De Amicitia, Scipios Dream | Page 8

as to neglect his duty. It is, indeed, friendly in you, Fannius, to
tell me that better things are said of me than I feel worthy of or desire
to have said; but it seems to me that you underrate Cato. For either
there never was a wise man (and so I am inclined to think), or if there
has been such a man, Cato deserves the name. To omit other things,
how nobly did he bear his son's death! I remembered Paulus, [Footnote:
Paulus Aemilius, who lost two sons, one a few days before, the other
shortly after, the triumph decreed to him for the conquest of the
Macedonian King Perseus.] I had seen Gallus,[Footnote: Gaius
Sulpicius Gallus, mentioned as an astronomer by Cicero, De Officiis, i.
6, and De Senectute, 14.] in their bereavements. But they lost boys;
Cato, a man in his prime and respected by all.[Footnote: The younger
Cato had won fame as a soldier and distinguished eminence as a jurist.
At the time of his death he was praetor elect.] Beware how you place in
higher esteem than Cato even the man whom Apollo, as you say,
pronounced superlatively wise; for it is the deeds of Cato, the sayings
of Socrates, that are held in honor. Thus far in reply to Fannius. As
regards myself, I will now answer both of you.
3. Were I to deny that I feel the loss of Scipio, while I leave it to those
who profess themselves wise in such matters to say whether I ought to

feel it, I certainly should be uttering a falsehood. I do indeed feel my
bereavement of such a friend as I do not expect ever to have again, and
as I am sure I never had beside. But I need no comfort from without, I
console myself, and, chief of all, I find comfort in my freedom from the
apprehension that oppresses most men when their friends die, for I do
not think that any evil has befallen Scipio. If evil has befallen, it is to
me. But to be severely afflicted by one's own misfortunes is the token
of self-love, not of friendship. As for him, indeed who can deny that the
issue has been to his pre-eminent glory? Unless he had wished-- what
never entered into his mind--an endless life on earth what was there
within human desire that did not accrue to the man who in his very
earliest youth by his incredible ability and prowess surpassed the
highest expectations that all had formed of his boyhood, who never
sought the consulship, yet was made consul twice, the first time before
the legal age,[Footnote: He left the army in Africa B.C. 147 for home
to offer himself as a candidate for the aedileship, for which he had just
reached the legal age of thirty seven; but such accounts of his ability
efficiency, and courage had preceded him and followed him from the
army, that he was chosen Consul, virtually by popular acclamation.] the
second time in due season as to himself, but almost too late for his
country,[Footnote: The war in Spain had been continued for several
years, with frequent disaster and disgrace to the Roman army, when
Scipio, B.C. 134, was chosen Consul with a special view to this war,
which he closed by the capture and destruction of Numantia,
inconnection with which, it must he confessed, his record is rather that
of a relentless and sanguinary enemy than of a generous and placable
antagonist.] who by the overthrow of two cities implacably hostile to
the Roman empire put a period, not only to the wars that were but to
wars that else must have been? What shall I say of the singular
affability of his manners, of his filial piety to his mother, [Footnote: He
was the son of Paulus Aemilius, and the adopted son of Publius
Cornelius Scipio Africanus. His mother, divorced for no assignable
reason, was left very poor, and her son, on the death of the widow of
his adopting father, gave her the entire patrimony that came into his
possession.] of his generosity to his sisters, [Footnote: After his
mother's death, law and custom authorized him to resume what he had
given her, but he bestowed it on his sisters, thus affording them the

means of living comfortably and respectably.] of his integrity in his
relations with all men? How dear he was to the community was shown
by the grief at his funeral. What benefit, then, could he have derived
from a few more years? For, although old age be not burdensome,--as I
remember that Cato, the year before he died, maintained in a
conversation with me and Scipio, [Footnote: The De Senectute]--it yet
impairs the fresh vigor which Scipio had not begun to