years your tributaries. You will not, I presume, march against these men with only that courage with which you are wont to face other enemies, but with a certain anger and indignation, such as you would feel if you saw your slaves, on a sudden, rise up in arms against you. Conquered and enslaved, it is not boldness, but necessity, that urges them to battle; unless that you can believe that those, who avoided fighting when their army was entire, have acquired better hope by the loss of two-thirds of their horse and foot in the passage of the Alps.

But you have heard, perhaps, that, though they are few in number, they are men of stout hearts and robust bodies -heroes of such strength and vigour, as nothing is able to resist. Mere effigies! nay, shadows of men! wretches emaciated with hunger, and benumbed with cold! bruised and battered to pieces among the rocks and craggy cliffs; their weapons broken, and their horses weak and foundered! Such are the cavalry, and such the infantry, with which you are going to contend: not enemies, but the fragments of enemies. There is nothing which I more apprehend, than that it will be thought Hannibal was vanquished by the Alps, before we had any conflict with him. But, perhaps, it was fitting it should be so; and that, with a people and a leader who had violated leagues and covenants, the gods themselves, without man's help, should begin the war, and bring it to a near conclusion; and that we, who, next to the gods, have been injured and offended, should happily finish what they have begun. I need not be in any fear that you should suspect me of saying these things, merely to encourage you, while inwardly I have different sentiments. What hindered me from going into Spain? That was my province, where I should have had the less dreaded Asdrubal, not Hannibal, to deal with. But hearing, as I passed along the coasts of Gaul, of this enemy's march, I landed my troops, sent the horse forward, and pitched my camp upon the Rhone. A part of my cavalry encountered and defeated that of the enemy. My infantry not being able to overtake theirs, which fled before us, I returned to my fleet; and, with all the expedition I could use in so long a voyage by sea and land, am come to meet them at the foot of the Alps. Was it, then, my inclination to

avoid a contest with this tremendous Hannibal ? and have I met with him only by accident and unawares? or am I come on purpose to challenge him to the combat? I would gladly try whether the earth, within these twenty years, has brought forth a new kind of Carthaginians, or whether they be the same sort of men who fought at the Ægates, and whom, at Eryx, you suffered to redeem themselves at eighteen denarii per head—whether this Hannibal, for labours and journeys, be, as he would be thought, the rival of Hercules, or whether he be, what his father left him, a tributary, a vassal, a slave of the Roman people. Did not the consciousness of his wicked deed at Saguntum torment him, and make him desperate, he would have some regard, if not to his conquered country, yet surely to his own family, to his father's memory, to the treaty written with Amilcar's own hand. We might have starved him at Eryx, we might have passed into Africa with our victorious fleet, and in a few days have destroyed Carthage. At their humble supplication, we pardoned them; we released them, when they were closely shut up, without a possibility of escaping; we made peace with them, when they were conquered. When they were distressed by the African war, we considered them, we treated them as a people under our protection. And what is the return they make us for all these favours? Under the conduct of a hare-brained young man, they come hither to overturn our state, and lay waste our country. I could wish, indeed, that it were not so, and that the war we are now engaged in concerned only our glory, and not our preservation. But the contest at present is not for the possession of Sicily and Sardinia, but of Italy itself. Nor is there behind us another army, which, if we should not prove the conquerors, may make head against our victorious enemies. There are no more Alps for them to pass, which might give us leisure to raise new forces. No, soldiers; here you must make your stand, as if you were just now before the walls of Rome. Let every one reflect that he is now to defend, not his own person only, but his wife, his children, his helpless infants. Yet let not private considerations alone possess our minds. Let us remember that the eyes of the senate and people of Rome are upon us; and that, as our force and courage

shall now prove, such will be the fortune of that city, and

of the Roman empire.

SPEECH OF TITUS QUINTIUS TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

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 Quintius, the Æqui and Volsci (scarce a match for the Hernici alone), came in arms to the very gates of Rome, and went away again 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 ignominy would have befallen me this year, I would by death or banishment (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, while I was consul! Of honours 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? If we are in fault, depose us, punish us yet more severely. If you are to blame, may neither gods nor men punish your faults, only may you repent. No, Romans, the confidence of your 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 will set no bounds to our domination, 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 the 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 our defeat. When you are to contend with us, you can seize the Aventine Hill, you can possess yourselves of the Mons Sacer. The enemy is at our gates, the Æsquiline is near being taken, and no body stirs to hinder it. But against us you are valiant, against us you can arm with all diligence. Come on, then, besiege the senate-house, make a camp of the forum, fill the gaols with all our chief nobles; and, when you have achieved these glorious exploits, then at the least, sally out at the Esquiline gate with the same fierce spirits against the enemy. Does your resolution fail you for this? Go then, and behold from our walls your lands ravaged, your houses plundered and in flames, the whole country laid waste with fire and sword! Have you anything here to repair these damages? Will the tribunes make up your losses to you? They will give you words as many as you please; bring impeachments in abundance against the prime men in the state; heap laws upon laws; assemblies you shall have without end; but will any of you return the richer from those assemblies? Extinguish, O Romans, these fatal divisions, generously break this cursed enchantment, which keeps you buried in a scandalous inaction. Open your eyes, and consider the management of those ambitious men, who, to make themselves powerful in their party, study nothing but how they may foment divisions in the commonwealth. If you can but summon up your former courage, if you will now march out of Rome with your consuls, there is no punishment you can inflict

which I will not submit to, if I do not in a few days drive those pillagers out of our territory. This terror of war, with which you seem so grievously struck, shall quickly be removed from Rome to their own cities.

THE SCYTHIAN AMBASSADOR TO ALEXANDER. IF your person were as gigantic as your desires, the world would not contain you. Your right hand would touch the east, and your left the west, at the same time. You grasp at more than you are equal to. From Europe you reach Asia; from Asia you lay hold on Europe. And if you should conquer all mankind, you seem disposed to wage war with woods and snows, with rivers and wild beasts, and to attempt to subdue nature. But have you considered the usual course of things? Have you reflected, that great trees are many years in growing to their height, and are cut down in an hour. It is foolish to think of the fruit only, without considering the height you have to climb to come at it. Take care, lest while you strive to reach the top, you fall to the ground with the branches you have laid hold on. The lion, when dead, is devoured by ravens; and rust consumes the hardness of iron. There is nothing so strong but it is in danger from what is weak. It will therefore be your wisdom to take care how you venture beyond your reach. Besides, what have you to do with the Scythians, or the Scythians with you? We have never invaded Macedon: why should you attack Scythia? We inhabit vast deserts, and pathless woods, where we do not want to hear of the name of Alexander. We are not disposed to submit to slavery, and we have no ambition to tyrannize over any nation. That you may understand the genius of the Scythians, we present you with a yoke of oxen, an arrow, and a goblet. We use these respectively in our commerce with friends and with foes. We give to our friends the corn, which we raise by the labour of our oxen; with the goblet we join with them in pouring drinkofferings to the gods; and with arrows we attack our enemies. We have conquered those who have attempted to tyrannize over us in our own country, and likewise the