Columbia Unibersttp 
 
 intijeCttpofiSetogork 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 3 
 

LIVE? 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS VALERIUS MESSALA 
 CORVINUS, 
 
 AND 
 
 TITUS POMPONIUS ATTICUS; 
 
 THE LATTER FROM THE LATIN OF CORNELIUS NEPOS. 
 
 WITH 
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILKS' 
 
 OF THE 
 
 FIVE FIRST CAESARS. 
 
 By the Rev. EDWARD BERWICK, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE LIFE OF APOLLO- 
 
 NIUS OF TYANA. 
 
 Multorum disce exemplo quae facta sequaris, 
 Quae fugias : vita est nobis aliena magistra. — 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 Printed by James Ballantyne &,- Co. 
 
 )R LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, LONDON ; 
 AND C. P. ARCHER, DUBLIN. 
 
 1813. 
 
; • 
 
 • . • • • 
 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
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 • • • • • • 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 4 ... 
 
 Ix giving the lives of Mesial?. Ccrviniu 
 and Pomponius Atticus to the public, 
 some apology may, perhaps, be deemed 
 necessary. Whether the following ac- 
 count of Messala mav be entitled to the 
 appellation of a Life, is left to the judg- 
 ment of the reader ; but it appeared to 
 me that history had preserved such a 
 number of interesting, distinct, yet dis- 
 persed incidents of his character, as 
 made a collection of the whole desirable. 
 
 10 
 
 \^0354- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ,'-<-<-. .«• <■ 
 
 Indeed the idea of first bringing together 
 the scattered rays of his life, was sug- 
 gested to me by a note in Gibbon's His- 
 tory of the Roman Empire, wherein that 
 elegant writer has given, in his own pe- 
 teuMitr;mannei\ \hc leading features of it. 
 
 t c tec I * «W •• • ••" • <-> 
 
 H<>WeVev independent of Gibbon's au- 
 thoiityas.anJbistorian, the light in which 
 
 i* <_ c ccic ««,'•• * 
 
 IL ft I C « * •" * t * * ' * « 
 
 Messala appears, when first introduced by 
 Cicero to the notice of Brutus, is in itself 
 sufficient to awaken posterity to the in- 
 vestigation of all that is known of him. 
 In the following Memoirs of his life, I 
 have examined carefully all the accounts 
 given of him by ancient and modern wri- 
 ters ; and arranged and connected them 
 in the way I judged most suitable to the 
 subject : and though I have not been able 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 to ascertain either the day of his birth, 
 or that of his death, I trust that the cir- 
 cumstances of his history, now presented 
 to the reader, may meet the approbation, 
 and engage the attention, of every man 
 who is conversant with classical learning: 
 and polite literature. — I shall make no 
 further apology for this unambitious un- 
 dertaking, but proceed to give the reason 
 for trespassing on the public with a new 
 translation of the life of Atticus, from the 
 Latin of Cornelius Nepos, which has been 
 so often given to the English reader. 
 This life of Atticus I have here introdu- 
 ced, first, from his being a contemporary 
 with Messala, and, secondly, from my 
 humbly conceiving that a new version of 
 the same, with notes historical and criti- 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 cal, together with illustrations more ap- 
 plicable to the text than had been gi- 
 ven by former translators, might not be 
 thought unacceptable at a time, when a 
 dignified independence of character, and 
 disinterested integrity, are so necessary 
 to give stability to the state, and active 
 energy to a constitution, which has stood 
 the test of ages, and escaped a concussion 
 of events, which has laid prostrate all the 
 kingdoms of Europe. — To the whole is 
 subjoined a brief historical sketch of the 
 five first Caesars, written some years ago, 
 to elucidate a genealogy, which, without 
 some such leading clue, is often obscure 
 and perplexing. It is now offered to the 
 public, from its being, in some measure, 
 illustrative of the time wherein these two 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 eminent personages lived ; and from its 
 demonstrating to the sovereigns of the 
 earth, that no characters, however exalt- 
 ed by birth, or power, can long support 
 their high authority, without the constant 
 and vivifying influence of religion and 
 virtue. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGES. 
 
 Part I.— Memoir of the Life of Marcus Valerius 
 
 Messala Corvinus, 1 
 
 II. — Memoir of the Life of Pomponius Atti- 
 
 cus, 3S 
 
 III. — Genealogical Account of the Families of 
 the Five first Emperors of Rome, of 
 the Caesarian line, 155 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Editor begs leave to inform the Public, 
 that he is preparing for the Press the Lives of 
 Caius Asinius Pollio, Marcus Teren- 
 tius Varro, and Caius Cornelius Gal- 
 lus, which he is compiling after the manner of 
 that of Messala Corvinus, on the success of which 
 with the Public will in a great measure depend 
 their publication, 
 
MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS VALERIUS MESSALA 
 CORVINUS. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS VALERIUS MESSALA 
 CORVINUS. 
 
 In reading over Cicero's letters to Brutus, 1 it 
 is impossible not to be struck with the account 
 which he gives of Messala, whom he describes 
 in such language as to raise our esteem and ad- 
 miration ; and at the same time to awaken our 
 curiosity to learn every thing left us of the life 
 and character of such a man. Unfortunately 
 for posterity, the knowledge of the period in 
 which his conduct was most distinguished, is 
 very imperfect; however there is enough of 
 history and panegyric still remaining to make 
 us regret the loss it is probable we have sus- 
 tained. In general the style of panegyric, we 
 must own, is little to be relied on ; and the 
 
 1 Epis. 15. ad Brutum. 
 
testimony it conveys of illustrious characters 
 ought ever to be received with doubt and he- 
 sitation. In the present instance, an excep- 
 tion may be allowed to a rule so very general, 
 with some appearance of justice, when we have 
 the evidence of a great variety of learned wri- 
 ters, and the concurrent approbation of some 
 portions of unquestionable history, all unani- 
 mous in the same sentiments. — The person by 
 whom Messala is f)rst introduced to our notice 
 affords an evidence of honourable import, and 
 adds a degree of almost premature brilliancy 
 to his character. How can we avoid being 
 prepossessed in favour of a youth, when we see 
 him at a crisis so awful and alarming as that 
 which intervened between the death of Caesar 
 and the dreadful proscription which followed, 
 recommended by Cicero to Brutus ; recom- 
 mended by the greatest orator and most en- 
 lightened statesman of the age, to the last ac- 
 tive assertor of Roman liberty. It was but a 
 few months previous to the proscription that 
 Cicero wrote a letter to Brutus, in which, af- 
 ter introducing Messala to his notice in the 
 most flattering manner, he lays open the whole 
 political state of the Republic, from the death 
 of Caesar, in the year of Rome 709, to the year 
 
710 ; but, as general history is not to be the 
 object of these Memoirs, the author must con- 
 fine his inquiries to the life of Messala alone, 
 and sketch out the form and pressure of the 
 times, as far as they may contribute to throw 
 a light on the subject of it. This letter, writ- 
 ten in the sixty-fourth year of Cicero's age, 
 and last of his life, is an unquestionable proof 
 that he was still in the full possession of all his 
 great talents, and that the warmth and tender- 
 ness of his friendship were not abated : but this 
 reflection only serves to make us deplore his 
 melancholy fate, and to excite in us every feel- 
 ing of indignation against a coalition which 
 could, in cold blood, sign the death-warrant 
 of the first philosopher and statesman of the 
 time in which he lived. 
 
 It has been noticed, that the situation of 
 affairs at Rome was most critical : Cicero had 
 too late discovered the young Caesar's hostile 
 intentions to public liberty, his alarming re- 
 conciliation with Antony and Lepidus, and 
 that his uncle's death was to be avenged by an 
 exemplary punishment. He used all the aiv 
 guments in his power to dissuade the youth 
 from such a fatal undertaking : and at the same 
 time gave the earliest intimation he could of 
 
bis design* to Brutus, who had thou assumed 
 <he command of the army in Greec e. As 
 
 Messala, the subject o( our Memoirs, was at 
 this critical period Rotting out to join Cassius 
 in the East, and was resolved to pass through 
 Macedonia, where Brutus lay encamped, Ci- 
 cero wrote by him the following epistle, which 
 begins with a particular delineation of his cha- 
 racter : 
 
 3 " You have Messala now with you. It is 
 not possible, therefore, for me to explain by 
 letter, though ever so accurately drawn, the 
 presen: state of our affairs, as exactly as he 
 can, who not only knows them all more per- 
 fectly, but can describe them more elegantly 
 than any man : for I would not have you ima- 
 
 » • 
 
 sine] Brutus, fthoujgh there is no occasion to 
 tell you what you know already, but that I 
 cannot pass over in silence such an excellence 
 of all good qualities :) I would not have you 
 imagine, I sa\, that for probity, constancv, 
 and zeal for the republic, there is any one 
 equal to him : so that eloquence, in which he 
 wonderfully excels, scarce finds a place amoncr 
 
 * The translation of Cicero's letter to Brutus is copi- 
 from that given in Dr Middlctoivs Life of the former. 
 
his other praises: since even in that his wis- 
 dom shines the most eminent, by hu having 
 formed himself with so much judgment and 
 skill to the truest manner of -peaking. Yet his 
 industry all the while is so remarkable, and he 
 spends so much time in study, that he seern-> 
 to owe but little to his parts, which are still 
 the greatest. But I am carried too far by my 
 love for hirn : for it is not the purpose of this 
 epistle to praise Messala, especially to Brutus, 
 to whom his virtue is not less known than to 
 myself: and these very studies, which I am 
 praising, ^till more : whom when I could not 
 part with without regret, I comforted myself 
 with reflecting, that, by his going away to you, 
 as- it were to mv second self, he both dischar- 
 ged his duty, and pur-ued the surest path to 
 glory." The remaining part of the letter is 
 employed by Cicero in unfolding the state of 
 public affairs at Rome: and, in conclusion, 
 urging the necessity of Brutus's coming to Italv 
 with his army as soon as possible; for, add- 
 he, " some constitution must be established 
 in the citv, to effect which vour authoritv will 
 be absolutely neces-ary." 
 
 This is suppo-ed to be the last letter of Ci- 
 cero'- extant : for historv informs us that Cas- 
 
8 
 
 sar, Antony, and Lepidus met soon after in a 
 small island in the river Rhenus, about two 
 miles from Bononia, for the purpose of set- 
 tling the state of the Republic : but, alas ! the 
 interview closed in extinguishing it for ever in 
 the blood of all its best friends, who were 
 doomed to destruction by a proscription* at 
 which the Sun itself ought to have blushed. 
 Cicero fell regretted by all good men ; and 
 posterity, which must for ever love and admire 
 his virtues, humanely wishes, for the sake of 
 her sons, to draw the veil of oblivion over the 
 execrable names of those three men, who in 
 cold blood proscribed three hundred senators 
 and two thousand knights, all men the most 
 attached to the ancient constitution of their 
 country. When we consider the character of 
 Messala, and the party he had espoused at this 
 critical exigency, we may naturally expect to 
 find his name in the bloody roll of the con- 
 
 9 I believe, says Plutarch, there never was any thing 
 so atrocious, or eo execrably savage, as this commerce of 
 blood : for while a friend was given up for an enemy re- 
 ceived, the same action murthered at once the friend and 
 the enemy : and the destruction of the former was still 
 more horrible, because it had not even resentment for its 
 apology. — Life of Antony. 
 
9 
 
 demned. It is not to be supposed that the 
 friend of Cicero and the republic could escape 
 in the wild fury let loose on the Roman world. 
 In the hour of destruction his name was mark- 
 ed for the assassin ; and, had he remained in 
 Italy, we should now perhaps have only the 
 melancholy office of lamenting over his un- 
 timely fate. But his kinder star was predo- 
 minant, he had joined Cassius* in the East, 
 and was out of the reach of his enemies. The 
 death of Cicero abated the fury of the Trium- 
 virs, who now presumed that the last remains 
 of the old republican spirit, which had awed 
 them in Italy, expired with him. The pro- 
 gress made by the arms of Brutus and Cassius 5 
 soon called them to reflect on their perilous 
 situation, and warned them to arrest the hand 
 of the executioner. In a moment of serious 
 consideration, they calculated that the acqui- 
 
 4 Messala Corvinus boasted that Cassius was his ge- 
 neral. — Tacitus' Annals, b. iv. c. 34. 
 
 s Antony. Brutus and Cassius 
 
 Are levying powers; we must straight make head. 
 
 Octavius. Let us do so ; for we are at the stake, 
 And bay'd about with many enemies ; 
 And some that smile, have in their hearts, I fear, 
 Millions of mischiefs. JULIUS C^SAE. 
 
10 
 
 sition of some of the best surviving characters 
 might considerably weaken the party of the 
 enemy, give some degree of sanction to their 
 future proceedings, and help to draw a veil 
 over the blood lavished by their orders. In 
 consequence of such sentiments, a special 
 edict 6 was issued, under the seal of triumvi- 
 ral authority, excepting Messala and Marcus 
 Varro from the general slaughter. This edict 
 of mercy is still extant, and runs in the follow- 
 ing terms : " Whereas it appears, by the evi- 
 dence of concurring witnesses, that neither 
 Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus, nor Mar- 
 cus Terentius Varro, were so much as in Rome 
 when Caesar the Dictator was murdered, let 
 their names be erased from the roll of the pro- 
 scribed." Marcus Varro was far advanced in 
 years at the time this pardon was offered ; he 
 accepted it, retired to the country which he 
 loved, and improved by his studies, and died 
 amongst his books almost in the ninetieth year 
 of his age. Messala spurned with indignation 
 
 6 This edict was directed to Munatius Plancus, then 
 consul. — Appian. b. iv. Blackweli/s Court of Au- 
 gustus, vol. ii. p. 95. Horace addressed an ode to this 
 Plancus, wherein he advised him to banish his anxiety, 
 and remain in his own delightful villa near Tibur. 
 
11 
 
 the benefit of such an act of grace ; he was 
 sensible that their conduct originated from 
 necessity, and not from sincerity, being fully 
 convinced that no dependence could be placed 
 on the faith of men who were laying waste 
 their country with ruin, and shedding all its 
 best blood. He had joined the standard of the 
 Republic, to which he adhered until he saw it 
 broken in the plains of Philippi. On that day, 
 so important to liberty, we are told that he 
 had the command of a legion, 7 and took his 
 stand on the right, being near his beloved Bru- 
 tus. Plutarch informs us, from some writings 
 of Messala and Volumnius, which remained in 
 his time, that the camp of the young Caesar 
 was forced, his legions routed, and three 
 eagles and other ensigns taken from the ene- 
 my without the loss of one of their own. To 
 this rash impetuosity of the right wing is to be 
 ascribed an error, 8 which, being succeeded by 
 
 7 Messala's legion first turned the left wing of Caesar, 
 and was followed by those that were stationed near him. 
 — Plutarch's Life of Brutus. 
 
 8 Titinius. O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early, 
 Who, having some advantage on Octavius, 
 
 Took it too eagerly ; his soldiers fell to spoil 
 Whilst we by Antony were all inclosed. 
 
 Julius Cjesar. 
 
Yi 
 
 a train of others, brought on defeat, the death 
 of Cassius, and all the other misfortunes that 
 fell upon the Republic and its friends. When 
 Brutus heard of the precipitate death of Cas- 
 sius, which was not before his coming up to 
 his camp, he wept over his body, and called 
 him " the last of the Romans f f 9 by which he 
 intimated, says Plutarch, " that Rome could 
 never produce another man of equal spirit." 
 We are told by the same author, from the 
 Memoirs of Messala, that Cassius supped in 
 private with some of his most intimate friends, 
 and, contrary to his usual manner, he was 
 pensive and silent. Messala adds, that after 
 supper he took him by the hand, and pressing 
 it close, said courteously in Greek, (the lan- 
 guage which he used upon such occasions,) 
 1 " Bear witness, Messala, that I am reduced 
 
 9 Brutus. Thou last of all the Romans, fare thee 
 well! 
 It is impossible, that ever Rome 
 Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears 
 To this dead man, than you shall see me pay. 
 
 1 Cassius. Give me thy hand, Messala, 
 Be thou my witness, that against my will, 
 As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set 
 Upon one battle all our liberties. — JULIUS C.XSAB. 
 
13 
 
 to the same necessity as was Pompey the Great, 
 of hazarding the liberty of my country upon 
 one battle. Yet I have confidence in our good 
 fortune, upon which we ought still to rely, 
 though our measures be indiscreet." These, 
 Messala informs us, were the last words that 
 Cassius spoke, before he bade him farewell : 
 and the following day, being his birth-day,* 
 he invited Cassius to sup with him. The name 
 of Messala renders even the smallest portion 
 of authentic history respecting him interest- 
 ing; and consequently the following circum- 
 stance, though but slightly connected with 
 these Memoirs, cannot be passed over in si- 
 lence. The conduct of Brutus towards the 
 slaves whom he had taken prisoners, by order- 
 ing them to be put to the sword after the first 
 day's battle, may certainly be considered as se- 
 
 * According to the old translation of Plutarch, it is 
 Cassius's birth-day, not Messala's. Had Cassius died on 
 his birth-day, M. Ricard rightly supposes such an in- 
 stance of a great man's dying on his birth-day would not 
 have been omitted in Plutarch's list. Shakspeare fol- 
 lows the old translation : 
 
 Cassius. > Messala, 
 
 This is my birth-day ; as this very day 
 Was Cassius born. — Julius CzESAR. 
 
14 
 
 veve ; and yet when we reflect that the guard- 
 ing of them during a future engagement would 
 have been attended with much danger; that 
 he had found them tampering with his sol- 
 diers ; that the anguish of his mind in conse- 
 quence of his late defeat, and the sudden death 
 of his friend Cassius, must have driven him al- 
 most to distraction ; when we consider the case 
 under all these circumstances, how can we ab- 
 stain from execrating the authors of a civil 
 war, and deploring its sad and afflicting ef- 
 fects, which compel the most virtuous to offer 
 violence to their natures, and to sacrifice every 
 principle of humanity to the imperious neces- 
 sity of events. However, the mildness of Bru- 
 tus' s disposition appears in his dismissal of as 
 many as he dared of those freemen and citi- 
 zens whom he had taken prisoners ; and when 
 he found this act of mercy gave offence to some 
 of his officers, who were their implacable ene- 
 mies, he sent them away privately; and 3 the 
 tenderness of his nature exerted itself several 
 ways to shelter them from slaughter. Amongst 
 
 3 His life was gentle, and the elements 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, 
 And say to all the world, This teas a man. 
 
 Julius Cjesar. 
 
15 
 
 the prisoners were Volumnius, a mimic, and 
 Saculio, a buffoon, who were brought before 
 Brutus, and accused of continuing, even in 
 their captivity, their scurrilous language and 
 abusive jests. Brutus was so engaged with 
 business, that he could not attend to the com- 
 plaint ; and the accused were carried to Mes- 
 sala, who, always inclined to lenity, gave it as 
 his opinion, " that they should be publicly 
 whipped, and sent naked to the enemy." By 
 such treatment he thought the shame would 
 light on Caesar and Antony for retaining in 
 their service two such associates and comrades, 
 whose vocation was that of ridiculing and re- 
 viling the miseries of their fellow-creatures; 
 but this humane advice was rejected, and the 
 poor wretches, at the suggestions of Publius 
 Casca, and some other officers, were led away 
 and sacrificed to the injured manes of Cassius. 
 In the second engagement which Brutus had 
 with Caesar, though Messala's name is not 
 particularly mentioned by Plutarch, we may 
 conclude his conduct as an officer was such as 
 did not lessen the reputation he had earned in 
 the first. We all too well know the event of 
 the battle, Brutus fell, and with him the liberty 
 
 3 
 
16 
 
 of Rome.* Messala and Lucius Bibulus re- 
 tired to the island of Thasos, to weep over the 
 misfortunes of their friends, and the nlin of 
 the Republic. The spirit of their party was 
 broken, and an almost general despair had 
 taken possession of their minds. A second 
 proscription was issued from the camp of the 
 victorious generals, and was marked with 
 blood like unto the first. All the more vio- 
 lent republicans, whose courage was not quite 
 broken down by the late defeat, cast their eyes 
 on Messala 5 and Bibulus, and called on them 
 
 4 This was the noblest Roman of them all : 
 All the conspirators, save only he, 
 Did that they did in envy of great Caesar; 
 He only in a general honest thought, 
 And common good to all, made one of them. 
 
 Julius Cjesar. 
 Thasos, an island in the iEgean Sea, near the mouth 
 of the Nessus in Thrace. 
 
 s Messala, says Velleius Paterculus, whose character 
 then shone refulgent in arms, and whose authority in the 
 camp was not inferior to that of Brutus and Cassius, be- 
 ing invited by the army that survived the battle of Phi- 
 lippi, to take their command, declined the honour, say- 
 ing, he had rather owe his safety to the kindness of Cae- 
 sar, than make further trial of the doubtful fate of ano- 
 ther battlet No circumstance of the victory, adds the 
 
17 
 
 to assume the command of whatever force still 
 survived. " We have troops enough," said 
 they, " and able generals to form a new army. 
 From the wreck of Philippi we shall collect 
 men sufficient to defend the state. Has the 
 fate of Rome depended on the lives of but 
 two men ?" These last words of expiring vir- 
 tue were uttered in vain. Messala and Bibu- 
 lus refused to embark in their cause : "It has 
 cost Rome too much blood already," they re- 
 plied, " and we must yield to the storm, and 
 fall under the power of the strongest." 
 
 It would lead us too far from the subject of 
 these Memoirs, to enter into a particular dis- 
 cussion for the purpose of examining the truth 
 of these words. In the then situation of pub- 
 lic affairs, what line of conduct should Mes- 
 sala and Bibulus have pursued ? In making 
 a decision, they must have taken into consi- 
 deration, first, their late defeat, which de- 
 prived them of the two men in whom their 
 hopes and the hopes of Rome centered ; next, 
 the gloomy complexion of the times, the al- 
 
 historian, gave so much pleasure to Caesar as the saving 
 of Corvinus ; and no man was ever more piously grate- 
 ful than what he was ever after to his benefactor.— 
 Vkl. Pat. b. ii. fc. 71. 
 
18 
 
 most total extinction of the old republican 
 virtue, the depravity of all parties, the ambi- 
 tion of the great men, and the general ten- 
 dency of all things to a monarchy. Whether 
 Messala should have taken an active part with 
 either Caesar or Antony, may fairly admit of 
 some question. He was well acquainted with 
 both their characters, knew how much the cor- 
 ruption of the times had infected their hearts, 
 and how ambition had divested them of every 
 principle of virtue. And now, were it asked 
 what a wise and honourable man should have 
 done at such a time, and in such a momentous 
 crisis of affairs, it would not be easy to return 
 a satisfactory answer. Should he have col- 
 lected the scattered remains of the republican 
 forces, and, in defiance of reason, and all pro- 
 bability of success, have taken the command 
 of them, and fought them to the last ? Or 
 should he, in despair, have fallen on his sword 
 like Cassius and Brutus ? Messala's experi- 
 ence of the real situation of things advised 
 him against the first, and his virtue, we must 
 hope, against the last. But it may be said he 
 should have retired from the world, like his 
 friend Tibullus, and have spent the remainder 
 of his life in peace and philosophy. Such a 
 
19 
 
 step, had he taken it, might, it is to be fear- 
 ed, have proved fatal to him ; or at least must 
 have been attended with great danger on ac- 
 count of his exalted rank and well-known 
 character. It appears from every point of 
 view in which his then situation can be con- 
 sidered, that it held out to him this only alter- 
 native, either to have joined the victorious 
 party, or fallen, like Cicero, a victim to the 
 furious spirit of the cruel proscription. For- 
 tunately for mankind, the former sentiment 
 prevailed ; and the Roman people had often 
 reason to rejoice, that a man of such virtue 
 and humanity held so high a place in the es- 
 timation of their rulers : and the freedom and 
 dignity which he uniformly asserted, for the 
 rest of his life, in a most despotic court, must 
 have justified to them, as it has done to pos- 
 terity, the apparent inconsistency of his con- 
 duct, and seeming relinquishment of charac- 
 ter, in espousing a cause which his under- 
 standing condemned, and his heart reproba- 
 ted. He saw at Philippi the spirit of the old 
 republic prostrate in the dust, the standard of 
 Liberty broken, and all her friends humbled 
 or subdued. Under circumstances such as 
 have been noticed, he listened to the persua- 
 
20 
 
 sive advice of the accomplished Asinius Pol- 
 lio, 6 who undertook to reconcile him to An- 
 tony, and to secure the lives of all who should 
 surrender under his command. Messala and 
 Bibulus yielded to his expostulations; and 
 Pollio had the eminent merit of securing the 
 neutrality, if not the services, of such a num- 
 ber of brave men, and of adding a weight and 
 consequence to his party by the acquisition of 
 a character so highly esteemed as that of Mes- 
 sala. Antony passed over to Thasos, 7 and 
 
 / 
 
 6 Caius Asinius Pollio is always ranked among the 
 most illustrious men of his age, and his character is too 
 well known to require any particular eulogy here. Asi- 
 nius Pollio, says Melmoth, was in every respect one of 
 the most accomplished persons among his contempora- 
 ries. His extensive genius was equal to all the nobler 
 branches of polite literature ; and he gave the most ap- 
 plauded proofs of his talents as a poet, an orator, and an 
 historian. He united the most lively and pleasing vein 
 of wit and pleasantry, with all that strength and solidity 
 of understanding which is necessary to render a man of 
 weight in the more serious and important occasions of 
 life : in allusion to which uncommon assemblage of qua- 
 lities, it was said of him that he was a man omnium ho- 
 rarum. 
 
 7 Thasos, an island in the iEgean Sea, near Thrace, 
 from which it is separated by a small channel ; it was fa- 
 mous for its vines, the wine of which was remarkable for 
 its fine flavour ; it abounded also in excellent marble. — 
 Gaa-aoq ayuQuv is a proverbial saying for great plenty. 
 
21 
 
 with great frankness received both Messala 
 and Bibulus into favour, and was by them 
 put in possession of all the wealth and maga- 
 zines of provisions which had been amassed in 
 the island, as the great storehouse of the two 
 armies. The friends of philosophy and lite- 
 rature have cause to rejoice that Horatius 
 Flaccus, 8 and Albius Tibullus, who appeared 
 in the ranks of the republic at Philippi, sur- 
 vived that disastrous day ; both of them lived 
 in the greatest intimacy and friendship with 
 Messala : the former soon made his peace 
 with Caesar, whose heart his literary conversa- 
 tion and instructive writings helped to soften, 
 and to make him the father, instead of the ty- 
 rant, of the Roman people : the latter retired 
 to his country seat at Pedum, 9 where, under 
 
 8 With thee I saw Philippics plain, 
 Its fatal rout, a fearful scene : 
 
 And dropp'd, alas ! the inglorious shield, 
 Where Valour's self was forced to yield, 
 Where soil'd in dust the vanquish'd lay, 
 And breath'd th' indignant soul away. 
 
 Horace, b. ii. ode 7. 
 
 9 Quid nunc te dicam facere in regionc Pedana ? — Sec 
 Horace's simple and natural Epistle to Tibullus, b. i. 
 ep. 4. 
 
22 
 
 the patronage of Messala, he devoted his 
 hours of leisure to philosophy and the muses. 
 After the battle of Philippi, which happen- 
 ed in the latter end of the year 71 1 9 in the 
 consulate of Marcus iEmilius Lepidus and 
 Lucius Munatius Plancus, history mentions 
 not the name of Messala till the year 713. 
 As he joined the arms of Antony, it is to be 
 supposed that he followed his fortunes and his 
 pleasures in his first progress to the East. 
 All writers ancient and modern, who have 
 noticed Antony's eastern tour, have celebra- 
 ted the interview which he had at Tarsus with 
 Cleopatra, whose irresistible charms at the 
 age of fifteen are known to have captivated 
 the eldest son of Pompey the Great, and, at 
 one-and-twenty, to have subdued the soul of 
 Julius Caesar. 1 When the Egyptian queen 
 entered the Cydnus * she was in all the bloom 
 
 O friendly to the best pursuits of man, 
 Friendly to thought, to virtue and to peace, 
 Domestic life in rural leisure passed. — Cowper. 
 
 1 See Blackwell, vol. ii. p. 228. 
 
 * Agrippa. Royal wench, 
 She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed. 
 
 Enob. The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne 
 Burnt on the water. 
 
23 
 
 of youth and beauty ; and the uncontrolled 
 dominion she held over the mind of Antony 
 from that time till her death, in the 39th year 
 of her age, was felt and regretted by the Ro- 
 man people. After Cleopatra's departure, 
 Daphne 3 was chosen by the Triumvir as his 
 next place of residence ; and for some time he 
 indulged in all the luxuries of that delicious 
 abode; careless of the disturbances raised at 
 Rome by his wife Fulvia, and unmindful of 
 the unsettled state of Asia and of the Parthian 
 war. Whilst he tarried on the banks of the 
 Orontes, we are told, a deputation 4 of Jewish 
 
 Mecanas. Now, Antony must leave her utterly. 
 
 Enob. Never, he will not. 
 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 3 The temple and village of Daphne, near Antioch, 
 are described by Gibbon in his happiest manner. See 
 his Roman History, vol. iv. p. 106. — Sir Walter Raleigh 
 speaks of Daphne as a place of delight. 
 
 Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit Pompeius, 
 quo lucus ibi spatiosior fieret, delectatus amoenitate loci, 
 et aquarum abundantia. — Eutropius, lib. 6. 
 
 4 This was a second deputation : Antony had recei- 
 ved a deputation on a similar account some time before 
 when quartered in Bithynia. Blackwell, vol. ii. p. 208. 
 At which time, adds Joseph us, Herod was in such favour 
 
24 
 
 ambassadors waited on him, praying a redress 
 of grievances against the usurpations of Fa- 
 sail and Herod, the two sons of Antipater the 
 Idumean, a man who was illustrious by his 
 birth, his riches, and abilities. A day was 
 appointed by Antony for the solemn hearing 
 of the cause ; the ambassadors of the Jews ap- 
 peared at the head of a most respectable body 
 of lawyers, s and charged the two brothers who 
 were present with many acts of despotic power 
 and oppression. Herod was fortunate in ha- 
 ving prevailed on Messala, 6 who happened to 
 be then at Antioch, to appear in his favour, 
 who pleaded his cause with so much strength 
 and eloquence, that Antony, after hearing 
 both sides of the question, turned to Hyrca- 
 nus the high-priest, (whom Herod had per- 
 suaded to attend the trial,) and publicly called 
 on him to declare, whether he believed Fa- 
 
 with Antony, that the ambassadors could not even ob- 
 tain a h caring. 
 
 5 BJackwell says, they were an hundred of the most 
 powerful men in the nation, who carried with them some 
 of the ablest lawyers and best speakers of their country. 
 —Vol. ii. p. 241. 
 
 6 Biackwell, vol. ii. p. 241. Josephus says, Messala 
 opposed the insinuations of the Jewish lawyers, and de- 
 fended the cause of the young men. 
 
25 
 
 sail and Herod, or their accusers, would best 
 acquit themselves of the administration ? As 
 we are informed that Herod was at this time 
 deeply in love with the beautiful Mariamne, 7 
 the grand-niece of Hyrcanus, and even then 
 betrothed to her, the high-priest's decision 
 can scarcely be doubted. Judgment was given 
 in favour of the two brothers ; and Antony 
 without delay appointed them tetrarchs of 
 Judea. The deputies were enraged at the 
 decision, and used such insolent language to 
 Antony, that he ordered fifteen of them to be 
 seized and thrown into irons ; and had not 
 the high-priest interceded in their behalf, he 
 would have given command to have had them 
 all put to death. Some time after the deter- 
 mination of this affair, Antony returned to 
 Rome, 8 where Herod appeared again as a 
 suppliant, " imploring assistance against the 
 Parthians, who, he said, had invaded Judea, 
 murdered his brother Fasail, driven him from 
 
 7 Whose beauty, says Blackwell, though yet in the 
 bud, being scarce fourteen, promised in time the richest 
 bloom. The fine structure of her body, and her most 
 charming gait, says Josephus, exceeded all the women 
 of her age. 
 
 8 BlackweU, vol. ii. p. 394, &c. 
 
26 
 
 his dominions, and made Antigonus king." 
 The young tetrarch applied to Antony, his old 
 friend and protector ; and Messala was once 
 more induced to stand forth his advocate. 
 Messala and Sempronius Atratinus introdu- 
 ced him to the senate, made his case known 
 to the fathers, and obtained a decree in his 
 favour, declaring him king. This solemn de- 
 termination of Herod's cause, from which his 
 reign is considered to commence, took place 
 in the year of Rome 7 13, in the consulate of 
 Cneius Domitius Calvinus, and Caius Asinius 
 Pollio. Whether Messala returned with An- 
 tony to the East we are not informed, nor in 
 what manner he spent his time, if he did : 
 from the character he possessed previous to 
 his reconciliation with the Triumvirs, it is not 
 to be supposed he could relish the dissolute 
 life Antony led there : and this is an opinion 
 we might have formed even had we not had the 
 event to confirm its truth, which tells us, he 
 was at last so disgusted with his scandalous 
 conduct and servile meanness to the Egyptian 
 queen, that, some time before the battle of Ac- 
 tium, he warmly espoused the interests of 
 Caesar, which he continued to support du- 
 ring the remainder of his life. From the 
 
27 
 
 year 713, in which the cause of Herod was 
 finally settled, to the year 717, when Marcus 
 Vispanius Agrippa took the command of Cae- 
 sar's fleet, we are left in the dark as to the 
 part adopted by Messala in the transactions 
 of the intermediate years. Whoever has care- 
 fully perused the history of the times from 
 the battle of Philippi, cannot be a stranger to 
 the ambition of Antony and Caesar, to the 
 mutual jealousies which rankled and fostered 
 in each other's bosom, and to the various 
 temporary but ineffectual expedients used to 
 reconcile them. Lepidus had fallen into me- 
 rited neglect ; he retained the name, without 
 possessing the power which gave consequence 
 to the character of Triumvir. His place was 
 occupied by the young Pompey, 9 with such a 
 
 9 Antony. — — — — — Sextus Pompeius 
 Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands 
 The empire of the sea. 
 
 Again, Sextus Pompeius 
 
 Makes his approaches to the port of Rome. 
 
 Equality of two domestic pow'rs 
 
 Breeds scrupulous faction ; the hated, grown to strength, 
 
 Are newly grown to love ; the condemn'd Pompey, 
 
 Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace 
 
 Into the hearts of such as have not thriv'n 
 
 Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten ; 
 
28 
 
 portion of spirit and ability as did not tarnish 
 the honours of that mighty name : and for 
 some time his well-earned naval reputation 
 held the balance of power even between the 
 rival chiefs. Had not Agrippa taken the 
 command of Caesar's fleet, and Pompey been 
 remiss in improving the opportunities which 
 fortune threw in his way, Rome might not 
 have had Augustus to boast of for its master. 
 Messala, we find, was second in command un- 
 der Agrippa, and this distinguished rank is a 
 manifest proof how high his character stood 
 with the first man of the age in integrity and 
 talents, and makes us some compensation for 
 the frequent chasms in his history. 1 To those 
 who have studied the various naval actions 
 between the two fleets of Pompey and Caesar, 
 the perfidious character of Menadorus, or 
 
 And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge 
 
 By any desperate change. — Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 1 I agree with the learned author of the Court of Au- 
 gustus, in thinking that Messala's presence in this Sici- 
 lian war (considering the high respectability of his cha- 
 racter) was a public condemnation of Pompey's conduct, 
 and a convincing proof that the measures and disposition 
 of Caesar were beginning to assume a better and fairer 
 aspect. 
 
29 
 
 Menas, cannot have escaped observation : but 
 his naval talents ranked so high in the esti- 
 mation of both parties, that they served to 
 palliate to them, and in some measure to ex- 
 cuse his frequent tergiversations, his repeated 
 breaches of faith, and the infamous proposal 
 which he made to Pompey at the peace of 
 Misenum, in 713, for the cutting off at one 
 blow his two great enemies Antony and Cae- 
 sar : 2 a proposal which, to the everlasting ho- 
 nour of the youth, he spurned with the great- 
 
 2 Menas. These three world-sharers, these competi- 
 tors, 
 Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable, 
 And when we are put oflfj fall to their throats. 
 All then is thine. 
 
 Pompey. Ah, this thou shouldst have done, 
 And not have spoken on't. In me, 'tis villainy ; 
 In thee 't had been good service. Thou must know, 
 'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour, 
 Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue 
 Hath so betray'd thine act. Being done unknown, 
 I should have found it afterwards well done; 
 But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra. 
 He entertained them, however, says Plutarch, very po- 
 litely, after conducting them over a bridge from the pro- 
 montory of Misenum, where the peace was signed, to his 
 ship, that rode at anchor. 
 
30 
 
 est indignation, though it offered him the em- 
 pire of the Roman world. The last act of 
 perfidy of which Men as was guilty, was a to- 
 tal dereliction of the party of Pompey, which, 
 whilst he was meditating, he informed Caesar, 
 by means of his spies, that if either Marcus 
 Agrippa, or Valerius Messala, would pledge 
 their honour for his safety and protection, he 
 would again return to his service. Messala, 
 who at this time commanded in Agrippa' s ab- 
 sence, scrupled pledging to him his faith, and 
 rejected with disdain the traitor's offers ; » but 
 being importuned by the pressing and earnest 
 solicitations of Caesar, he complied, and Me- 
 nas once more joined the fleet of Caesar. This 
 desertion was soon followed by an action be- 
 tween Demochares and Agrippa, the admirals 
 of the two fleets, in which the latter was vic- 
 torious. Some time previous to this engage- 
 ment, Messala had been sent by Caesar with 
 two legions to reinforce Lepidus, who was 
 
 3 Blackwell's words are, " The noble Messala (he was 
 so in every sense of the word,) scrupled at first to pledge 
 his faith to such a slippery rascal as Menas ; but being 
 pressed by Caesar at least to deprive their enemy of a 
 daring fellow, he complied, and Menas once more de- 
 serted to Csesar." — Vol. ii. p. 443. 
 
31 
 
 stationed on the southern coast of Sicily ; af- 
 ter performing this service, he hastened back, 
 and found Caesar still hovering with his fleet 
 near the straits of Messana. The news of 
 Agrippa's naval success in the action with 
 Demochares, and of Pompey's having quitted 
 Messana, soon reached Caesar : he instantly 
 saw the necessity of striking a decisive blow ; 
 he therefore left Messala with two legions at 
 Leucopetra, 4 and set sail for Taurominium, 
 with the design of surprising the garrison of 
 that place. Pompey, apprehensive of such a 
 step being taken, appeared at once before 
 Taurominium with both a fleet and land ar- 
 my. The surprise and utter consternation in- 
 to which Caesar and his troops were thrown, 
 was near being followed by the most serious 
 consequences. The opportunity, however, 
 was, as usual, neglected by Pompey ; and this 
 oversight gave the Caesarians time to fortify 
 their camp : Pompey then withdrew to his 
 fleet, with the design of cutting oif Caesar's 
 
 4 A promontory about six miles east from Rhegium, 
 in the country of the Brutii, in which the Appennir.es 
 end. These mountains are supposed to sink in the sea 
 here, and to rise again at Taurominium in Sicilv. 
 
32 
 
 retreat. The next day we find a battle was 
 fought, which continued long and bloody : 
 Caesar was defeated, and with great difficul- 
 ty escaped to Abala, a small narrow creek 
 on the Calabrian shore, 5 where he was for- 
 ced to put in late at night, attended only 
 by a single soldier. The country was soon 
 alarmed, and the people flocked from their 
 hills to learn the news of the battle. Caesar 
 thought of the camp of Messala, and looked 
 to it for safety. His defeat, his perilous 
 escape, the darkness of the night, all conspi- 
 red to render his situation peculiarly distress- 
 ing. If, in this sad vicissitude of fortune, the 
 blood of the proscription had presented itself 
 to his affrighted imagination, what must have 
 been the feelings of him to whom the Fates 
 had destined the sovereignty of the Roman 
 world ? Appian says, he coasted from creek 
 to creek, till he met a party of straggling sol- 
 diers, who knew him, and carried him in a 
 most miserable plight to the camp of Messa- 
 la. — We have here a melancholy instance of 
 the unaccountable changes of fortune. Cae- 
 sar, in this helpless condition, brought before 
 
 5 Appian. b. v. 
 
33 
 
 the man, whom he had devoted to death, on 
 whose head he had set a price, and promised 
 liberty to the slave who should murder him. 
 Messala's character in this instance shines 
 forth with peculiar splendour : he received 
 his old enemy as a friend, considered his life 
 sacred, and treated him with the ten de rest 
 care. This act of unparalleled generosity on 
 the part of Messala is a subject of high com- 
 mendation with the later Greek writers, 6 and 
 is a convincing proof to us at this day, that 
 Roman virtue was then something more than 
 a name. Such an instance of disinterested 
 conduct must have sunk deep into the heart 
 of Caesar ; and we are glad to know, that, as 
 soon as he returned to Rome, he took the ear- 
 liest opportunity which presented itself, of 
 marking his gratitude to his deliverer. He 
 increased the number of the College of Au- 
 gurs, for the express purpose of rewarding 
 Messala with a seat in that venerable body. 7 
 
 6 Id nunc memorare libuit Romans virtutis exemplum 
 quando, Messala habens in potestate proscriptorem suum 
 desolatum, in tanta calamitate refovit ut imperatorem 
 servavitque. — Appian. 
 
 7 Black well, vol. ii. p. 455. 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 This election was held in the year 717, in the 
 consulship of Lucius Gellius Poplicola and 
 Marcus Cocceius Nerva. 8 Caesar soon be- 
 came sensible of the advantages arising from 
 Menas's last act of treachery ; for by it the 
 balance of power fell into his hands, and in a 
 short time he acquired such a superiority at 
 sea by the judicious conduct of Agrippa, that 
 Pompey was totally routed in the first gene- 
 ral engagement, and fled with a most unbe- 
 coming precipitation to Asia; where he was 
 murdered by one of Antony's officers, the un- 
 grateful Titius, whose life had been spared by 
 him when master of Sicily. » This event, 
 
 8 Cocceius Nerva is mentioned by Horace in his Jour- 
 ney to Brundusium. He appears to have been an amiable 
 man, and much respected by all parties, so that he was 
 nominated, both by Octavius and Antony, to accommo- 
 date their differences on the occasion of the aforesaid 
 journey to Brundusium. With him Maecenas was named 
 by Octavius, and Pollio by Antony. This battle was 
 fought near the promontory of Pelorus, and the victory 
 was chiefly owing to the valour and address of Agrippa. 
 Maecenas signalized himself on the occasion, and had a 
 share in the glory. 
 
 9 He was taken prisoner by Menas in the Sicilian 
 war, and carried to Sextus Pompey, who gave him his 
 life, and treated hira as a friend. 
 
35 
 
 which happened in the year 718, extinguish- 
 ed the last surviving hopes of the republic. 
 He was the last of the family of Pompey the 
 Great, had long been the friend of the discon- 
 tented, the refuge of the proscribed, and ter- 
 ror of the Triumvirate. His death opened 
 both sea and land to his successful competi- 
 tor, and was in a very few years succeeded by 
 that long-expected struggle for superiority be- 
 tween Antony and Caesar, which ended in the 
 ruin of the one, and in the elevation of the 
 other to the head of the Roman empire. 
 
 After the fall of Pompey, Caesar's star rose 
 the ascendant in the West; and as his supe- 
 riority was now acknowledged, he made his 
 entry into Rome in the humble splendour of 
 the lesser triumph. x From this time his style 
 and language became more accommodated to 
 the constitution of his country, a and the ge- 
 
 1 Called an ovation. 
 
 2 In the full contemplation of this change which had 
 taken place in Caesar's mind, Dr Blackwell thinks that 
 Horace composed his celebrated Ode to Calliope and the 
 Muses, in which are inculcated the mildest maxims and 
 wisest precepts : 
 
 " Vos Caesarem altum, militia simul 
 Fessas cohortes abdidit oppidis, 
 
36 
 
 neral feelings of the people ; and his councils 
 more the result of prudence and moderation. 
 Dear-bought experience had given him a 
 knowledge of himself, which is of all know- 
 ledge the rarest to be acquired : and this 
 knowledge the wisdom of his ministers ex- 
 panded, and converted to the public good. 
 His court soon became the seat of every 
 muse ; and all the arts began to flourish un- 
 der his fostering protection. Maecenas 3 
 sought out literary merit wherever it could 
 
 Finire quaerentem labores 
 Pierio recreatis Antra. 
 Vos lene consilium et datis, et dato 
 Gaudetis almae. 
 
 Vis consili expers mole riiit sua : 
 Vim temperatam Dii quoque provehunt 
 In majus. Horace, lib. iii. ode 4. 
 
 3 Maecenas, even in going to Brundusium to reconcile 
 a misunderstanding which had taken place between Cae- 
 sar and Antony, was accompanied by Virgil, Horace, 
 Varius, Heliodorus, and several other men of letters. 
 The important affairs in which this able minister was 
 concerned, were no interruptions to his natural and usual 
 gaiety. His attention was never turned from the Muses, 
 nor deviated from his familiar intercourse with those 
 who cultivated them. The agreeable and interesting ac- 
 count which is given by Horace of this journey is known 
 to every reader of taste and classical information. Ho- 
 race, in speaking of his first introduction to Maecenas, 
 
37 
 
 be found ; and the bounty of his master gave 
 it every encouragement. Caesar himself was 
 attached to letters, was no mean judge of po- 
 lite literature, and took great pleasure in the 
 company of the learned. This intercourse 
 between the prince and men of genius was 
 cultivated with great attention and judgment 
 by the first minister of state ; and, in the end, 
 it changed and humanised a mind from which 
 a perturbed and sanguinary ambition seemed 
 to have eradicated every vestige of tenderness 
 and virtue : But who could take counsel with 
 
 and of the persons by whom he gained access to the mi- 
 nister, uses this language : 
 
 " Nulla etenim mihi te fors obtulit, optimus olim 
 Virgilius, post hunc Varius dixere quid essem, 
 Ut veni coram, singultim pauca locutus, &c. 
 Sed quod eram, Narro : respondes, ut tuus est mos, 
 Pauca ; abeo et revocas nono post ?nense, jubesque 
 Esse in amicorum numero." 
 
 From several passages in Horace, it appears that Mae- 
 cenas took the wisest precautions in the choice of his 
 friends, before he admitted them to a confidential inter- 
 course : 
 
 " Difficiles aditus primos habet." 
 
 " Paucorum hominum et mentis bene sanas," Sec. 
 
 See Schomberg's Life of Macenas, which is only an 
 abridgment of that published by Meibomius. 
 
38 
 
 Maecenas without having his understanding 
 enlightened, admire Messala without having 
 his heart improved, converse with Horace 
 without gaining a knowledge of mankind, or 
 listen to the muse of Virgil without having 
 his taste corrected, and his morals amended ? 
 Whilst Caesar was using every means in his 
 power to gain the affections of the senate and 
 people, Antony and Cleopatra were rioting 
 in all the luxury of the East. Whilst Caesar 
 was hardening his troops in the Dalmatian 
 wars, and adding new conquests to his arms, 
 Antony was consuming the strength and vi- 
 gour of his army in rash and fruitless expedi- 
 tions to Parthia and Armenia. In the year 
 718, Messala was dispatched to reduce the 
 Salassi, 4 a fierce people who had rebelled, 
 and who, being situated in the midst of the 
 Pennine and Grecian Alps, had long bid de- 
 fiance to every attempt made by a regular 
 army to subdue them. As they commanded 
 
 4 Dans une Vallie profonde, couverte de l'Alpe Pen- 
 nine et de l'Alpe Greque, ou du Grand et du Petit Saint 
 Bernard, qu'occupoient Ies Salassi, une Colonie de Pre- 
 toriens etablie sous le regne d'Auguste, prit le nom 
 d y Augusta Pretoria et celui d'Aouste est reste a cette 
 ville. — D'Anville. 
 
39 
 
 a most important pass from Italy to Gaul, it 
 was thought both adviseable and necessary to 
 dislodge them. Messala set out on the expe- 
 dition attended by his friend Tibullus. The 
 lateness of the season made it expedient for 
 him to take up his winter-quarters amongst 
 them ; and what may be considered as extra- 
 ordinary is, that his very enemies supplied 
 him for money with all the wood that was ne- 
 cessary both for firing and military engines, 5 
 of which articles he was in extreme want. As 
 soon as the spring set in, he attacked them 
 with great vigour, surrounded them with im- 
 pregnable works; and soon compelled them, 
 by famine, to sue for mercy. Some time af- 
 terwards Caesar settled a favourite colony, 
 chosen from his Praetorian guards, in this fa- 
 mous pass, which he called Augusta Preto- 
 ria, 6 and which has since been corrupted in- 
 to that of Aost. For this signal service Mes- 
 sala was entitled to the honour of a triumph, 
 which he declined. Caesar was pleased with 
 
 5 This circumstance is noticed by Strabo, in his se- 
 cond book, in speaking of Decimus Brutus's march 
 through this country. 
 
 6 Val d'Aosta. 
 
4-0 
 
 his conduct, and seemed not insensible to the 
 acquisition of such a valuable friend, which 
 the author of the Court of Augustus thinks ra- 
 ther extraordinary, because, says he, " Mes- 
 sala was, in modern style, but an indifferent 
 courtier." This opinion he grounds on the 
 following circumstance. After Messala's re- 
 turn from the East, Caesar appointed him first 
 praefect of the city, 7 an office which he accept- 
 ed, and resigned at the end of a few days, from 
 an idea that it was not legal and consistent 
 
 7 I do not find in what year Messala was appointed pre- 
 fect of the city. Mr Mills, who has continued the Me- 
 moirs of the Court of Augustus, without noticing the ap- 
 pointment of Messala to this office when Maecenas sue 
 ceeded him, says, that Augustus, on going to the German 
 war,in 736, named Messala praefect of the city, which he 
 refused,- and Statilius Taurus was chosen in his place. 
 Had Messala refused this office before on account of its 
 illegality, where was the necessity of tendering it to him 
 a second time ? The words of Tacitus are, " Primusque 
 M. Corvinus earn potestatem et paucos intra dies finem 
 accepit, quasi nescius exercendi." Tacitus says, Statilius 
 Taurus, and not Maecenas, succeeded Messala. The 
 praefect had the power of banishing persons both from 
 the city and from Italy, and of transporting them to any 
 island which the emperor named {in Iusulam depor- 
 tundi.) 
 
 The care ol the city seems to have been the peculiar 
 
41 
 
 with the constitution of the city. It was an 
 office which invested the person appointed to 
 it with the whole executive authority within the 
 city ; it was revived under an old appellation, 
 and bestowed on Messala, to render it less 
 odious. On his resignation, the commission 
 was made out for Maecenas, which he accept- 
 ed and discharged with great prudence and 
 discretion. Messala's name, says Blackwell, 
 had a growing virtue in it which sanctified the 
 cause he espoused ; and this, added to his cha- 
 racter as a military officer, made his presence 
 of considerable consequence in the day of ne- 
 cessity, reconciled the prince to his love of 
 liberty, and made him anxious to secure his 
 services in a contest which he foresaw must 
 take place between Antony and him for the 
 empire of the world. Csesar effected his pur- 
 pose, and Messala embarked warmly in his 
 
 department of Maecenas, to which Horace frequently al- 
 ludes : 
 
 Tu civitatem quis deceat status 
 Curas, et urbi solicitus times. 
 
 Horace, b. iii. ode 29. 
 
 Horace says to Maecenas, 
 
 Mitte civiles super urbe curas. 
 
42 
 
 cause, which is an unquestionable proof he 
 thought it then the best in the empire. Black- 
 well has an idea that at this time Caesar's heart 
 was beginning to soften, and that Messala, 
 sensible of this change, became more interest- 
 ed in his fortunes. The same author relates 
 the following anecdote as a reason for his 
 adopting so favourable an opinion. Plutarch 
 informs us, from the authority of some wri- 
 ters, that Brutus did not kill himself with his 
 own hands, but that Strato, 8 one of his inti- 
 mate friends, held the sword on which he fell, 
 that ended his sorrows and life together. Af- 
 ter this melancholy event, Strato put himself 
 under the protection of Messala ; and being 
 a man of virtue and letters, having studied 
 rhetoric with Brutus, he continued to hold 
 the same respectable place in the friendship 
 of Messala which he had done in that of Bru- 
 tus. 9 The virtues of Brutus were made a sub- 
 
 8 Messala. How died my lord,* Strato ? 
 Strato. I held the sword, and he did run on it. 
 
 Julius Cjesar. 
 
 9 Strato became so eminent, says Blackwell, that his 
 effigies were engraved, and worn in rings, like those of 
 
 * Brutus. 
 
43 
 
 ject of commendation by Messala in the court 
 of Augustus ; and it is recorded by Plutarch, 
 that, having one day obtained a private au- 
 dience, he introduced Strato to Caesar, and 
 said, with tears, " This is the man who did 
 the last kind office for my dear Brutus.' ' x 
 The heart of Caesar was softened, he received 
 the friend of Brutus with kindness, and gave 
 him a considerable command at the battle of 
 Actium, where he behaved in a manner not 
 unworthy of the regard of Caesar, or recom- 
 mendation of Messala. From the year 718, 
 in which the death of Pompey proved so fa- 
 tal to the republic, to the year 722, almost 
 every event tended in some way or other to 
 destroy the harmony between the imperial ri- 
 vals, and to bring matters to a final issue. 
 During that interval we have no history ex- 
 tant which mentions the name of Messala. 
 The awful period which preceded the battle 
 of Actium was employed by Caesar in making 
 
 the most distinguished Romans. One of these, in a 
 lapis Chalcedojiius (a thoughtful mild figure,) was in the 
 curious Collection of the late Baron Stosch. 
 
 1 Messala. Octavius, then take him to follow thee 
 That did the latest service to my master. 
 
 Julius Cesar. 
 
44 
 
 every preparation for accomplishing the great 
 object of his life and ambition ; and in the 
 prosecution of it he conducted himself with 
 the utmost wisdom and policy. Antony's con- 
 duct was directly the reverse, and every mea- 
 sure he adopted seemed to be the result of 
 folly and infatuation. The most superficial 
 reader of the times knows that every step to- 
 wards a cordial reconciliation proved abor- 
 tive, and that the last appeal must be made 
 to the sword. It is needless to enumerate the 
 various circumstances which led to the im- 
 portant decision ; all of them originated from 
 the characters, fortunes, and situations of the 
 two chiefs, and followed each other in natural 
 order. The consuls marked out, at the peace 
 of Misenum, for the year 722, were Caesar 
 and Antony. The latter's name was now 
 rased out, and that of Messala substituted in 
 its place. He had taken a decided part in 
 favour of Caesar, and bore a command in the 
 fleet at Actium. That he performed some 
 service on that day is confirmed by an anec- 
 dote in the life of Brutus. In a conversation 
 which Messala had with Caesar after that ce- 
 lebrated engagement, the latter, among other 
 things, praised his conduct on that occasion,. 
 
45 
 
 and observed, that his zeal in his service was 
 peculiarly distinguished, considering how much 
 it was the reverse at Philippi. Messala felt 
 the praise, and, not insensible to the tacit re- 
 buke, thus answered, " I have always taken 
 the best and justest side." An universal peace 
 followed the victory at Actium, and with it 
 the death of Antony and Cleopatra : the tem- 
 ple of Janus was shut for the third time since 
 the foundation of Rome ; and Caesar was ho- 
 noured with an inscription, dated in his fifth 
 consulship, in which he is styled " the Savi- 
 our of the Republic." Some inconsiderable 
 disturbances, however, are said to have hap- 
 pened during his long reign, which were not 
 of consequence enough to affect the general 
 tranquillity, and which can only claim our 
 attention when the name of Messala is found 
 among them, to make them deserving of our 
 notice. 
 
 Subsequent to the expiration of Messala's 
 consulship, Tibullus composed his panegyric ; 
 the intimate connection which always subsist- 
 ed between him and his friend and patron 
 Messala, will, we trust, render a few circum- 
 stances in the poet's life not uninteresting, 
 and make our apology for a short digression 
 
46 
 
 from the subject of these Memoirs.* During 
 the civil wars, Tibullus took an active part, 
 and, at the battle of Philippi, fought under the 
 standard of Brutus and the Commonwealth : 
 after that unfortunate day, he left the army in 
 disgust. The persuasions of his friend Mes- 
 sala could not induce him to take arms 
 against those men, whom he had been taught 
 from his youth to esteem as the assertors and 
 vindicators of Roman liberty ; and therefore 
 he withdrew to his country-seat at Pedum, 
 where he passed his time partly in repairing 
 a broken fortune, and partly in cultivating 
 philosophy and the muses, to whom he was 
 all his life devoted. To poetry he was prin- 
 cipally attached ; and, as he was often in love, 
 and often unsuccessful, the pitying Muse be- 
 came his favourite mistress, whose tender 
 strains have given posterity the truest idea of 
 elegiac composition. 3 The celebrated Gly- 
 
 2 Dr Grainger's preface to his translation of Tibul- 
 lus's Elegies. 
 
 3 His poems have been happily imitated by Mr Ham- 
 mond ; and, notwithstanding the unfeeling censure which 
 has been passed upon the youth's tender elegies by a 
 great and learned authority, they will, I am persuaded, 
 
47 
 
 cera is supposed to have been the first object 
 of his fond idolatry ; and a disappointment 4 
 in this his first passion is said to have been a 
 primary motive for his attending Messala, as 
 we have noticed, in his Gallic expedition in 
 the year 718. 
 
 He thought the agitation and bustle of a 
 military life, and a removal from a sight of the 
 beloved object, would abate and dissipate his 
 sorrow. He tried the experiment, and forgot 
 Glycera ; but his heart, which was formed of 
 the very gentlest mould, soon discovered on 
 his return an object which engaged all his 
 tenderest affections, in the person of Delia. 
 The consulship of Messala, in the year 722, 
 
 continue to be read and admired by every gentle mind, 
 as the warm effusions of his own heart, improved and 
 strengthened by the congenial feelings of another. 
 
 4 Horace is supposed to allude to this disappointment 
 in the 33d Ode of his first Book, beginning with " Alh, 
 ne do leas plus nimio &c."— 
 
 Cease, my Albius, to bewail ; 
 
 Check, ah ! check, love's plaintive tale : 
 
 Let thy elegies no more 
 
 Cruel Glycera deplore; 
 
 Glycera who, lost to truth, 
 
 Seeks a new, a brighter youth. 
 
 BosCAWEN's Horace. 
 
48 
 
 succeeded this new passion ; and it was on 
 this occasion that Tibullus composed the pa- 
 negyric I have before noticed ; and, as it con- 
 tains the most flattering praises of his patron, 
 some account of it cannot be omitted. It is 
 placed in the beginning of the fourth book of 
 Tibullus's Elegies, and contains two hundred 
 and eleven lines in praise of his illustrious 
 patron. Whilst some commentators hesitate 
 in ascribing this poem to Tibullus, others are 
 inclined to doubt its authenticity altogether ; 
 but Scaliger, though he censures it as inaccu- 
 rate, careless, and destitute of vigour and har- 
 mony, thinks it notwithstanding original, and 
 that it was left unfinished by our author. I 
 frilly agree with the last learned commenta- 
 tor, and am of opinion, that the lines begin- 
 ning with 
 
 " Pro te vel rapidas ausim," &c. 
 are truly expressive of the genuine feelings of 
 our poet for his noble friend ; and, impressed 
 with that idea, I shall bring forward so much 
 of it as may enlighten and unfold my subject. 
 — Tibullus, with great modesty, apologizes, 
 in the opening of the poem, for his want of 
 genius to render sufficient justice to Messala's 
 
 5 
 
49 
 
 actions ; and only reconciles to himself the 
 boldness of the attempt, by saying it is the 
 will, not the power, which constitutes the va- 
 lue of the gift in the judgment of the virtu- 
 ous. He slightly passes over the praise Mes- 
 sala might derive from the glories of a long 
 line of ancestors, and says, that his fame, in- 
 stead of being content with the unsubstantial 
 lustre of transmitted honours, or with the 
 cold inscription on the base of a lifeless sta- 
 tue, should be immortalized by the pens of 
 poets and historians. " For who," exclaims 
 the poet, " can equal him in the camp or fo- 
 rum ? Who, like him, can quell the fury of 
 the giddy multitude, or appease the anger of 
 an incensed judge ? His fame is not inferior 
 to that of the sage of Pylos, nor his eloquence 
 to that of the wise Ulysses ? Who in war is 
 so conversant with its various discipline and 
 tactics ? Who knows so well how to surround 
 his camp with a deep ditch, and secure it 
 with strong pallisadoes ? Who throws with 
 so much skill the unwieldy rudis, or shoots 
 with truer aim the swift-flying arrow; or 
 breaks, like him, opposing ranks with the 
 ponderous javelin ? W ho can curb with such 
 judgment the fiery steed ? Who can so well 
 
BO 
 
 defend himself with his shield from the ran- 
 dom shots of the impetuous spear ; or whirl 
 with such dexterity the whizzing sling? — 
 When the battle burns, who displays such 
 knowledge in presenting the best countenance 
 to the enemy ; or such presence of mind in 
 seizing the critical moment of victory ? — But 
 lest posterity might interpret this praise into 
 mere poetic declamation, I celebrate," says Ti- 
 bullus, "what my own experience justifies; the 
 brave soldier of Japidia, and the rebellious 
 Pannonians scattered amidst the cold Alps, 
 can witness it. The old soldier of Arupi- 
 num, and the peasant nursed up in arms, can 
 testify it," &c. The poet is here supposed to 
 allude to his expedition with Messala, in the 
 year 718, against the Salassi, who were the 
 only people of the Alps that history tells us 
 were subdued by Messala that year, and for 
 which, we have observed, he refused a tri- 
 umph. Our author, after paying Messala's 
 military talents every compliment, and view- 
 ing his exploits in the most flattering light, 
 exclaims, that Nature and Jove himself bow- 
 ed to him in his consulate ; and then closes 
 his panegyric with the warmest feelings of 
 the friend as well as of the poet. " For you. 
 
51 
 
 Messala, I should brave the rapid ocean, 
 though disturbed by every wind : For you I 
 should rush into the thickest ranks of the 
 enemy, or fling myself into the hottest flames 
 of JEtna." 
 
 " Sum quodcunque tuum est." When Ti- 
 bullus laments his own inability to describe 
 Messala* s actions according to their merit, he 
 introduces to our acquaintance a poet whose 
 genius and virtues entitled him to the friend- 
 ship and esteem of Messala and Horace. 
 This was Valgius Rufus, whom Tibullus con- 
 sidered little inferior to Homer ; but whose 
 works are now unfortunately lost. 
 
 " But Valgius he can swell a warrior's name, 
 Valgius next Homer in eternal fame." ' 
 
 We learn from Horace that Valgius excel- 
 
 1 Dart's translation— 
 
 " Est tibi qui possit magnis se accingere rebus 
 Valgius, aeterno propior non alter Homero." 
 Angelo Poliziano has alluded to this character of Val- 
 gius in one of his latin poems : 
 
 " Et qui Smyrnaeis poterat contendere plectris 
 Valgius, ut tersi memorat pia Musa Tibulli." 
 — Hor. B. ii. ode 9. 
 
 " Tu semper urges flebilibus modis 
 Mysten ademptum." 
 
52 
 
 led in elegiac composition ; and that he made 
 the death of an amiable son the subject of 
 some of his plaintive strains. Horace ad- 
 dressed to him a beautiful ode on the occa- 
 sion. The grief the father suffered for the 
 loss of such a son must have been considera- 
 bly alleviated by the correspondent feelings of 
 such a friend as Horace ; for where two minds 
 meet of congenial sentiments, they seldom 
 fail in soothing, dilating, and lessening each 
 other's sorrow. After the expiration of Mes- 
 sala' s consulship, we are at a loss both as to 
 the time of his next expedition, and the par- 
 ticular circumstances under which he was 
 employed in it. The commentators are of 
 opinion, that Augustus soon appointed him 
 to an extraordinary command in Syria, which 
 we find he accepted of; and that Tibullus 
 consented to go with him, notwithstanding 
 the sighs and tears of Delia, a with whom he 
 was then violently in love. He embarked 
 with Messala for Syria ; but before they had 
 been long at sea, he was taken so ill that 
 Messala was obliged to leave him at Phaeacia, 
 
 All could not dry my tender Delia's tears, 
 Suppress her sighs, or calm her anxious fears." 
 
 Grainger. 
 
53 
 
 and proceed without him on bis voyage.* 
 Fortunately for our poet he was now on fai- 
 ry ground ; and Homer and Ulysses, and 
 the palace and gardens of king Alcinous, must 
 have for ever been before his eyes. 4 In this 
 celebrated isle, where the divine Demodocus 
 strung his golden lyre, Tibullus composed 
 the third elegy of his first book, which is re- 
 markable for its simplicity and beauty. How 
 
 3 Ibitis iEgeas sine me, Messala, per undas, 
 O utinam memores ipse, cohorsque * mei. 
 Me tenet ignotis agrum Phceacia terris. 
 
 Tib. lib. i. ode 3. 
 
 4 Such visions, one might have supposed to have been 
 ever present to his imagination ; and yet, from the be- 
 ginning of the elegy to the end of it, there is not a refer- 
 ence to its history as given by Homer. His description 
 of the Golden age, beginning with 
 
 " Quam bene Saturno vivebant rege, priusquam 
 Tellus in longas est patefacta vias," &c. 
 
 has not been surpassed by any poet either ancient or 
 modern. 
 
 * The cohors mentioned in the text was Messala's reti- 
 nue, says Dr Grainger, which, if made up of such men as 
 Tibullus, must, he adds, have been very different from that 
 of modern generals. But in those days a man was thought 
 the better soldier for cultivating an acquaintance with the 
 muses. — Tempora mutantur. 
 
 " Si tibi sancta cohors comitum," says Juvenal. 
 
long his illness confined him here we are not 
 told ; but as soon as his health permitted,, it 
 is known he renewed his voyage, and joined 
 Messala in the East. No satisfactory account 
 remains of this eastern expedition, either as 
 declarative of its causes or consequences, 
 Tibullus, in the eighth elegy of his first book, 
 (a poem which Dr Grainger thinks is entitled 
 to a nobler appellation than that of elegy), 
 expressly alludes to his patron's conduct on 
 it in the following poetic raptures: " Shall 
 I," says he, " record his transactions near 
 the silent waters of the Cydnus, the lofty 
 summits of Taurus, the high towers of Tyre, 
 or the fertilizing streams of the Nile V* From 
 this language, however poetical, it is clear 
 Messala was engaged in some service of con- 
 sequence whilst he commanded in the East. 
 He could not have remained long there ; for 
 we find him, in the following year, 726, ap- 
 pointed proconsul by Augustus, to quell a re- 
 bellion which had broken out in the province 
 of Aquitania. The account given by Tibul- 
 lus of this expedition is also in the suspicious 
 language of poetry and panegyric. But, as 
 our author served under Messala, and pub- 
 lished his relation of the conquest a short 
 
55 
 
 time after the event, we can entertain no sus- 
 picion of the fact, especially when we find it 
 confirmed by a triumph recorded at this day 
 on the Capitoline Marbles. 5 In the same 
 poem on Messala' s birth-day, which has been 
 just noticed, the Fatal Sisters are introduced 
 predestinating Messala to the conquest of 
 Aquitania, when the Atur 6 should tremble at 
 his hostile bands. Upon which the poet sud- 
 denly exclaims, " The event is past, 7 and the 
 Roman youth hath seen the pomp and glory 
 of his triumph in all the splendid circumstan- 
 ces of captive generals' victorious laurels, 
 ivory chariots and white horses." Here Ti- 
 bullus, with a natural but pardonable vanity, 
 adds, 
 
 " Non sine me est tibi partus honor" 
 
 s Marmora Capitolina— M.Valerius M.F. M.N. 
 Messala A. — _ — Varro — 
 
 727 
 
 Corvinus Pro. Cos. Ex Gallia. — 
 
 7 Kal. Oct. 
 
 6 Atur, vel Aturus, v el Atari's, a river of Gaul which 
 runs into the Bay of Biscay ; now called the Adour. 
 
 7 Evenere — novos pubes Romana triumphos, 
 Vidit — et evinctos brachia capta duces. 
 
 Tjb. lib. i. ep. S. 
 
ob 
 
 ei I also have had a share in the honour : Tar- 
 bella Pyrene, 8 and the shores of the Santonie* 
 sea, know it : the Azar, 1 the impetuous Rhone,* 
 the mighty Garumna, 3 and the blue streams 
 of the Liger, 4 can bear witness to what I say." 
 — Besides the proofs already adduced of Mes- 
 sala's triumph, we have an unerring testimo- 
 ny from a silver medal which Mons. Vaillant 5 
 gives in a treatise which he has written on the 
 Nummi Antiqui of Roman families. In his 
 account of the Valerian family, he presents 
 us with a Nummus Jrgetiteus, which bears on 
 one side the name of Corvinus, with a head of 
 Jupiter Capitolinus wreathed with laurel, to 
 whom Messala offered sacrifice after his tri- 
 
 8 Tar belli, a people of Aquitania between the Pyre- 
 nees and the Garonne ; from them the Pyrenean moun- 
 tain is called Tarbella Pyrene. 
 
 9 Santonicus Oceanus, that part of the Mare Aquita- 
 nicum, or Bay of Biscay, between the mouth of the Li- 
 ger and of the Garumna. 
 
 1 Arar, the Soane, a river so slow, that Caesar says it 
 cannot be discerned which way it moves. 
 
 * Rhodanus, Rhone. 
 
 3 Garumna, Garonne. 
 
 * Liger, Loire. 
 
 5 Mons. Vaillant, vol. ii. p. 516, &c. Amsterdam, 
 1703. 
 
57 
 
 umph ; and on the reverse M. Messala in a 
 triumphal car, drawn by tour horses, in which 
 Jupiter is placed, holding in his hand the 
 thunder, sceptre, and reins, to whose aid the 
 proconsul attributed the victory. Part of the 
 spoils which Messala reaped from his Gallic 
 campaign were expended in making a public 
 road ; the example of Caesar had made it 
 fashionable ; for he not only repaired the Via 
 Flaminia himself, but imposed a similar task 
 on many of the more opulent senators. As 
 Tibullus closes the poem on Messala' s birth- 
 day in making an allusion to this public road, 
 the passage shall be cited :• — " May thy pos- 
 terity, Messala, increase, and add a lustre to 
 the actions of their sire, and be a consolation 
 to him in his old age. Thy own road, 6 which 
 leads from Tusculum to Alba, shall be a mo- 
 nument of thy fame. Thy praises shall be 
 sung by the husbandman, whilst he is plod- 
 
 6 The way which fell to the share of Messala was a 
 branch of the Latin Road, which that excellent Roman 
 either paved a-new, or repaired; for from the situation 
 of Tusculum and Alba, says Dr Grainger, it could not be 
 the Via Valeria, as Pighius conjectured. 
 
 " Nee taceant monumenta viae, quern Tuscula telluc, 
 Candida quem antiquo detinet alba lare." 
 
58 
 
 ding home his way late at night from the 
 great city. But may thy birth-day, Messala, 
 be long the subject of my muse, and grow 
 more and more propitious to my song." We 
 find that in every service in which Messala 
 was employed, he gained new honours ; and 
 the strength and durability even of his public 
 way, appears from an allusion made by Mar* 
 tial, 7 when he speaks of the perpetuity of the 
 fame to which he thought himself entitled, 
 who says, " that he hoped his works would be 
 read when Messala's road lay in ruins." As 
 Messala's Gallic campaign, in the year 726, 
 terminated his military career, and the tri- 
 umph he obtained in 727 filled up the mea- 
 sure of his military honours, we cannot help 
 regretting that his name is scarcely once men- 
 tioned after this period by any writer who was 
 a contemporary, or had a respectable charac- 
 ter. He was now in the very meridian of his 
 reputation ; and the several degrees by which 
 he ascended to such an envied height of ex- 
 
 7 Et cum mpta situ Messallae saxa jacebunt. 
 
 Martial, lib. viii. ep. 3. 
 Marmora Messalae findit caprificus. 
 
 Lib. x. ep. 2. 
 
;s 
 
 altation, appear to have been most correct, 
 and generally allowed to have all originated 
 from the most virtuous motives. Messala 8 
 had the singular merit of supporting an un- 
 blemished character in a most despotic court, 
 without making a sacrifice of those principles 
 which he fought for in the fields of Philippi ; 
 and the genuine integrity of his character was 
 so deeply impressed on all parties, that it at- 
 tracted a general admiration in a most cor- 
 rupt age. He was brave, eloquent, and vir- 
 tuous : He was liberal, attached to letters, 
 
 8 The fame of Messala, says the historian of the Ro- 
 man empire, has been scarcely equal to his merit. In 
 the earliest youth he was recommended by Cicero to the 
 friendship of Brutus. He followed the standard of the 
 Republic till it was broken in the fields of Philippi : he 
 then accepted and deserved the favour of the most mo- 
 derate of the conquerors; and uniformly asserted his 
 freedom and dignity in the court of Augustus. The tri- 
 umph of Messala was justified by the conquest of Aqui- 
 tain. As an orator he disputed the palm of eloquence 
 with Cicero himself. Messala cultivated every muse, 
 and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent 
 his evenings in philosophic conversation with Horace ; 
 assumed his place at table between Delia and Tibullus, 
 and amused his leisure by encouraging the poetical ta- 
 lents of young Ovid. — Gibbon's Decline and Fall of 
 the Roman Empire. 
 
60 
 
 and his patronage was considered as " the 
 surest passport to the gates of fame," and ex- 
 tended to every man who was at all conver- 
 sant with letters. This character is support- 
 ed by history, is not contradicted by contem- 
 porary writers, and is sealed by the impartial 
 judgment of posterity. No writer either an- 
 cient or modern has ever named Messala with- 
 out some tribute of praise. Cicero soon per- 
 ceived he possessed an assemblage of excel- 
 lent qualities, which he would have more ad- 
 mired had he lived to see them expanded and 
 matured to perfection. Messala was his dis- 
 ciple, and rivalled his master in eloquence. 
 In the opinion of the judicious Quintilian, ' 
 his style was neat and elegant ; and in all his 
 speeches he displayed a superior nobility. In 
 the Dialogue of Orators," he is said to have 
 excelled Cicero in the sweetness and correct- 
 
 9 Messala nitidus, et candidus, et quodammodo prae se 
 
 ferens in dicendo nobilitatem suum. Qujntilian, 
 
 lib. x. c. 1. In another part of his writings, Quintilian 
 commends the dignity of Messala, to whom he assigns 
 an eloquence equal to his nobility. 
 
 Cicerone mitior Corvinus, et dulcior, et in verbis ma- 
 gis elaboratus — Dialogue of the Orators, at the end of 
 Tacitus, c. 18. 
 
61 
 
 ness of his style. His taste for poetry and 
 polite literature will admit of little doubt, 
 when we call to mind that he was protected 
 by Caesar, favoured by Maecenas, esteemed 
 by Horace, and loved by Tibullus. Horace, x 
 in one of his beautiful odes, praises Messala 
 in the happiest strains of poetry, calls the day 
 he intended to pass with him propitious, and 
 promises to treat him with some of his most 
 excellent wine. " For," says the poet," 
 though Messala is conversant with all the 
 philosophy of Socrates and the academy, he 
 will not decline such entertainment as my 
 humble board can supply." The modest Ti- 
 bullus flattered himself with the pleasing hopes 
 of Messala' s paying him a visit in the coun- 
 
 2 Book III. Ode 21. " O nata mecum consule Man- 
 lio," &c. — This elegant performance, says Sir Edward 
 Barry, in his Lives of the Ancients, is inscribed by Ho- 
 race to his illustrious friend as a perpetual monument of 
 his esteem and affection, which must have given him a 
 superior delight to what he could have received from the 
 most exquisite wine : 
 
 u Descende, Corvinojubente 
 Promere languidiora vina." 
 
G2 
 
 try, s " Where," says he, " my beloved De- 
 lia shall assist in doing the honours for so 
 noble a guest." The rising genius of Ovid 
 was admired and encouraged by Messala; 
 and this condescension the exiled bard has 
 acknowledged in an epistle to Ins son Messa- 
 linus, dated from the cold shores of the Eux- 
 ine. 4 In this letter Ovid calls Messala his 
 friend, the light and director of all his litera- 
 ry pursuits. It is natural to suppose an inti- 
 macy subsisted between Messala and Virgil, 
 and yet no historical circumstance has come 
 to our knowledge sufficient to evince it. The 
 
 3 Hue veniet Messala meus, cui dulcia poma 
 
 Delia selectis detrahet arboribus. — Tibullus, b. i 
 eleg. 5. 
 
 Stanhope * shall come and grace his rural friend, 
 Delia shall wonder at her noble guest, 
 With blushing awe the riper fruit commend, 
 And for her husband's patron cull the best. 
 
 Hammond. 
 
 4 Ovid, in his Epistle to Messalinus, the son of Mes- 
 sala, acknowledges this encouragement : 
 
 Hoc pater ille tuus, primo mild cultus ab avo. 
 Si quid habet sensus umbra diserta, petit. 
 
 At the time this epistle was written Messala was no 
 more, 
 
 • Lord Chesterfield. 
 
63 
 
 poem called Ciris, s which is dedicated to Mes- 
 sala, and has been ascribed to Virgil by some 
 grave authorities, grows more suspicious eve- 
 ry day. Tacitus, whose judgment of man- 
 kind is indisputable, and whose decision is 
 not always in the most favourable point of 
 view, seems fond of praising Messala ; and, 
 in a speech given to Silius, the consul-elect, 
 he considers him among the few great cha- 
 racters who have risen to the hio*hest honours 
 by their integrity and eloquence. 6 Even Ti- 
 berius himself, when a youth, took him for 
 his master and pattern in speaking; 7 and 
 happy would it have been for the Roman 
 people had he also taken him for his guide 
 
 s Opusculum hoc (Ciris) Virgilius ad Messalam dirigit 
 qui Augusti tempore, magnis in rebus etpraesertim mili- 
 taribus exercebatur : eratque praeterea orator non indig- 
 nus, et poeta. Cupiebat igitur Maro, benevolentissimum 
 ilium sibi efficere : quumque nonnulla ad Maecenatem et 
 Octavium scripsisset, Cyrim ad ipsum Messalam direxit, 
 in quo libro ostendit famas atque glorias gratia, semper 
 se fuisse accensum : librosque Graecos, non solum poe- 
 ticos, verumetiam philosophicos, evolvisse. 
 
 6 Ad summa provectos incorrupta. vita et facundia. — 
 Tacitus' Ann. lib. xi. c. 6. 
 
 7 In oratione latina secutus est Tiberius Corvimim 
 Messalam, quern senem adolescens observaverat. — Sue- 
 tonius Vita Tib. c. 70. 
 
64 
 
 and pattern in virtue. Cremutius Cordus, • 
 who fell a victim in the reign of this same Ti- 
 berius, to his attachment to republican prin- 
 ciples, and his love for the two last friends of 
 liberty, takes an occasion before his death of 
 justifying his conduct by the examples of Asi- 
 nius Pollio and Messala, who, he says, both 9 
 increased in riches and honours, notwith- 
 standing their regard for the ancient consti- 
 tution. Messala, it is well known, made elo- 
 quence his chief study ; x and though we have 
 
 5 Cremutius Cordus was put to death, and his wri- 
 tings suppressed, though they had been read to Augus- 
 tus, and approved by that emperor. Seneca addresses 
 his Essay on Consolation to his daughter Marcia. 
 
 9 Uterque opibusque atque honoribus perviguere. 
 
 Tacitus' Ann. lib. iv. c. 34. 
 
 1 Quintilian says, Cicero recommended the practice 
 of translating Greek into Latin, and his example was 
 followed by Messala, who composed many orations in 
 this manner, particularly that for Phryne from Hyperi- 
 des, in which he vies with his original even in delicacy 
 (subtilitate), a quality so hard to be attained to by the 
 Latin tongue.— Book x. c. 5. Quintilian says, Pollio 
 and Messala began to plead when Cicero was at the very 
 summit of eloquence, and then asks, had they not great 
 dignity in life ? And are not their names now glorious, 
 though they are dead?— B. xii. c. 11. It appears from 
 the Dialogue de Oratoribus, that Messala began most of 
 his orations with complaints of his ill health.— -C. 20. 
 Consultus juris et actor. 
 
65 
 
 no remaining specimen by which to judge of 
 him as an orator, yet no doubt can rest on the 
 mind of posterity as to his being possessed of 
 superior excellence in speaking. Besides the 
 opinions of Cicero and Quintilian, the two 
 unerring judges of taste, in his favour, we 
 may add those of Horace 3 and the two Sene- 
 cas. 3 The poet ranks him in the first class 
 of orators : Seneca, the father, considers him 
 as the purest writer of the age, and his son, 
 the philosopher, as the most eloquent. The 
 simple recital of his names, Marcus Valerius 
 Messala Corvinus, is sufficient to declare the 
 antiquity and nobility of his family. 4 The 
 wise laws enacted by the patriotic Publius 
 Valerius Poplicola, in the year of Rome 244 ; 
 the success which Marcus Valerius had in a 
 single combat with a Gaul of gigantic stature 
 in the year 404, by the assistance of a raven 
 called Corvus ; and the capture of Messana, 
 under the conduct of Valerius Flaccus the 
 
 a Causarum mediocris abest virtute diserti 
 
 Messala. Horace, de Arte Poetica, 369. 
 
 3 Seneca, in his treatise De Morte Claudii Caesaris, 
 calls him disserlissimus vir. 
 
 4 Hook's Roman History, 4to, vol. i. p. 136. 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 consul, are known to the most superficial 
 readers of Roman history. The two last cir- 
 cumstances gave to the Valerian family the 
 honourable names of Corvinus and Messala. 
 Aulus Gellius 5 tells us, that Augustus con- 
 firmed Livy's story of the raven, by erecting 
 a statue in honour of Messala, with a figure 
 of the bird placed on the top, as a monument 
 of the truth of the fact and battle. Seneca 6 
 and Macrobius7 both agree in deriving the 
 name of Messala from the taking of Messana, 
 in Sicily. Horace, in the sixth satire of his 
 first book, wherein his good sense has esta- 
 blished the rational grounds of true nobility, 8 
 considers Messala's family as among the most 
 illustrious. From the earliest period of Rome, 
 the Valerian family possessed and adorned the 
 highest honours of the state. 
 
 5 Aulus Gellius. See his Noctes Atticae, lib. ix. c. 11. 
 Livy, lib. 7. c. 26. 
 
 6 Seneca de Brevitate Vitae. 
 
 7 Macrobius de Saturnal. lib. i. c. 6. 
 
 8 At Novius Collega gradu post me sedet uno ; 
 Namque est ille, pater quod erat meus. Hoc tibi 
 
 Paul us 
 Et Messala videris ? — Two of the most illustrious 
 families in Rome. 
 
 Quis fructus generis tabula jactare capaci 
 Corvinum, &c. — Juvenal. Sat. 8. 
 
67 
 
 A custom 9 prevailed among the Romans of 
 embellishing the porticoes of their houses with 
 the images of their ancestors, ranged accord- 
 ing to order ; and under each image they pla- 
 ced a scroll, which served to record their great 
 actions, &c. In the early and more virtuous 
 days of Rome, these images were made of 
 wood, and afterwards of wax :? they were ne- 
 ver produced except in public funeral proces- 
 sions. Their situation in the entrance of eve- 
 ry house, served as a passing voice to poste- 
 rity to awaken them to an imitation of the 
 virtues of their ancestors. What spirited, 
 well-educated youth could continually pass 
 and repass through a long line of noble an- 
 cestry, and not feel some sparks of laudable 
 ambition kindling in his soul, to emulate their 
 glorious deeds, and to live after death in com- 
 
 9 Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv. c. 2. 
 
 1 Tota licet veteres exornent undique cer<e 
 Atria, nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus. 
 
 Juvenal. Sat. 8. 
 
 Images and likenesses of ancestors were made in wax, 
 and set up as ornaments and memorials of the great per- 
 sons from whom they were taken ; but, as Juvenal says, 
 without virtue were nothing worth. 
 
68 
 
 munion with such heroic sires. The adop- 
 tion of this custom in our own country, and 
 virtue made the genuine test of true nobility 
 and title to honour, might be attended with 
 the best effects.* Messala seems to have been 
 impressed with this noble feeling ; for when 
 he perceived that an image of one of the Le- 
 roini,* a branch of the Valerian family, had 
 obtained an unmerited place, as he thought, 
 among his ancestors, he ordered it to be ta- 
 ken away, lest his pedigree should be disho- 
 noured. The indignation he felt at finding 
 that the Salutian family 4 had crept into that 
 
 a Nobility in the beginning was not given to the suc- 
 cession of blood, but to the succession of virtue. " Hinc 
 dictus nobilis, quasi virtute prae aliis notabilis." 
 
 " For true nobility standeth in the trade 
 *' Of virtuous life, not in the fleshly line : 
 " For blood is brute, but gentry is divine." 
 
 3 Extat Messala Oratoris indignatio, qua prohibuit 
 inseri genti suae Levinorum alienam imaginem. — Pliny. 
 If any one, who had an image of himself, were convict- 
 ed of a grievous crime, his image was to be broken to 
 pieces, and his name erased from the kalendar, either by 
 the sentence of the judge, or by the fury of the people. 
 
 4 Similis causa Messalae seni expressit volumina ilia, 
 quae de familiis condidit, cum Scipionis Africani transis- 
 
69 
 
 of the Scipios, by testamentary adoption, was 
 so lively, that he composed, at a very advan- 
 ced time of life, his Treatise on Genealogies, 
 Pliny the elder, who mentions these two last 
 circumstances, makes a distinction between 
 Messala, whom he calls the Orator, and the 
 Messala who wrote the genealogical disserta- 
 tion ; but I conceive, with the greatest defe- 
 rence for the learned historian, that the dis- 
 tinction is made without a difference. There 
 are several writings ascribed to Messala, of 
 which one is a discourse on the letter S, 5 and 
 another a treatise which he composed on the 
 subject of the Auspices ; but Macrobius 6 says 
 this latter was written by Marcus Messala, 
 who was consul in the year 700. The dis- 
 sertation addressed to Octavianus Augustus, 
 
 set atrium, vidissetque adoptione testamentaria Salutio- 
 nis (hoc enira ei fuerat cognomen) Africanorum dede- 
 core notam irrepentem Scipionum nomini. 
 
 5 Quintilian asks, " Is the genius of Messala less 
 brilliant because he wrote so many books, not only upon 
 single words, but single letters ?" " Studies of this kind 
 (adds the same writer) never obstruct those who take 
 them in their passage, but those who dwell upon them." 
 — B. i. c. 4. 
 
 6 Macrobius, lib. i. c. 16. 
 
70 
 
 De progenie sua^ 7 and said to have been com- 
 posed by Messala, is considered by Barthius- 
 and other critics to be spurious. However, 
 whatever literary tracts might have been writ- 
 ten by Messala are all unfortunately lost, to- 
 gether with his Memoirs of the Battle of Phi- 
 lippi, to which Plutarch refers, as existing in 
 his time. 
 
 We noticed heretofore, that Messala's tri- 
 umph, in 727, closed his military career, 
 and, we add with sorrow, almost his life ; for 
 though he lived to the middle of Augustus's 
 long reign, 8 his name is rarely mentioned 
 afterwards by any contemporary historian. 
 
 7 It first made its appearance, in the year 1 540, at 
 Mayence, under the inspection of M. Jacques Bedrote ; 
 was translated into Ttalian by Geo. Vine. Belprato, about 
 the year 1549 ; and has since been published in England 
 along with the works of Eutropius. 
 
 II n'est pas difficile de connoitre qu'il n'est digne ni de 
 l'esprit de Messala, ni de la Latinite du Siecle d'Augus- 
 te.— -Moreri. 
 
 8 Nam Corvinus in medium usque Augusti principa- 
 tum duravit. — TACITUS, Dialogus de Orator. 
 
 Augustus was born in the year of Rome 691, and 
 died in 767, aged 76. He became emperor in 724, and 
 reigned 44 years ; so that, according to this calculation, 
 Messala lived to the year 746. 
 
71 
 
 When the unfortunate Ovid was relegated 9 
 to Tomi, about the year 760, (relegated was 
 the mild expression used by Augustus to de- 
 nominate his cruel exile to a barbarous land,) 
 Messala was no more ; and in the Epistle to 
 which we have alluded before, as written by 
 the poet to Messalinus, we therein discover 
 his tears and regret for the melancholy event. 
 Whether the title of Father of his Country 
 was conferred on Caesar by Messala Corvi- 
 nus, or Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus, 
 is doubtful. Suetonius, in Ins life of that em- 
 peror, has neither distinguished the Messala, 
 
 9 Relegatio, a species of banishment, in which the 
 place of the condemned person was pointed out, but the 
 deprivation of rights and loss of fortune were not under- 
 stood to be the consequence. 
 
 " Ira quidem moderata tua est, vitamque dedisti : 
 Nee mihi jus civis, nee mihi nomen abest. 
 Nee mea concessa est aliis fortuna, nee exul 
 
 Edicti verbis nominor ipse tui. 
 Omniaque haec timui, quoniam meruisse videbar ; 
 
 Sed tua peccato lenior ira meo est. 
 Arva relegatum jussisti visere Ponti 
 
 Et Scythicum profuga scindere puppe fretum." 
 
 Such are the expressions in which Ovid describes thi9 
 kind of banishment m one of his mournful, but unmanN 
 elegies on the shores of the Euxine* 
 
72 
 
 nor marked the year ; ■ and this omission has 
 left open a wide field for conjectures, which 
 we shall leave to be filled up with the elabo- 
 rate comments of such names as Panvinius, 
 Rupertus, &c. If this godlike distinction was 
 conferred on Augustus by the subject of these 
 Memoirs in full senate, we need not be sur- 
 prised at the master of the Roman world 
 bursting into tears. We learn from Euse- 
 bius, a that Messala was deprived of both 
 sense and memory two years before his deaths 
 and that he grew at last incapable of putting 
 two words together with meaning; which mi- 
 serable state Pliny 3 confirms, by saying that 
 
 1 Suetonius Vita Augusti. c. 58. 
 
 " With hearty wishes for the happiness of yourself 
 and your family, Caesar Augustus, (for so we think we 
 most effectually pray for the public welfare,) the senate, 
 in conjunction with the people, salute you by the title of 
 Father of your Country. To this compliment Augustus, 
 with tears in his eyes, replied in these words, (for I put 
 them down exactly, says Suetonius, as I have done those 
 of Messala), Having now obtained the utmost of my 
 wishes, O Conscript Fathers, what else have I to beg of 
 the immortal gods, but the continuance of this your af- 
 fection for me to the last moments of my life." 
 
 z Eusebii Chronicon. 
 
 3 Sui vero nominis Messala Corvinus cepit oblivio- 
 nem. — Pliny, lib. 7. c. 24. 
 
 It is said, on the authority ofPetrus Crinitus, a Latin 
 
73 
 
 he forgot his own name. This condition, so 
 humiliating to human nature, though it has 
 never been satisfactorily solved, may afford a 
 useful lesson to mankind, and teach them not 
 to be too proud of their so much boasted rea- 
 son, when they call to mind the lamentable 
 end of a Swift, a Marlborough, a Somers, or 
 a Messala. Though the Valerian family was 
 one of the most distinguished in Rome, his- 
 tory has left us in great doubt and uncertain- 
 ty concerning that particular branch of it, 
 from which Messala Corvinus was descended. 
 It is a matter not yet clearly ascertained, whe- 
 ther his father was Marcus Valerius Messala, 
 surnamed Niger, or Marcus Valerius Messa- 
 la, who was consul in the year TOO. 4 Cicero 
 speaks of the first in warm terms of approba- 
 tion, and of the latter in a letter to his bro- 
 ther Quintus. His mother's name is said to 
 
 writer of the fourteenth century, that Messala starved 
 himself in consequence of what he suffered from ulcers 
 in his mouth. His words are, *' Tandem vero ulceri ori 
 innato seipsum inedia confecit." 
 
 Swift, before he died, suffered severely from boils, 
 which broke out on several parts of his body. 
 
 4 Messala consul est egregius, fortis, constans, dili- 
 gens, nostri laudator, amator, imitator. — Epist. ad Atti- 
 cum, 15. lib. 1. Epist. ad Quintum, 8. lib. 3. 
 
74 
 
 have been Paula, 5 a lady of the iEmilian fa- 
 mily, and of an amiable character, who, after 
 the death of her husband, married Lucius 
 Gellius Poplicola, a man of distinguished emi- 
 nence, by whom she had a son called Publius 
 Gellius Cotta Publicola, whose name merits a 
 place in these Memoirs from the considera- 
 tion of his near alliance to Messala; from 
 Horace having mentioned his name along 
 with his brother's, as a judge of letters; and 
 from his having had the honour to be appoint- 
 ed consul, in the year 717: but in all other 
 points of view, he was a disgrace to the Vale- 
 rian family, and very unworthy of such a bro- 
 ther as is the subject of these Memoirs. In 
 his youth he was accused of intriguing with 
 his mother-in-law, « and of having conspired 
 against his father's life : and though tried 
 and acquitted by his parents and judges, his 
 subsequent conduct has given us reason to 
 doubt of the equity of their decision ; for it is 
 said that he plotted against the lives of Bru- 
 
 s Blackwell, 2d vol. p. 107, &c. 
 
 6 If it were so, says Blackwell, the Consul and Cen- 
 sor, Lucius Gellius, must have divorced Paula or Polla, 
 and married a young wife, 
 
75 
 
 tus and Cassius whilst under their command ; 
 and had not the character of his brother been 
 held in such high estimation by them both, he 
 might have probably paid the deserved forfeit 
 of his crimes. We are left quite in the dark 
 as to the time in which Messala was born, 
 married, or died; but history is not to be 
 blamed for such omissions, its object being 
 incompatible with the attentive investigation 
 of the lives of individuals, however virtuous, 
 if unconnected with public events : this hum- 
 ble task is left to the writers of memoirs, lives, 
 &c, whose duty imperiously calls on them to 
 enter into the characters and anecdotes of 
 private families, and to record those minute 
 but interesting circumstances of domestic life, 
 which are looked on either as beneath the 
 dignity, or wide of the limits of general his- 
 tory. Writers of this description abounded 
 in the age before us, for the prince himself set 
 the example, 7 and it was followed by Mrece- 
 
 7 Blackwell, vol. i. p. 2. 
 
 Of the works ascribed to Maecenas not one has esca- 
 ped the waste of time ; the names of some of them 
 which survive are, the Tragedy of Octavia, the Life of 
 Augustus, a Natural History of Animals } &c. 
 
76 
 
 nas, Pollio, 8 Agrippa,? and Dellius, l whose 
 writings, had they survived the ravages of 
 time, might have thrown great light on the 
 present subject, and supplied, in some mea- 
 sure, the lamented chasm in Livy's History. 
 *For want of the materials which might have 
 been afforded us by the above writers, we are 
 obliged to have recourse to St Jerome, 3 a 
 Christian father of the fourth century, to tell 
 us that Messala married Terentia, Cicero's 
 widow, and had by her two sons, Marcus and 
 Lucius, and one daughter, called Valeria. 
 His sons were both raised to the consulship, 
 
 8 Pollio wrote the History of the Civil Wars, and 
 some tragedies, all of which are lost. 
 
 9 Agrippa, it is said, wrote his own Life, which is 
 lost. 
 
 1 Quintus Dellius, whom Plutarch calls the historian. 
 He accompanied Antony into Parthia, and wrote the 
 History of that Expedition. Messala calls him Desullor- 
 bellorum Civilium ; for he passed from Dolabella to Cas- 
 sius, from Cassius to Antony, and from Antony to Oc- 
 tavius. 
 
 * Preface to Grainger's Tibullus. 
 
 3 " Ilia conjux egregia, et quae de fontibus Tullianis 
 hauserit sapientiam, nupsit Sallustio inimico ejus, et 
 tertio MessaJae Corvino, et quasi per quosdam gradus 
 eloquentiae devoluta est." — Hieronymus contra Jovia- 
 num. 
 
77 
 
 and proved themselves not unworthy of the 
 Valerian family, whose reputation was so high 
 in the reign of Nero, * that Messala's great- 
 grandson was made consul; and when the 
 emperor learnt that his fortune was not equal 
 to support his rank, he gave him a pension 
 sufficient to maintain the dignity of his house. 5 
 Messala's eldest son inherited a great share of 
 his father's eloquence ; and when he was ap- 
 pointed, at a very early age, a member of the 
 Quindecimviral College, Tibullus 6 composed 
 a beautiful elegy, wherein he invokes Phoe- 
 bus to aid him in celebrating the praises of 
 Messalinus the new pontiff; and this poem 
 he concludes with describing his father's ex- 
 ultation, when he should see his son pass be- 
 fore him in the long procession of a triumph. 7 
 
 4 Tacitus, Ann. lib. xiii. c. 34. 
 
 5 Mox Valerius Messalinus, cui parens Messala, ine- 
 ratque imago paterna facundice, respondit. — Tacitus, 
 lib. iii. c. 34. Ovid, in his epistle to Messalinus, says, 
 
 Vivit enim in vobis facundi lingua parentis, 
 Et res haeredem repperit ilia suum. 
 
 6 Tibullus, lib. ii. eleg. 5. 
 
 7 Turn Messala meus pia det spectacula turbse, 
 Et plaudat curru praetereunte pater. 
 
 8 
 
78 
 
 Ovid 8 calls him the light of the Muses, and 
 defence of the Forum ; but from the manner 
 in which the poet expresses himself, it may be 
 a question whether the poet means Marcus 
 the eldest, who was consul in the year 750, or 
 Lucius the youngest, who was adopted into 
 the Aurelian family, and took the name of 
 Lucius Cotta Messalinus, and was consul in 
 the year 757. His daughter Valeria, we are 
 told, married into the Statilian family, and 
 her husband took the name of Statilius Cor- 
 vinus. As Terentia has been mentioned, * it 
 is impossible to dismiss her without taking 
 notice of some very singular circumstances in 
 her life and fortune. It is a matter which ad- 
 mits of no doubt, that Cicero lived with her 
 above thirty years ; that he had by her two 
 children, who were extremely dear to him; 
 and that he did not put her away till he was 
 in the sixty-first year of his age. Her impe- 
 rious disposition, and haughty temper, are 
 assigned as the principal reasons of his taking 
 a step which brought down upon him much 
 
 * Pieridum lumen, prsesidiumque fori. — Ovid, de 
 Ponto, lib. iv. eleg. 16. 
 
 9 See Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. ii. p. 167, &c. 
 and note. Dub. ed. 
 
79 
 
 censure and ridicule;" and which, it is to be 
 apprehended, his precipitate marriage with 
 the young and wealthy Publilia did not re- 
 move. It is to be wished that the eloquent 
 Jerome had informed us what time interve- 
 ned between her divorce, which happened in 
 the year 707, and her second nuptials with 
 the historian Sallust, Cicero's great enemy ; 
 or how Ions she lived with him, or whether 
 
 CD * 
 
 they had any children. This information was 
 necessary to have been given, in order to as- 
 certain her age at the time of her marriage 
 with Messala, by whom, Jerome says, she had 
 three children. Therefore, if we suppose her 
 married to Cicero at the age of fourteen or 
 fifteen, and that she lived but two or three 
 years with Sallust, which is long enough, con- 
 sidering the historian's character, she must 
 have been near fifty years of age before she 
 gave her hand to Messala. When we con- 
 sider his amiable character, we may suppose 
 that she lived with him till his death ; and if 
 we could but imagine that her care and ten- 
 
 1 Besides the reasons assigned in the text, he says him- 
 self that the embarrassed state of his private affairs made 
 such a step almost absolutely necessary. 
 
80 
 
 derness helped to sooth and comfort the last 
 helpless days of that great man's life, we should 
 gladly draw a veil over her many failings, 
 and her fourth and last marriage with Vibius 
 Rufus, who, Dion Cassius says, was consul in 
 the reign of Tiberius, and who used to boast 
 that he was possessed of two most valuable 
 relics, which were the wife of Cicero, and the 
 chair* in which Caesar was killed. Pliny 3 
 and Valerius Maximus 4 say, that this vene- 
 rable matron lived to the advanced age of a 
 hundred and three ; and surely, if her memo- 
 ry and understanding survived, she must have 
 been a most agreeable and entertaining com- 
 panion. To be born in the most enlightened 
 period of Rome's grandeur, when the whole 
 known world submitted to its sway, to be the 
 witness of such astonishing revolutions in men 
 and manners ; to be married successively to the 
 first orator, the first historian, and the most 
 
 2 2«Pge? tiriwvrot Sella curulis aurata — sedes aurea, 
 in which, by a decree of the senate, Caesar sat in the se- 
 nate-house. 
 
 3 Terentia Ciceronis, cm annos excessit. — Pliny, 
 lib. vii. c. 48. 
 
 4 Valerius Maximus, lib. viii. c. xiii. 
 
81 
 
 accomplished citizen of the age in which she 
 lived, and to outlive the most important cen- 
 tury in the annals of mankind, form such 
 an assemblage of splendid circumstances, as 
 scarce can ever again fall to the lot of any 
 mortal. — Having now brought together all 
 the scattered rays of information # which his- 
 tory has preserved of the life of Messala, and 
 which we must allow are so much to the ho- 
 nour of human nature, it is deeply to be re- 
 gretted that it has been so frugal on the oc- 
 casion. The task of the biographer would be 
 
 * I cannot conclude these Memoirs, without express- 
 ing my grateful obligations to Mr Blackwell, the author 
 of the Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, and his conti- 
 nuator, Mr Mills, for the great pains which they have 
 used in collecting and arranging such an heterogeneous 
 variety of historic and classical information, and for the 
 great service which they have afforded me in the compi- 
 lation of this little history. The style of the laborious 
 Principal of Aberdeen is, it is true, very verbose and 
 pompous ; and his familiar phrases and allusions are of- 
 ten laughable; but the anxious desire he has displayed 
 in making us not only familiar but intimate with the 
 lives, the characters, and anecdotes of the day, must be 
 very acceptable to all the curious in literature ; besides 
 the warmth of his zeal in the cause of civil liberty and 
 virtue demands some acknowledgment from every friend 
 to the British Constitution. 
 
82 
 
 pleasant indeed, if his duty consisted only in 
 the investigation and delineation of such great 
 and amiable characters. History then, in- 
 stead of being the sad relation of the crimes 
 and miseries of mankind, would be a perpe- 
 tual theme of their virtues and felicity. The 
 character which Messala established in a most 
 corrupt age, and the respect which was paid 
 to it by the most opposite parties, holds out 
 to all times the consequence of real, not affect' 
 ed patriotism, and teaches ministers and states- 
 men this lesson, which their conduct has made 
 nearly obsolete, that a steady adherence to 
 virtue is the surest and safest means of gain- 
 ing all the ends which an honest man can 
 propose to himself in the road of a laudable 
 ambition. Messala lived long admired and 
 esteemed, — he died full of years and glory ; 
 although unhappily, two years before his 
 death, he forgot that name, which, for the 
 sake of virtue and humanity, should never be 
 consigned to oblivion, 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 TITUS POMPONIUS ATTICUS. 
 
 FROM THE LATIN OF CORNELIUS NEPOS. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OP 
 
 TITUS POMPONIUS ATTICUS. 
 
 FROM THE LATIN OF CORNELIUS NEPOS. 
 
 Pomponius Atticus * was descended from 
 one of the most ancient families of Rome, and 
 
 1 Titus Pomponius'Atticus. — The Proenomen Titus is 
 omitted by Cornelius Nepos : it was properly personal, 
 and probably that of his father or grandfather : Pompo- 
 nius was the nomen, or name of the family, which was 
 as old as the days of Numa Pompilius ; and Atticus was 
 the agnomen, added on account of his love of Athens, 
 and his spending a great deal of his time there. It does 
 not appear, says Melmoth, in a note to his Cato, upon 
 what account he received the surname of Atticus. One 
 of the commentators conjectures that it took its rise 
 from Jiis speaking the Greek language with all the cor- 
 rectness and propriety of a native Athenian. Perhaps 
 
86 
 
 possessed the equestrian dignity,* which had 
 devolved to him from an uninterrupted line of 
 ancestors. In his education he had the ad- 
 vantage of a father, who was not only zealous, 
 but kind in his instructions; one who, ac- 
 cording to the times in which he lived, was 
 considered rich, and was besides particularly 
 fond of literature. In proportion as he loved 
 letters himself, he took care his son should 
 
 it was given to him as a designation of that singular ele- 
 gance and politeness which distinguished every part of 
 his accomplished character. 
 
 2 The Equestrian Dignity, or that order of the Roman 
 people which we commonly call knights, depending en- 
 tirely upon a census, or valuation of their estates, which 
 was usually made every five years hy the. Censors in 
 their Lustrum, or general review of the whole people. 
 At this time all those citizens, whose entire fortunes 
 amounted to the sum of 400 sestertia, that is, about 
 3229/. of our money, were enrolled of course in the list 
 of Equctetf or knights, who were considered as an in- 
 termediate order between the senators and the common 
 people, and were allowed the following distinctions, 
 such as " a horse given by the public, the Augustus 
 Clavus, or Tunica August k'axia, and an allotted place 
 at the public shews, according to the law of lloscius 
 Otho:" but the principal privilege granted them was 
 that of wearing a gold ring, as the peculiar badge of the 
 order. 
 
87 
 
 be instructed in whatever learning 3 was best 
 adapted to his juvenile years. He had, whilst a 
 boy, great sweetness of elocution and expres- 
 sion, added to such natural docility of disposi- 
 tion, as made him easily comprehend all that 
 was taught him ; and whatever he learned, he 
 was capable of reciting in a superior manner : 
 from which circumstance he was esteemed no- 
 ble amongst his equals ; and his character even 
 then had such a decided brilliancv, as was not 
 quite patiently relished by his school-fellows, 
 who were descended from illustrious parents. 4 
 The consequence was, that he incited, by his 
 studious example, ail his young contempora- 
 ries to emulate his acquirements ; amongst 
 
 3 The learning then generally taught consisted of rhe- 
 toric, history, poetry, and sometimes mathematics. " I e- 
 gimns epistolas Cornelia? Matris Gracchoriun," says Ci- 
 cero in his hook, de Claris Oratoribus, from which it ap. 
 pears, adds he, that her children were not " tain in gi e- 
 mio educatos, quara in sermone matris." 
 
 4 Orig. cjariusque cxplendescebat, quam generosi con- 
 discipuli ammo aequo ferre possent. 
 
 Pomponius was not generosus, because his father, and 
 all his ancestors, were only eguites, and never senatorts t 
 which could have entitled them to the honourable ap- 
 pellation o( generosi. 
 
8$ 
 
 whom were Lucius Torquatus, 5 Caius Mari- 
 us, 6 the son of Caius, and Marcus Cicero, 
 whom he so engaged by his habitual intima- 
 cy, that no man was dearer to them than he 
 was. His father died early, and his son, 
 though young at the time his relation Publius 
 Sulpicius 7 was slain, (whilst tribune of the peo- 
 ple,) ran some risk on account of that con- 
 
 His name was Lucius Manlius Torquatus, who was 
 consul two years before the consulship of Cicero. 
 
 6 This young man, who was the son of the famous Caius 
 Marius, made himself consul in the 25th year of his age, 
 almost twenty years before he was entitled to enjoy it ; 
 and put to death all the senators who opposed his ambi- 
 tious views. He was defeated by Sylla, and fled to Prae- 
 neste, where he killed himself. 
 
 Publius Sulpicius was connected with Atticus by a 
 family alliance, the brother of the former having married 
 Anicia, the cousin-german of the latter. Pompeius was 
 consul, and Sulpicius tribune, in the year of Rome 665 ; 
 at which time the opposite factions of Sylla and Marius 
 occasioned great disturbances in the republic. Cicero, 
 in his Laelius, mentions a quarrel which arose between 
 them in consequence of their having taken different sides 
 in those civil commotions ; and we know from history, 
 that each lost their lives in the sanguinary contests of 
 the two destructive factions, before the expiration of 
 their respective magistracies. Sulpicius was a man of 
 great eloquence, and is introduced by Cicero as one of 
 the speakers in his Complete Orator. 
 
89 
 
 nection; for Anicia, his cousin-german, was 
 married to Marcus Servius, the brother of 
 Sulpicius. Finding, therefore, upon the death 
 of Publius Sulpicius, that the city was much 
 disturbed by the insurrection of Cinna, and 
 that he could not live in it in a way becoming 
 his dignity, without giving offence to either 
 party, in the distracted state of men's minds ; 
 some favouring the side of Sylla, and others 
 that of Cinna j finding, I say, things in this 
 situation, and judging the opportunity favour- 
 able to a further prosecution of his literary 
 pursuits, he withdrew to Athens : 8 yet whilst 
 
 8 The different factions of Sylla and Cinna having, 
 about the year 666, occasioned great and dangerous com- 
 motions in the state, Atticus, finding, if he continued iu 
 Rome, it would be impossible, from his family connec- 
 tions, to stand neuter, withdrew to Athens ; that nobi- 
 lissimum or bis Gymnasium, as Cicero emphatically calls 
 it, which was filled with students from every quarter of 
 the world, and to which kings, and the sons of kings, re- 
 paired. During his residence in that illustrious semi- 
 nary of learning and the polite arts, says Melmoth, he 
 employed himself in cultivating his mind under those 
 great masters with which that celebrated city so emi- 
 nently abounded. Athens was esteemed by the anci- 
 ents the source, as it unquestionably was the seat, of all 
 those useful and polite arts, which most contribute to the 
 ease and ornament of life. 
 
90 
 
 there, although his mind was fixed upon pre- 
 serving a strict neutrality, he assisted young 
 Marius, who was declared a public enemy to 
 his country, with his interest ; and lightened 
 the difficulties of his exile by money. That his 
 living abroad might not be injurious to his 
 domestic concerns, he conveyed a great part 
 of his property 9 to the place of his retirement, 
 where he spent his time in such a manner as 
 deservedly won the esteem of all the Atheni- 
 ans ; for, independent of the credit he had ac- 
 quired, which in so young a man must be al- 
 lowed to have been considerable, he, upon 
 many occasions, relieved the wants of the 
 public from his private fortune. For when 
 the government of Athens was under the ne- 
 cessity of resorting to a loan, and found it im- 
 practicable to raise the necessary sum upon 
 equitable terms, he never failed interposing 
 his assistance at such periods, and in a man- 
 ner whereby he never received interest for his 
 money, whilst he always enjoined payment at 
 
 9 He had no landed estates in Italy, except what he 
 had at Ardea and Nomentum ; all the remainder of his 
 property, which consisted of moveables, was removed to 
 Athens. 
 
91 
 
 the very period agreed upon. ■ This mode of 
 dealing was attended with two good effects ; 
 one was, that he never suffered their debt to 
 grow upon them by too great forbearance ; 
 and the second was, that he did not let it in- 
 crease by the addition of interest. This act 
 of courtesy he enhanced by another of a more 
 substantial nature ; for he presented the city 
 with a supply of corn, a from which every 
 man who required such aid, had to his share 
 six modii of wheat ; a modius 5 being the kind 
 
 1 Cornelius Nepos, says the Abbe St Real, in Iiis 
 treatise on the character of Atticus, is so fond of prai- 
 sing this hero, that he even praises him for making the 
 Athenians punctual in the payment of their debts : to 
 which charge, I reply, that, had he not done so, there 
 would have been no statues erected to his honour, when 
 he left them; for punctuality is the soul of business, and 
 the strong cement of friendship between man and man. 
 
 2 In a letter from Cicero to Atticus, he says, " Sed 
 heus, 7Tv%x$ ug d^cv Athenis ? placet hoc tibi ? etsi non 
 impediebant mei certe libri : non enim ista largitiofuit in 
 cites, sed in hospites liberalitas" The Abbe St Real is 
 of opinion that Cicero thought Atticus's motive in this 
 largess questionable: had the prejudiced Abbe formed 
 this opinion from reading the first part of the passage, 
 the latter part of it, I think, might have set him right : 
 but it is omitted in his quotation. 
 
 3 Modius was the chief measure of dry goods, the 
 third part of a cubic foot, somewhat more than a peck 
 
92 
 
 of measure which was known at Athens by 
 the name of medimnus. He conducted him- 
 self with so much address as to make it ap- 
 pear, that though he condescended to live on 
 a level with the lowest of the citizens, he was 
 at the same time equal to the highest. 4 The 
 result of such demeanour was, that they con- 
 ferred on him all the honours they could, and 
 endeavoured to make him free of their city. 
 This mark of distinction he thought proper 
 to decline, which some people conceived was 
 done from an apprehension, that, had he ac- 
 cepted the rights and privileges of an alien 
 state, he might have forfeited those of his 
 own.* As long as he remained in Athens, 
 he opposed the design of erecting any statue 
 to him ; but after he had left it, he could not 
 
 English. Five modii of wheat used to be sown in an 
 acre, and six modii made the Attic medimnus. 
 
 4 The like was his deportment at Rome, says Sir Mat- 
 thew Hale in his life and death of Pomponius Atticus ; 
 and certainly this humility of mind, and freeness from 
 all manner of pride, adds he, brought him very great ad- 
 vantage, for it kept him in a true estimate and judgment 
 of things. 
 
 5 Duarum civitatum civis esse nostro jure civili nemo 
 potest : non esse hujus civitatis civis, qui se alii civitati 
 dicavit, potest. — Cicero pro Caecina. 
 
93 
 
 prevent that tribute being paid him. There- 
 fore statues were raised to him in their most 
 sacred places, the Pnyx and Paecile. 6 
 
 7 Throughout the entire management of their 
 public concerns, the Athenians followed his 
 advice, and were guided by his counsels. A 
 particular instance of the partiality of fate at- 
 tached to his fortune, namely, that of having 
 been born in a city superior to every other, 
 wherein was the seat of empire of the whole 
 world, a city peculiarly his own by being 
 
 6 The readings of this passage are different in diffe- 
 rent editions. In one it is, " Itaque aliquot ipsi et Pi- 
 lias locis sanctissimis posuerunt ;" in another it is, " Ita- 
 que aliquot in Pnyce et Paecile, locis sanctissimis posu- 
 erunt." The first is condemned by Bayle, who says, that 
 Pilia is not to be found in any good edition of Corne- 
 lius Nepos; for Atticus's marriage, adds he, not taking 
 place till long after his return from Athens, it is not to 
 be supposed that the Athenians should then think of 
 erecting statues to his wife ; nor is it very probable that 
 Cornelius Nepos should notice the circumstance of their 
 erecting statues to Pilia, without telling us who Pilia 
 was. I don't find the family of Pilia once mentioned 
 with any particular distinction in the Roman History. 
 There is a Quintus Pilius mentioned by Cicero, who 
 might probably have been of her family. In some edi- 
 tions the reading is ipsi et Phidia, 
 
 7 This sentence connects with the former, as a reason 
 for the statue. 
 
94 
 
 equally the place of his birth, and that of his 
 residence. A second instance of favour, which 
 must be ascribed solely to his own wisdom and 
 prudence, was, that when he had for a time 
 retired to a city that excelled all others in an- 
 tiquity, 8 urbanity, 9 and learning, l his con- 
 duct was such as to endear him to it above 
 all other men,* When Sylla* was returning 
 from Asia, he halted for some time in Athens ; 
 and during his stay there, was scarcely ever 
 out of the company of Pomponius, with whose 
 politeness and literature he was extremely 
 
 8 Hence their appellation of Avro%6ons, produced from 
 the same earth which they inhabited. 
 
 9 Their urbanity was manifested in their civility to 
 strangers, and by their erecting an altar to Mercy. 
 
 1 Their learning was known to all the world ; hence 
 the honourable appellations of the Erudition of Greece, 
 the School of all Men, the Seat of the Wise, the Greece 
 of Greece, the Prop of Greece, the Soul, and the Sun, 
 and the Eye of Greece. — See the Panegyric of Athens, 
 in Isocrates. 
 
 * Ita enim se Athenis collocavit, ut sit paene unus ex 
 Atticis, et id etiam cognomine videatur habiturus. — Ci- 
 CERO dcjinibus. 
 
 3 Sylla was a lover and patron of polite letters, having 
 been carefully instituted himself in all the learning of 
 Greece and Rome.— Sallust. 
 
95 
 
 captivated 5* for he spoke Greek with the 
 fluency of a native, and had added to this, in 
 his manner of speaking the Latin language, 
 such a peculiar sweetness of expression, as 
 proved that he was possessed of that appro- 
 priate grace, which is acknowledged to be in- 
 nate and not acquired. Besides which, no- 
 thing could exceed his elegance in reciting 
 Greek and Latin verses. These were the ac- 
 complishments that made Sylla so fond of his 
 society, and desirous to prevail upon him to 
 attend him to Rome, to which, when he was 
 using his endeavours to persuade him, Pom- 
 ponius made the following reply : " Do not, 
 I pray thee, sir, desire to carry me against 
 those with whom, that I might not bear arms 
 against you, I departed from Italy." Sylla 
 felt and approved so much of the young man's 
 kindness, that he ordered all the presents 
 which were bestowed upon himself whilst at 
 Athens, to be carried to him at his departure. 
 He lived there several years, during which 
 period he paid as much attention to his do- 
 mestic concerns, as was becoming in a dili- 
 
 *■ PoDaponius Atticus omni liberali doctrina politissi- 
 mus. — Cjcero. 
 
96 
 
 gent master of a family ; and whatsoever time 
 he had to spare was devoted to literature, and 
 the interests of the republic. Though em- 
 ployed in this manner, he was not unmindful 
 of what civil offices were due to his friends, 
 whom he served in their elections, frequently 
 attending them in person ;s and was never 
 known to be out of the way at the time when 
 any matter of importance was passing, in 
 which they were concerned, as appears from 
 the singular attachment « he manifested to Ci- 
 
 5 * De comitiis meis et tibi me permisisse memini, et 
 ego jampridem hoc communibus amicis, qui te expec- 
 tant, praedico. Te non modo non arcessam, sed prohibi- 
 bo" — Ad Atticum, lib. i. epist. 10. This was Cicero's 
 election for the praetorship, which he forbids his attend- 
 ing : but, instead of forbidding his coming to attend his 
 consular election, he says, " tuo adventu nobis opus est 
 mature" 
 
 5 This singular attachment of Atticus to Cicero is 
 questioned by the Abbe St Real, who positively asserts, 
 that the reverse may be proved from Cicero's letters. A 
 man who makes such an assertion as this, may assert 
 any thing. " En lisant les lettres que Ciceron lui a ecri- 
 tes, pleines des plus vives marques d'une tendre amitie 
 et d'une confiance, sans reserve ; il n'y a personne qui 
 ne voulut etre le troisieme, dans une semblable amitie. 
 II n'y a qui que ce soit, qui ne souhaitat des amis, dont 
 le cceur fut aussi bon et les manieres aussi aimables que 
 celles des ces deux illustres Romains. Cependant ces 
 
9V 
 
 cero in all his perils, and from the present of 
 two hundred and fifty thousand sestertii, 6 
 which he made him when under the necessity 
 of leaving his native country. 7 But as soon 
 as affairs were settled at Rome, he returned 
 home, as it appears, in the consulate of Lu- 
 cius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus. 8 The day 
 of his departure was observed by the whole 
 city of Athens in a way wherein their tears 
 marked the full sense of sorrow which they 
 felt for his loss. He had an uncle, whose 
 name was Quintus Caecilius, 9 a Roman knight, 
 
 gens la etoient tres-elognes de sentimens et dans la phi- 
 losophic, et dans les maximes concurant la conduite de 
 la vie, a l'egard de la republique." — Parhasiana ecrite, 
 par Mons. le Clerc, sous le nom de Theodore Parrhase. 
 
 6 In English money about 20001. 
 
 7 Cicero was obliged to leave his country in conse- 
 quence of the violent proceedings of Clodius against 
 him. 
 
 8 They were consuls in the year of Rome 689, at 
 which time Atticus must have been in his forty-fourth 
 year; and not, according to Sir Matthew Hale, in his 
 thirtieth. 
 
 9 Quintus Caecilius was his uncle by the mother's 
 side : He was a person of an intolerable perverse tem- 
 per, but Atticus humoured it in such a manner, that he 
 continued in his favour without any interruption to the 
 last. Caecilius, having adopted his nephew in his will, 
 
 a 
 
98 
 
 and the intimate friend of Lucius Lucullus : 
 he was besides extremely rich, but of an aus- 
 tere impatient temper ; yet, bad as it was, At- 
 ticus contrived to manage it with such extra- 
 ordinary skill, that he retained his uncle's 
 good-will even to an extreme old age. Of 
 his dutiful address in this instance he reaped 
 the full fruits, for his uncle at his death* 
 adopted him in his will, and made him heir 
 to three-fourths of his estate, by which be- 
 quest he inherited ten millions of sestertii.* 
 The sister 3 of Atticus was married to Quin- 
 
 Atticus was obliged in consequence of that to take upon 
 him the name of Quintus Caecilius Pomponius Atticus. 
 The body of this Caecilius was dragged, after his death, 
 through the streets of Rome, with a rope, by the people, 
 so great was their hatred to liim on account of his noto- 
 rious avarice and extortion. 
 
 1 In a letter from Cicero to Atticus, on the death of 
 his uncle, he says, " I most sincerely compliment you on 
 the honourable part which your uncle has acted towards 
 you, and am glad that your difficulties are removed in 
 consequence of the great fortune he has left you." 
 
 2 Above 80,000 1. in our money. 
 
 3 Pomponia. — From the letters of Cicero to Atticus, 
 it appears that his brother Quintus did not live with this 
 lady on the best terms. The letter in which their disa- 
 greement is particularly noticed, is the first of the 5th 
 book, and contains a curious account of Pomponius's 
 
99 
 
 tus Tullius Cicero, which match was greatly 
 promoted by his brother Marcus Cicero, be- 
 tween whom and Atticus there subsisted a 
 most intimate friendship from the time of 
 their being schoolfellows together ; 4 and with 
 him Atticus maintained a much closer degree 
 of familiarity than with Quintus himself. 5 
 From this circumstance it may be inferred, 
 that similarity of manners has greater influ- 
 ence in preserving friendship, than affinity of 
 blood. He was besides very intimate with 
 Quintus Hortensius, who was at that time the 
 most distinguished orator at the bar, 6 and it 
 was then a matter not easily to be ascertain* 
 ed, which of them loved him most, Cicero or 
 
 behaviour towards her husband, on which Cicero ob- 
 serves, " nihil meo fratre lenius, nihil asperius tua so- 
 ror6 raihi visum est." 
 
 4 Friendships contracted by boys at school, which 
 have been cemented, as it were, by a degree of religious 
 intercourse, continue in full force even to old age. — 
 
 QUINTILIAN. 
 
 s Cicero, in a letter to Caius Memmius, says, " I look 
 upon Atticus as a brother ; and indeed there is no man 
 who has a more considerable share of my heart, or from 
 whose friendship I derive greater satisfaction." 
 
 6 Principatum Eloquentiae tenebat; — hence called 
 Causarum Rex in the Forum. 
 
100 
 
 Hortensius. 7 But what was very extraordi- 
 nary, and not less honourable to both, was, 
 that, open rivals as they appeared in the ca- 
 reer of eloquence, their mutual esteem suffer- 
 ed no abatement from the jarrings of compe- 
 tition, or the whispers of envy : while the vir- 
 tues of Atticus were still the bond that ce- 
 mented the attachment of those illustrious 
 men. 8 He behaved with such peculiar dis- 
 cretion in all matters belonging to the repu- 
 blic, that he always was, and always had the 
 good fortune of being considered to be on the 
 
 7 Hortensius was about seven or eight years older 
 than Cicero, by whom he was more particularly consi- 
 dered as his pattern, or rather competitor in glory. 
 
 8 Those, says Bayle, who know how much the jea- 
 lousy of eloquence excites and agitates the other passions, 
 may form a good idea of the address and merit of a man 
 who understood how to preserve peace between two of the 
 most celebrated orators amongst the ancients. It was 
 sufficient, continues Bayle, for Pomponius Atticus to in- 
 sinuate himself agreeably into their affections ; but it 
 was likewise necessary that they should observe in him 
 such qualities as might inspire them with esteem and re- 
 spect for him. 
 
 This harmony, so unusual with those who contend for 
 the same prize, was, says Melmoth, greatly owing to the 
 good offices of Atticus, who seems, indeed, upon all oc- 
 casions, (and it is the most amiable part of his very sin- 
 
101 
 
 best side, which was that of the senate, 9 and 
 yet he never involved himself in the civil 
 commotions of the state, from an idea that 
 the men who embarked in such troubled wa- 
 ters were no more under the influence of their 
 own direction, than they who were tossed 
 about on the waves of the ocean. 1 He soli- 
 cited no public honours,* though they all lay 
 
 gular character,) to have employed the remarkable influ- 
 ence he enjoyed with all parties, in reconciling differen- 
 ces and cementing friendships. 
 
 9 Optimarum partium, ei optimatnm partium, are the 
 different readings, both of which mean here, those who 
 favoured the interests of the senate in opposition to the 
 Populares, who favoured those of the multitude. 
 
 1 For such determination Lord Bolingbroke thinks At- 
 ticus entitled to no credit ; because, says his lordship, 
 " he would have been noted for infamy at Athens, for 
 keeping well with all sides, and venturing on none:" 
 and yet I cannot help thinking, that, had Atticus lived 
 at Athens in the same upright, dignified manner, in 
 which he did at Rome, he would have escaped the infa- 
 my arising from the breach of Solon's law. 
 
 % This is evidently the strongest proof which he gave 
 of his virtue, says Bayle, for there was no possibility at 
 that time of being advanced to such posts but by disho- 
 nourable means, nor of executing them according to the 
 laws of justice, and to the advantage of one's country, 
 without exposing one's self to the violence of a great 
 number of evil men. Atticus chose rather to continue 
 
102 
 
 open to him on account of his popularity, in- 
 terest, and rank ; he declined them, because 
 they could neither be sued for, nor obtained, 
 according to the old accustomed rules of their 
 ancestors, owing to the abandoned corrup- 
 tion attending elections, nor could they be 
 managed for the advantage of the republic 
 without running great risk from the corrupt 
 state of public morals. He never attended 
 the sale of confiscated property, nor farmed 
 any part of the public revenue, nor became 
 surety for those who did. 3 No man was ever 
 
 in a private station of life, than to gain the highest digni- 
 ties at the expence of his conscience. How excellent a 
 conduct was this : but how uncommon at the same 
 time. If all the world, continues Bayle, resembled At- 
 ticus, there would be some reason to apprehend a state 
 of anarchy ; but we may rest satisfied in that respect, 
 for there will always be a greater number of dishonest 
 persons ready to take possession of employments by all 
 kinds of unlawful methods, than there will be places for 
 them to receive. 
 
 3 Cicero was no stranger to this ; and in one of his 
 letters to Atticus, rallies him in a vein of pleasantry on 
 the occasion, because he will not suppose that any such 
 resolution could be consistent with the friendship be- 
 tween them. — Epist. iii. lib. iSi 
 
 Orig. " Nullius rei nequc praes, neque manccps." 
 The Abbe St Real denies this ; for, says he, Cicero, 
 
103 
 
 brought to public trial by him acting either 
 as accuser, or as assistant in the accusation. 
 He never engaged in law for settling any 
 business of his own, nor had any lawsuits. 
 The lieutenancies, which many consuls and 
 pretors had the disposal of, were offered 
 to him, none of which were accepted ex- 
 cept upon the express conditions of his not 
 attending them to their respective provinces : 
 the honour of the appointment he deemed 
 sufficient, and the profits arising from it he 
 despised. He would not go out with Quin- 
 tus Cicero to Asia, 4 though he might have 
 had the situation of lieutenant under him; 
 
 in one of his letters, expressly calls Atticus Publicanus, 
 that is, a farmer of the public revenue. Had the Abbe 
 consulted the most correct editions of his author, he 
 could not have been led into so gross a mistake — " Tu 
 aliquid Publicanus pendis," Abbe's edition. " Tu ali- 
 quid Publicanis pendis," say Lambinus Graevius, Grono- 
 vius, and the judicious Mongault. 
 
 4 In a letter from Cicero to Atticus at this time, he 
 says, " As to what you write to me, that you are resol- 
 ved not to go to Asia, for my part I wish rather you 
 should go, but I am afraid you cannot conveniently, con- 
 sidering the state of my affairs : however I cannot blame 
 your resolution, especially as I have not gone myself to 
 my province." 
 
104 
 
 for he did not think it becoming his charac- 
 ter to be the follower of a praetor, after ha- 
 ving declined the honour of being praetor 
 himself. In acting thus, he not only consult- 
 ed his own dignity but his tranquillity, 5 inas- 
 much as he avoided the very suspicions of of- 
 fences. By such prudent precaution, his at- 
 tentions procured him more real respect, when 
 all people were convinced of their proceeding 
 from kindness, and not from the influence of 
 either hope or fear. Atticus was about sixty 
 years of age at the time of the breaking out 
 of the Caesarian civil war, and therefore used 
 the privilege which belonged to that time of 
 
 5 The wise man of the Epicureans had no other duty, 
 but to provide for his own ease : to decline all struggles, 
 to retire from public offices, and to imitate the life of the 
 gods, by passing his days in a calm, contemplative, un- 
 disturbed repose, in the midst of rural shades and de- 
 lightful gardens. This was the scheme, says Middleton, 
 in his life of Cicero, which Atticus followed ; he had all 
 the talents that could qualify a man to be useful to so- 
 ciety, great parts, learning, judgment, candour, benevo- 
 lence, generosity, the same love of his country, and the 
 same sentiments in politics, with Cicero, whom he was 
 always advising and urging to act, whilst determined ne- 
 ver to act himself, or never at least so far as to disturb 
 his ease, or endanger his safety. 
 
 9 
 
105 
 
 life, and never left the city. 6 Such of his 
 friends as went over to Pompey, he supplied 
 with whatever they wanted out of his private 
 fortune. 7 Although he did not join Pom- 
 pey in person, his conduct was not on that 
 account displeasing to him, 8 for Atticus 
 had never derived any advantage from him 
 like others, who, raised by his interest, ac- 
 quired both honours and wealth ; of whom 
 some were forced against their inclinations to 
 follow his camp, whilst others remained at 
 
 6 By the Roman law, no man could be compelled to 
 engage in the militia after fifty, nor any senator sum- 
 moned to attend his duty in the senate after sixty years 
 of age. — Seneca de brevitaie nitre. 
 
 7 Pompey declared he would consider as enemies all 
 who were not in his camp : Caesar, on the other hand, 
 said, he would consider as his friend every man that was 
 not in the camp of the enemy. 
 
 8 Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus, says, " All 
 your estates must have become the plunder of the Pom- 
 peians, had they succeeded : I say youi* estates, because, 
 with regard to yourself individually, their intentions were 
 moat cruel. This is applied by the Abbe St Real in re- 
 futation of the text ; but I conceive it does not answer 
 his purpose, for though such might have been the inten- 
 tions of some of the Pompeians, they never could have 
 found a place in the humane breast of Pompey. 
 
106 
 
 home to his great annoyance. The quiet' 
 which Atticus preserved was so gratifying to 
 Caesar, that as soon as his arms were crown- 
 ed with victory, though he called upon seve- 
 ral persons to provide him with money, yet 
 he never encroached upon Atticus by any 
 such application : on the contrary, he yield- 
 ed to him, out of complaisance, his sisters 
 son, and Quintus Cicero, whom he found in 
 the camp of Pompey. 
 
 By thus adhering steadily to the old max- 
 ims he laid down for the regulation of his 
 life, he avoided all new and emergent dan- 
 gers. Let us now consider the consequences 
 which followed. After the death of Caesar, 
 when the whole administration of affairs seem- 
 ed, as it were, to have fallen into the hands of 
 the two Bruti, and Cassius, and the eyes of 
 the whole city appeared turned upon Atticus, 
 he treated Marcus Brutus with such marked 
 attention, as to make all people perceive that 
 the youth lived on a more familiar footing 
 
 9 Orig. " Attici guies Caesari fait grata." Quies here 
 is an elegant way of marking the character of one who 
 declines taking any active part in a civil war. 
 
107 
 
 with him, though advanced in years, than 
 with any person even of his own age *, on 
 which account Brutus had him not only as his 
 chief adviser in council, but even at his table. 
 At this time a project 1 was set on foot by some 
 people, who thought that the Roman knights 
 should establish a private fund for the support 
 of those who put Caesar to death ; and this, 
 it was supposed, might be easily effected, 
 provided the principal persons of that order 
 could be induced to enter into contributions. 
 
 1 On this occasion, says Blackwell, in his Court of 
 Augustus, I cannot avoid complaining of one of the most 
 accomplished of the Roman gentlemen, Titus Pomponius 
 Atticus, who owes the immortality of his name to his 
 friendship with Cicero. He was certainly a friend to li- 
 berty and good order at bottom, but carried the principle 
 of the Epicurean philosophy, which he professed " not 
 to meddle with public affairs," M») 7rohiTivnr8xi, rather 
 too far. He had been intimately acquainted with Mar- 
 cus Brutus from his youth, admired his virtue, and had 
 been the chief instrument of conciliating the strict in- 
 tercourse between him and his friend Cicero. He held 
 him in such veneration, that, when Tully was proconsul 
 of Cilicia, Pomponius, in recommending a concern of 
 Brutus, added, " that he should think all Cicero's fa- 
 tigue and labour in his government well bestowed, 
 though he should bring nothing away but Marcus Bru- 
 tus's friendship." 
 
108 
 
 An application of course was made to Atticus 
 by Caius Flavius, 2 the friend of Brutus, to 
 set the example ; but he, who was of opinion 
 that friendly offices were indiscriminately to 
 be shewn to all parties, and who always had 
 kept aloof from every thing like caballing in 
 the state, answered, that Brutus might make 
 whatever use he pleased of his purse, but that 
 as to himself he would have no private con- 
 ference, or any public meeting, with any man 
 on such a subject. 3 Thus was snapped asun- 
 
 x A Roman knight, of good family and fortune, says 
 Blackwell, who, when tribune, ordered the man to pri- 
 son who crowned one of Caesar's statues with a garland 
 of laurel ; and the royal ensign to be torn from it. This 
 is the gentleman, continues Blackwell, who was sent to 
 Atticus upon a very important errand, the ill success of 
 which he deeply regrets. 
 
 3 This transaction is alluded to by Brutus in a letter 
 to Atticus, which is thus translated by Middleton : " Nor 
 am I ignorant what your sentiments are with regard to 
 the republic; which, though desperate, you think possi- 
 ble still to be retrieved. Nor in truth, Atticus, do I 
 blame you : For your years, your principles, your chil- 
 dren, make you averse from action, which I perceived 
 also from the account of our friend Flavius." Here Bru- 
 tus is cool, where the Abbe St Real is hot. Atticus had 
 only one child ; but the word children is oft applied in 
 this general manner to the case of a single child. 
 
109 
 
 
 der this intended bond of union, by the dis- 
 senting voice of one man. 4 
 
 5 Soon after, Antony rose to such superior 
 influence in the state, that Brutus and Cassius 
 
 * Orig. " Sic ille consensionis globus hujus unius dis- 
 sensione disjectus est." Which is thus translated by Sir 
 Matthew Hale : " So that ball of contention by this one 
 man's discretion was broken." So miserably, says Ro- 
 ger North, will the learnedst men err that presume out 
 of their sphere. However I think it's probable Sir Mat- 
 thew might have written consention, which the ignorance 
 of the printer may have changed into contention. 
 
 5 The text of the above passage, which has given so 
 much trouble to the commentators, I have translated in 
 the most literal manner, and, in doing so, have followed 
 the correct edition of Lambinus, who gives it thus : 
 " Neque multo post superior caepit Antonius, ita ut 
 Brutus et Cassius provinciarum, quae iis dicis causa datae 
 erant a consulibus, desperatis rebus, in exilium proficis- 
 cerentur." The provinces intended for Brutus and Cas- 
 sius by Julius Caesar were, Macedonia for the former, 
 and Syria for the latter. But as these were two of the 
 most important commands of the empire, the consuls, 
 .Antony and Dolabella, by their superior influence in the 
 state at this time, contrived to get -two other provinces 
 of an inferior kind decreed to them, which were, Crete 
 to Brutus, and Cyrene to Cassius. These petty provin- 
 ces being offered to them, were rejected with indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 Quia Brutus et Cassius per speciem et nomcn provin- 
 

 110 
 
 went into the exile of their provinces, which, 
 from their miserable condition, had been al- 
 lotted to them by the consuls for mere form's 
 sake. But Atticus, who refused contributing 
 with others to the support of that party, whilst 
 prosperous, sent Brutus in his distress, on 
 leaving Italy, 6 100,000 sestertii as a present; 
 to which he added 7 300,000 more, as soon as 
 he got into Epirus. By acting in this man- 
 ner he did not flatter Antony's present ascen- 
 dency, the more by reason of Brutus's low 
 condition, nor did he forsake those men 
 whose situation was almost desperate. 
 
 After this followed the Mutinian war, 8 du- 
 ring which period, were I only to speak of his 
 prudence and discretion, I should say less of 
 him than what I ought, or he deserved, for he 
 
 ciarum e republica remoti fuerant, et exulati. — Note to 
 the Delphin ed. 
 
 Diffisi provinciis, quse illis datae fuerant, in exilium 
 abierunt. — Manutius. 
 
 6 In English money above 800 1. 
 
 7 About 2420 1. 
 
 8 Caesar's will gave rise to this war, that broke out 
 between Octavius and Antony : it was called the Muti- 
 nian war, from Mutina, a city of the Cisalpine Gaul, 
 now Modena. 
 
Ill 
 
 was literally entitled to the epithet divinus, if 
 an uninterrupted flow of natural goodness can 
 merit the appellation of Divinitas, which is 
 neither increased nor diminished by the va- 
 rious vicissitudes of fortune. Antony, on be- 
 ing proclaimed a public enemy, left Italy with- 
 out any hopes of a restoration, p Not only his 
 enemies, whose numbers and power were con- 
 siderable, but his very friends, united against 
 him, in hopes of benefiting themselves by of- 
 fering him injury. These men persecuted his 
 very intimates and even endeavoured to plun- 
 der his wife Fulvia 1 of all her property, and, 
 what was worse, were meditating the destruc- 
 tion of his children. Atticus, though living 
 in the strictest intimacy with Cicero, and the 
 bosom friend of Brutus, gave no encourage- 
 ment to any injury being offered to Antony: 
 
 9 Velleius Paterculus says, * Antonius turpi ac nuda 
 fuga coactus deserere Italiam." 
 
 1 Uxor Antonii Fulvia, nihil muliebre prceter corpus ge- 
 rens," these are the strong expressions of Paterculus. 
 Yet this woman, whose avarice and violent cruelty had 
 like to have drawn vengeance upon herself and children, 
 was at this time openly supported by Atticus, from mo- 
 tives, Blackwell thinks, either of generosity, or interest- 
 ed prudence. 
 
112 
 
 on the contrary, he gave all the protection he 
 could to such of his friends as were obliged to 
 fly from the city, and assisted them in every 
 thing they wanted. Publius Volumnius 2 could 
 not have received more attention from a pa- 
 rent than what he did from him. His kind 
 offices to Fulvia, when perplexed with law- 
 suits, and vexed with alarming fears, were so 
 particularly marked that she never appeared 
 to answer a recognizance without Atticus at- 
 tending her, who was her surety in all things. 
 Besides, when it was known that she had 
 made a purchase of a certain estate in her 
 prosperity, which was to be paid for at a par- 
 ticular day, and that the money could not be 
 raised to close the sale on account of the sad 
 reverse in her fortune, he interposed, and 
 lent her the money without interest; and, 
 what is more, without making any stipulation 
 with her for the repayment ; because his idea 
 was, that the greatest gain arose from being 
 known and acknowledged to be possessed of a 
 
 1 Publius Volumnius was a Roman knight, extreme- 
 ly admired for his wit and pleasantry. It was this quali- 
 ty, it is probable, that recommended him to Antony, with 
 
113 . 
 
 benevolent disposition. * He was at the same 
 time desirous to shew to the world, that he 
 was attached to mankind, and not to their 
 fortune; and by acting in this manner, he 
 thought that nobody could regard him as a 
 time-server. * For at this crisis it was ima- 
 
 whom he appears to have been in some credit, as he was 
 likewise employed by him in the civil wars. Atticus also 
 was in the number of Volumnius's friends ; and after the 
 battle of Modena, when Antony's faction was supposed 
 to be irrecoverably ruined, he generously protected him 
 from the violences of the successful party. — See a letter 
 from Cicero to Volumnius, b. iv. L. 18. Melmoth. 
 
 Blackwell says, " This same Volumnius was Antony's 
 favourite, and gentleman-usher to his mistress, whose 
 manners had procured him a Greek sirname, Eutrapelus, 
 which signifies in Latin, Facetus, a man of humour. Ci- 
 cero says of him, " Audi reliqua, infra Eutrapelum Cy- 
 theris accubuit." He was Antony's Prafectus Fabrum, 
 or what, in modern language, might be called, according 
 to Melmoth, the commander of his train of artillery. 
 
 1 According to Epicurus, he who confers benefits on 
 others, procures to himself the satisfaction of seeing the 
 Stream of plenty spreading around him from the fountain 
 of his beneficence ; at the same time he enjoys the plea- 
 sure of being esteemed by others. 
 
 3 And yet our author was mistaken ; for Lord Boling- 
 broke, in speaking of Atticus, says, " his great talents 
 were usury and trimming ;" adding, that " he placed his 
 principal merit in being rich." Now, allowing, with his 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 gined by none, that Antony could ever again 
 have any superiority in the administration of 
 affairs. However, his conduct did not fail to 
 draw upon him the public reprehension ♦ of 
 some amongst the senatorial order, who did not 
 think he hated bad citizens sufficiently. But 
 Atticus was a man who was guided by his own 
 judgment, and considered more what was pro- 
 per for him to do, than what others might 
 commend. Fortune now soon began to lour, 
 and when Antony returned to Italy, every 
 one supposed Atticus in the utmost hazard on 
 account of his great intimacy with Cicero and 
 
 lordship, c that he did place his chief merit in being rich/ 
 — we are now to inquire how he disposed of that wealth 
 which constituted this merit ? Was it not in relieving, 
 indiscriminately, all persons who were in distress ; and 
 might not Lord Bolingbroke himself, had Atticus lived 
 in his day, been one of the first objects of his concern, 
 when obliged to leave his country : then, perhaps, he 
 might have called him the most generous man alive, in- 
 stead, of the most plausible. — But his lordship had read 
 the Abbe St Real, and not Cornelius Nepos. 
 
 4 And, notwithstanding these remonstrances of his 
 friends, Atticus continued constant in the even tenor of 
 his way ; and, as Nepos says, rather thought it honour- 
 able for him to practise what was fit for him to do, than 
 what others would have commended. — And to this fide- 
 lity of Atticus to his friends, to himself, to his principles, 
 Sir Matthew Hale ascribes his safety. 
 
115 
 
 Brutus. s On this supposition he had left the 
 Forum before the arrival of the generals, « 
 alarmed by the terrors of a proscription, * and 
 lay concealed with Publius Volumnius, to 
 whom, as we have shewn before, he was of 
 considerable service, (for so quick were the 
 vicissitudes of events at this period, that some- 
 
 5 In addition to his great intimacy with Cicero and 
 Brutus, his fortune was such an object of temptation, 
 that he had little doubt of being proscribed : besides, 
 Cicero had predicted it, in one of his letters to him, in 
 these words : " Itaque mi Attice, fortiter hoc velim acci- 
 pias, ut ego scribo : Genus illud interitus, quo casurus 
 es, faedum duces, et quasi denuntiatum nobis ab Anto- 
 nio." 
 
 6 Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus. 
 
 7 Indeed, upon the return of Antony to Rome, Atti- 
 cus, says Sir Matthew Hale, began to be somewhat 
 afraid of proscription : this fear attacked him by reason 
 partly of his old age, which is naturally more obnoxious 
 to fear than younger age, and partly hy reason of that 
 extremity and violence used against Cicero, his intimate 
 friend. But, continues Sir Matthew, it soon appeared 
 that he was more afraid than he had cause, for Antony 
 did not only give him assurance of his own safety, but, at 
 his intercession, spared more that had been otherwise 
 obnoxious to the danger of this revolution. In short, 
 concludes he, this good man lives as happy and as ho- 
 nourable a life as could possibly be expected in the most 
 serene and quiet times. 
 
116 
 
 times one party, and sometimes another, 
 might rise either to the highest pinnacle of 
 good fortune, or be exposed to the most ex- 
 treme danger). In this retirement he was not 
 alone, for he had with him Quintus Gellius 
 Canius, one who was of his own age, and of 
 similar manners. The close union in which 
 Atticus lived with him, whom he had known 
 as a play-fellow at school, and the uninter- 
 rupted friendship which he had for him from 
 that early acquaintance to their mutual old 
 age, may be adduced as another instance of 
 his good nature. But Antony, though his 
 resentment was furious against Cicero and all 
 his friends, none of whom he intended to 
 spare, yet, when many remonstrated with him 
 on the subject, he was so fully sensible of At- 
 ticus's past kindness, that, as soon as he learn- 
 ed where he was, he wrote to him, 8 and de- 
 sired him to banish all fear, and forthwith 
 come to him. At the same time he let him 
 know, that he had erased his name, and that 
 
 s Blackwell, in his familiar style, says, that Antony 
 wrote to Atticus with his own hand, " To fear nothing, 
 but come to him directly, that he had dashed both his 
 and his friend Gellius's name out of the dead list, and 
 had sent a guard to escort him, as it was dark." 
 
117 
 
 of Gellius Canius, out of the list of the pro- 
 scribed, adding, that lie had appointed him a 
 guard to prevent any danger happening him 
 in the night, the usual time of such accidents. 
 By this means Atticus found not only protec- 
 tion for himself, but for him whom he held 
 most dear, in a season of the utmost peril ; 
 for his object was never to seek assistance for 
 himself independent of his friend, that all 
 people might see he wished for no fortune se- 
 parate from him. In fine, if the pilot is com- 
 mended who saves his ship from the rocks 
 and shoals of a wintry sea, why should not 
 his prudence 9 be entitled to a peculiar enco- 
 mium, who, after encountering the storms 
 and tempests of a troubled commonwealth, 
 has at last come safe into harbour. As soon 
 
 9 A friendship which makes the least noise, says the 
 Spectator, is very often most useful ; for which reason I 
 should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one. Atti- 
 cus, one of the best men of ancient Rome, continues the 
 same writer, was a very remarkable instance of what I 
 am speaking. This extraordinary person, amidst the ci- 
 vil wars of his country, when he saw the designs of all 
 parties equally tended to the subversion of liberty, con- 
 stantly preserved the esteem and affection of both the 
 competitors. 
 
118 
 
 as lie had extricated himself from the difficul- 
 ties with which he was surrounded, his atten- 
 tion was wholly taken up with that of aiding 
 and assisting every one he could. Whilst the 
 rabble were hunting out the proscribed for 
 the rewards offered by the generals, no one 
 ever came into Epirus, who was not supplied 
 with whatever he wanted ; and had, besides, 
 full permission to remain there in safety, as 
 long as he pleased. To this may be added, 
 that after the battle of Philippi, and the death 
 of Caius Cassius and Marcus Brutus, he re- 
 solved to protect Lucius Julius Mocilla, the 
 praetor, and his son, together with Aulus 
 Torquatus, and every other man who was 
 beaten down by adverse fortune ; and he 
 took care to have all necessaries conveyed to 
 them from Epirus to Samothrace. * 
 
 However, it is difficult to enumerate every 
 particular of this kind ; and particularly so, 
 when unnecessary. This one thing, it is 
 wished, should be well understood, that his 
 
 1 The island to which the republicans fled after their 
 defeat at Philippi. It is, says D'Anville ; an island cele- 
 brated in antiquity, " comme une terre sacree, et un asile 
 inviolable." 
 
119 
 
 generosity * was not influenced by times nor 
 seasons, nor sinister motives; an inference 
 fairly to be drawn from the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the period in which it was evinced; 
 for his court was not confined to men in pro- 
 sperity, nor was his succour ever withheld 
 from those who were in distress. 3 An in- 
 stance of the latter occurs in his treatment of 
 Servilia, 4 the mother of Brutus, to whom he 
 behaved with no less respect after her son's 
 death, than he had done whilst his affairs 
 were in the most flourishing condition. Thus 
 was his liberality displayed; for he had no 
 
 a His liberality, says Sir Matthew Hale, was not intui- 
 tu partis, or governed by regard to any particular fac- 
 tion ; but intuitu humani generis, a common benignity 
 to human nature, that whatsoever the party was, yet, if 
 he were in distress, he had the experience of his bounty. 
 
 3 Hume, in one of his dialogues, speaks of Atticus as 
 " that learned and virtuous Roman, whose dignity, tho* 
 he was only a private gentleman, was inferior to that of 
 no man in Rome." 
 
 4 Of Servilia, the sister of Cato, and mother of Bru- 
 tus, I need only observe, that she was a woman of such 
 superior charms, derived from the beauty of her person, 
 and the urbanity of her manners, as made her an inte- 
 resting object of public attention during her whole life: 
 — her supposed intrigue with Julius Caesar gave her 
 much celebrity. 
 
120 
 
 differences with any man, which was the con- 
 sequence of his doing injury to no one, and 
 of forgetting; rather than of remembering an 
 injury, if offered to him by another. 5 The 
 favours he received were written in everlast- 
 ing memorial ; but such as he bestowed were 
 only called to his remembrance by the ac- 
 knowledgments of the receiver. Herein his- 
 conduct proved the truth of the following ob- 
 servation, which says, " every man's fortune 
 is the effect of his own conduct." — By such 
 prudence and equity, he took care not to 
 subject himself to punishment in any instance, 
 and consequently did not fashion his fortune 
 before he fashioned his manners, as a previ- 
 ous qualification. By acting in the manner 
 already mentioned, he laid the ground of 
 Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa's forming a con- 
 nection with him, and preferring his daugh- 
 ter 6 to all other women, though it was quite 
 
 s Injuriarum remediura est oblivio," is one of Publius 
 Syrus's moral sentences, which should be engraven on 
 the mind of every man who cometh into this world. 
 
 6 The elegant Epicurean, Pomponius Atticus, whose 
 services to Fulvia had saved him at the proscription, still 
 enjoyed the respect due to his former character, when he 
 lived connected with the friends of Rome. He had no 
 
12! 
 
 evident, from the intimate terms of friendship 
 existing between him and the young Caesar, 
 whose power was then considerable, added to 
 his own great influence in the state, that he 
 might have made any alliance he pleased, even 
 of the most flattering rank and consequence. 
 This match was brought about by Mark An- 
 tony, (a circumstance not to be overlooked,) 
 who was then one of the triumvirs for settling 
 
 son : Pomponia Attica, his only daughter, was to inherit 
 his great estate ; and this lady, by Antony's means, was 
 now married to Marcus Agrippa. It is not to be doubt- 
 ed, but this relation to the first Roman knight would be 
 useful to the Caesarian general ; for though the old man 
 was too selfish to hazard any thing for the public good, 
 his dispositions were sound, as consequently the advices 
 would be, which he gave his daughter's husband. — 
 Blackwell's Court of Augustus. 
 
 By this marriage Agrippa had only one child, Vipsa- 
 nia, who was married to Tiberius, and became the mo- 
 ther of Drusus, the only son of that emperor. 
 
 This marriage turned out unhappy. Quintus Cecilius, 
 called the Epirote, a young man whose genius had been 
 carefully cultivated by Atticus, and with whom Pompo- 
 nia used to take delight in reading poetry, and talking of 
 its beauties, became the object of her tender solicitude, 
 and the scholar was preferred to the soldier: but the 
 connection was soon discovered ; the man of letters, 
 says Blackwell, was forbid the house, and the lady died 
 soon after of shame and grief. 
 
1*22 
 
 the state of the commonwealth. His interest 
 Atticus might have used in making consider- 
 able additions to his fortune ; but he was so 
 little biassed by the love of money that he 
 only employed it in rescuing his friends from 
 the dangers in which they were involved ; a 
 circumstance which contributed greatly to the 
 celebrity of his name, during the time of the 
 proscription, as appears from the following 
 anecdote : — When the triumvirs, agreeable 
 to the mode in which things were then trans- 
 acted, had sold the estate of Lucius Saufeius, 7 
 a Roman knight, his contemporary, and who, 
 from his attachment to philosophy, had lived 
 at Athens, and possessed many valuable con- 
 cerns in Italy, Atticus, by the pains and in- 
 dustry which he used on the occasion, caused 
 
 In a letter from Cicero to Atticus, he says, " I sup- 
 pose Lucius Saufeius will dispatch an epistle consolatory 
 to you, on the death of your grandmother." We learn 
 from history that this Saufeius was a professed Epicure- 
 an, whom Cicero, in the way of rallying, proposes as a 
 proper comforter to Atticus on the occasion. The Epi- 
 curean principles of Atticus were far from being favour- 
 able to the pious affections of a child towards a parent ; 
 and therefore we may suppose a little satire couched in 
 the letter. 
 
123 
 
 the same messenger, who announced the loss 
 of his fortune, to announce likewise the reco- 
 very of it. — Lucius Julius Calidius, s who, af- 
 ter the death of Lucretius and Catullus, was, 
 in my judgment, the most elegant poet of the 
 age in which he lived, and was besides a man 
 highly esteemed for his good qualities and 
 great acquirements in all polite literature, was 
 cleared from the imputation of all crime 
 through his means, though his name, in his 
 absence, was put down in the list of the pro- 
 scribed by Publius Volumnius, Antony's Pr<z- 
 fectus Fabrum) on account of his great Afri- 
 can possessions. Whether this was attended 
 with greater glory or labour, was at the time 
 difficult to be ascertained, because it plainly 
 appeared that Atticus's friends were as much 
 the object of his concern when present as 
 when absent. Moreover, he was reckoned as 
 good a father of a family, as he was a citizen, 
 for though rich, 9 no man was less fond of 
 
 8 Vossius, in his account of the Latin poets, gives us 
 no further information of Calidius. than what is compri- 
 sed in the text. 
 
 9 Atticus's great riches arc ascribed, by a French cri- 
 tic, noticed by the Abbe St Real, to Ms having kept a 
 
124 
 
 making purchases, ■ or of building,* than 
 what he was. His place of residence was not 
 fashionably ornamented, but every thing in it 
 was excellent. His house, situate on the 
 Quirinal hill, was called Tamphilanam, 3 and 
 had been left him by his uncle, the delight- 
 fulness of which consisted, not in its struc- 
 ture, but in a wood with which it was sur- 
 rounded ; for the house itself being old, had 
 more comfort and neatness about it, than ex- 
 pence, as he never made an alteration except 
 what time made necessary. 
 
 bank at his house, under the name of the Oppii, to whom 
 he had leased it. The /Enigma Oppiorum^ mentioned 
 by Cicero in his letters to Atticus, gave rise to this ab- 
 surd opinion. 
 
 1 Non esse emacem, says Cicero in one of his para- 
 doxies, est Vectigal. 
 
 % Lacones, si cui mala imprecabantur, quatuor ipsi 
 accidere optabant, quorum primum erat adificandi desi~ 
 derium. 
 
 3 There was a family at Rome called the Tamphili ; 
 but some commentators are inclined to think that the 
 reading should be Cacilianum, instead of Tamphilanam ; 
 and that the house obtained this appellation from his 
 uncle Caecilius, who left it to him by his will. In the 
 Delphin edition, it is said that the house had its name a 
 quodam Tamphilo Romano. To the house left him by 
 his uncle, Cicero alludes in one of his letters to Atticus, 
 " In tuis adibus amoenissimis agam tecum" &c. 
 
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