Chapter VI: CAIUS ALBUTIUS SILUS, of Novara 921, while, in the execution (529)

of the office of edile in his native place, he was sitting for the administration of justice, was dragged by the feet from the tribunal by some persons against whom he was pronouncing a decree. In great indignation at this usage, he made straight for the gate of the town, and proceeded to Rome. There he was admitted to fellowship, and lodged, with Plancus the orator [922], whose practice it was, before he made a speech in public, to set up some one to take the contrary side in the argument. The office was undertaken by Albutius with such success, that he silenced Plancus, who did not venture to put himself in competition with him. This bringing him into notice, he collected an audience of his own, and it was his custom to open the question proposed for debate, sitting; but as he warmed with the subject, he stood up, and made his peroration in that posture. His declamations were of different kinds; sometimes brilliant and polished, at others, that they might not be thought to savour too much of the schools, he curtailed them of all ornament, and used only familiar phrases. He also pleaded causes, but rarely, being employed in such as were of the highest importance, and in every case undertaking the peroration only.

In the end, he gave up practising in the forum, partly from shame, partly from fear. For, in a certain trial before the court of the One Hundred [923], having lashed the defendant as a man void of natural affection for his parents, he called upon him by a bold figure of speech, "to swear by the ashes of his father and mother which lay unburied;" his adversary taking him up for the suggestion, and the judges frowning upon it, he lost his cause, and was much blamed. At another time, on a trial for murder at Milan, before Lucius Piso, the proconsul, having to defend the culprit, he worked himself up to such a pitch of vehemence, that in a crowded court, who loudly applauded him, notwithstanding all the efforts of the lictor to maintain order, he broke out into a lamentation on the miserable state of Italy [924], then in danger of being again reduced, he said, into (530) the form of a province, and turning to the statue of Marcus Brutus, which stood in the Forum, he invoked him as "the founder and vindicator of the liberties of the people." For this he narrowly escaped a prosecution. Suffering, at an advanced period of life, from an ulcerated tumour, he returned to Novara, and calling the people together in a public assembly, addressed them in a set speech, of considerable length, explaining the reasons which induced him to put an end to existence: and this he did by abstaining from food.

END OF THE LIVES OF GRAMMARIANS AND RHETORICIANS.

FOOTNOTES:

[842] It will be understood that the terms Grammar and Grammarian have here a more extended sense than that which they convey in modern use. See the beginning of c. iv.

[843] Suetonius's account of the rude and unlettered state of society in the early times of Rome, is consistent with what we might infer, and with the accounts which have come down to us, of a community composed of the most daring and adventurous spirits thrown off by the neighbouring tribes, and whose sole occupations were rapine and war. But Cicero discovers the germs of mental cultivation among the Romans long before the period assigned to it by Suetonius, tracing them to the teaching of Pythagoras, who visited the Greek cities on the coast of Italy in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus.--Tusc. Quaest. iv. 1.

[844] Livius, whose cognomen Andronicus, intimates his extraction, was born of Greek parents. He began to teach at Rome in the consulship of Claudius Cento, the son of Appius Caecus, and Sempronius Tuditanus, A.U.C. 514. He must not be confounded with Titus Livius, the historian, who flourished in the Augustan age.

[845] Ennius was a native of Calabria. He was born the year after the consulship mentioned in the preceding note, and lived to see at least his seventy-sixth year, for Gellius informs us that at that age he wrote the twelfth book of his Annals.

[846] Porcius Cato found Ennius in Sardinia, when he conquered that island during his praetorship. He learnt Greek from Ennius there, and brought him to Rome on his return. Ennius taught Greek at Rome for a long course of years, having M. Cato among his pupils.

[847] Mallos was near Tarsus, in Cilicia. Crates was the son of Timocrates, a Stoic philosopher, who for his critical skill had the surname of Homericus.

[848] Aristarchus flourished at Alexandria, in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, whose son he educated.

[849] A.U.C. 535-602 or 605.

[850] Cicero [De Clar. Orat. c. xx., De Senect. c. v. 1] places the death of Ennius A.U.C. 584, for which there are other authorities; but this differs from the account given in a former note.

[851] The History of the first Punic War by Naevius is mentioned by Cicero, De Senect, c. 14.

[852] Lucilius, the poet, was born about A.U.C. 605.

[853] Q. Metellus obtained the surname of Numidicus, on his triumph over Jugurtha, A.U.C. 644. Aelius, who was Varro's tutor, accompanied him to Rhodes or Smyrna, when he was unjustly banished, A.U.C. 653.

[854] Servius Claudius (also called Clodius) is commended by Cicero, Fam. Epist. ix. 16, and his singular death mentioned by Pliny, xxv. 4.

[855] Daphnis, a shepherd, the son of Mercury, was said to have been brought up by Pan. The humorous turn given by Lenaeus to Lutatius's cognomen is not very clear. Daphnides is the plural of Daphnis; therefore the herd or company, agaema; and Pan was the god of rustics, and the inventor of the rude music of the reed.

[856] Oppius Cares is said by Macrobius to have written a book on Forest Trees.

[857] Quintilian enumerates Bibaculus among the Roman poets in the same line with Catullus and Horace, Institut. x. 1. Of Sigida we know nothing; even the name is supposed to be incorrectly given. Apuleius mentions a Ticida, who is also noticed by Suetonius hereafter in c. xi., where likewise he gives an account of Valerius Cato.

[858] Probably Suevius, of whom Macrobius informs us that he was the learned author of an Idyll, which had the title of the Mulberry Grove; observing, that "the peach which Suevius reckons as a species of the nuts, rather belongs to the tribe of apples."

[859] Aurelius Opilius is mentioned by Symmachus and Gellius. His cotemporary and friend, Rutilius Rufus, having been a military tribune under Scipio in the Numantine war, wrote a history of it. He was consul A.U.C. 648, and unjustly banished, to the general grief of the people, A.U.C. 659.

[860] Quintilian mentions Gnipho, Instit. i. 6. We find that Cicero was among his pupils. The date of his praetorship, given below, fixes the time when Gnipho flourished.

[861] This strange cognomen is supposed to have been derived from a cork arm, which supplied the place of one Dionysius had lost. He was a poet of Mitylene.

[862] See before, JULIUS, c. xlvi.

[863] A.U.C. 687.

[864] Suetonius gives his life in c. x.

[865] A grade of inferior officers in the Roman armies, of which we have no very exact idea.

[866] Horace speaks feelingly on the subject:

Memini quae plagosum mihi parvo
Orbilium tractare. Epist. xi. i. 70.

I remember well when I was young,
How old Orbilius thwacked me at my tasks.

[867] Domitius Marsus wrote epigrams. He is mentioned by Ovid and Martial.

[868] This is not the only instance mentioned by Suetonius of statues erected to learned men in the place of their birth or celebrity. Orbilius, as a schoolmaster, was represented in a sitting posture, and with the gown of the Greek philosophers.

[869] Tacitus [Annal. cxi. 75] gives the character of Atteius Capito. He was consul A.U.C. 758.

[870] Asinius Pollio; see JULIUS, c. xxx.

[871] Whether Hermas was the son or scholar of Gnipho, does not appear,

[872] Eratosthenes, an Athenian philosopher, flourished in Egypt, under three of the Ptolemies successively. Strabo often mentions him. See xvii. p. 576.

[873] Cornelius Helvius Cinna was an epigrammatic poet, of the same age as Catullus. Ovid mentions him, Tristia, xi. 435.

[874] Priapus was worshipped as the protector of gardens.

[875] Zenodotus, the grammarian, was librarian to the first Ptolemy at Alexandria, and tutor to his sons.

[876] For Crates, see before, p. 507.

[877] We find from Plutarch that Sylla was employed two days before his death, in completing the twenty-second book of his Commentaries; and, foreseeing his fate, entrusted them to the care of Lucullus, who, with the assistance of Epicadius, corrected and arranged them. Epicadius also wrote on Heroic verse, and Cognomina.

[878] Plutarch, in his Life of Caesar, speaks of the loose conduct of Mucia, Pompey's wife, during her husband's absence.

[879] Fam. Epist. 9.

[880] Cicero ad Att. xii. 36.

[881] See before, AUGUSTUS, c. v.

[882] Lenaeus was not singular in his censure of Sallust. Lactantius, 11. 12, gives him an infamous character; and Horace says of him,

Libertinarum dico; Sallustius in quas
Non minus insanit; quam qui moechatur.--Sat. i. 2. 48.

[883] The name of the well known Roman knight, to whom Cicero addressed his Epistles, was Titus Pomponius Atticus. Although Satrius was the name of a family at Rome, no connection between it and Atticus can be found, so that the text is supposed to be corrupt. Quintus Caecilius was an uncle of Atticus, and adopted him. The freedman mentioned in this chapter probably assumed his name, he having been the property of Caecilius; as it was the custom for freedmen to adopt the names of their patrons.

[884] Suetonius, TIBERIUS, c. viii. Her name was Pomponia.

[885] See AUGUSTUS, c. lxvi.

[886] He is mentioned before, c. ix.

[887] Verrius Flaccus is mentioned by St. Jerome, in conjunction with Athenodorus of Tarsus, a Stoic philosopher, to have flourished A.M.C. 2024, which is A.U.C. 759; A.D. 9. He is also praised by Gellius, Macrobius, Pliny, and Priscian.

[888] Cinna wrote a poem, which he called "Smyrna," and was nine years in composing, as Catullus informs us, 93. 1.

[889] See AUGUSTUS, cc. lxii. lxix.

[890] Cornelius Alexander, who had also the name of Polyhistor, was born at Miletus, and being taken prisoner, and bought by Cornelius, was brought to Rome, and becoming his teacher, had his freedom given him, with the name of his patron. He flourished in the time of Sylla, and composed a great number of works; amongst which were five books on Rome. Suetonius has already told us [AUGUSTUS, xxix.] that he had the care of the Palatine Library.

[891] No such consul as Caius Licinius appears in the Fasti; and it is supposed to be a mistake for C. Atinius, who was the colleague of Cn. Domitius Calvinus, A.U.C. 713, and wrote a book on the Civil War.

[892] Julius Modestus, in whom the name of the Julian family was still preserved, is mentioned with approbation by Gellius, Martial, Quintilian, and others.

[893] Melissus is mentioned by Ovid, De Pontif. iv 16-30.

[894] See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix. p. 93, and note.

[895] The trabea was a white robe, with a purple border, of a different fashion from the toga.

[896] See before, c. x.

[897] See CLAUDIUS, c. x1i. and note.

[898] Remmius Palaemon appears to have been cotemporary with Pliny and Quintilian, who speak highly of him.

[899] Now Vicenza.

[900] "Audiat haec tantum vel qui venit, ecce, Palaemon."--Eccl. iii. 50.

[901] All the editions have the word vitem; but we might conjecture, from the large produce, that it is a mistake for vineam, a vineyard: in which case the word vasa might be rendered, not bottles, but casks. The amphora held about nine gallons. Pliny mentions that Remmius bought a farm near the turning on the Nomentan road, at the tenth mile-stone from Rome.

[902] "Usque ad infamiam oris."--See TIBERIUS, p. 220, and the notes.

[903] Now Beyrout, on the coast of Syria. It was one of the colonies founded by Julius Caesar when he transported 80,000 Roman citizens to foreign parts.--JULIUS, xlii.

[904] This senatus consultum was made A.U.C. 592.

[905] Hirtius and Pansa were consuls A.U.C. 710.

[906] See NERO, c. x.

[907] As to the Bullum, see before, JULIUS, c. lxxxiv.

[908] This extract given by Suetonius is all we know of any epistle addressed by Cicero to Marcus Titinnius.

[909] See Cicero's Oration, pro Caelio, where Atracinus is frequently mentioned, especially cc. i. and iii.

[910] "Hordearium rhetorem."

[911] From the manner in which Suetonius speaks of the old custom of chaining one of the lowest slaves to the outer gate, to supply the place of a watch-dog, it would appear to have been disused in his time.

[912] The work in which Cornelius Nepos made this statement is lost.

[913] Pliny mentions with approbation C. Epidius, who wrote some treatises in which trees are represented as speaking; and the period in which he flourished, agrees with that assigned to the rhetorician here named by Suetonius. Plin. xvii. 25.

[914] Isauricus was consul with Julius Caesar II., A.U.C. 705, and again with L. Antony, A.U.C. 712.

[915] A river in the ancient Campania, now called the Sarno, which discharges itself into the bay of Naples.

[916] Epidius attributes the injury received by his eyes to the corrupt habits he contracted in the society of M. Antony.

[917] The direct allusion is to the "style" or probe used by surgeons in opening tumours.

[918] Mark Antony was consul with Julius Caesar, A.U.C. 709. See before, JULIUS, c. lxxix.

[919] Philipp. xi. 17.

[920] Leontium, now called Lentini, was a town in Sicily, the foundation of which is related by Thucydides, vi. p. 412. Polybius describes the Leontine fields as the most fertile part of Sicily. Polyb. vii. 1. And see Cicero, contra Verrem, iii. 46, 47.

[921] Novara, a town of the Milanese.

[922] St. Jerom in Chron. Euseb. describes Lucius Munatius Plancus as the disciple of Cicero, and a celebrated orator. He founded Lyons during the time he governed that part of the Roman provinces in Gaul.

[923] See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxvi.

[924] He meant to speak of Cisalpine Gaul, which, though geographically a part of Italy, did not till a late period enjoy the privileges of the other territories united to Rome, and was administered by a praetor under the forms of a dependent province. It was admitted to equal rights by the triumvirs, after the death of Julius Caesar. Albutius intimated that those rights were now in danger.