He calls him ancilla, to throw the utmost contempt on him. So Cic. ad Att. i., 14: Totus ille grex Catilinæ, duce filiolâ Curionis, for filio; on which passage see Popma." Cortius. 2 Privileges and right of judicature] Jura et judicia. Sylla had transferred the judicia, or right of being judices, from the equites to the senators." Burnouf. 3 By the hire of their own blood] Suimet sanguinis mercede. Some copies have suimet sanguinis cæde, which Wasse, I believe, is the only editor that has been found to defend; he takes sanguinis in the sense of "relatives." The