1. Cicero, In Verrem, 2.2.158, 2.2.160 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
|
2. Polybius, Histories, 6.53 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 6.53. 1. Whenever any illustrious man dies, he is carried at his funeral into the forum to the soâcalled rostra, sometimes conspicuous in an upright posture and more rarely reclined.,2. Here with all the people standing round, a grown-up son, if he has left one who happens to be present, or if not some other relative mounts the rostra and discourses on the virtues and successful achievements of the dead.,3. As a consequence the multitude and not only those who had a part in these achievements, but those also who had none, when the facts are recalled to their minds and brought before their eyes, are moved to such sympathy that the loss seems to be not confined to the mourners, but a public one affecting the whole people.,4. Next after the interment and the performance of the usual ceremonies, they place the image of the departed in the most conspicuous position in the house, enclosed in a wooden shrine.,5. This image is a mask reproducing with remarkable fidelity both the features and complexion of the deceased.,6. On the occasion of public sacrifices they display these images, and decorate them with much care, and when any distinguished member of the family dies they take them to the funeral, putting them on men who seem to them to bear the closest resemblance to the original in stature and carriage.,7. These representatives wear togas, with a purple border if the deceased was a consul or praetor, whole purple if he was a censor, and embroidered with gold if he had celebrated a triumph or achieved anything similar.,8. They all ride in chariots preceded by the fasces, axes, and other insignia by which the different magistrates are wont to be accompanied according to the respective dignity of the offices of state held by each during his life;,9. and when they arrive at the rostra they all seat themselves in a row on ivory chairs. There could not easily be a more ennobling spectacle for a young man who aspires to fame and virtue.,10. For who would not be inspired by the sight of the images of men renowned for their excellence, all together and as if alive and breathing? What spectacle could be more glorious than this? |
|
3. Livy, History, 40.37.2 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
|
4. Lucretius Carus, On The Nature of Things, 2.1-2.6 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
|
5. Seneca The Elder, Controversies, 8.2 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
|
6. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 31 (1st cent. CE - missingth cent. CE)
|
7. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 36.22 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
|
8. Plutarch, Mark Antony, 60.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
9. Plutarch, Cato The Elder, 19.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
10. Tacitus, Agricola, 1.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
11. Tacitus, Annals, 3.76, 16.7-16.9 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 3.76. Junia, too, born niece to Cato, wife of Caius Cassius, sister of Marcus Brutus, looked her last on life, sixty-three full years after the field of Philippi. Her will was busily discussed by the crowd; because in disposing of her great wealth she mentioned nearly every patrician of note in complimentary terms, but omitted the Caesar. The slur was taken in good part, and he offered no objection to the celebration of her funeral with a panegyric at the Rostra and the rest of the customary ceremonies. The effigies of twenty great houses preceded her to the tomb â members of the Manlian and Quinctian families, and names of equal splendour. But Brutus and Cassius shone brighter than all by the very fact that their portraits were unseen. 16.7. To the death of Poppaea, outwardly regretted, but welcome to all who remembered her profligacy and cruelty, Nero added a fresh measure of odium by prohibiting Gaius Cassius from attendance at the funeral. It was the first hint of mischief. Nor was the mischief long delayed. Silanus was associated with him; their only crime being that Cassius was eminent for a great hereditary fortune and an austere character, Silanus for a noble lineage and a temperate youth. Accordingly, the emperor sent a speech to the senate, arguing that both should be removed from public life, and objecting to the former that, among his other ancestral effigies, he had honoured a bust of Gaius Cassius, inscribed:â "To the leader of the cause." The seeds of civil war, and revolt from the house of the Caesars, â such were the objects he had pursued. And, not to rely merely on the memory of a hated name as an incentive to faction, he had taken to himself a partner in Lucius Silanus, a youth of noble family and headstrong temper, who was to be his figure-head for a revolution. 16.8. He then attacked Silanus himself in the same strain as his uncle Torquatus, alleging that he was already apportioning the responsibilities of empire, and appointing freedmen to the charge of "accounts, documents, and correspondence": an indictment at once frivolous and false; for the prevalent alarms had made Silanus vigilant, and his uncle's doom has terrified him into especial caution. Next, soâcalled informers were introduced to forge against Lepida â wife of Cassius, aunt of Silanus â a tale of incest, committed with her brother's son, and of magical ceremonies. The senators Vulcacius Tullinus and Cornelius Marcellus were brought in as accomplices, with the Roman knight Calpurnius Fabatus. Their imminent condemnation they cheated by appealing to the emperor, and later, as being of minor importance, made good their escape from Nero, now fully occupied by crimes of the first magnitude. 16.9. Then, by decree of the senate, sentences of exile were registered against Cassius and Silanus: on the case of Lepida the Caesar was to pronounce. Cassius was deported to the island of Sardinia, and old age left to do its work. Silanus, ostensibly bound for Naxos, was removed to Ostia, and afterwards confined in an Apulian town by the name of Barium. There, while supporting with philosophy his most unworthy fate, he was seized by a centurion sent for the slaughter. To the suggestion that he should cut an artery, he replied that he had, in fact, made up his mind to die, but could not excuse the assassin his glorious duty. The centurion, however, noticing that, if unarmed, he was very strongly built and betrayed more anger than timidity, ordered his men to overpower him. Silanus did not fail to struggle, and to strike with what vigour his bare fists permitted, until he dropped under the sword of the centurion, as upon a field of battle, his wounds in front. |
|
12. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 60.25.2-60.25.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 60.25.2. Accordingly, as in earlier times, one of the praetors, one of the tribunes, and one of each of the other groups of officials recited the oaths for their colleagues. This practice was followed for several years. In view of the fact that the city was becoming filled with a great multitude of images (for any who wished were free to have their likenesses appear in public in a painting or in bronze or marble) 60.25.3. Claudius removed most of them elsewhere and for the future forbade that any private citizen should be allowed to follow the practice, except by permission of the senate or unless he should have built or repaired some public work; for he permitted such persons and their relatives to have their images set up in the places in question. |
|
13. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.27.3 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 9.27.3. Sappho of Lesbos wrote many poems about Love, but they are not consistent. Later on Lysippus made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble. The story of Phryne and the trick she played on Praxiteles I have related in another place. See Paus. 1.20.1 . The first to remove the image of Love, it is said, was Gaius the Roman Emperor; Claudius, they say, sent it back to Thespiae, but Nero carried it away a second time. |
|
14. Pliny The Younger, Letters, 10.8 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 10.8. To Trajan. When, Sir, your late father, * both by a very fine speech and by setting them a most honourable example himself, urged every citizen to deeds of liberality, I sought permission from him to transfer to a neighbouring township all the statues of the emperors which had come into my possession by various bequests and were kept just as I had received them ill my distant estates, and to add thereto a statue of himself. He granted the request and made most flattering references to myself, and I immediately wrote to the decurions asking them to assign me a plot of ground upon which I might erect a temple ** at my own cost, and they offered to let me choose the site myself as a mark of appreciation of the task I had undertaken. But first my own ill-health, then your father's illness, and subsequently the anxieties of the office you bestowed upon me, have prevented my proceeding with the work. However, I think the present is a convenient opportunity for getting on with it, for my month of duty ends on the Kalends of September and the following month contains a number of holidays. I ask, therefore, as a special favour, that you will allow me to adorn with your statue the work which I am about to begin ; and secondly, that in order to complete it as soon as possible, you will grant me leave of absence. It would be alien to my frank disposition if I were to conceal from your goodness the fact that you will, if you grant me leave, be incidentally aiding very materially my private fices. The rent of my estates in that district exceeds 400,000 sesterces, and if the new tets are to be settled in time for the next pruning, the letting of the farms must not be any further delayed. Besides, the succession of bad vintages we have had forces me to consider the question of making certain abatements, and I cannot enter into that question unless I am on the spot. So, Sir, if for these reasons you grant me leave for thirty days, I shall owe to your kindness the speedy fulfilment of a work of loyalty and the settlement of my private fices. I cannot reduce the length of leave I ask for to narrower limits, inasmuch as the township and the estates I have spoken of are more than a hundred and fifty miles from Rome. 0 |
|
15. Pliny The Younger, Letters, 1.17, 10.8 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.17. To Cornelius Titianus. Faith and loyalty are not yet extinct among men 0 10.8. To Trajan. When, Sir, your late father, * both by a very fine speech and by setting them a most honourable example himself, urged every citizen to deeds of liberality, I sought permission from him to transfer to a neighbouring township all the statues of the emperors which had come into my possession by various bequests and were kept just as I had received them ill my distant estates, and to add thereto a statue of himself. He granted the request and made most flattering references to myself, and I immediately wrote to the decurions asking them to assign me a plot of ground upon which I might erect a temple ** at my own cost, and they offered to let me choose the site myself as a mark of appreciation of the task I had undertaken. But first my own ill-health, then your father's illness, and subsequently the anxieties of the office you bestowed upon me, have prevented my proceeding with the work. However, I think the present is a convenient opportunity for getting on with it, for my month of duty ends on the Kalends of September and the following month contains a number of holidays. I ask, therefore, as a special favour, that you will allow me to adorn with your statue the work which I am about to begin ; and secondly, that in order to complete it as soon as possible, you will grant me leave of absence. It would be alien to my frank disposition if I were to conceal from your goodness the fact that you will, if you grant me leave, be incidentally aiding very materially my private fices. The rent of my estates in that district exceeds 400,000 sesterces, and if the new tets are to be settled in time for the next pruning, the letting of the farms must not be any further delayed. Besides, the succession of bad vintages we have had forces me to consider the question of making certain abatements, and I cannot enter into that question unless I am on the spot. So, Sir, if for these reasons you grant me leave for thirty days, I shall owe to your kindness the speedy fulfilment of a work of loyalty and the settlement of my private fices. I cannot reduce the length of leave I ask for to narrower limits, inasmuch as the township and the estates I have spoken of are more than a hundred and fifty miles from Rome. 0 |
|
16. Vergil, Aeneis, 1.202-1.206
| 1.202. till rocks and blazing torches fill the air 1.203. (rage never lacks for arms)—if haply then 1.204. ome wise man comes, whose reverend looks attest 1.205. a life to duty given, swift silence falls; 1.206. all ears are turned attentive; and he sways |
|
