Birth and education of Ovid—His rhetorical powers—Anecdote related by Seneca—His poetical genius—Self-indulgent life—Popularity—Banishment—Place of his Exile—Epistles and other Works—Gratius Faliscus—Pedo Albinovanus—Aulus Sabinus—Marcus Manilius 307 CHAPTER IX. Prose Writers—Influence of Cicero upon the Language—His converse with his Friends—His early Life—Pleads his first Cause—Is Quæstor, Ædile, Prætor, and Consul—His exile, return, and provincial Administration—His vacillating conduct—He delivers his Philippics—Is proscribed and assassinated—His character 320 CHAPTER X. Cicero no Historian—His Oratorical style defended—Its principal charm—Observations on his forensic Orations—His Oratory essentially judicial—Political Orations—Rhetorical Treatises—The object of his Philosophical Works—Characteristics of Roman Philosophical Literature—Philosophy of Cicero—His Political Works—Letters—His Correspondents—Varro 332 CHAPTER XI. Roman Historical Literature—Principal Historians—Lucceius—Lucullus—Cornelius Nepos—Opinions of the genuineness of the Works which bear his Name—Biography of J. Cæsar—His Commentaries—Their style and language—His modesty overrated—Other Works—Character of Cæsar 355 CHAPTER XII. Life of Sallust—His insincerity—His Historical Works—He was a bitter opponent of the New Aristocracy—Profligacy of that Order—His style compared with that of Thucydides—His value as an Historian—Trogus Pompeius—His Historiæ Philippicæ 369 CHAPTER XIII. Life of Livy—His object in writing his History—Its spirit and character—Livy precisely suited to his Age—Not wilfully inaccurate—His political bias accounted for—Materials which he might have used—Sources of History—His defects as an Historian—His style—Grammarians—Vitruvius Pollio, an Augustine Writer—Contents of his Work 377 BOOK III. ERA OF THE DECLINE. CHAPTER I. Decline of Roman Literature—It became declamatory—Biography of Phædrus—Genuineness of his Fables—Moral and Political Lessons inculcated in them—Specimens of Fables—Fables suggested by Historical events—Sejanus and Tiberius—Epoch unfavourable to Literature—Ingenuity of Phædrus—Superiority of Æsop—The style of Phædrus classical 390 CHAPTER II.