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Extravagance and sensuous enjoyment formed the main object with all, among the parvenus as well as among the Licinii and Metelli; not the polished luxury which is the acme of civilization, but that sort of luxury which had developed itself amidst the decaying Hellenic civilization of Asia Minor and Alexandria, which degraded everything beautiful and significant to the purpose of decoration and studied enjoyment with a laborious pedantry, a precise punctiliousness, rendering it equally nauseous to the man of fresh feeling as to the man of fresh intellect.
One of the Metelli was surnamed Diadematus, because he walked about for a long time with a bandage on his head, to conceal a scar; and another, of the same family, got the name of Celer, from the rapidity he displayed in giving a funeral entertainment of gladiators within a few days after his father's death, his speed and energy in doing which was thought extraordinary.
Although Verres was defended by Hortensius and backed by the whole influence of the Metelli and other powerful families, Cicero gained his cause, more fortunate than Burke in his prosecution of Warren Hastings, who also was sustained by powerful interests and families. The speech on the Manilian Law, when Cicero appeared as a political orator, greatly contributed to his popularity.
The younger attached itself for good or ill to the party of the people. Marius by this marriage became a person of social consideration. His father had been a client of the Metelli; and Caecilius Metellus, who must have known Marius by reputation and probably in person, invited him to go as second in command in the African campaign. He was moderately successful.
Though not a man of birth himself, he had the skill and courage to match himself against the great house of the Metelli. The Metelli, it is true, won the battle; Naevius was imprisoned, and finally died in exile; but he had established literature as a real force in Rome. Aulus Gellius has preserved the haughty verses which he wrote to be engraved on his own tomb
Although defended by Hortensius, and the whole influence of the Metelli and other powerful families, Cicero gained his cause, more fortunate than Burke in his prosecution of Warren Hastings, who was also sustained by powerful interests and families. Burke also resembled Cicero in his peculiarities and in his fortunes more than any modern orator.
The words of Cicero recurred to his mind, "When you go out of the Porta Capena, and see the tombs of Calatinus, of the Scipios, the Sarvilii, and the Metelli, can you consider that the buried inmates are unhappy?"
The all-powerful family of the Caecilii Metelli, who were at this time vigorously fulfilling the destiny of office which heaven had prescribed for their clan, stretched out a helping hand to the distinguished soldier; a family born to military command might consult its interests, while it gratified its sympathies, by attaching to its clientele a warrior who had received the best training of the school of Africanus.
On that day, all the Scauri, and Metelli, and Claudii, and Catuli, and Scaevolae, and Crassi took arms. Do you think either those consuls or those other most illustrious men deserving of blame? I myself wished Catiline to perish. Did you who wish every one to be safe, wish Catiline to be safe? There is this difference, O Calenus, between my opinion and yours.
Such violations of rules merely positive, become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and such censures are suitable to the minute and slender criticism of Voltaire: Non usque adeo permiscuit imis Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli Serventur leges, malint a Cæsare tolli.
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