SULPICIUS RUFUS. 



SULPICIUS SEVERUS. 



826 



(x. 35 and 38), and to have been the wife of Calenus : she was 

 accordingly a contemporary of Domitian and cf Martial. The poem 

 of Sulpicia is on the whole stiff, and shows little imagination. It is 

 usually annexed to the editions of Persius and Juvenal; the best 

 separate edition is that by J. Qurlitt, ' Cum Commentariis C. G. 

 Schwartzii,' 2 parts, 4 to, Hamburg, 1819. It is also printed in the 

 ' Anthologm Latina ' of Burmann, and Wernsdorf, ' Poetao Latini 

 Minores." 



(Burmann, 'Antholog. Lat.,' ii. p. 408, &c,; Wernsdorf, 'Poet. Lat. 

 Miu.,' iii. p. lx., &c., and p. 83, &c.) 



In the fourtli book of the ' Elegies ' of Tibullus there are several 

 letters written in the name of Sulpicia, which in their character and 

 diction present some slight differences from the other poems of 

 Tibullus. Some modern critics, as B'arth ('Adversaria,' liv. 16) and 

 Brouckhuis (ad Tibull., p. 384), have therefore supposed that they 

 were written by the Sulpicia above-mentioned. This opinion however 

 cannot be reconciled with several historical allusions in these letters, 

 wliich clearly point to the age of Augustus. For this reason Heyne 

 (ad Tibull., iv. 2, p. 350, &c.) conjectured that they were the work of 

 a Sulpicia who lived in the time of Tibullus. But this opinion too 

 rests on very weak grounds, and we cannot indeed see any sufficient 

 reason for supposing that these letters, notwithstanding their slight 

 peculiarities, were not written by Tibullua himself. 



(Compare Biihr, Oeschichte der Rom. Literatur, p. 250 and 279.) 



SULPICIUS RUFUS. P. Sulpicius Rufus was born in the year 

 B.C. 124, and was ten years older than the orator Hortensius. In the 

 year B.C. 94 he prosecuted C. Norbanus for the offence of majestas, 

 under the provisions of the Lex Apuleia, a circumstance which 

 brought him into notice. (Cic., 'Off.,' ii. 14.) In the following year 

 he was quaestor, and he served in the Social war as legate of Cn. Pom- 

 peius Strabo. He was tribunus plebis in the year B.C. 88, and sup- 

 ported the faction of Marius. Cicero heard many of his speeches 

 during his tribunate, and thoroughly studied his stylo of oratory : 

 "He was," says Cicero, "of all the orators that I ever heard, the 

 most dignified, and, if one may use the expression, the most tragic : 

 his voice was powerful, sweet, and clear ; his gesture and every move- 

 ment graceful ; and yet he seemed as if he were trained for the 

 forum, and not for the stage : his language was rapid and flowing, and 

 yet not redundant or diffuse." (Cic., 'Brut.,' 55; comp. Cic., 'De 

 Orat.,' iii. 8.) Among other measures of his tribunate, Sulpicius 

 brought forward and carried a rogatio, by which the command of the 

 Mithridatic war was transferred from Sulla to Marius. Sulla, who 

 was then at Nola with his army, marched to Rome, of which he took 

 possession. [SULLA.] Twelve persons were proscribed, among whom 

 were Marius and Sulpicius. Marius escaped, but Sulpicius was 

 betrayed by his slave, and murdered in a villa near Rome. 



Sulpicius left no writings, and Cicero states that he had often heard 

 him say that he was not accustomed to write, and that he could not 

 write. (' Brut./ 56.) There were however orations attributed to him, 

 but they were supposed to be the work of P. Canutius. P. Sulpicius 

 is one of the interlocutors in Cicero's dialogue 'De Oratore.' 



It does not appear how P. Sulpicius was related to Servius Sulpicius 

 Rufus. As he was a tribune, he must have been of a plebeian family, 

 or at least must have been adopted into a plebeian family, and it may 

 be that he was of a different family from Servius Sulpicius. 



SULPICIUS LEMONIA RUFUS, SERVIUS, the friend and con- 

 temporary of Cicero, was nearly about the same age as Cicero (' Brut.,' 

 40), and consequently was born about B.C. 106. He was of a patrician 

 family, and yet Cicero says that his father was only an eques. He 

 besau his career as an orator, and might have attained the first place 

 or have been only inferior to Cicero, if he had not directed his energies 

 to the study of the law. It is said that on one occasion he applied to 

 Q. Mucius Sctevola the Pontifex for his advice on a question of law, 

 and that Scaevola, perceiving Servius did not understand what he said, 

 reproached him for his presumption in undertaking the conduct of 

 causes, when he was ignorant of the law which was necessarily 

 involved in them. This determined him to devote himself to the 

 law. The time at which Servius began his legal studies does not 

 appear. He accompanied Cicero to Rhodes, B.C. 78 ('Brut.,' 41), and 

 it may be inferred from the passage of the ' Brutus ' that he com- 

 menced his legal studies after his return, or perhaps it was after his 

 return that he devoted himself exclusively to the law. His object in 

 visiting Rhodes was to improve himself. 



Servius filled several public offices. He was qusestor of the district 

 of Ostia (Cic., 'Pro Muren.,' 8), curule sodile, and prsetor for Quaes- 

 tiones Peculatus. The first time that he was a candidate for the con- 

 sulship he was rejected, and L. Murena was elected, whom Servius 

 prosecuted for ambitus (bribery) : Murena was defended by Hortensius, 

 M. Crassus, and Cicero. In the year B.C. 51 he was elected consul 

 with M. Claudius Marcellus, in preference to Cato, who was rejected. 

 In the year preceding his consulship he had been interrex, in which 

 capacity he returned Cn. Potnpeius as sole consul. In the war 

 between Caesar and Pompey he does not appear to have taken any 

 decided part, though it seems probable that he most inclined to 

 Caesar's side ; at least, after the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, Caesar 

 made him governor of Achaea, where he was at the time when Cicero 

 addressed to him one of his extant letters. ('Ad Div.,' iv. 3.) During 

 the residence of Sulpicius at Athens his former colleague Marcellus 



was assassinated in Piraeus ; Sulpicius had him honourably buried in 

 the gymnasium of the Academia, where a marble monument was 

 erected to hia memory. This tragical event is communicated by 

 Sulpicius to Cicero in an extant letter, which is characterised by great 

 simplicity. After the death of Caesar he was sent by the senate, with 

 L. Philippus nud L. Piso, on a mission to Antony, who was then 

 besieging D. Brutus in Mutina, for the purpose of ncgociating with 

 Antony before the senate declared him an enemy to the state. He 

 was then in bad health, and only just lived to reach the camp of 

 Antony, where he died, B.C. 43. Cicero pronounced an eulogy on hia 

 friend in the senate, and on his motion a bronze statue was erected to 

 the memory of Servius, which existed for some time. (Cic., ' Phil.,' 

 ix. ; ' Dig.,' i., tit. 1, a. 2, 43.) The terms of the senatus consultum, 

 which was drawn up by Cicero ('Phil.,' ix. 7), included the honours of 

 a public funeral. He left a son Serviua, who is mentioned by Cicero. 

 Hia wife's name was Postumia. (Cic., ' Ad Div.,' iv. 2.) The fourth 

 book of Cicero's letters ('Ad Diversos') contains bis letters to Sulpiciua 

 and two letters from Sulpicius to Cicero. 



Servius was an accomplished man, as well as a distinguished orator; 

 but as a lawyer he was, in the opinion of Cicero, pre-eminent and 

 unrivalled. His teachers were L. Lucilius Balbus and C. Aquiliua 

 Qallus. Cicero ('Brut.,' 41) attributes his excellence as a lawyer to 

 the philosophical discipline which he had undergone. He observes 

 that others possessed a knowledge of the law, but Servius alone pos- 

 sessed it as an art. This art, he adds, he could never have deiived 

 from mere knowledge of the law ; but he had acquired that dialectic 

 skill, the greatest of all arts, which enabled him to dispel the obscurity 

 that characterised the responsa and speeches of other lawyers. " He 

 distributed the r'atter of a thing into its parts; he developed by 

 definition what was latent ; he cleared up what was obscure by correct 

 interpretation : he first ascertained and then separated what was 

 ambiguous ; lastly, he had a measure by which to estimate truth and 

 falsehood, and to determine what consequences followed and what did 

 not follow from premises." To these requirements, and to a profound 

 knowledge of the law, he added an acquaintance with letters and an 

 elegant diction. Such a combination of talent seldom appears. 



Servius was a voluminous writer. Cicero speaks of his works as 

 being unequalled. We may judge of his style from his letter of con- 

 solation to Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia. (Cic., ' Ad 

 Div./ iv. 5.) He wrote nearly a hundred and eighty treatises on law, 

 many of which existed in the time of Pomponius, that is, in the time 

 of Antoninus Pius. He probably wrote a commentary on the Twelve 

 Tables : he was also the author of a treatise on the Edict, and notes 

 on a work on the civil law by Q. Mucius Scaevola the Pontifex (Gell., 

 iv. 1); of a book ' De Dotibus,' and several books 'De Sacris detestan- 

 dis' (adoption, probably). There are extant various fragments of his 

 belonging to treatises the titles of which are not known. He is often 

 mentioned in the ' Digest/ particularly by Alfenus, but there is no 

 excerpt from his works in that collection. It seems a probable con- 

 jecture that when Alfenus quotes another person without mentioning 

 a name, his master Servius Sulpicius is meant. (Bynkershoek, 

 'Observ./ viii. 1.) 



Servius founded a numerous school of lawyers, but we are only 

 acquainted with the names of those who were known as writers. His 

 most celebrated pupils were Alfenus Varus and Aulus Ofilius : there 

 were also among others Aufidius Tucca, C. Ateius Pacuvius, and 

 Antistius Labeo, the father of a more distinguished son. 



Our information about Servius Sulpicius is maiuly derived from his 

 friend Cicero, who gives him a high character for integrity. He is 

 said to have written some erotic poems. (Ovid., ' Trist./ ii. 1, 141 ; 

 Plin., 'Ep./ v. 3.) 



SULPI'CIUS SEVE'RUS, a Christian writer belonging to the end of 

 the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century of our aera. He is 

 generally supposed to have been born about the year A.D. 366, in 

 Aquitaine, aud was descended from a distinguished family. He first 

 followed the legal profession and gained great reputation as an orator ; 

 but after the death of his wife who belonged to a consular family and 

 died at an early age, Sulpicius withdrew himself entirely from the 

 world, and with a few friends led a retired and monastic life as a pres- 

 byter in Aquitaine. He commenced this life about 392, at the same time 

 that his intimate friend Paulinus adopted the same mode of life, who 

 in his letters commends Sulpicius for his conduct, and the more as the 

 father of Sulpicius had disinherited his son for the step he had taken. 

 (Paulin., ' Epist./ v. 1 ; xi. 5 ; xxiii. 3, &c.) But what Sulpicius thus 

 lost through the anger of his father, was amply made up by the muni- 

 ficent liberality of his father-in-law. Sulpicius made several journeys 

 to Tours, the bishop of which place Martinus inspired him with such 

 admiration, that Sulpicius who gradually formed an intimate friendship 

 with him, resolved to become his biographer. Further particulars 

 respecting the life of Sulpicius are not known, except that during his 

 last years he abstained altogether from speaking, as he considered his 

 former habits to have been rather loquacious, for which he meant to 

 atone by perfect silence. (Gennadius, 'De Viris Illustr.,' 19.) The 

 time of his death is very uncertain : some assign it to 420, others to 

 422, and others again to 432 ; but the most probable opinion is that 

 he died about A.D. 410, or soon after. 



We possess of Sulpicius Severus four different works : 1. 'Vita 

 Sancti Martini Turonensis/ which is written in the panegyrical style , 



