A.D.

Ancient Empire of the Huns in further Asia ends; their consequent emigration westward p. 26 (_Gibbon_) 100

The White Huns of Sogdiana pp. 26, 34, 52, 60, 67 after 100

Main body of the Huns invade the Goths on the north of the Danube p. 22 (_L'Art de verifier les dates_) 376

Attila and his Huns ravage the Roman Empire pp. 27, 28 441-452

Mission of St. Leo to Attila pp. 29, 31 453

Tartar Empire of the Turks pp. 49-52 (_L'Art_, etc., _Gibbon_), about 500-700 Chosroes the Second captures the Holy Cross p. 53 (_L'Art_, etc.) 614 Mahomet assumes the royal dignity. The Hegira p. 69 (_L'Art_) 622 The Turks from the Wolga settled by the Emperor Heraclius in Georgia against the Persians p. 53 (_Gibbon_) 626 The Turks invade Sogdiana p. 68 (_Gibbon_) 626 Heraclius recovers the Holy Cross p. 53 (_L'Art_, etc.) 628 Death of Mahomet p. 69 (_L'Art_) 632 Yezdegerde, last King of Persia, flying from the Saracens, is received and murdered by the Turks in Sogdiana p. 69 (_Universal History_) 654 The Saracens reduce the Turks in Sogdiana p. 70 (_L'Art_, and _Univ. Hist._) 705-716

The Caliphate transferred from Damascus to Bagdad p. 76 (_L'Art_) 762 Harun al Raschid p. 77 (_L'Art_) 786 The Turks taken into the pay of the Caliphs p. 77 (_L'Art_) 833, etc.

The Turks tyrannize over the Caliphs p. 79 (_L'Art_) 862-870 The Caliphs lose Sogdiana p. 80 (_L'Art_) 873 The Turkish dynasty of the Gaznevides in Khorasan and Sogdiana p. 80 (_Dow_) 977 Mahmood the Gaznevide pp. 80-84 (_Dow_) 997

Seljuk the Turk pp. 84-89 (_Univ. Hist._) 985 The Seljukian Turks wrest Sogdiana and Khorasan from the Gaznevides p. 89 (_Dow_) 1041 Togrul Beg, the Seljukian, turns to the West pp. 89, 92 (_Baronius_) 1048 Sufferings of Christians on pilgrimage to Jerusalem pp. 98-101 (_Baronius_) 1064 Alp Arslan's victory over the Emperor Diogenes p. 93 (_Baronius_) 1071 St. Gregory the Seventh's letter against the Turks p. 98 (_Sharon Turner_) 1074 Jerusalem in possession of the Turks p. 98 (_L'Art_) 1076 Soliman, the Seljukian Sultan of Roum, establishes himself at Nicaea p. 131 (_L'Art_) 1082

The Council of Placentia under Urban the Second pp. 109, 137 (_L'Art_) 1095 The first Crusade p. 109 (_L'Art_) 1097 Conquests of Zingis Khan and the Moguls pp. 32-34 (_L'Art_) 1176-1259 Richard Coeur de Lion in Palestine p. 140 (_L'Art_) 1190 Institution of Mamlooks p. 217 about 1200 Constantinople taken by the Latins p. 139 (_L'Art_) 1203 Greek Empire of Nicaea p. 121 (_L'Art_) 1206 The Greek Emperor Vataces encourages agriculture in Asia Minor p. 121 (_L'Art_) 1222-1255

The Moguls subjugate Russia p. 225 (_L'Art_) 1236 Mission of St. Louis to the Moguls pp. 35-41 (_L'Art_) 1253 The Turks attack the north and west coast of Asia Minor p. 93 (_Univ. Hist._) 1266-1296 Marco Polo p. 37 1270 End of the Seljukian kingdom of Roum p. 132 (_L'Art_) 1294

Othman p. 132 1301 The Popes retire to Avignon for seventy years p. 143 (_L'Art_) 1305 Orchan, successor to Othman, originates the institution of Janizaries p. 134 (_L'Art_) 1326-1360 Battle of Cressy p. 140 1346 Battle of Poitiers, p. 140 1356 Wicliffe, p. 139 1360 Amurath institutes the Janizaries pp. 113, 215, 218 (_Gibbon_) 1370 Conquests of Timour p. 32 (_L'Art_) 1370, etc.

Schismatical Pontiffs for thirty-eight years p. 143 (_L'Art_) 1378-1417 Battle of Nicopolis p. 146 (_L'Art_) 1393 Timour defeats and captures Bajazet p. 144 (_L'Art_) 1402 Timour at Samarcand pp. 38, 45 (_L'Art_) 1404 Timour dies on his Chinese expedition p. 46 1405

Henry the Fourth of England dies, p. 141 1413 Battle of Agincourt pp. 140, 145 1415 Huss p. 140 1415 Henry the Fifth of England dies p. 142 1422 Maid of Orleans p. 141 1428 Battle of Varna p. 147 (_L'Art_) 1442 Constantinople taken by the Ottomans p. 147 1453 John Basilowich rescues Russia from the Moguls p. 47 (_L'Art_) about 1480 Luther p. 140 1517 Soliman the Great pp. 148, 192 1520 St. Pius the Fifth p. 153 1568 Battle of Lepanto pp. 156, 189 1571

II.

PERSONAL AND LITERARY CHARACTER OF CICERO.

(_From the_ ENCYCLOPaeDIA METROPOLITANA _of 1824_.)

PREFATORY NOTICE.

If the following sketch of Cicero's life and writings be thought unworthy of so great a subject, the Author must plead the circumstances under which it was made.

In the spring of 1824, when his hands were full of work, Dr. Whately paid him the compliment of asking him to write it for the _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, to which he was at that time himself contributing. Dr.

Whately explained to him that the Editor had suddenly been disappointed in the article on Cicero which was to have appeared in the _Encyclopaedia_, and that in consequence he could not allow more than two months for the composition of the paper which was to take its place; also, that it must contain such and such subjects. The Author undertook and finished it under these conditions.

In the present Edition (1872) he has in some places availed himself of the excellent translations of its Greek and Latin passages, made by the Reverend Henry Thompson in the Edition of 1852.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

PAGE

1. CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF CICERO, ---- 1-4 245

2. HIS LITERARY POSITION, -- 5 259

3. THE NEW ACADEMY AND HIS RELATION TO IT, ---- 6-7 264

4. HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, ---- 8-10 275

5. HIS LETTERS, HIS HISTORICAL AND POETICAL COMPOSITIONS, -- 10 289

6. HIS ORATIONS, -- 11 291

7. HIS STYLE, -- 12 295

8. THE ORATORS OF ROME, -- 13 297

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.

1.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum, the native place of Marius,[93] in the year of Rome 648 (A.C. 106), the same year which gave birth to the Great Pompey. His family was ancient and of Equestrian rank, but had never taken part in the public affairs of Rome,[94] though both his father and grandfather were persons of consideration in the part of Italy to which they belonged.[95] His father, being a man of cultivated mind himself, determined to give his two sons the advantage of a liberal education, and to fit them for the prospect of those public employments which a feeble constitution incapacitated himself from undertaking. Marcus, the elder of the two, soon displayed indications of a superior intellect, and we are told that his schoolfellows carried home such accounts of him, that their parents often visited the school for the sake of seeing a youth who gave such promise of future eminence.[96] One of his earliest masters was the poet Archias, whom he defended afterwards in his Consular year; under his instructions he was able to compose a poem, though yet a boy, on the fable of Glaucus, which had formed the subject of one of the tragedies of aeschylus. Soon after he assumed the manly gown he was placed under the care of Scaevola, the celebrated lawyer, whom he introduces so beautifully into several of his philosophical dialogues; and in no long time he gained a thorough knowledge of the laws and political institutions of his country.[97]

This was about the time of the Social war; and, according to the Roman custom, which made it a necessary part of education to learn the military art by personal service, Cicero took the opportunity of serving a campaign under the Consul Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great.

Returning to pursuits more congenial to his natural taste, he commenced the study of Philosophy under Philo the Academic, of whom we shall speak more particularly hereafter.[98] But his chief attention was reserved for Oratory, to which he applied himself with the assistance of Molo, the first rhetorician of the day; while Diodotus the Stoic exercised him in the argumentative subtleties for which the disciples of Zeno were so generally celebrated. At the same time he declaimed daily in Greek and Latin with some young noblemen, who were competitors with him in the same race of political honours.

Of the two professions,[99] which, from the contentiousness of human nature, are involved in the very notion of society, while that of arms, by its splendour and importance, secures the almost undivided admiration of a rising and uncivilized people, legal practice, on the other hand, becomes the path to honours in later and more civilized ages, by reason of the oratorical accomplishments to which it usually gives scope. The date of Cicero's birth fell precisely during that intermediate state of things, in which the glory of military exploits lost its pre-eminence by means of the very opulence and luxury which were their natural issue; and he was the first Roman who found his way to the highest dignities of the State with no other recommendation than his powers of eloquence and his merits as a civil magistrate.[100]

The first cause of importance he undertook was his defence of Sextus Roscius; in which he distinguished himself by his spirited opposition to Sylla, whose favourite Chrysogonus was prosecutor in the action. This obliging him, according to Plutarch, to leave Rome on prudential motives, he employed his time in travelling for two years under pretence of his health, which, he tells us,[101] was as yet unequal to the exertion of pleading. At Athens he met with T. Pomponius Atticus, whom he had formerly known at school, and there renewed with him a friendship which lasted through life, in spite of the change of interests and estrangements of affection so common in turbulent times.[102] Here too he attended the lectures of Antiochus, who, under the name of Academic, taught the dogmatic doctrines of Plato and the Stoics. Though Cicero felt at first considerable dislike of his philosophical views,[103] he seems afterwards to have adopted the sentiments of the Old Academy, which they much resembled; and not till late in life to have relapsed into the sceptical tenets of his former instructor Philo.[104] After visiting the principal philosophers and rhetoricians of Asia, in his thirtieth year he returned to Rome, so strengthened and improved both in bodily and mental powers, that he soon eclipsed in his oratorical efforts all his competitors for public favour. So popular a talent speedily gained him the suffrage of the Commons; and, being sent to Sicily as Quaestor, at a time when the metropolis itself was visited with a scarcity of corn, he acquitted himself in that delicate situation with such address as to supply the clamorous wants of the people without oppressing the province from which the provisions were raised.[105]

Returning thence with greater honours than had ever been before decreed to a Roman Governor, he ingratiated himself still farther in the esteem of the Sicilians by undertaking his celebrated prosecution of Verres; who, though defended by the influence of the Metelli and the eloquence of Hortensius, was at length driven in despair into voluntary exile.

Five years after his Quaestorship, Cicero was elected aedile, a post of considerable expense from the exhibition of games connected with it. In this magistracy he conducted himself with singular propriety;[106] for, it being customary to court the people by a display of splendour in these official shows, he contrived to retain his popularity without submitting to the usual alternative of plundering the provinces or sacrificing his private fortune. The latter was at this time by no means ample; but, with the good sense and taste which mark his character, he preserved in his domestic arrangements the dignity of a literary and public man, without any of the ostentation of magnificence which often distinguished the candidate for popular applause.[107]

After the customary interval of two years, he was returned at the head of the list as Praetor;[108] and now made his first appearance in the rostrum in support of the Manilian law. About the same time he defended Cluentius. At the expiration of his Praetorship, he refused to accept a foreign province, the usual reward of that magistracy;[109] but, having the Consulate full in view, and relying on his interest with Caesar and Pompey, he allowed nothing to divert him from that career of glory for which he now believed himself to be destined.

2.

It may be doubted, indeed, whether any individual ever rose to power by more virtuous and truly honourable conduct; the integrity of his public life was only equalled by the correctness of his private morals; and it may at first sight excite our wonder that a course so splendidly begun should afterwards so little fulfil its early promise. Yet it was a failure from the period of his Consulate to his Pro-praetorship in Cilicia, and each year is found to diminish his influence in public affairs, till it expires altogether with the death of Pompey. This surprise, however, arises in no small degree from measuring Cicero's political importance by his present reputation, and confounding the authority he deservedly possesses as an author with the opinions entertained of him by his contemporaries as a statesman. From the consequence usually attached to passing events, a politician's celebrity is often at its zenith in his own generation; while the author, who is in the highest repute with posterity, may perhaps have been little valued or courted in his own day. Virtue indeed so conspicuous as that of Cicero, studies so dignified, and oratorical powers so commanding, will always invest their possessor with a large portion of reputation and authority; and this is nowhere more apparent than in the enthusiastic welcome with which he was greeted on his return from exile.

But unless other qualities be added, more peculiarly necessary for a statesman, they will hardly of themselves carry that political weight which some writers have attached to Cicero's public life, and which his own self-love led him to appropriate.