*

This battle is said to have been fought thirteen years after the taking of Rome; and in consequence of this success, the Romans laid aside, for the future, the dismal apprehensions they had entertained of the barbarians. They had imagined, it seems, that the former victory they had gained over the Gauls, was owing to the sickness that prevailed in their army, and to other unforeseen accidents, rather than to their own valour and so great had their terror been formerly that they had made a law, that the priests should be exempted from military service, except in case of an invasion from the Gauls.

:

This was the last of Camillus's martial exploits. For the taking of Velitre was a direct consequence of this victory, and it surrendered without the least resistance.' But the greatest conflict he ever experienced in the state, still remained: For the people were harder to deal with since they returned victorious, and they insisted that one of the consuls should be chosen out of their body, contrary to the present constitution. The senate opposed them, and would not suffer Camillus to resign the dictatorship, thinking they could better defend the rights of the, nobility under the sanction of his supreme authority, But one day, as Camillus was sitting in the forum, and employed in the distribution of justice, an officer, sent by the tribunes of the people, ordered him to follow him, and laid his hand upon him, as if he would seize and carry him away, Upon this such a noise and tumult was raised in the assembly, as never had been known; those that were about Camillus thrusting the plebeian officer down from the tribunal, and the populace calling out to drag the dictator from his seat.

In

this case Camillus was much embarrassed; he did not, however, resign the dictatorhip, but led off the patricians to the senate-house. Before he entered it, he turned towards the capitol, and prayed to the gods to put a happy end to the present disturbances, solemnly vowing to build a temple to Concord, when the tumult should be over.

In the senate there was a diversity of opinions and great debates. Mild and popular counsels, however,

*This battle was fought, not thirteen, but twenty-three years after the taking of Rome.

prevailed, which allowed one of the consuls to be a plebeian.* When the dictator announced this decree to the people, they received it with great satisfaction, as it was natural they should; they were immediately reconciled to the senate, and conducted Camillus home with great applause. Next day the people assembled, and voted that the temple which Camillus had vowed to Concord, should, on account of this great event, be built on a spot that fronted the forum and place of assembly. To those feasts which are called latin they added one day more, so that the whole was to consist of four days; and for the present they ordained that the whole people of Rome should sacrifice with garlands on their heads. Camillus then held. an assembly for the election of consuls, when Marcus Emilius was chosen out of the nobility, and Lucius Sextius from the commonalty, the first plebeian that ever attained that honour. This was the last of Camillus's transactions. The year following a pestilence visited Rome, which carried off a prodigious number of the people, most of the magistrates, and Camillus himself. His death could not be deemed premature, on account of his great age and the offices he had borne, yet was he more lamented than all the rest of the citizens who died of that distemper.

*The people having gained this point, the consulate was revived, and the military tribuneship laid aside for ever. But at the same time the patricians procured the great privilege that a new officer, called prætor, should be appointed, who was to be always one of their body. The consuls had been generals of the Roman armies, and at the same time judges of civil affairs, but as they were often in the field, it was thought proper to separate the latter branch from their office, and appropriate it to a judge with the title of prætor, who was to be next in dignity to the counsuls. About the year of Rome 501, another prætor was appointed, to decide the differences among foreigners. Upon the taking of Sicily and Sardinia two more pretors were created, and as many more upon the conquest of Spain.

PERICLES.

WHEN Cæsar happened to see some strangers at

Rome carrying young dogs and monkeys in their arms, and fondly caressing them, he asked, "Whether the women in their country never bore any children;" thus reproving with a proper severity those who lavish upon brutes that natural tenderness which is due only to mankind. In the same manner we must condemn those who employ that curiosity and love of knowledge which nature has implanted in the human soul, upon low and worthless objects, while they neglect such as are excellent and useful. Our senses, indeed, by an effect almost mechanical, are passive to the impression of outward objects, whether agreeable or offensive but the mind, possessed of a selfdirecting power, may turn its attention to whatever it thinks proper. It should, therefore, be employed in the most useful pursuits, not barely in contemplation, but in such contemplation as may nourish its faculties. For as that colour is best suited to the eye, which by its beauty and agreeableness, at the same time both refreshes and strengthens the sight, so the application of the mind should be directed to those subjects, which through the channel of pleasure may lead us to our proper happiness. Such are the works of virtue. The very description of these, inspires us with emulation, and a strong desire to imitate them; whereas in other things, admiration does not always lead us to imitate what we admire; but on the contrary, while we are charmed with the work, we often despise the workman. Thus we are pleased with perfumes and purple, while dyers and perfumers appear to us in the light of mean mechanics.

Antisthenes,* therefore, when he was told that Ismenias played excellently upon the flute, answered properly enough, "Then he is good for nothing else; otherwise he would not have played so well." Such also was Philip's saying to his son, when at a certain entertainment he sang

*Antisthenes was a disciple of Socrates, and founder of the sect of the Cynics.

in a very agreeable and skilful manner, "Are not you ashamed to sing so well?" It is enough for a prince to bestow a vacant hour upon hearing others sing, and he does the muses sufficient honour, if he attends the performances of those who excel in their arts.

If a man applies himself to servile or mechanic employments, his industry in those things is a proof of his inattention to nobler studies. No young man of noble birth or liberal sentiments, from seeing the Jupiter at Pisa, would desire to be Phidias, or from the sight of the Juno at Argos, to be Polycletus; or Anacreon, or Philemon, or Archilochus, though delighted with their poems.* For though a work may be agreeable, yet esteem of the author is not the necessary consequence. We may therefore conclude, that things of this kind which excite not a spirit of emulation, nor produce any strong impulse or desire to imitate them, are of little use to the beholders. But virtue has this peculiar property, that at the same time that we admire her conduct, we long to copy the example. The goods of fortune we wish to enjoy, virtue we desire to practise; the former we are glad to receive from others, the latter we are ambitious that others should receive from us. The beauty of goodness has an attractive power; it kindles in us at once an active principle; it forms our manners, and influences our desires, not only when represented in a living example, but even in an historical description.

For this reason we chose to proceed in writing the lives of great men, and have composed this tenth book, which contains the life of Pericles, and that of Fabius Maximus who carried on the war against Hannibal; men who resembled each other in many virtues, particularly in justice and moderation, and who effectually served their respective commonwealths, by patiently enduring the injurious and capricious treatment they received from their col

*This seems to be somewhat inconsistent with that respect and esteem, in which the noble arts of poetry and sculpture were held in ancient Greece and Rome, and with that admiration which the proficients in those arts always obtain among the people. But there was still a kind of jealousy between the poets and philosophers, and our philosophical biographer shows pretty clearly by the Platonic parade of this introduction, that he would magnify the latter at the expence of the former.

leagues and their countrymen. Whether we are right in our judgment or not, will be easy to see in the work itself. Pericles was of the tribe of Acamantis, and of the ward of Cholargia. His family was one of the most considerable in Athens both by the father and mother's side. His father Xanthippus, who defeated the king of Persia's generals at Mycale, married Agariste, the niece of Clisthenes, who expelled the family of Pisistratus, abolished the tyranny, enacted laws, and established a form of government tempered in such a manner as tended to unanimity among the people, and the safety of the state. She dreamed that she was delivered of a lion, and a few days after brought forth Pericles. His person in other respects was well turned, but his head was disproportionably long. For this reason almost all his statues have the head covered with a helmet, the statuaries choosing, I suppose, to hide that defect. But the Athenian poets called him Schinocephalus or onion-head, for the word schinos is sometimes used instead of scilla a sea-onion. Cratinus, the comic writer, in his play called Chirones, has this passage:

FACTION receiv'd old TIME to her embraces ;

Hence came a tyrant-spawn, on earth called Pericles,
In heaven the bead-compeller.

And again in his Nemesis, he thus addresses him :

Come, blessed Jove,* the high and mighty HEAD,
The friend of hospitality!

And Teleclides says,

Now, in a maze of thought, he ruminates

On strange expedients, while his HEAD, depress'd
With its own weight, sinks on his knees; and now
From the vast caverns of his brain burst forth

Storms and fierce thunders.

* Pericles (as Plutarch afterwards observes) was called Olympius or Jupiter. The poet here addresses him under that character with the epithet of panapie, which signifies blessed, but may also signify great-beaded. In our language we have no word with such a double meaning. Just above, he is called Cephalegeretes, head-comfeller, (as if his head was an assemblage of many heads) instead of Nethelegeretes, cloud-compeller, a common epithet of Jupiter. Hh

VOL. I.