beginning of Cicero's petitio, in the middle of July, 689 (b. c. 65), when Cicero prensandi initium facere cogitarat in campo comitiis tribuniciis (Att. i. 1, 1), but at a considerably later period, when his only formidable rivals were Antonius and Catiline. Now this circumstance seems to me to point unmistakably to an inference directly contrary to that which Eussner draws. Surely the compiler postulated by Eussner would have begun from the very beginning, and thus given artistic completeness to his Essay; Quintus, on the other hand, writing in the beginning of 690 (b. c. 64), omits the past, for which counsel is now unavailing, and addresses himself to the task of advising his brother under the circumstances which actually surround him.

(2). Again, Eussner argues that Quintus, who had held no office but aedileship, must have been quite unqualified to instruct his brother, who had already distinguished himself as praetor, quaestor, and curule aedile. The coincidences between the Oratio in Toga Candida and the Commentariolum coincidences which I fully admit-would, in the mind of Eussner, show Marcus in the light of a base plagiarist, if Quintus were the author; fac (says Eussner) tam humilis atque abiecti animi fuisse Marcum hominem eloquentissimum, ut quod ipsi emendandum esset commendatum fratris opusculum expilaret. But this is an utterly false point of view on the part of Eussner. The letter was written by Quintus in order to bring together under the view of his brother, and in an organized shape, maxims of procedure which were no doubt familiar to him, but which it might be convenient to have by him reduced to a system, non ut aliquid ex iis novi addisceres, sed ut ea quae in re dispersa atque infinita viderentur esse, ratione et distributione sub uno aspectu ponerentur (Comm. 1). This Quintus had abundant leisure to do, having just laid down his aedileship; haec sunt quae putavi non melius scire me quam te, sed facilius his tuis occupationibus colligere in unum locum posse et ad te perscripta mittere (Comm. 58). Marcus was at liberty to use (as he did in his Oratio in Toga Candida) some vigorous expressions taken from his brother's letter in denunciation of his rivals, as much as he was at liberty to act on the practical precepts therein enjoined; nor is he open to the charge of undue appropriation in the one case more than in the other. Nay more; suppose it to be granted for a moment that it would have been a dishonest act to have made use in his speech of these expressions found in his brother's letter, not even so would the character of Marcus suffer, for we learn from Comm. 58,* that

* Quae tametsi ita sunt scripta ut non ad omnes qui honores petant, sed ad te proprie et ad hanc petitionem tuam valeant, tamen tu, si quid mutandum esse videbitur, aut omnino tollendum, aut si quid erit praeteritum velim hoc mihi dicas. From these words Tydeman argues that Quintus cannot have been at Rome when he wrote the Commen

Quintus submitted his work to the criticism of Marcus, requesting him to curtail, enlarge, and modify it as he thought fit, and hinting that if it met his brother's approval, he might publish it as a guide to future candidates, though an incomplete one (he owns), as having primary reference only to Marcus and his election. These expressions, then, in which the Oratio in Toga Candida and the Commentariolum coincide, may have been inserted by Marcus, in accordance with his brother's request.*

As to the unfitness of Quintus to offer counsel to Marcus, we need only observe that such unfitness was not felt by Marcus. He says afterwards of Quintus, ut amplissimum nomen consequeremur unus praeter ceteros adiucisti (Q. Fr. i. 1, 43), and in the same letter, quid enim ei praecipiam quem ego in hoc praesertim genere intelligam prudentia non esse inferiorem quam me, usu vero etiam superiorem? (Q. Fr. i. 1, 18). Moreover, all the letters of Marcus to Quintus afford everywhere proofs that Marcus sought and found a valuable counseller in Quintus in all the most important of his affairs, and fully appreciated his worth as an adviser. Nor did Marcus despise his brother's literary gifts; afterwards, in speaking of a poem, probably the Annales referred to above, which Quintus submitted to him, just as he submitted the Commentariolum, for correction and revision, the prince of stylists did not think it humiliating to say, sine ulla mehercule eipwveia loquor; tibi istius generis in scribendo priores partes tribuo quam mihi (Q. Fr. iii. 4, 4). In truth, that it would be undignified in the great and distinguished Marcus to ask or accept literary aid from the humble Quintus, is a point of view far more likely to occur to a modern German than to an ancient Roman, especially such a Roman as the gentle, refined, and high-minded M. Cicero.f

(3). The Commentariolum is, according to Eussner, below the style of Quintus, as described by his brother, and unlike the four letters from Quintus found in the correspondence of Cicero, Fam. xvi. 8, 16, 26, 27.

tariolum, as in that case be would in a personal interview have asked his brother to criticise his Essay, instead of embodying the request in the Essay itself. Bücheler draws the opposite inference because Quintus writes velim hoc mihi dicas instead of velim hoc mihi scribas. I agree with Tydeman; dicere is used constantly for a communication made by letter. Eussner sees in the absence of date and address an argument for the fictitious character of the letter. So Sergeant Buzfuz maintained that it was 'a circumstance in itself suspicious' that the second communication of Mr. Pickwick to Mrs. Bardell bore no date.

* So afterwards Quintus requests his brother to correct and edit his Annales, Q. frater me rogat ut Annales suos emendem et edam (Att ii. 16, 4). Marcus readily complied with his brother's request.

For other expressions of Marcus, eulogistic of the literary merit of his brother, see Q. Fr. iii. 1. 19; Q. Fr. iii, 6, 7; De Orat. 10.

But Eussner does not allow for the kindliness so strongly characteristic of Cicero, which led him to overstate his brother's merits. We have seen above that Marcus pronounces his brother superior to himself in poetry. Now it seems to me that Cicero's Aratea, and other poetical fragments, not excepting the much-decried O fortunatum, &c., will well bear comparison with the twenty hexameters of Quintus, De XII. signis, which may be taken as typical of the poetry of Quintus, if the four surviving letters may be looked on as sufficient basis for a judgment on his prose style. To me it seems that the Commentariolum is worthy of the letters, nor does it differ from them in tone and style more than a practical treatise cast in an epistolary mould would naturally differ from a familiar letter-than the letter of Marcus on the duties of a Provincial Governor (Q. Fr. i. 1) differs from those jocular letters of gossip and chitchat which we meet so often in his private correspondence.

Eussner and Bücheler greatly exaggerate the imperfection of the style of the Commentariolum, though, of course, both it and the letters of Quintus are incomparably below the standard of Marcus. Many of these supposed defects would pass quite unnoticed if the work had been attributed to Marcus; indeed, many of them can actually be paralleled in the writings of the great orator. For instance, the frequent use of quoniam in the Commentariolum is severely animadverted on by Bücheler and Eussner: this conjunction is used seven times in Q. Fr. i. 1, and but eight times in the Commentariolum. That anaphora that is so offensive to Bücheler and Eussner in the Commentariolum passes unnoticed, or is a pleasing figure in the hands of Marcus, when he writes nullum te signum, nulla pictura, nullum vas, nulla vestis, nullum mancipium, nulla forma cuiusquam, nulla condicio pecuniae (Q. Fr. i. 1, 8); and at least half a dozen other instances of anaphora may be found in that letter. The writer of the Comment. is guilty of vile taste in allowing the v sound to recur so often in a sentence (Comment. 54), in tot hominum cuiusque modi vitiis tantisque versantem vitare offensionem, vitare fabulam, vitare insidias, but Marcus goes unreproved when he writes vix videmur summam vituperationem posse vitare (Q. Fr. i. 1, 41). Again, the frequent use of the phrases cura ut, cogita ut, fac ut, is condemned in the Comment., but passes unnoticed in Q. Fr. i. 1. In both letters these phrases occur with unusual frequency; but this is because both letters are didactic expositions addressed to a single individual. But everywhere what would be called happy boldness in Marcus is tasteless affectation in Quintus.

What in the Consul's but a choleric word,

That in the Aedile is flat blasphemy.

Eussner even ascribes a post-Ciceronian origin to the Commentariolum, because we find in suffragatorius, § 26, a ẵmaέ eipnμévov. Not to mention ana eipnueva in Marcus, we have only to turn to one of the four admittedly genuine letters of Quintus to find dissuaviabor (Fam. xvi. 27, 2). If in four short letters we find a drag eipnμévov, we need not be startled at finding another in an essay about ten times as long as the four letters together.

(4). The Comment. does not reflect the character of Quintus, as described by Marcus. We find no traces of the iracundia, which was his besetting sin. This, in my mind, strongly disproves the authorship of Eussner's supposed compiler, who would most certainly have attempted to make his work, seem an authentic letter by introducing some traits or expressions in keeping with the character of Quintus, as described by his brother in many places, and especially in that very letter which was supposed to be one of the sources of the compiler's cento, namely, the letter (Q. Fr. i. 1) on the Duties of a Provincial Governor. Here I may observe that Eussner was unfortunate in selecting the works of Marcus from which was patched up the forged letter. Among them, it will be remembered, was the Oratio pro Murena, which (as we shall see), in Eussner's opinion, the compiler must have studied very closely. Now, in this speech (Or. pro Mur. 30), Cicero expressly says, cum duae essent artes quae potuerunt locare homines in amplissimo gradu dignitatis, una imperatoris, altera oratoris boni. Is it not strange that, though in this speech, so closely studied by the compiler, it is laid down that there are two roads to the highest office, military distinction and forensic preeminence, yet he should have dwelt on the latter alone in the Commentariolum, and completely passed over the former?

These are the main supports of Eussner's argument, which chiefly rests on the supposed plagiarisms in the Commentariolum, not only from the Orat. in Tog. Cand., but from the Orat. pro Plancio and pro Murena, and from Q. Fr. i. 1—plagiarisms which, in his opinion, show the treatise to be a mere piece of patchwork from the writings of

M. Cicero.

I shall now point out the remarkable coincidences between the Commentariolum and the Oratio in Toga Candida, and then examine the grounds on which the author of the Commentariolum is deemed by Eussner to have availed himself, not only of the Oratio in Toga Candida in framing his literary forgery, but also of the letter of Marcus to Quintus on the Duties of a Provincial Governor, the Oratio pro Murena, and the Oratio pro Plancio. The coincidences between the Comment. and the Or.

in Toga Candida* are found only in the part of the Comment. which deals with the denunciation of Cicero's rivals. These are as follow:

Writing of Antonius, Quintus says:

(a). Vocem audivimus iurantis se Romae iudicio aequo cum homine Graeco certare non posse. (Comm. 8.)

(a). In sua civitate cum peregrino negavit se iudicio aequo certare posse. (Orat. in Tog. Cand.)

In describing the murder of Marius Gratidianus by Catiline, Quintus says:

(b). Quid ego nunc dicam petere eum consulatum qui hominem carissimum populo Romano, M. Marium, inspectante populo Romano . . . ceciderit . . . collum . . secuerit. (Comm. 10.)

(b). Populum vero, cum, inspectante populo, collum secuerit hominis maxime popularis, quanti fecerit ostendit. (Or. in Tog. Cand.)

In touching on the incest of Catiline with Fabia, a Vestal virgin, Quintus says:

(d). Qui nullum in locum tam sanctum et tam religiosum accessit, in quo non, etiam si alia culpa non esset, tamen ex sua nequitia dedecoris suspitionem relinqueret. (Comm. 10.)

Marcus:-
:-

(d). Cum ita vixisti ut non esset locus tam sanctus quo non adventus tuus, etiam cum culpa nulla subesset, crimen adferret. (Or. in Tog. Cand.)

Quintus, in speaking of the chances of the election of Antonius and Catiline, says:

(e). Quis enim reperiri potest tam improbus civis qui velit uno suffragio duas in rempublicam sicas destringere. (Comm. 12.)

*It may be useful here to observe that Asconius never mentions the Commentarlum, and seems not to have been aware of its existence.