which the rivalry of Clodius and Milo created much confusion. To terminate the disorders which followed the death of the former of these partisans, the consulate was offered to Pompey alone. The senators were now secure in regard to one of the popular leaders; by several wholesome regulations order was re-established; the laws were impartially administered; and the public places were no longer stained with blood. The great object was now to get rid of Cæsar, to which measure Pompey was continually excited by the language and insulting conduct of the senate.

CESAR'S GALLIC CAMPAIGN, 58 B. C.-Cæsar was now beginning a long career of victory. Gaul opened a vast field for his ambition; it supplied him with the means of keeping a large and well disciplined army always within a few days' march of Rome, the southern boundaries of his province being the Arno and the Rubicon. The brave people who inhabited this country were of Celtic origin, but their disunion proved their ruin. In eight campaigns Cæsar entirely overran their territory: he reduced the Helvetii; drove Ariovistus back into Germany; and, after frequent revolts, Gaul submitted to his arms. was during a brief interval of peace that he visited Britain, 55 B. c.; but the island was not subdued till the close of the first century after Christ.

It

At the termination of the Gallic war the conduct of the victor underwent a great change. The last winter he passed beyond the Alps was spent in visiting the various cities. He exercised no violence, but left them entirely free in their internal government, requiring only a contribution of forty millions of sesterces as pay for his men. The best soldiers of the nation he enrolled in his army, and formed of them the renowned legion Alauda. His light troops were composed almost entirely of Gauls from either province.

THE SECOND Civil War, 49 b. c., had its origin in these circumstances:-The rapid victories of Cæsar so roused the jealousy of Pompey, who had been appointed sole consul, that when the former demanded the prolongation of his government, and to be nominated though absent, he was ordered to disband his legions, to which unjust command he yielded with a slight exception. But the senate, with Pompey at their head, before they could receive his answer, commenced hostile proceedings against him. The tribunes fled disguised from Rome, and sought refuge in the camp of Cæsar, who thus became the head of the popular party. Nothing but war could now decide the differences of the rival generals. Julius had reached the banks

of the Rubicon, a little stream, the boundary of his government, and which it was treason to cross in a hostile manner; an inscription to which purpose, devoting the transgressor to the infernal deities, may still be seen on the road between Rimini and Cesena. "On horseback, in the open air, Cæsar all night long pondered the weighty question of submission or resistance. At daybreak his anxious soldiers found him still riding to and fro, deep sunk in thought. At length he cried, The die is cast! gave his horse the spur, and sprang across the stream, followed by his troops." All Italy received him with joy. The senate retired with their army into Greece; and in sixty days the submission of the whole peninsula showed the emptiness of Pompey's boast, that with a single stamp of his foot he could raise legions. Entering Rome, the governor of Gaul seized upon the treasury, and, leaving Antony and Lepidus as his lieutenants, he marched into Spain, where the hostile forces surrendered without a blow. Returning to Marseilles, which had shut her gates upon him, he punished the inhabitants with great severity. Without loss of time, he crossed the sea, and hastened to meet Pompey,* who had already collected a numerous army; and most of the high-born youth of the day, who had been finishing their education at Athens, enrolled themselves among his troops. But the activity of Cæsar deranged his plan of protracting the war; for after some trivial successes, he was utterly defeated at Pharsalia, 48 B. c., and was assassinated on the Egyptian shore, near the mouth of the Nile. Cæsar followed up the scattered relics of the party, and reducing Egypt, bestowed it on Cleopatra. Cato the younger, who still dreamt of a republic, had assembled in Africa a small body of men of like sentiments with himself, but being vanquished and reduced to despair, he fell by his own hand. A second campaign in the Spanish peninsula completed the annihilation of Cæsar's enemies, and the conqueror entered Rome in triumph, where he was made perpetual dictator, and saluted with the title of Father of his Country. Statues were erected in his honour, as to a god, and a festival with thanksgiving of forty days was decreed. Four times in the course of one month he appeared in triumphal processions representing his victories over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa. Sixty thousand talents of silver and two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two crowns of gold formed part of the splendid show. Immense largesses in money and land were distributed to his faithful

* Ocior et cæli flammis et tigride fœtâ:

Dum se deesse Deis, et non sibi Numina credit.

veterans; while public banquets and distributions of corn, meat, and oil, with a diminution of their rents, won the hearts of the people. Gladiatorial combats, theatrical representations, races, Trojan games, and military shows, were seen in all parts of the city. But amidst this general intoxication, Cæsar did not forget more important cares. He aided in the reform of the Calendar, a work undertaken by Sosigenes; passed laws against treasonable attempts; increased the number of magistrates; colonized many parts of Italy, as well as Carthage and Corinth; and awarded the rights of citizenship to all professors of medicine and of the liberal arts.

DEATH OF CESAR.-The peaceful administration of one man, who had triumphed over the great parties in the state, and who by his example was advancing the cause of literature and the arts, seemed destined to heal the numerous wounds in the Roman dominions. But false ideas of patriotism, and visionary notions of republican virtue, which never could be realized again in Rome, armed some of the noblest and best of men against Cæsar. At their head were Brutus and Cassius, whom he had generously pardoned. He fell under their daggers in the senate-house, March 15, forty-four years before the Christian era. "The tyrant is dead, but tyranny still lives," said Tully. The murder of the dictator introduced a new period of anarchy and civil war, during which the whole world was trodden down and desolated by conflicting armies. The conspirators were unable to profit by the advantage which they had obtained. They trembled at the crime they had committed, and talked while they should have acted.

Character of Cæsar.

Lord Bacon thought Julius Cæsar to be the most complete character of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general-[he fought 50 battles, in which 1,192,000 men fell]-the only triumphant politician-inferior to none in eloquence-comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers that ever appeared in the world-an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage-[he wrote as he fought, said Quinctilian]-at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings-fighting and making love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his contemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius.Childe Harold, Note to Canto IV.

THIRD CIVIL WAR.-Meanwhile, Antony seized upon the contents of the treasury, between five and six millions ster

ling, and with this money bought many influential men, the veterans and the people. Cicero exhausted the stores of his eloquence in vain, for the other steadily pursued his ambitious course. The senate opposed to him the young Octavianus (afterwards called Augustus), who already possessed all the coolness, subtlety, and relentless determination of purpose which characterized the latter portion of his career.* A war now broke out, and in the course of it Antony had sufficient address to withdraw him from Cicero's party, and with Lepidus to form the

SECOND TRIUMVIRATE, 43 B. c.—The horrors of the former triumvirate were far exceeded by this, for 300 senators, 2000 knights, the best and noblest of the citizens, were proscribed. Each sacrificed his own friends to the vengeance of his colleagues, and Cicero, who had long manifested a prophetic consciousness of his peril, was among the number. With him fell the liberties of Rome; but it was not so much patriotism that pointed the sword against his life, as the personal vindictiveness of Antony which demanded the victim. The orator had no longer any power to save or destroy the government, for the republic had passed away, and a monarchy alone could succeed. Brutus and Cassius were still at the head of a powerful army; but a doubtful battle at Philippi, followed by the death of the two generals, relieved the triumvirs of all cause of fear, 42 B. C. The unsuccessful expedition of Antony into Asia, with his licentious conduct in Egypt, afforded Octavianus an excuse for declaring him a public enemy. The wily trium vir, armed with the specious authority of the senate, went against his former associate, whom he met and defeated in a sea-fight near Actium, 31 B. c.†

The defeat of Sextus Pompeius, the resignation of Lepidus, and the death of Antony, placed the whole government in the hands of Casar Octavianus, now called Augustus, 27 B. c. To supply the want of money, Sylla had introduced the system of military colonies, which the new ruler extended to reward the services of his troops. The Shepherd of Virgil was not the only victim who, in the bitterness of his destitution, exclaimedNos patriæ fines, et dulcia linquimus arva: Nos patriam fugimus.

* Michelet (Hist. Rom. tom. ii.) thus describes him :-He was a youth of eighteen, small and delicate, often sick, frequently halt of one leg, timid, and speaking with such difficulty, that later in life he used to write beforehand what he desired to say to his wife; so indistinct and feeble was his voice that he was obliged to employ another to speak for him before the people. He wanted not political boldness, for he must have had much to venture to Rome to claim the succession of Cæsar, as his nephew and heir; other courage he had none; fearing the thunder, darkness, and the enemy, and implacable towards all who excited his fears.

+ This battle gave occasion to a new era, called the Actian, and used by the Egyptians. It began with the 29th August 30 B. C., the first day of their year.

AUGUSTUS, now emperor, subdued the revolted Spaniards, made peace with Ethiopia, compelled the Parthians to restore the standards they had taken from Crassus and Antony, and Germany was forced to acknowledge his power. The Roman empire at this period included the fairest portion of the world lying around the Mediterranean, enclosed by the Rhine, Danube, Euphrates, and the sandy deserts of Syria and Africa. Victorious by land and sea, its master the third time closed the temple of Janus; and it was in this moment of universal peace that JESUS CHRIST was born, four years before the common account called A. D.

SECOND LITERARY ERA-THE AUGUSTAN.

Latin literature, strictly speaking, commences with Lucretius (95-52), whose poem De Rerum Naturâ, although abounding in imagination and feeling, is rough and unpolished. His principles were Epicurean and materialist. Catullus (87-47) wrote in various styles of poetry; the few fragments that remain, when they are unpolluted by the grossness of his ideas, betray the hand of a master. Cicero would have been the first poet of his day had he not also been the first orator and philosophical writer. A few lines only of his numerous poems are extant; but time has spared fifty-six Orations on various matters, in which he is inferior to Demosthenes alone. His political and philosophical works comprehend the De Republicâ, recently discovered, the Tusculan Questions, Offices, his Essays on Friendship and Old Age, &c. Hortensius and Cæsar rivalled him in eloquence; but the literary fame of the latter is best maintained by the inimitable simplicity and purity of his Commentaries.

The Eclogues, Georgics, and the Eneid of Virgil; the lyric poems, satires, and epistles of Horace, add lustre to the patronage of Mæcenas and the reign of Augustus. Other less illustrious names crowd around these two great men: the three erotic poets Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius; Manilius, who wrote a poem on astronomy; Varius, Valgius, and Rabirius, who cultivated the epic muse; the fabulist Phædrus; the mimograph Publius Syrus. The elegant and voluptuous Ovid ranks, by his Metamorphoses and his Fasti, among the greatest poets; and by his Ars Amoris, his Remedy, and Elegiacs, among the first of what might be called fashionable town-writers. His Heroics and Tristia have less merit, and are offensive by their sameness. Among the most brilliant prose-writers are Sallust, the immortal author of the Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline : his History of Rome has perished. A few brief notes on celebrated men are all that remain of the writings of Cornelius Nepos. Of Livy's Roman History, containing 142 books, only 25 and some fragments are extant. Universal History of Trogus Pompeius was abridged by Justin. Celsus wrote on medicine; Vitruvius on architecture; Hyginus on mythology.

The

In this sketch, the limits assigned to the Augustan era have been exceeded, but with the design of bringing together some of the most celebrated names in Roman history. At the same time flourished several learned Grecians: Diodorus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, &c.

Prepare: Map of the Roman Empire.