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ter nos digressum et discessum fore, 86. His mihi rebus, Scipio, id enim te cum Laelio admirari solere dixisti, — levis est senectus, nec solum non molesta, sed etiam iucunda. Quod si in hoc erro, qui animos homi5 num inmortales esse credam, libenter erro nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo, extorqueri volo ; sin mortuus, ut quidam minuti philosophi censent, nihil sentiam, non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum philosophi mortui inrideant. Quod si non sumus inmortales futuri, 10 tamen exstingui homini suo tempore optabile est. Nam habet natura ut aliarum omnium rerum, sic vivendi modum. Senectus autem aetatis est peractio tamquam fabulae, cuius defectionem fugere debemus, praesertim adiunctā satietate.

15 Haec habui de senectuté quae dicerem; ad quam utinam perveniatis, ut ea, quae ex me audistis, re experti probare possitis.

1. mihi] Limits levis, molesta, This word was probably first used and iucunda. by Cicero, as it occurs in no other writer before his time. It is a verbal formed from the supine of perago. Cf. xix. 70.

4. qui- credam] 'Because I believe,' or 'in believing.' Many editions have quod-credam; but this reading is Madvig's, and rests on the authority of the best manuscripts.

7. minuti philosophi] Narrowminded philosophers,' such as the Epicureans.

13. cuius] Equivalent to in quā. -defectionem] This word, like peractio, is transferred from the stage to human life, and the thought is: the old man can avoid the defectio, or failure,' only by

10. suo tempore] 'In a fit or death; consequently he should proper time.'

12. peractio] Old age is the last act of life, as of a drama.'

wish for death in its fitting time, especially if he has lived to the full age of man.

LAELIUS.

THE treatise De Amicitia was written shortly after the De Senectute, and, like it, was dedicated to T. Pomponius Atticus. The scene of the dialogue is laid in the time of the Gracchan revolution, when the different political factions were embroiled in discord, civil strife, and deadly feuds, and when bitter personal animosities, arising from the conflict of opinions in regard to the agrarian law, were severing the ties of friendship between the different classes of citizens, and even between the members of the same household.

The chief speaker in the dialogue is Caius Laelius Sapiens, to whom his two sons-in-law, Q. Mucius Scaevõla and C. Fannius, are represented as making a visit a few days after the death of Scipio Africanus Minor, and telling him how anxious everybody is to know how he bears the death of his most intimate friend. This opens the way for the request which they make, that he will give them his views on the subject of Friendship, so well exemplified between himself and one, who, as Paterculus says, "never uttered a sentiment, nor performed an action, that was not worthy of applause."

CAIUS LAELIUS SAPIENS was born about B. C. 186, and died B. C. 115. In his early age he studied under Diogenes of Babylon and Panaetius of Athens, from whom he learned the doctrines of the Stoic school

of philosophy. Although he was chiefly distinguished as a philosopher, he frequented the Forum, where ho gained considerable celebrity as an orator. His military career, though brief, was eminently successful. He accompanied his friend Scipio Aemilianus on his voyage to Carthage, and proved himself in that campaign a valiant soldier. He was tribune of the people B. C. 151, praetor B. C. 145, and consul B. C. 140.

His political affiliations were at first with those who were in favor of making the plebeians landed proprietors; but afterwards, alarmed by the violence of the agrarian measures of the elder Gracchus, he changed his views, and became a firm supporter of the aristocracy. He assisted the consuls, B. C. 132, in examining C. Blossius of Cumae (xi. 37), and in B. C. 130 he opposed the Papirian Rogation (xxv. 96), which had for its object the re-election of the same persons as tribunes from year to year. It was from his wise and moderate views in these political agitations that he received the surname of Sapiens..

But it is principally as a refined and accomplished scholar that Laelius has the greatest reputation. In common with his friend Scipio, he had drawn deep from the sources of Greek learning, and in literary history he has been considered as the representative of the Hellenic culture of his century.

His friendship for Scipio never faltered, and Cicero has immortalized this trait of his character by placing his name at the head of the dialogue De Amicitiā.

SCIPIO AFRICANUS MINOR was the younger son of L. Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia, but was adopted by P. Scipio, the son of Africanus Maior,

and hence was distinguished by the names of the two families, P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. He was born about B. C. 185. His first lessons in the art of war he received from his father, with whom he was present at the battle of Pydna, B. C. 168, when scarcely seventeen years of age. On his return to Rome from this campaign, he devoted himself eagerly to the study of literature, and had for his instructors the Greek historian Polybius and the Stoic philosopher Panaetius, thus mingling the refining influences of the Greek culture with the sterner and more robust peculiarities of his native character.

Scipio first attracted notice as a soldier in the war against the Cantabrians and Iberians. As Rome had experienced severe disasters in the Spanish campaign, hardly any one was willing to enlist as a soldier or serve as a tribune or legate. At this crisis Scipio promptly offered to serve in any capacity in which the consuls might choose to employ him. He was consequently made a military tribune, B. C. 151. In this campaign he showed remarkable courage and in- . trepidity. He gained a mural crown by being the first to mount the walls at the storming of Intercatia. Also in the first year of the third Punic war, B. C. 149, he was found again serving in Africa, with his former rank, where he showed such military skill, sense of justice, and personal courage, as to gain from the commissioners, who had been sent to inspect the Roman camp, a most favorable report as to his abilities and military conduct. In the year B. C. 147, he was made consul, when thirty-seven years old, before he had reached the age requisite for that office, and intrusted with Africa as his province, and empowered to complete

the war against Carthage. Accompanied by Laelius and Polybius, he set sail for Africa, where military operations were resumed with increased vigor. Although the Carthaginians held out till the spring of the following year, they at length yielded to the superior valor of their assailants. They defended themselves, however, with the courage of despair, and when the work of destruction was completed, Scipio, anticipating that a similar fate might befall Rome, is said to have repeated over the ruins of Carthage these lines of Homer (Il. vi. 448) : –

The day will come when sacred Ilium will perish,

And Priam, and the people of Priam, of the good ashen spear.

On Scipio's return to Rome he was rewarded with a splendid triumph on account of his victory, and received the surname of Africanus, which he had al ready inherited by adoption from the conqueror of Hannibal.

In B. C. 133 Scipio met with equal success in the war against Numantia, from which he received the surname Numantinus. He was engaged in this last campaign when the disturbances sprang up at Rome in consequence of the measures proposed by Tiberius Gracchus, and ended in the death of this political agitator. Although Scipio had married Sempronia, the sister of Gracchus, he did not adopt his political views, and showed no sorrow at his death.

From this time Scipio became thoroughly aristocratic in his views, and was thus brought into close intimacy with Laelius, although, previously, he had with him maintained a middle ground between the aristocracy and the agitators for reform.

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