The Influence of Literature

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Excerpt from The Influence of Literature: An Oration Gentlemen of the Erosopic and Philomathic Societies: During the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the wisest man that ever sat upon the throne of the Imperial Cæsars, an insurrection was fomented by Avidius Cassius, a descendant of the conspirator against the great Dictator. Although he was the commander-in-chief of the Oriental army stationed at Antioch, he was narrow-minded, fanatical, visionary, cruel and rigid in his discipline. He was morose, and devoid of sympathy with the aims, and tastes, and pleasures of the world. Consequently, he resolved that the soldiers subject to his authority should not enjoy the luxuries and delights that appeared on the thoroughfares, and haunted the groves, and lurked near the temples of "Daphne by Orontes, " which was proverbial for all the allurements that could captivate the senses. For there, amid numberless kinds and forms of voluptuousness, the fire-eyed daughters of the Sun, with mystical songs and magical rites, wove charms and snares for the fame and souls of men. In the execution of this purpose, the ferocious general decapitated some, and amputated the arms, and hands, and feet of others, in order that the horrible spectacles might deter their comrades from any act of disobedience. He hoped by this conduct to obtain such complete mastery over his legions, that they would follow him without hesitation in the unwise and impracticable enterprise of dethroning the Emperor and re-establishing the Republic of Rome. His movements were observed by Lucius Verus, the colleague of Antoninus, who wrote to him, saying: I would you had him closely watched. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.