[f] Lucan was nephew to Seneca, and a poet of great celebrity.  He was born, in the reign of Caligula, at Corduba in Spain.  His superior genius made Nero his mortal enemy.  He was put to death by that inhuman emperor, A.U.C. 818, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.  See the Annals, b. xv. s. 70.  As a writer, Quintilian says, that he possessed an ardent genius, impetuous, rapid, and remarkable for the vigour of his sentiments:  but he chooses to class him with the orators, rather than the poets. Lucanus ardens, et concitatus, et sententiis clarissimus; et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis annumerandus. Lib. x. cap. 1.  Scaliger, on the other hand, contends that Lucan was a true poet, and that the critics do but trifle, when they object that he wrote history, not an epic poem.  STRADA in his Prolusions, has given, among other imitations, a narrative in Lucan’s manner; and, though he thinks that poet has not the skill of Virgil, he places him on the summit of Parnassus, managing his Pegasus with difficulty, often in danger of falling from the ridge of a precipice, yet delighting his reader with the pleasure of seeing him escape.  This is the true character of Lucan.  The love of liberty was his ruling passion.  It is but justice to add, that his sentiments, when free from antithesis and the Ovidian manner, are not excelled by any poet of antiquity.  From him, as well as from Virgil and Horace, the orator is required to cull such passages as will help to enrich his discourse; and the practice is recommended by Quintilian, who observes, that Cicero, Asinius Pollio, and others, frequently cited verses from Ennius, Accius, Pacuvius, and Terence, in order to grace their speeches with polite literature, and enliven the imagination of their hearers.  By those poetic insertions, the ear is relieved from the harsh monotony of the forum; and the poets, cited occasionally, serve by their authority to establish the proposition advanced by the speaker. Nam praecipue quidem apud Ciceronem, frequenter tamen apud Asinium etiam, et caeteros, qui sunt proximi, vidimus ENNII, ACCII, PACUVII, TERENTII et aliorum inseri versus, summa non eruditionis modo gratia, sed etiam jucunditatis; cum poeticis voluptatibus aures a forensi asperitate respirent, quibus accedit non mediocris utilitas, cum sententiis eorum, velut quibusdam testimoniis, quae proposuere confirmant. Quintil. lib. i. cap. 8.

Section XXI.

[a] There is in this place a blunder of the copyists, which almost makes the sentence unintelligible.  The translator, without entering into minute controversies, has, upon all such occasions, adopted what appeared, from the context, to be the most probable sense.  It remains, therefore, to enquire, who were the several orators here enumerated.  CANUTIUS may be the person mentioned by Suetonius De Claris Rhetoribus.  Cicero says of ARRIUS, that he was a striking proof of what consequence it was at Rome to be useful to