A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

144 FELIX. FELIX.
someinteresting extracts,explaining the distinctions value in a theological point of view is not very
between the different kinds of comitia. In this great, since the various topics are touched upon
work Felix cites Labeo.'Zimmern'(R. R. G. i. lightly, the end in view being evidently to furnish
~ 89), after Conradi and Bynkerschoek, moyed-by a ready reply to the most common popular objecthe archaic style of the extracts in Gellius, thinks tions. The censure of Dupin, who imagined that
it not improbable that the Laelius Felix of that he could detect a tendency to materialism, seems
author was more ancient than the Laelius of the to have been founded upon a misapprehension of
Digest, and that he may even be the same person the real import of the passages whose orthodoxy he
with the preceptor of Varro. If this be the case, impugns.
the Labeo he cites must be Q. Antistius Labeo, the It is remarkable that the Octavies was for a long
father. The preceptor of Varto, however, who is period: believed to belong to Arnobius, and was
stated by Gellius (xvi. 8) to have written an essay printed repeatedly as the eighth book of his treaton oratorical introductions (Commentarium de Pro- ise Adversus Gentes, notwithstanding the express
loquiis), is, according to a different reading, not testimony of St. Jerome, whose words (de Finis
Laelius, but L. Aelius, and was perhaps the gram- Ill. 58) are so clear as to leave no room for hesimarian, L. Aelius.Stilo. In Pliny (H. N. xiv. tation.
13) it is doubtful whether the name mentioned in The time, however, at which Minucius Felix
connection with Scaevola and Capito should be lived is very uncertain..By some he is placed as
read Laelius, or L. Aelius. (Dirksen, Bruclstiicke early as the reign of M. Aurelius; by some as low.
aus den Schriften der Rumischen Juristen, p. 101; as Diocletian; while others have fixed upon
Maiansius, ad XXX. IctoruTm Fragm. Comment. various points intermediate between these two
vol. ii. p. 208-217.) [J. T. G.] extremes. The critics who, with Van Hoven,
FELIX MAGNUS, a fellow-student and cor- carry him back as far as the middle of the second
respondent of Sidonius Apollinaris, and conse- century, rest their opinion chiefly on the purity of
queutly lived between A. D. 430-480. Felix was his: diction, upon' the indications afforded by alhtof the family of the Phil/grii (Sidon. Propempt. ad sions to the state of the Church, both as to its
Libell. 90, Ep. ii. 3), and was raised to the rank internal constitution, and to the attention which it
of patrician (Ep. ii. 3). - The letters of Sidonius to attracted from without, upon the strong resemFelix:are curiously illustrative of the distress and blance which the piece bears to those Apologies
dismemberment of the. Roman provinces north of which confessedly belong to the period in question,.
the Alps in the fifth century A. D. and upon the probability that the Fronto. twice
A poem (Carm. ix.) and five letters (ii. 3, iii. named in the course of the colloquy is the same
4; 7, iv. 5, 10) are addressed by. Sidonius to with the rhetorician, M. Cornelius Franto, so
Felix. [W. B. D.] celebrated under the Antonines. But this posiFELIX, M. MINU'CIUS, a distinguished tion, although defended. with great learning, can
Roman lawyer, the author of a dialogue entitled scarcely be maintained against the positive evi-.
Octaviaus, which occupies a conspicuous place among dence afforded by St. Jerome, who, in his account
the early Apologies for Christianity.. The speakers of illustrious men, where, the individuals..menare Caecilius Natalis, a Pagan, and' Octavius Janu- tioned succeed each other in regular chronological
arius, a true believer, who, while rambling along order, sets down Minucius Felix after Tertullian
the shore near Ostia during the holidays of the and before Cyprian,.an arrangement confirmed by
vintage with their common friend Minucius, are a paragraph in the Epistola ad Magnum, and not
led.into a discussion in consequence of an act of contradicted by another in the Apologia ad Pamhomage paid by Caecilius to. a statue of Serapis, a machium, where Tertullian, Cyprian, and Felix,.
proceeding which calls forth'severe, although indi- are grouped together in the same clause. The cir-,
rect animadversions from Octavius. Irritated by cumstance that certain sentences in the Octavius and.
these remarks, Caecilius commences a lengthened in the De Idolorumn Vanitate are word for word the
discourse, in which he combines a formal defence same, although it proves that one writer copied
of his own practice With an attack upon the prin- from the other, leads to no inference as to which
ciples of his companion. His arguments are of a was the original. We may therefore acquiesce in
twofold character. On the one hand he assails re- the conclusion that our author flourished ab'out
vealed religion in general, and on the other the A. D. 230. That he was a lawyer, and attained to
Christian religion specially. Octavius replies to eminence in pleading, is distinctly asserited both by
all his objections with great force and eloquence; St. Jerome and Lactantius; but beyond this we
and when he concludes, Caecilius, feeling himself know nothing of his personal history, except in so
defeated, freely acknowledges' his errors, and de- far as'we are led by his own words to believe that
clares himself a convert to:the truth. he was by birth a Gentile, and that his conversion
The tone of this production.is throughout earnest did not take place until he had attained to manand impressive; the arguments are well selected, hood. We are further told (Hieron. 1. c.) that al
and stated with precision; the style is for the book entitled De Falo, or Contra Mathenaticos,
most part terse and pregnant, and the diction is was circulated under his name, but that, although
extremely pure;' but it frequently wears the aspect evidently the Work of an accomplished man, it
of a cento in which a number of choice phrases was so different in style and general character from
have been:culled:from various sources. There is, the Octavius, that they could scarcely have pro-.
moreover, occasionally, a. want of simplicity, and ceeded from the same pen.
some of the sentiments are expressed in language It has already been remarked that this dialogue
which' borders upon declamatory inflation. But was long supposed to form a part of the treatise of
these blemishes are not so numerous as to affect Arnobius, Adversus Gentes. It was first assigned
seriously our. favourable estimate of the work as a to its rightful owner, and printed in an indepenwhole, which, in the opinion of many, entitles the dent form, by Balduinus (Heidelberg. 1560), who
author to rank not much below Lactantius. Its prefixed a dissertation, in which he proved his