Page:Tacitus; (IA tacituswilliam00donnrich).pdf/184

172 as they list without interruption. His is not a case in point. He could not make tenpence a-day at the bar. But Maternus is something more and far better than a verse-monger. Why should he waste precious hours on his 'Cato' or 'Thyestes,' his 'Agamemnon' or 'Domitius?'—he who is formed by nature to reach the heights of manly eloquence. As for your Saleius Bassus, it was very kind in Vespasian to give him lately fifty pounds; nay, the more so because our Cæsar is not usually so free of his money. But why should you, Maternus, who can earn thrice that sum when the courts are sitting, desire to put yourself on a level with an imperial pensioner? At the best, poets are very slenderly paid." And Aper then goes on pointing out the privations and difficulties of the worshippers of the Muses, much in the strain of lines:―

The vehement attack on poets by Aper is rebutted with great energy by Maternus; but their combat is but a skirmish preparatory to the main battle that follows, on the comparative merits of the old and the new schools of oratory. And now a fourth speaker is introduced in the 'Dialogue'—, a soldier, and a pleader of great reputation, to whom Tacitus in his 'History' pays this singular tribute, that he was the only man of note who went over from Vitellius to Vespasian from honest motives. It is now seen that the 'Dialogue on Oratory' is constructed on