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SECTION IV.

SPEECHES ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

I. Romulus to the People of Rome, after building the City. JF all the strength of cities lay in the height of their

ramparts, or the depth of their ditches, we should have great reafon to be in fear for that which we have now built. But are there in reality any walls too high to be scaled by a valiant enemy? and of what use are ramparts in inteftine divifions? They may ferve for a defence against fudden incurfions from abroad; but it is by courage and prudence chiefly, that the invafions of foreign enemies are repelled; and by unanimity, fobriety, and justice, that domeftic feditions are prevented. Cities fortified by the strongest bulwarks have been often feen to yield to force from without, or to tumults from within. An exact military discipline, and a steady obfervance of civil polity, are the fureft barriers against thefe evils.

But there is still another point of great importance to be confidered. The profperity of fome rifing colonies, and the speedy ruin of others, have, in a great measure, been owing to their form of government. Were there but one manner of ruling ftates and cities that could make them happy, the choice would not be difficult. But I have learnt, that, of the various forms of govern ment among the Greeks and Barbarians, there are three which are highly extolled by those who have experienced them; and yet, that no one of these is in all respects perfect, but each of them has fome innate and incurable defect. Choose you, then, in what manner this city fhall be governed. Shall it be by one man? fhall it be by a felect number of the wifeft among us? or fhall the legislative power be in the people? As for me, I fhall fubmit to whatever form of adminiftration you fhail please to establish. As I think myself not unworthy to command, fo neither am I unwilling to obey. Your ha ving chofen me to be the leader of this colony, and

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your calling the city after my name, are honours fuffi cient to content me; honours, of which, living or dead, I can never be deprived.

II. Hannibal to Scipio Africanus, at their Interview preceding the Battle of Zama.

SINCE fate has fo ordained it, that I, who began the

war, and who have been fo often on the point of ending it by a complete conqueft, fhould now come of my own motion to afk a peace; I am glad that it is of you, Scipio, I have the fortune to afk it. Nor will this be among the leaft of your glories, that Hannibal, victorious over so many Roman generals, fubmitted at last to you.

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I could with, that our fathers and we had confined our ambition within the limits which nature seems to have prefcribed to it; the fhores of Africa, and the faores of Italy. The gods did not give us that mind. On both fides we have been fo eager after foreign pofeffions, as to put our own to the hazard of war.

Rome and Carthage have had, each in her turn, the enemy at 1er gates. But fince errours paft may be more eafily blamed than corrected, let it now be the work of you and me, to put an end, if poffible, to the obftinate conention. For my own part, my years, and the expe ience I have had of the inftability of fortune, incline me to leave nothing to her determination which reafon can decide. But much I fear, Scipio, that your youth, your want of the like experience, your uninter rupted fuccefs, may render you averfe from the thoughts of peace. He whom fortune has never failed, rarely reflects upon her inconftancy. Yet, without recurring to former examples, my own inay perhaps fuffice to teach you moderation. I am that fame Hannibal, who, after my victory at Cannæ, became mafter of the greatest part of your country, and deliberated with myfelf what fate I fhould decree to Italy and Rome. And nowfee the change! Here, in Africa, I am come to treat with a Roman, for my own prefervation and my country's. Such are the fports of fortune. Is fhe then to be trufted because fhe fmiles? An advantageous peace is preferable to the hope of victory. The one is in your

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own power, the other at the pleasure of the gods. Should you prove victorious, it would add little to your own glory, or the glory of your country; if vanquished, you lofe in one hour all the honour and reputation you have been fo many years acquiring. But what is my aim in all this?—that you fhould content yourself with our ceffion of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and all the islands between Italy and Africa. A peace on thefe conditions will, in my opinion, not only fecure the future tranquil lity of Carthage, but be fufficiently glorious for you, and for the Roman name. And do not tell me, that fome of our citizens dealt fraudulently with you in the late treaty—it is I, Hannibal, that now ask a peace: I afk it, because I think it expedient for my country; and, thinking it expedient, I will inviolably maintain it.

III. Scipio's Reply.

I KNEW very well, Hannibal, that it was the hope of your return which emboldened the Carthaginians to break the truce with us, and to lay afide all thoughts of a peace when it was just upon the point of being concluded; and your prefent propofal is a proof of it. You retrench from their conceffions every thing but what we are, and have been long, poffeffed of. But as it is your care that your fellow-citizens fhould have the obfigations to you of being eafed from a great part of their burden, fo it ought to be mine that they draw no advantage from their perfidioufnefs. Nobody is more fenfible than I am of the weakness of man, and the power of fortune, and that whatever we enterprife is fubject to a thousand chances. If, before the Romans paffed into Africa, you had of your own accord quitted Italy, and made the offers you now make, I believe they would not have been rejected. But as you have been forced out of Italy, and we are mafters here of the open country, the fituation of things is much altered. And, what is chiefly to be confidered, the Carthaginians, by the late treaty which we entered into at their requeft, were, over and above what you offer, to have restored us our prifoners without ranfom, delivered up their hips of war, paid us five thousand talents, and to have given holtages for the performance of all. The fenate

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accepted thefe conditions; but Carthage failed on her part; Carthage deceived us. What then is to be done? Are the Carthaginians to be released from the most important articles of the treaty, as a reward of their breach of faith? No, certainly. If, to the conditions before a greed upon, you had added fome new articles to our advantage, there would have been matter of reference to the Roman people; but when, instead of adding, you retrench, there is no room for deliberation. The Carthaginians, therefore, must submit to us at difcretion, or muft vanquish us in battle.

IV. Calisthenes's Reproof of Cleon's Flattery to Alexander, on whom he had propofed to confer Divinity by vote. IF the king were prefent, Clcon, there would be no

need of my answering to what you have juft propofed. He would himfelf reprove you for endeavouring to draw him into an imitation of foreign abfurdities, and for bringing envy upon him by fuch unmanly flattery As he is abfent, I take upon me to tell you, in his name, that no praife is lafting, but what is rational; and that you do what you can to leffen his glory, instead of adding to it. Heroes have never, among us, been deified, till after their death: and, whatever may be your way of thinking, Cleon, for my part, I with the king may not, for many years to come, obtain that honour.

You have mentioned, as precedents of what you pro pofe, Hercules and Bacchus. Do you imagine, Cleon, that they were deified over a cup of wine? and are you and I qualified to make gods? Is the king, our fovereign, to receive his divinity from you and me, who are his fubjects? First try your power, whether you can make a king. It is furely easier to make a king than a god; to give an earthly dominion, than a throne in heaven.. I only wish that the gods may have heard, without of fence, the arrogant propofal you have made of adding one to their number; and that they may ftill be fo propitious to us, as to grant the continuauce of that fuc cefs to our affairs, with which they have hitherto favoured us. For my part, I am not afhamed of my country; nor do I approve of our adopting the rites of foreign nations, or learning from them how we ought

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to reverence our kings. To receive laws or rules of conduct from them, what is it but to confefs ourselves inferiour to them?

V. Gaius Marius to the Romans; showing the Abfurdity of their hefitating to confer on him the Rank of General, merely on Account of his Extraction.

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IT is but too common, my countrymen, to obferve a

material difference between the behaviour of thofe who stand candidates for places of power and truft, be- ́ fore and after their obtaining them. They folicit them in one manner, and execute them in another. They fet out with a great appearance of activity, humility, and moderation; and they quickly fall into floth, pride, and avarice,-It is, undoubtedly, no eafy matter to difcharge, to the general fatisfaction, the duty of a fupreme commander in troublefome times. To carry on, with effect, an expensive war, and yet be frugal of the public money; to oblige thofe to ferve, whom it may be delicate to offend; to conduct, at the fame time, a complicated variety of operations; to concert measures at home, anfwerable to the state of things abroad; and to gain every valuable end, in fpite of oppofition from the envious, the factious, and the difaffected-to do all this, my countrymen, is more difficult than is generally thought.

But, befides the difadvantages which are common to me with all others in eminent ftations, my cafe is, in this refpect, peculiarly hard-that, whereas a commander of Patrician rank, if he is guilty of a neglect or breach of duty, has his great connections, the antiquity of his family, the important fervices of his ancestors, and the multitudes he has, by power, engaged in his intereft, to fcreen him from condign punishment, my whole fafety depends upon myself; which renders it the more indifpen fably neceflary for me to take care that my conduct bẹ clear and unexceptionable. Befides, I am well aware, my countrymen, that the eye of the public is upon me and that, though the impartial, who prefer the real ad. vantage of the commonwealth to all other confiderations, favour my pretenfions, the Patricians want nothing fo much as an occafion against me. It is, therefore, my

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