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dian faction, and Scaurus, impeached on the charge of bribery and extortion, and Milo, when put upon his trial for the murder of Clodius. Hortensius died at the commencement of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, and Cicero, in his dialogue De Claris Omtoribus, bestowed a generous tribute of praise upon his friend. " When," he says, " after quitting Cilicia, I had come to Rhodes, and received there the news of the death of Hor tensius, it was obvious to all how deeply I was afflicted My sorrow was increased by the reflection that at a time when so few wise and good citizens were left, we had to mourn the loss of the authority and good sense of so distinguished a man, who had been inti mately associated with me through life, and who died at a period when the state most needed him; and I grieved because there was taken away from me, not, as many thought, a rival who stood in the way of my reputation, but a partner and companion in a glorious calling. For if we are told that, in a lighter species of art, noble-minded poets have mourned for the death of poets who were their contemporaries, with what feel ings ought I to have borne his loss with whom it was more honourable to contend than to be without a competitor at all; espe cially as his career was never embarrassed by me, nor mine by him, but, on the con trary, each was assisted by the other, with mutual help, advice, and encouragement. But since he, with that good fortune which he always enjoyed, has departed from us at a time more favorable for himself than his countrymen, and has died when it was easier if he still lived to deplore the condition of

the republic than to render it any service, and since life was spared him so long as it was permitted to dwell with virtue and happiness in the state,—let us bewail, if so it must be, our own misfortune and loss, and consider his death an occasion rather for congratulating him than condoling with our selves, so that whenever our thoughts turn to the memory of a man so illustrious and blest, we may show that we have more re gard for him than for ourselves. For, if we grieve because we can no longer enjoy his society, that is our calamity, which we ought to bear without giving way to excessive sor row, lest we should seem to regard his death not as the bereavement of a friend, but the loss of some private advantage of our own. But if we mourn as though some evil has happened to himself, we show that we are not sufficiently thankful for his good for tune." It would be unfair to omit all mention of Hortensia, the daughter of this brilliant ora tor, for she seems to have inherited the man tle of her father's eloquence; and we are told by Valerius Maxim us that when the triumvirs, Octavius, Lepidus and Antony, had imposed a tax upon the Roman matrons, and the advocates of the clay were craven enough to decline the perilous task of speak ing on their behalf against the obnoxious law, Hortensia came forward as the champion of her sex, and made such an effective speech that the greatest part of the tax was remit ted. Quintilian says of this accomplished lady, that her speech was well worthy of perusal, without taking into account the sex of the speaker.