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another." While finishing these words, first a crowd of their flying countrymen, after that the enemy, came upon them; they overwhelm the consul with their weapons, not knowing who he was in the confusion his horse rescued Lentulus. After that they fly precipitately.

Seven thousand escaped to the lesser camp, ten to the greater, about two thousand to the village itself of Cannæ, who were immediately surrounded by Carthalo and the cavalry, no fortifications protecting the village. The other consul, whether by design or by chance, made good his escape to Venusia with about seventy horse, without mingling with any party of the flying troops. Forty thousand foot, two thousand seven hundred horse, there being an equal number of citizens and allies, are said to have been slain. Among these both the questors of the consuls, Lucius Atilius and Lucius Furius Bibaculus; twenty-one military tribunes; several who had passed the offices of consul, pretor, and ædile; among these they reckon Cneius Servilius Germinus, and Marcus Minucius, who had been master of the horse on a former year, and consul some years before; moreover, eighty, either Senators, or who had borne those offices by which they might be elected into the Senate, and who had voluntarily enrolled themselves in the legions. Three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry are said to have been captured in that battle.

Such is the battle of Cannæ, equal in celebrity to the defeat at the Allia; but as it was less important in respect to those things which happened after it, because the enemy did not follow up the blow, so was it more important and more horrible with respect to the slaughter of the army; for with respect to the flight at the Allia, as it betrayed the city, so it preserved the army. At Cannæ, scarcely seventy accompanied the flying consul: almost the whole army shared the fate of the other who died.

TO ROME.

BY LORD BYRON.

O ROME, my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery.

What are our woes and sufferings? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and empires, Ye

Whose agonies are creatures of a day!

A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

The Niobe of nations! There she stands,
Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago:
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchers lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress!

The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride!
She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climbed the capitol; far and wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :

Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,

O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,

And say, "Here was, or is," where all is doubly night?

The double night of ages, and of her,

Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap

All round us; we but feel our way to err:

The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap: But Rome is as the desert, where we steer

Stumbling o'er recollections: now we clap Our hands, and cry, "Eureka! it is clearWhen but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

Alas, the lofty city! and alas,

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The trebly hundred triumphs, and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page! but these shall be
Her resurrection: all beside, decay.

Alas for earth, for never shall we see

That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!

THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE.

BY SALLUST.

[CAIUS SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, Roman historical writer, was born в.c. 86. He was expelled from the Senate for debauchery, B.C. 54; readmitted by Cæsar; made governor of Numidia by him, в.c. 46; gained immense wealth by plundering the inhabitants and worse unpopularity by seducing their women; the following year he returned to Rome and lived in lettered ease till his death, B.C. 35. His fame rests on his only surviving works, “The Conspiracy of Catiline" and "The War against Jugurtha," both pamphlets with an ulterior political purpose.]

LUCIUS CATILINE was a man of noble birth, and of eminent mental and personal endowments, but of a vicious and depraved disposition. His delight, from his youth, had been in civil commotions, bloodshed, robbery, and sedition; and in such scenes he had spent his early years. His constitution could endure hunger, want of sleep, and cold, to a degree surpassing belief. His mind was daring, subtle, and versatile, capable of pretending or dissembling whatever he wished. He was covetous of other men's property, and prodigal of his own. He had abundance of eloquence, though but little wisHis insatiable ambition was always pursuing objects extravagant, romantic, and unattainable.

dom.

Since the time of Sylla's dictatorship, a strong desire of seizing the government possessed him, nor did he at all care, provided that he secured power for himself, by what means he might arrive at it. His violent spirit was daily more and more hurried on by the diminution of his patrimony, and by his consciousness of guilt; both which evils he had increased by those practices which I have mentioned above. The corrupt morals of the state, too, which extravagance and selfishness, pernicious and contending vices, rendered thoroughly depraved, furnished him with additional incentives to action.

When wealth was once considered an honor, and glory, authority, and power attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was thought a disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life of ill nature. From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride prevailed among the youth; they grew at once rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and coveted what was another's; they set at naught modesty and continence; they lost all dis

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CICERO AND CATILINE IN THE SENATE

"How long now, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?

From a fresco painting by Professor C. Maccari, on the wall of the Palace of the Senate, Rome

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