which was probably an
entertaining narrative, is likewise totally lost.

The most illustrious prose writer of this or any other age is M. Tullius
Cicero; and as his life is copiously related in biographical works, it
will be sufficient to mention his writings. From his earliest years, he
applied himself with unremitting assiduity to the cultivation of
literature, and, whilst he was yet a boy, wrote a poem, called Glaucus
Pontius, which was extant in Plutarch's time. Amongst his juvenile
productions was a translation into Latin verse, of Aratus on the
Phaenomena of the Heavens; of which many fragments are still extant. He
also published a poem of the heroic kind, in honour of his countryman C.
Marius, who was born at Arpinum, the birth-place of Cicero. (61) This
production was greatly admired by Atticus; and old Scaevola was so much
pleased with it, that in an epigram written on the subject, he declares
that it would live as long as the Roman name and learning subsisted.
From a little specimen which remains of it, describing a memorable omen
given to Marina from an oak at Arpinum, there is reason to believe that
his poetical genius was scarcely inferior to his oratorical, had it been
cultivated with equal industry. He published another poem called Limon,
of which Donatus has preserved four lines in the life of Terence, in
praise of the elegance and purity of that poet's style. He composed in
the Greek language, and in the style and manner of Isocrates, a
Commentary or Memoirs of the Transactions of his Consulship. This he
sent to Atticus, with a desire, if he approved it, to publish it in
Athens and the cities of Greece. He sent a copy of it likewise to
Posidonius of Rhodes, and requested of him to undertake the same subject
in a more elegant and masterly manner. But the latter returned for
answer, that, instead of being encouraged to write by the perusal of his
tract, he was quite deterred from attempting it.

Upon the plan of those Memoirs, he afterwards composed a Latin poem in
three books, in which he carried down the history to the end of his
exile, but did not publish it for several years, from motives of
delicacy. The three books were severally inscribed to the three Muses;
but of this work there now remain only a few fragments, scattered in
different parts of his other writings. He published, about the same
time, a collection of the principal speeches which he had made in his
consulship, under the ti