it is the best treatise which has come down from antiquity on ancient agriculture.  We have parts of his other books, and we know of still others that have entirely perished which for their information would be invaluable, especially his “Divine Antiquities,” in sixteen books,—­his great work, from which Saint Augustine drew materials for his “City of God.”  Varro wrote treatises on language, on the poets, on philosophy, on geography, and on various other subjects; he also wrote satire and criticism.  But although his writings were learned, his style was so bad that the ages have failed to preserve him.  The truly immortal books are most valued for their artistic excellences.  No man, however great his genius, can afford to be dull.  Style is to written composition what delivery is to a public speaker.  The multitude do not go to hear the man of thoughts, but to hear the man of words, being repelled or attracted by manner.

Seneca was another great writer among the Romans, but he belongs to the domain of philosophy, although it is his ethical works which have given him immortality,—­as may be truly said of Socrates and Epictetus, although they are usually classed among the philosophers.  Seneca was a Spaniard, born but a few years before the Christian era; he was a lawyer and a rhetorician, also a teacher and minister of Nero.  It was his misfortune to know one of the most detestable princes that ever scandalized humanity, and it is not to his credit to have accumulated in four years one of the largest fortunes in Rome while serving such a master; but since he lived to experience Nero’s ingratitude, Seneca is more commonly regarded as a martyr.  Had he lived in the republican period, he would have been a great orator.  He wrote voluminously, on many subjects, and was devoted to a literary life.  He rejected the superstitions of his country, and looked upon the ritualism of religion as a mere fashion.  In his own belief he was a deist; but though he wrote fine ethical treatises, he dishonored his own virtues by a compliance with the vices of others.  He saw much of life, and died at fifty-three.  What is remarkable in Seneca’s writings, which are clear but labored, is that under Pagan influences and imperial tyranny he should have presented such lofty moral truth; and it is a mark of almost transcendent talent that he should, unaided by Christianity, have soared so high in the realm of ethical inquiry.  Nor is it easy to find any modern author who has treated great questions in so attractive a way.

Quintilian is a Latin classic, and belongs to the class of rhetoricians.  He should have been mentioned among the orators, yet, like Lysias the Greek, Quintilian was a teacher of eloquence rather than an orator.  He was born 40 A.D., and taught the younger Pliny, also two nephews of Domitian, receiving a regular salary from the imperial treasury.  His great work is a complete system of rhetoric.  “Institutiones Oratoriae” is one of the clearest and fullest