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ing 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 pleasure; so that when he was sent quæstor to Marius, in the Jugurthine war, Marius complained that in so rough and desperate a service, chance had given him so soft and delicate a quæstor. But whether roused by the example, or stung by the reproach of his general, he behaved himself in that charge with the greatest vigour and courage, suffering no man to outdo him in any part of military duty or labour, making himself equal and familiar even to the lowest of the soldiers, and obliging them all by his good offices and his money; so that he soon acquired the favour of the army, with the character of a brave and skilful commander; and lived to drive Marius himself, banished and proscribed, into that very province where he had been contemned by him at first as his quæstor. He had a wonderful faculty of concealing his passions and purposes, and was so 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 bloody and cruel after it. In war, he practised the same art that he had seen so successful to Marius, of raising a kind of enthusiasm and contempt of danger in his army, by the forgery of auspices 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 resolved to give battle, used to embrace it in sight of the soldiers, and beg the speedy confirmation of its promises to him. From an uninterrupted course of success and prosperity, he assumed a surname, unknown before to the Romans , of Felix or the Fortunate; and would have been fortunate indeed, says Velleius, if his life had ended with his victories. Pliny calls it a wicked title, drawn from the blood and oppression of his country; for which posterity would think him more unfortunate, even than those whom he had put to death. He had one felicity, however, peculiar to himself, of being the only man in history, 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 cause, yet detested the inhumanity of his victory, and never speaks of

him with respect, nor of his government, but as a proper tyranny; calling him, « a >> master of three most pestilent vices, lux» ury, avarice, cruelty. » He was the first of his family, whose 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 apprehensive of the same insult upon his own, if left to the usual way of burial. A little before his death, he made his own epitaph, the sum of which was, « that no man had ever gone » beyond him, in doing good to his friends, » or hurt to his enemies. »

MIDDLETON.

CHARACTER OF POMPEY.

POMPEY had early acquired the surname of the Great, by that sort of merit, which from the constitution of the republic, necessarily made him great; a fame and success in war, superior to what Rome had ever known, in the most celebrated of her generals. He had triumphed at three several times over the three different parts of the

known world, Europe, Asia, Africa ; and by his victories, had almost doubled the extent as well as the revenues of the Ro

war,

,

man dominion; for as he declared to the people on his return from the Mithridatic he had found the lesser Asia the boundary; but left it the middle of their empire. He was about six years older than Cæsar: and while Cresar, immersed in pleasures, oppressed with debts, and suspected by all honest men , was hardly able to shew his head, Pompey was flourishing in the height of power and glory; and by the consent of all parties, placed at the head of the republic. This was the post that his ambition seemed to aim at to be the first man in Rome; the leader the leader, not the tyrant, of his country: for he more than once had it in to have made himself the master power of it without any risk; if his virtue, or his phlegm at least, had not restrained him: but he lived in a perpetual expectatiton of receiving from the gift of the people, what he did not care to seize by force; and by fomenting the disorders of the city, hoped to drive them to the necessity of creating him dictator.

his

,

It is an observation of all the historians,

that while Cæsar made no difference of power, whether it was conferred or usurped; whether over those who loved; or those who feared him; Pompey seemed to value none but what was offered; nor to have any desire to govern, but with the good-will of the governed. What leisure he found from his wars, he employed in the study of polite letters, and especially of eloquence, in which he would have acquired great fame, if his genius had not drawn him to the more dazzling glory of arms: yet he pleaded several causes with applause, in the defence of his friends and clients; and some of them in conjunction with Cicero. His language was copious and elevated; his sentiments just; his voice sweet; his action noble, and full of dignity. But his talents were better formed for arms, than the gown for though in both, he observed the same discipline, a perpetual modesty, temperance, and gravity of outward behaviour; yet in the licence of camps, the example was more rare and striking. His person was extremely graceful, and imprinting respect; yet with an air of reserved haughtiness which became the general better than the citizen. His parts were

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