cessful ability, becoming an exile and fugitive from that fatal proscription, disturbed sea and land in consequence of his ill-treatment; and, trying his fortune, at one time in Africa, and at another in the Balearic isles, and being driven over the Ocean1, went as far as the Fortunate Islands, and at length armed Spain. A brave man easily unites himself with brave men; nor did the valour of the Spanish soldiery ever appear greater than under a Roman general. Nor was he indeed content with Spain, but extended his views to Mithridates and the people of Pontus, and assisted that king with a fleet. And what would have happened if they had formed a junction? The Roman state could not withstand so powerful an enemy as Sertorius by means of one general only. To Metellus was joined Cnæus Pompey: and these two wasted his forces for a long time, though always with doubtful success; nor was he at last subdued in the field, until he was betrayed by the villany and treachery of those about him. Having pursued his forces through almost all Spain, they were long in reducing them, the contests being always such that victory was dubious. The first battles were fought under the command of the lieutenant-generals; Domitius and Thorius making a commencement on one side, and the brothers Herculeii on the other. Soon afterwards, the two latter being overthrown at Segovia, and the former at the river Anas, the generals themselves tried their strength in the field, and at Lauron and Sucro suffered equal loss on both sides. Part of our army then devoting itself to the devastation of the country, and part to the destruction of the cities, unhappy Spain suffered for the disagreement between the Roman generalss, till Sertorius, being cut off by the treachery of his people, and Perperna being defeated and given up, the cities themselves submitted to the power of the Romans, as Osca, Termes, Tutia, Valentia, Auxima, and, after having endured the extremity of famine, Calagurris. Spain was thus restored

1 Ch. XXII. Being driven over the Ocean] Missusque in Oceanum. Missus, as the critics observe, can hardly be right. Lipsius conjectures victus, Perizonius fusus.

2 Domitius and Thorius] Lieutenant-generals of Metellus; the brothers Herculeii, on the side of Sertorius, are mentioned by Frontin., i., 5, 8, Livy, Epit., xc., Eutrop., vi., 1, and other authors.

3 Roman generals] Sertorius and his opponents. Sertorius was by birth a Sabine.

to peace. The victorious generals would have the war accounted rather a foreign than a civil one, that they might have the honour of a triumph.

CHAP. XXIII. THE CIVIL WAR UNDER LEPIDUS.

In the consulship of Marcus Lepidus, and Quintus Catulus, a civil war that was kindled was suppressed almost before it began; but how violent was it!! It was a spark of the great civil contention that had spread abroad its fires from the very funeral pile of Sylla. For Lepidus, in his presumption, being eager for a change in the state of affairs, prepared to annul the acts of that eminent man, and not indeed unjustly, if he could have done so without much injury to the commonwealth. But he would not; for since Sylla, as dictator, had proscribed his enemies by the right of war, if Lepidus recalled those of them that survived, for what other end were they recalled than for a war? And since Sylla had assigned the estates of the condemned citizens, though seized unjustly, yet by form of law, a demand for their restitution would no doubt disturb the city that was now tranquillised. It was expedient, therefore, for the sick and wounded republic to continue quiet upon any terms, lest its wounds should be torn open by the dressing.

Lepidus, then, having alarmed the state, as with the blast of a trumpet, by his turbulent harangues, set out for Etruria, and thence brought arms and an army against Rome. But Lutatius Catulus and Cnæus Pompey, the captains and ringleaders under Sylla's tyranny, had previously occupied the Milvian bridge, and the Janiculan hill, with another army. Being repulsed by these generals in the first encounter, and afterwards declared an enemy by the senate, he fled back, without loss, to Etruria, and thence retired to Sardinia, where he died of disease and sorrow of mind. The conquerors, which was scarcely ever the case in the civil wars, were content with re-establishing peace.

1 Ch. XXIII. But how violent was it!] In all the editions the passage stands, Sed quantum latèque fax illius motûs ab ipso Sylla rogo exarsit! Quantum latèque is mere nonsense, as all the commentators allow, except Perizonius, who would make it equivalent to quantum et quàm latè, but, as Duker remarks, he should have shown that other writers so express themselves. N. Heinsius conjectures quantum quàmque latè; Duker, quàm latè; Is. Vossius, quàm longè latèque. I have not attempted any close adherence to the text. Madame Dacier was inclined to expunge both quantum and latèque.

BOOK IV.

CHAP. I. THE INSURRECTION OF CATILINE.

It was in the first place expensive indulgence, and, in the next, the want of means occasioned by it, with a fair opportunity at the same time, (for the Roman forces were then abroad in the remotest parts of the world,) that led Catiline to form the atrocious design of subjugating his country. With what accomplices (direful to relate!) did he undertake to murder the senate, to assassinate the consuls, to destroy the city by firel, to plunder the treasury, to subvert the entire government, and to commit such outrages as not even Hannibal seems to have contemplated! He was himself a patrician; but this was only a small consideration; there were joined with him the Curii, the Porcii, the Syllæ, the Cethegi, the Antronii, the Vargunteii, the Longini, (what illustrious families, what ornaments of the senate!) and Lentulus also, who was then prætor. All these he had as supporters in his horrid attempt. As a pledge to unite them in the plot, human blood was introduced, which, being carried round in bowls, they drank among them; an act of the utmost enormity, had not that been more enormous for which they drank it. Then would have been an end of this glorious empire, if the conspiracy had not happened in the consulship of Cicero and Antonius, of whom one discovered the plot by vigilance, and the other suppressed it by arms.

The revelation of the atrocious project was made by Fulvia, a common harlot, but unwilling to be guilty of treason against her country. The consul Cicero, accordingly, having convoked the senate, made a speech against the accused, who was then present in the house; but nothing further was effected by it, than that the enemy made off, openly and expressly declarings that he would extinguish the flame raised

1 Ch. I. To destroy the city by fire] Distringere incendiis urbem. So ad distringendam libertatem, Sen. Benef., vi., 34, where Lipsius would read destringendam.

2 Human blood] See Sall., Cat., c. 22.

3 Openly and expressly declaring] Seque palam professo incendium, &c. The passage is evidently corrupt. Madame Dacier would strike out professo; Grævius would eject palam, and read ex professo, adverbially. Gronovius would

against him by a general ruin. He then set out to an army which had been prepared by Manlius in Etruria, intending to advance under arms against the city. Lentulus, meanwhile, promising himself the kingdom portended to his family by the Sibylline verses, disposed throughout the city, against a day appointed by Catiline, men, combustibles, and weapons. And not confined to plotting among the people of the city, the rage for the conspiracy, having excited the deputies of the Allobroges, who happened then to be at Rome, to give their voice in favour of war, would have spread beyond the Alps, had not a letter of Lentulus been intercepted through the information of Vulturcius. Hands were immediately laid on the barbarian deputies, by order of Cicero; and the prætor was openly convicted in the senate. When a consultation was held about their punishment, Cæsar gave his opinion that they should be spared for the sake of their rank, Cato that they should suffer the penalty due to their crime. Cato's advice being generally adopted, the traitors were strangled in prison.

But though a portion of the conspirators were thus cut off, Catiline did not desist from his enterprise. Marching, however, with an army from Etruria against his country, he was defeated by a force of Antonius that encountered him on the way. How desperate the engagement was, the result manifested; for not a man of the rebel troops survived. Whatever place each had occupied in the battle, that very spot, when life was extinct, he covered with his corpse. Catiline was found, far in advance of his men, among the dead bodies of the enemy; a most glorious death, had he thus fallen for his country.

CHAP. II. THE WAR BETWEEN CESAR AND POMPEY.

Almost the whole world being now subdued, the Roman empire was grown too great to be overthrown by any foreign power. Fortune, in consequence, envying the sovereign people of the earth, armed it to its own destruction. The outrages of Marius and Cinna had already made a sort of

read seque palam professus, &c., which Vossius, Rupertus, and apparently Duker, approve, and which seems to be the only reasonable way of correcting the pas

sage.

prelude within the city, as if by way of trial. The storm of Sylla had thundered even further, but still within the bounds of Italy. The fury of Cæsar and Pompey, as with a general deluge or conflagration, overran the city, Italy, other countries and nations, and finally the whole empire wherever it extended; so that it cannot properly be called a civil war, or war with allies; neither can it be termed a foreign war; but it was rather a war consisting of all these, or even something more than a war. If we look at the leaders in it, the whole of the senators were on one side or the other; if we consider the armies, there were on one side eleven legions, and on the other eighteen, the entire flower and strength of the manhood of Italy; if we contemplate the auxiliary forces of the allies, there were on one side levies of Gauls and Germans, on the other Deiotarus, Ariobarzanes, Tarcondimotus1, Cotys, and all the force of Thrace, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Macedonia, Greece, Ætolia, and all the East; if we regard the duration of the war, it was four years, a time short in proportion to the havoc made in it; if we attend to the space and ground on which it was conducted, it arose within Italy, whence it spread into Gaul and Spain, and, returning from the west, settled with its whole force on Epirus and Thessaly; hence it suddenly passed into Egypt, then turned towards Asia, next fell upon Africa, and at last wheeled back into Spain, where it at length found its termination. But the animosities of parties did not end with the war, nor subsided till the hatred of those who had been defeated satiated itself with the murder of the conqueror in the midst of the city and the senate.

The cause of this calamity was the same with that of all others, excessive good fortune. For in the consulship of Quintus Metellus and Lucius Afranius, when the majesty of Rome predominated throughout the world, and Rome herself was celebrating, in the theatres of Pompey, her recent victories and triumphs over Pontus and Armenia, the overgrown power of Pompey, as is usual in similar cases, excited among the idle citizens a feeling of envy towards him. Metellus, discontented at the diminution of his triumph over Crete2,

1 Ch. II. Tarcondimotus] A prince of Cilicia; Cotys, a king of Thrace. 2 At the diminution of his triumph over Crete] Ob imminutum Cretœ triumphum. "Not complaining without reason, for the greatest ornament of his triumph, the captive leaders, had been kept back by Pompey." Vell. Pat., ii., 40. Dion. Cass., lib. xxxvi.