United States or Réunion ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He, however, declaring that, with the favour of fortune, he would preside at the elections, seized upon what should have been an obstacle as a lucky opportunity: and having succeeded by a coalition in keeping out of office the two Quinctii, Capitolinus and Cincinnatus, and his own uncle Gaius Claudius, a man most steadfast in the cause of the nobility, and other citizens of equal eminence, he secured the appointment as decemvirs of men by no means their equals distinction himself in the first instance, a proceeding which honourable men disapproved of greatly, as no one believed that he would have ventured to do it.
Whenever an earthquake shook down blocks of buildings and that happened nearly as frequently as the hysterical racial riots the Romans rebuilt with a view to making communications easier from the citadel, where the great temple of Jupiter Capitolinus frowned over the gridironed streets.
But did you find the senate and people so servile, so lost to all sense of their honour and dignity, as to affront the great genius of imperial Rome and the eyes of her tutelary gods, the eyes of Jupiter Capitolinus, with the sight of a queen an Asiatic queen on the throne of the Caesars? Titus. I did not. They judged of it as you, Scipio, judge; they detested, they disdained it.
Of all the adversaries and enviers of his glory, Marcus Manlius was the most distinguished, he who first drove back the Gauls when they made their night attack upon the Capitol, and who for that reason had been named Capitolinus.
But, for many a year, the maids and matrons of Rome were not weary of regarding, extolling, and coveting the priceless purple tissue that glowed in the fane of Jupiter Capitolinus. A certain Magician had retired for the sake of study to a cottage in a forest. It was summer in a hot country. In the trees near the cottage dwelt a most beautiful Firefly.
The Gaul made a sweep at him with his broadsword, but, slipping within the guard, Manlius stabbed the giant in two places, and as he fell cut off his head, and took the torc, or broad twisted gold collar that was the mark of all Gallic chieftains. Thence the brave youth was called Titus Manlius Torquatus a surname to make up for that of Capitolinus, which had never been used again.
After several battles with the Catti and Daci, he celebrated a double triumph. But for his successes against the Sarmatians, he only bore in procession the laurel crown to Jupiter Capitolinus. The civil war, begun by Lucius Antonius, governor of Upper Germany, he quelled, without being obliged to be personally present at it, with remarkable good fortune.
In the gymnastic exercises, which he presented in the Septa, while they were preparing the great sacrifice of an ox, he shaved his beard for the first time, and putting it up in a casket of gold studded with pearls of great price, consecrated it to Jupiter Capitolinus.
They were kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, preserved in a stone chest, and allowed to be inspected only by especial officers appointed for that duty, who on great occasions consulted them and interpreted their oracles to the people. There were various Sibyls; but the Cumaean Sibyl, of whom Ovid and Virgil write, is the most celebrated of them.
Manlius Capitolinus, then, was a calumniator, not an accuser; and in their treatment of him the Romans showed how calumniators should be dealt with; by which I mean, that they should be forced to become accusers; and if their accusation be proved true, should be rewarded, or at least not punished, but if proved false should be punished as Manlius was.
Word Of The Day