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Now, as to his love of learning, this also is reported, in addition to what has been mentioned: when he was a young man, in a conversation with Hortensius, the orator, and Sisenna, the historian, which began in jest, but ended in a serious proposition, he agreed that if they would propose a poem and a history, Greek and Roman, he would treat the subject of the Marsic war in whichsoever of these two languages the lot should decide; and it seems that the lot resulted in a Greek history, for there is still extant a Greek history of the Marsic war by Lucullus.
IV. This made the name of Sertorius known in Iberia; and as soon as he returned to Rome he was appointed quæstor in Gaul upon the Padus at a critical time; for the Marsic war was threatening.
I, O conscript fathers, recollect that Quintus Scaevola the augur, in the Marsic war, when he was a man of extreme old age, and quite broken down in constitution, every day, as soon as it was daylight, used to give every one an opportunity of consulting him, nor, throughout all that war, did any one ever see him in bed, and, though old and weak, he was the first man to come into the senate house.
Lastly, he had a sweet and sonorous voice; and his gesture had rather more art in it, and was more exactly managed, than is requisite to an Orator. "While he was in the height of his glory, Crassus died, Cotta was banished, our public trials were intermitted by the Marsic war, and I myself made my first appearance in the Forum.
When the Capitol was burned in the Marsic war, eighty-two years before Christ, they perished in the flames: but so seriously was the loss regarded that ambassadors were sent to Greece, Asia Minor, and Cumæ, wherever Sibylline inspiration was supposed to exist, to collect the prophetic oracles, and thus make up as far as possible for what had been lost.
Quintus Hortensius Ortalus, the orator, was a friend and rival of Cicero, who often speaks of him. He began his career as a pleader in the courts at the age of nineteen, and continued his practice for forty-four years. He and Hortensius defended C. Verres against Cicero. He wrote the history of the Marsic war and of the war of Sulla in Italy, which he continued to the death of Sulla.
His name was M. Licinius Crassus Dives. He was the son of P. Licinius Crassus Dives, who was consul B.C. 97, and afterwards governor of the nearer Spain. In B.C. 93 P. Crassus had a triumph. He was afterwards employed in the Marsic war; and in B.C. 89 he was censor with L. Julius Cæsar, who had been consul in B.C. 90.
He was fond of wealth and luxury, but humane and of a mild temper. He was no match for the cunning of Pompeius, or the daring temper of Cæsar; and he was not cruel enough to have acted with the decision which the troublesome times required that he just lived to see. The loss of his History of the Marsic War is much to be lamented.
II. Though he was a young man during the Marsic war, he gave many proofs of courage and prudence; but it was rather on account of the solidity of his character and the mildness of his temper that Sulla attached Lucullus to himself, and from the beginning he constantly employed him in affairs of the greatest importance; one of which was the matter relating to the coinage.
The new citizens found, too, that there was still a difference between themselves and those who had before enjoyed the suffrage, something like that which existed between the freedmen and the men who had never been enslaved. Marius and Sulla, the ever-vigilant rivals, had both been engaged in the Marsic war, but they came out of it in far differing frames of mind.
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