Treatises on Friendship and Old Age | Page 6

of Africanus. They start the subject; Laelius answers
them. And the whole essay on friendship is his. In reading it you will
recognise a picture of yourself.
2. Fannius. You are quite right, Laelius! there never was a better or
more illustrious character than Africanus. But you should consider that
at the present moment all eyes are on you. Everybody calls you "the
wise" par excellence, and thinks you so. The same mark of respect was
lately paid Cato, and we know that in the last generation Lucius Atilius
was called "the wise." But in both cases the word was applied with a
certain difference. Atilius was so called from his reputation as a jurist;
Cato got the name as a kind of honorary title and in extreme old age
because of his varied experience of affairs, and his reputation for
foresight and firmness, and the sagacity of the opinions which he
delivered in senate and forum. You, however, are regarded as wise in a
somewhat different sense not alone on account of natural ability and
character, but also from your industry and learning; and not in the sense
in which the vulgar, but that in which scholars, give that title. In this
sense we do not read of any one being called wise in Greece except one
man at Athens; and he, to be sure, had been declared by the oracle of
Apollo also to be "the supremely wise man." For those who commonly
go by the name of the Seven Sages are not admitted into the category of
the wise by fastidious critics. Your wisdom people believe to consist in
this, that you look upon yourself as self-sufficing and regard the
changes and chances of mortal life as powerless to affect your virtue.
Accordingly they are always asking me, and doubtless also our
Scaevola here, how you bear the death of Africanus. This curiosity has
been the more excited from the fact that on the Nones of this month,
when we augurs met as usual in the suburban villa of Decimus Brutus
for consultation, you were not present, though it had always been your

habit to keep that appointment and perform that duty with the utmost
punctuality.
Scaevola. Yes, indeed, Laelius, I am often asked the question
mentioned by Fannius. But I answer in accordance with what I have
observed: I say that you bear in a reasonable manner the grief which
you have sustained in the death of one who was at once a man of the
most illustrious character and a very dear friend. That of course you
could not but be affected-anything else would have been wholly
unnatural in a man of your gentle nature-but that the cause of your
non-attendance at our college meeting was illness, not melancholy.
Laelius. Thanks, Scaevola! You are quite right; you spoke the exact
truth. For in fact I had no right to allow myself to be withdrawn from a
duty which I had regularly performed, as long as I was well, by any
personal misfortune; nor do I think that anything that can happen will
cause a man of principle to intermit a duty. As for your telling me,
Fannius, of the honourable appellation given me (an appellation to
which I do not recognise my title, and to which I make no claim), you
doubtless act from feelings of affection; but I must say that you seem to
me to do less than justice to Cato. If any one was ever "wise,"-of which
I have my doubts,-he was. Putting aside everything else, consider how
he bore his son's death! I had not forgotten Paulus; I had seen with my
own eyes Gallus. But they lost their sons when mere children; Cato his
when he was a full-grown man with an assured reputation. Do not
therefore be in a hurry to reckon as Cato's superior even that same
famous personage whom Apollo, as you say, declared to be "the
wisest." Remember the former's reputation rests on deeds, the latter's
on words.
3. Now, as far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you now), believe
me the case stands thus. If I were to say that I am not affected by regret
for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to justify my conduct, but in
point of fact I should be telling a lie. Affected of course I am by the
loss of a friend as I think there will never be again, such as I can
fearlessly say there never was before. But I stand in no need of
medicine. I can find my own consolation, and it consists chiefly in my
being free from the mistaken notion which generally causes pain at the

departure of friends. To Scipio I am convinced no evil has befallen
mine is