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. Postumius Albinus, in the year B.C. 99, 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. 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 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 was killed, B.C. 87, during those bloody confusions raised at Rome by Marius and Cinna. His hiding-place being discovered, soldiers were sent to despatch him; but the power of his eloquence so moved them, 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.