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PREFACE TO THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME.

AMONG tho extant Lives of Plutarch there are thirteen Lives of Romans which belong to the most eventful period of Roman history. Thoy aro tho lives of the brothers Tiborius and Cains Sompronius Gracchus, of Caius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Quintus Sertorius, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Choius Pompoius Magnus, Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, Marcus Tullius Cicoro, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, Caius Julius Coosar, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Antonius. From the year of the death of Tiberius Gracchus, B.c. 133, to tho death of Marcus Antonius, B.c. 30, a period of about ono hundred years, tho Roman Stato was convulsed by revolutions which grow out of tho contest between tho Peoplo and tho Nobility, or rather, out of tho contests between the leaders of theso two bodies. This period is the subject of Appian's History of the Civil Wars of tho Romans, in Fivo Books. Appian begins with tho Tribunato and legislation of Tiberius Gracchus, from which ho procceds to the Dictatorship of Sulla, and then to the quarrols between Pompeius and Caesar, and Cæsar's Dictatorship and assassination. Ho thon proceeds to the history of tho Triumvirate formed aftor Caesar's death by

It has been thought dosirablo to givo hero Mr. Long's preface to the lives published by him, under the title of "Civil Wars of Rome." The lives will be found in subsequent volumes.

PREFACE TO THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME.

his great nephow Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus, Marcus Antonius, and Lepidus, the quarrels of the Triumviri, tho downfall of Lepidus, who was reduced to the condition of a privato person, and the death of Sextus Pompeius, tho last support of the party in whoso cause his father, Cneius Pompeius, lost his life. The remainder of this History, which is lost, carried the narration down to tho quarrels of Octavianus and Marcus Antonius, which ended in the defeat of Antonius in the battle of Actium, B.C. 31, and his death in Egypt, B.C. 30. The victory over Antonius placed all the power in the hands of Octavianus, who, in the year B.C. 27, received from tho Roman Senate the title of Augustus, or the Sacred, by which name ho is commonly known as the first of the long series of Roman Emperors. "He made himself," says Appian (Civil Wars, i. 5), “like Caius Julius Cæsar, and still more than Caesar, governor of his country and of all the nations under it, without needing either election or the popular votes, or any show of such things. After government had subsisted for a long time, and been maintained with vigour, fortunato in all his measures, and feared, he left behind him descendants and successors who kept the power that he transmitted to them. In this way, after various civil commotions, the Roman Stato was restored to tranquillity, and the government became a Monarchy. And how this camo about I have explained, and brought together all tho events, which are well worth the study of those who wish to becomo acquainted with ambition of men unbounded, love of power excessivo, enduranco unwcariod, and forms of suffering infinite." Thus, the historian's object was to trace the establishment of the Imperial power in Rome back to its origin, to show that the contests of tho rival heads of parties involved the State in endless calamities, which resulted in a dissolution of all the bonds that held

his

society together, and rendered the assumption of supreme power by one man a healing and a necessary event.

As already observed, it happens that thirteen of Plutarch's extant Lives are the lives of the most distinguished of the Romans who lived during this eventful period; and though Plutarch's Lives severally are not historics of tho times to which they respectively refer, nor collectively form a History of any givon time, yet they are valuable as portraits of illustrious men, and help us to form a better judgment of those who make so conspicuous a figure in IIistory.

Plutarch was a native of the town of Charoncia, in Bocotia; the times of his birth and death are not exactly known, but we learn from his own works that ho was a young student at Delphi, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Nero, A.D. 66. Ho visited both Italy and Rome, and probably resided at Rome for some time. He wrote his Life of Demosthenes, at least after his return to Charoncia: he says (Life of Demosthenes, c. 2), that ho had not time to exercise himself in the Latin Language during his residence at Rome, being much occupied with public business, and giving lessons in philosophy. Accordingly it was late before he began to read the Latin writers; and wo may infer from his own words that ho nover acquired a very exact knowledge of the language. He observes that it happened in his case, that in his study of the Latin writers he did not so much learn and understand the facts from the words, as acquire tho meaning of the words from the facts, of which he had already some knowledge. may perhaps conclude from this, that Plutarch wrote all his Roman lives in Charoneia, after he had returned there from Rome. The statement that Plutarch was the preceptor of the Emperor Trajan, and was raised to the consular rank by him, is not supported by sufficient

evidence. Plutarch addressed to Trajan his Book of Apophthegms, or Sayings of Kings and Commanders; but this is all that is satisfactorily ascertained as to the connection between the Emperor and Philosopher. Trajan died A.D. 117.

"The plan of Plutarch's Biographies is briefly explained by himself in the introduction to the Life of Alexander the Great, where he makes an apology for the brevity with which ho is compelled to treat of tho numerous events in the Lives of Alexander and Cresar. For,' ho says, I do not writo Ilistorics, but Lives; nor do the most conspicuous acts of necessity exhibit a man's virtue or his vice, but oftentimes some slight circumstance, a word, or a jest, shows a man's charactor better than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands, and the greatest arrays of armies and sieges of cities. Now, as painters produce a likeness by a representation of the countenance and the expression of the eyes, without troubling themselves about the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to look rather into the signs of a man's character, and thus givo a portrait of his life, leaving others to describe great events and battles.' The object thon of Plutarch in his Biographies was a moral end, and the exhibition of tho principal ovents in a man's life was subordinato to this his main design; and though he may not always have adhored to the principle which he laid down, it cannot be denied that his view of what biography should be, is much more exact than that of most persons who have attempted this style of composition. The life of a statesman or of a general, when written with a view of giving a complete history of all the public events in which he was engaged, is not biography, but history. This extract from Plutarch will also in some measure be an apology for the want of historical order observable in many of his Lives. Though

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