known, any thing which is not morally right can by no means seem to be expedient. Such a man, then, not only will not venture to do, but not even to think, what he would not venture openly to proclaim. Is it not disgraceful that philosophers should hesitate about this, which not even rustics doubt—from whom is derived this proverb, which has now become trite through antiquity; for when they commend the integrity and worthiness of any person, they say "he is one with whom you might play odd and even in the dark."1 What meaning has this proverb but this, that nothing is expedient which is not morally right, even though you could obtain it without any body proving you guilty. Do you not see that, according to that proverb, no excuse can be offered either to the aforesaid Gyges, nor to this man whom I have just now supposed able to sweep to himself the inheritances of all by a snap of the fingers? For as, how much soever that which is base may be concealed, yet it can by no means become morally right (honestum), so it can not be made out that whatever is morally wrong can be expedient, since nature is adverse and repugnant.

XX. But when the prizes are very great, there is a tempta tion to do wrong. When Caius Marius was far from the hope of the consulship, and was now in the seventh year of his torpor, after obtaining the prætorship, and did not seem likely ever to stand for the consulship, he accused Quintus Metellus, a very eminent man and citizen, whose lieutenant he was, before the Roman people of a charge that he was protracting the war, when he had been sent to Rome by him-his own commander;-stating that if they would make himself consul, that he would in a short time deliver Jugurtha, either alive or dead, into the power of the Roman people. Upon this he was indeed made consul, but he deviated from good faith and justice, since, by a false charge, he brought obloquy upon a most excellent and respectable citizen, whose lieutenant he was, and by whom he had been sent. Even my relative Gratidianus did not discharge the duty of a good man at the time when he was

This play, retained among modern Italians under the name of La Mora, is thus played:-A and B are the players; A suddenly raises, we will suppose, three fingers, and B two; A at a guess, cries, six; B, five. B, having named the number, wins. Parties, to play it in the dark, must have reliance on each other's word; hence the proverb.

prætor, and the tribunes of the people had called in the college of the prætors, in order that the matter of the coinage might be settled by a joint resolution. For at that period the coinage was in a state of uncertainty, so that no man could know how much he was worth. They drew up in common an edict, with a fine and conviction annexed, and agreed that they should all go up together to the rostra, in the afternoon. And while the rest of them, indeed, went off each a different way, Marius, from the judgment seats, went straight to the rostra, and singly published that which had been arranged in common. And this proceeding, if you inquire into the result, brought him great honor. In every street statues of him were erected, and at these incense and tapers were burned. What need of many words? No man ever became a greater favorite with the multitude. These are the things which sometimes perplex our deliberations, when that in which equity is violated seems not a very great crime, but that which is procured by it appears a very great advantage. Thus to Marius it seemed not a very base act to snatch away the popular favor from his colleagues and the tribunes of the people, but it appeared a very expedient thing by means of that act to become consul, which at that time he had proposed to himself. But there is for all, the one rule which I wish to be thoroughly known to you; either let not that which seems expedient be base, or if it be base let it not seem expedient. What then? Can we judge either the former Marius or the latter, a good man? Unfold and examine your understanding, that you may see what in it is the idea, form, and notion of a good man. Does it then fall

under the notion of a good man to lie for the sake of his own advantage, to make false charges, to overreach, to deceive? Nothing, indeed, less so. Is there, then, any thing of such value, or any advantage so desirable, that for it you would forfeit the splendor and name of a good man? What is there which that expediency, as it is called, can bring, so valuable as that which it takes away, if it deprive you of the name of a good man, if it rob you of your integrity and justice? Now, what difference does it make, whether from a man one transform himself into a beast, or under the form of a man, bear the savage nature of a beast?

1 Namely, Marcus Marius Gratidianus.

XXI. What? Are not they who disregard all things upright and virtuous, provided they can attain power, doing the same as he' who was willing to have even for his fatherin-law, that man' by whose audacity he might himself become as powerful? It seemed expedient to him to become as powerful as possible by the unpopularity of the other. He did not see how unjust that was toward his country, and how base and how useless. But the father-in-law himself always had in his mouth the Greek verses from the Phonissæ, which I will translate as well as I can-inelegantly, perhaps, yet so that the meaning can be understood:-" For if justice ought ever to be violated, it is to be violated for the sake of ruling; in other cases cherish the love of country."

3

Eteocles, or rather Euripides, deserved death for making an exception of that one crime, which is the most accursed of all. Why, then, do we repress petty villainies, or fraudulent inheritances, trades, and sales? Here is a man for you, who aspired to be king of the Roman people, and master of all nations, and accomplished it-if any one says this desire is an honest one, he is a madman. For he ap1 Pompey.

2 Cæsar, whose daughter Julia was sought and obtained in marriage by Pompey, who being, from his great power, suspected of ambitious designs by the people, with whom Cæsar was a favorite, wished by the alliance to bring a share of the suspicion under which himself labored upon his rival, and thus to diminish his popularity.

3 Εἴπερ γὰρ ἀδικεῖν χρὴ, τυραννίδος πέρι

Κάλλιστον ἀδικεῖν· τ' ἄλλα δ' εὐσεβεῖν χρεών.

4 "We may, indeed, agree, by a sacrifice of truth, to call that purple which we see to be yellow, as we may agree by a still more profligate sacrifice of every noble feeling, to offer to tyranny the homage of our adulation; to say to the murderer of Thrasea Pætus, 'Thou hast dono well;' to the parricide who murdered Agrippina, 'Thou hast done more than well.' As every new victim falls, we may lift our voice in still louder flattery. We may fall at the proud feet, we may beg, as a boon, the honor of kissing that bloody hand which has been lifted against the helpless; we may do more; we may bring the altar, and the sacrifice, and implore the god not to ascend too soon to heaven. This we may do, for this we have the sad remembrance that beings of a human form and soul have done. But this is all we can do. We can constrain our tongues to be false, our features to bend themselves to the semblance of that passionate adoration which we wish to express; our knees to fall prostrate; but our heart we can not constrain. There virtue must still have a voice which is not to be drowned by hymns and acclamations; there the crimes which we laud as virtues, are crimes still; and he

proves of the murder of our laws and liberty; the foul and abominable oppression of these he thinks glorious. But by what reproof, or rather by what reproach, should I attempt to tear away from so great an error the man who admits that to usurp kingly power in that state which was free, and which ought to be so, is not a virtuous act, but is expedient for him who can accomplish it? For, immortal gods! can the most foul and horrible parricide of his country be expedient for any man, though he who shall have brought upon himself that guilt be named by the oppressed citizens a parent?

Expediency, then, should be guided by virtue, and indeed so that these two may seem to differ from each other in name, but to signify the same in reality. In vulgar opinion I know not what advantage can be greater than that of sovereign sway, but, on the contrary, when I begin to recall my reason to the truth, I find nothing more disadvantageous to him who shall have attained it unjustly. Can torments, cares, daily and nightly fears, a life full of snares and perils, be expedient for any man?" The enemies and traitors to sovereignty are many, its friends few," says Accius. But to what sovereignty? That which was justly obtained, having been transmitted by descent from Tantalus and Pelops? Now, whom we have made a god is the most contemptible of mankind; if, indeed, we do not feel, perhaps, that we are ourselves still more contemptible."-Brown's "Moral Philosophy," Lecture lxxviii.

1 "Do we think that God has reserved all punishment for another world, and that wickedness has no feelings but those of triumph in the years of earthly sway which consummate its atrocities? There are hours in which the tyrant is not seen, the very remembrance of which, in tho hours in which he is seen, darkens to his gloomy gaze that pomp which is splendor to every eye but his; and that even on earth, avenge with awful retribution, the wrongs of the virtuous. The victim of his jealous dread, who, with a frame wasted by disease and almost about to release his spirit to a liberty that is immortal, is slumbering and dreaming of heaven on the straw that scarcely covers the damp earth of his dungeon -if he could know at that very hour what thoughts are present to the conscience of him who doomed him to this sepulcher, and who is lying sleepless on his bed of state, though for a moment the knowledge of the vengeance might be gratifying, would almost shrink the very moment after from the contemplation of honor so hopeless, and wish that the vengeance were less severe. 'Think not,' says Cicero, 'that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds, their crimes, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future, those are the domestic Furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.'"-Dr. Brown's "Moral Philosophy," Lecturo lxiv.

how many more do you think are enemies to that king, who with the military force of the Roman people crushed that very Roman people, and compelled a state that was not only free, but also the ruler of the nations, to be slaves to him? What stains, what stings of conscience do you conceive that man to have upon his soul? Moreover, could his life be a beneficial one to himself, when the condition of that life was this, that he who deprived him of it would be held in the highest esteem and glory? But if these things be not useful, which seem so in the highest degree, because they are full of disgraco and turpitude, we ought to be quite convinced that there is nothing expedient which is not virtuous.

XXII. But this indeed was decided, as well on other occasions frequently, as by Caius Fabricius, in his second consulship, and by our senate in the war with Pyrrhus. For when king Pyrrhus had made aggressive war upon the Roman people, and when the contest was maintained for empire with a generous and potent monarch, a deserter from him came into the camp of Fabricius, and promised him, if he would propose a reward for him, that as he had come secretly, so he would return secretly into the camp of Pyrrhus, and dispatch him with poison. Fabricius took care that this man should be sent back in custody to Pyrrhus, and this conduct of his was applauded by the senate. And yet if we pursue the appearance and notion of advantage, one deserter would have rid us of that great war, and of tha formidable adversary; but it would have been a great disgrace and scandal, that he, with whom the contest was for glory, had been conquered, not by valor, but by villainy. Whether was it then more expedient, for Fabricius, who was such a person in our state as Aristides was at Athens, or for our senate, which never separated expediency from dignity, to fight against an enemy with arms or with poison? If empire is to be sought for the sake of glory, away with guilt in which there can not be glory; but if power itself is to be sought by any means whatever, it can not be expedient when allied to infamy. That proposition, therefore, of Lucius Philippus, the son of Quintus, was not expedient that those states, which, by a decree of the senate, Lucius Sylla, on receiving a sum of money, had made free, should again be subject to tribute, anl that wo.