[Footnote 49:  I have adopted Clough’s excellent version of the well-known passage in ‘Iliad,’ xii. 243, where Hector says that he cares not for the flight of birds or any other omen, but that “The best of omens is one’s country’s cause.”]

[Footnote 50:  Compare the games which Achilles, in the ‘Iliad,’ holds at the funeral of Patroklus.]

LIFE OF CAIUS MARIUS.

I. I cannot mention any third name[51] of Caius Marius, any more than of Quintus Sertorius, who held Spain, or of Lucius Mummius, who took Corinth; for the name Achaicus was given to Mummius in commemoration of this event, just as the name Africanus was given to Scipio, and Macedonicus to Metellus.  This seems to Poseidonius to be the strongest refutation of the opinion of those who suppose that the third name was the proper individual name among the Romans, such as Camillus, and Marcellus, and Cato; for he argues, if this were so, those who had only the two names would be really without a name.  But Poseidonius does not perceive that by this argument he on his side makes the women to be without names:  for no woman ever has the first of the three names, which first, however, Poseidonius supposes to be the name which marked individuals among the Romans; and of the other two names, he supposes the one to be common and to belong to all of one kin, such as the Pompeii and the Manlii and the Cornelii, just as the Greeks might speak of the Herakleidae and the Pelopidae; but the other name he supposes to be an appellation given as a distinctive name, either with reference to a man’s disposition or his actions, or some character and peculiarity of his person, such as Macrinus and Torquatus and Sulla, which may be compared with the Greek Mnemon or Grypus or Kallinikus.  However, in such matters as these the diversity in usage allows a variety of conjectures.

II.  With respect to the personal appearance of Marius, I saw a stone statue[52] of him at Ravenna in Gaul, which was perfectly in accordance with what is said of the roughness and harshness of his character.  He was naturally of a courageous and warlike turn, and had more of the discipline of the camp than of the state, and accordingly his temper was ungovernable when he was in the possession of power.  It is stated that he never studied Greek literature, and never availed himself of the Greek language for any serious purpose, for he said it was ridiculous to study a literature the teachers of which were the slaves of others; and after his second triumph, when he exhibited Greek plays[53] on the occasion of the dedication of a certain temple, though he came to the theatre, he only sat down for a moment and then went away.  Xenokrates the philosopher was considered to be rather of a morose temper, and Plato was in the habit of frequently saying to him, “My good Xenokrates, sacrifice to the Graces;” in like manner, if Marius could have been persuaded to sacrifice to the Grecian Muses and Graces, he would never have brought a most illustrious military and civil career to a most unseemly conclusion; through passion and unreasonable love of power and insatiable desire of self-aggrandizement driven to terminate his course in an old age of cruelty and ferocity.  Let this, however, be judged of by the facts as they will presently appear.