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In this work are preserved many valuable passages of the classics which would otherwise have been lost. Macrobius, who flourished in the middle of the fifth century, was the author of different works in which the doctrines of the Neo-Platonic school are expounded. His style, however, is very defective.
Macrobius tells us that Cicero, by the happiness of a bon-mot, brought the accused off safely, though he was manifestly guilty. He adds also that Cicero took care not to allow the joke to appear in the published edition of his speech. There are parts of the speech which have been preserved, and are sufficiently amusing even to us.
Because a practise had existed, did it necessarily follow that it was just? By this argument every crime might be defended from the time of Cain. The slaves of antiquity, however were in a situation far preferable to that of the negroes in the West Indies. A passage in Macrobius, which exemplified this in the strongest manner, was now brought to his recollection.
Some fix it at 178 B.C.; others as late as 129 B.C. The earlier date is the more probable. We then have to ask when Hostius himself lived. Teuffel inclines to place him before Accius; but most commentators assign him a later date. A few lines are preserved in Macrobius, which seem to point to an early period, e.g. "non si mihi linguae Centum atque ora sient totidem vocesque liquatae," and again,
* This phrase seems to indicate that, if one is to believe Macrobius, the "Copa" is by Virgil. "And since then, O great shade, thou hast received no other messages?" "I have received none." "To console themselves for thy absence, O Virgil, they have three poets, Commodianus, Prudentius, and Fortunatus, who were all three born in those dark plays when neither prosody nor grammar were known.
I went to take it down, and when I had it in my hand I saw that it was covered all over with verses addressed to me, and they were so lovely that I cannot find words to describe them." "Lovely! pshaw! profane scribble I call them. Does not Macrobius say: 'Ignibus iste liber quod ipse ignibus liber! Into the flames with that book if thou wouldst escape the flames thyself!
Michal answered not a word. "Thus all your negations are confuted, and now let us hear your affirmations. What is the name of the young man who has presumed to make you a declaration of love?" "Valentine Kalondai." The learned man no sooner heard this name than he smote violently with the palm of his hand on the volume of Macrobius lying open before him.
'You will carry a letter for me to save my cousin from death. He started, and leered at Margot, who was ready to sink into the ground. 'Why, I had rather carry a bull to the temple of Jupiter, as Macrobius has it, he said, 'meaning that.... 'Yet you have drunk with him, Katharine interrupted him hotly, 'you have gone hurling through the night with him. You have shamed me together.
Homer, Æschylus, Lucretius, Dante, Shakespeare will always make their own way with all fit readers sooner or later: it is not so with Meleager or Macrobius or Marmontel, with William Langland or with Thomas Love Peacock. But Sainte-Beuve must not carry us too far from Mr Arnold, all important as was the influence of the one upon the other.
He brings love with good morals and has somewhat besides. His station in life indeed is not very illustrious, for, like me, he is only a parson. But Macrobius saith, 'Amores sunt sicut flores' Maidens are like flowers, that is to say, they soon wither; and as Drexelius Trismegistus hath it, 'Sæpius ima petet melius qui scandere novit' He often sinks into the depths who seeks the heights.
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