Calendar: 1881-1882 Page 606

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 607 in comparison with Demosthenes his faults of form are made more conspicuous by the usual absence of great thoughts and of really noble feeling The force of the recent and surely extravagant reaction against Cicero comes from the habit of regarding him as the great Eoman orator not as the great Eoman master of literary rhetorical prose His proper Greek analogue is not Demosthenes but Isokrates As practical orator Cicero can scarcely be placed in the second rank by those who know the Attic models As stylist in the epideictic kind though he has not consummate art he joins versatile strength to brilliancy and abundance in degree which has never been equalled Tacitus asserts as well-known fact that the Germans in his time had no cities and that they affected to despise the works of Roman industry as places of confinement rather than of security Their edifices were not even contiguous or formed into regular villas each barbarian fixed his inde- pendent dwelling on spot to which plain wood or stream of fresh water had induced him to give the preference Neither stone nor brick nor tiles were employed in these slight habitations They were indeed no more than low huts of circular figure built of rough timber thatched with straw and pierced at the top to leave free passage for the smoke In the most inclement winter the hardy German was satisfied with scanty garment made of the skin of some animal The nations who dwelt towards the north clothed themselves in furs and the women manufactured for their own use coarse kind of linen The game of various sorts with which the forests of Germany were plentifully stocked supplied its inhabitants with food and exercise Their mon- strous herds of cattle less remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility formed the principal object of their wealth -w rA ν λ &k cr 9&$0 &$' Manlius published proclamation that all the philoso- phers should be put to death and he tried to persuade Augustus to adopt this resolution But there were some who although relying on their virtue they feared not to encounter