74 



A T T I C U S. 



Attictn 



Titus. 



Of his filial and fraternal affection, we may judge, 

 from tht- funeral oration pronounced by him, at the 

 age of 6*3, over his mother, whom he buried in her 

 !K)th year. He there declared, that he never in his 

 life had occasion to be reconciled to lus mother, nor 

 had ever any quarrel with his sister, who was then 

 much of his own age. Mr Baylc is pleased to be 

 witty on this declaration, regretting that the orator 

 taid nothing about his wife Pilia, whom he therefore 

 suspects of having been on bad terms with her hus- 

 band. But Mr Bayle ought to recollect that he had 

 not then been long married, whereas he had all his 

 life maintained a close intercourse with those to whom 

 he paid so elegant a compliment. 



Atticus made a considerable figure in his own time 

 as a writer. He kept up an epistolary correspon- 

 dence with the most eminent characters of that period. 

 Of his correspondence with Cicero, we have a lasting 

 monument in the letters which he received from that 

 orator. He wrote a book of historical antiquities, 

 into which he introduced genealogical tables of the 

 principal families in Rome. He also composed, in 

 Greek, an account of the consulship of Cicero, with 

 which the latter declared himself to be well pleased, 

 only that the style appeared somewhat unpolished 

 and unadorned. Nor did Atticus altogether neglect 

 poetry, which he cultivated principally for the ele- 

 gant taste which that study promotes. His chief 

 effort in this way consisted in describing, under their 

 pictures, the most remarkable actions of distinguished 

 men, concerning whom he is said to have comprised 

 an amazing quantity of information in the compass of 

 four or five verses. 



The constitution of Atticus was excellent, since, 

 for thirty years together previously to his last illness, 

 he had no occasion for a physician ; and though now 

 in the seventy-seventh year of his age, he was appa- 

 rently as stout and hale as ever. About this time 

 he was seized with a distemper which affected his in- 

 testines, and at last broke out into a sore ; upon 

 which, dreading a long continuance of pain, and sup- 

 posing his fate to be inevitable, he resolved to antici- 

 pate nature by abstaining from food. Having sent 

 tor his son-in-law, Agrippa, and some more of his 

 friends, he declared to them his fixed resolution, and 

 requested that none of them would endeavour to dis- 

 suade him from it. He is said to have done all this 

 with such a composed countenance, that he seemed 

 to be only talking of passing from one bouse to an- 

 other, and not from this world to the next. At the 

 end of two days the pain and"fever sensibly abated ; 

 but thinking it beneath him to recede from his pur- 

 pose, he persisted in his abstinence, and on the fifth 

 day after he had made the fatal resolution he breath- 

 ed his last. Thus died Atticus the death of a Ro- 

 man : that is, he shrunk from a temporary distress 

 with a meanness unbecoming a man, and rushed into 

 the other world before he was regularly summoned. 

 But this presumption we must ascribe, in this in- 

 stance, to the prejudices of the time, rather than to 

 the individual. How different his conduct from that 

 of a man, in similar circumstances, who has been styled 

 the modern Atticus ! " See," said Addison to his 

 friends, probably in allusion to this very suicide of At- 

 ticus, " see how a Christian can die." Atticus was 



buried, according to his own request, without any 

 funeral pomp, by the* Appian way, in the tomb of 

 His uncle Cacilius. 



Upon the whole, the most prominent feature in 

 the character of Atticus, so far as it is known to us, 

 was prudence. But we must avow our regret, that 

 the piece ascribed to Cornelius Nepos should be the 

 principal source of our information. That life is 

 evidently intended for a panegyric, in which every- 

 thing great and amiable is ascribed to Atticus, with- 

 out a single shade of failing, to the best of the wri- 

 ter's judgment. Atticus, however, was unquestion- 

 ably a man of first rate consequence in his own time. 

 His strict intimacy with that crafty tyrant Augus- 

 tus, who was forward in marrying his nephew Tibe- 

 rius to Agrippina, the grand-daughter of Atticus, is 

 alone a full proof that he was an elevated character. 

 The Epistles of Cicero, too, written when that ora- 

 tor and statesman was in the plenitude of his fame 

 and power, breathe such an air of ardent friend- 

 ship, unlimited confidence, and even anxious re- 

 spect, that we cannot but conclude, independently of 

 Nepos, that Atticus was a politician of first rate 

 accomplishments, wealth, and influence. We say 

 politician, for though he disclaimed the title, nothing 

 can be more evident from the epistles of Cicero, 

 than that Atticus had a very considerable share in the 

 secret movements of the political machine, and that he 

 at least sanctioned, if not suggested, a considerable 

 degree of stratagem and intrigue for the accomplish- 

 ment of his purposes. These, however, it must be 

 confessed, were all of a gentle and amiable kind ; 

 and he seems to have been one of those few who ri- 

 gidly shaped their conduct by the precepts of philo- 

 sophy. This love of privacy was not the effect of 

 timidity or indifference ; it was founded on a settled 

 plan of avoiding the troubles of the time, on the score 

 of ultimate happiness. Atticus was splendid with 

 economy ; industrious with dignity ; and his purse 

 was open to relieve the wants of contending leaders, 

 not because he had no public principle, but because 

 these were his private friends, and were, perhaps, 

 in his secret opinion, all equally devoid of patriotic 

 motives. When two corrupt factions contended for 

 the superiority, what wise man would join either, or 

 make either his enemies ? In short, Atticus was one 

 of those humane conciliating characters who dimi- 

 nish the animosity of parties, and who, if more nu- 

 merous, would entirely suppress it. The intrinsic 

 value of his mind is the only foundation of his fame. 

 Without having performed a single splendid action, 

 or discharged any public function, or aimed at exci- 

 ting the admiration of posterity by any remarkable 

 monument of his taste, talents, or munificence, he 

 has the singular felicity of being famous for ever on 

 account of his mere personal worth ! See M. T. 

 Ciceronis Epistolce ad Atlicum ; Vita T. Pom po m* 

 Attici ex Cornelio Nepote ; Suetonii Vita Tiberii, 

 c. 7. ; Gassendi* Vita Epicuri ; Did. de Bayle. (e) 



ATTILA, the son of Mundzuk, king of the 

 Huns. In conjunction with his brother Bleda, he 

 succeeded to the supreme government of the Huns, 

 about the year 4\33. Bleda, however, was soon de- 

 prived of his government and his life by the cruel 

 policy of his brother. Attila, according to the ac- 



Attictil 

 Titu, 

 Attila. 



