“It is divine nature that has given the country, human art that has built cities.—As a state ought to worship the gods in its public capacity, so ought each family.”

“Justice gives every one his due.—No one was ever great without divine inspiration.—The noblest spirit is the most strongly attracted by the love of glory.—One man is more useful in one thing, another in another.—Guilt lies in the very hesitation, even though the act itself has not been reached.—The chief recommendation comes from modesty.—Fear is no lasting teacher of duty.—Any man may err, but no one but a fool will persevere in error.—The memory of a well-spent life is everlasting.—Whatever you do, you should do it with your might.—Glory follows virtue like its shadow.”

“The ring on the finger is worn thin by constant use.—It is pleasant, when winds roughen the sea with great waves, to behold from the shore another’s arduous toil.—We are all sprung from heavenly seeds.—Weigh well with judgment; what seems true, hold fast; gird thyself against what is false.—We see that the mind strengthens with the body, and with the body grows old.”

“Nothing is sillier than a silly laugh.—What a woman says to her fond lover may well be written on the wind and rapid stream.”

“Every one is the architect of his own fortune.—The endowments of the mind form the only illustrious and lasting possession.—Fear closes the ears of the mind.—The mind is the leader and director of the life of mortals.—In grief and miseries, death is a respite from sorrows, not a punishment.—To have the same likes and dislikes, this in a word is firm friendship.”

“Endure, and preserve yourselves for prosperous times.—We are not all able to accomplish all things.—Love conquers all things, and to love let us yield.—Praise large farms, cultivate a small one.—The only safety for the vanquished is to hope for no safety.—Accursed thirst for gold, what dost thou not drive mortal breasts to do?—Nowhere is faith safe.—Whatever shall happen, every kind of fortune is to be overcome by patient endurance.—Hug the shore; let others launch out into the deep.”

“There is a mean in all things.—It is right for one craving forgiveness for his sins to grant it to others in turn.—There is nothing too high for mortals; in our folly we storm heaven itself.—Life has given nothing to mortals without great toil.—Avoid inquiring what is about to be to-morrow.—To die for one’s native land is sweet and glorious.—Punishment presses on crime as a companion.—He has carried every point who has mingled the useful with the agreeable.”

“Wounds cannot be cured unless they are touched and handled.—Necessity is the ultimate and strongest weapon.—In nothing do events less answer to men’s expectations than in war.—It is safer that a wicked man should not be accused at all than that he should be acquitted.—In difficult and almost hopeless cases the boldest counsels are the safest.”

“There is a God who forbids that crimes should be concealed.—Happy thou who shalt learn by another’s suffering how to avoid thine own.—While thy early summer-time is blooming, use it; it slips away with no slow foot.”

“Neither is beauty a thing eternal, nor is fortune lasting to any; later or sooner death awaits everybody.—In maddening love nobody sees.—Let no one be willing to injure the absent.—Great love crosses even the shores of death.”

“A wounded member that cannot be healed must be cut off with the knife, lest the healthy part be affected.—It is the coward’s part to wish for death.—Even the unconquered man grief conquers.—A mind conscious of rectitude laughs at the lies of rumor.—The reefed sail escapes the storms of winter.”

“No evil is great which is the last.—Peace is obtained by war.—The mother of a coward is not wont to weep.”

“The poor man, striving to imitate the powerful, comes to grief.—The fair speeches of a bad man are full of snares.—Rashness is an advantage to few, a source of evil to many.—The learned man always has his riches within himself.”

The Elder.—“Every one is pleased with his own, and wherever we go the same story is found.—No one of mortals is wise at all hours.—Our ancestors used to say that the master’s eye is the best fertilizer for the field.”

The Younger.—“Nothing seems as good, when we have gained it, as it did when we were wishing for it.—I deem him the best and most commendable who pardons others as if he himself daily went astray, yet abstains from faults as if he pardoned no one.”

“Great fear is concealed by daring.—The prosperous man knows not whether he is truly loved.—An offence in which many are engaged, goes unpunished.”

“A physician is nothing more than a satisfaction to the mind.—Fear first made gods in the world.—There is no one of us that sinneth not; we are men, not gods.—Poverty is the sister of a sound mind.”

“Traitors are odious even to those whom they benefit.—When the state is most corrupt, the laws are most numerous.—There will be vices as long as there are men.—Everything unknown is magnified.—It is a peculiarity of the human mind to hate one whom you have injured.”

“Rare is the combination of beauty and modesty.—Nature never says one thing, and wisdom another.—Himself being the judge, no guilty man is acquitted.—The anger of the gods, however great it may be, yet certainly is slow.—Less frequent enjoyment of them makes pleasures keener.”

Cremu’tius Cordus, the historian: “Annals.” Cordus offended Tiberius by styling Cassius “the last of the Romans,” and starved himself to death to escape the tyrant.

Aufid’ius Bassus: histories of the civil and German wars.

Asco’nius Pedia’nus: a grammarian of Patavium; commentaries on Cicero’s orations.

Petro’nius Arbiter, the companion and victim of Nero: author of “Satyricon,” a witty romance, of which a few fragments remain.

Julius Fronti’nus: a self-made man of the Flavian era; works on the Roman aqueducts, military tactics, the measurement of land, etc.

Licinia’nus (age of the Antonines): a history of republican Rome; style affected.

Marcus Aurelius, the emperor (161-180): a devoted Stoic; his “Meditations” (in Greek) full of noble sentiments.

Papinian and Ulpian, the jurists (about 200): writers on law.

Spartia’nus (300): “Biographies of the Roman Emperors.”

Ælius Dona’tus (4th century): the preceptor of St. Jerome; his “Art of Grammar” once a popular text-book.

Prudentius Cle’mens (4th century): a Christian poet; hymns, etc.

Avie’nus (4th century): poems on astronomical and geographical subjects.

Ammia’nus Marcelli’nus (died about 400): the last Latin historian; his “Thirty-one Books of Events,” a continuation of the history of Tacitus through the reign of Valens (378).

Symmachus (400): a high-minded opponent of Christianity; defeated by Ambrose in an attempt to restore the altar of Victory; orations, epistles.

Rutilius (5th century): poetical diary of a journey from Rome to Gaul; style terse and elegant.

Priscian (6th century): the greatest of classical grammarians; the most complete Latin Grammar of antiquity.