Book 1
Hellenistic Cicero, Marcus Tullius Latin. . . had they not by their onset set her free; nor would Gaius Duilius, Aulus Atilius, and Lucius Metellus have delivered her from the terror of Carthage; nor would the two Scipios have quenched with their own blood the rising conflagration of the Second Punic War; nor, when it blazed up again with greater forces, would Quintus Maximus have sapped its strength, or Marcus Marcellus crushed it, or Publius Africanus, having torn it from the very gates of this city, driven it back within the enemy's walls. As for Marcus Cato, a man unknown and new—the very pattern by which all of us who pursue these same ends are drawn toward industry and virtue—he assuredly might have enjoyed his leisure at Tusculum, a healthful spot and near at hand. But the man was mad, as those people reckon it: though no necessity compelled him, he chose to be tossed amid these waves and tempests into extreme old age rather than to live most agreeably in that tranquillity and repose. I pass over the countless men who have each been the salvation of this commonwealth; and because they stand not far from the memory of our own age, I forbear to name them, lest anyone complain that he or one of his own has been left out. This one thing I lay down: so great is the necessity of virtue that Nature has set in the race of men, and so great the love of defending the common safety that she has given, that this force has conquered all the enticements of pleasure and ease.
Nor indeed is it enough to possess virtue, as though it were some art, unless you use it; for an art, even when you do not employ it, can still be retained as knowledge, whereas virtue consists wholly in its use; and its greatest use is the governance of the state and the achievement, in fact and not in talk, of those very things which those people are forever proclaiming in their corners. For nothing is said by the philosophers—nothing, that is, that is rightly and honourably said—which has not been brought forth and confirmed by the men who have established law for their communities. For whence comes piety, or from whom religion? Whence the law of nations, or this thing we call civil law? Whence justice, good faith, fairness? Whence shame, self-restraint, the flight from baseness, the craving for praise and for honour? Whence courage in toils and dangers? Surely from those who have shaped these things by training, confirmed some of them by custom, and sanctioned others by law.
Indeed they relate that Xenocrates, among the most distinguished of philosophers, when asked what his disciples gained, answered that they came of their own accord to do what they would be compelled to do by the laws. That citizen, then, who compels all men by the authority of his command and the penalty of the laws to do what the philosophers can scarcely persuade a few to do by their eloquence, is to be preferred even to the teachers who debate these matters. For what discourse of theirs is so refined that it ought to be set above a well-ordered state with its public law and customs? For my part, just as I judge that "great and imperious cities"—as Ennius calls them—are to be preferred to hamlets and forts, so I hold that those who preside over these cities by their counsel and authority are far to be set above, in point of wisdom itself, those who have no share in any public business. And since we are above all swept toward enlarging the resources of the human race, and strive by our counsels and labours to render the life of men safer and richer, and are spurred to this delight by the very goads of Nature, let us hold to the course that has always been the course of every best man, and let us not heed those signals that sound the retreat, to call back even those who have already gone forward.
Against these reasons, so sure and so plain, are set, by those who argue the contrary side, first the labours that must be sustained in defending the commonwealth—a slight hindrance, surely, to a man vigilant and industrious, and one to be scorned not only in such great matters but even in middling pursuits or duties or indeed in private business. Added to this are the perils of life, and the disgraceful dread of death is held up against brave men—men to whom it generally seems more wretched to be wasted by nature and old age than to be granted the time in which they might render up that life, which must in any case be rendered to Nature, above all for their country. And in this passage they think themselves copious and eloquent, when they gather up the calamities of the most illustrious men and the wrongs heaped upon them by ungrateful fellow citizens.
For from this come those famous examples among the Greeks: that Miltiades, conqueror and subduer of the Persians, when the wounds he had taken full in the breast in that most glorious victory were not yet healed, poured out in the chains of his fellow citizens the life he had saved from the enemy's weapons; and that Themistocles, driven and harried from the very country he had set free, fled not to the ports of Greece which he had himself preserved, but to the bosom of that barbarian land which he had crushed. Nor indeed are there lacking examples of the fickleness and cruelty of the Athenians toward their greatest citizens; and these, born and grown common among them, are said to have overflowed even into our own most august state.
For one recalls the exile of Camillus, or the affront to Ahala, or the odium against Nasica, or the expulsion of Laenas, or the condemnation of Opimius, or the flight of Metellus, or the most bitter ruin of Gaius Marius and the slaughter of leading men, or the destruction of those many that followed soon after. Nor indeed do they now spare my own name; and, I suppose because they think themselves preserved in that life of ease by our counsel and our peril, they complain of us all the more grievously, and the more lovingly. But I could not easily say why, when they themselves cross the seas for the sake of learning or sightseeing . . .
. . . that I had, on laying down the consulship, sworn in the assembly before the Roman people, while they swore the same, that the commonwealth was safe, I should easily set off against it the care and trouble of all my wrongs. And yet my own fortunes brought more honour than toil, and not so much vexation as glory; and I took greater joy from the longing of good men than grief from the gladness of the wicked. But had it fallen out otherwise, as I said, how could I complain? Since nothing had befallen me unforeseen, nor heavier than I had expected, in return for such great deeds of mine. For I was a man who, though it was open to me to reap greater fruits from leisure than others, on account of the varied sweetness of the studies in which I had lived from boyhood, or, should anything more bitter befall the community at large, to undergo no special but only an equal share with others of fortune's lot, did not hesitate to set myself in the way of the most violent tempests and almost of the very thunderbolts, for the saving of my fellow citizens, and by my own private perils to purchase the common ease for the rest.
For our country did not bring us into being or rear us under any such law that she should look for no nourishment, as it were, from us, and, serving only our conveniences, supply a safe refuge for our ease and a quiet resting place for our repose; but rather that she might pledge to herself, for her own use, the most numerous and the greatest portions of our mind, our talent, and our judgment, and leave to us for our own private use only so much as might be left over for herself.
As for those refuges that they seize for their own excuse, the more freely to enjoy their ease, these surely are by no means to be listened to: when they say that for the most part men come into public life who are worthy of no good thing, that to be compared with them is sordid, and to contend with them—especially when the multitude is roused—is wretched and dangerous; and therefore that it is not the part of the wise man to take the reins, since he cannot curb the mad and ungoverned impulses of the crowd; nor the part of a free man, struggling with foul and monstrous adversaries, to submit to the lash of insults or to await wrongs not to be borne by a wise man—as though there were any juster cause for good and brave men of lofty spirit to approach the commonwealth than this: not to be subject to the wicked, nor to suffer the commonwealth to be torn apart by them, while they themselves, even should they wish, were unable to bring aid.
But that exception—to whom, pray, can it ever be approved?—by which they deny that the wise man will undertake any part in the commonwealth, save where time and necessity have compelled him? As though indeed a greater necessity could befall any man than befell us; in which what could I have done, had I not then been consul? And how could I have been consul, had I not held from boyhood that course of life by which, born of equestrian rank, I might rise to the highest office? There is therefore no power of aiding the commonwealth on the spur of the moment, or when you please, however hard pressed it be by perils, unless you stand in such a position that it is permitted you to do so.
And this above all is wont to seem strange to me in the discourse of learned men: that those who deny they can steer when the sea is calm—because they have never learned the art, nor ever cared to know it—these same men profess that they will take to the helm when the mightiest billows have been roused. For these men are wont to say openly, and even to glory greatly in it, that they have neither learned nor teach anything of the principles of founding or preserving states, and they think the knowledge of such matters should be conceded not to learned and wise men, but to those practised in that other sort of thing. How then does it accord to promise one's service to the commonwealth only at the last, if compelled by necessity—when, by what is far easier, they cannot govern the commonwealth with no necessity pressing? For my own part, even granting it true that the wise man does not commonly come down of his own will to the concerns of the state, yet refuses not this office at last when forced by the times, still I should judge that this knowledge of civil affairs must by no means be neglected by the wise man, for the reason that all things must be made ready by him which he cannot know but that one day it may be necessary to use.
These things have been said by me at greater length for this reason: that in these books I had set in hand and undertaken a discussion of the commonwealth; and lest it be held in vain, I had first of all to remove all hesitation about approaching public life. And yet, if there are any who are moved by the authority of the philosophers, let them attend awhile and listen to those whose authority and renown stand highest among the most learned men; whom I judge, even if they themselves did not administer the commonwealth, nevertheless, since they inquired and wrote much concerning the commonwealth, to have discharged some office of the commonwealth. As for those seven whom the Greeks named the Wise, I see that nearly all of them were engaged in the midst of public affairs. For there is no field in which human virtue comes nearer to the divine power of the gods than the founding of new states or the preservation of those already founded.
And in these matters—since it has fallen to me both to have achieved in the conduct of public affairs something worthy of memory, and to have some faculty in setting forth the principles of civil life, not only by practice but also by the zeal of learning and teaching—it is fitting that I should be among the authorities; whereas of earlier men some were polished in debate, but no deeds of theirs are to be found, while others were creditable in action but rude in discourse. Nor indeed is some new method, devised and invented by myself, to be set up here; but the discussion of the most illustrious and wisest men of our state, all of a single age, is to be recalled from memory—a discussion which was once set forth to you and to me, when I was a young man, by Publius Rutilius Rufus, at Smyrna, while we were together for several days; and in it scarcely anything was passed over that bore in any great degree upon the principles of all these matters.
For when Publius Africanus here, the son of Paulus, had arranged to be in his gardens during the Latin Holidays, in the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius, and his closest friends had said they would come often to him during those days, on the morning of the Holidays themselves the first to come to him was Quintus Tubero, his sister's son. When Scipio had greeted him courteously and welcomed him gladly, he said, "Why so early, Tubero? For this holiday gave you a fine opportunity to unfold your studies." Then he: "For my part, all my time is free for my books; for they are never busy; but to find you at leisure is a great thing, especially in this present commotion of the commonwealth." Then Scipio: "And yet you have found me so—at leisure, by Hercules, in my occupations rather than in my mind." And he: "But you ought to relax your mind as well; for we are many, as we agreed, ready, if it may be done at your convenience, to spend this leisure with you." Scipio: "Gladly indeed, that we may at last be reminded of something from the studies of learning."
Then he: "Would you wish, then, since you in some sense invite me and give me hope of yourself, that we first look into this, Africanus, before the others come: what that may be which was reported in the senate about that second sun? For they are neither few nor light men who say they have seen two suns, so that it is not so much that credence should be withheld as that the reason should be sought." Here Scipio: "How I wish we had our Panaetius with us! For he is wont to inquire most zealously into other matters, and these heavenly ones above all. But I, Tubero—for I will speak openly to you what I think—do not greatly assent, in this whole class of questions, to that friend of ours, who affirms of things which we can scarcely conjecture in their nature, as though he beheld them with his eyes or quite handled them with his hand. And on this account I am wont to judge Socrates the wiser, who laid aside all care of that kind, and said that what is inquired into concerning nature is either too great for human reason to attain, or has nothing at all to do with the life of men."
Then Tubero: "I do not know, Africanus, why it has been so handed down to memory that Socrates rejected all such discussion, and was wont to inquire only into life and into conduct. For what fuller authority can we cite concerning him than Plato? In whose books, in many places, Socrates so speaks that, even when he is debating about conduct, about the virtues, in short about the commonwealth, he still strives to join in number and geometry and harmony after the manner of Pythagoras." Then Scipio: "It is as you say; but you have heard, I believe, Tubero, that after the death of Socrates, Plato journeyed first into Egypt to learn, and afterward into Italy and Sicily, that he might thoroughly master the discoveries of Pythagoras; that he was much in the company of Archytas of Tarentum and of Timaeus of Locri, and obtained the commentaries of Philolaus; and that, since at that time the name of Pythagoras flourished in those parts, he gave himself to the Pythagorean men and to those studies. And so, having singularly loved Socrates and wished to attribute everything to him, he wove together the Socratic charm and subtlety of discourse with the obscurity of Pythagoras and with that gravity of his in so many arts."
When Scipio had said this, he caught sight of Lucius Furius suddenly arriving, and when he had greeted him, took him most affectionately by the hand and placed him on his own couch. And when Publius Rutilius—who is for us the authority of this discourse—had come at the same time, he greeted him too and bade him sit beside Tubero. Then Furius: "What are you about? Has our coming broken off some discourse of yours?" "By no means," said Africanus; "for you are wont to investigate zealously the things of this kind, about which Tubero had set himself a little before to inquire; and our Rutilius indeed used sometimes to seek out something of this sort with me even beneath the very walls of Numantia." "What matter, pray, had come up?" said Philus. Then he: "Those two suns; about which I am eager, Philus, to hear from you what you think."
He had said this when a boy announced that Laelius was coming to him and had already left his house. Then Scipio, taking up his shoes and his garments, went out from the chamber, and when he had walked a little in the portico, greeted the approaching Laelius and those who had come with him: Spurius Mummius, whom he held especially dear, and Gaius Fannius and Quintus Scaevola, sons-in-law of Laelius, learned young men, now of quaestorian age. When he had greeted them all, he turned about in the portico and set Laelius in the midst; for there was in their friendship a kind of law between them, that on campaign Laelius should honour Africanus as a god, for his surpassing glory in war, and that at home Scipio in turn should attend upon Laelius, who was the elder, as upon a parent. Then, when they had exchanged a very few words while pacing once or twice up and down, and their coming had been most pleasant and most welcome to Scipio, it was decided that they should sit down in the sunniest spot of the little meadow, since it was the winter season of the year; and as they were about to do so, there came a man of prudence, dear and welcome to them all, Manius Manilius, who, being greeted most affectionately by Scipio and the rest, sat down next to Laelius.
Then Philus said: "It does not seem to me, because these men have come, that we should seek some other subject of discourse; but we should set about it more carefully, and say something worthy of these men's ears." Here Laelius: "What, pray, were you about, or upon what discourse have we broken in?" Philus: "Scipio had asked of me what I thought concerning this, that it was agreed two suns had been seen." Laelius: "Is it so, Philus? Have we then already explored those matters that pertain to our own homes and to the commonwealth, that we now inquire into what is happening in the sky?" And he: "But do you not think it pertains to our homes to know what is happening and what is being done at home?—a home that is not the one our walls enclose, but this whole universe, which the gods have given us as a dwelling and a country in common with themselves; especially since, if we are ignorant of these things, many great things must remain unknown to us. And indeed, the very knowledge and contemplation of things delights me—and, by Hercules, you too, Laelius, and all who are eager for wisdom."
Then Laelius: "I do not hinder it, especially since we are on holiday; but can we hear something, or have we come too late?" Philus: "Nothing has yet been discussed; and since the field is open, I will gladly yield to you, Laelius, that you may discourse upon it." Laelius: "Nay rather, let us hear you—unless perchance Manilius thinks that some injunction should be drawn up between the two suns, so that they may hold the sky on the terms by which each has held it." Then Manilius: "Do you persist, Laelius, in mocking that art in which first you yourself excel, and without which no man can know what is his own and what another's? But that anon; now let us hear Philus, whom I see being consulted on greater matters than I or Publius Mucius."
Then Philus: "I shall bring you nothing new, nor anything thought out or discovered by myself; for I hold in memory that Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, a most learned man, as you know, when this same thing was said to have been seen, and he chanced to be at the house of Marcus Marcellus, who had been consul with him, ordered to be brought out a celestial globe which the grandfather of that Marcellus had carried off from the captured city of Syracuse, that most wealthy and most adorned of cities—though he brought home to his own house nothing else from so great a spoil. Of this globe, though I had often heard the name on account of the fame of Archimedes, I did not so greatly admire the appearance itself; for that other one, which the same Marcellus had set up in the temple of Virtue, made likewise by Archimedes, was more graceful and better known among the people.
But after Gallus began most learnedly to set forth the principle of this work, I judged there had been in that Sicilian a greater genius than human nature seemed able to bear. For Gallus said that the invention of that other solid and full globe was old, and that it had first been turned upon the lathe by Thales of Miletus; that afterward Eudoxus of Cnidus, a disciple, as he reported, of Plato, had marked out upon that same globe the stars and constellations fixed in the heaven; and that, many years later, Aratus, taking the whole adornment and design from Eudoxus, had set it forth in verse, not by any knowledge of astronomy, but by a certain poetic faculty. But this kind of globe, in which were the motions of the sun and moon and of those five stars that are called wandering and as it were errant, could not be rendered in that solid globe; and in this lay the admirable invention of Archimedes, that he had devised how a single revolution should preserve unequal and varied courses in motions most unlike. When Gallus set this globe in motion, it came about that the moon followed the sun by as many turns in that bronze as the days by which it follows in the sky itself; whence in the globe too there came to be that same eclipse of the sun, and the moon then came into that mark which is the shadow of the earth, when the sun, from its region . . .
. . . it was, both because I myself loved the man, and because I had learned that he had been approved and dear above all to my father Paulus. I remember, when I was quite a young man, while my father was consul in Macedonia and we were in camp, that our army was thrown into confusion by religious dread and fear, because on a clear night the moon, shining bright and full, was suddenly eclipsed. Then he—being our legate about a year before he was declared consul—did not hesitate, on the next day, openly in the camp, to teach that it was no portent, that this had happened both then and would always happen at fixed times, when the sun was so placed that it could not reach the moon with its light. "Is it so, then?" said Tubero; "could he teach this to men almost rustic, and dare to say these things before the unlearned?" Scipio: "Indeed he could, and with great . . .
. . . neither insolent display nor speech at odds with the character of a most weighty man; for he accomplished a great thing, in that he had cast out from troubled men an empty religious dread and fear.
And something of this kind happened too in that greatest war which the Athenians and Lacedaemonians waged with the utmost contention against each other: when the sun was darkened and sudden shadows fell, and the greatest fear had seized the minds of the Athenians, that famous Pericles, foremost of his state in authority and eloquence and counsel, is said to have taught his fellow citizens what he himself had received from Anaxagoras, whose pupil he had been: that this happens at a fixed time and of necessity, when the whole moon places itself beneath the orb of the sun; and that therefore, though not at every conjunction, yet it cannot happen save at a fixed time of conjunction. And when he had taught this by argument and reasoning, he freed the people from fear; for at that time this was a new and unknown principle, that the sun is wont to be eclipsed by the moon's interposition—a thing they say Thales of Miletus first observed. And afterward it did not escape even our own Ennius; who, as he writes, "in about the three hundred and fiftieth year after the founding of Rome, on the Nones of June, the moon and night stood in the sun's way." And in this matter there is so much reckoning and skill, that from this day, which we see marked down in Ennius and in the great Annals, earlier eclipses of the sun have been reckoned back as far as that one which befell on the Nones of Quintilis in the reign of Romulus; in which darkness, even if nature carried Romulus off to a human end, yet virtue is said to have raised him to heaven.
Then Tubero: "Do you see, Africanus, that—what a little while ago seemed to you otherwise—. . . those things which others see? And what, further, can he think glorious among human affairs, who has looked through into these realms of the gods; or lasting, who has come to know what is eternal; or splendid, who has seen how small the earth is—first the whole of it, and then that part of it which men inhabit—and how, fixed in a tiny portion of it, unknown to most peoples, we yet hope that our name will fly and roam most widely?"
As for him who is not wont to count nor to call good things the fields and buildings and flocks and that vast weight of silver and gold—because the fruit of these things seems to him slight, their use scanty, their possession uncertain, and often the boundless property of the basest of men—how fortunate must he be reckoned! He alone may truly claim all things as his own, not by the law of the Quirites, but by the law of the wise: not by civil bond, but by the common law of Nature, which forbids any thing to belong to anyone save to him who knows how to handle and to use it; who reckons that our commands and consulships are to be undertaken in the line of duty, among the necessary things and not among the things to be sought after, and are to be sought for the sake of discharging an office, not for the sake of rewards or glory; who, in short—as Cato writes that my grandfather Africanus was wont to say—can declare the same of himself: that he was never more active than when he was doing nothing, and never less alone than when he was alone.
For who can truly think that Dionysius did more, when by all his contrivance he tore liberty from his fellow citizens, than his fellow citizen Archimedes, when, seeming to do nothing, he wrought that very globe of which we were just now speaking? Who would not rather think those men more alone, who in the forum and the crowd have no one with whom they care to converse, than those who, with no witness present, either converse with themselves, or are as it were present in the assembly of the most learned men, while they delight themselves in their discoveries and writings? Who indeed would think any man richer than him who lacks nothing that nature requires, or more powerful than him who attains all that he seeks, or happier than him who is freed from every disturbance of the mind, or of more steadfast fortune than him who possesses what he can carry off with himself, as they say, even from a shipwreck? What command, what magistracy, what kingdom can be more excellent than to look down on all human things, to count them lower than wisdom, and to revolve in the mind nothing but what is everlasting and divine?—being persuaded that, while others are called men, those alone are men who have been refined by the arts proper to humanity;
so that to me that saying of Plato—or of whoever said it—seems most elegant: that when a tempest had carried him from the deep to unknown lands and a desert shore, and the rest were afraid through ignorance of the place, they say he noticed that certain geometric figures had been traced in the sand; and when he saw them, he cried out that they should be of good cheer, for he saw the traces of men—which clearly he interpreted not from the sowing of the field that he beheld, but from the tokens of learning. For which reason, Tubero, learning and learned men and those studies of yours have always pleased me."
Then Laelius: "I do not dare, indeed, to speak against those things, Scipio, nor do I think you, or Philus, or Manilius so . . . in his father's own line there was that friend of ours, worthy to be imitated by this man, 'a man notably wise and shrewd, Aelius Sextus,' who was 'notably wise' and 'shrewd' and was so called by Ennius—not because he sought out things he would never find, but because he gave answers that freed those who had asked from care and trouble; and who, against the studies of Gallus, had always in his mouth that Achilles from the Iphigenia: 'What watching there is in the sky, of what the astrologers' signs portend, when the Goat or the Scorpion or some other beast's name rises! What lies before their feet no one looks at; they scan the regions of the sky.' And the same man (for I used to hear him much, and gladly) said that the Zethus of Pacuvius was too hostile to learning; he was more pleased by the Neoptolemus of Ennius, who says he 'wishes to philosophize, but in few things; for to do so altogether does not please him.' But if the studies of the Greeks delight you so greatly, there are others, freer and more widely diffused, which we can apply either to the use of life or even to the commonwealth itself. Those arts of yours, if indeed they are worth anything, are worth this much—that they sharpen a little, and as it were whet, the wits of boys, so that they may the more easily learn greater things."
Then Tubero: "I do not dissent from you, Laelius, but I ask what you understand the greater things to be." Laelius: "I will tell you, by Hercules, and perhaps be despised by you for it: that, whereas you have asked Scipio about those heavenly matters, I think these things which seem to be before our eyes are rather to be inquired into. For why does the grandson of Lucius Paulus, with this uncle, born in a most noble family and in this so illustrious commonwealth, ask how two suns came to be seen, and not ask why in one commonwealth there are two senates and almost now two peoples? For, as you see, the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and indeed before that the whole purpose of his tribunate, has divided one people into two parts; and the detractors and enviers of Scipio, with a beginning made by Publius Crassus and Appius Claudius, hold no less, now that these men are dead, the other part of the senate that dissents from you, with Metellus and Publius Mucius as their authors; and they do not suffer this man—who alone is able—to come to the aid of the commonwealth, when the allies and the Latin name are stirred up, treaties violated, and most seditious triumvirs are daily contriving something new, and good and wealthy men are thrown into confusion by these so dangerous affairs."
"Wherefore, if you will hear me, young men, do not fear the second sun; for either there can be none, or—granted there is one, as it seemed—provided it is not troublesome, either we can know nothing of such matters, or, even if we know them ever so well, we can be neither better nor happier for that knowledge. But that we should have one senate and one people both can be done, and it is most grievous unless it is done; and we know and see that it is otherwise; and if this be brought to pass, we shall live both better and more happily."
Then Mucius: "What then, Laelius, do you think we must learn, that we may bring about that very thing which you demand?" Laelius: "Those arts which make us of use to the state; for this I reckon the most splendid office of wisdom and the greatest proof, or rather the greatest duty, of virtue. Wherefore, that this holiday of ours may best be spent on discourses most useful to the commonwealth, let us ask Scipio to unfold what he judges to be the best constitution of a state. Then we shall inquire into other matters; and these once known, I hope we shall arrive by a sure road at these very questions, and unfold the principle of the things that now press upon us."
There is no model to which we should more wish to liken the commonwealth.
Then he: "I cannot indeed say that I am wont to occupy myself in any reflection more keenly or more diligently than in this very one which is set before me by you, Laelius. For when I see that in each man's own work the craftsman—that one, at least, who excels—thinks of, meditates on, and cares for nothing else than how he may be better in that kind of thing, should I, when this one work has been left me by my parents and forefathers, the management and administration of the commonwealth, confess myself more idle than any craftsman, if I have spent less labour on the greatest art than they on the least?
But I am neither content with what the highest and wisest men of Greece have left us written on this subject of inquiry, nor do I dare to set my own opinions before theirs. Wherefore I ask of you that you hear me as one neither wholly without acquaintance with Greek matters, nor as preferring them to our own, especially in this kind of subject, but as one of the toga'd race, brought up not illiberally by his father's care, kindled from boyhood by the zeal of learning, yet far more instructed by practice and by the precepts of home than by letters."
Here Philus: "By Hercules, Scipio, I do not doubt that no one has surpassed you in genius, and that in the practical experience of the greatest affairs of state you have easily outdone all; and we know what studies you have always pursued. Wherefore, if, as you say, you have applied your mind also to this principle and as it were art, I owe the greatest thanks to Laelius; for I hope that the things to be said by you will be far richer than all those that have been written by Greek men." Then he: "You lay upon my discourse a very great expectation, which is the heaviest burden for one who is about to speak on great matters." And Philus: "However great it be, you will yet surpass it, as you are wont; for there is no danger that speech should fail you while you discourse upon the commonwealth."
Here Scipio: "I will do what you wish, as I can, and will enter upon the discussion by that rule which I believe must be used in discussing all things, if you would remove error: that, of the matter about which the inquiry is to be made, if it is agreed what its name is, it should be explained what is meant by that name; and if this be agreed, then at last it will be fitting to enter upon the discourse. For never can it be understood of what sort the thing is about which we shall dispute, unless first it has been understood what it is. Wherefore, since we inquire about the commonwealth, let us first see this: what that very thing is which we inquire into." When Laelius had approved, "Yet I shall not so discuss," said Africanus, "a matter so illustrious and so well known, as to go back to those elements which learned men are wont to use in these matters—to begin with the first union of male and female, then with offspring and kinship, and to define more than once what each thing is and in how many ways each is spoken of; for when I speak among prudent men, who have been engaged with the highest glory in war and peace in the greatest commonwealth, I will not bring it about that the very matter about which I discourse should be less illustrious than my speech. For I have not undertaken to pursue everything like a schoolmaster, nor do I promise that I will so manage it that not a single particle be left out in this discourse." Then Laelius: "For my part, I look forward to that very kind of speech which you promise."
"The commonwealth, then," said Africanus, "is the affair of a people; but a people is not every gathering of men assembled in any way whatsoever, but a gathering of a multitude joined together by an agreement upon law and by a sharing of advantage. And the first cause of their coming together is not so much weakness as a certain natural, as it were, herding instinct in men; for this race is not solitary nor given to wandering alone, but so begotten that, even amid an abundance of all things . . .
40fr. [Augustine, Letters, 138.10] In a short time a scattered and wandering multitude had become, through concord, a state.
. . . certain seeds, as it were; nor is there found any institution either of the other virtues or of the commonwealth itself. These gatherings, then, established for the cause I have set forth, first fixed their seat in a certain place for the sake of dwellings; and when they had fenced it with natural defences and by their own labour, they called such a joining of dwellings a town or a city, marked out with shrines and with common spaces. Every people, therefore, which is such a gathering of a multitude as I have described, every state, which is the constitution of a people, every commonwealth, which, as I said, is the affair of a people, must be governed by some counsel, that it may be lasting. And this counsel must always be referred, first of all, to that cause which begot the state.
Then it must be entrusted either to one man, or to certain chosen men, or undertaken by the multitude and by all. When, therefore, the supreme control of all things lies in the hands of one man, we call that one a king, and the condition of that commonwealth a kingdom. When it lies with the chosen, then that state is said to be ruled by the will of the best men. And that is a popular state (for so they call it) in which all things are in the people's hands. And any one of these three kinds, if it holds fast that bond which first bound men together in the fellowship of a commonwealth, is not indeed perfect, nor in my judgment the best, but tolerable nonetheless—so that one may be more excellent than another. For either a just and wise king, or chosen and leading citizens, or even the people itself—though this is least to be approved—can yet seem, if no inequities or cupidities come between, to stand in a condition that is not unstable.
But in kingdoms the rest have too small a share in the common law and counsel, and under the rule of the best men the multitude can scarcely have any part in liberty, since it lacks all share in common counsel and power; and when all things are done through the people, however just and moderate it be, yet that very equality is itself unjust, since it admits no degrees of rank. And so, though Cyrus that Persian was a most just and most wise king, yet the affair of the people—for that, as I said before, is the commonwealth—does not seem to me to have been most desirable, when it was ruled by the nod and at the will of one man; and though the Massiliots, our clients, are ruled with the utmost justice by chosen and leading citizens, yet there is in that condition a certain likeness of servitude in the people; and though the Athenians, at certain times, when the Areopagus had been done away with, did nothing save by the votes and decrees of the people, yet, since they had no distinct degrees of rank, their state did not keep its proper ornament.
And I speak of these three kinds of commonwealth as not disturbed and mingled, but as keeping their own form. These kinds first have, each one, the faults I named before; then they have other ruinous faults; for there is no kind of those commonwealths which has not a sheer and slippery path to a certain neighbouring evil. For under that king, to name him above all—tolerable, or, if you will, even lovable, Cyrus—there lies, ready for the licence of a mind once changed, that most cruel Phalaris, into whose likeness the rule of one man slips by an easy and downhill course. And to that administration of the state by the few and the leading men of the Massiliots, there is a neighbour in that conspiracy and faction of the Thirty which once existed among the Athenians. And the power of the Athenian people itself over all things—not to seek others—turned to the frenzy and licence of the multitude, a plague . . .
. . . the worst; and from this either the rule of the best men or that factious tyranny, or kingly or even very often popular rule, and likewise from that one of those kinds I named before is wont to flower forth; and wondrous are the cycles and as it were the revolutions in commonwealths of changes and alternations. To recognize these is the part of a wise man; but to foresee them when they impend, guiding the course in the steering of the commonwealth and keeping it in his own power, is the part of some great and almost divine citizen. And so I judge that there is a certain fourth kind of commonwealth most to be approved, which is moderated and blended from those three I first named.
Here Laelius: "I know it so pleases you, Africanus; for I have often heard it from you; but yet, if it is not troublesome, I should like to know which of those three modes of commonwealth you judge best. For it would profit something toward knowing . . .
. . . and each commonwealth is of such a sort as is the nature or the will of him who rules it. And so in no other state, save in that where the power of the people is supreme, has liberty any dwelling—than which surely nothing can be sweeter, and which, if it is not equal, is not even liberty at all. But how can it be equal—I forbear to speak of a kingdom, where servitude is not even hidden or doubtful—but in those states in which all are free in name? They cast their votes, they commit commands and magistracies, they are canvassed, they are asked; but they give what they must give even if they are unwilling, and what they themselves do not possess, while others ask it of them; for they have no share in command, in the public counsel, in the judgment of chosen judges, which are weighed by ancientness of family or by money. But in a free people, as at Rhodes, as at Athens, there is no citizen who . . .
. . . when in the people some one or several had become richer and more opulent, then, from their disdain and pride, they relate that it arose—the cowardly and weak giving way, and yielding to the arrogance of the rich. But if the people hold fast their own right, they deny that anything is more excellent, freer, happier; since they are masters of the laws, the courts, war, peace, treaties, and the life and money of each man. This alone, they think, can rightly be called a commonwealth, that is, the affair of a people. And so it is the custom for the affair of a people to be claimed into liberty both from the domination of kings and from that of the fathers, while kings are not sought from free peoples, nor the power and resources of the best men.
And indeed they deny that this whole kind of free people ought to be rejected on account of the fault of an ungoverned people; that, when the people is of one mind and refers all things to its own safety and liberty, nothing is more unchangeable, nothing more firm; and that concord is easiest in that commonwealth in which the same thing is profitable to all; that from the varieties of advantage, when one thing benefits some and another others, discords arise; and so, when the fathers held control, the state's condition was never settled; and far less so in kingdoms, of which, as Ennius says, 'there is no sacred fellowship nor good faith in kingship.' Wherefore, since law is the bond of civil fellowship, and the right of the law is equal, by what right can a fellowship of citizens be held together when the condition of the citizens is not equal? For if it is not pleasing that monies be equalized, if the talents of all cannot be equal, the rights at least of those who are citizens in the same commonwealth ought to be equal among themselves. For what is a state but a fellowship in law? . . .
. . . As for the other commonwealths, they think they ought not even to be called by those names by which they would wish themselves to be called. For why should I call by the name of Jupiter Most High a man greedy of domination or of sole command, lording it over an oppressed people—why not rather a tyrant? For a tyrant can be as merciful as a king can be harsh; so that this is the only difference to peoples, whether they serve a courteous master or a harsh one; but that they serve at all cannot be otherwise. And by what means could that famous Lacedaemon attain, in the time when the discipline of its commonwealth was thought to excel, to having good and just kings, when whoever was born of royal stock had to be held king? As for the best men, who could endure those who have arrogated this name to themselves, not by the people's grant, but by their own assemblies? For how is that man judged 'best'? By learning, by accomplishments, by pursuits . . .
. . . if it does this by chance, it will be overturned as quickly as a ship, if one drawn by lot from among the passengers takes hold of the helm. But if a free people chooses those to whom it commits itself—and it will choose, if only it wishes to be safe, all the best men—then surely the safety of states is set in the counsels of the best, especially since nature has so ordained it, not only that the highest in virtue and in spirit should preside over the weaker, but that these also should be willing to obey the highest. But they say that this best condition has been overthrown by the perverse opinions of men, who, through ignorance of virtue—which, being in few, is judged and discerned by few—think that wealthy and well-supplied men, or men born of noble family, are the best. And when, through this error of the crowd, the resources of a few, and not their virtues, have begun to hold the commonwealth, those leaders cling tooth and nail to the name of the best men, but in fact are without the name. For riches, name, resources, empty of counsel and of any measure of living and of commanding others, are full of disgrace and of insolent pride; and there is no uglier form of a state than that in which the most opulent are thought the best.
But when virtue governs the commonwealth, what can be more splendid? When he who commands others is himself slave to no cupidity; when he has himself grasped all those things to which he trains and summons the citizens, and lays no laws upon the people which he does not himself obey, but sets his own life before his fellow citizens as a law. If such a one could by himself attain all things sufficiently, there would be no need of more; if all together could see the best and agree upon it, no one would seek chosen leaders. The difficulty of taking counsel transferred the affair from a king to several; the error and rashness of peoples transferred it from the multitude to a few. So, between the weakness of one and the rashness of the many, the best men have held the middle place, than which nothing can be more moderate; and while these protect the commonwealth, peoples must needs be most happy, freed from all care and reflection, their ease left to others whose duty it is to guard it and not to suffer it to come about that the people should think its own advantages neglected by its leaders.
For as to that equality of right which free peoples embrace, it can neither be preserved (for the peoples themselves, however loosed and unbridled, yet grant much to many, and there is among them a great choosing of men and of dignities), and that which is called equality is most unjust. For when equal honour is held by the highest and the lowest—who must needs exist in every people—that very fairness is most unfair; which cannot happen in those states which are ruled by the best men. These things, in general, Laelius, and certain others of the same kind, are wont to be argued by those who most praise this form of commonwealth."
Then Laelius: "What of you, Scipio?" he said; "of those three, which do you most approve?" Scipio: "You ask rightly, which of the three I most approve, since I approve none of them by itself, taken separately, and I set before any single one of them that which has been blended together from all. But if some single and simple form must be approved, I should approve the kingly. . . first . . . in . . . is called in this place, there occurs the name, as it were paternal, of a king, as of one taking thought for his fellow citizens, as for those born of himself, and preserving them more zealously than . . . to be sustained by the diligence of one best and highest man.
There are present the best men, who profess that they do this same thing better, and say there will be more counsel in several than in one, and yet the same fairness and good faith. But behold, with mightiest voice the people cries out that it will obey neither one nor a few; that nothing, even to wild beasts, is sweeter than liberty; that all are without it, whether they serve a king or the best men. Thus kings capture us by affection, the best men by counsel, peoples by liberty, so that in the comparison it is hard to choose what one would most wish." Laelius: "I believe it," he said; "but what remains can scarcely be unfolded, if you leave this begun and unfinished."
Scipio: "Let us imitate, then, Aratus, who, setting out to speak of great matters, thinks one must begin from Jove." Laelius: "What Jove? Or what has this discourse like to that poem?" Scipio: "Only this," he said, "that we may rightly take from him the beginnings of our speaking, whom all, learned and unlearned, agree to be the one king of all gods and men." "What?" said Laelius. And he: "What do you think, save what is before our eyes? Whether these things were established by the leaders of commonwealths for the use of life—that a single king should be thought to be in heaven, who by his nod, as Homer says, would turn all Olympus, and be held both king and father of all—great is the authority and many are the witnesses, if indeed it is granted that all are to be called many, that the nations have so agreed, plainly by the decrees of their leaders, that nothing is better than a king, since they judge that all the gods are ruled by the will of one; or whether we have learned that these things rest on the error of the unlearned and are like fables, let us hear, as it were, the common teachers of learned men, who have seen as with their eyes those things which we scarcely come to know by hearing." "Who, pray," said Laelius, "are these?" And he: "Those who, by investigating the nature of all things, perceived that this whole universe is by mind . . .
. . . But, if you will, Laelius, I will give you witnesses neither too ancient nor in any way barbarous." Laelius: "Those," he said, "I want." Scipio: "Do you see, then, that this city is less than four hundred years old, in being without kings?" Laelius: "Indeed less." Scipio: "What then? Is this age of four hundred years, for a city and a state, very long?" Laelius: "That is scarcely grown to maturity," he said. Scipio: "Then in these four hundred years there was a king at Rome?" Laelius: "And a proud one, too." Scipio: "What before?" Laelius: "A most just one, and so on backward all the way to Romulus, who was king six hundred years before this time." Scipio: "Then not even he is very ancient?" Laelius: "By no means, and with Greece already almost growing old." Scipio: "Tell me, was Romulus a king of barbarians?" Laelius: "If, as the Greeks say, all men are either Greeks or barbarians, I fear he may have been a king of barbarians; but if that name is to be given by character, not by language, I think the Greeks no less barbarians than the Romans." And Scipio: "And yet, for the matter in hand, we do not inquire about race; we inquire about characters. For if prudent men, and not ancient, wished to have kings, I am using witnesses neither very ancient nor inhuman and savage."
Then Laelius: "I see you, Scipio, well furnished with testimonies; but with me, as with a good judge, arguments avail more than witnesses." Then Scipio: "Use then an argument, Laelius, your own very feeling." "What feeling?" said he. Scipio: "If ever, if by chance, you have seemed to yourself to be angry with someone." Laelius: "Indeed more often than I should wish." Scipio: "What then—when you are angry, do you permit that anger the mastery of your mind?" Laelius: "By Hercules, no," he said; "but I imitate that famous Archytas of Tarentum, who, when he had come to his country house and found everything done otherwise than he had ordered, said to his bailiff, 'Ah, you wretch, I would have flogged you to death by now, were I not angry.'" "Excellently," said Scipio.
"So Archytas plainly reckoned anger, dissenting from reason, to be a kind of sedition of the mind, and wished it to be quieted by counsel; add avarice, add the lust for command, add the lust for glory, add the passions; and you see this: that if there be in men's minds a kingly command, it will be the mastery of one—of counsel, namely (for that is the best part of the mind)—and that, with counsel ruling, there is no place for the passions, none for anger, none for rashness." Laelius: "So it is," he said. Scipio: "Do you then approve a mind so disposed?" Laelius: "Nothing more," he said. Scipio: "Then you would not approve, if, counsel being driven out, the passions, which are numberless, or the angers held all things?" Laelius: "Indeed I should reckon nothing more wretched than such a mind, than a man so minded." Scipio: "It pleases you, then, that all the parts of the mind should be under a kingship, and that they should be ruled by counsel?" Laelius: "It pleases me so." Scipio: "Why then do you hesitate what to think about the commonwealth? In which, if the affair be transferred to several, it may now be understood that there will be no command to preside; which, indeed, unless it be one, can be none at all."
Then Laelius: "What, pray, is the difference between one and several, if justice is in the several?" And Scipio: "Since I have perceived, Laelius, that you are not greatly moved by my witnesses, I will not cease to use you as a witness, to prove this which I say." "Me?" said he; "in what way?" Scipio: "Because I noticed lately, when we were at the Formian villa, that you strictly enjoined your household to be obedient to the word of one man." Laelius: "The bailiff, of course." Scipio: "What? At home, do several preside over your affairs?" Laelius: "Nay, but one," he said. Scipio: "What? Does anyone else besides you rule the whole house?" Laelius: "By no means." Scipio: "Why then do you not grant the same in the commonwealth—that the rule of single men, if only they be just, is best?" Laelius: "I am brought," he said, "almost to assent."
And Scipio: "You would assent the more, Laelius, if—to pass over comparisons—I should arrive at greater matters: that it is more right to commit a ship to one helmsman, a sick man to one physician, if only they be worthy of those arts, than to many." Laelius: "And what are these?" Scipio: "What? Do you not see that, through the want of measure and the pride of one man, Tarquinius, the name of king came into hatred with this people?" Laelius: "I see it indeed," he said. Scipio: "Then you see also this—of which, as my discourse goes on, I think I shall say more—that, Tarquinius expelled, the people exulted with a certain wondrous arrogance of liberty; then innocent men were driven into exile, then the goods of many were plundered, then there came annual consuls, then the rods were lowered before the people, then appeals in all matters, then secessions of the plebs, then in short most things were so done that all power was in the people." Laelius: "It is as you say," he said.
"It is indeed," said Scipio, "in peace and ease; for one may sport, while one fears nothing, as on a ship, and often even in a light illness. But as that man who sails, when the sea suddenly begins to grow rough, and that sick man, when his disease grows heavy, implore the help of one—so our people in peace and at home commands and threatens its very magistrates, refuses, appeals, calls them to account; but in war obeys as a king; for safety avails more than caprice. And in graver wars our ancestors willed that all command, even without a colleague, should rest in single men, whose very name indicates the force of their power. For a dictator indeed is so called because he is named; but in our books you see him, Laelius, called the master of the people." Laelius: "I see it," he said. And Scipio: "Wisely, then, those men of old . . .
. . . when the people has been bereft of a just king, 'a longing holds their hearts for long,' as Ennius says, 'after the death of the best of kings'; and at once among themselves they speak thus: 'O Romulus, godlike Romulus, what a guardian of your country the gods begot in you! O father, O begetter, O blood sprung from the gods!' They did not call those whom they justly obeyed masters or lords, nor indeed even kings, but guardians of their country, but fathers, but gods; and not without cause; for what do they add? 'You led us forth to the shores of light.' They reckoned that life, honour, and dignity had been given them by the king's justice. The same will would have remained in their posterity, had the likeness of the kings remained; but you see that, through the injustice of one man, that whole kind of commonwealth fell." Laelius: "I see it indeed," he said, "and I am eager to learn those courses of changes, not more in our commonwealth than in every commonwealth."
And Scipio: "When I have said what I think about that kind of commonwealth which I most approve, I must speak more carefully about the changes of commonwealths, although I think they will least easily come about in that commonwealth. But of this kingly form the first and most certain change is this: when a king has begun to be unjust, that kind perishes on the spot, and that same man is a tyrant, the worst kind, and neighbour to the best; whom if the best men overthrow, as commonly happens, the commonwealth has the second of the three conditions; for it is, as it were, kingly—that is, the paternal counsel of leading men taking good thought for the people. But if the people of itself slay or cast out a tyrant, it is more moderate, so long as it has sense and wisdom, and rejoices in its deed and wishes to guard the commonwealth it has of itself established. But if at any time the people either offered violence to a just king or stripped him of his kingdom, or even—which happens more often—tasted the blood of the best men and laid the whole commonwealth under its own caprice (and do not think that there is any sea or any flame so great that it is not easier to quell than a multitude unbridled by insolence), then comes about that which is splendidly said in Plato, if only I can express it in Latin; it is hard to do, but I will try nonetheless.
'When,' he says, 'the insatiable throat of the people has grown parched with the thirst of liberty, and, using ill ministers, has drunk in its thirst a liberty not moderately tempered but too unmixed, then it pursues the magistrates and leaders, unless they be very mild and lax and supply liberty to it abundantly; it accuses them, arraigns them, calls them overbearing, kings, tyrants.' For I think these things are known to you." Laelius: "Indeed," said he, "most known to me."
Scipio: "Then these things follow: 'that those who obey their leaders are harried by that people and called willing slaves; but those who, in magistracy, would be like private men, and those private men who bring it about that there be no difference between private man and magistrate, they extol with praises and load with honours; so that needs must in such a commonwealth all things be full of liberty—that every private house too is empty of any mastery, and this evil reaches even to the beasts; in short, that the father fears the son, the son neglects the father, all shame is gone, so that they may be plainly free; that it makes no difference whether one be citizen or stranger; that the master fears his pupils and fawns upon them, and the pupils despise their masters; that the young take to themselves the gravity of the old, while the old descend to the play of the young, lest they be hateful and burdensome to them; whence it comes that even slaves bear themselves more freely, and wives have the same right as husbands, and in such great liberty even the dogs and horses, the very asses at last, run free in such a way that one must give them the road. So from this boundless licence,' he says, 'this sum is gathered—that the minds of the citizens become so squeamish and soft that, if the least force of authority be applied, they grow angry and cannot endure it; whence they begin to neglect the laws too, that they may be plainly without any master at all.'"
Then Laelius: "Quite exactly," he said, "you have rendered what was said by that man." Scipio: "And—to return now to the author of my discourse—from this excessive licence, which they alone think liberty, he says that a tyrant springs up, as it were, from a certain stock and is, as it were, born. For as from the excessive power of leaders arises the ruin of leaders, so this too-free people is by liberty itself afflicted with servitude. Thus all excessive things—when, whether in weather, or in the fields, or in bodies, they have been too luxuriant—are generally turned into their contraries; and most of all does this happen in commonwealths, and that excessive liberty falls, both for peoples and for private men, into excessive servitude. And so from this greatest liberty a tyrant is begotten, and that most unjust and harshest servitude. For from this untamed, or rather monstrous, people some leader is generally chosen against those leaders now afflicted and driven from their place—a man bold, foul, recklessly persecuting men often well-deserving of the commonwealth, gratifying the people with what is another's and his own; to whom, because as a private man fears are set against him, commands are given and continued, and he is fenced about even with bodyguards, as Pisistratus at Athens; at last, from those by whom they were brought forward, arise the tyrants of those very men; whom if the good overthrow, as often happens, the state is renewed; but if the bold, then comes that faction, another kind of tyrants, and the same arises also often from that splendid condition of the best men, when some perversity has bent the leaders themselves from the way. So, as it were a ball, the tyrants snatch among themselves the condition of the commonwealth from kings, and from these the leaders or the peoples, and from these the factions or the tyrants; nor is the same form of the commonwealth ever held longer."
"Since this is so, of the three first kinds the kingly by far excels, in my judgment; but to the kingly itself will be preferred that which shall be made equal and tempered out of the three best modes of commonwealth. For it pleases me that there be in the commonwealth something pre-eminent and kingly, something else imparted and assigned to the authority of the leaders, and certain matters reserved to the judgment and will of the multitude. This constitution first has a certain great equability, which free men can scarcely long do without; then firmness, because those first forms are easily turned into their contrary faults, so that from a king there arises a master, from the best men a faction, from the people a mob and confusion; and because those very kinds are often changed into new kinds—whereas in this joined and moderately blended formation of the commonwealth this does not commonly happen without great faults in the leaders. For there is no cause of change, where each man is firmly placed in his own degree, and there lies nothing beneath into which he may rush headlong and fall.
But I fear, Laelius and you most friendly and most prudent men, that, if I dwell longer on this kind of thing, my speech may seem to be that of one laying down precepts and teaching, and not of one considering the matter together with you. Wherefore I will enter upon those things which are known to all, but have long been inquired into by us. For thus I decide, thus I think, thus I affirm: that none of all commonwealths is to be compared, whether in constitution or in arrangement or in discipline, with that which our fathers handed down to us, received by them in turn from their ancestors. And this, if it please you—since you wished to hear from me even those things which you yourselves already held—I shall both show of what sort it is, and that it is the best; and, setting forth our own commonwealth as a model, I shall fit to it, if I can, all that discourse which I must deliver concerning the best condition of a state. And if I can hold to this and accomplish it, I shall, in my opinion, have abundantly fulfilled this charge which Laelius has laid upon me."
Then Laelius: "It is your task indeed, Scipio," he said, "and yours alone. For who could better than you speak either of the institutions of our ancestors, since you are yourself of most illustrious ancestors; or of the best condition of a state—which, if we have it, even if not now, then who could be more flourishing than you?—or of taking thought for the future, since you, having driven off the two terrors of this city, have made provision for all time?"
[Fragments]
[Pliny, Natural History, preface 7] . . . nor to the most learned. "I do not wish a Manius Persius to read these things; I wish a Junius Congus."
[Nonius, p. 426M] Thus, since our country contains more benefits, and is an elder parent than he who begot us, surely a greater gratitude is owed to her than to a parent.
[Nonius, p. 526M] Nor would Carthage have held such great resources for some six hundred years without counsel and discipline.
[Nonius, p. 276M] "I would learn, by Hercules," he said, "that habit and zeal of yours for discourse."
[Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 3.16.5] Surely all the disputation of those men, though it contains the most plentiful springs of virtue and knowledge, yet, set beside their deeds and accomplishments, makes me fear it may seem to have brought men not so much business as delight.
[Arusianus Messius, GL 7.457K] From which those men were drawing them away.