The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Arpinum, B.C. 106. Died at Formiae, B.C. 43. Aged 63.] The acknowledged greatest name in Roman eloquence. A man diligent in accomplishing himself by various study, and wonderfully gifted with the power of clothing thought in copious and musical words. He is less distinguished as an original thinker. He frequented the schools of the philosophers, but seemed in heart more dedicated to the worldly ambition of power and fame than to the studious zeal of truth. He courted popularity, and lived in anticipated immortality. He was an ambiguous partisan, waiting to be directed by victory to the side which he should embrace. He loved to throw an air of philosophical reflexion over questions of human affairs; and his expression of these reflexions is felt even to this day as singularly felicitous. We quote his words, because we can find no apter expression yet for the permanent thoughts. His writings show him undisguisedly vain. After the assassination of the great Julius (B.C. 44), he became the leader of the republican party, and in his celebrated “Philippics” denounced Antony as the foe of his country. This was his ruin. On the formation of the Triumvirate of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, he was included in the proscriptions; his head was cut off, and fixed upon the Rostra which had so frequently resounded with his eloquence. His greatest political achievement was the detection and sudden overthrow of the revolutionary conspiracy headed by Catiline (B.C. 63), his brilliant denunciations of whom we listen to in our boyhood. Kind and pure in his life, but without true greatness of character, and with many moral weaknesses. [From the marble in the Vatican. Considered to be the most faithful portrait of this renowned orator. No. 120A is from the Gallery of Philosophers of the Capitoline Museum, at Rome.] 120A. CICERO--MARCUS TULLIUS. _Roman Orator._