the jury had no motive supplied to them adequate to resist the popular outcry. Mr. Merivale softens this, but still leaves the juries in discredit.

In regard to wars, the Romans had a crooked and superstitious, yet a deeply-seated, conscientiousness. From the early times of the monarchy, war was proclaimed with religious ceremonies by the heralds-at-arms, through their mouthpiece, the pater patratus; and religion forbade the war unless there had been a valid provocation. The rule was often kept to the letter, and most treacherously violated in the substance; nevertheless, unless the Romans had a plausible pretext, their religious horror was deeply excited at commencing an aggressive war. Several instances of this occur, which Mr. Merivale seems to us but partially to understand.

The war of Gabinius against Egypt was just now alluded to. It was undertaken to restore an oppressive king, who had been driven out by his subjects—a quarrel with which the Romans had no rightful concern. The conscience of the nation was offended at the first mention of it; so that when the tribune, Caius Cato, brought to the notice of the people some Sibylline versicles (probably fabricated for the occasion), in which the Romans were ordered to receive with friendship a suppliant Egyptian king, but not to give him military aid, all Rome was deeply agitated-nor did the Senate venture to breathe a suspicion against the genuineness of the sacred utterance. This is not to be confounded with vulgar and unmeaning superstition. The people could not have been thus affected, unless a deep and moral cause had pre-existed. From wholly omitting to notice this, Mr. Merivale gives a superficial and uninstructive view of the entire transaction, as mere squabbling for office and empty folly.

Again, the war of Crassus against the Parthians was every way gratuitous. No cause of war existed, no war had been declared; yet it was notorious that he was leaving Rome with the fixed intention of engaging in it. Hence the deep and bitter feeling spread among the people. Hence the awful imprecations on his undertaking, by the half-fanatical tribune Ateius. But Mr. Merivale here, as in the former case, can see nothing but political party and mean personalities.

Lastly, the attack made by Cato in the Senate upon Cæsar, for his dreadful massacre of some German tribes, is regarded by Mr. Merivale as an 'extravagant misrepresentation of justice,'

Plutarch (Cato Utic. 51) says, that 'Cæsar appeared to have destroyed 300,000 persons in time of truce.' In Cæsar, 22, he reckons the Germans as 400,000, and notices that Cæsar casts on them the charge of treachery. Mr. Merivale infers from Cæsar's narrative the truth of Cæsar's representation!

and a mark that Cato was blinded by political animosity.' Canusius (according to Plutarch) related that,' when the Senate was decreeing feasts and sacrifices for the victory, Cato gave it as his opinion, that they ought to deliver up Cæsar to the barbarians, in order to clear the state from the guilt of perfidy, and turn the curse upon the guilty person.' There is no ground for questioning that this was Cato's deliberate judgment; and so eminently fair a judge was he, that in all probability he was right, and Cæsar had committed a gross violation of received national law. Why should a historian regard no motive but 'bitterness' and 'political animosity' as possible? If other Romans had no conscience, will he not admit that Cato had one? Moreover, Plutarch (our sole authority for this fact) despatches it in the single sentence above quoted. It does not appear that Cato did more than barely utter this opinion; but Merivale leaves the reader with the impression that he made a solemn effort to carry it into execution.

One who does not rightly understand the view taken by the Romans of the liberty of advocacy, cannot judge fairly many of the characters in this history. A future age will, perhaps, look back with amazement on our English morality, which supposes the advocacy of a bad cause to be justified by the acceptance of money. Such was not the Roman view. A fee for advocacy was essentially dishonourable with all strict moralists, and was forbidden by a well-known law (Cincia Lex de Muneribus). But to gratify political hostility or political friendship, was with them an honourable ground for accusing or defending, with no greater regard to the moral merits of the case than is felt by an English barrister. To overlook this, and to judge of Cicero (for instance) by the English rule of morality, is unfair. We must either judge him by a Roman rule, and Englishmen by the English rule, or else we must judge them all by a more severe abstract law; not condemn him by our own conventionality. From this point of view Cicero's defence of Gabinius is to be regarded. His great fear was, lest he should be thought to have been won by Gabinius's money. Considering what had been Gabinius's personal offences against Cicero, and Cicero's public affronts to him in retaliation, to compromise such an enmity for money appeared an eternal disgrace. But to do this as an act of friendship to Pompeius (if he could but obtain belief that this was the motive), was not disgraceful. So as to his defence of Vatinius, a man whom he despised and disliked. He puts it on the ground, on the one hand, that Pompeius earnestly desired

* Merivale derides this motive; but Plutarch speaks so strongly of the difficulty of refusing a request to Pompeius, that it is easy to understand the power of his entreaty to so susceptible a mind as Cicero's.

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it; on the other, that, since various noble persons chose to foster P. Clodius to his vexation, he found it convenient to foster P. Vatinius to their vexation. As to his having praised Vatinius, he replies to Lentulus (i. 9), Remember to what sort of persons you have sent praise from the ends of the earth.' If, indeed, Cicero had defended Catilina, it would have been abusing the Roman advocate's license unendurably; but at most this was a passing thought, and it is not certain that the letter is genuine which contains it. Mr. Merivale is more favourable on the whole to Cicero than to any one else but Catilina and Cæsar; yet, while intending to be fair, he seems to us often to fail of doing him justice.

Peculiarly does he seem to have mistaken the nature of Fonteius's cause, for upholding which he vehemently condemns Cicero:

Fonteius continued to exercise the functions of governor, and organized throughout the country (Narbonne), a system of tyranny which may be sufficiently appreciated, even from the pleadings of Cicero in its defence. The orator makes no attempt to refute the charges of avarice and extortion brought against his client, otherwise than by contemptuously rejecting the credibility of any testimony of a Gaul against a Roman. Cicero's speech is, indeed, a more instructive exposition of the horrors of provincial suffering than any detail of particular charges could be. The contumelious indifference which it breathes to the rights of a foreign subject, implies much more than a consciousness of the guilt of the accused. It shows how frightfully the mind, even of a philosopher, could be warped by national prejudice and the pride of dominion,' &c.-Vol. i. p. 241.

We rejoice, and sympathize, in the manly and humane spirit which has dictated this invective; yet we do not think it is rightly directed against Cicero. Fonteius appears to us to have been oppressive, not for his own gains or passions, but solely in the public service. The times were hard: Sertorius had driven Pompeius to winter in Gaul: many of the towns there had previously been in Sertorius's interest, and had been reduced by Pompeius with dreadful slaughter of the Gauls (Gallorum inter

The letter is, Ad Atticum, i. 2. But it contains anachronisms. It is dated from the consulship of Cæsar and Figulus (B. C. 64), though the trial of Catiline was begun and ended in the consulship of Torquatus (B. c. 65). It ends by bidding Atticus to be at Rome in January,' to aid in his canvass; viz., for the next midsummer election. This sounds unnatural, if he wrote in January, as he must have done. His mention of Catiline as his competitor, which he could not be until he was acquitted, is also suspicious. Mr. Dyer, in vol. iii. p. 60, of the Classical Museum,' rejects the whole letter as spurious.

necione)-Mr. Merivale himself notices these facts. The province, already exhausted, had to maintain a great army through the winter, and probably to refit it for the next campaign. This could not be done without severe pressure on the people, and Fonteius, as governor, had to give the official directions. For many arbitrary and violent proceedings the Gauls accused him in Rome; but Cicero and Pompeius, and all other Romans, felt it cruel to visit on Fonteius the injustice of which Rome had reaped the benefit, and which was (if a crime) strictly a national crime. Accordingly, all the Romans and Roman colonies in the province gave high praise to Fonteius; and Cicero asks, whether he can be really guilty, when only Gauls accuse him, and all Romans defend him. (This has been misunderstood by Mr. Merivale.) We should compare the trial of Fonteius to that of Warren Hastings. A Gaulish tribunal might have justly condemned the former, an Indian tribunal the latter : but for Rome to punish Fonteius, or Britain Warren Hastings, would have been hypocrisy and cruelty, alike useless and absurd. As to the remark, that Cicero does not try to refute certain charges, the speech which we have is only a fragment, so that no argument from omission is valid.

Cicero's first great enemy, Catilina, has found an advocate in Professor Drumann. Mr. Merivale does not go so far, yet he evidently is desirous of lightening his case. The argument stands thus. Cicero is not to be believed, for he was Catilina's enemy; nor Sallustius, for he likes to revile the aristocracy; nor any later writers, for they probably drew from these two sources: hence, we have no evidence adequate to convince us of facts so startling as those deposed concerning Catilina.-But such incredulity is quite gratuitous. It is a certain fact, that Catilina organized a formidable army of most desperate men, which inflicted immense slaughter before it could be destroyed. It is also certain that eighteen or nineteen years before, he was a ruthless murderer in the times of Lucius Sulla; and that at this time he was bankrupt in fortune and reputation. What improbability then is there in the plot ascribed to him? We see none: but let us hear Mr. Merivale :

'We must acknowledge that the character of Sallustius's mind, as disclosed in his narrative, was totally deficient in any deep insight into the views and motives of his contemporaries. While the stains

upon his own character made him feel a base pleasure in exposing the vices of the times, and especially of the class which had declared him unworthy of its countenance, the sketch which he has given us is remarkable chiefly for its impotent display of events without causes, the worthlessness of which, as a historical monument, is scarcely disguised

by the terseness of its diction, and the brilliancy of its imagery.'*

It is certainly a reasonable objection to the view that Cicero gives us of the imminence of a revolution, that he represents his enemy as too notorious a villain to be really dangerous to any constituted government.'Ib. p. 87.

Mr. Merivale, nevertheless, believes that the danger was really great, but that the vices of Catilina are overdrawn.

If so, if Sallustius gives us no adequate causes of danger, how does this solution furnish us with new causes? Whether Catilina was a little more or a little less vicious, seems to be politically unimportant. In unchastity he is not said to have exceeded Cæsar or Sulla, or, perhaps, even P. Clodius. In cold-blooded. cruelty we need not suppose him worse than Sulla or either of the Marii, or than Damasippus, Cinna, or Carbo. In spending money, he is allowed to have been as open-handed as Cæsar, and in bravery he was unsurpassed. Altogether, we find nothing here to move suspicion. As to his being 'dangerous to a constituted government,' there is fallacy in the vague epithet constituted. The existing government at Rome was founded on proscription and massacre. The sons of the proscribed were still in exile-their adherents and friends were numerous. The men who had been ejected from their lands to make way for Sulla's legions, were a large mass of reactionaries; and the legionaries themselves, though a large part were now old men, having sold their farms and spent the proceeds, wanted a new revolution to enrich them. How then can Mr. Merivale say that Sallustius displays events without causes?' Finally, it is perfectly gratuitous in him to assume, that all the later writers. drew from Sallustius or Cicero. They must have had abundant documents before them; yet, one and all, they entirely agree concerning Catilina, his party and his plot. There is no character in Roman history concerning whom there is a more complete unanimity. Nor can we see anything in Sallustius's position to tempt him to unfairness. As a fierce partisan of Clodius, and an officer of Cæsar, he might, on the contrary, have been led to disparage Cicero, and lighten the crimes of Catilina; especially as Clodius had compromised with Catilina after impeaching him, and Cæsar gave abundant proof of sympathy with the Catilinarians. For these reasons, the evidence of Sallustius against Catilina seems to us peculiarly decisive.

We fear that we shall seem contentious in avowing, that, except perhaps Q. Catulus, there is not a single leading political

*It would never occur to us to ascribe to Sallust brilliancy of imagery.' Mr. Merivale afterwards speaks of Sallustius as not rich. We had always understood that his celebrated gardens were a proof of his immense wealth, which, in fact, descended to Sallustius, the minister of Tiberius.