United States or Nauru ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, the greatest of Roman orators and the chief master of Latin prose style, was born at Arpinum, Jan. 3, 106 B.C. His father, who was a man of property and belonged to the class of the "Knights," moved to Rome when Cicero was a child; and the future statesman received an elaborate education in rhetoric, law, and philosophy, studying and practising under some of the most noted teachers of the time.
And Livy, in the passage already quoted, in language even more perfect than Cicero's, wrote of all the advantages of the site, ending by describing it as "regionum Italiae medium, ad incrementum urbis natum unice locum." It is curious that all these panegyrics were written by men who were not natives of Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from Padua, Cicero from Arpinum.
Thus would this most famous, and formerly most learned, city of Greece have remained a stranger to the tomb of one of its most ingenious citizens, had it not been discovered by a man of Arpinum." To Archimedes is attributed the apophthegm: "Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough, and with my own weight I will move the world."
"By all the Gods!" whispered Bassus, "it is the other consul, the new man from Arpinum. Believe me, my friends, this bodes no good to us! The Senate must have been convoked suddenly—and lo! here come the fathers. Look, look! this is stern Cato."
Of these four classes the third was in the course of this period almost completely set aside, inasmuch as the course which had been earlier taken with the communities of passive burgesses in Latium and Sabina, was now applied also to those of the former Volscian territory, and these gradually the last perhaps being in the year 566 Arpinum, Fundi, and Formiae obtained full burgess-rights.
Arpinum was a State which had been admitted into Roman citizenship, lying between Rome and Capua, just within that portion of Italy which was till the other day called the Kingdom of Naples. The district from which he came is noted, also, as having given birth to Marius.
In B.C. 49, when the lad was about half through his sixteenth year, Cicero "gave him his toga." The ceremony took place at Arpinum, much to the delight of the inhabitants, who felt of course the greatest pride and interest in their famous fellow-townsman. But it was a sad time. "There and every where as I journeyed I saw sorrow and dismay. The prospect of this vast trouble is sad indeed."
Had he merely known where she was concealed, or had he seen her, spoken with her, wooed her all along? He had won her; so much was plain; and he could scarce have done so during the brief journey to his villa. O villainous Marcian! O fickle, wanton Veranilda! Not a doubt crossed his mind. And in his heart was no desire but of vengeance. At length he drew near to Arpinum.
I declare that I would go at once to Arpinum, if this were not the most, convenient place to await your visit: but I will only wait till May 6: you see what bores are pestering my poor ears." But his Campanian villas would be almost as easy to reach as Arpinum, if he wished to escape from Formiae and its bores.
I shall, therefore, call that year his sixty-third year. At Arpinum, on the river Liris, a little stream which has been made to sound sweetly in our ears by Horace, in a villa residence near the town, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born, 106 years before Christ, on the 3d of January, according to the calendar then in use. Pompey the Great was born in the same year.
Word Of The Day