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Scalawag on the Web Sectory 01
Page 01
Between Bulgaria on one hand and Rumania, Greece, Servia, and Montenegro on the other, the diplomatic relations have been re-established, but gone is the old friendship, for reasons already explained. Greece, Servia, and Montenegro are the best of friends, and, according to unofficial and confidential reports, a defensive and offensive alliance for the maintenance of the Balkan status quo, exists between the three countries. Between Rumania and Greece friendly relations exist, and for some time it was said that a marriage was to be arranged between the Greek Crown Prince, George, and the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the Rumanian King, Ferdinand I., who succeeded to the throne after the death of his uncle, King Charles. This match, however, seems to have been abandoned, perhaps for political reasons, and more so because Greco-Rumanian relations have not as yet reached that firmness which only might justify such a rapprochement of the two royal families.
At length the wife of Marius, who was Caesar's aunt, died. She had lived in obscurity since her husband's proscription and death, his party having been put down so effectually that it was dangerous to appear to be her friend. Caesar, however, made preparations for a magnificent funeral for her. There was a place in the Forum, a sort of pulpit, where public orators were accustomed to stand in addressing the assembly on great occasions. This pulpit was adorned with the brazen beaks of ships which had been taken by the Romans in former wars The name of such a beak was _rostrum_; in the plural, _rostra_. The pulpit was itself, therefore, called the _Rostra_, that is, The Beaks; and the people were addressed from it on great public occasions.[2] Caesar pronounced a splendid panegyric upon the wife of Marius, at this her funeral, from the Rostra, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators, and he had the boldness to bring out and display to the people certain household images of Marius, which had been concealed from view ever since his death. Producing them again on such an occasion was annulling, so far as a public orator could do it, the sentence of condemnation which Sylla and the patrician party had pronounced against him, and bringing him forward again as entitled to public admiration and applause. The patrician partisans who were present attempted to rebuke this bold maneuver with expressions of disapprobation, but these expressions were drowned in the loud and long-continued bursts of applause with which the great mass of the assembled multitude hailed and sanctioned it. The experiment was very bold and very hazardous, but it was triumphantly successful.
Hannibal perished in the same year as his great opponent. Scipio was the only member of the Senate who opposed the unworthy persecution which the Romans employed against their once dreaded foe. Each of these great men, possessing true nobility of soul, could appreciate the other's merits. A story is told that Scipio was one of the embassadors sent to Antiochus at Ephesus, at whose court Hannibal was then residing, and that he there had an interview with the great Carthaginian, who declared him the greatest general that ever lived. The compliment was paid in a manner the most flattering to Scipio. The latter had asked, "Who was the greatest general?" "Alexander the Great," was Hannibal's reply. "Who was the second?" "Pyrrhus." "Who was the third?" "Myself," replied the Carthaginian. "What would you have said, then, if you had conquered me?" asked Scipio, in astonishment. "I should then have placed myself above Alexander, Pyrrhus, and all other generals."
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