hinder them from giving their Suffrages by leading them into the Field? Hear me, Confuls: Whether the News of the War you talk of be true, or whether it be only a falfe Rumour, fpread abroad for nothing but a Colour to fend the People out of the City, I declare, as Tribune, that this People, who have already fo often fpilt their Blood in our Country's Caufe, are again ready to arm for its Defence and its Glory, if they may be reftored to their natural Rights, and you will no longer treat us like Strangers in our own Country. But if you account us unworthy of your Alliance by Inter-marriages, if you will not fuffer the Entrance to the chief Offices in the State to be open to all Perfons of Merit, indifferently, but will confine your choice Magiftrates to the Senate alone; talk of Wars as much as ever you pleafe; paint in your ordinary Difcourfes the League and Power of our Enemies ten times more dreadful than you do now; I declare that this People, whom you fo much defpife, and to whom you are nevertheless indebted for all your Victories, fhall never more inlift themselves; not a Man of them fhall take Arms, not a Man of them fhall expofe his Life for imperious Lords, with whom he can neither share the Dignities of the State, nor in private Life have any Alliance by Marriage.

You have feen by the foregoing Speeches, the Progress of the Struggles between the Patricians and the Plebeians, which continued for many Years; the People always encroaching more and more upon the Privileges of the Patricians, till at length all the great Offices of the State became equally conmon to the one and the other. The following Speech, which was spoken above a hundred Years after the foregoing one, may ferve as an Inftance and a Proof of that great Simplicity of Manners, public Virtue, and noble Spirit, which raifed that People to that Height of Power and Dominion, which they afterwards attain'de The Occafion of it was this. The Tarentines having a Quarrel with the Romans, invite Pyrrhus King of Epirus to their Affiftance, who lands with his Forces in Italy, and defeats the Roman Army under the Command of Lævinus. After this Battle,

Fa

Fabritius, with two other Roman Senators, is fent to Tarentum to treat with Pyrrhus about the Exchange of Prisoners. The King, being informed of the great Abilities, and great Poverty of Fabritius, hinted, in a private Converfation with bim, the Unfuitableness of fuch Poverty to fuch diftinguished Merit, and that if he would affift him to negotiate with the Romans an honourable Peace for the Tarentines, and go with him to Epirus, he would bestow fuch Riches upon him, as fhould put him, at least, upon an Equality with the most opulent Nobles of Rome. The Answer of Fabritius was to this Effect.

A

S to my Poverty, you have indeed, Sir, been rightly inform'd. My whole Eftate confifts in a House of but mean Appearance, and a little Spot of Ground, from which, by my own Labour, I draw my Support. But if, by any Means, you have been perfuaded to think, that this Poverty makes me lefs confidered in my Country, or in any Degree unhappy, you are extremely deceived. I have no Reafon to complain of Fortune, the fupplies me with all that Nature requires; and if I am without Superfluities, I am also free from the Defire of them. With thefe, I confefs, I should be more able to fuccour the Neceffitous, the only Advantage for which the Wealthy are to be envied; but as fmall as my Poffeffions are, I can ftill contribute fomething to the Support of the State, and the Affiftance of my Friends. With regard to Honours, my Country places me, poor as I am, upon a Level with the richest: For Rome knows no Qualifications for great Employments but Virtue and Ability. She appoints me to of ficiate in the moft auguft Ceremonies of Religion; fhe entrusts me with the Command of her Armies; the confides to my Care the most important Negotiations. My Poverty does not leffen the Weight and Influence of my Counfels in the Senate; the Roman People honour me for that very Poverty which you confider as a Difgrace; they know the many Opportunities I have had in War, to enrich myfelf without incurring Cenfure; they are convinced of my difinterefted Zeal for their Profperity; and, if I have any thing to complain of in the Return they make, it is only the Excefs of their Applaufe. What Value then can I fet upon your Gold and Silver? What King can add any thing to my Fortune? Always attentive to discharge the Duties incumbent on me, I have a Mind free from SELF-REPROACH, and I have an HONEST FAME.

LESSON X.

The following Speeches are of a different kind from any of the foregoing. They are the Speeches of two great Generals, at the Head of their Armies, before an Engagement. It was at the Beginning of the fecond Punic War, that Hannibal the Carthaginian General made that furprizing March over the Alps with his Army, and entered Italy. He was met near the Banks of the Po by Publius Scipio, with the Roman Army. The two Generals are faid to have conceived a high Opinion of each other. Hannibal's Name had been long renowned; and that Scipio must be a Captain of eminent Worth, the Carthaginian bad well concluded, from the Romans having chofen him, preferably to all others, to be his Opponent. But this mutual Impreffion was become much ftronger, by the hardy Enterprize of the one to march_over the Alps, and the happy Execution of it; and the expeditious Courage of the other in coming from the Banks of the Rhone, to meet him, at the Foot of thofe Mountains. But Scipio, who was but newly appointed their General, thought proper to affemble his Soldiers before the Engagement, and endeavoured to animate their Courage by the following Words.

WERE you, Soldiers, the fame Army which I had

with me in Gaul, I might well forbear faying any thing to you at this time. For what occafion could there be to ufe Exhortation to a Cavalry, that had fo fignally vanquifhed the Squadrons of the Enemy upon the Rhone, or to Legions, by whom that fame Enemy flying before them to avoid a Battle, did in effect confefs themfelves conquered? But as thefe Troops, having been inrolled for Spain, are there with my Brother Cneius, making War under my Aufpices (as was the Will of the Senate and People of Rome) I, that you might have a Conful for your Captain against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, have freely offered myfelf for this War. You then have a new General, and I a new Army. In

this

*This Battle was fought on the Banks of the Ticin, a small River which runs into the Po, and is called the Battle of the Ticin. Scipio received a dangerous Wound, and had been left upon the Place, if his Son, a mere Youth, (afterwards the great Africanus) had not, by a furprizing Effort of Courage, brought him off. The Romans were obliged to retire.

this Circumstance a few Words from me to you will be neither improper nor unseasonable. And that you may not be unapprized of what fort of Enemies you are going to encounter, or of what is to be feared from them, they are the very fame whom, in a former War, you vanquished both by Land and Sea; the fame from whom you took Sicily and Sardinia, and who have been these twenty Years your Tributaries. You will not, I prefume, march against thefe Men with only that Courage, with which you are wont to face other Enemies, but with a certain Anger and Indignation, fuch as you would feel, if you faw your Slaves on a fudden rife up in Arms against you. Conquered and enflaved, it is not Boldness, but Neceffity that urges them to Battle: Unless you can believe that those who avoided fighting when their Army was entire, have acquired better Hope by the Lofs of two thirds of their Horfe and Foot, in the Paffage of the Alps.

But you heard perhaps, that, though they are few in Number, they are Men of ftout Hearts and robuft Bodies. Heroes of fuch Strength and Vigour, as nothing is able to refift.Mere Effigies! nay Shadows of Men! Wretches emaciated with Hunger, and benumbed with Cold! bruifed and battered to pieces among the Rocks and craggy Cliffs! their Weapons. broke, and their Horfes weak and foundered 1 Such are the Cavalry, and fuch the Infantry, with which you are going to contend; not Enemies, but the Fragments of Enemies. There is nothing which I more apprehend, than that it will be thought, Hannibal was vanquished by the Alps, before we had any Conflict with him. But perhaps it was fitting that so it should be; and that with a People and a Leader, who had violated Leagues and Covenants, the Gods themselves, without Man's Help, fhould begin the War, and bring it to a near Conclufion; and that we, who, next to the Gods, have been injured and offended, should happily finish what they have begun. I need not be in any fear, that you fhould fufpect me of faying these things merely to encourage you, while inwardly I have different Sentiments. What hindered me from going into Spain? that was my Province; where I fhould have had the lefs-dreaded Afdrubal, not Hannibal to deal with. But hearing, as I paffed along the Coaft of Gaul, of this Enemy's March, I landed my Troops, fent the Horfe forward, and pitched my Camp upon the Rhone. A Part of my Cavalry encountered and defeated that of the Enemy; my Infantry not being able to overtake theirs, which fled before us, I returned to my Fleet, and with all the Expedition I could use in fo long a Voyage by Sea and Land, am come to meet them

at the Foot of the Alps. Was it then my Inclination to avoid a Contest with this tremendous Hannibal? And have I lit upon him only by accident and unawares? Or am I come on purpose to challenge him to the Combat? I would gladly try, whether the Earth, within thefe twenty Years, has brought forth a new kind of Carthaginians, or whether they be the fame fort of Men who fought at the gates; and whom, at Eryx, you fuffered to redeem themfelves at eighteen Denarii per Head Whether this Hannibal, for Labours and Journeys, be, as he would be thought, the Rival of Hercules; or whether he be what his Father left him, a Tributary, a Vaffal, a Slave of the Roman People. Did not the Confcioufnefs of his wicked Deed at Saguntum torment him, and make him defperate, he would have fome Regard, if not to his conquered Country, yet furely to his own Family, to his Father's Memory, to the Treaty written with Amilcar's own Hand. We might have ftarved them in Eryx; we might have paffed into Africa with our victorious Fleet, and in a few Days have deftroyed Carthage. At their humble Supplication we pardoned them; we released them, when they were closely fhut up without a Poffibility of escaping; we made Peace with them when they were conquered. When they were diftreffed by the African War, we confidered them, we treated them as a People under our Protection. And what is the Return they make us for all thefe Favours? Under the Conduct of a hare-brained young Man, they come hither to overturn our State, and lay wafte our Country.-I could with indeed, that it were not fo; and that the War we are now engaged in concerned only our own Glory, and not our Prefervation. But the Contest at prefent is not for the Poffeffion of Sicily and Sardinia, but of Italy itfcif. Nor is there, behind us, another Army which, if we fhould not prove the Conquerors, may make head against our victorious Enemies. There are no more Alps for them to pafs, which might give us leifure to raise new Forces. No, Soldiers, here you must make your Stand, as if you were juft now before the Walls of Rome. Let every one reflect, that he is now to defend, not his own Person alone, but his Wife, his Children, his helplefs Infants. Yet let not private Confiderations alone poffefs our Minds; let us remember that the Eyes of the Senate and People of Rome are upon us, and that as our Force and Courage fhall now prove, fuch will be the Fortune of that City, and of the Roman Empire.

LESSON