Pliny the Elder—His habits described by his Nephew—His industry and application—His death in the eruption of Vesuvius—The Eruption described in two Letters of Pliny the Younger—The Natural History of Pliny—Its subjects described—Pliny the Younger—His affection for his guardian—His Panegyric, Letters, and Despatches—That concerning the Christians—The answer 483 CHAPTER X. M. Fabius Quintilianus—His Biography—His Institutiones Oratoriæ—His views of Education—Division of his Subject into Five Parts—Review of Greek and Roman Literature—Completeness of his great Work—His other Works—His disposition—Grief for the loss of his son 499 CHAPTER XI. A. Cornelius Celsus—His merits—Cicero Medicorum—Scribonius Largus Designatianus—Pomponius Mela—L. Junius Moderatus Columella—S. Julius Frontinus—Decline of taste in the Silver Age—Foreign Influence on Roman Literature—Conclusion 508 Chronological Table 515 ROMAN CLASSICAL LITERATURE BOOK I. FIRST ERA. CHAPTER I. COMPARISON OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE WITH THE GREEK—ERAS OF LATINITY—ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS—ELEMENTS OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE—ETRUSCAN INFLUENCE. The various races which, from very remote antiquity, inhabited the peninsula of Italy, necessarily gave a composite character to the Latin language. But as all of them sprang from one common origin, the great Indo-European stock to which also the Hellenic family belonged, a relation of the most intimate kind is visible between the languages of ancient Greece and Rome. Not only are their alphabets and grammatical constructions identical, but the genius of the one is so similar to that of the other, that the Romans readily adopted the principles of Greek literary taste, and Latin, without losing its own characteristic features, moulded itself after the Greek model. Latin, however, has not the plastic property which the Greek possesses—the natural faculty of transforming itself into every variety of shape conceived by the fancy and imagination. It is a harder material, it readily takes a polish, but the process by which it receives it is laborious and artificial. Greek, like a liquid or a soft substance, seems to crystallize as it were spontaneously into the most beautiful forms: Latin, whether poetry or prose, derives only from consummate art and skill that graceful beauty which is the natural property of the kindred language.