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The Comte De Gabalis

By Abbé N. de Montfaucon de Villars

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Curtius Rufus

"Of the birth of Curtius Rufus, whom some affirm to have been the son of a gladiator, I would not publish a falsehood, while I shrink from telling the truth. On reaching manhood he attached himself to a quæstor to whom Africa had been allotted, and was walking alone at midday in some unfrequented arcade in the town of Adrumetum, when he saw a female figure of more than human stature, and heard a voice, 'Thou, Rufus, art the man who will one day come into this province as proconsul.' Raised high in hope by such a presage, he returned to Rome, where, through the lavish expenditure of his friends and his own vigorous ability, he obtained the quæstorship, and, subsequently, in competition with well-born candidates, the prætorship, by the vote of the emperor Tiberius, who threw a veil over the discredit of his origin, saying, 'Curtius Rufus seems to me to be his own ancestor.' Afterwards, throughout a long old age of surly sycophancy to those above him, of arrogance to those beneath him, and of moroseness among his equals, he gained the high office of the consulship, triumphal distinéions, and, at last, the province of Africa. There he died, and so fulfilled the presage of his destiny." "ANNALS OF TACITUS," BOOK XI §2I. CHURCH AND BRODRIBB'S TRANSLATION.