information even as to the ground which it covered. It seems probable,
however, that it was a history either of the third of the Punic wars, or
of all of them; for Plutarch quotes from him--probably from his History
--the statement that he, Fannius, and Tiberius Gracchus were the first to
mount the walls of Carthage whent he city was taken.

SCAEVOLA.

Quintus Mucius Scaevola filled successively most of the important
offices of the State, and was for many years, and until death, a member
of the college of Augurs. He was eminent for his legal learning, and to
a late and infirm old age was still consulted in questions of law, never
refusing to receive clients at any moment after daylight. But while he
was regarded as foremost among the jurists of his time, he professed
himself less thoroughly versed in the laws relating to mortgages than
two of his coevals, to whom he was wont to send those who brought cases
of this class for his opinion or advice. He was remarkable for early
rising, constant industry, and undeviating punctuality,--at the meetings
of the Senate being always the first on the ground.

No man held a higher reputation than Scaevola for rigid and scrupulous
integrity. It is related of him that when as a witness in court he had
given testimony full, clear, strong, and of the most damnatory character
against the person on trial, he protested against the conviction of the
defendant on his testimony, if not corroborated, on the principle, held
sacred in the Jewish law, that it would be a dangerous precedent to
suffer the issue of any case to depend on the intelligence and veracity
of a single witness. When, after Marius had been driven from the city,
Sulla asked the Senate to declare him by their vote a public enemy,
Scaevola stood in a minority of one; and when Sulla urged him to give