CH. V.]

CATO, SCIPIO, LÆLIUS.

131

to the advantages which a Roman would obtain from an acquaintance with the language in which Thucydides and Plato wrote, and Pericles and Demosthenes spoke. The orations which Cato at various times delivered were very numerous; and Cicero says, that more than one hundred and fifty of his speeches were extant in his day; but the study of them was then entirely neglected, although he remarks that they were well worthy of diligent perusal.1 They chiefly related to public affairs; but Cato sometimes defended, though he was more generally known as the accuser of his fellowcitizens.

The great age to which he lived, enabled him to witness the rising reputation of the two illustrious friends, Scipio the younger, and Lælius. The conqueror of Carthage and Numantia was numbered amongst the most celebrated orators of Rome; and Cicero speaks of him and Lælius as in primis eloquentes.2 We know, however, the names of no private causes in which he was engaged. Those of which we find mention in the classic writers, were all of a public nature. Such were his five orations in his own defence, when accused before the people by Asellus the tribune; his speeches for the temple of Castor against the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus, and against the proposed Papirian law. To these may be added his accusations of Sulpicius Galba and Lucius Cotta.

C. Lælius, surnamed "the wise," for the forbearance he displayed as tribune when he abandoned his proposal of an agrarian law, because he saw that its discussion

'Brut. 17. See the names of such of these as are mentioned by the ancient writers collected in the Brev. Eloq. Rom. Historia, by Ellendt; also Meyer, Fragm. Orat. Rom.

2 Brut. 21.

2

would convulse the state, was distinguished for his mild and gentle eloquence. But he was also a gallant soldier and successful general, and when, after filling the office of prætor, he obtained as his province Western Spain (the modern Portugal), he crushed the hostile attempts of Viriathus, the leader of the Lusitanians. One of his most famous speeches was that De Collegiis, which he delivered against a proposed law for taking the power of electing members of the College of Priests from that body, and vesting it in the people. His eloquence prevailed, and the mode of election remained unaltered, until it was changed many years afterwards by the Domitian law. We know the names of very few of the causes which he undertook, but Cicero mentions one interesting trial in which he was engaged, arising out of the following circumstances. In the lonely pine forests that skirted the southern extremity of the Appenine range, some atrocious murders had been committed, and suspicion fell upon the members of a company who farmed the public revenues arising from that district. The senate ordered the consuls to investigate the matter, and the suspected parties were put upon their trial. They engaged Lælius as their counsel, and he spoke the first day well and ably in their behalf. The court, however, was not yet satisfied as to their innocence or guilt, and the consuls adjourned the inquiry. When, after an interval of a few days, it was resumed, Lælius spoke with still

1

Although the reputation of Lælius, as an orator, was greater than that of Scipio, Cicero himself seems to consider them nearly equal, and attributes the common opinion to the disinclination of mankind to believe, that an individual can attain excellence in more than one pursuit. How true is his remark now, as well as when he wrote, Sed est mos hominum, ut nolint eundem pluribus rebus excellere !—Brut. 21.

2 Cic. de Nat. Deorum, iii. 2. Brut. 21. Philipp. ii. 33.

THE FOREST MURDERS.

GALBA.

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CH. V.] greater force and eloquence, but with no decisive result, and the case was again adjourned. Lælius was escorted home by his grateful clients, who thanked him for his exertions, and expressed concern lest he should be exhausted by his efforts. He told them that he had done his best, but advised them to apply to Galba to continue the defence, since he thought him better fitted than himself to conduct such a case, as his style of speaking was more earnest and impassioned. They went therefore to Galba, who, after some hesitation and diffidence, consented to be their advocate. He had only one day to prepare, and he devoted it to the task; shutting himself up with his amanuensis in an inner room in his house, where, with all the vehemence of his nature, and as though he were actually in court, he dictated his thoughts aloud. He did not quit the apartment until summoned next day to the court, where the consuls were already seated, and it was remarked that he left his house with the look and appearance of a man who had just delivered a great He rose to plead

speech, and not merely prepared one. for the accused, and by the power and pathos of his eloquence, he gained a verdict of acquittal that very day, and satisfied not only the court, but all who heard him, of the innocence of his clients.1

Servius Sulpicius Galba was by no means a learned lawyer, but Cicero speaks of him as an orator in high terms. He says, that he alone amongst his contemporaries was pre-eminent for eloquence, inter tot æquales unus excellens. He first amongst the Latins studied speaking as an art, and employed the artifices of rhetoric to work upon the minds of his audience. But

2

with all this, his speeches seemed to the taste of the next generation bald and antiquated in style, so that they soon disappeared and were wholly lost.'

We can hardly number the Gracchi in the list of Roman advocates, though the fiery eloquence of Caius placed him high amongst the orators of the republic. But it was chiefly in the turbulent assemblies of the people that his voice was heard, denouncing his political adversaries as the enemies of the state; and of the numerous speeches attributed to him, we only find one in which he seems to have undertaken the defence of a party on his trial.2 He is known to us rather as the democratic leader of the commons, who lost his life in a popular tumult, which the aristocratic party charged him with exciting. But we must receive with the greatest caution the account of his character which we find in the patrician writers. They have represented him as a demagogue whose very name was a watchword of sedition, and have described his efforts to obtain the passing of the agrarian law as an attempt at confiscation of property. But justice has at last been done to his memory; for it is now universally admitted, that the bill for an agrarian law was nothing more than a most righteous proposal, that the Plebs should be allowed to participate in the enjoyment of the demesne lands of the state, from which it was unfairly excluded3; and Niebuhr has, in a very remarkable chapter of his Lectures on the History of Rome, vindicated the character of Caius Gracchus from the calumny which so long obscured

1 Brut. 21.

Vettii Defensio. Ellendt, Hist. Rom. Eloq. 42.

The true view of this measure, about which there has been so much misapprehension, even amongst the learned, will be found stated by Heyne in his Opuscula, vol. iv. p. 350. and by Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, ii. 129-164.

CH. V.] CAIUS GRACCHUS, AND OTHER SPEAKERS. 135

it, and shown that so far from being a factious demagogue, he was a virtuous and upright citizen. "There are two classes of men, the one consisting of those who are sincere and open, and seek and love the beautiful and sublime, who delight in eminent men, and see in them the glory of their age and nation; the other comprising those who think only of themselves, are envious, jealous, and sometimes very unhappy creatures, without having a distinct will of their own: they cannot bear to see great men in the enjoyment of general esteem. It was these latter, a set of men more fatal to mankind than original sin, that rose against Caius Gracchus. He was too spotless, too pure, and too glorious not to be an offence to many; for every one was reminded by his example of what he ought to be: it was the greatness of Gracchus which determined them to bring him down."1

It would be to little purpose to dwell upon the names of the less celebrated advocates, who flourished in the period that intervened before Antony appeared, and we may dismiss them with a brief and passing notice. Amongst them were Lepidus Porcina, an orator of no mean repute, who first amongst the Latins attained that gentleness of style which Cicero says was characteristic of the Greeks; and Caius Carbo, the volatilė and fickle leader of the popular party, who, however, successfully defended Opimius, when called upon to answer for the death of the younger Gracchus. Public trials were then becoming more frequent, on account of the law brought forward by Piso the tribune, which provided for the impeachment of those Roman officers who improperly received money in their pro