About the same time with Piso, lived two historians, who were both called Caius Fannius, and were nearly related to each other. One of them was son-in-law of Lælius, and served under the younger Scipio at the final reduction of Carthage. Of him Cicero speaks favourably, though his style was somewhat harsh(153); but his chief praise is, that Sallust, in mentioning the Latin historians, while he gives to Cato the palm for conciseness, awards it to Fannius for accuracy in facts(154). Heeren also mentions, that he was the authority chiefly followed by Plutarch in his lives of the Gracchi(155). Cœlius Antipater was contemporary with the Gracchi, and was the master of Lucius Crassus, the celebrated orator, and other eminent men of the day. We learn from Valerius Maximus, that he was the authority for the story of the shade of Tiberius Gracchus having appeared to his brother Caius in a dream, to warn him that he would suffer the same fate which he had himself experienced(156); and the historian testifies that he had heard of this vision from many persons during the lifetime of Caius Gracchus. The chief subject of Antipater’s history, which was dedicated to Lælius, consisted in the events that occurred during the second Punic war. Cicero says, that he was for his age _Scriptor luculentus_(157); that he raised himself considerably above his predecessors, and gave a more lofty tone to history; but he seems to think that the utmost praise to which he was entitled, is, that he excelled those who preceded him, for still he possessed but little eloquence or learning, and his style was yet unpolished. Valerius Maximus, however, calls him an authentic writer, (_certus auctor_(158);) and the Emperor Hadrian thought him superior to Sallust, consistently with that sort of black-letter taste which led him to prefer Cato the Censor to Cicero, and Ennius to Virgil(159). Sempronius Asellio served as military tribune under the younger Scipio Africanus, in the war of Numantia(160), which began in 614, and ended in 621, with the destruction of that city. He wrote the history of the campaigns in which he fought under Scipio, in Spain, in at least 40 books, since the 40th is cited by Charisius. His work, however, was not written for a considerable time after the events he recorded had happened: That he wrote subsequently to Antipater, we have the authority of Cicero, who says “that Cœlius Antipater was succeeded by Asellio, who did not imitate his improvements, but relapsed into the dulness and unskilfulness of the earliest historians(161).” This does not at all appear to have been Asellio’s own opinion, as, from a passage extracted by Aulus Gellius from the first book of his Annals, he seems to have considered himself as the undisputed father of philosophic history(162).