self proscribed on groundless suspicion. He now marched with the fasces and other emblems of authority, and the senate decreed that Antonius, one of the consuls, should hasten in pursuit of him with the troops raised for the purpose, while Cicero, the other consul, protected the city.

Sallust here remarks that though every nation from the rising to the setting of the sun lay in subjection to Rome, and she had peace and prosperity in abundance, disaffection, like a pestilence, pervaded the minds of the citizens, the lower orders envying those of a better class, and supporting themselves amidst tumult and sedition without anxiety, since poverty does not easily suffer loss. He assigns several causes for this state of feeling, and traces the gradual diminution of the power of the people, and the increasing influence of the few, adding that great distress and calamity would have fallen on the republic had Catiline's insurrection succeeded.

Lentulus, one of his most active accomplices, sought the co-operation of the Allobroges, a Gallic nation who had sent deputies to Rome, but they divulged the proposals made to them; and commotions fomented by Catiline in Hither and Farther Gaul created more alarm than danger. But at Rome deep plans were laid for a general outbreak on the approach of the insurgent forces. Cicero, however, caused the principal conspirators to be arrested and brought before the senate, with the evidence he had collected against them, and they were placed in custody, which gained him the applause of the fickle populace. A debate ensued as to the punishment of the traitors, and Caius Cæsar, deprecating severity, suggested that they should simply forfeit their property and be imprisoned in municipal towns. Marcus Cato, however, reminded his hearers that the protection of the gods is not obtained by vows and effeminate supplications, but by viligance and prudent measures, and advised that they should be treated as guilty of capital crimes. The majority applauded his opinion, and a decree was made accordingly. Sallust proceeds to express his conviction that the eminent virtue of a few citizens was the cause of the many glorious achievements of the Romans, and dilates

on the integrity and other good qualities of the two senators whose speeches he has recorded. We are then told that, by Cicero's order, five of the conspirators were put to death in the same dungeon where Jugurtha had met his fate.

Catiline, in the meantime, had formed two legions, only a fourth of whom were properly armed, and, as Antonius approached with his army, avoided an engagement until he should hear whether his accomplices at Rome had effected their designs. But when their arrest and execution were reported in his camp, many of those who had been led to join him fell away, and he conducted the remainder, by forced marches, towards Pistoria, with the intention of escaping into Gaul. His route, however, was intercepted by the consular forces, and he resolved to try the fortune of battle. Having made a stirring speech to his troops, he took up a position on level ground facing his opponents, who were reminded by their commanders that they were about to fight in defence of their country, their children, their temples, and their homes. The signal was given, and both sides contended with the utmost fury. Catiline performed at once the duties of a valiant soldier and a skilful general, and, when he perceived his army routed, he rushed into the thickest of the struggle, and was slain fighting to the last. Sallust adds that all the insurgents died with wounds in front, and that the bravest of the army of the Roman people were either killed, or left the battle-field severely wounded. A column still marks the site, near Florence, where the combat took place nearly two thousand years ago.

Sallust's History of Rome' embraced a period of about thirteen years, from the death of Sylla to the beginning of the war with Mithridates. The portions of it which have been collected from the grammarians and other writers consist of four orations and two letters on public affairs, and several short fragments. The former are more interesting to students and critics than to general readers, and of the latter the following will serve as a specimen :-'A Ligurian slave-woman observing that a bull in a herd she was tending was accustomed to swim across the Tyrrhenian sea, and to

return with an increase of flesh, followed the animal in a boat to an island; and the Ligurians, on hearing that it was extraordinarily fertile, went thither, and called it by the name of its discoverer Corsa or Corsica.'

Sallust is supposed to have formed his style on that of Thucydides, and Quintilian says of it that, to educated ears, nothing can be more perfect. Exception has been taken to the moral reflections interspersed in his writings, as out of place in historical composition, preceding writers having merely narrated events in chronological order, without any attempt to trace or elucidate their causes and results; but his evident purpose in 'Jugurtha' was to expose the public and private profligacy of the aristocratic party, and in 'Catiline' to depict the consequences to which these vices had led.

VIRGIL.

DIED B.C. 19.

IRGIL has always been the most popular of the old classic writers, and his poems became a text-book

for school-boys within fifty years of his death. During the middle ages, when Greek literature was almost abandoned, Virgil was still a favourite; his works had passed through forty editions before Homer's were printed; and they have been translated and imitated in almost every European language. He is also credited in mediæval legends with the powers of a magician, and many marvels were attributed to his agency, both at Rome and Naples.

Virgil lived in the Augustan or golden age of Roman literature. He was born near Mantua, and liberally educated; but lost his ancestral estate during the civil wars which ended in the fall of the Republic. He, however, soon regained it, and henceforth became a poet, and one of the many flatterers of the emperor.

His 'Pastorals' were written while he was still leading a country life at his farm, and they having attracted the attention of Mecenas-the wealthy and influential patron of letters and the fine arts-the poet soon became a familiar guest at the great man's palace. At his suggestion Virgil composed the Georgics;' and, subsequently,

his greatest and best known work, the 'Æneid,' was undertaken at the command of Augustus. His health was at no time robust, and he died, in his fifty-first year, at Brindisi, on his return from a visit to Athens. He was buried by the side of the public road leading from Naples to Puteoli, where his tomb is still to be seen.

The 'Pastorals' are sometimes called 'Bucolics,' or herdsmen's songs, and sometimes Eclogues,' or selections from other similar compositions which either he did not publish, or have not been preserved. The subjects are various, but they are chiefly imaginary dialogues between Greek shepherds watching their flocks at beautiful pastures, surrounded by lovely scenery, and passing their time under beech trees playing on pipes, or composing monodies on their lost loves. This Arcadia, or pastoral fairy-land, was celebrated for its breed of asses, whose dulness was shared by the natives, and hence 'a slip of Arcadia' became the nickname for a stupid boy. A well-known sketch in one of the poems, because often attempted by painters, is old Silenus, one of the rural deities, riding on an ass, in a state of inebriety, with a leather bottle in his hand, followed by a company of nymphs and bacchanals. He is after

wards described as surprised in a cave by two youths, and called upon for a song, into which the poet introduces some of the old fables about the creation of the world, the deluge of Deucalion, and other legends. In several of the others are flattering allusions to his friends and patrons.

The most celebrated of them, however, is that known as the 'Pollio,' written about forty years before the Christian era, the metaphorical terms employed in which coincide so remarkably with the prophetic language of the Old Testament, as to have given rise to the belief that the poet actually referred to the general expectation then current of the Messiah, for example :—

'Lo! from the high heavens Comes a new seed of men. Lucinda chaste,

Speed the fair infant's birth, with whom shall end

Our age of iron, and the golden prime

Of earth return.

The child shall purge

Our guilt stains out, and free the land from dread.