OF FORMER TIMES. 



295 



transplant the taste and spirit that produced them. Athens, although plun- 

 dered of her richest ornaments, shorn of the glory of her original constitu- 

 tion, and dependent upon Rome for protection, had still to boast of her schools 

 and her scholars. Every scene, every edifice, every conversation, was a liv- 

 ing lecture of elegance and erudition. Here was the venerable grove in 

 which Plato unfolded his sublime mysteries to enraptured multitudes ; — here 

 the awful Lyceum, in which Aristotle had anatomized the springs of human 

 intellect and action ; — here the porch of Zeno, still erect and stately as its 

 founder; — and here the learned shades and winding walks of the Garden of 

 Epicurus, in which he delineated the origin and nature of things, and incul- 

 cated tranquillity and temperance. Here Homer had sung, and Apelles 

 painted ; here Sophocles had drawn tears of tenderness, and Demosthenes 

 fired the soul to deeds of heroism and patriotic revenge. The monuments of 

 every thing great or glorious, dignified or refined, wise or virtuous, were still 

 existing at Athens ; and she had still philosophers to boast of, who were 

 worthy of her fairest days, of her most resplendent reputation.* 



To this celebrated city, therefore, this theatre of universal learning, the 

 Roman youth of all the first families were sent for education. And at the 

 period we are now contemplating, we meet with the following names, as co- 

 students, and chiefly attendants upon the Epicurean school, forming a most 

 extraordinary concentration of juvenile talents and genius: Tully, and his 

 two brothers Lucius and Quintus, the last of whom was afterward a poet, 

 and as signally distinguished in the profession of arms, as the first was in 

 that of eloquence ; Titus Pomponius, from his critical knowledge of the 

 Greek tongue surnamed Jltticus,but who derives this higher praise from Cor- 

 nelius Nepos, that "he never deviated from the truth, nor would associate 

 with any one who had done so ;" Lucretius, author of the well-known poem 

 on the Nature of Things ; Caius Memmius, the bosom friend of Lucretius, of 

 whose talents and learning the writings of Tully offer abundant proofs, and 

 to whom Lucretius dedicated his poem ; Lucretius Vespilio, whom Cicero has 

 enumerated among the orators of his day; Marcus Junius Brutus, Caius Cas- 

 sius, and Caius Velleius, each of whom immortalized himself by preferring 

 the freedom of his country to the friendship of Caesar. And when to these I 

 add the names of the following contemporaries, most of whom, we have rea- 

 son to believe, were also co-students at Athens with those just enumerated — 

 Julius Caesar himself, Crassus, Sulpitius, Calvus, Varro, Catullus, Sallust, 

 Hortensius, Calpurnius, Piso, Marcus, Marcellus, whose son Caius married 

 Octavia, the sister of Augustus, Atheius, and Asinius Pollio, to whom Virgil 

 dedicated his fourth eclogue, and who founded, expressly for the use of his 

 country, one of the most splendid and extensive libraries the republic was 

 ever possessed of, collected from the spoils of all the enemies he had at any 

 time subdued, and still farther enriched by him at avast expense, — we. meet 

 with a galaxy of talents and learning, which neither the Augustan nor any 

 other age in the whole history of the Roman republic can presume to rival. 



It was the son of Octavia whose ripening virtues and untimely death Virgil 

 is so well known to have referred to in the pathetic tribute introduced into the 

 vision of ^Eneas : 



Heu miserande puer I si qua fata aspera rumpas, 

 Tu Marcellus eris/f 



Ah, couldst thou break, lov'd youth ! thro' fate's decree, 

 A new Marcellus should arise in thee. 



This accomplished youth, the delight of the Roman people, appears to have 

 been well entitled to so high a compliment. It was the intention of his uncle 

 Augustus that he should succeed him, and Virgil received from Octavia, for the 

 verses that related to Marcellus, a pecuniary present of the value of £2500. 



Cicero acted wisely, therefore, in sending, as he expressly declares he did, 

 all his young friends to Greece, who evinced a love of study, " that they 



* See the author's Lilb of Lucretius, prefixed to his Translation of the Nature of Things, p. xxix. 

 t JEneid. vi. 881. 



