had the advantage of nobler birth, greater wealth, and more powerful connexions. Living so long between the forum and the senate-house, he occupied a conspicuous position in the presence of his countrymen, where every Roman could compare him with his compatriots. His growth had not been overshadowed by older and loftier occupants of the soil. Following Sertorius at the distance of eighteen or nineteen years, he rose at the most advantageous interval, as a successor to Marius in soldiership, and to Sylla in policy. Sertorius, on the contrary, had been too young for competition with them, and too near for independence. Though nobly born, he was neither rich, nor powerful, nor otherwise distinguished than by his merits. Unlike Cæsar, he became the single fragment of a ruined party. Instead of preparing for universal empire by dividing the world, he was an exile proscribed by the senate, and dreaded by the populace. So desperate, at one time, were his fortunes, that Metellus had even ventured to set a price on the head of this outlawed fugitive. He who, seven years later, was expected in Italy, had been valued at a hundred talents of silver and twenty thousand acres of land!

Despite of these disadvantages, Sertorius was the pride and hope of Spain. It was not with

any other Roman that the Spaniards loved to compare him, but with Hannibal, the terror of Rome. They imagined a resemblance in their characters, their fortunes, and even their countenances. Both were scarred by wounds, both had lost an eye. In this particular, Sertorius stood alone; he had no country, he had not even the encouragement or consolation which every other conqueror has derived from the party calling itself by that name. Hannibal was the champion of Carthage, Alexander of Greece, Scipio, Sylla, Marius, and Cæsar, had with them a part, at least, of their countrymen, on whose affections they could look back. Not one man in Rome dared openly to propose himself as the advocate of this ruined and proscribed fugitive, who suffered for liberty. The populace, which had so constantly adhered to Marius in misfortune, transferred all their partialities, from the best and the most faithful of his generals, to Pompeius.

Sertorius was without a home, and yet, assuredly, beside his love of peace, his strong domestic affections must have the best deserved one. The licentiousness of Cæsar could hardly have been exceeded by his genius. Pompeius, that he might contract an ambitious marriage with the pregnant and reluctant wife of another senator, had divorced

Antistia, whose father perished in his defence, and whose mother threw away her own life rather than survive a husband's loss, and a daughter's dishonour. Nothing in history is more cruel than this. It is recorded of Sertorius that the purity of his morals chastened the conversation of his friends, and introduced good order among his soldiers. Not one vice is imputed to him, nor one habit inconsistent with the dignity and refinement of later ages. After every victory, he asked no more than a private station in Rome. He repeated his preference for the privileges of a citizen, in his own country, without power, to universal sovereignty. But in that age, as no man trusted another's moderation, such virtue was incredible.

There is another particular which distinguishes him. Sertorius had not found, and skilfully applied, the instruments of his glory, but he had created them. Plutarch describes the irregularity of his system, the sudden appearance and disappearance of his forces, the rapidity with which his Spanish auxiliaries assembled, dispersed, and reassembled, eluding, surprising, and, sometimes, defeating their conquerors. Against four Roman generals, who commanded a hundred and twenty thousand foot, six thousand horse, two thousand

archers and slingers, drawing their supplies from fortified cities too numerous for computation, the proscribed exile began his wars with nineteen hundred Roman soldiers, seven hundred African, four thousand light-armed Lusitanians, and seven hundred horse. His cities amounted to twenty. One legion of Metellus might, at that time, in a stationary battle, have defied his whole army.

Little confidence could have been felt by him in the fidelity of such barbarous allies. Even after a long succession of victories over Metellus and his lieutenants, almost all Spain deserted her champion, and transferred her allegiance to Pompeius the Great. Dazzled and terrified by this favourite of Sylla, the larger cities revolted from their deliverer. Only the north-western principalities, situated among the Pyrenees, retained their fidelity. Yet once more did Sertorius reconquer, either with his arms or his clemency, all that he had lost. He again appeared at the head of forces scarcely less numerous than those opposed to him, though always greatly inferior in weight, solidity, and discipline. A third part only was Roman. On one occasion, he had compelled Metellus to shelter himself in Gaul. Many of his battles were not fought for victory, but for purposes as well accomplished by pre-arranged and

harmless defeat; to relieve his allies, to distract his enemies, or to divert the pressure of war elsewhere. But never once was he conquered, in any proper sense of that word, even for a day.

We can hardly imagine what might have been our comparative estimate of J. Cæsar and Q. Sertorius, if Cæsar had perished, with his Commentaries, in the Nile, or Sertorius had lived twelve months longer. Sertorius has left us no commentaries, and it is impossible that our judgments should remain uninfluenced from the event; but the wars in Gaul were considered less important, and of less danger to the republic than those in Spain. When Cæsar marched into the provinces which the senate, the people, and the friendship of Pompeius had allotted to him, it was not that he might encounter 120,000 Roman soldiers commanded by Metellus. Sertorius arrived in Spain as an exile with no more than two broken gallies: his soldiers were either barbarians or fugitives like himself: in all his wars there he had to encounter the bravest legions and the most accomplished generals of the Republic. If Cæsar defeated Pompeius, so did he ten times. Metellus was not present at Pharsalia, nor were the legions of Pompeius assembled there comparable, either in discipline or numbers, to those