Scipio Africanus

Or could the senate, when it decreed a triumph to Africanus, speak of 'his virtue' or 'his good fortune,' if neither virtue can be said to be in any but the wise man, nor good fortune truly?

For what man given over to pleasures, what man inflamed by the fires of desires, in attaining those things which he had most keenly desired, do we think is flooded with so great a gladness as either the elder Africanus when Hannibal was conquered, or the younger when Carthage was overthrown?

Scipio Africanus, and Lucius Aemilius Paulus used to speak in terms not inapplicable to this subject, for they said “it was never right to try the event of battle, but under extreme necessity, or favourable circumstances.

The device, by which Asdrubal extricated his army from the Ausetanian forest, was of this kind, and by the same means Scipio Africanus, the elder, gained a perfect knowledge of Syphax’s camp.

" For Ennius says that no one, neither citizen nor enemy, could render Scipio a reward worthy of his service.

I write this to you as I lie in the very villa of Scipio Africanus, having paid my respects to his shade and to the altar which I suspect is the tomb of so great a man.

With how great rusticity do some now condemn Scipio because he had not let the daylight into his hot-room through broad window-panes, because he did not stew in much light and wait to be cooked through in the full blaze!

Here—I believe it came from what we had been speaking of, for it generally happens that our thoughts and discourses bring forth in sleep something such as Ennius writes of Homer, of whom plainly he was wont, when awake, most often to think and speak—Africanus showed himself to me, in that form which was better known to me from his portrait than from himself;

But that you may be the more eager, Africanus, to guard the commonwealth, hold this for certain:

And as I gazed upon it more intently, "How long," said Africanus, "will your mind be fixed upon the ground?

why did his own household walls not shelter Africanus?

What of Africanus the elder?

Why should I tell you of Scipio Africanus, to whom the death of his brother was announced while he was in exile?

Did he not, leaving Hannibal and the Punic army and all those who deserved his anger, carry the war over into Africa, so unhurried that he gave malicious men a notion of luxury and indolence?