Part 4 (2/2)

Albius, in whom my satires find A critic, candid, just, and kind, Do you, while at your country seat, So labours meditate, That shall in volumed bulk arise, And e'en froh the silent wood, Musing on what befits the good-Francis

This supposition is in no degree inconsistent with the authority of Ovid, where heman; for the Romans extended the period of youth to the fiftieth year-- PROPERTIUS was born at Mevania, a town of Umbria, seated at the confluence of the Tina and clitumnus This place was faht up there for sacrifice, and supposed to be inated with that colour by the waters of the river last es, et maxima taurus Victima, saepe tuo perfusi fluorine sacro, Ro ii

And where thy sacred streams, clitumnus! flow, White herds, and stateliest bulls that oft have led Triumphant Rome, and on her altars bled-Sotheby

(188) His father is said by soht, and they add, that he was one of those hen L Antony was starved out of Perasia, were, by the order of Octavius, led to the altar of Julius Caesar, and there slain Nothing more is knoith certainty, than that Propertius lost his father at an early age, and being deprived of a great part of his patrienius soon recoe of Mecaenas Froical subjects into his poems, he received the appellation of ”the learned”

Of all the Latin elegiac poets, Propertius has the justest claiery froination, and abounds less in description than sentiment For warmth of passion he is not conspicuous, and his tenderness is seldoree of sensibility; but, without rapture, he is aniaiety, he issupplies him diversify as well as illustrate his subject, while delicacy every where discovers a taste refined by the habit of reflection His versification, in general, is elegant, but not uniformly harmonious

Tibullus and Propertius have each written four books of Elegies; and it has been disputed which of theiven his suffrage in favour of Tibullus, who, so far as poetical merit alone is the object of consideration, seeht, distinguished not only for poetical, but ies, written, in the person of an old e, but which, there is reason to think, were composed at an earlier part of the author's life Except the fifth elegy, which is tainted with ihly beautiful, and may be placed in coiac kind Gallus was, for soovernor of Egypt It is said, however, that he not only oppressed the province by extortion, but entered into a conspiracy against his benefactor, for which he was banished Unable to sustain such a reverse of fortune, he fell into despair, and laid violent hands on hiil coue

Such are the celebrated productions of the Augustan age, which have been happily preserved, for the delight and admiration of mankind, and will survive to the latest posterity Many (189) more once existed, of various merit, and of different authors, which have left few or no memorials behind them, but have perished proes of tist the principal authors whose works are lost, are Varius and Valgius; the forustus, co to Quintilian, his Thyestes was equal to any coreat number of ee, has excited general admiration, and the phenomenon is usually ascribed to a fortuitous occurrence, which baffles all inquiry: but we shall endeavour to develop the various causes which seem to have produced this effect; and should the explanation appear satisfactory, it may favour an opinion, that under siain be coes and nations

The Romans, whether fro, which in general was teination, and, as we before observed, a spirit of enterprise Upon the final termination of the Punic war, and the conquest of Greece, their ardour, which had hitherto been exercised in military achievements, was diverted into the channel of literature; and the civil co now ceased, a fresh iiven to activity in the ambitious pursuit of the laurel, which was now only to be obtained by glorious exertions of intellect The beautiful productions of Greece, operating strongly upon their st a number, produced emulation; and emulation cherished an extraordinary thirst of fame, which, in every exertion of the human mind, is the parent of excellence This liberal contention was not a little promoted by the fashi+on introduced at Rome, for poets to recite their compositions in public; a practice which seems to have been carried even to a ridiculous excess-Such was now the rage for poetical composition in the Ro terms: Mutavit mentem populus levis, et calet uno Scribendi studio: pueri patresque severi Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carht people bend to other ai every breast inflames; Our youth, our senators, with bays are crowned, And rhyo round

(190) Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim-Hor Epeat ii 1

But every desperate blockhead dares to write, Verse is the trade of every living wight-Francis

The thirst of fame above mentioned, was a powerful incentive, and is avowed both by Virgil and Horace The forics, announces a resolution of rendering himself celebrated, if possible

----tentanda via est qua me quoque possim Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora

I, too, will strive o'er earth ale of praise-Sotheby

And Horace, in the conclusion of his first Ode, expresses himself in terms which indicate a similar purpose

Quad si me lyricis vatibis inseres, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice

But if you rank me with the choir, Who tuned with art the Grecian lyre; Swift to the noblest heights of fame, Shall rise thy poet's deathless name-Francis

Even Sallust, a historian, in his introduction to Catiline's Conspiracy, scruples not to insinuate the saenii qualoriam quaerere; et quoniam vita ipsa, qua fruiareat iht live through every age, was the extrereat poets of this period displayed, both in the coil, when e, and applied much of the subsequent part of the day to correction and improvement He compared himself to a bear, that licks her cub into forics, we may justly suppose that it was the same in the Aeneid Yet, after all this labour, he intended to devote three years entirely to its farther a careful correction, that he figuratively mentions nine years as an adequate period for that purpose But whatever es either oftener or more forcibly, than a due attention to this important subject

(191) Saepe stylui sint Scripturus-Sat i x

Would you a reader's just esteee-Francis

----Vos, O Pouis, carmen reprehendite, quod non Multa dies et avit ad uuguem

De Art Poet

Sons of Pompilius, with contempt receive, Nor let the hardy poem hope to live, Where time and full correction don't refine The finished work, and polish every line-Francis

To the several causes above enureat superiority of the Augustan age, as respects the productions of literature, one more is to be subjoined, of a nature the iven to distinguished talents by the emperor and his y: it fanned the flaorated every exertion; and the poets who basked in the rays of ie of Mecaenas, experienced a poetic enthusias now finished the proposed explanation, relative to the celebrity of the Augustan age, we shall conclude with recapitulating in a feords the causes of this extraordinary occurrence

The models, then, which the Romans derived froenius; their incentives to eest that could actuate the heart With ardour, therefore, and industry in co their colorious distinction in literature, which no succeeding age has ever rivalled

TIBERIUS NERO CAESAR

(192)

I The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a plebeian family of the sanity) cailli, a town of the Sabines They re of the city, with a great body of their dependants, under titus Tatius, who reigned jointly with Rodom; or, perhaps, what is related upon better authority, under Atta Claudius, the head of the family, as admitted by the senate into the patrician order six years after the expulsion of the Tarquins They likewise received from the state, lands beyond the Anio for their followers, and a burying-place for themselves near the capitol 284 After this period, in process of tiht consulshi+ps, five dictatorshi+ps, seven censorshi+ps, seven triuuished by various praenonomina 285, but rejected by common consent the praenomen of (193) Lucius, when, of the two races who bore it, one individual had been convicted of robbery, and another of noe signifies strong and valiant

II It appears fronal services to the state, as well as committed acts of delinquency To mention the most rereeing to an alliance with Pyrrhus, as prejudicial to the republic 286 Claudius Candex first passed the straits of Sicily with a fleet, and drove the Carthaginians out of the island 287 Claudius Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a vast army upon his arrival in Italy from Spain, before he could form a junction with his brother Hannibal 288 On the other hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decein, of whoed a slave; which caused the people to secede a second time from the senate 289 Claudius Drusus erected a statue of hi a crown at Appii Forum 290, and endeavoured, by means of his dependants, to make himself master of Italy Claudius Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily 291, the pullets used for taking augury would not eat, in contempt of the omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if they would not eat; and then engaging the enemy, was routed After his defeat, when he (194) was ordered by the senate to na a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named Glycias, his apparitor

The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters equally opposed to each other For both the Claudias belonged to it; she, hen the shi+p freighted with things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the Gods 292, stuck fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by praying to the Goddess with a loud voice, ”Follow me, if I am chaste;” and she also, who, contrary to the usual practice in the case of woht to trial by the people for treason; because, when her litter was stopped by a great crowd in the streets, she openly exclaimed, ”I wish my brother Pulcher was alive now, to lose another fleet, that Roed” Besides, it is well known, that all the Claudii, except Publius Claudius, who, to effect the banishment of Cicero, procured hier than hireat sticklers for the honour and power of that order; and so violent and obstinate in their opposition to the plebeians, that not one of them, even in the case of a trial for life by the people, would ever condescend to put onto custom, or make any supplication to them for favour; and some of them in their contests, have even proceeded to lay hands on the tribunes of the people A Vestal Virgin likewise of the family, when her brother was resolved to have the honour of a triumph contrary to the will of the people, mounted the chariot with hiht not be lawful for any of the tribunes to interfere and forbid it 294 III From this family Tiberius Caesar is descended; indeed both by the father and mother's side; by the former from Tiberius Nero, and by the latter from Appius Pulcher, ere both sons of Appius Caecus He likewise belonged to the farandfather into it; which faure, having had the honour of eight consulshi+ps, two censorshi+ps, three triumphs, one dictatorshi+p, and the office of master of the horse; and was famous for eminent men, particularly, Salinator and the Drusi Salinator, in his censorshi+p 295, branded all the tribes, for their inconstancy in having h they had condemned him to a heavy fine after his first consulshi+p Drusus procured for hile combat Drausus, the enemy's chief He is likewise said to have recovered, when pro-praetor in the province of Gaul, the gold which was fore of the Capitol, and had not, as is reported, been forced frorandson, who, for his extraordinary services against the Gracchi, was styled the ”Patron of the Senate,” left a son, hile plotting in a sedition of the same description, was treacherously murdered by the opposite party 296 IV But the father of Tiberius Caesar, being quaestor to Caius Caesar, and coreatly to its success He was therefore h-priests in the room of Publius Scipio 297; and was sent to settle sost the rest, those of Narbonne and Arles 298 After the assassination of Caesar, however, when the rest of the senators, for fear of public disturbances; were for having the affair buried in oblivion, he proposed a resolution for rewarding those who had killed the tyrant Having filled the office of praetor 299, and at the end of the year a disturbance breaking out aes of his office beyond the legal ti Lucius Antonius the consul, brother of the triuh the rest submitted, yet he himself continued firm to the party, and escaped first to Praeneste, and then to Naples; whence, having in vain invited the slaves to liberty, he fled over to Sicily But resenting (196) his not being immediately ad also prohibited the use of the fasces, he went over into Achaia to Mark Antony; host the several contending parties, he returned to Roave up to hi with child, and had before borne hi behind hiined that Tiberius was born at Fundi, but there is only this trifling foundation for the conjecture, that his e of Good Fortune was, by a decree of the senate, erected in a public place in that town But according to the greatest number of writers, and those too of the best authority, he was born at Rome, in the Palatine quarter, upon the sixteenth of the calends of December [16th Nov], when Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was second time consul, with Lucius Munatius Plancus 301, after the battle of Philippi; for so it is registered in the calendar, and the public acts According to so year, in the consulshi+p of Hirtius and Pansa; and others say, in the year following, during the consulshi+p of Servilius Isauricus and Antony

VI His infancy and childhood were spent in the er and trouble; for he accoht, and twice at Naples nearly betrayed the to a shi+p, as the enemy rushed into the town; once, when he was snatched froain, from his mother's bosoency wished to relieve the woh Sicily and Achaia, and entrusted for some time to the care of the Lacedaemonians, ere under the protection of the Claudian faht, he ran the hazard of his life, by a fire which, suddenly bursting out of a wood on all sides, surrounded the whole party so closely, that part of Livia's dress and hair was burnt The presents which were made him (197) by Pompeia, sister to sextus Pompey, in Sicily, naold, are still in existence, and shewn at Baiae to this day After his return to the city, being adopted by Marcus Gallius, a senator, in his will, he took possession of the estate; but soon afterwards declined the use of his naustus When only nine years of age, he pronounced a funeral oration in praise of his father upon the rostra; and afterwards, when he had nearly attained the age of ustus, in his triu on the left-hand horse, whilst Marcellus, Octavia's son, rode that on the right He likewise presided at the gaames interest boys

VII After assu the manly habit, he spent his youth, and the rest of his life until he succeeded to the governave the people an entertainladiators, in randfather Drusus, at different times and in different places: the first in the foruladiators who had been honourably discharged, being induced to engage again, by a reward of a hundred thousand sesterces He likewise exhibited public sports, at which he was not present hinificence, at the expense of his hter of Marcus Agrippa, and grand-daughter of Caecilius Atticus, a Roht, the same person to who by her his son Drusus, he was obliged to part with her 302, though she retained his affection, and was again pregnant, to hter Julia But this he did with extre the warusted with the conduct of Julia, who hadthe lifetime of her former husband; and that she was a wo Agrippina he felt the deepest regret; and uponher afterwards, (198) he looked after her with eyes so passionately expressive of affection, that care was taken she should never again coht At first, however, he lived quietly and happily with Julia; but a rupture soon ensued, which becae of their union, as born at Aquileia and died in infancy 303, he never would sleep with her ht his body to Ro all the way on foot before it