xiv. 14), who ascribes the law to Romulus, and who mentions two

cases in which women were said to have been put to death for this offence, and a third in which the offender was deprived of her dowry. Cato said that the ancient Romans were accustomed to kiss their wives for the purpose of discovering whether they had been drinking wine. The Bona Dea, it is said, was originally a woman named Fatua, who was famous for her modesty and fidelity to her husband, but who, unfortunately, having once found a cask of wine in the house, got drunk, and was in consequence scourged to death by her husband. He afterwards repented of his act, and paid divine honours to her memory, and as a memorial of her death, a cask of wine was always placed upon the altar during the rites. (Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ i. 22.) The Milesians, also, and the inhabitants of Marseilles are said to have had laws forbidding women to drink wine (Ælian, _Hist. Var._ ii. 38). Tertullian describes the prohibition of wine among the Roman women as in his time obsolete, and a taste for it was one of the great trials of St. Monica (_Aug. Conf._ x. 8).

114 “La loi fondamentale de la morale agit sur toutes les nations bien connues. Il y a mille différences dans les interprétations de cette loi en mille circonstances; mais le fond subsiste toujours le même, et ce fond est l’idée du juste et de l’injuste.”—Voltaire, _Le Philosophe ignorant_.

115 The feeling in its favour being often intensified by filial affection. “What is the most beautiful thing on the earth?” said Osiris to Horus. “To avenge a parent’s wrongs,” was the reply.—Plutarch _De Iside et Osiride_.

116 Hence the Justinian code and also St. Augustine (_De Civ. Dei_, xix. 15) derived servus from “servare,” to preserve, because the victor preserved his prisoners alive.

117 “Les habitants du Congo tuent les malades qu’ils imaginent ne pouvoir en revenir; _c’est, disentils, pour leur épargner les douleurs de l’agonie_. Dans l’île Formose, lorsqu’un homme est dangereusement malade, on lui passe un nœud coulant au col et on l’étrangle, _pour l’arracher à la douleur_.”—Helvétius, _De l’Esprit_, ii. 13. A similar explanation may be often found for customs which are quoted to prove that the nations where they existed had no sense of chastity. “C’est pareillement sous la sauvegarde des lois que les Siamoises, la gorge et les cuisses à moitié découvertes, portées dans les rues sur les palanquins, s’y présentent dans des attitudes très-lascives. Cette loi fut établie par une de leurs reines nommée Tirada, qui, _pour dégoûter les hommes d’un amour plus déshonnête_, crut devoir employer toute la puissance de la beauté.”—_De l’Esprit_, ii. 14.

118 “The contest between the morality which appeals to an external standard, and that which grounds itself on internal conviction, is the contest of progressive morality against stationary, of reason and argument against the deification of mere opinion and habit.” (Mill’s _Dissertations_, vol. ii. p. 472); a passage with a true Bentham ring. See, too, vol. i. p. 158. There is, however, a schism on this point in the utilitarian camp. The views which Mr. Buckle has expressed in his most eloquent chapter on the comparative influence of intellectual and moral agencies in civilisation diverge widely from those of Mr. Mill.

119 “Est enim sensualitas quædam vis animæ inferior.... Ratio vero vis animæ est superior.”—Peter Lombard, _Sent._ ii. 24.

120 Helvétius, _De l’Esprit_, discours iv. See too, Dr. Draper’s extremely remarkable _History of Intellectual Development in Europe_ (New York, 1864), pp. 48, 53.

121 Plutarch, _De Cohibenda Ira._

122 Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ i. 22. The mysteries of the Bona Dea became, however, after a time, the occasion of great disorders. See Juvenal, Sat. vi. M. Magnin has examined the nature of these rites (_Origines du Théâtre_, pp. 257-259).

123 The history of the vestals, which forms one of the most curious pages in the moral history of Rome, has been fully treated by the Abbé Nadal, in an extremely interesting and well-written memoir, read before the Académie des Belles-lettres, and republished in 1725. It was believed that the prayer of a vestal could arrest a fugitive slave in his flight, provided he had not got past the city walls. Pliny mentions this belief as general in his time. The records of the order contained many miracles wrought at different times to save the vestals or to vindicate their questioned purity, and also one miracle which is very remarkable as furnishing a precise parallel to that of the Jew who was struck dead for touching the ark to prevent its falling.

124 As for example the Sibyls and Cassandra. The same prophetic power was attributed in India to virgins.—Clem. Alexandrin. _Strom._ iii. 7.

125 This custom continued to the worst period of the empire, though it was shamefully and characteristically evaded. After the fall of Sejanus the senate had no compunction in putting his innocent daughter to death, but their religious feelings were shocked at the idea of a virgin falling beneath the axe. So by way of improving matters “filia constuprata est prius a carnifice, quasi impium esset virginem in carcere perire.”—Dion Cassius, lviii. 11. See too, Tacitus, _Annal._ v. 9. If a vestal met a prisoner going to execution the prisoner was spared, provided the vestal declared that the encounter was accidental. On the reverence the ancients paid to virgins, see Justus Lipsius, _De Vesta et Vestalibus_.

126 See his picture of the first night of marriage:—

“Tacitè subit ille supremus Virginitatis amor, primæque modestia culpæ Confundit vultus. Tunc ora rigantur honestis Imbribus.”

_Thebaidos_, lib. ii. 232-34.

127 Bees (which Virgil said had in them something of the divine nature) were supposed by the ancients to be the special emblems or models of chastity. It was a common belief that the bee mother begot her young without losing her virginity. Thus in a fragment ascribed to Petronius we read,

“Sic sine concubitu textis apis excita ceris Fervet, et audaci milite castra replet.”

Petron. _De Varia Animalium Generatione._

So too Virgil:—

“Quod neque concubitu indulgent nec corpora segnes In Venerem solvunt aut fœtus nixibus edunt.”—_Georg._ iv. 198-99.

Plutarch says that an unchaste person cannot approach bees, for they immediately attack him and cover him with stings. Fire was also regarded as a type of virginity. Thus Ovid, speaking of the vestals, says:—

“Nataque de fiamma corpora nulla vides: Jure igitur virgo est, quæ semina nulla remittit Nec capit, et comites virginitatis amat.”

“The Egyptians believed that there are no males among vultures, and they accordingly made that bird an emblem of nature.”—Ammianus Marcellinus, xvii. 4.

128 “La divinité étant considérée comme renfermant en elle toutes les qualités, toutes les forces intellectuelles et morales de l’homme, chacune de ces forces ou de ces qualités, conçue séparément, s’offrait comme un Être divin.... De-là aussi les contradictions les plus choquantes dans les notions que les anciens avaient des attributs divins.”—Maury, _Hist. des Religions de la Grèce antique_, tome i. pp. 578-579.

129 “The Church holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse.”—Newman’s _Anglican Difficulties_, p. 190.

130 There is a remarkable dissertation on this subject, called “The Limitations of Morality,” in a very ingenious and suggestive little work of the Benthamite school, called _Essays by a Barrister_ (reprinted from the _Saturday Review_).

131 The following passage, though rather vague and rhetorical, is not unimpressive: “Oui, dit Jacobi, je mentirais comme Desdemona mourante, je tromperais comme Oreste quand il veut mourir à la place de Pylade, j’assassinerais comme Timoléon, je serais parjure comme Épaminondas et Jean de Witt, je me déterminerais au suicide comme Caton, je serais sacrilége comme David; car j’ai la certitude en moi-même qu’en pardonnant à ces fautes suivant la lettre l’homme exerce le droit souverain que la majesté de son être lui confère; il appose le sceau de sa divine nature sur la grâce qu’il accorde.”—Barchou de Penhoen, _Hist. de la Philos. allemande_, tome i. p. 295.

132 This equivocation seems to me to lie at the root of the famous dispute whether man is by nature a social being, or whether, as Hobbes averred, the state of nature is a state of war. Few persons who have observed the recent light thrown on the subject will question that the primitive condition of man was that of savage life, and fewer still will question that savage life is a state of war. On the other hand, it is, I think, equally certain that man necessarily becomes a social being in exact proportion to the development of the capacities of his nature.

133 One of the best living authorities on this question writes: “The asserted existence of savages so low as to have no moral standard is too groundless to be discussed. Every human tribe has its general views as to what conduct is right and what wrong, and each generation hands the standard on to the next. Even in the details of their moral standards, wide as their differences are, there is yet wider agreement throughout the human race.”—Tylor on Primitive Society, _Contemporary Review_, April 1873, p. 702.

134 The distinction between innate faculties evolved by experience and innate ideas independent of experience, and the analogy between the expansion of the former and that of the bud into the flower has been very happily treated by Reid. (_On the Active Powers_, essay iii. chap. viii. p. 4.) Professor Sedgwick, criticising Locke’s notion of the soul being originally like a sheet of white paper, beautifully says: “Naked man comes from his mother’s womb, endowed with limbs and senses indeed well fitted to the material world, yet powerless from want of use; and as for knowledge, his soul is one unvaried blank; yet has this blank been already touched by a celestial hand, and when plunged in the colours which surround it, it takes not its tinge from accident but design, and comes forth covered with a glorious pattern.” (_On the Studies of the University_, p. 54.) Leibnitz says: “L’esprit n’est point une table rase. Il est tout plein de caractères que la sensation ne peut que découvrir et mettre en lumière au lieu de les y imprimer. Je me suis servi de la comparaison d’une pierre de marbre qui a des veines plutôt que d’une pierre de marbre tout unie.... S’il y avait dans la pierre des veines qui marquassent la figure d’Hercule préférablement à d’autres figures, ... Hercule y serait comme inné en quelque façon, quoiqu’il fallût du travail pour découvrir ces veines.”—_Critique de l’Essai sur l’Entendement._

135 The argument against the intuitive moralists derived from savage life was employed at some length by Locke. Paley then adopted it, taking a history of base ingratitude related by Valerius Maximus, and asking whether a savage would view it with disapprobation. (_Moral Phil._ book i. ch. 5.) Dugald Stewart (_Active and Moral Powers_, vol. i. pp. 230-231) and other writers have very fully answered this, but the same objection has been revived in another form by Mr. Austin, who supposes (_Lectures on Jurisprudence_, vol. i. pp. 82-83) a savage who first meets a hunter carrying a dead deer, kills the hunter and steals the deer, and is afterwards himself assailed by another hunter whom he kills. Mr. Austin asks whether the savage would perceive a moral difference between these two acts of homicide? Certainly not. In this early stage of development, the savage recognises a duty of justice and humanity to the members of his tribe, but to no one beyond this circle. He is in a “state of war” with the foreign hunter. He has a right to kill the hunter and the hunter an equal right to kill him.

136 Everyone who is acquainted with metaphysics knows that there has been an almost endless controversy about Locke’s meaning on this point. The fact seems to be that Locke, like most great originators of thought, and indeed more than most, often failed to perceive the ultimate consequences of his principles, and partly through some confusion of thought, and partly through unhappiness of expression, has left passages involving the conclusions of both schools. As a matter of history the sensual school of Condillac grew professedly out of his philosophy. In defence of the legitimacy of the process by which these writers evolved their conclusions from the premisses of Locke, the reader may consult the very able lectures of M. Cousin on Locke. The other side has been treated, among others, by Dugald Stewart in his _Dissertation_, by Professor Webb in his _Intellectualism of Locke_, and by Mr. Rogers in an essay reprinted from the _Edinburgh Review_.

137 I make this qualification, because I believe that the denial of a moral nature in man capable of perceiving the distinction between duty and interest and the rightful supremacy of the former, is both philosophically and actually subversive of natural theology.

138 See the forcible passage in the life of Epicurus by Diogenes Laërtius. So Mackintosh: “It is remarkable that, while, of the three professors who sat in the Porch from Zeno to Posidonius, every one either softened or exaggerated the doctrines of his predecessor, and while the beautiful and reverend philosophy of Plato had in his own Academy degenerated into a scepticism which did not spare morality itself, the system of Epicurus remained without change; his disciples continued for ages to show personal honour to his memory in a manner which may seem unaccountable among those who were taught to measure propriety by a calculation of palpable and outward usefulness.”—_Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy_, p. 85, ed. 1836. See, too, Tennemann (_Manuel de la Philosophie_, ed. Cousin, tome i. p. 211).

139 Thus e.g. the magnificent chapters of Helvétius on the moral effects of despotism, form one of the best modern contributions to political ethics. We have a curious illustration of the emphasis with which this school dwells on the moral importance of institutions in a memoir of M. De Tracy, _On the best Plan of National Education_, which appeared first towards the close of the French Revolution, and was reprinted during the Restoration. The author, who was one of the most distinguished of the disciples of Condillac, argued that the most efficient of all ways of educating a people is, the establishment of a good system of police, for the constant association of the ideas of crime and punishment in the minds of the masses is the one effectual method of creating moral habits, which will continue to act when the fear of punishment is removed.

140 An important intellectual revolution is at present taking place in England. The ascendency in literary and philosophical questions which belonged to the writers of books is manifestly passing in a very great degree to weekly and even daily papers, which have long been supreme in politics, and have begun within the last ten years systematically to treat ethical and philosophical questions. From their immense circulation, their incontestable ability and the power they possess of continually reiterating their distinctive doctrines, from the impatience, too, of long and elaborate writings, which newspapers generate in the public, it has come to pass that these periodicals exercise probably a greater influence than any other productions of the day, in forming the ways of thinking of ordinary educated Englishmen. The many consequences, good and evil, of this change it will be the duty of future literary historians to trace, but there is one which is, I think, much felt in the sphere of ethics. An important effect of these journals has been to evoke a large amount of literary talent in the lawyer class. Men whose professional duties would render it impossible for them to write long books, are quite capable of treating philosophical subjects in the form of short essays, and have in fact become conspicuous in these periodicals. There has seldom, I think, before, been a time when lawyers occupied such an important literary position as at present, or when legal ways of thinking had so great an influence over English philosophy; and this fact has been eminently favourable to the progress of utilitarianism.

141 There are some good remarks on this point in the very striking chapter on the present condition of Christianity in Wilberforce’s _Practical View_.

142 See Reid’s _Essays on the Active Powers_, iii. i.

143 I say usually proportioned, because it is, I believe, possible for men to realise intensely suffering, and to derive pleasure from that very fact. This is especially the case with vindictive cruelty, but it is not, I think, altogether confined to that sphere. This question we shall have occasion to examine when discussing the gladiatorial shows. Most cruelty, however, springs from callousness, which is simply dulness of imagination.

144 The principal exception being where slavery, coexisting with advanced civilisation, retards or prevents the growth of industrial habits.

145 See Mr. Laing’s _Travels in Sweden_. A similar cause is said to have had a similar effect in Bavaria.

146 This has been, I think, especially the case with the Austrians.

147 See some remarkable instances of this in Cabanis, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’Homme_.

148 Diog. Laërt. _Pythag._

149 Plutarch, _De Profectibus in Virt._

150 Diog. Laërt. _Stilpo._

151 Clem. Alexand. _Strom._ vii.

152 Cicero, _De Nat. Deorum_, i. 1.

153 Lactant. _Inst. Div._ i. 5.

154 “Pythagoras ita definivit quid esset Deus: Animus qui per universas mundi partes, omnemque naturam commeans atque diffusus, ex quo omnia quæ nascuntur animalia vitam capiunt.”—Ibid. Lactantius in this chapter has collected several other philosophic definitions of the Divinity. See too Plutarch, _De Placit. Philos._ Tertullian explains the stoical theory by an ingenious illustration: “Stoici enim volunt Deum sic per materiem decucurrisse quomodo mel per favos.”—Tert. _De Anima_.

155 As Cicero says: “Epicurus re tollit, oratione relinquit, deos.”—_De Nat. Deor._ i. 44.

156 Sometimes, however, they restricted its operation to the great events of life. As an interlocutor in Cicero says: “Magna dii curant, parva negligunt.”—Cic. _De Natur. Deor._ ii. 66. Justin Martyr notices (_Trypho_, i.) that some philosophers maintained that God cared for the universal or species, but not for the individual. Seneca maintains that the Divinity has determined all things by an inexorable law of destiny, which He has decreed, but which He Himself obeys. (_De Provident._ v.)

157 See on this theory Cicero, _De Natur. Deor._ i. 42; Lactantius, _Inst. Div._ i. 11.

158 Diog. Laërt. _Vit. Zeno._ St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, iv. 11. Maximus of Tyre, _Dissert._ x. (in some editions xxix.) § 8. Seneca, _De Beneficiis_, iv. 7-8. Cic. _De Natur. Deor._ i. 15. Cicero has devoted the first two books of this work to the stoical theology. A full review of the allegorical and mythical interpretations of paganism is given by Eusebius, _Evang. Præpar._ lib. iii.

159 St. Aug. _De Civ._ vii. 5.

160 Plin. _Hist. Nat_. ii. 1.

161 “Nec vero Deus ipse qui intelligitur a nobis, alio modo intelligi potest nisi mens soluta quædam et libera, segregata ab omni concretione mortali, omnia sentiens et movens, ipsaque prædita motu sempiterno.”—_Tusc. Quæst_. i. 27.

162 Senec. _Quæst. Nat._ ii. 45.

163 “Estne Dei sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aër. Et cœlum et virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultra? Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quodcumque moveris.”

_Pharsal._ ix. 578-80.

164 “Quæve anus tam excors inveniri potest, quæ illa, quæ quondam credebantur apud inferos portenta, extimescat?”—Cic. _De Nat. Deor._ ii. 2.

“Esse aliques Manes et subterranea regna ... Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.”

Juv. _Sat._ ii. 149, 152.

See on this subject a good review by the Abbé Freppel, _Les Pères Apostoliques_, leçon viii.

165 Cicero, _De Leg._ i. 14; Macrobius, _In. Som. Scip._ i. 10.

166 See his works _De Divinatione_ and _De Nat. Deorum_, which form a curious contrast to the religious conservatism of the _De Legibus_, which was written chiefly from a political point of view.

167 Eusebius, _Præp. Evang._ lib. iv.

168 The oracles first gave their answers in verse, but their bad poetry was ridiculed, and they gradually sank to prose, and at last ceased. Plutarch defended the inspiration of the bad poetry on the ground that the inspiring spirit availed itself of the natural faculties of the priestess for the expression of its infallible truths—a theory which is still much in vogue among Biblical critics, and is, I believe, called dynamical inspiration. See Fontenelle, _Hist. des Oracles_ (1st ed.), pp. 292-293.

169 See the famous description of Cato refusing to consult the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in Lucan, _Phars._ ix.; and also Arrian, ii. 7. Seneca beautifully says, “Vis deos propitiare? bonus esto. Satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est.”—_Ep._ xcv.

170 Cicero, _De Divin_. ii. 24.

171 Aulus Gellius, _Noct. Att._ xv. 22.

172 See a long string of witticisms collected by Legendre, _Traité de l’Opinion, ou Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de l’Esprit humain_ (Venise, 1735), tome i. pp. 386-387.

173 See Cicero, _De Natura Deorum_; Seneca, _De Brev. Vit._ c. xvi.; Plin. _Hist. Nat._ ii. 5; Plutarch, _De Superstitione_.

174 “Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, Maluit esse Deum.”

_Sat._ I. viii. 1-3.

175 There is a very curious discussion on this subject, reported to have taken place between Apollonius of Tyana and an Egyptian priest. The former defended the Greek fashion of worshipping the Divinity under the form of the human image, sculptured by Phidias and Praxiteles, this being the noblest form we can conceive, and therefore the least inadequate to the Divine perfections. The latter defended the Egyptian custom of worshipping animals, because, as he said, it is blasphemous to attempt to conceive an image of the Deity, and the Egyptians therefore concentrate the imagination of the worshipper on objects that are plainly merely allegorical or symbolical, and do not pretend to offer any such image (_Philos. Apoll. of Tyana_, vi. 19). Pliny shortly says, “Effigiem Dei formamque quærere imbecillitatis humanæ reor” (_Hist. Nat._ ii. 5). See too Max. Tyrius, Diss. xxxviii. There was a legend that Numa forbade all idols, and that for 200 years they were unknown in Rome (Plutarch, _Life of Numa_). Dion Chrysostom said that the Gods need no statues or sacrifices, but that by these means we attest our devotion to them (_Orat._ xxxi.). On the vanity of rich idols, see Plutarch, _De Superstitione_; Seneca, _Ep._ xxxi.

176 1 Lact. _Inst. Div._ vi. 25.

177 Dion. Halic. ii.; Polyb. vi. 56.

178 St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, iv. 31.

179 Epictetus, _Enchir._ xxxix.

180 Cicero, speaking of the worship of deified men, says, “indicat omnium quidem animos immortales esse, sed fortium bonorumque divinos.”—_De Leg._ ii. 11. The Roman worship of the dead, which was the centre of the domestic religion, has been recently investigated with much ability by M. Coulanges (_La Cité antique_).

181 On the minute supervision exercised by the censors on all the details of domestic life, see Aul. Gell. _Noct._ ii. 24; iv. 12, 20.

182 Livy, xxxix. 6.

183 Vell. Paterculus, i. 11-13; Eutropius, iv. 6. Sallust ascribed the decadence of Rome to the destruction of its rival, Carthage.

184 Plutarch, _De Adulatore et Amico_.

185 There is much curious information about the growth of Roman luxury in Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ lib. xxxiv.). The movement of decomposition has been lately fully traced by Mommsen (_Hist. of Rome_); Döllinger (_Jew and Gentile_); Denis (_ Hist. des Idées morales dans l’Antiquité_); Pressensé (_Hist. des trois premiers Siècles_); in the histories of Champagny, and in the beautiful closing chapters of the _Apôtres_ of Renan.

186 Sueton. _Aug._ xvi.

187 Ibid. _Calig._ v.

188 Persius, _Sat._ ii.; Horace, _Ep._ i. 16, vv. 57-60.

189 See, on the identification of the Greek and Egyptian myths, Plutarch’s _De Iside et Osiride_. The Greek and Roman gods were habitually regarded as identical, and Cæsar and Tacitus, in like manner, identified the deities of Gaul and Germany with those of their own country. See Döllinger, _Jew and Gentile_, vol. ii. pp. 160-165.

190 “Ego deûm genus esse semper dixi et dicam cœlitum; Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat hominum genus.”

Cicero adds: “magno plausu loquitur assentiente populo.”—_De Divin._ ii. 50.

191 Plutarch, _De Superstitione_.

192 St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, vi. 6; Tertul. _Apol._ 15; Arnobius, _Adv. Gentes_, iv.

193 “Pars alia et hanc pellit, astroque suo eventus assignat, nascendi legibus; semelque in omnes futuros unquam Deo decretum; in reliquum vero otium datum. Sedere cœpit sententia hæc pariterque et eruditum vulgus et rude in eam cursu vadit. Ecce fulgurum monitus, oraculorum præscita, aruspicum prædicta, atque etiam parva dictu, in auguriis sternumenta et offensiones pedum.”—_Hist. Nat._ ii. 5. Pliny himself expresses great doubt about astrology giving many examples of men with different destinies, who had been born at the same time, and therefore under the same stars (vii. 50). Tacitus expresses complete doubt about the existence of Providence. (_Ann._ vi. 22.) Tiberius is said to have been very indifferent to the gods and to the worship of the temples, being wholly addicted to astrology and convinced that all things were pre-ordained. (_Suet. Tib._ lxix.)

194 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii.

_ 195 De Profectibus in Virt._ It was originally the custom at Roman feasts to sing to a pipe the actions and the virtues of the greatest men. (Cic. _Tusc. Quæst._ iv.)

196 E.g. Epictetus, _Ench._ lii. Seneca is full of similar exhortations.

197 According to Cicero, the first Latin work on philosophy was by the Epicurean Amafanius. (_Tusc. Quæst._ iv.)

198 See on the great perfection of the character of Epicurus his life by Diogenes Laërtius, and on the purity of the philosophy he taught and the degree in which it was distorted and misrepresented by his Roman followers. Seneca _De Vita Beata_, c. xii. xiii. and _Ep._ xxi. Gassendi, in a very interesting little work entitled _Philosophiæ Epicuri Syntagma_, has abundantly proved the possibility of uniting Epicurean principles with a high code of morals. But probably the most beautiful picture of the Epicurean system is the first book of the _De Finibus_, in which Cicero endeavours to paint it as it would have been painted by its adherents. When we remember that the writer of this book was one of the most formidable and unflinching opponents of Epicureanism in all the ancient world, it must be owned that it would be impossible to find a grander example of that noble love of truth, that sublime and scrupulous justice to opponents, which was the pre-eminent glory of ancient philosophers, and which, after the destruction of philosophy, was for many centuries almost unknown in the world. It is impossible to doubt that Epicureanism was logically compatible with a very high degree of virtue. It is, I think, equally impossible to doubt that its practical tendency was towards vice.

199 Mr. Grote gives the following very clear summary of Plato’s ethical theory, which he believes to be original:—“Justice is in the mind a condition analogous to good health and strength in the body. Injustice is a condition analogous to sickness, corruption, impotence in the body.... To possess a healthy body is desirable for its consequences as a means towards other constituents of happiness, but it is still more desirable in itself as an essential element of happiness _per se_, i.e., the negation of sickness, which would of itself make us miserable.... In like manner, the just mind blesses the possessor twice: first and chiefly by bringing to him happiness in itself; next, also, as it leads to ulterior happy results. The unjust mind is a curse to its possessor in itself and apart from results, though it also leads to ulterior results which render it still more a curse to him.”—Grote’s _Plato_, vol. iii. p. 131. According to Plutarch, Aristo of Chio defined virtue as “the health of the soul.” (_De Virtute Morali._)

200 “Beata est ergo vita conveniens naturæ suæ; quæ non aliter contingere potest quam si primum sana mens est et in perpetuâ possessione sanitatis suæ.”—Seneca, _De Vita Beata_, c. iii.

201 The famous paradox that “the sage could be happy even in the bull of Phalaris,” comes from the writings not of Zeno but of Epicurus—though the Stoics adopted and greatly admired it. (Cic. _Tusc._ ii. See Gassendi, _Philos. Epicuri Syntagma_, pars iii. c. 1.)

202 “Sed nescio quomodo dum lego assentior; cum posui librum et mecum ipse de immortalitate animorum cœpi cogitare, assensio omnis illa elabitur.”—Cic. _Tusc._ i.

203 Sallust, _Catilina_, cap. li.

204 See that most impressive passage (_Hist. Nat._ vii. 56). That the sleep of annihilation is the happiest end of man is a favourite thought of Lucretius. Thus:

“Nil igitur mors est, ad nos neque pertinet hilum, Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur.”—iii. 842.

This mode of thought has been recently expressed in Mr. Swinburne’s very beautiful poem on _The Garden of Proserpine_.

205 Diog. Laërtius. The opinion of Chrysippus seems to have prevailed, and Plutarch (_De Placit. Philos._) speaks of it as that of the school. Cicero sarcastically says, “Stoici autem usuram nobis largiuntur, tanquam cornicibus: diu mansuros aiunt animos; semper, negant.”—_Tusc. Disp._ i. 31.

206 It has been very frequently asserted that Antigonus of Socho having taught that virtue should be practised for its own sake, his disciple, Zadok, the founder of the Sadducees, inferred the non-existence of a future world; but the evidence for this whole story is exceedingly unsatisfactory. The reader may find its history in a very remarkable article by Mr. Twisleton on _Sadducees_, in Smith’s _Biblical Dictionary_.

207 On the Stoical opinions about a future life see Martin, _La Vie future_ (Paris, 1858); Courdaveaux _De l’immortalité de l’âme dans le Stoïcisme_ (Paris, 1857); and Alger’s _Critical Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life_ (New York, 1866).

208 His arguments are met by Cicero in the _Tusculans_.

209 See a collection of passages from his discourses collected by M. Courdaveaux, in the introduction to his French translation of that book.

210 Stobæus, _Eclog. Physic._ lib. i. cap. 52.

211 In his consolations to Marcia, he seems to incline to a belief in the immortality, or at least the future existence, of the soul. In many other passages, however, he speaks of it as annihilated at death.

212 “Les Stoïciens ne faisaient aucunement dépendre la morale de la perspective des peines ou de la rémunération dans une vie future.... La croyance à l’immortalité de l’âme n’appartenait donc, selon leur manière de voir, qu’à la physique, c’est-à-dire à la psychologie.”—Degerando, _Hist. de la Philos._ tome iii. p. 56.

213 “Panætius igitur, qui sine controversia de officiis accuratissime disputavit, quemque nos, correctione quadam adhibita, potissimum secuti sumus.”—_De Offic._ iii. 2.

214 Marcus Aurelius thanks Providence, as for one of the great blessings of his life, that he had been made acquainted with the writings of Epictetus. The story is well known how the old philosopher warned his master, who was beating him, that he would soon break his leg, and when the leg was broken, calmly remarked, “I told you you would do so.” Celsus quoted this in opposition to the Christians, asking, “Did your leader under suffering ever say anything so noble?” Origen finely replied, “He did what was still nobler—He kept silence.” A Christian anchorite (some say St. Nilus, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century) was so struck with the _Enchiridion_ of Epictetus, that he adapted it to Christian use. The conversations of Epictetus, as reported by Arrian, are said to have been the favourite reading of Toussaint l’Ouverture.

215 Tacitus had used this expression before Milton: “Quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur.”—_Hist._ iv. 6.

216 Two remarkable instances have come down to us of eminent writers begging historians to adorn and even exaggerate their acts. See the very curious letters of Cicero to the historian Lucceius (_Ep. ad Divers._ v. 12); and of the younger Pliny to Tacitus (_Ep._ vii. 33). Cicero has himself confessed that he was too fond of glory.

217 “Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem; Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem.”—Ennius.

218 See the beautiful description of Cato’s tranquillity under insults. Seneca, _De Ira_, ii. 33; _De Const. Sap._ 1, 2.

_ 219 De Officiis_, iii. 9.

_ 220 Tusc._ ii. 26.

221 Seneca, _De Vit. Beat._ c. xx.

222 Seneca, _Ep._ cxiii.

223 Seneca, _Ep._ lxxxi.

224 Persius, _Sat._ i. 45-47.

225 Epictetus, _Ench._ xxiii.

226 Seneca, _De Ira_, iii. 41.

227 Seneca, _Cons. ad Helv._ xiii.

228 Marc. Aur. vii. 67.

229 Marc. Aur. iv. 20.

230 Pliny, _Ep._ i. 22.

231 “Non dux, sed comes voluptas.”—_De Vit. Beat._ c. viii.

232 “Voluptas non est merces nec causa virtutis sed accessio; nec quia delectat placet sed quia placet delectat.”—Ibid., c. ix.

233 Peregrinus apud Aul. Gellius, xii. 11. Peregrinus was a Cynic, but his doctrine on this point was identical with that of the Stoics.

234 Marc. Aurel. ix. 42.

235 Marc. Aurel. v. 6.

236 Seneca, however, in one of his letters (_Ep._ lxxv.), subtilises a good deal on this point. He draws a distinction between affections and maladies. The first, he says, are irrational, and therefore reprehensible movements of the soul, which, if repeated and unrepressed, tend to form an irrational and evil habit, and to the last he in this letter restricts the term disease. He illustrates this distinction by observing that colds and any other slight ailments, if unchecked and neglected, may produce an organic disease. The wise man, he says, is wholly free from moral disease, but no man can completely emancipate himself from affections, though he should make this his constant object.

_ 237 De Clem._ ii. 6, 7.

238 “Peccantes vero quid habet cur oderit, cum error illos in hujusmodi delicta compellat?”—Sen. _De Ira_, i. 14. This is a favourite thought of Marcus Aurelius, to which he reverts again and again. See, too, Arrian, i. 18.

239 “Ergo ne homini quidem nocebimus quia peccavit sed ne peccet, nec unquam ad præteritum sed ad futurum pœna referetur.”—Ibid. ii. 31. In the philosophy of Plato, on the other hand, punishment was chiefly expiatory and purificatory. (Lerminier, _Introd. à l’Histoire du Droit_, p. 123.)

240 Seneca, _De Constant. Sap._ v. Compare and contrast this famous sentence of Anaxagoras with that of one of the early Christian hermits. Someone told the hermit that his father was dead. “Cease your blasphemy,” he answered, “my father is immortal.”—Socrates, _Eccl. Hist._ iv 23.

241 Epictetus, _Ench._ 16, 18.

242 The dispute about whether anything but virtue is a good, was, in reality, a somewhat childish quarrel about words; for the Stoics, who indignantly denounced the Peripatetics for maintaining the affirmative, admitted that health, friends, &c., should be sought not as “goods” but as “preferables.” See a long discussion on this matter in Cicero (_De Finib._ lib. iii. iv.). The Stoical doctrine of the equality of all vices was formally repudiated by Marcus Aurelius, who maintained (ii. 10), with Theophrastus, that faults of desire were worse than faults of anger. The other Stoics, while dogmatically asserting the equality of all virtues as well as the equality of all vices, in their particular judgments graduated their praise or blame much in the same way as the rest of the world.

243 See Seneca (_Ep._ lxxxix.). Seneca himself, however, has devoted a work to natural history, but the general tendency of the school was certainly to concentrate all attention upon morals, and all, or nearly all the great naturalists were Epicureans. Cicero puts into the mouth of the Epicurean the sentence, “Omnium autem rerum natura cognita levamur superstitione, liberamur mortis metu, non conturbamur ignoratione rerum” (_De Fin._ i.); and Virgil expressed an eminently Epicurean sentiment in his famous lines:—

“Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”

_Georg._ 490-492.

244 Plutarch, _Cato Major_.

245 Cicero, _Ad Attic._ vi. 2.

246 This contrast is noticed and largely illustrated by M. Montée in his interesting little work _Le Stoïcisme à Rome_, and also by Legendre in his _Traité de l’Opinion, ou Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de l’esprit humain_ (Venise, 1735).

247 “Atque hoc quidem omnes mortales sic habent ... commoditatem prosperitatemque vitæ a diis se habere, virtutem autem nemo unquam acceptam deo retulit. Nimirum recte. Propter virtutem enim jure laudamur et in virtute recte gloriamur. Quod non contingeret si id donum a deo, non a nobis haberemus.”—Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._ iii. 36.

_ 248 Ep._ i. 18.

249 Seneca _Ep._ lxvi.

250 Lucretius, v. It was a Greek proverb, that Apollo begat Æsculapius to heal the body, and Plato to heal the soul. (Legendre, _Traité de l’Opinion_, tome i. p. 197.)

251 “Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano: Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem.... Monstro, quod ipse tibi possis dare.”

Juvenal, _Sat._ x. 356.

Marcus Aurelius recommends prayer, but only that we may be freed from evil desires. (ix. 11.)

252 Seneca, _Ep._ lxvi.

253 Ibid. _Ep._ liii.

_ 254 De Const. Sap._ viii.

_ 255 Ench._ xlviii.

256 Arrian, i. 12.

257 Arrian, ii. 8. The same doctrine is strongly stated in Seneca, _Ep._ xcii.

258 Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._ ii. 66.

_ 259 Ep._ lxxxiii. Somewhat similar sentiments are attributed to Thales and Bion (Diog. Laërt.).

_ 260 Ep._ xli. There are some beautiful sentiments of this kind in Plutarch’s treatise, _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_. It was a saying of Pythagoras, that “we become better as we approach the gods.”

261 Marc. Aur. iii. 5.

262 Marcus Aurelius.

263 Seneca, _Præf. Nat. Quæst._ iii.

264 Marc. Aur. x. 25.

265 Epict. _Ench._ xvii.

266 Epict. _Ench._ xi.

267 Seneca, _De Prov._ i.

268 Ibid. iv.

269 Marc. Aurel. ii. 2, 3.

270 The language in which the Stoics sometimes spoke of the inexorable determination of all things by Providence would appear logically inconsistent with free will. In fact, however, the Stoics asserted the latter doctrine in unequivocal language, and in their practical ethics even exaggerated its power. Aulus Gellius (_Noct. Att._ vi. 2) has preserved a passage in which Chrysippus exerted his subtlety in reconciling the two things. See, too, Arrian, i. 17.

271 We have an extremely curious illustration of this mode of thought in a speech of Archytas of Tarentum on the evils of sensuality, which Cicero has preserved. He considers the greatest of these evils to be that the vice predisposes men to unpatriotic acts. “Nullam capitaliorem pestem quam corporis voluptatem, hominibus a natura datam.... Hinc patriæ proditiones, hinc rerumpublicarum eversiones, hinc cum hostibus clandestina colloquia nasci,” etc.—Cicero, _De Senect._ xii.

272 Diog. Laërt. _Anax._

273 “Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui, familiares; sed omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est; pro qua quis bonus dubitet mortem oppetere si ei sit profuturus?”—_De Offic._ i. 17.

274 See Seneca, _Consol. ad Helviam_ and _De Otio Sapien._; and Plutarch, _De Exilio_. The first of these works is the basis of one of the most beautiful compositions in the English language, Bolingbroke’s _Reflections on Exile_.

_ 275 De Officiis_.

_ 276 Epist._ i. 10.

277 “Tota enim philosophorum vita, ut ait idem, commentatio mortis est.”—Cicero, _Tusc._ i. 30, _ad fin_.

_ 278 Essay on Death._

279 Spinoza, _Ethics_, iv. 67.

280 Camden. Montalembert notices a similar legend as existing in Brittany (_Les Moines d’Occident_, tome ii. p. 287). Procopius (_De Bello Goth._ iv. 20) says that it is impossible for men to live in the west of Britain, and that the district is believed to be inhabited by the souls of the dead.

281 In his _De Sera Numinis Vindicta_ and his _Consolatio ad Uxorem_.

282 In the _Phædo_, _passim_. See, too, Marc. Aurelius, ii. 12.

283 See a very striking letter of Epicurus quoted by Diogenes Laërt. in his life of that philosopher. Except a few sentences, quoted by other writers, these letters were all that remained of the works of Epicurus, till the recent discovery of one of his treatises at Herculaneum.

_ 284 Tusc. Quæst._ i.

_ 285 Consol. ad Polyb._ xxvii.

286 Maury, _Hist. des Religions de la Grèce antique_, tom. i. pp. 582-588. M. Ravaisson, in his Memoir on Stoicism (_Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres_, tom. xxi.) has enlarged on the terrorism of paganism, but has, I think, exaggerated it. Religions which selected games as the natural form of devotion can never have had any very alarming character.

287 Plutarch, _Ad Apollonium_.

288 Ibid.

289 Cic. _Tusc. Quæst._ i.

290 Philost. Apoll. of Tyan. v. 4. Hence their passion for suicide, which Silius Italicus commemorates in lines which I think very beautiful:—

“Prodiga gens animæ et properare facillima mortem; Namque ubi transcendit florentes viribus annos Impatiens ævi, spernit novisse senectam Et fati modus in dextra est.”—i. 225-228.

Valerius Maximus (ii. vi. § 12) speaks of Celts who celebrated the birth of men with lamentation, and their deaths with joy.

291 Aulus Gellius, _Noctes_, i. 3.

292 Tacitus, _Annales_, xv. 62.

293 Sueton. _Titus_, 10.

294 Capitolinus, _Antoninus_.

295 See the beautiful account of his last hours given by Ammianus Marcellinus and reproduced by Gibbon. There are some remarks well worth reading about the death of Julian, and the state of thought that rendered such a death possible, in Dr. Newman’s _Discourses on University Education_, lect. ix.

296 “Lex non pœna mors” was a favourite saying among the ancients. On the other hand, Tertullian very distinctly enunciated the patristic view, “Qui autem primordia hominis novimus, audenter determinamus mortem non ex natura secutam hominem sed ex culpa.”—_De Anima_, 52.

297 Plutarch, _Ad Uxorem_.

298 St. Augustine, _Epist._ 166.

299 “At hoc quidem commune est omnium philosophorum, non eorum modo qui deum nihil habere ipsum negotii dicunt, et nihil exhibere alteri; sed eorum etiam, qui deum semper agere aliquid et moliri volunt, numquam nec irasci deum nec nocere.”—Cic. _De Offic._ iii. 28.

300 See the refutation of the philosophic notion in Lactantius, _De Ira Dei_.

301 “Revelation,” as Lessing observes in his essay on this subject, “has made Death the ‘king of terrors,’ the awful offspring of sin and the dread way to its punishment; though to the imagination of the ancient heathen world, Greek or Etrurian, he was a youthful genius—the twin brother of Sleep, or a lusty boy with a torch held downwards.”—Coleridge’s _Biographia Litteraria_, cap. xxii., note by Sara Coleridge.

302 “Vetat Pythagoras injussu imperatoris, id est Dei, de præsidio et statione vitæ decedere.”—Cic. _De Senec._ xx. If we believe the very untrustworthy evidence of Diog. Laërtius (_Pythagoras_) the philosopher himself committed suicide by starvation.

303 See his _Laws_, lib. ix. In his _Phædon_, however, Plato went further, and condemned all suicide. Libanius says (_De Vita Sua_) that the arguments of the _Phædon_ prevented him from committing suicide after the death of Julian. On the other hand, Cicero mentions a certain Cleombrotus, who was so fascinated by the proof of the immortality of the soul in the _Phædon_ that he forthwith cast himself into the sea. Cato, as is well known, chose this work to study, the night he committed suicide.

304 Arist. _Ethic._ v.

305 See a list of these in Lactantius’ _Inst. Div._ iii. 18. Many of these instances rest on very doubtful evidence.

306 Adam Smith’s _Moral Sentiments_, part vii. § 2.

307 “Proxima deinde tenent mœsti loca qui sibi lethum Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi Projecere animas. Quam vellent æthere in alto Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores.” —_Æneid_, vi. 434-437.

308 Cicero has censured suicide in his _De Senectute_, in the _Somn. Scipionis_, and in the _Tusculans_. Concerning the death of Cato, he says, that the occasion was such as to constitute a divine call to leave life.—_Tusc._ i.

309 Apuleius, _De Philos. Plat._ lib. i.

310 Thus Ovid:—

“Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere vitam, Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest.”

See, too, Martial, xi. 56.

311 Especially _Ep._ xxiv. Seneca desires that men should not commit suicide with panic or trepidation. He says that those condemned to death should await their execution, for “it is a folly to die through fear of death;” and he recommends men to support old age as long as their faculties remain unimpaired. On this last point, however, his language is somewhat contradictory. There is a good review of the opinions of the ancients in general, and of Seneca in particular, on this subject in Justus Lipsius’ _Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam_, lib. iii. dissert. 22, 23, from which I have borrowed much.

312 In his _Meditations_, ix. 3, he speaks of the duty of patiently awaiting death. But in iii. 1, x. 8, 22-32, he clearly recognises the right of suicide in some cases, especially to prevent moral degeneracy. It must be remembered that the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius were private notes for his personal guidance, that all the Stoics admitted it to be wrong to commit suicide in cases where the act would be an injury to society, and that this consideration in itself would be sufficient to divert an emperor from the deed. Antoninus, the uncle, predecessor, and model of M. Aurelius, had considered it his duty several times to prevent Hadrian from committing suicide (Spartianus, _Hadrianus_). According to Capitolinus, Marcus Aurelius in his last illness purposely accelerated his death by abstinence. The duty of not hastily, or through cowardice, abandoning a path of duty, and the right of man to quit life when it appears intolerable, are combined very clearly by Epictetus, _Arrian_, i. 9; and the latter is asserted in the strongest manner, i. 24-25.

313 Porphyry, _De Abst. Carnis_, ii. 47; Plotinus, 1st Enn. ix. Porphyry says (_Life of Plotinus_) that Plotinus dissuaded him from suicide. There is a good epitome of the arguments of this school against suicide in Macrobius, _In Som. Scip._ 1.

314 Quoted by Seneca, _Ep._ xxvi. Cicero states the Epicurean doctrine to be, “Ut si tolerabiles sint dolores, feramus, sin minus æquo animo e vita, cum ea non placet, tanquam e theatro, exeamus” (_De Finib._ i. 15); and again, “De Diis immortalibus sine ullo metu vera sentit. Non dubitat, si ita melius sit, de vita migrare.”—Id. i. 19.

315 This is noticed by St. Jerome.

316 Corn. Nepos, _Atticus_. He killed himself when an old man, to shorten a hopeless disease.

317 Petronius, who was called the arbitrator of tastes (“elegantiæ arbiter”), was one of the most famous voluptuaries of the reign of Nero. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, he was endowed with the most exquisite and refined taste; his graceful manners fascinated all about him, and made him in matters of pleasure the ruler of the Court. Appointed Proconsul of Bithynia, and afterwards Consul, he displayed the energies and the abilities of a statesman. A Court intrigue threw him out of favour; and believing that his death was resolved on, he determined to anticipate it by suicide. Calling his friends about him, he opened his veins, shut them, and opened them again; prolonged his lingering death till he had arranged his affairs; discoursed in his last moments, not about the immortality of the soul or the dogmas of philosophers, but about the gay songs and epigrams of the hour; and partaking of a cheerful banquet, died as recklessly as he had lived. (Tacit. _Annal._ xvi. 18-19.) It has been a matter of much dispute whether or not this Petronius was the author of the _Satyricon_, one of the most licentious and repulsive works in Latin literature.

318 Seneca, _De Vita Beata_, xix.

319 “Imperfectæ vero in homine naturæ præcipua solatia, ne Deum quidem posse omnia; namque nec sibi potest mortem consciscere si velit, quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitæ pœnis.”—_Hist. Nat._ ii. 5.

_ 320 Hist. Nat._ ii. 63. We need not be surprised at this writer thus speaking of sudden death, “Mortes repentinæ (hoc est summa vitæ felicitas),” vii. 54.

_ 321 Tusc. Quæst._ lib. 1. Another remarkable example of an epidemic of suicide occurred among the young girls of Miletus. (_Aul. Gell._ xv. 10.)

322 Sir Cornewall Lewis, _On the Credibility of Early Roman History_, vol. ii. p. 430. See, too, on this class of suicides, Cromaziano, _Istorica Critica del Suicidio_ (Venezia, 1788), pp. 81-82. The real name of the author of this book (which is, I think, the best history of suicide) was Buonafede. He was a Celestine monk. The book was first published at Lucca in 1761. It was translated into French in 1841.

323 Senec. _De Provid._ ii.; _Ep._ xxiv.

324 See some examples of this in Seneca, _Ep._ lxx.

325 See a long catalogue of suicides arising from this cause, in Cromaziano, _Ist. del Suicidio_, pp. 112-114.

_ 326 Consol. ad Marc._ c. xx.

_ 327 De Ira_, iii. 15.

_ 328 Ep._ lxx.

329 See Donne’s _Biathanatos_ (London, 1700), pp. 56-57. Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, ch. xliv. Blackstone, in his chapter on suicide, quotes the sentence of the Roman lawyers on the subject: “Si quis impatientia doloris aut tædio vitæ aut morbo aut furore aut pudore mori maluit non animadvertatur in eum.” Ulpian expressly asserts that the wills of suicides were recognised by law, and numerous examples of the act, notoriously prepared and publicly and gradually accomplished, prove its legality in Rome. Suetonius, it is true, speaks of Claudius accusing a man for having tried to kill himself (Claud, xvi.), and Xiphilin says (lxix. 8) that Hadrian gave special permission to the philosopher Euphrates to commit suicide, “on account of old age and disease;” but in the first case it appears from the context that a reproach and not a legal action was meant, while Euphrates, I suppose, asked permission to show his loyalty to the emperor, and not as a matter of strict necessity. There were, however, some Greek laws condemning suicide, probably on civic grounds. Josephus mentions (_De Bell. Jud._ iii. 8) that in some nations “the right hand of the suicide was amputated, and that in Judea the suicide was only buried after sunset.” A very strange law, said to have been derived from Greece, is reported to have existed at Marseilles. Poison was kept by the senate of the city, and given to those who could prove that they had sufficient reason to justify their desire for death, and all other suicide was forbidden. The law was intended, it was said, to prevent hasty suicide, and to make deliberate suicide as rapid and painless as possible. (Valer. Maximus, ii. 6, § 7.) In the Reign of Terror in France, a law was made similar to that of Domitian. (Carlyle’s _Hist. of the French Revolution_, book v. c. ii.)

330 Compare with this a curious “order of the day,” issued by Napoleon in 1802, with the view of checking the prevalence of suicide among his soldiers. (Lisle, _Du Suicide_, pp. 462-463.)

331 See Suetonius, _Otho._ c. x.-xi., and the very fine description in Tacitus, _Hist._ lib. ii. c. 47-49. Martial compares the death of Otho to that of Cato:

“Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Cæsare major; Dum moritur, numquid major Othone fuit?” —_Ep._ vi. 32.

332 Xiphilin, lxviii. 12.

333 Tacit. _Hist._ ii. 49. Suet. _Otho_, 12. Suetonius says that, in addition to these, many soldiers who were not present killed themselves on hearing the news.

334 Ibid. _Annal._ xiv. 9.

335 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ vii. 54. The opposite faction attributed this suicide to the maddening effects of the perfumes burnt on the pile.

336 Tacit. _Annal._ vi. 26.

337 Plin. _Ep._ i. 12.

338 This history is satirically and unfeelingly told by Lucian. See, too, Ammianus Marcellinus, xxix. 1.

339 Sophocles.

340 Arrian, i. 24.

341 Seneca, _Ep._ lviii.

342 Stobæus. One of the most deliberate suicides recorded was that of a Greek woman of ninety years old.—Val. Maxim. ii. 6, § 8.

343 Plin. _Ep._ iii. 7. He starved himself to death.

_ 344 Ep._ i. 22. Some of Pliny’s expressions are remarkable:—“Id ego arduum in primis et præcipua laude dignum puto. Nam impetu quodam et instinctu procurrere ad mortem, commune cum multis: deliberare vero et causas ejus expendere, utque suaserit ratio, vitæ mortisque consilium suscipere vel ponere, ingentis est animi.” In this case the doctors pronounced that recovery was possible, and the suicide was in consequence averted.

345 Lib. vi. _Ep._ xxiv.

_ 346 Ep._ lxxvii. On the former career of Marcellinus, see _Ep._ xxix.

347 See the very beautiful lines of Statius:—

“Urbe fuit media nulli concessa potentum Ara Deum, mitis posuit Clementia sedem: Et miseri fecere sacram, sine supplice numquam Illa novo; nulla damnavit vota repulsa. Auditi quicunque rogant, noctesque diesque Ire datum, et solis numen placare querelis. Parca superstitio; non thurea flamma, nec altus Accipitur sanguis, lachrymis altaria sudant ... Nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo Forma Deæ, mentes habitare et pectora gaudet. Semper habet trepidos, semper locus horret egenis Cœtibus, ignotæ tantum felicibus aræ.”—_Thebaid_, xii. 481-496.

This altar was very old, and was said to have been founded by the descendants of Hercules. Diodorus of Sicily, however, makes a Syracusan say that it was brought from Syracuse (lib. xiii. 22). Marcus Aurelius erected a temple to “Beneficentia” on the Capitol. (Xiphilin, lib. lxxi. 34.)

348 Herodotus, vi. 21.

349 See Arrian’s _Epictetus_, i. 9. The very existence of the word φιλανθρωπία shows that the idea was not altogether unknown.

350 Diog. Laërt. _Pyrrho_. There was a tradition that Pythagoras had himself penetrated to India, and learnt philosophy from the gymnosophists. (Apuleius, _Florid._ lib. ii. c. 15.)

351 This aspect of the career of Alexander was noticed in a remarkable passage of a treatise ascribed to Plutarch (_De Fort. Alex._). “Conceiving he was sent by God to be an umpire between all, and to unite all together, he reduced by arms those whom he could not conquer by persuasion, and formed of a hundred diverse nations one single universal body, mingling, as it were, in one cup of friendship the customs, marriages, and laws of all. He desired that all should regard the whole world as their common country, ... that every good man should be esteemed a Hellene, every evil man a barbarian.” See on this subject the third lecture of Mr. Merivale (whose translation of Plutarch I have borrowed) _On the Conversion of the Roman Empire_.

352 They were both born about B.C. 250. See Sir C. Lewis, _Credibility of Early Roman History_, vol. i. p. 82.

353 Aulus Gellius mentions the indignation of Marcus Cato against a consul named Albinus, who had written in Greek a Roman history, and prefaced it by an apology for his faults of style, on the ground that he was writing in a foreign language. (_Noct. Att._ xi. 8.)

354 See a vivid picture of the Greek influence upon Rome, in Mommsen’s _Hist. of Rome_ (Eng. trans.), vol. iii. pp. 423-426.

355 Plin. _Hist. Nat._ vii. 31.

356 See Friedlænder, _Mœurs romaines du règne d’Auguste à la fin des Antonins_ (French trans., 1865), tome i. pp. 6-7.

357 See the curious catalogue of Greek love terms in vogue (Lucretius, lib. iv. line 1160, &c.). Juvenal, more than a hundred years later, was extremely angry with the Roman ladies for making love in Greek (_Sat._ vi. lines 190-195). Friedlænder remarks that there is no special term in Latin for to ask in marriage (tome i. p. 354).

358 Aul. Gell. _Noct._ xv. 4; Vell. Paterculus, ii. 65. The people were much scandalised at this elevation, and made epigrams about it. There is a curious catalogue of men who at different times rose in Rome from low positions to power and dignity, in Legendre, _Traité de l’Opinion_, tome ii. pp. 254-255.

359 Dion Cassius, xlviii. 32. Plin. _Hist. Nat._ v. 5; vii. 44.

360 The history of the influence of freedmen is minutely traced by Friedlænder, _Mœurs romaines du règne d’Auguste à la fin des Antonins_, tome i. pp. 58-93. Statius and Martial sang their praises.

361 See Tacit. _Ann._ vi. 23-25.

362 On the Roman journeys, see the almost exhaustive dissertation of Friedlænder, tome ii.

363 Joseph. (_Antiq._ xvii. 11, § 1) says above 8,000 Jews resident in Rome took part in a petition to Cæsar. If these were all adult males, the total number of Jewish residents must have been extremely large.

364 See the famous fragment of Seneca cited by St. Augustin (_De Civ. Dei_, vi. 11): “Usque eo sceleratissimæ gentis consuetudo convaluit, ut per omnes jam terras recepta sit: victi victoribus leges dederunt.” There are numerous scattered allusions to the Jews in Horace, Juvenal, and Martial.

365 The Carthaginian influence was specially conspicuous in early Christian history. Tertullian and Cyprian (both Africans) are justly regarded as the founders of Latin theology. (See Milman’s _Latin Christianity_ (ed. 1867), vol. i. pp. 35-36.)

366 Milo had emancipated some slaves to prevent them from being tortured as witnesses. (_Cic. Pro Milo._) This was made illegal. The other reasons for enfranchisement are given by Dion. Halicarn. _Antiq._ lib. iv.

367 This subject is fully treated by Wallon, _Hist. de l’Esclavage dans l’Antiquité_.

368 Senec. _De Clemen._ i. 24.

369 See, on the prominence and the insolence of the freedmen, Tacit. _Annal._ iii. 26-27.

370 Montesquieu, _Décadence des Romains_, ch. xiii.

371 See the very curious speech attributed to Camillus (Livy, v. 52).

372 “Caritas generis humani.”—_De Finib._ So, too, he speaks (_De Leg._ i. 23) of every good man as “civis totius mundi.”

373 He speaks of Rome as “civitas ex nationum conventu constituta.”

_ 374 De Legib._ i. 7.

_ 375 De Offic._

376 Ibid. iii. 6.

_ 377 De Offic._ iii. 6.

_ 378 De Legib._ i. 15.

379 “Tunc genus humanum positis sibi consulat armis, Inque vicem gens omnis amet.” —_Pharsalia_, vi.

_ 380 Ep._ xcv.

_ 381 Ep._ xxxi.

_ 382 De Vita Beata_, xx.

383 Arrian, ii. 10.

384 vi. 44.

385 “Hæc duri immota Catonis Secta fuit, servare modum, finemque tenere, Naturamque sequi, patriæque impendere vitam, Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.”

Lucan, _Phars._ ii. 380-383.

386 There is a passage on this subject in one of the letters of Pliny, which I think extremely remarkable, and to which I can recall no pagan parallel:—“Nuper me cujusdam amici languor admonuit, optimos esse nos dum infirmi sumus. Quem enim infirmum aut avaritia aut libido solicitat? Non amoribus servit, non appetit honores ... tunc deos, tunc hominem esse se meminit.”—Plin. _Ep._ vii. 26.

_ 387 Ep._ viii. 16. He says: “Hominis est enim affici dolore, sentire, resistere tamen, et solatia admittere, non solatiis non egere.”

388 This characteristic of Stoicism is well noticed in Grant’s _Aristotle_, vol. i. p. 254. The first volume of this work contains an extremely good review of the principles of the Stoics.

389 Cie. _De Finib._ lib. iv.

390 Arrian, _Epict._ ii. 14.

391 Ibid. i. 9.

392 Ibid. i. 14.

393 Ibid. i. 16.

394 Arrian, ii. 8.

395 Plutarch, _De Profect. in Virt._ This precept was enforced by Bishop Sanderson in one of his sermons. (Southey’s _Commonplace Book_, vol. i. p. 92.)

396 Diog. Laërt. _Pythagoras_.

397 Thus Cicero makes Cato say: “Pythagoreorumque more, exercendæ memoriæ gratia, quid quoque die dixerim, audiverim, egerim, commemoro vesperi.”—_De Senect._ xi.

398 Ibid.

_ 399 Sermon_, i. 4.

400 He even gave up, for a time, eating meat, in obedience to the Pythagorean principles. (_Ep._ cviii.) Seneca had two masters of this school, Sextius and Sotion. He was at this time not more than seventeen years old. (See Aubertin, _Étude critique sur les Rapports supposés entre Sénèque et St. Paul_, p. 156.)

401 See his very beautiful description of the self-examination of Sextius and of himself. (_De Ira_, iii. 36.)

402 Arrian, ii. 18. Compare the _Manual_ of Epictetus, xxxiv.

403 “Quod de Romulo ægre creditum est, omnes pari consensu præsumserunt, Marcum cœlo receptum esse.”—Aur. Vict. _Epit._ xvi. “Deusque etiam nunc habetur.”—Capitolinus.

404 The first book of his _Meditations_ was written on the borders of the Granua, in Hungary.

405 i. 14.

406 See his touching letter to Fronto, who was about to engage in a debate with Herod Atticus.

407 i. 6-15. The eulogy he passed on his Stoic master Apollonius is worthy of notice. Apollonius furnished him with an example of the combination of extreme firmness and gentleness.

408 E.g. “Beware of Cæsarising.” (vi. 30.) “Be neither a tragedian nor a courtesan.” (v. 28.) “Be just and temperate and a follower of the gods; but be so with simplicity, for the pride of modesty is the worst of all.” (xii. 27.)

409 iii. 4.

410 i. 17.

411 v. 1.

412 ix. 29.

413 viii. 59.

414 xi. 18.

415 ix. 11.

416 viii. 15.

417 vii. 70.

418 vii. 63.

419 vii. 22.

420 Mr. Maurice, in this respect, compares and contrasts him very happily with Plutarch. “Like Plutarch, the Greek and Roman characters were in Marcus Aurelius remarkably blended; but, unlike Plutarch, the foundation of his mind was Roman. He was a student that he might more effectually carry on the business of an emperor.”—_Philosophy of the First Six Centuries_, p. 32.

421 vi. 47.

422 Capitolinus, Aurelius Victor.

423 M. Suckau, in his admirable _Étude sur Marc-Aurèle_, and M. Renan, in a very acute and learned _Examen de quelques faits relatifs à l’impératrice Faustine_ (read before the Institut, August 14, 1867), have shown the extreme uncertainty of the stories about the debaucheries of Faustina, which the biographers of Marcus Aurelius have collected. It will be observed that the emperor himself has left an emphatic testimony to her virtue, and to the happiness he derived from her (i. 17); that the earliest extant biographer of Marcus Aurelius was a generation later; and that the infamous character of Commodus naturally predisposed men to imagine that he was not the son of so perfect an emperor.

424 “Quid me fletis, et non magis de pestilentia et communi morte cogitatis?” Capitolinus, _M. Aurelius_.

425 Ibid.

426 Many examples of this are given by Coulanges, _La Cité antique_, pp. 177-178.

427 All this is related by Suetonius, _August_.

428 Tacit. _Annal._ iv. 36.

429 See, e.g., the sentiments of the people about Julius Cæsar, Sueton. _J. C._ lxxxviii.

430 Sueton. _Vesp._ xxiii.

431 “Qualis artifex pereo” were his dying words.

432 See Sueton. _Calig._ 1.

433 Sueton. _Calig._ xxii. A statue of Jupiter is said to have burst out laughing just before the death of this emperor.

434 Seneca, _De Ira_, i. 46; Sueton. _Calig._ xxii.

435 Lampridius, _Heliogab._

436 Senec. _De Clemen._ i. 18.

437 Tacit. _Annal._ iii. 36.

438 Senec. _De Benefic._ iii. 26.

439 Tacit. _Annal._ i. 73. Tiberius refused to allow this case to be proceeded with. See, too, Philost. _Apollonius of Tyana_, i. 15.

440 Suet. _Tiber._ lviii.

441 “Mulier quædam, quod semel exuerat ante statuam Domitiani, damnata et interfecta est.”—Xiphilin, lxvii. 12.

442 “Eos demum, qui nihil præterquam de libertate cogitent, dignos esse, qui Romani fiant.”—Livy, viii. 21.

443 Valerius Maximus, iv. 3, § 14.

444 See the picture of this scene in Tacitus, _Hist._ iii. 83.

445 Dion. Halicarnass.

446 “Divina Natura dedit agros; ars humana ædificavit urbes.”

447 See a collection of passages from these writers in Wallon, _Hist. de l’Esclavage_, tome ii. pp. 378-379. Pliny, in the first century, noticed (_Hist. Nat._ xviii. 7) that the _latifundia_, or system of large properties, was ruining both Italy and the provinces, and that six landlords whom Nero killed were the possessors of half Roman Africa.

448 Tacit. _Annal._ xii. 43. The same complaint had been made still earlier by Tiberius, in a letter to the Senate. (_Annal._ iii. 54.)

449 Augustus, for a time, contemplated abolishing the distributions, but soon gave up the idea. (Suet. _Aug._ xlii.) He noticed that it had the effect of causing the fields to be neglected.

450 M. Wallon has carefully traced this history. (_Hist. de l’Esclav._ tome iii. pp. 294-297.)

451 Livy, iv. 59-60. Florus, i. 12.

452 Livy, xxiv. 49.

453 Sallust, _Bell. Jugurth._ 84-86.

454 Livy, xxxix. 6.

455 “Primus Cæsarum fidem militis etiam præmio pigneratus.”—Suet. _Claud._ x.

456 See Tacitus, _Annal._ xiii. 35; _Hist._ ii. 69.

457 M. Sismondi thinks that the influence of Christianity in subduing the spirit of revolt, if not in the army, at least in the people, was very great. He says: “Il est remarquable qu’en cinq ans, sept prétendans au trône, tous bien supérieurs à Honorius en courage, en talens et en vertus, furent successivement envoyés captifs à Ravenne ou punis de mort, que le peuple applaudit toujours à ces jugemens et ne se sépara point de l’autorité légitime, tant la doctrine du droit divin des rois que les évêques avoient commencé à prêcher sous Théodose avoit fait de progrès, et tant le monde romain sembloit determiné à périr avec un monarque imbécile plutôt que tenté de se donner un sauveur.”—_Hist. de la Chute de l’Empire romain_, tome i. p. 221.

458 See Gibbon, ch. v.; Merivale’s _Hist. of Rome_, ch. lxvii. It was thought that troops thus selected would be less likely to revolt. Constantine abolished the Prætorians.

459 The gladiatorial shows are treated incidentally by most Roman historians, but the three works from which I have derived most assistance in this part of my subject are the _Saturnalia_ of Justus Lipsius, Magnin, _Origines du Théâtre_ (an extremely learned and interesting book, which was unhappily never completed), and Friedlænder’s _Roman Manners from Augustus to the Antonines_ (the second volume of the French translation). M. Wallon has also compressed into a few pages (_Hist. de l’Esclavage_, tome ii. pp. 129-139) much information on the subject.

460 Hence the old name of _bustuarii_ (from _bustum_, a funeral pile) given to gladiators (Nieupoort, _De Ritibus Romanorum_, p. 514). According to Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ xxx. 3), “regular human sacrifices were only abolished in Rome by a decree of the senate, B.C. 97,” and there are some instances of them at a still later period. Much information about them is collected by Sir C. Lewis, _Credibility of Roman History_, vol. ii. p. 430; Merivale, _Conversion of the Roman Empire_, pp. 230-233; Legendre, _Traité de l’Opinion_, vol. i. pp. 229-231. Porphyry, in his _De Abstinentia Carnis_, devoted considerable research to this matter. Games were habitually celebrated by wealthy private individuals, during the early part of the empire, at the funerals of their relatives, but their mortuary character gradually ceased, and after Marcus Aurelius they had become mere public spectacles, and were rarely celebrated at Rome by private men. (See Wallon, _Hist. de l’Esclav._ tome ii. pp. 135-136.) The games had then really passed into their purely secular stage, though they were still nominally dedicated to Mars and Diana, and though an altar of Jupiter Latiaris stood in the centre of the arena. (Nieupoort, p. 365.)

461 Cicero, _Tusc._ lib. ii.

462 Capitolinus, _Maximus et Balbinus_. Capitolinus says this is the most probable origin of the custom, though others regarded it as a sacrifice to appease Nemesis by an offering of blood.

463 Much curious information on this subject may be found in Friedlænder, _Mœurs romaines_, liv. vi. ch. i. Very few Roman emperors ventured to disregard or to repress these outcries, and they led to the fall of several of the most powerful ministers of the empire. On the whole these games represent the strangest and most ghastly form political liberty has ever assumed. On the other hand, the people readily bartered all genuine freedom for abundant games.

464 Valer. Maximus, ii. 4, § 7.

465 On the gladiators at banquets, see J. Lipsius, _Saturnalia_, lib. i. c. vi., Magnin; _Origines du Théâtre_, pp. 380-385. This was originally an Etruscan custom, and it was also very common at Capua. As Silius Italicus says:—

“Exhilarare viris convivia cæde Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira.”

Verus, the colleague of Marcus Aurelius, was especially addicted to this kind of entertainment. (Capitolinus, _Verus_.) See, too, Athenæus iv. 40, 41.

466 Senec. _De Brevit. Vit._ c. xiii.

467 Sueton. _J. Cæsar_, xxvi. Pliny (_Ep._ vi. 34) commends a friend for having given a show in memory of his departed wife.

468 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ xxxiii. 16.

469 Sueton. _Cæsar_, x.; Dion Cassius, xliii. 24.

470 Sueton. _Aug._ xxix. The history of the amphitheatres is given very minutely by Friedlænder, who, like nearly all other antiquaries, believes this to have been the first of stone. Pliny mentions the existence, at an earlier period, of two connected wooden theatres, which swung round on hinges and formed an amphitheatre. (_Hist. Nat._ xxxvi. 24.)

471 Dion Cassius, liv. 2. It appears, however, from an inscription, that 10,000 gladiators fought in the reign and by the command of Augustus. Wallon_, Hist. de l’Esclavage_, tome ii. p. 133.

472 Sueton. _Tiber._ xxxiv. Nero made another slight restriction (Tacit. _Annal._ xiii. 31), which appears to have been little observed.

473 Martial notices (_Ep._ iii. 59) and ridicules a spectacle given by a shoemaker at Bologna, and by a fuller at Modena.

474 Epictetus, _Enchir._ xxxiii. § 2.

475 Arrian, iii. 15.

476 See these points minutely proved in Friedlænder.

477 Suet. _Aug._ xliv. This was noticed before by Cicero. The Christian poet Prudentius dwelt on this aspect of the games in some forcible lines:—

“Virgo modesta jubet converso pollice rumpi Ne lateat pars ulla animæ vitalibus imis Altius impresso dum palpitat ense secutor.”

478 Sueton. _Tiberius_, xl. Tacitus, who gives a graphic description of the disaster (_Annal._ iv. 62-63), says 50,000 persons were killed or wounded.

479 Tacit. _Annal._ xiii. 49.

480 Joseph. _Bell. Jud._ vi. 9.

481 See the very curious picture which Livy has given (xli. 20) of the growth of the fascination.

482 Joseph. _Antiq. Jud._ xix. 7.

483 Lucian, _Demonax_.

484 Philost. _Apoll._ iv. 22.

485 Friedlænder, tome ii. pp. 95-96. There are, however, several extant Greek inscriptions relating to gladiators, and proving the existence of the shows in Greece. Pompeii, which was a Greek colony, had a vast amphitheatre, which we may still admire; and, under Nero, games were prohibited at Pompeii for ten years, in consequence of a riot that broke out during a gladiatorial show. (Tacit. _Annal._ xiv. 17.) After the defeat of Perseus, Paulus Emilius celebrated a show in Macedonia. (Livy, xli. 20.)

486 These are fully discussed by Magnin and Friedlænder. There is a very beautiful description of a ballet, representing the “Judgment of Paris,” in Apuleius, _Metamorph._ x.

487 Pacuvius and Accius were the founders of Roman tragedy. The abridger, Velleius Paterculus, who is the only Roman historian who pays any attention to literary history, boasts that the latter might rank honourably with the best Greek tragedians. He adds, “ut in illis [the Greeks] limæ, in hoc pœne plus videatur fuisse sanguinis.”—_Hist. Rom._ ii. 9.

488 Thus, e.g., Hobbes: “Alienæ calamitatis contemptus nominatur crudelitas, proceditque a propriæ securitatis opinione. Nam ut aliquis sibi placeat in malis alienis sine alio fine, videtur mihi impossibile.”—_Leviathan_, pars i. c. vi.

489 Sueton. _Claudius_, xxxiv.

490 “Et verso pollice vulgi Quemlibet occidunt populariter.”—Juvenal, _Sat._ iii. 36-37.

491 Besides the many incidental notices scattered through the Roman historians, and through the writings of Seneca, Plutarch, Juvenal, and Pliny, we have a curious little book, _De Spectaculis_, by Martial—a book which is not more horrible from the atrocities it recounts than from the perfect absence of all feeling of repulsion or compassion it everywhere displays.

492 These are but a few of the many examples given by Magnin, who has collected a vast array of authorities on the subject. (_Origines du Théâtre_, pp. 445-453.) M. Mongez has devoted an interesting memoir to “Les animaux promenés ou tués dans le cirque.” (_Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscrip. et Belles-lettres_, tome x.) See, too, Friedlænder. Pliny rarely gives an account of any wild animal without accompanying it by statistics about its appearances in the arena. The first instance of a wild beast hunt in the amphitheatre is said to be that recorded by Livy (xxxix. 22), which took place about 80 B.C.

493 Capitolinus, _Gordiani_.

494 Vopiscus, _Aurelian_.

495 Xiphilin, lxviii. 15.

496 Tacit. _Annal._ xv. 44.

497 Xiphilin, lxvii. 8; Statius, _Sylv._ i. 6.

498 During the Republic, a rich man ordered in his will that some women he had purchased for the purpose should fight in the funeral games to his memory, but the people annulled the clause. (Athenæeus, iv. 39.) Under Nero and Domitian, female gladiators seem to have been not uncommon. See Statius, _Sylv._ i. 6; Sueton. _Domitian_, iv.; Xiphilin, lxvii. 8. Juvenal describes the enthusiasm with which Roman ladies practised with the gladiatorial weapons (_Sat._ vi. 248, &c.), and Martial (_De Spectac._ vi.) mentions the combats of women with wild beasts. One, he says, killed a lion. A combat of female gladiators, under Severus, created some tumult, and it was decreed that they should no longer be permitted. (Xiphilin, lxxv. 16.) See Magnin, pp. 434-435.

499 Martial, _De Spectac._ vii.

500 Ibid. _Ep._ viii. 30.

501 Tertullian, _Ad Nation._ i. 10. One of the most ghastly features of the games was the comic aspect they sometimes assumed. This was the case in the combats of dwarfs. There were also combats by blind-folded men. Petronius (_Satyricon_, c. xlv.) has given us a horrible description of the maimed and feeble men who were sometimes compelled to fight. People afflicted with epilepsy were accustomed to drink the blood of the wounded gladiators, which they believed to be a sovereign remedy. (Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ xxviii. 2; Tertul. _Apol._ ix.)

502 “Nec unquam sine humano cruore cœnabat”—Lactan. _De Mort. Persec._ Much the same thing is told of the Christian emperor Justinian II., who lived at the end of the seventh century. (Sismondi, _Hist. de la Chute de l’Empire Romain_, tome ii. p. 85.)

503 Winckelmann says the statue called “The Dying Gladiator” does not represent a gladiator. At a later period, however, statues of gladiators were not uncommon, and Pliny notices (_Hist. Nat._ xxxv. 33) paintings of them. A fine specimen of mosaic portraits of gladiators is now in the Lateran Museum.

504 Plutarch’s _Life of Cæsar_.

505 Dion Cassius, li. 7.

506 Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius, was especially accused of this weakness. (Capitolinus, _Marcus Aurelius_.)

507 Seneca, _De Provident._ iv.

508 Arrian’s _Epictetus_, i. 29.

509 Seneca, _De Provident._ iii.

510 Aulus Gellius, xii. 5.

511 Cicero, _Tusc._ lib. ii.

512 Some Equites fought under Julius Cæsar, and a senator named Fulvius Setinus wished to fight, but Cæsar prevented him. (Suet. _Cæsar_, xxxix.; Dion Cassius, xliii. 23.) Nero, according to Suetonius, compelled men of the highest rank to fight. Laws prohibiting patricians from fighting were several times made and violated. (Friedlænder, pp. 39-41.) Commodus is said to have been himself passionately fond of fighting as a gladiator. Much, however, of what Lampridius relates on this point is perfectly incredible. On the other hand, the profession of the gladiator was constantly spoken of as infamous; but this oscillation between extreme admiration and contempt will surprise no one who has noticed the tone continually adopted about prize-fighters in England, and about the members of some other professions on the Continent. Juvenal dwells (_Sat._