John Lemprière

“ Few indeed were the emperors of Rome whose days were not shortened by poison, or the sword of an assassin. If one for some time had the imprudence to trust himself in the midst of a multitude, at last to perish by his own credulity, the other consulted his safety, but with no better success, in the innumerable chambers of his palace, and changed every day, to elude discovery, the place of his retirement. ”

“ He was revengeful in the highest degree, and the surname of Felix, or the Fortunate, which he assumed, showed that he was more indebted to fortune than to valour for the great fame which he had acquired. But in the midst of all this, who cannot admire the moderation and philosophy of a man, who when absolute master of a republic, which he had procured by his cruelty and avarice, silently abdicates the sovereign power, challenges a critical examination of his administration, and retires to live securely in the midst of thousands whom he has injured and offended? ”

“ Proserpĭna, a daughter of Ceres by Jupiter, called by the Greeks Persephone. She was so beautiful, that the father of the gods himself became enamoured of her, and deceived her by changing himself into a serpent, and folding her in his wreaths. Proserpine made Sicily the place of her residence, and delighted herself with the beautiful views, the flowery meadows, and limpid streams, which surrounded the plains of Enna. In this solitary retreat, as she amused herself with her female attendants in gathering flowers, Pluto carried her away into the infernal regions, of which she became the queen. ”

“ Pythagoras was admired for his venerable aspect; his voice was harmonious, his eloquence persuasive, and the reputation he had acquired by his distant travels, and by being crowned at the Olympic games, was great and important. He regularly frequented the temples of the gods, and paid his devotion to the divinity at an early hour; he lived upon the purest and most innocent food, he clothed himself like the priests of the Egyptian gods, and by his continual purifications and regular offerings, he seemed to be superior to the rest of mankind in sanctity. ”

“ The nuptials of Jupiter and Juno were celebrated with the greatest solemnity: the gods, all mankind, and all the brute creation, attended. Chelone, a young woman, was the only one who refused to come, and who derided the ceremony. For this impiety Mercury changed her into a tortoise, and condemned her to perpetual silence; from which circumstance the tortoise has always been used as a symbol of silence among the ancients. By her marriage with Jupiter, Juno became the queen of all the gods, and mistress of heaven and earth. ”

“ The battle of Cannæ, which proved so fatal to the Roman arms, instead of disheartening Scipio, raised his expectations, and he no sooner heard that some of his desperate countrymen wished to abandon Italy, and to fly from the insolence of the conqueror, than with his sword in his hand, and by his firmness and example, he obliged them to swear eternal fidelity to Rome, and to put to immediate death the first man who attempted to retire from his country. ”

“ To make peace or war, to introduce a change of government, to plant a colony, to enact laws, to raise an edifice, to marry, were sufficient reasons to consult the will of the gods. Mankind, in consulting them, showed that they wished to pay implicit obedience to the command of the divinity, and, when they had been favoured with an answer, they acted with more spirit and with more vigour, conscious that the undertaking had met with the sanction and approbation of heaven. ”

“ When Aurelian approached the plains of Syria, the Palmyrean queen appeared at the head of 700,000 men. She bore the labours of the field like the meanest of her soldiers, and walked on foot fearless of danger. Two battles were fought; the courage of the queen gained the superiority, but an imprudent evolution of the Palmyrean cavalry ruined her cause; and while they pursued with spirit the flying enemy, the Roman infantry suddenly fell upon the main body of Zenobia’s army, and the defeat was inevitable. The queen fled to Palmyra, determined to support a siege. ”

“ During his reign, Rome was three days on fire, the towns of Campania were destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, and the empire was visited by a pestilence which carried away an infinite number of inhabitants. In this time of public calamity, the emperor’s benevolence and philanthropy were conspicuous. Titus comforted the afflicted as a father, he alleviated their distresses by his liberal bounties, and as if they were but one family, he exerted himself for the good and preservation of the whole. The Romans, however, had not long to enjoy the favours of this magnificent prince. ”

“ The Piræus surrendered; and the conqueror, as if struck with reverence at the beautiful porticoes where the philosophic followers of Socrates and Plato had often disputed, spared the city of Athens, which he had devoted to destruction, and forgave the living for the sake of the dead. Two celebrated battles at Cheronæa and Orchomenos, rendered him master of Greece. He crossed the Hellespont, and attacked Mithridates in the very heart of his kingdom. The artful monarch, who well knew the valour and perseverance of his adversary, made proposals of peace ”

“ During the Trojan war she saw the greatest part of her children perish by the hands of the enemy, and like a mother she confessed her grief by her tears and lamentations, particularly at the death of Hector her eldest son. When Troy was taken, Hecuba, as one of the captives, fell to the lot of Ulysses, a man whom she hated for his perfidy and avarice, and she embarked with the conquerors for Greece. The Greeks landed in the Thracian Chersonesus, to load with fresh honours the grave of Achilles. ”

“ While the emperor was lost to himself and the world, the provinces were harassed on every side by the barbarians, and Tiberius found himself insulted by those enemies whom hitherto he had seen fall prostrate at his feet with every mark of submissive adulation. At last, grown weak and helpless through infirmities, he thought of his approaching dissolution; and as he well knew that Rome could not exist without a head, he nominated, as his successor, Caius Caligula. Many might inquire, why a youth naturally so vicious and abandoned as Caius was chosen to be the master of an extensive empire ”

“ Jason, not insensible to her charms and to her promise, vowed eternal fidelity in the temple of Hecate, and received from Medea whatever instruments and herbs could protect him against the approaching dangers. He appeared in the field of Mars, he tamed the fury of the oxen, ploughed the plain, and sowed the dragon’s teeth. Immediately an army of men sprang from the field, and ran towards Jason. ”

“ Severus has been so much admired for his military talents, that some have called him the most warlike of the Roman emperors. As a monarch he was cruel, and it has been observed that he never did an act of humanity or forgave a fault. In his diet he was temperate, and he always showed himself an open enemy to pomp and splendour. He loved the appellation of a man of letters, and he even composed a history of his own reign, which some have praised for its correctness and veracity. ”

“ Bacchus, was son of Jupiter and Semele the daughter of Cadmus. After she had enjoyed the company of Jupiter, Semele was deceived, and perished by the artifice of Juno. This goddess, always jealous of her husband’s amours, assumed the shape of Beroe, Semele’s nurse, and persuaded Semele that the lover whom she entertained was not Jupiter, but a false lover, and that to prove his divinity she ought to beg of him, if he really were Jupiter, to come to her bed with the same majesty as when he courted the embraces of Juno. ”

“ Such a monster of tyranny at last provoked the people of Rome. The Gordians were proclaimed emperors, but their innocence and pacific virtues were unable to resist the fury of Maximinus. After their fall, the Roman senate invested 20 men of their number with the imperial dignity and entrusted into their hands the care of the republic. These measures so highly irritated Maximinus, that at the first intelligence, he howled like a wild beast, and almost destroyed himself by knocking his head against the walls of his palace. When his fury was abated he marched to Rome, resolved on slaughter. ”

“ When raised to the throne, he thought himself bound to be the father of his people, the guardian of virtue, and the patron of liberty; and Titus is, perhaps, the only monarch who, when invested with uncontrollable power, bade adieu to those vices, those luxuries and indulgencies, which as a private man he never ceased to gratify. He was moderate in his entertainments, and though he often refused the donations which were due to sovereignty, no emperor was ever more generous and magnificent than Titus. ”

“ If the fickleness of his countrymen had known how to retain among them the talents of a man who distinguished himself, and was admired wherever he went, they might have risen to greater splendour, and to the sovereignty of Greece. His character has been cleared from the aspersions of malevolence, by the writings of Thucydides, Timæus, and Theopompus; and he is known to us as a hero, who, to the principles of the debauchee, added the intelligence and sagacity of the statesman, the cool intrepidity of the general, and the humanity of the philosopher. ”

“ The head and right hand of the orator were carried to Rome, and hung up in the Roman forum; and so inveterate was Antony’s hatred against the unfortunate man, that even Fulvia, the triumvir’s wife, wreaked her vengeance upon his head, and drew the tongue out of the mouth, and bored it through repeatedly with a gold bodkin, verifying in this act of inhumanity what Cicero had once observed, that no animal is more revengeful than a woman. Cicero has acquired more real fame by his literary compositions than by his spirited exertions as a Roman senator. ”

“ This firmness silenced the murmurs of the assembly, and some time after Scipio retired from the clamours of Rome to Caieta, where, with his friend Lælius, he passed the rest of his time in innocent pleasure and amusement, in diversions which had pleased them when children; and the two greatest men that ruled the state, were often seen on the sea-shore picking up light pebbles, and throwing them on the smooth surface of the waters. Though fond of retirement and literary ease, yet Scipio often interested himself in the affairs of the state. ”

“ One of her arms appears raised, as in the attitude of an orator haranguing in a public assembly, and with the other she holds a thunderbolt, and fetters made with flowers, to signify the powers of reasoning and the attractions of eloquence. A caduceus, as a symbol of persuasion, appears at her feet, with the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, the two most celebrated among the ancients, who understood how to command the attention of their audience, and to rouse and animate their various passions.――A Roman courtesan. ”

“ Sometimes, like a conqueror, he marches triumphantly, with a helmet on his head, a spear on his shoulder, and a buckler on his arm, intimating that even Mars himself owns the superiority of love. His power was generally known by his riding on the back of a lion, or on a dolphin, or breaking to pieces the thunderbolts of Jupiter. ”

“ As a writer he is peculiarly distinguished. He had composed a history of Rome, but nothing remains of it except a few fragments, and his only compositions extant are his history of Catiline’s conspiracy, and of the wars of Jugurtha king of Numidia. In these celebrated works the author is greatly commended for his elegance, the vigour and animation of his sentences; he everywhere displays a wonderful knowledge of the human heart, and paints with a masterly hand the causes that gave rise to the great events which he relates. ”

“ Cæsar has been blamed for his debaucheries and expenses; and the first year he had a public office, his debts were rated at 830 talents, which his friends discharged: yet, in his public character, he must be reckoned one of the few heroes that rarely make their appearance among mankind. His qualities were such that in every battle he could not but be conqueror, and in every republic, master; and to his sense of his superiority over the rest of the world, or to his ambition, we are to attribute his saying, that he wished rather to be first in a little village, than second at Rome. ”

“ The death of so formidable a rival was the cause of great rejoicing in Rome; he had always been a professed enemy to the Roman name, and ever endeavoured to destroy its power. If he shone in the field, he also distinguished himself by his studies. He was taught Greek by Sosilus, a Lacedæmonian, and he even wrote some books in that language on different subjects. It is remarkable that the life of Annibal, whom the Romans wished so many times to destroy by perfidy, was never attempted by any of his soldiers or countrymen. ”

“ His great intrepidity more than once endangered his life; he always fought as if sure of victory, and the terror of his name was often more powerfully effectual than his arms. He was always forward in every engagement, and bore the labours of the field as well as the meanest of his soldiers. During his conquests in Asia, he founded many cities, which he called Alexandria, after his own name. When he had conquered Darius, he ordered himself to be worshipped as a god; and Callisthenes, who refused to do it, was shamefully put to death. ”

“ So singular and so venerable a character was admired by the most enlightened of the Athenians. Socrates was attended by a number of illustrious pupils, whom he instructed by his exemplary life, as well as by his doctrines. He had no particular place where to deliver his lectures, but as the good of his countrymen, and the reformation of their corrupted morals, and not the aggregation of riches, was the object of his study, he was present everywhere, and drew the attention of his auditors either in the groves of Academus, the Lyceum, or on the banks of the Ilyssus. ”