There was then a host of distinguished writers and men of genius; and though of some of them we know but little, they are not for that the less eminent. I do not, however, mean to say that all who at that time were remarkable in literature, are to be reckoned among the classical writers; some of them, especially the older contemporaries of Cicero, are quite in the spirit of the earlier age: thus among us, Winkelmann, as to his style, belongs to the period before Lessing. So likewise Varro, who for his immense learning and reading in Roman matters—in what was Greek, this may not have been so great—had such a high renown, is, in all that is left of him, not at all like one who lived in the same age with Cicero: he is as strong a contrast to him as Mascov, Mosheim, and Reimarus were to Lessing. Nigidius Figulus also was very likely a writer of the same kind. The real bloom of Roman literature consisted of men who were younger than Cicero, and whom he beheld springing up around him. One of these was the orator M. Cælius Rufus, whom we may still judge of even from his letters: his language was like that of Cicero for excellence. Curio’s letters do not make the same impression upon me: yet they are not of importance enough for one to be able to give a positive opinion about them, and I would rather trust Cicero’s own judgment, who assigns him a very high rank. C. Licinius Calvus, a contemporary of both, was an orator and a poet as well: him also Cicero greatly esteemed; and if Quintilian does not think favourably of him, Tacitus, on the other hand, says that he really had talent as an orator.[30] He died young. Sallust was considerably younger than Cicero, and of the same age with Cælius, Calvus, and Curio: he went his own way, living in the past, and the language and style of his contemporaries remained foreign to him. As he was not conversant with the language as it was spoken, it is no wonder that his style has quite a different air from what we find in theirs: as an historian, he is all that one could wish. That Priscian charges some of those men with archaisms, is nothing at all against them.[31]