Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/374

Rh 29, 30 ; Liv. Epit li. ; Oros. iv. 22, 23 ; Flor. ii.14.) Polybius, from whom all our accounts of this war are directly or indirectly derived, has drawn the character of Hasdrubal in the blackest colours, and probably not without prejudice: the circumstances in which he was placed must have palliated, if not excused, many arbitrary acts ; and however justly he maybe reproached with cruelty, there seems strong evidence of his being a man of much greater ability than the historian is willing to allow. Nor must we forget that he refused to purchase his own personal safety so long as there remained even the slightest chance of obtaining that of his country.

14. A grandson of Masinissa by the mother's side, but apparently a Carthaginian by birth. He was appointed to the chief command within the walls of the city, when the Carthaginians, in B.C. 149, prepared for their last desperate resistance against the Roman consuls Censorinus and Manilius. How far we are to ascribe to his authority or directions the energetic measures adopted for the defence of the city, or the successful resistance opposed for more than a year to the Roman arms, we know not, as his name is not again mentioned by Appian until after the defeat of Calpurnius Piso at Hippo in the following year, B.C. 148. This success following the repeated repulses of Manilius in his attacks on Nepheris, had greatly elated the Carthaginians; and in this excitement of spirits, they seem to have been easily led to believe a charge brought by his enemies against Hasdrubal of having betrayed their interests for the sake of his brother-in-law, Gulussa. The accusation was brought forward in the senate, and before Hasdrubal, astounded at the unexpected charge, could utter a word in his defence, a tumult arose, in the midst of which he was struck down, and despatched with blows from the benches of the senators used as clubs. According to Appian, his destruction was caused by the intrigues of his rival and namesake. No. 13. (Appian, Pun. 93, 111; Oros. iv. 22.)

HATERIA'NUS, the name of one of the early commentators on Virgil quoted in the Virgilii Maronis Interpretes Veteres, published from a Verona Palimpsest, by Ang. Mai, Mediolan. 1818.  HATE'RIUS. The name, like Adrian, Atria, &c., is frequently written Aterius, but the aspirated form is preferable. (Orelli, Inscr. n. 1825.)
 * 1. HATERIUS, a jurist, contemporary with Cicero.

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2. HATERIUS was proscribed by Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus, in B.C. 43, and betrayed by one of his slaves, who received his freedom in recompence. The sons of Haterius wished to purchase their father's confiscated estate, but were outbid and insulted by his betrayer. His insolence, however, aroused the sympathy of the people, and the triumvirs reduced him to his former servile condition, and assigned him to the family of his late master. (Appian, B.C. iv. 29.)

3. Q. HATERIUS, a senator and rhetorician in the age of Augustus and Tiberius, and, in what year is unknown, a supplementary consul. (Tac. Ann. ii. 33.) In the contest of mutual distrust and dissimulation between the senate and Tiberius on his accession, A.D. 14 (Tac. Ann. i. 11 — 13), Haterius unguardedly asked the cautious emperor, "how long he meant to suffer the commonwealth to be without a head ? " — an offensive question, since it obliged Tiberius to declare his intentions, and he gravely rebuked its author. (Suet. Tib. 29.) When the senate broke up, Haterius repaired to the palace to implore pardon. He found the emperor walking, attended by a guard. Either to escape his importunity (Suet. Tib. 27), or in anger at his presumption (Tac. ib. 13), Tiberius turned away from Haterius, who, in the energy of supplication, had cast himself at his feet. Accidentally, or in struggling to be rid of the suppliant, Tiberius himself fell to the ground, and Haterius narrowly avoided being slain by the guard. The intercession of the empress-mother, Livia, at length rescued Haterius from peril. We find him afterwards, in A. D. 16, advocating a sumptuary law, to restrain the use of gold-plate and silk garments (Tac. ib. ii. 33), and in 22 moving that a decree of the senate, which conferred the Tribunicia Potestas on Drusus, the emperor's son, be inscribed in letters of gold, and affixed to the walls of the curia (Tac.ib. iii. 57 ) — a useless piece of adulation, since the decree was little more than matter of course. If the systematic legacy-hunter mentioned by Seneca (de Ben. vi. 38) were the same Q. Haterius, it accords well with his servility as a senator.

The reputation of Haterius was, however, higher in the rhetorical schools than in the senate. His character as a declaimer is sketched by Seneca the rhetorician, who had heard him (Excerpt. Controv. Proem. iv. p. 422, Bipont. ed.), and by Seneca the philosopher {Ep. 40). Their accounts are confirmed by Tacitus (Ann. iv. 61), and may be thus compressed. His voice was sonorous, his lungs unwearied, his invention fertile, and his sophistical ingenuity, though it sometimes betrayed him into ludicrous blunders, was extraordinary. There was much to applaud, more to excuse or condemn, in his declamation. Augustus said that his eloquence needed a drag-chain — "Haterius noster sufflamiiandus est" — it not only ran, but it ran downhill. He had so little control over his volubility, that he employed a freedman to punctuate his discourse while speaking, and the partitions and transitions of his theme were regulated by this monitor. Seneca, the philosopher (l. c.), censures him severely. He began impetuously, he ceased abruptly. His manner was abhorrent from common sense, good taste, and Roman usage. The evolutions of Cicero were slow and decorous ; but the rapid verbiage of Haterius was suitable only to the hacknied demagogue, and excitable crowd of a Greek agora. The elder Seneca frequently cites the declamations of Haterius (Suas. 2, 3, 6, 7, Controv. 6, 16, 17, 23, 27, 28, 29), but Tacitus says that his works were in his age nearly obsolete. (Ann. iv. 61.) The best specimens of the rhetoric of Haterius are, — Sen. Suas. 6, 7, and Controv. 6, ''Excerpt. ex Controv.'' i.; in the latter, Seneca praises the pathos of the declaimer. Haterius died at the end of A.D. 26, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. (Tac. Ann.iv.61 ; Euseb. Chron. n. 2040, p. 157; Hieron. Ep. ad Paminach. adv. error. Joan. Hierosol.) His sons appear to have died before him. (Sen. Excerpt. Controv. Proem. Bip. ed. p. 422.) It is worth noting, that Haterius is accused by Seneca (l. c.) of archaisms, but those archaisms were words or phrases from Cicero — so brief was the meridian of Latin prose.

4. D. HATERIUS AGRIPPA, a son of the preceding. [, p.77a] 