advantage of them all, as well of the patricians as the plebeians of the greatest families." [For there were illustrious ones of the latter as well as of the former.] "This man (says he) was master of such natural abilities, and of so much spirit, that wherever he had been born, he would have acquired honor He was skilled in every art, both of public and private life, and equally in affairs of both city and country. Some have rose by their knowlege in the law, others by eloquence, and others by their military achievements: but he was so equally qualified for them all, that one would think him born to that alone, whatever it was, that he took in hand. As a soldier he was brave, and signalised his courage in many engagements; and when advanced to the highest posts, a no less consummate general. In peace, when consulted in matters of right, he shewed the highest skill; and in pleading a cause, no less eloquence. Nor did this appear during his life only, as in those whose talents in that way flourish and die with them; for his remain, and live consecrated to futurity in his writings of every kind; as his extant orations, as well in defence of himself, as both for and against others, fully shew: for he gave his adversaries work, both by his impeachments, and his vindications: and indeed he was rather too much engaged in contention: nor is it easy to say, whether the nobility bore harder on him, or he on the nobility: for his natural temper, it must be owned, was somewhat of the harshest, and his tongue of the freest. But then he had a soul impenetrable to all the allurements of pleasure; most rigidly honest and unblemished, above courting the favor of men, and no less contemning riches. For parsimony, and for patience in fatigues and in dangers, his constitution both of body and mind seemed firm as iron; and such as even old age, to which all things yield, could not break nor subdue for in his 86th year he delivered a public oration in his own defence, which he also put in writing; and in his 90th he impeached Servius Galba before the commons." Thus wrote Livy of Cato, above a hundred years after his death. From which character we may observe Cicero made a . most proper choice of his speaker, and the following discourse will be found as justly to suit the character. Other particulars of his life will occur further on; [for some of which, see note 56, 71, 89, &c.] The word he alludes to for his name, is Catus, which signifies circumspect, cautious, cunning.- -The other of the same name was his great grandson, by his son Marcus, and Tertia, Paulus Æmilius's daughter, both mentioned hereafter, called Cato, junior, or Uticensis, from the place of his death; who for his virtues gained a greater reputation, and became more famous, even than his ancestor; of whom (since his life, as I have said, is in Plutarch) I shall here only give this short character from Velleius Paterculus, an old Roman historian, who wrote about 75 years after his death; and in book 2. chap. 35, speaks thus of him: "He was the very image of virtue itself; in his disposition more like a god than a man; who never did a good thing that he might be seen to do it, but because he could not act otherwise; whose only rule in life was justice; untouched with any human vice, and ever in himself superior to every attack of fortune." I shall also further observe, that he is the principal hero of Lucan's Pharsalia, a poem never finished, but generally wrote with a true spirit of liberty, even under the tyranny of Nero; but it cost the author his life. In the 9th book of that poem, after a most beautiful character of that excellent great man, the poet concludes (according to the religion of that time, when Rome took upon it to people heaven with gods, as it now does, with saints to be prayed to) with those most remarkable lines: Ecce parens verus patrie, dignissimus aris Roma tuis, per quem nunquam jurare pudebit, Et quem si steteris unquam cervice solutâ Tunc olim factara deum Thus Englished by N. Rowe. His country's father here, O Rome, behold, If liberty be e'er restor❜d again, Him thou shalt place in the divine abodes, Swear by his holy name, and rank him with thy gods. To avoid seeing the subversion of the liberties of Rome, he killed himself, in the 49th year of his age. Livy Epit. lib. 114. Page 252. 8 Scipio and Lælius. There were two pairs of illustrious Romans of these names, noted for their mutual friendship. The first flourished in the time of, and acted very great parts in the second Punic or Carthaginian war: for this Scipio was the man, to whom Rome not only owed its own deliverance and safety, but nearly all her advantages and conquests over the Carthaginians; who, after they had brought that city to the very brink of ruin, were afterwards obliged, and principally by the conduct of Scipio, to submit to hard conditions of peace; [see note 24 and 29.] for which he afterwards bore the name of Scipio Africanus, as the conqueror of Africa: and in all these actions Lælius was his almost inseparable companion. But the pair of the same names here intended by Cicero, were two generations younger. This Scipio was the real son of the great Paulus Æmilius, whose life is amongst those of Plutarch, [see note 24.] but was, after the manner of the Romans, adopted by the son of the first great Scipio Africanus; who, being himself but of a weakly constitution of body for a son to succeed him, chose one of that illustrious family of the Æmilii: hence laying down his paternal name, he, according to custom, took that of the family he was grafted into; and afterwards for his conquest and demolition of Carthage in the third Punic war [see note 29.] he also bore the name of Scipio Africanus; but to distinguish him from his grandfather, he was called Africanus, junior, and frequently from his own father's name, Scipio Emilianus. He had also the title Numantinus given him, from his reduction, or more properly, the utter destruction, of the famous (the glorious) city of Numantia in Spain; in which, as brave a people as ever were known on earth, and who as little deserved it, were utterly destroyed, men, women, and children; not in open battle, nor by taking the place by force: for the Romans durst not engage them; but by hemming them in with greater numbers, and utterly starving them. Yet this Sci pio was in himself a most excellent person, and in all other respects, save in these two inhuman achievements, the destruction of Carthage and of Numantia, which were done in obedience to the state, and were in those times accounted glorious; he appears to have deserved the character given him by the before-mentioned Paterculus, l. 1. c. 12, which is this: "A man who equalled the virtues of his grandfather Scipio, and of his own father Paulus Æmilius; who, for every accomplishment, either for the sword or gown [war or peace] for his natural abilities, and his vast improvements of these, was undoubtedly the most eminent of his age; who, in the whole course of his life, never did, spoke, or thought a thing that was not worthy of praise.” But having opposed the party of that turbulent tribune Caius Gracchus, brother to his wife Sempronia, and grandson to the first great Scipio Africanus before-mentioned, by his admired daughter Cornelia, and consequently this Scipio's own first cousin, as was shewn before by his adoption; after he had been waited on home in full health by the principal senators, he was the next morning found dead in his bed, strangled as some thought, or, as others, poisoned, and not without his wife's privity: nor was his death further inquired into; such was the confusion of the time. Thus ended that very great man, in the 56th year of his age, and in the 625th of the city. Vell. Paterc. lib. 2. c. 4. & Liv. lib. 59. in Arg. & Freinsheim Suppl. But notwithstanding all the opportunities he had of enriching himself, we find by Aurelius Victor, that he died but poor, as Cato also did, [see note 89,] which is a further proof of the integrity of both. Plutarch wrote the lives of both these Scipio's, but they are both lost. His friend Lælius, was Caius Lælius, surnamed Sapiens, the wise, who was consul the 614th year of the city. Cicero taking occasion from the known friendship between him and Scipio, makes him the chief speaker (as Cato is here) in that other fine discourse of his, which bears his mame Lælius, on the subject of Friendship, wrote afterwards and directed to the same T. P. Atticus, with this. Page 254. 9 Salinator was consul in the 566th year, Albinus in the 568th, but Cato in the 559th year of the city. See note 17. 10 One of Seriphos, a small barren island in the Ægean sea. Page 255. 11 Quintus Fabius Maximus, who, after the Romans had in several successive battles been defeated at the rivers Ticinus and Trebia, and the Thrasymene lake, by Annibal, was in the 537th year of Rome, appointed dictator or absolute commander, an office that legally was to continue but six months, and for that time abrogated the power of the consul and of all other magistrates, excepting that of the tribunes of the people, and of the lower ones, necessary for administering justice and keeping the peace; but under him his master of horse had also a considerable power. In which time he kept Annibal at a bay; constantly declining, however provoked, to engage with him: though by the rashness of Minucius, his master of horse, invested with too much power by the people, all had like to be lost again; and after he laid down his office, the terrible battle of Canna was fought, wherein 80 senators and 45,000 of the Roman army fell. Two years after this, Fabius was the fourth time consul, and after six years more, the fifth, An. Urb. 545. 12 In the 521st year of Rome, 233 years before Christ, therefore Cato was born in the 520th. Page 256. 13 Twenty years of age.—A quæstor in the city was a treasurer; in the army he took an account of, and received what was gained to the public from the enemy; kept lists of the army, and took accounts of the slain on both sides. The Edile's business was to look after all buildings, public and private, weights and measures, to order the public games, &c. Prætors were the chief city magistrates in Rome, and abroad were governors in civil affairs. 14. At thirty years. 15. When a law was proposed, it was read publicly to the people, and then fixed up for three nundinæ, or twentyseven days after which, the people being met, some per |