172 PLiirr's natueai. histobt. [BookVII. 



gained two spoils, and was the first of equestrian rank who re- 

 ceived a mural crown ; he also gained six civic crowns, thirty- 

 seven donations, and had twenty-three scars on the fore-part of 

 his body. He saved the life of P. ServiUus, the master of the 

 horse, receiving wounds on the same occasion in the shoulders 

 and the thigh. Besides all this, unaided, he saved the Capitol, 

 when it was attacked by the Gauls, and through that, the 

 state itself; a thing that would have been the most glorious 

 act of all, if he had not so saved it, in order that he might, as 

 its king, become its master.'* But in all matters of this nature, 

 although valour may effect much, fortune does still more. 



No person living, in my opinion at least, ever excelled M. 

 Sergius,'^ although his great-grandson, Catiline, tarnished the 

 honours of his name. In his second campaign he lost his right 

 hand ; and in two campaigns he was wounded three and twenty 

 times ; so much so, that he could scarcely use either his hands 

 or his feet ; stiU, attended by a single slave, he afterwards 

 served in many campaigns, though but an invalided soldier. 

 He was twice taken prisoner by Hannibal, (for it was with no 

 ordinary enemy that he would engage,) and twice did he escape 

 from his captivity, after having been kept, without a single 

 day's intermission, in chains and fetters for twenty months. 

 On four occasions he fought with his left hand alone, two horses 

 being slain under him. He had a right hand made of iron, 

 and attached to the stump, after which he fought a battle, and 

 raised the siege of Cremona, defended Placentia, and took 

 twelve of the enemy's camps in Gaul. All this we learn from 

 an oration of Ms, which he delivered when, in his praetorship, 

 his colleagues attempted to exclude him from the sacred rites, 

 on the ground of his infirmities.'* What heaps upon heaps of 

 crowns would he have piled up, if he had only had other ene- 

 mies ! For, in matters of this nature, it- is of the first impor- 

 tance to consider upon what times in especial the valour of 



'* "We have an account of the victories, honours, and unfortunate fate of 

 Manlius in Livy, B. vi. c. 14 — 20. In enumerating the honours conferred 

 upon him, the numbers are given somewhat differently in c. 20 ; thirty 

 spoils of enemies slain, forty donations from the generals, two mural and 

 eight civic crowns. — B. 



'5 M. Sergius Silus, He was one of the city praetors b.o. 197. 



'* Among the Jews and other nations of antiquity, it was considered an 

 essential point for the priests to be without blemish, perfect and free from 

 disease. — B, 



