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

"MANILIUS. MANILIUS. 919
temporary bards (ex Port. iv. 16), nor by Quin- When we mark the tone of adulation breathed in
tilian, who might with propriety have classed him the verses (iv. 763)along with Lucretius and Macer; nor by Gellius,
Virgine sub casta felix terraque marique
nor by Macrobius, both of whom frequently discuss Est Rhodes, hospitium recturi principis orbem;
kindred subjects; nor by any of the compilers, of Tumque donius vere solis, cui tota sacrata est,
mythological systems, who might have derived Cum caperet lumen magni sub Caesare mundimuch information from his pages; nor by one out
of the host of grammarians, to whom he would have we shall be led to the conclusion that they were
afforded copious illustrations. We find no trace penned during the sway of Tiberius. Assuming
of him until he was discovered by Poggio, about that Manilius belongs to the epoch now indicated,
the beginning of the fifteenth century, unless, we infer from iv. 41,indeed, he be the " M. Manilius de Astrologia," " Speratum Hannibalem nostr-is cecidisse catenis,"
of whose work Gerbertus of Rheims, afterwards
that he was a Roman citizen, and from iv. 775,pope SylVester II. (A.D. 1000), commissions a
friend (Ep. 130) to procure a copy. It is true "Qua genitus cum fratre Remus Iano condidit
that the resemblance between the production of urbem,"
Manilius and the Mathesis of Julius Firmicus that he was an inhabitant of the metropolis. The
Maternus [FIRMICUs], who flourished under Con- notion of Bentley that he was an Asiatic, and
stantine, is in many places so marked, that we can that of Huet that he was a Carthaginian, rest upon
scarcely doubt that they borrowed from a common no stable basis. Farther we cannot proceed, and
original, perhaps the Apotelesmata of Dorotheus of the great difficulty still remains untouched, how it
Sidon, or that one of them was indebted to the should have come to pass that a piece possessing a
other. But even if we adopt the latter alternative character so singular and striking, discussing a
it is obvious that we must determine the age of science long studied with the most eager devotion,
both, before we can decide the question of plagiarism. should have remained entirely'unknown or negSuch being.the real state of the case, we are thrown lected. One' solution only can be proposed. We
entirely upon internal evidence, and this appears, can at once perceive that the work is unfinished,
at first sight, to be to a certain extent conclusive. and the portion which we possess wears occasionally
The piece opens with an invocation of Caesar, the a rough aspect, as if it had never received a final
son and successor of a deified father, the heir of his polish. Hence it may never have been published,
temporal, as well as of his immortal honours; far- although a few copies may have passed into private
ther on (i. 798), the Julian line is said to have circulation; some of these having been preserved
filled the heavenly mansion, Augustus is repre- by one of those strange chances of which we find
sented as sharing the dominion of the sky with not a few examples in literary history, may have
the Thunderer himself, and the fourth book closes served as the archetypes from which the different
with similar expressions. Meteors and comets we families of MSS. now extant originally sprung.
are told portend wars and sudden commotions, and The first book serves as an introduction to those
treacherous rebellions, such as took place lately which' follow; discoursing of the rise and progress
(modo) among foreign nations, when savage tribes of astronomy, of the origin of the material universe,,
destroyed Varus and dyed the plains with the of the position, form, and magnitude of the earth,
blood of three legions (i. 897); celestial warnings of the names and figures of the signs of the
were not wanting before the solemn league con- zodiac and of the northern and southern constellacluded between bloody leaders covered the fields of tions, of the circles of the sphere, of the milky
Philippi with embattled hosts; when, subsequently, way, of the planets, of comets and meteors, and
the thunderbolts of Jove strove with the sistrum the indications which these afford of impending evil,
of Isis; and when the son of Pompey filled the pestilence, famine, and civil strife. In the second
sea with the pirates swept away by his sire. Now, book Manilius passes under review the subjects
although the whole' of' these passages would seem chosen by Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus, and other
to proceed from a writer of the Augustan age, it renowned bards, asserts the superior majesty of his
may be argued, that wherever Augustus is ad- own theme, and claims the merit of having quitted
dressed in terms of flattery the word's employed the beaten track and of having been the first to
would apply to many of the later emperors as well enter upon a new path. He then expounds the
as to him who first bore that title; that the modo stoical doctrine of an Almighty Soul pervading,
used in connection with the disastrous defeat in animating, controlling, and regulating every portion
Germany, and which, if translated lately, would be of the universe, so that all the different parts are
decisive, may with equal or greater fitness be here connected by one common bond, stirred by one
rendered sometimes; that there is a coldness in all common impulse, and act together in unison and
the allusions to the civil wars, which would have harmony. Hence things below depend upon things'
been avoided by one seeking to extol the achieve- above, and if we can determine and read aright
ments and victories of a reigning prince, and that the relations and movements of the celestial bodies,
in particular the words " ducibus jurata cruentis we shall be able to calculate from them the corres-'
Anna," Which apply much more naturally to the ponding change which will take place in other memtriumvirs than to Brutus and Cassius, could not bers of the system. The dignity and reasonableness
fail to prove highly offensive. On the other hand, of the science being thus vindicated, we are plunged
when we observe that there is no reference to any at once into a maze of technicalities, embracing
historical event later than to the defeat of A. D. 9, the classification of the signs, according to various
that the lines which end the first book' distinctly fanciful resemblances or differences, their confiexpress the feelings of one who wa's living during gurations, aspects, and influences, with all the
a period of tranquillity, which had immediately jargon of trines, quadrates, sextiles, celestial houses,
followed the scenes of disorder and bloodshed de- dodecatemoria, cardines, and athla. The treatise
picted in the preceding paragraphs, and above all, terminates'abruptly, for the agency of the fixed
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