piety, and under the greatest concern that he should furnish matter of accusation against his father, resolved upon a most extraordinary method to relieve him. One morning, without apprising any body, he came to the city armed with a dagger, and went directly to the house of the tribune Pomponius, who had accused his father. Pomponius was yet in bed. He sent up his name, and was immediately admitted by the tribune, who did not doubt but he was come to discover to him some new instances of his father's severity. After they had saluted each other, young Manlius desired a private conference; and as soon as he saw himself alone with the tribune, he drew out his dagger, and presented it to his breast, and declared he would stab him that moment, if he did not swear in the form he should dictate, "Never to hold the assembly of the people for accusing his father." Pomponius, who saw the dagger glittering at his breast, himself alone without arms, and attacked by a robust young man, full of a bold confidence in his own strength, took the oath demanded of him, and afterwards confessed with a kind of complacency in the thing, and a sincerity which sufficiently argued he was not sorry for what he had done, that it was that violence which obliged him to desist from his enterprise.

LIV. 1. 7. c. 4, 5.

AMONG the incredible number of persons who were proscribed under the second triumvirate of Rome, were the celebrated orator Cicero, and his brother Quintus. When the news of the proscription was brought to them, they endeavoured to make their escape to Brutus in Macedon. They travelled together some time, mutually condoling their bad fortune: but as their departure had been very precipitate, and they were not furnished with money and other necessaries for their voyage, it was agreed that Cicero should make what haste he could to the sea-side to secure their passage,* and Quin

My young readers may perhaps be desirous of knowing what was the fate of Cicero. So laudable a curiosi ty ought to be gratified. He continued his route to

tus return home to make more ample provision. But, as in most houses, there were as many informers as domestics, his return was immediately known, and the house of course filled with soldiers and assassins. Quintus concealed himself so effectually, that the soldiers could not find him; enraged at their disappointment,

wards Gaeta, where having heard no news of his brother, he embarked; but the fatigues of body, and the anxiety of his mind, together with the vexation of contrary winds, threw him into such disorder as obliged him to be set on shore. At last tired of flying, and even of life itself, he resolved to go to a country-house which he had about a mile from the sea; "I must," says he, "die in my country, which I have saved more than once.' ." His servants, however, perceiving the danger he was in, carried him by force from his house, in order to conceal him; but unfortunately they were met by a party of soldiers on the road. His servants would have ventured their lives in defence of their master; but he ordered them to stop the litter, and let him suffer quietly what his cruel fate rendered inevitable. In the mean time, fixing his eyes on the assassins, he thrust his head out of the door of the litter, which the centurion Herennius severed from his shoulders, after which he chopped off both his hands. Pompilius, the military tribune, carried the head and hands of Cicero to Antony, one of the triumvirs, who was not ashamed to feast his eyes upon so horrible a spectacle. The head of Cicero was then exposed between his two hands, on the same place where so many times, and especially during the last year of his life, he had displayed an eloquence which no man ever equalled, or at least surpassed. Cicero was murdered the 7th of December, in the last month in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

Pronimenti electica, præbentique immotam cervicem, caput præcisum est.- -Manus quoque præciderunt. Ita relâtum caput ad Antonium, jussuque ejus inter duas manus in rostris positum, ubiquanta nulla unquam. humana vox cum admiratione eloquentiæ, auditus fuerat.

they put his son to the torture, in order to make him discover the place of his father's concealment; but filial affection was proof in the young Roman against the most exquisite torments. An involuntary sigh, and sometimes a deep groan was all that could be extorted from the generous youth. His agonies were increased; but with amazing fortitude he still persisted in his resolution of not betraying his father. Quintus was not far off, and the reader may imagine better than can be expressed, how the heart of a father must have been affected with the sighs and groans of a son expiring in tortures to save his life. He could bear it no longer; but quitting the place of his concealment, he presented himself to the assassins, begging with a flood of tears to put him to death, and dismiss the innocent child, whose generous behaviour the triumvirs themselves, if informed of the fact, would judge worthy of the highest approbation and reward. But the inhuman monsters, without being the least affected with the tears either of the father or the son, answered, that they both must die; the father because he was proscribed, and the son because he had concealed his father. Then a new contest of tenderness arose who should die first; but this the assassins soon decided, by beheading them both at the same time.

APPIAN. DIO. PLUT. VAL. MAX. &c.

THE conduct of young Appius during the proscription abovementioned, renewed the example of the piety of Æneas, and with the like success. His father Appius, aged and infirm, seeing himself proscribed, did not think that what remained of a languishing life was worth the pains of preserving, and was willing to wait for the murderers quietly at his own house. He could not, however, resist the pressing instances and zeal of his son, who took him on his shoulders, and, loaded with this precious burden, went through the city unknown to some, and commanding the respect of others by the beauty of so commendable and generous an action. As soon as they got out of Rome, the son, sometimes assisting his father to walk, and sometimes carrying him,

*VIRG. Eneid, 1. 2. 707.

when the fatigue was too great, conducted him to the sea, and conveyed him safe into Sicily. The people preserved the remembrance of this affectionate conduct, and on his return to Rome, after the triumvirs had put a stop to the proscription, all the tribes unanimously concurred in raising him to the ædileship. But the goods of his father having been confiscated, he had not money to defray the expenses of the shows belonging to that office on which account, the artificers charged nothing for their labour, and the people taxing themselves willingly, each according to his ability, not only enabled him to defray the expense of the usual sports, but to purchase an estate twice the value of that which he had lost.

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ΑΡΡΙΑΝ.

CINNA, the Roman Consul, who scrupled no attempt how villanous soever, which could serve his purpose, undertook to get Pomponius Strabo murdered in his tent; but his son saved his life, which was the first remarkable action of Pompey the Great. The treacherous Cinna, by many alluring promises, had gained over one Terentius, a confident of Pompey's, to his interest, and prevailed on him to assassinate the general, and seduce his troops. Young Pompey being informed of this design a few hours before it was to be put in execution, placed a faithful guard round the prætorium, so that none of the conspirators could come near it. He then watched all the motions of the camp, and endeavoured to appease the fury of the soldiers, who hated the general his father, by such acts of prudence as were worthy of the oldest commanders. However, some of the mutineers having forced open one of the gates of the camp, in order to desert to Cinna, the general's son threw himself flat on his back in their way, crying out that they should not break their oath and desert their commander, without treading his body to death. By this means he put a stop to their desertion, and afterwards wrought so effectually upon them by his affecting speeches and engaging carriage, that he reconciled them to his father. PLUT. IN POMP.

DEMETRIUS, king of Macedon, being imprisoned by Seleucus, he wrote a letter to his son Antigonus,

commending to him the care of his concerns in Greece; exhorting hrn to govern his subjects justly, to act always with moderation, and to look upon him. (his father) as dead; conjuring him never to part with any of his cities, or give up any thing to Seleucus to procure his liberty: But notwithstanding this letter might in the opinion of the world have freed him from all cen-> sure yet he immediately offered Seleucus not only all that he held in Greece, but his own person as hostage for his father's liberty. But this was refused. However, Antigonus continued earnestly to solicit it, by the most pressing and passionate importunities and offers as long as Demetrius lived; going in deep mourning during that space (three years) and never once partaking of any feasts or diversions while his father was in prisoni As soon as he heard of his death, and that his ashes were coming from Syria, he sailed with anoble' fleet to the Archipelago to meet them. He then deposited them in a golden urn, which, when he entered the harbour of Corinth, he placed in the poop of the royal galley, set his crown upon it, and covered it with a canopy of purple, himself standing by clothed in deep mourning, and his eyes red with tears.

It is worth observing, that Demetrius likewise had rendered himself very remarkable for his filial piety for we are told by Plutarch, Justin, and others, that Demetrius was not only dutiful and loyal to his father, but bad so warm an affection for his person, that he wa in the strictest sense of the words, his father's 'best friend. " As all degrees of bliss are either heightened or lessened by comparison, so the happiness of Antigonus (the father of Demetrius) in this respect, appeared with the brighter lustre on account of the family-dissensions in the courts of his several rivals. Of this he was so sensible, that having given audience one day to the ambassadors of Cassander, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus, and they being withdrawn, he ordered them to be called back, because his son Demetrius, coming in warm from hunting, went into his father's apartment, saluted him,* and then sat down with his javelin in his hand, When the ambassadors demanded what his pleasure was, "Tell .CA