we have no doubt that the motives of the Gracchi, especially of Tiberius, were originally disinterested and patriotic, and if they at length became demagogues, the fault lay with the Senators, who denounced all reform as revolution, and thought it the height of presumption in the rest of mankind to pretend to any rights at all. They were more sinned against than sinning. They were persecuted by their own order, and even their nearest relatives, with peculiar bitterness, as apostates and renegadoes, and this feeling seems to have infected most of the Roman writers. Cicero, with his usual leaning to the aristocracy, strikes in with this prejudice, though he was not able to suppress a regret at the early death of Caius, which he laments as a serious loss to "Latin letters and Roman affairs."* For their fearful encounter with the aristocracy, these young men had been, as is well known, fully prevared by the most illustrious of matrons and mothers, whose name is become a proverb in all languages. They inherited through her, the exquisite purity with which the Scipios were celebrated for speaking their mother-tongue, while Greek masters were employed to instruct them in the learning and eloquence of Athens. Of their orations nothing is extant but a few fragments. One of Tiberius' is preserved by Plutarch, in his life of that Roman, and deserves the praise bestowed upon it by the biographer. It is very pathetic, and answers to the description given of his eloquence, which is said to have been soft, persuasive, and insinuating, while that of Caius was renowned for vehemence and passion. The latter is universally represented as possessed of greater talents than his brother. We may form some idea of the state in which he found the popular eloquence of Rome, from the fact that he was the first orator that ever moved about upon the rostrum in the heat of his declamation, and used strong and expressive gestures. A fragment of his eloquence, preserved by Cicero, we think, is not unworthy of his reputation. The passage we mentioned in a preceding paragraph as criticised by Aulus Gellius, certainly falls very far short of what we should have expected from its author, and still more so of the celebrated burst of eloquence from the fifth oration against Verres, with which it is there compared. Yet it is worthy of remark, that, according to Gellius, neither he nor anybody else disputed the pretensions of Caius Gracchus to be considered as a powerful and vehement speaker, although he thought it preposterous to prefer him, as some were disposed

* Brut. c. 33.

VOL. II. NO. 4.

+ De Orat. 1. iii. c. 56,

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to do, in the higher attributes of oratory, to Cicero himself. We do not, of course, gainsay this opinion, but it ought to be borne in mind, if such comparisons are to be instituted at all, that both the Gracchi perished at a very early age-an age, at which even Cicero had done nothing that deserves to be mentioned with the fruits of his riper powers. Besides, with respect to the merits of a popular speaker, reputation, especially where it lives far beyond his own time, is a criterion that may be depended on, and this evidence, as we have seen, is as conclusive as it can be, in favour of the Gracchi. It appears to us, however, that they had a decided advantage over all the other orators of Rome, in the intense sensation which the promulgation of their laws excited, and the great interests which the discussion involved. All Italy was awakened and inflamed-the lower orders were brought out and arrayed against their haughty lords-the assembly of the people was so crowded that men covered the tops of houses as far as it was possible to take a part in, or even to witness the proceedings. So vast a multitude, animated with such vehement passions—the self-devoted orator facing the destruction which awaited him for his zeal in their behalf-the terrible indignation of the Senatorian order which triumphed over all this physical force and tumultuary passionthe fierce encounter itself and the tragic catastrophe, present a scene more lively and impressive, than was ever afterwards exhibited in the Roman Comitia.

Between the time of the Gracchi and that of Cicero, four orators were distinguished above all their contemporaries. These were Antony and Crassus, Sulpicius and Cotta. Crassus died before the breaking out of the first civil war, A. U. C. 662. Antony fell a victim to the cruelty of Marius, four years later. These two orators are indebted for their present celebrity to the writings of Cicero; especially to the dialogue, De Oratore, in which they are the principal interlocutors, and in the course of which, we are favoured with a full account of their ideas concerning eloquence, their habits of study, and the success that attended their efforts in the Forum. The great author of that dialogue seems to consider them, as beyond all comparison, the first orators that had ever appeared at Rome before Hortensius. The fragment of a speech of Crassus delivered in defence of Plancus, is preserved in the same work, and is certainly a very favourable specimen of his eloquence.* He would seem to have been the first who aimed at an ornate and elaborate style, and thus to have begun what Cicero afterwards carried

Lib. ii. c. 55.

to perfection. Sulpicius and Cotta are so little known, that without stopping to characterize them, we proceed to

Hortensius, the contemporary and competitor, but not, as he is sometimes called, the rival of Cicero. He was born A. U. C. 640, and appeared in the Forum at what we should regard as the excessively early age of nineteen. This, however, was no uncommon thing at Rome, Crassus having made his début at seventeen, and Calvus at twenty. The intervention of the Social war in 663, interrupted his forensic labours for some years, but in 666, and from that time until Cicero returned from his Quæstorship in Sicily, in 679—with the exception of a few years, during which Cotta appeared again in the Forumhe enjoyed an uncontested supremacy as a public speaker. We know nothing about his merits, except by report; and we are disposed to think that this circumstance has been decidedly favourable to his reputation. Cicero, who utterly eclipsed him, was not only as far as possible above the meanness of envy and jealousy, but even went to an extreme on the other side, and has done all that he could to make it appear that his veteran antagonist was a rival worthy of his own talents. Hortensius, however, was undoubtedly a man of uncommon abilities; his memory was nothing short of prodigious; he had great volubility and readiness in debate, and studied the art of gesture with so much care, as to be thought even theatrical in his manner of delivery. He is said to have lost his standing with the public as he grew older, which Cicero accounts for by informing us that he spoke in a florid Asiatic style that passed off extremely well in youth, but appeared unbecoming in a man of riper years. We suspect too, that the taste of the Roman people had been rapidly improving in the meantime, by the progress of education and the example of Cicero himself; yet it is said that a speech delivered by Hortensius, in the sixty-third year of his age, in defence of his nephew Messala, was the best he ever made, and gave some countenance to the opinion that had he devoted himself as much to the study of eloquence and literature, as his celebrated rival, Rome might have had more than one orator to boast of. It is certain, however, that his speeches did not bear publishing, and that in consequence of this he left very little reputation hehind him*—a sufficient proof that his talent was flashy, and not much more than an uncommon degree of cleverness. But his success during life, seems to have been an abundant indemnification to him, for any want of posthumous fame. He became immensely rich in one way or other, and

'Quinetil. Inst. Orat. lib. xi. c. 8.

led a most luxurious epicurean life. As our readers may be curious to know how a Roman gentleman disposed of his leisure and opulence, we extract the following description of Hortensius' style of living, from the volume in our hands:

"An example of splendour and luxury had been set to him by the orator Crassus, who inhabited a sumptuous palace in Rome, the hall of which was adorned with four pillars of Hymettian marble, twelve feet high, which he brought to Rome in his ædileship, at a time when there were no pillars of foreign marble even in public buildings. The court of this mansion was ornamented by six lotus trees, which Pliny saw in full luxuriance in his youth, but which were afterwards burned in the conflagration in the time of Nero. He had also a number of vases, and two drinking-cups, engraved by the artist Mentor, but which were of such immense value that he was ashamed to use them. Hortensius had the same tastes as Crassus, but surpassed him and all his contemporaries in magnificence. His mansion stood on the Palatine Hill, which appears to have been the most fashionable situation in Rome, being at that time covered with the houses of Lutatius Catulus, Æmilius Scaurus, Claudius, Cataline, Cicero, and Cæsar. The residence of Hortensius was adjacent to that of Cataline; and though of no great extent, it was splendidly furnished. After the death of the orator, it was inhabited by Octavius Cæsar, and formed the centre of the chief imperial palace, which increased from the time of Augustus to that of Nero, till it covered a great part of the Palatine Mount, and branched over other hills. Besides his mansion in the capital, he possessed sumptuous villas at Tusculum, Bauli, and Laurentum, where he was accustomed to give the most elegant and expensive entertainments. He had frequently peacocks at his banquets, which he first served up at a grand augural feast, and which, says Varro, were more commended by the luxurious, than by men of probity and austerity. His olive plantations he is said to have regularly moistened and bedewed with wine; and on one occasion, during the hearing of an important case, in which he was engaged along with Cicero, begged that he would change with him the previously arranged order of pleading, as he was obliged to go to the country to pour wine on a favourite platanus, which grew near his Tusculan villa. Notwithstanding this profusion, his heir found not less than ten thousand casks of wine in his cellar after his death. Besides his taste for wine, and fondness for plantations, he indulged a passion for pictures and fish-ponds. At his Tusculan villa, he built a hall for the reception of a painting of the expedition of the Argonauts, by the painter Cydias, which cost the enormous sum of a hundred and fortyfour thousand sesterces. At his country-seat, near Bauli, on the sea shore, he vied with Lucullus and Philippus in the extent of his fishponds, which were constructed at immense cost, and so formed, that the tide flowed into them. Under the promontory of Bauli, travellers are yet shown the Piscina Mirabilis, a subterraneous edifice, vaulted and divided by four rows of arcades, and which is supposed by some antiquarians to have been the fish-pond of Hortensius. Yet such was his luxury, and his reluctance to diminish his supply, that when he gave

entertainments at Bauli, he generally sent to the neighbouring town of Puteoli to buy fish for supper. He had a vast number of fishermen in his service, and paid so much attention to the feeding of his fish, that he had always ready a large stock of small fish to be devoured by the great ones. It was with the utmost difficulty that he could be prevailed on to part with any of them; and Varro declares, that a friend could more easily get his chariot mules out of his stable, than a mullet from his ponds. He was more anxious about the welfare of his fish than the health of his slaves, and less solicitous that a sick servant might not take what was unfit for him, than that his fish might not drink water which was unwholesome. It is even said, that he was so passionately fond of a particular lamprey, that he shed tears for her untimely death. "The gallery at the villa, which was situated on the little promontory of Bauli, and looking towards Puteoli, commanded one of the most delightful views in Italy. The inland prospect towards Cumæ was extensive and magnificent. Puteoli was seen along the shore at the distance of thirty stadia, in the direction of Pompeii; and Pompeii itself was invisible only from its distance. The sea view was unbounded; but it was enlivened by the numerous vessels sailing across the bay, and the ever changeful hue of its waters, now saffron, azure, or purple, according as the breeze blew, or as the sun ascended or declined," pp. 124-125.

From the following, it will appear that he was no less a coxcomb than an epicure :

"Like Demosthenes, he chose and put on his dress with the most studied care and neatness. He is said not only to have prepared his attitudes, but also to have adjusted the plaits of his gown before a mirror, when about to issue forth to the Forum; and to have taken no less care in arranging them, than in moulding the periods of his discourse. He so tucked up his gown, that the folds did not fall by chance, but were formed with great care, by means of a knot artfully tied, and concealed in the plies of his robe, which apparently flowed carelessly around him. Macrobius also records a story of his instituting an action of damages against a person who had jostled him, while walking in this elaborate dress, and had ruffled his toga, when he was about to appear in public with his drapery adjusted according to the happiest arrangement—an anecdote, which, whether true or false, shows, by its currency, the opinion entertained of his finical attention to every thing that concerned the elegance of his attire, or the gracefulness of his figure and attitudes. He also bathed himself in odoriferous waters, and daily perfumed himself with the most precious essences. This too minute attention to his person and to gesticulation, appears to have been the sole blemish in his oratorical character; and the only stain on his moral conduct, was his practice of corrupting the judges of the causes in which he was employed-a practice which must be, in a great measure, imputed to the defects of the judicial system at Rome; for, whatever might be the excellence of the Roman laws, nothing could be worse than the procedure under which they were administered." pp. 130-131.