fortune. But it cannot be! No, my countrymen! it cannot be you have acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the liberty and the safety of all Greece. No! by those generous souls of ancient times, who were exposed at Marathon! By those who stood arrayed at Platea! By those who encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis! who fought at Artemisium! No! by all those illustrious sons of Athens, whose remains lie deposited in the public monuments.

10.

FROM CICERO'S ORATION AGAINST VERRES.

I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that any thing false, that even any thing aggravated is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privileges of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient reason for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment, then, ought to be inflicted on a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citizenship and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against a cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape? The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen, I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and will attest my innocence." The bloodthirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defense, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; whilst the only words he uttered amidst his cruel sufferings were, "I am a Roman citizen!" With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that while he was asserting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution; for his execution upon the cross!

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O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! Q sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred, now trampled upon! But what then! is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron, and at last put to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster, who, in confidence of his riches, strikes at the root of liberty and sets mankind at defiance?

11. T. QUINCTIUS TO THE ROMANS.

Though I am not conscious, O Romans, of any crime by me committed, it is yet with the utmost shame and confusion, that I appear in your assembly. You have seen it-posterity will know it!-in the fourth consulship of Titus Quinctius, the Equi and Volsci (scarce a match for the Hernici alone) came in arms, to the very gates of Rome, and went away unchastised! The course of our manners, indeed, and the state of our affairs, have long been such, that I had no reason to presage much good; but, could I have imagined that so great an ignominy would have befallen me this year, I would, by banishment or death, (if all other means had failed,) have avoided the station I am now in. What! might Rome then have been taken, if those men who were at our gates had not wanted courage for the attempt?-Rome taken whilst I was consul ?-Of honors I had sufficient of life enough-more than enough-I should have died in my third consulate.

But who are they that our dastardly enemies thus despise?— the consuls, or you, Romans? or punish us yet more severely. If you are to blame-may If we are in fault, depose us neither gods nor men punish your faults! only may you repent! -No, Romans, the confidence of our enemies is not owing to their courage, or to their belief of your cowardice: they have been too often vanquished, not to know both themselves and you. Discord, discord is the ruin of this city! The eternal disputes between the senate and the people are the sole cause of our misfortunes. While we set no bounds to our dominion, nor you to your liberty; while you impatiently endure patrician

magistrates, and we plebeian: our enemies take heart, grow elated and presumptuous. In the name of the immortal gods, what is it, Romans, you would have? You desired tribunes; for the sake of peace, we granted them. You were eager to have decemvirs; we consented to their creation. You grew weary of these decemvirs; we obliged them to abdicate. Your hatred pursued them when reduced to private men; and we suffered you to put to death, or banish, patricians of the first rank in the republic. You insisted upon the restoration of the tribuneship; we yielded; we quietly saw consuls of your own faction elected. You have the protection of your tribunes, and the privilege of appeal; the patricians are subjected to the decrees of the commons. Under pretence of equal and impartial laws, you have invaded our rights; and we have suffered it, and we still suffer it. When shall we see an end of discord? When shall we have one interest, and one common country? Victorious and triumphant, you show less temper than we under defeat. When you are to contend with us, you can seize the Aventine hill, you can possess yourselves of the Mons Sacer.

.12. CHRYSOSTOM, ON THE DECEITFULNESS OF WORLDLY

GRANDEUR.

Where is now that splendor of the most exalted dignities? Where are those marks of honor and distinction? What has become of that pomp of feasting and rejoicings? What is the issue of those frequent acclamations, and extravagantly flattering encomiums, lavished by a whole people assembled in the circus to see the public shows? A single blast of wind has stripped that proud tree of all its leaves; and, after shaking its very roots, has forced it in an instant out of the earth. Where are those false friends, those vile flatterers, those parasites so assiduous in making their court, and in discovering a servile attachment by their words and actions? All this is gone and fled away, like a dream, like a flower, like a shadow.

Had I not just reason to set before Eutropius the inconstancy of riches? He now has found, by his own experience, that, like fugitive slaves, they have abandoned him, and are become, in some measure, traitors and murderers, since they are the principal cause of his fall. I often repeated to him that he ought to have a greater regard to my admonitions, how grating soever they might appear, than to the insipid praises which flatterers were perpetually lavishing on him, because, "faithful

are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

Had I not just reason to address him in this manner? What has become of the crowd of courtiers? They have turned their backs; they have renounced his friendship; and are solely intent upon their own interest and security, even at the expense of his. We submitted to his violence, in the meridian of his fortune, and, now he is fallen, we support him to the utmost of our power. The church, against which he has warred, opens its bosom to receive him; and the theatres, the eternal object of his favor, which had so often drawn down his indignation upon us, have abandoned and betrayed him.

I do not speak this to insult the misfortunes of him who is fallen, nor to open and make wounds smart that are still bleeding; but in order to support those who are standing, and teach them to avoid the like evils. And the only way to avoid these, is, to be fully persuaded of the frailty and vanity of worldly grandeurs. To call them a flower, a blade of grass, a smoke, a dream, is not saying enough, since they are even below nothing. Of this we have a very sensible proof before our eyes.

What man ever rose to such a height of grandeur? Was he not immensely rich? Did he not possess every dignity? Did not the whole empire stand in fear of him? And now, more deserted, and trembling still more, than the meanest of unhappy wretches, than the vilest slave, than the prisoners confined in dungeons; having perpetually before his eyes, swords unsheathed to destroy himself; torments and executioners! deprived of daylight at noonday, and expecting, every moment, that death which perpetually stares him in the face!

You were witnesses, yesterday, when people came from the palace in order to drag him hence, how he ran to the holy altars, shivering in every limb, pale and dejected, scarce uttering a word but what was interrupted by sobs and groans, and rather dead than alive. I again repeat, I do not declaim in this manner in order to insult his fall, but to move and affect you by the description of his calamities, and to inspire you with tenderness and compassion for one so wretched.

13. FROM CICERO'S FIRST ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

How far wilt thou, Oh Catiline! abuse our patience? How long shall thy madness outbrave our justice? To what extremities art thou resolved to push thy unbridled insolence of

guilt! Canst thou behold the nocturnal arms that watch the palatium, the guards of the city, the consternation of the citi zens; all the wise and worthy clustering into consultation, this impregnable situation of the seat of the senate, and the reproachful looks of the fathers of Rome? Canst thou, I say, behold all this, and yet remain undaunted and unbashed? Art thou sensible that thy measures are detected?

Art thou sensible that this senate, now thoroughly informed comprehend the full extent of thy guilt? Point me out the senator ignorant of thy practices, during the last and the preceding night; of the place where you met, the company you summoned, and the crime you concerted. The senate is conscious, the consul is witness to this: yet mean and degenerate! the traitor lives! Lives! did I say? He mixes with the senate; he shares in our counsels; with a steady eye he surveys us; he anticipates his guilt; he enjoys his murderous thoughts, and coolly marks us out for bloodshed. Yet we, boldly passive in our country's cause, think we act like Roman's if we can escape his frantic rage.

Long since, Oh Catiline! ought the consul to have doomed thy life a forfeit to thy country; and to have directed upon thy own head the mischief thou hast long been meditating for ours. Could the noble Scipio, when sovereign pontiff, as a private Roman, kill Tiberius Gracchus for a slight encroachment upon the rights of his country; and shall we, her consuls, with persevering patience endure Catiline, whose ambition is to desolate a devoted world with fire and sword?

There was there was a time, when such was the spirit of Rome, that the resentment of her magnanimous sons more sternly crushed the Roman traitor, than the most inveterate enemy. Strong and weighty, Oh Catiline! is the decree of the senate we can now produce against you; neither wisdom is wanting in this state, nor authority in this assembly; but we, the consuls, we are defective in our duty.

14. FROM CICERO'S FOURTH ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

I perceive, conscript fathers, that every look, that every eye is fixed upon me. I see you solicitous not only for your own, and your country's danger, but was that repelled, for mine also. This proof of your affection is grateful to me in sorrow, and pleasing in distress; but, by the immortal gods! I conjure you to lay it all aside; and without any regard to my safety, think