OF FORMER TIMES. 



327 



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

 Koman 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 afterwards 

 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 Atticus^ but who derives this higher praise 

 from Cornelius 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 Cassius, and Caius Velleius, each of whom 

 immortalized himself by preferring the freedom of his country to the 

 friendship of Cassar. And wheri to these I add the names of the follow- 

 ing contemporaries, most of whom, we have reason to believe, were also 

 co-students at Athens with those just enumerated — Julius Cassar himself, 

 Crassus, Sulpitius, Calvus, Varro, Catullus, Sallust, Hortensius, Calpur- 

 nius, 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 public were ever pos- 

 sessed of, collected from the spoils of all the enemies he had at any time 

 subdued, and still further enriched by him at a vast expense, — we meet 

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

 ^ny 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 ^neas : 



Hen miserande puer ! si qua fata aspera rumpas, 

 Tu MarceJlus eris.* 



Ah ! CDuld'st 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 

 iiave 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 25O0Z, 



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

 did, all his young friends to Greece, who evinced a love for study, " that 

 ihey might drink from fountains rather than from rivulets." " Meos 

 amicos, in quibus est studium, in Grsciam mitto : id est ad Graeciam ire 

 jubeo : ut ea a fontibus potius hauriaut, quam rivulos consectentur."t 



Horace alludes to the same seat of learning, and nearly the same habit 

 of studying there in his own case, by way of finishing his education, 

 after having read Homer at home : 



* iEneid. vi.88I. 



t Acad. Quest, i. % 



