eloquence. The æra, which you have in view, is that of [b] Cicero and
Cæsar; of Cælius [c] and Calvus; of Brutus [d], Asinius, and Messala.
Those are the men, whom you place in the front of hour line; but for
what reason they are to be classed with the ancients, and not, as I
think they ought to be, with the moderns, I am still to learn. To
begin with Cicero; he, according to the account of Tiro, his freedman,
was put to death on the seventh of the ides of December, during the
consulship of Hirtius and Pansa [e], who, we know, were both cut off
in the course of the year, and left their office vacant for Augustus
and Quintus Pedius. Count from that time six and fifty years to
complete the reign of Augustus; three and twenty for that of Tiberius,
four for Caligula, eight and twenty for Claudius and Nero, one for
Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and finally six from the accession of
Vespasian to the present year of our felicity, we shall have from the
death of Cicero a period of about [f] one hundred and twenty years,
which may be considered as the term allotted to the life of man. I
myself remember to have seen in Britain a soldier far advanced in
years, who averred that he carried arms in that very battle [g] in
which his countrymen sought to drive Julius Cæsar back from their
coast. If this veteran, who served in the defence of his country
against Cæsar's invasion, had been brought a prisoner to Rome; or, if
his own inclination, or any other accident in the course of things,
had conducted him thither, he might have heard, not only Cæsar and
Cicero, but even ourselves in some of our public speeches.

In the late public largess [h] you will acknowledge that you saw
several old men, who assured us that they had received more than once,
the like distribution from Augustus himself. If that be so, might not
those persons have heard Corvinus [i] and Asinius? Corvinus, we all
know, lived through half the reign of Augustus, and Asinius almost to