United States or Timor-Leste ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ye who grasp at money, at power, at high office; who trample on truth and right to serve your selfish ends; false, degenerate Romans, one thing can wipe away your crimes " "What?" shouted Cato, across the senate-house; while Pompeius, who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, had turned very red.
None of the aristocracy were absent; even the aged and venerable Quintus Metellus, well disposed to reform, had appeared with shield and sword. An officer of ability and experience acquired in the Spanish wars, Decimus Brutus, was entrusted with the command of the armed force; the senate assembled in the senate-house.
They looked around for a senator through all parts of the forum, and seldom recognised one anywhere: they then directed their attention to the senate-house, and to the solitude around the decemvirs, who both themselves judged that their power was universally detested, while the commons were of opinion that the senators refused to assemble because the decemvirs, now reduced to the rank of private citizens, had no authority to convene them: that a nucleus was now formed of those who would help them to recover their liberty, if the commons would but side with the senate, and if, as the patricians, when summoned, refused to attend the senate, so also the commons would refuse to enlist.
They supposed that death or some other terrible punishment, was to be inflicted upon them in retribution for the offenses committed by their countrymen, and they came into the senate-house, hiding their faces in their robes, and crying out with grief and terror. Romulus bid them calm their fears, assuring them that he intended them no injury.
The next day the mob, headed by a kinsman of the deceased, carried the body, with the wounds exposed, into the forum; and the enemies of Milo, addressing the crowd with inflammatory speeches, wrought them up to such a frenzy that they carried the body into the senate-house, and, tearing up the benches and tables, made a funeral pile, and, together with the body, burnt the house itself, and then stormed the house of Milo, but were repulsed.
The exclusives might ridicule the broad and gurgling accent of the Celtic Latin, and miss "an undefined something of the grace of the capital" in the Insubrian or Venetian, who as Caesar's legionary had conquered for himself with his sword a place in the Roman Forum and even in the Roman senate-house.
You will meet virtue in the temple, the market-place, the senate-house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt, horny-handed: you will find pleasure skulking out of sight, seeking for shady nooks at the public baths, hot chambers, and places which dread the visits of the ædile, soft, effeminate, reeking of wine and perfumes, pale or perhaps painted and made up with cosmetics.
We need not wonder at Sulla's becoming supreme in Rome when such men as Glaucia and Saturninus drove the Metelli into exile, when the sons of consuls were butchered in the senate-house, when silver and gold purchased soldiers and arms, and laws were enacted by men who silenced their opponents by fire and the sword.
The schools of law, and the oratory of the senate-house and the forum, were developing national forms of literature on distinctively Roman lines: a beginning had been made in the more difficult field of history; and the invention and popularisation of the satire, or mixed form of familiar prose and verse, began to enlarge the scope of literature over a broader field of life and thought, while immensely adding to the flexibility and range of the written language.
Above all, he laughed at Cicero's old attempts as a poet; a mode of attack which, if not so alarming, was at least as irritating as the rest. Cicero was not present he dreaded personal violence; for Antony, like Pompey at the trial of Milo, had planted an armed guard of his own men outside and inside the Senate-house.
Word Of The Day