Брут, или О знаменитых ораторах

of the Oracle, which promised the supremacy to him who should first salute his mother? That Brutus, who concealed the most consummate abilities under the appearance of a natural defect of understanding? Who dethroned and banished a powerful monarch, the son of an illustrious sovereign? Who settled the State, which he had rescued from arbitrary power, by the appointment of an annual magistracy, a regular system of laws, and a free and open course of justice? And who abrogated the authority of his colleague, that he might rid the city of the smallest vestige of the _regal_ name?--Events, which could never have been produced without exerting the powers of Persuasion!--We are likewise informed that a few years after the expulsion of the Kings, when the Plebeians retired to the banks of the Anio, about three miles from the city, and had possessed themselves of what is called The _sacred_ Mount, M. Valerius the dictator appeased their fury by a public harangue; for which he was afterwards rewarded with the highest posts of honour, and was the first Roman who was distinguished by the surname of _Maximus_. Nor can L. Valerius Potitus be supposed to have been destitute of the powers of utterance, who, after the odium which had been excited against the Patricians by the tyrannical government of the _Decemviri_, reconciled the people to the Senate, by his prudent laws and conciliatory speeches. We may likewise suppose, that