And with ev'ry genial grace
Prolific of an endless race,
Oh! crown our vows, and bless the nuptial rite.
FRANCIS'S HORACE.
But marriage was not brought into fashion. In proportion to the rapid degeneracy of the manners under the emperors, celibacy grew into respect; insomuch, that we find (Annals xii. s. 52) a man too strong for his prosecutors, because he was rich, old, and childless. Valuitque pecuniosâ orbitate et senectâ.
[] The faculty of speaking on a sudden question, with unpremeditated eloquence, Quintilian says, is the reward of study and diligent application. The speech, composed at leisure, will often want the warmth and energy, which accompany the rapid emotions of the mind. The passions, when roused and animated, and the images which present themselves in a glow of enthusiasm, are the inspirers of true eloquence. Composition has not always this happy effect; the process is slow; languor is apt to succeed; the passions subside, and the spirit of the discourse evaporates. Maximus vero studiorum fructus est, et velut præmium quoddam amplissimum longi laboris, ex tempore dicendi facultas. Pectus est enim quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Nam benè concepti affectus, et recentes rerum imagines, continuo impetu feruntur, quæ nonnunquam morâ stili refrigescunt, et dilatæ won revertuntur. Quintilian. lib. x. cap. 7.
Section VII.
[a] The translation is not quite accurate in this place. The original says, when I obtained the laticlave, and the English calls it the manly gown, which, it must be admitted, is not the exact sense. The toga virilis, or the manly gown, was assumed, when the youth came to man's estate, or the age of seventeen years. On that occasion the friends of the young man conducted him to the forum (or sometimes to the capitol), and there invested him with the new gown. This was called dies tirocinii; the day on which he commenced a tiro, or a candidate for preferment in the army. The laticlave, was an additional honour often granted at the same time. The sons of senators and patricians were entitled to that distinction, as a matter of right: but the young men, descended from such as were not patricians, did not wear the laticlave, till they entered into the service of the commonwealth, and undertook the functions of the civil magistracy. Augustus Cæsar changed that custom. He gave leave to the sons of senators, in general, to assume the laticlave presently after the time of putting on the toga virilis, though they were not capable of civil honours. The emperors who succeeded, allowed the same privilege, as a favour to illustrious families. Ovid speaks of himself and his brother assuming the manly gown and the laticlave at the same time:
Interea, tacito passu labentibus annis,
Liberior fratri sumpta mihique toga;