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THE

LIFE OF SERTORIUS.

SUMMARY.

Similar events, which have happened to men of the same name. Sertorius makes his first campaign against the Cimbri and Teutones. His exploits in Spain. He distinguishes himself in the Marsian war, where he loses an eye; declares against Sylla. Marius joins Cinna and Sertorius. The latter puts to death four thousand slaves, the instruments of Marius' cruelties: sets off to take possession of Spain; succeeds in his enterprise, and by his affability of conduct renders himself highly populur: is obliged to retire from that country, but subsequently returns to it. Description of the Fortunate Islands. He passes over to Africa, and makes war upon Ascalis: orders Antaus' tomb to be opened. His character: Hind: various successes against the Roman generals: over Metellus. He defeats that general's design upon the Langobrita; gains the esteem of the Spaniards by his liberality: has their children instructed in the Greek and Roman literature: Perpenna compelled by his troops to join Sertorius. He moderates the ardour of his barbarian allies. His stratagem to reduce the Characitani. His reputation increases on Pompey's arrival in Spain. He takes Lauron in his presence; gains a great battle over Pompey; finds his hind again; engages Pompey and Metellus, and obliges them to separate. Metellus sets a price on his head. Panegyric on Sertorius' conduct: his patriotism, and piety toward his mother: Magnanimity in his treaty with

Mithridates; and conditions.

Perpenna stirs up his friends against Sertorius, who is assassinated by the conspirators. Pompey puts Perpenna to death.

IT is not at all astonishing that Fortune, in the variety of her motions through a course of numberless ages, happen often to hit upon the same point, and to produce events perfectly similar. For, if the number of events be infinite, she may easily furnish herself with parallels in such abundance of matter: if their number be limited, there must necessarily, after the whole is run through, be a return of the same occurrences.

There are some, who take a pleasure in collecting from history or conversation those accidents and adventures, which have such a characteristical likeness, as to appear the effects of reason and foresight. For example, there were two eminent persons of the name of Attis, one a Syrian and the other an Arcadian, who were both killed by a boar. There were two Acteons, one of whom was torn in pieces by his dogs, and the other by his lovers. Of the two Scipios, one conquered Carthage, and the other demolished it. Troy was thrice taken; once by Hercules on account of Laomedon's horses, next by Agamemnon with the assistance of a wooden horse, and thirdly by Charidemus, when a horse happened to stand in the way, and prevented the Trojans from shutting the gates so quickly as

1 Pausanias in his Achaïcs (vii. 17.) mentions one Attis or Attes, the son of Caläus the Phrygian, who introduced the worship of the Mother of the Gods among the Lydians. He was himself under a natural incapacity of having children, and therefore, like the fox in the fable, might possibly be the first who proposed that all the priests of that goddess should be eunuchs. Pausanias adds that Jupiter, displeased at his being so great a favourite with her, sent a boar, which ravaged the fields and slew Attis with many others of the Lydians, since which time the inhabitants of Pessinus, a city consecrated to Cybele, have abominated swine. We know nothing of any other Attis.

2 Acteon the son of Aristaus was torn in pieces by his own dogs, and Acteon the son of Melissus by the Bacchiade. See the Scholiast upon Apollonius. (iv. par. 75.)

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they should have done3. There are two cities that bear the names of the most odoriferous plants, Ios and Smyrna (Violet,' and Myrrh'), and Homer is said to have been born in the one, and to have died in the other. To these instances we may add, that some of the generals who have been the greatest warriors, and have exerted their capacity for stratagem in the most successful manner, have had but one eye; I mean Philip, Antigonus, Annibal, and Sertorius, whose Life I am now going to write. A man, whose conduct with respect to women was preferable to that of Philip, who was more faithful to his friends than Antigonus, and more humane to his enemies than Annibal; but, though he was inferior to none of them in capacity, he fell short of them all in success. Fortune indeed was ever more cruel to him, than his most inveterate and avowed enemies;, yet he showed himself a match for Metellus in experience, for Pompey in noble daring, for Sylla in his victories, nay, for the whole Roman people in power, and was all the while an exile and a sojourner ́ among barbarians.

The Grecian general, who, in our opinion, most resembles him, is Eumenes of Cardia. Both of them excelled in point of generalship; in all the arts of stratagem, as well as in courage. Both were banished from their own countries, and commanded armies. And both had to contend with Fortune, who persecuted

See Polyan. Strat. iii. 14.*

4 Some suppose Ios to have been not a town, but an island. Were it' so however, there might be a town in it of the same name, as was often the case in the Greek islands. (L.) Smyrna claimed the honour of Homer's birth, but this was disputed by six other cities;

Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,

Through which the living Homer begg'd his bread.

But Homer's was not a singular fate:

He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone,

might be inscribed upon many a scholar's tomb.

Smyrna was the birth-place likewise of Quintus Calaber, the continuator of Homer in fourteen books, who lived about the beginning of the third century.*

5 In the Thracian Chersonese. The name, meaning 'Heart,' has given birth to more than one etymology. See Steph. Byzant., and Plin. H. N. iv. 11, who most naturally refers it to the form of the city,*

them with so much violence, that at last they were assassinated through the treachery of those very persons, whom they had often led to victory.

Quintus Sertorius was of a respectable family in the town of Nursia, and the country of the Sabines. Having lost his father when a child, he had a liberal education given him by his mother, whom upon that account he always loved with the greatest tenderness. Her name was Rhea. He was sufficiently qualified to speak in a court of justice; and by his oratorical abilities gained some interest, when but a youth, in Rome itself. But his greater talents for the camp, and his success as a soldier, turned his ambition into the channel of war.

He made his first campaign under Cæpio, when the Cimbri and Teutones broke into Gaul. The Romans fought a battle, in which they behaved like cowards, and were put to the rout. Upon this occasion Sertorius lost his horse, and received many wounds; yet he swam over the Rhone, armed as he was with his breast-plate and shield, in spite of the violence of the torrent. Such was his strength of body, and so much had he improved that strength by exercise.

The same enemy made a second irruption, with such prodigious numbers and menaces so dreadful, that it was difficult to prevail upon a Roman to keep his post, or to obey his general. Marius had at that time the command, and Sertorius offered his service to go as a spy7, and bring him an account of the enemy. For this purpose he assumed a Gaulish habit, and having learned as much of the language as might suffice for common address, he mingled with the barbarians. When he had seen and heard enough to let him into their measures, he returned to Marius, who honoured

6 In the printed text it is Scipio;' but two MSS. give us Cæpio. And it certainly was Q. Servilius Caepio, who with the consul Cn. Mallius was (in consequence, chiefly, of his temerity) defeated by the Cimbri, B. C: 105. See Suppl. Liv. lxvii. 5.

7 Upon great emergencies, a man of character and honour descends to act in this capacity. The names of Gideon (Judg. vii. 9.) and Alfred, in authentic history, and of Ulysses and Diomede, (Hom. II. x.) in fable, suffice at least to rescue the hardihood of Sertorius from reprobation.*

him with the established rewards of valour; and throughout the whole war he gave such proofs of his courage and capacity, as raised him to distinction, and gained him the entire confidence of his general.

After the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, he was sent as a legionary tribune under Didius into Spain, and took up his winter-quarters in Castulo, a city of the Celtiberians. The soldiers living in great plenty behaved in an insolent and disorderly manner, and commonly drank to intoxication. The barbarians, observing this, held them in contempt; and one night having procured assistance from their neighbours the Gyrisonians, they entered the houses where they were quartered, and put them to the sword. Sertorius, having with a few more effected his escape, sallied out, and collecting them into a body marched round the town, till he came to the gate at which the Gyrisonians had been privately admitted: this he found open, and entered; but he took care not to commit the same error, which they had done. He placed a guard there, made himself master of every part of the town, and slew all the inhabitants who were able to bear arms. After this execution, he ordered his soldiers to lay aside their own arms and clothes, and take those of the barbarians, and in that disguise to follow him to the city of the Gyrisonians, whence their night-invaders had issued. The people, deceived by the well-known suits of armour, opened their gates and sallied forth, with the expectation of meeting their friends and fellow-citizens in all the joy of success. The consequence of which was, that the chief part of them were cut in pieces at the gates; the rest surrendered, and were sold as slaves.

By this manœuvre, the name of Sertorius became celebrated in Spain; and, upon his return to Rome, he was appointed quæstor in Cisalpine Gaul. That appointment proved a very seasonable one; for the Mar

8 Hod. Cazorla, a town of New Castile, on the confines of Andalusia. Plin. H. N. iii. 2.

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9 As this name never occurs elsewhere, it has been conjectured that we should read Orisians,' who were a people of that district, or Oretanians,' if we prefer the authority of Plin. (ib. 3.) to that of Cellarius.

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