Chap. 44.] EEMABKABLE EXAMPLES OF HONOURS. 
189 
CHAP. 43. (42.) KEMAEKABLE EXAMPLE OF YICISSITTJLES. 
As to examples of the vicissitudes of Fortune, they are 
innumerable. Eor what great pleasures has she ever given 
us, which have not taken their rise in misfortunes ? And what 
extraordinary misfortunes have not taken their first rise in 
great pleasures ? (43.) It was fortune that preserved the 
Senator, M. Fidustius,'^^ who had been proscribed by Sylla, 
for a period of thirty-six years. And yet he was proscribed a 
second time ; for he survived Sylla, even to the days of An- 
tony, and, as it appears, was proscribed by him, for no other 
reason but because he had been proscribed before. 
CHAP. 44. EEMAKKAELE EXAMPLES OF HONOUES. 
Fortune has determined that P. Yentidius alone should enjoy 
the honour of a triumph over the Parthians, and yet the same 
individual, when he was a child, she led in the triumphal 
procession of Cneius Pompeius, the conqueror of Asculum.*^^ 
Indeed, Masurius says, that he had been twice led in triumph ; 
and according to Cicero, he used to let out mules for the bakers 
of the camp.*^^ Most writers, indeed, admit that his younger 
days were passed in the greatest poverty, and that he wore the 
hob-nailed shoes "^^ of the common soldier. Balbus Cornelius, 
Quintus Fabius EuUianus five times, and Q. Fabius Gurges three 
times. — B. 
We have a similar account of the fate of Fidustins in Dion Cassius, 
by whom he is named Filuscius. — B. He was at length slain by order of 
Antony. 
We have an account of the vicissitudes in the life of Ventidius Bassiis 
in A. GeUius, B. xv. c. 4, and in Valerius Paterculus, B. ii. c. 65. We 
learn from these writers, that Yentidius was a native of Picenum, and that, 
when that city was taken by Cneius Pompeius, in the Social war, Ventidius, 
then an infant, was carried in his mother's arms, before the car of the con- 
queror. — B. 
The passage of Cicero referred to, occurs in a letter to Plancus, Ep. 
ad Fam. B. x. Ep. 18, where, speaking of Ventidius, who had united him- 
self to the party of Antony, he sfays, " And 1 look down upon the camp of 
the mule-driver, Ventidius.'' 
''^ ^' Caliga." A strong heavy san<lal worn by the Roman soldiers and 
centurions ; but not by the superior officers. The term *' a calig^," there- 
fore, had the same meaning as our expression, " from the ranks." The 
Emperor Caligula received that surname when a boy, in consequence of 
wearing the caliga, and being inured to the life of a common soldier. 
