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The very tapestries rustled with the legends of the Cornelii of long, long ago, on the shores of the Rivo Alto, before the story of Venice had won its honored place in the chronicles of nations yet not the less for their indistinguishable outlines and mythical color were they woven into the proud consciousness of the duty the Cornari owed their own.
Your father, also, belonged to the Dictator’s faction, while the Cornelii and the Curii have belonged ever to the tribunes’ party. How should this be? or how should those whose pride, whose interest, whose power alike, rest on the maintenance of their order, desire to mow down the Patrician houses, like grass beneath the scythe, and give their honors to the rabble?
Sulla was one of the most famous of the family of the Cornelii, and men of the gens Cornelia might well have expected preferment during the early years of the colony. That such was the case is shown here by the recurrence of the name Cornelius in the list of municipal officers in two succeeding years.
In one hundred and twelve years fifteen families gave seventy consuls to the State: the Cornelii, fifteen; the Valerii, ten; the Claudii, four; the Æmilii, nine; the Fabii, six; the Manilii, four; the Postumii, two; the Servilii, three; the Sulpicii, six; and also about the same number the following one hundred and fifty years, thereby showing that old families, whether patrician or plebeian, were long kept in sight, and monopolized political power.
"He is one of the Cornelii," interrupted the king, "a distinguished young man, and related to all the noblest blood of Rome; but he is not an ambassador; he has travelled from Athens to Alexandria, in order to learn more than he need; and he carries his head higher and speaks more freely than becomes him before kings, because the young fellows fancy it looks well to behave like their elders."
"And even if he were," interrupted Publius with glowing cheeks, "I would bring him to ruin all the same, for a man like Philotas must not perish, and his cause henceforth is my own. Here is my hand upon it; and if I am happy in having descended from a noble race it is above all because the word of a son of the Cornelii is as good as the accomplished deed of any other man."
Titus Otacilius was continued in the command of the fleet, Marcus Valerius in that of Greece, Quintus Mucius Scaevola in that of Sardinia. The Cornelii, Publius and Cneius, were continued in the command of Spain. In addition to the armies already existing, two legions for the service of the city were levied by the consuls, and a total of twenty-three legions was made up this year.
He spent his time in a villa near Rome, talking philosophy with his friends, and dictating the history of his own life in Greek. When he died, he bade them burn his body, contrary to the practice of the Cornelii, no doubt fearing it would be treated like that of Marius.
He adopted the son of L. Aemilius Paulus, the victor of Pydna; the adopted son bore the name Aemilianus in memory of his origin. Cato's son married a daughter of Paulus, so that the censor was brought into relationship with the Cornelii, whose most illustrious representative he had hated and attacked.
We may promise our selves that no such Excrescence will appear in the Family of the Cornelii, where the Father lives with his Sons like their eldest Brother, and the Sons converse with him as if they did it for no other Reason but that he is the wisest Man of their Acquaintance.
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