The consul thanked and praised him. The tribune, with his four hundred men, advanced to death. The enemy, astonished at their boldness, waited to see where they were going; but when it appeared that they were marching to take possession of the hill, the Carthaginian general sent against them the ablest men of his army, both horse and foot. The Roman soldiers were surrounded, and being surrounded, fought; the contest was long doubtful, but numbers at length prevailed; the four hundred, to a man, were either slain with the sword or buried under missile weapons. The consul, in the interval of the engagement, withdrew his troops to a spot high and secure, but the event which happened to this tribune who commanded the four hundred, I shall subjoin, not in my own but Cato's words: "The immortal gods gave the military tribune a fortune suitable to his valor: for thus it happened, when he was wounded in every other part, his head alone was unhurt, and when they distinguished him amongst the dead, exhausted with wounds, and breathing with difficulty from loss of blood, they bore him off. He recovered, and often afterwards performed bold and eminent services to his country; and this exploit of his detaching these troops preserved the remainder of the army. But the place where the same deed is done, is of great importance. Leonidas of Lacedæmon, whose conduct was the same at Thermopylæ, is extolled; on account of his virtues all Greece celebrated his glory, and raised his name to the highest degree of eminence, testifying their gratitude for his exploit by monuments, trophies, statues, panegyrics, histories, and other similar means. But to this tribune of the people, who did the same thing, and saved his country, small praise has been assigned."
JACOB CATS
(1577-1660)
he life of Jacob Cats falls within the golden age of Dutch literature, represented in the north by Hooft, Roemer Visscher, and Joost van den Vondel, and in the south by the Zeeland circle of poets, among whom Cats was undoubtedly the greatest. There have been times when Cats's was the one name among Dutch poets; in homes where no other books were found, one might at least be sure of finding the Bible and "Father Cats." But it is doubtful whether he would be considered great outside of Holland. He is the most prosaic of poets, has limited power of language and a still more limited choice of versification; with these drawbacks he is, however, most characteristically Dutch, partly on account of his practical moral teachings and partly on account of the monotonous tic-tac of his verse. The erection of a monument in his honor in his native city, and the painting of his portrait by Rembrandt in 1635, were therefore well-deserved tributes to a man strangely representative of his nation. Yet, even in Holland, voices have been raised against his popularity. Busken Huet has called him "a miserable character, a personified mediocrity, a vulgar and vulgarizing spirit."
Jacob Cats
Jacob Cats, the youngest of four children, was born in Brouwershaven on the 10th of November, 1577. His mother died when he was only a few years old, and his father, member of the council in Brouwershaven, soon gave his children a stepmother. Cats praises her "good deeds and good management" in his verses; but it would seem as if her management were not in accordance with what the family considered beneficial to the children. One of the uncles adopted little Jacob, and sent him to the school of Master Dirk Kemp in Zierikzee. Here he met a young boy from Brabant who was cultivating poetry, and their daily comradeship awakened the same tastes in Cats. Master Kemp was a man who, although of good intentions, had not the power to carry them out; Jacob's uncle accordingly took him out of school and sent him to the University of Leyden to study law.