Forum resounded with the speeches of orators who inflamed the passions of the people; and amongst these Sulpicius the Tribune was pre-eminent as a popular demagogue. Amidst the crowd who listened to them as they thundered from the Rostra, stood a tall thin youth with outstretched neck and eager eyes, gazing with rapt attention on the speakers, and learning from them the art how to sway by the charm of eloquence the fierce democracy of Rome. This is no fancy portrait, but one which Cicero has drawn of himself in a most interesting passage where he describes his own personal appearance, and mentions how constant an attendant he was at the harangues that were then daily delivered in the Forum.' It may be interesting to attempt a description of this celebrated spot as it appeared in the days of Cicero; but we must take care not to be misled by the ruins of buildings which now meet the eye of the spectator as he gazes down upon it from the heights of the Capitol. The Arch of Titus was not there then, nor the Colosseum, two of the most conspicuous objects in view. The Forum was oblong in shape, and on the northern side at the eastern corner stood the Temple of Concord, of which (or of a temple bearing the same name, but built at a later period) some columns still remain. Close to this, but a little in front, stood the Rostra, facing the Forum, the base of which has within the last few years been discovered and laid bare. In front of this, again, stood the Duilian column-a pillar ornamented with the brazen beaks of ships taken by Caius Duilius in the first naval victory gained by the Romans over the Carthaginians. Along the whole length of the Forum, and almost in the middle, dividing it into two parts, run the Via Sacra (the Sacred Way), which led from the southern extremity to the Capitol, along which the Roman generals marched in solemn procession to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus when they enjoyed the honour of a triumph. The pavement consisted of large flat polygonal blocks of stone, like slabs of slate irregularly placed, which look as fresh now, after the lapse of twenty-five centuries, as if they had been laid down yesterday. By the side of this, and between it and the Palatine Hill, at a distance from the Capitol of about two-thirds of its whole length, stood the temple of Jupiter Stator, or Jupiter the Stayer of Flight, to which, as some antiquarians think, belonged those two graceful pillars which rivet the gaze of every beholder, and which have long been the admiration and the despair of the architect. There were long rows of shops or booths, called taberna, which formed colonnades at the sides of the Forum ; and it was from one of these that Virginius snatched the butcher's knife which he plunged into the bosom of his daughter to save her from dishonour. During the reign of terror that ensued when Marius and Cinna formed a coalition, and, amidst the horrors of a proscription, slaked their sanguinary rage with the noblest blood of Rome, it was as dangerous to have been a public speaker as it was at Athens when Antipater demanded that the people should give up their orators, and Demosthenes fled to Ægina to perish there by his own hand rather than be dragged to execution. Antonius, Catulus, and Julius were put to death, and not long afterwards Scævola, Carbo, and Antistius met a similar fate. Crassus would no doubt have fallen by the hand of the executioner or assassin if he had been still alive, but he had died four years before. In this terrible time Cicero, who was still too young to attract the notice of the bloodthirsty tyrants of Rome, quietly pursued his studies. He attended the lectures in rhetoric of Molo the Rhodian, whom he praises as a consummate advocate and teacher; and diligently laboured to improve his style by translations from the works of Greek writers, B.C. 90-82. ATTENDS LECTURES IN RHETORIC. 21 amongst which he makes special mention of the Economics of Xenophon. Nor does it seem possible for him to have adopted a better method for the purpose he had in view. It was that which was recommended by one of the most illustrious of English orators to his still greater son. Pitt told the late Lord Stanhope that he owed greatly whatever readiness of speech he possessed, and aptness in finding the right word, to a practice which his father had impressed upon him. "Lord Chatham had bid him take up any book in some foreign language with which he was well acquainted, in Latin or Greek especially. Lord Chatham then enjoined him to read out of this work a passage in English, stopping when he was not sure of the word to be used in English, until the right word came to his mind, and then proceed." Cicero also practised declamation at home, sometimes in Latin but more frequently in Greek, in order, as he tells us, to enrich his mind with the copious wealth of that language; and also to have the benefit of instruction and correction from Greek masters, who were present at these exercises. The Stoic teacher Diodotus became an inmate of his house, with whom he studied the rules of dialectics, and who afterwards at a later period died under his roof. And he now began to attempt prose composition, in which his earliest work seems to have been the treatise De Inventione, but he spoke of it afterwards in disparaging terms as a mere schoolboy performance. He read and appreciated the letters of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, lost, alas! to us, which showed how much of their education her sons owed to her; and he found an agreeable relaxation in the charm of female society. He mentions especially the ladies of one accomplished familyLelia, the wife of Scævola the Augur, and her daughters and grand-daughters, whose conversation contributed to refine and improve his taste. As Goethe says in his Tasso : Willst du genau erfahren was sich ziemt, By degrees quieter times succeeded. The fury of the |