ANTONIUS (Marcus), a famous Roman orator. While he filled the office of prætor, Sicily fell to his lot, and he cleared the seas of the pirates which infested that coast. He was made consul with A. Posthumius Albinus, in the year of Rome 653; when he opposed the turbulent designs of Sextus Titus, tribune of the people, with great resolution and success. Some time after, he was made governor of Cilicia, in quality of proconsul; where he performed so many great exploits, that he obtained the honour of a triumph. We cannot omit observing, that, in order to improve his great talent for eloquence, he became a scholar to the greatest men at Rhodes and Athens, in his way to Cilicia, and when on his return to Rome. Soon after, he was appointed censor; which office he discharged with great reputation, having carried his cause before the people, against Marcus Duronius, who had preferred an accusation of bribery against him, in revenge for Antonius's having erased his name out of the list of senators,
nators, which this wife censor had done, because Duronius, when tribune of the people, had abrogated a law which restrained immoderate expence in feasts. He was one of the greatest orators ever known at Rome; and it was owing to him, according to the testimony of Cicero, that Rome might boast herself a rival even to Greece itself in the art of eloquence. He defended, amongst many others, Marcus Aquilius; and moved the judges in so sensible a manner, by the tears he shed, and the fears he shewed upon the breast of his client, that he carried his cause. He never would publish any of his pleadings, that he might not, as he said, be proved to say in one cause, what might be contrary to what he should advance in another. He affected to be a man of no learning. His modesty, and many other qualifications, rendered him no less dear to many persons of distinction, than his eloquence made him universally admired. He was unfortunately killed during those bloody confusions raised at Rome by Marius and Cinna. He was discovered in the place where he hid himself, and soldiers were sent to dispatch him; but his manner of addressing them had such an effect, that none but he who commanded them, and had not heard his discourse, had the cruelty to kill him. His head was exposed before the rostra, a place which he had adorned with his triumphal spoils. This happened 60 years before the Christian era.