jan; that is, about A. D. 116. Pliny was one of the greatest wits, and one of the worthiest men, among the ancients. He had fine parts, which he cultivated to the utmost; and he accomplished himself with all the knowledge of the age. He wrote and published a great number of books, but nothing has escaped the wreck of time except his letters, and his panegyric upon Trajan. This has ever been considered as a masterpiece; and if he has almost exhausted all the ideas of perfection upon that prince, yet no panegyrist ever possessed a subject, on which he might better indulge in all the flow of eloquence, without incurring the suspicion of flattery and falsehood. In his letters he may be considered as writing his own memoirs. Every epistle is a kind of historical sketch, wherein we have a view of him in some striking attitude. In them are also preserved anecdotes of many eminent persons, whose works are come down to us, as Suetonius, Silius Italicus, Martial, Tacitus, and Quintilian; and of curious things, which throw great light upon the history of those times. In a word, his writings breathe a spirit of transcendant goodness and humanity, There are two elegant English translations of his epistles; the one by Mr. Melmoth, and the other by Lord Orrery.

PHILO of Byblos, a grammarian, who translated into Greek the Phoenician history of Sanchoniathon, fragments of which remain.

TITUS ARISTO, a Roman lawyer, perfect master of the public and civil law, of history and antiquity. The pandects mention some books of his, as does Aulus Gellius. He was contemporary with Pliny the younger, who gives him a noble character, and had a most tender friendship for him.

LUCIAN, or LUCIANUS, a celebrated Greek author, born at Samosata, in the reign of Trajan. He studied law, and practised some time as an advocate, but afterwards commenced rhetorician. He lived to the time of Marcus Aurelius, who made him ægister of Alexandria in Egypt; and, according to Suidas he was at last worried by dogs, in his 90th year, A. D. 180. Lucian was one of the finest wits in all antiquity. His Dialogues and other books, are written in pure Greek. In these he has joined the useful to the agreeable, instruction to satire, and erudition to elegance. They abound in that fine and delicate raillery which characterise the Attic taste. Lucian has been ceneensured as an impious scoffer at religion; but surely religion consists neither in the theology of the pagan poets, nor in the extravagant opinions of philosophers, which he justly ridicules; but he no where writes against an over-ruling Providence, though he sometimes pollutes his wit with obscenity. The best editions of Lucian are that of Florence, 1496, folio; and of Hemsterhuis, at Amsterdam, in 4 vols. 4to. 1743. Lucian has been translated into English, by Carr, Franklin, and Tooke.

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CAIUS FANNIUS, a Latin author, who lived in Trajan's time, and had a great share in the esteem and friendship of Pliny the Younger. Though he was busied in pleading causes, yet he found time to make a collection of Nero's cruelties; that is, he composed the last dying words of those whom that wicked prince had either put to death or banished. He had published three very exact and polite books upon that subject; and he bestowed the more pains upon the sequel, because he saw that the first parts were read with applause; but death prevented the finishing of that work. It is said he had himself a foresight, occasioned by a certain dream, that he should die before the publishing of the fourth book.

JULIUS SECUNDUS, a Roman orator, who flourished under Titus Vespasian, and published orations, &c.

FAVORINUS, an ancient orator and philosopher of Gaul, who flourished under Adrian, and taught with high reputation both at Athens and Rome, Many works are attributed to him; amongst the rest, a Greek miscellaneous history, often quoted by Diogenes Laertius.

AGRIPPA, surnamed CASTOR, flourished under the emperor Adrian, about the year 132. Eusebius represents him as an excellent writer, who had ably confuted the errors of Basilides; but his works are lost, and no considerable fragment of them remains.

PHLEGON, surnamed TRALLIANUS, was born in Trallis, a city of Lydia. He was the emperor Adrian's freed man, and lived to the eighteenth year of Antoninus Pius. He wrote several works of great erudition, of which we have nothing left but fragments. Among these was a history of the Olympiads, a Treatise of Long-lived Persons, and another of Wonderful Things. The titles of part of the rest of Phlegon's writings are preserved by Suidas. It has been supposed that the history of Adrian, published under Phlegon's name, was written by Adrian himself. A passage, quoted by Eusebius from one of his works, respecting an extraordinary eclipse of the sun, attended by an earthquake, has been supposed to allude to the darkness and earthquake that happened at our Saviour's passion. But this has been disputed among the learned; Whiston and others taking the affirmative, and Sykes the negative.

EROTIANUS, the author of a glossary, containing an explanation of all the words used in the writings of Hippocrates, lived in the first century of the Christian era, in the reign of Nero, and dedicated his work to Andromachus of Crete, who was physician to that emperor.

DIO, surnamed CHRYSOSTOM, or Golden Mouth, a celebrated orator and philosopher of Greece, in the first century, born at Prusa in Bithynia. He attempted to persuade Vespasian to quit the empire; was hated by Domitian; but acquired

the esteem of Trajan, who took pleasure in conversing with him, and made him ride with him in his triumphal chariot. There are still extant eighty of Dio's orations, and some other of his works. The best edition of which is that of Hermand Samuel Rainerius, in 1750, in folio. In 1800 Gilbert Wakefield published a translation of some part of Dio.

CAIUS JULIUS SOLINUS, a Latin grammarian and historian, born at Rome. His Polyhistor is a collection of historical and geographical remarks on the most celebrated places of antiquity. Pliny is often quoted in it, and it is written so much in Pliny's style, that he has been called Pliny's ape. The best edition is that of Salmasius, November, 1777.

POMPEIUS FESTUS, a celebrated grammarian of antiquity, who abridged a work of Verrius Flaccus; but took such liberties in castrating and criticising, as Gerard Vossius observes, are not favourable to the reputation of his author. A complete edition of his fragments was published by M. Dacier in 1681, for the use of the Dauphin. Scaliger says, that Festus is an author of great use to those who would attain the Latin tongue with accuracy.

POLEMON, a sophist of Laodicea, in Asia Minor, in the reign of Adrian. He was often sent to the emperor with an embassy from his countrymen, which he executed with great success. He was greatly favoured by Adrian, from whom he exacted much money. In the fifty-sixth year of his age he buried himself alive, being frantic with a fit of the gout. He wrote declamations in Greek.

ONKELOS, surnamed the PROSELYTE, a famous rabbi, and the author of the Chaldee Targum on the Pentateuch. He flourished in the time of Jesus Christ, according to the Jewish writers. The Talmudists tell us that he assisted at the funeral of Gamaliel, and was at a prodigious expense to make it magnificent.

HISTORY.

SCRIBONIUS, a Roman historian, who flourished about A. D. 22, and wrote Annals. The best edition of his work is that of Patav. 4to, 1655.

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, the celebrated historian of the Jews, was of noble birth, by his father Mattathias, descended from the high priests, and by his mother of the blood royal of the Maccabees. He was born A. D. 37, under Caligula, and lived under Domitian. At sixteen years of age he joined the sect of the Essenes, and then the Pharisees; and having been successful in a journey to Rome, upon his return to Judæa he was made captain-general of the Galileans. Being taken prisoner by Vespasian, he foretold his coming to the empire, and

his own deliverance by his means. He accompanied Titus at the siege of Jerusalem, and wrote his Wars of the Jews, which Titus ordered to be put in the public library. He afterwards lived at Rome, where he enjoyed the privileges of a Roman citizen, and where the emperor loaded him with favours, and granted him large pensions. Besides the above work, he wrote twenty books of Jewish antiquities, which he finished under Domitian. Two books against Appian. An elegant discourse on the martyrdom of the Maccabees. His own life. These works are excellently written in Greek. The best edition of this author is that of Hudson, Oxon. 2 vols. fol. Josephus has been translated into English by L'Estrange and Whiston.

AULUS CREMUTIUS CORDUS, a Roman senator and historian, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius. He wrote the history of the civil wars of Rome. An expression in this work was the occasion of his death. Tacitus thus relates the matter. "In the consulship of Cornelius Cossus and Asinius Agrippa, A.D. 25, Cremutius Cordus was impeached for a crime hitherto unheard of, that of having, in his annals, where he gives the eulogy of M. Brutus, called C. Cassius the last of the Romans. His accusers were Satrius Secundus, and Pinarius Natta, dependants of Sejanus; which circumstance, and the severe countenance with which the emperor heard his defence, were fatal to the culprit." Tacitus then proceeds to give the exculpatory speech of Cordus, which is a strong and spirited assertion of historical liberty. It concludes, "Posterity will pay to every man his due honour, nor, if I am condemned, will there be wanting those who will cherish the memory, not only of Brutus and Cassius, but of me also." To this noble confidence he was entitled by his virtue and talents. Seneca, in a treatise on consolation addressed to Marcia, the daughter of Cordus, has preserved several memorials, which ought not to be forgotten. He had particularly offended Sejanus by some free expressions concerning him, one of which was uttered on occasion of the decree for placing the statue of that detestable favourite in Pompey's theatre, when rebuilt after being burnt down. "Now," exclaimed Cordus, "the theatre has indeed perished!" Finding that he should probably be condemned, he determined to put an end to his life by abstinence; but as he wished to conceal his intention from his beloved daughter, he made use of the warm bath, and ordered his food to be set in his bed-chamber, which, when alone, he threw out of the window. On the fourth day of his abstinence, feeling himself much debilitated, he sent for his daughter, and embracing her, apologized for keeping this long secret from her; adding, "I am now half-way on the road; you neither ought to call me back, nor can you do it." He then caused the lights to be taken away; and while they were

debating what was to be further done in the case, he quietly escaped by death from his persecutors. The servile senate ordered his books to be burned, but many copies were concealed; and his daughter afterwards honoured herself by her pious cares to make them as public as possible. From Seneca's character of them, their loss to modern times is greatly to be regretted. "You have well deserved," he says to Marcia, "of Roman literature and of posterity, to whom will descend a faithful record of events, which cost its author so dear; you have well deserved of himself, whose memory will live and flourish as long as it is thought worth while to know the history of Rome; as long as there shall remain any one who shall wish to recur to the acts of his ancestors; any one who shall be desirous of knowing what a Roman once was; what, when all necks were bowed beneath the Sejanian yoke, was the character of an unconquerable spirit, free in his head, his heart, his hand." The only remaining composition of Cordus is an eulogy of Cicero, preserved in the Suasoria of M. Seneca. He is referred to by Suetonius, and Pliny the Elder.

QUINTUS CURTIUS, a Latin historian, who wrote the life of Alexander the Great, in ten books, of which the two first are not extant, but are so well supplied by Freinshemius, that the loss is scarcely regretted. When this writer lived, is not certain, but by his style he is supposed to have lived near the Augustan age; though some imagine the work to have been composed in Italy, about 300 years ago, and the name of Quintus Curtius fictitiously prefixed. Cardinal du Perron was so great an admirer of this work, as to declare one page of it to be worth thirty of Tacitus; yet M. le Clerc, at the end of his Art of Criticism, has charged the writer with great ignorance, and many contradictions. He has nevertheless many qualities as a writer, which will make him admired and applauded.

The best editions of his works are the Elzevir, 1653; Freinshemius, 1643, 2 vols. 8vo. and Cellarius, 1696, 12mo. There is a good English translation, by Digby in 2 vols. 12mo.

CAIUS CORNELIUS TACITUS, a celebrated Roman historian, and one of the greatest men of his time, born about the year 60. He applied himself early to the bar, in which he gained high reputation. Having married the daughter of Agricola, the road to public honours was open to him, under Vespasian and Titus; but during the sanguinary tyranny of Domitian, he and his friend Pliny retired from public affairs. The reign of Nerva restored these luminaries of literature to Rome, and Tacitus was engaged in 101, to pronounce the funeral oration ofthe venerable Virginius Rufus, the colleague of the emperor in the consulship, and afterwards succeeded him as consul, A. D. 97. It is supposed that he died in the end of the reign of Trajan.