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A scale of grades, one above the other, which everybody may ascend from the first to the last; titles of nobility more and more advanced, suited to more and more advanced functions; spectabiles, illustres, clarissimi, perfectissimi, analogous to Napoleon's Barons, Counts, Dukes, and Princes.

The first, freely speaking, were those who had in a manner succeeded in detaching themselves from the interests of the municipium to which they belonged; such were the members of the Senate, including all with the indefinite title of clarissimi, the soldiers, the clergy, the public magistrates as distinguished from the municipal officers.

He was again in his splendid armour, his naked sword was in his hand, at his side was stationed Eurybiades and half a score more stalwart seamen, all swinging their bare cutlasses. Demetrius nevertheless conducted his interrogations with perhaps superfluous demonstrations of courtesy, and a general distribution of polite "domini" "dominæ," "clarissimi," and "illustres."

Their owners, as 'senatores, 'clarissimi, or at least 'curiales, spent their lives in the cities, luxurious and effeminate, and left their slaves to the tender mercy of 'villici, stewards and gang-drivers, who were themselves slaves likewise.

The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or Respectable. And, 3. the Clarissimi; whom we may translate by the word Honorable.

De Vita Propria, ch. xxxvii. p. 115. "Musicam, sed hanc anno post VI. scilicet MDLXXIV. correxi et transcribi curavi." De Vita Propria, ch. xlv. p. 176. This is on p. 164. Judicium de Cardano. "Ita nostra ætate, lapsi sunt clarissimi alioqui viri in hoc genere.

T. Great; why don’t you say greatest? “maximeis superlative. C. The Latins use the superlative, when they only mean the positive. T. You mean, when English uses the positive; can you give me an instance of what you mean? C. Cicero always speaks of others as amplissimi, optimi, doctissimi, clarissimi. T. Do they ever use the comparative for the positive? C. thinks, then, Certior factus sum.

Three of these were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven by consuls, five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents, chosen from the legal profession, and called clarissimi.

M. Guizot, in his elaborate work on the History of Civilization in France, has a few curious pages, on the causes of the decline of civil society in Roman Gaul, and its consequent weakness and ruin. He tells you how the Senators or Clarissimi did not constitute a true aristocracy, able to lead and protect the people, being at the mercy of the Emperor, and nominated and removed at his pleasure.