While both sides were warmly engaged in this vigorous struggle for glory and empire on the one hand, and life and liberty on the other, the trumpets on a sudden sounded in the enemy’s rear. The women and children, who had come out to see the engagement, first fled in dismay; after them, such as were nearest the walls; and at last the whole, armed and unarmed, fairly gave way. The Romans now pressed onward with greater vigor, overthrowing the enemy, and wounding most of them; then, advancing over the heaps of slain, they flew to the walls, all thirsting for glory, and each striving to be foremost, without regard to plunder. Thus did accidental success justify the rashness of Marius, while his imprudence contributed to heighten his glory.” =Cornelius Nepos= (74-24 B.C.), though inferior to the writers just treated, deserves mention for his “Lives of Eminent Commanders,” his only extant work. These sketches, especially the biography of Pomponius Atticus, are clearly written and furnish valuable information respecting the times to which they relate; but Nepos was not an accurate compiler, and dependence cannot always be placed on his statements. As a specimen of his style, we quote from his “Lives”. THE CHARACTER OF ALCIBIADES. “Nature seems to have tried in him what she could do. For it is agreed upon among all who have written about him, that nobody was more extraordinary than he, either in vices or in virtues; being born in a very great city, of a great family, much the handsomest man of his time, fit for all things, and abounding in judgment for the management of affairs. For he was a very great commander, both by sea and land; so eloquent that he mightily prevailed in speaking; and such was the plausibility of his elocution and language that in haranguing nobody was able to stand before him. The same man, when occasion required, was laborious, hardy, generous, splendid no less in his equipage than his diet, affable, fawning, very cunningly serving the times. The same, when he had unbent himself, and there was no reason why he should take upon him any labor of thought, was found to be luxurious, dissolute, and intemperate, in so much that all wondered that in the same man there should be so much unlikeness to himself, and natures so different.”—JOHN CLARKE. POETS OF THE CICERONIAN PERIOD.