admonished, and to do the former freely, yet not harshly, to receive the
latter patiently not resentfully, so it is to be maintained that
friendship has no greater pest than adulation, flattery, subserviency,
for under its many names [Footnote: Latin _multis nominibus,_ which some
commentators render "on many accounts" with reference to matters of
purchase and sale, debit and credit. But I think that Cicero brings in
_adulatio, blanditia, and assentatio,_ as so many synonyms of
_obsequtum,_ intending to comprehend in his indictment whatever alias
the one vice may assume.] a brand should be put on this vice of fickle
and deceitful men, who say everything with the view of giving pleasure,
without any reference to the truth. While simulation is bad on every
account, inasmuch as it renders the discernment of the truth which it
defaces impossible, it is most of all inimical to friendship; for it is
fatal to sincerity, without which the name of friendship ceases to have
any meaning. For since the essence of friendship consists in this, that
one mind is, as it were, made out of several, how can this be, if in one
of the several there shall be not always one and the same mind, but a
mind varying, changeful, manifold? And what can be so flexible, so far
out of its rightful course, as the mind of him who adapts himself, not
only to the feelings and wishes, but een to the look and gesture, of
another?
"Does one say No or Yes? I say so too My rule is to assent to
everything,"
as Terence, whom I have just quoted, says, but he says it in the person
of Gnatho,[Footnote: A parasite in Terence's play of _Eunuchus_, from
which these verses are quoted.]--a sort of friend which only a frivolous
mind can tolerate. But as there are many like Gnatho, who stand higher
than he did in place, fortune, and reputation, then subserviency is the
more offensive, because then position gives weight to their falsehood.
But a flattering friend may be distinguished and discriminated from a
true friend by proper care, as easily as everything disguised and
feigned is seen to differ from what is genuine and real. The assembly of
the people, though consisting of persons who have the least skill in
judgment, yet always knows the difference between him who, merely
seeking popularity, is sycophantic and fickle, and a firm inflexible,
and substantial citizen. With what soft words did Caius Papirius
[Footnote: Caius Papirius Carbo, the suspected murderer of Scipio.]
steal [Footnote: Latin _influebat_ flowed in, a figure beautifully
appropriate, but hardly translatable.] into the ears of the assembly a
little while ago, when he brought forward the law about the re-election
of the tribunes of the people! [Footnote: There was an old law, which
prohibited the re-election of a citizen to the same office till after an
interval of ten years. In the law here referred to, Carbo--then tribune
--sought to provide for the re-election of tribunes as soon and as often
as the people might choose, thus undoubtedly hoping to secure for
himself a permanent tenure of office.] I opposed the law. But, to say
nothing of myself, I will rather speak of Scipio. How great, ye immortal
gods, was his dignity of bearing! What majesty of address! So that you
might easily call him the leader of the Roman people, rather than one of
their number. But you were there, and you have copies of his speech.
Thus the law was rejected by vote of the people. But, to return to
myself, you remember, when Quintus Maximus, Scipio's brother, and Lucius
Mancinus were Consuls, how much the people seemed to favor the law of
Caius Licinius Crassus about the priests. The law proposed to transfer
the election of priests from their own respective colleges to the
suffrage of the people; [Footnote: The several pontifical colleges had
been close corporations, filling their own vacancies. The law which
Laelius defeated proposed transferring the election of priests to the
people.] and he on that occasion introduced the custom of facing the
people in addressing them [Footnote: It had been customary, when the
Senate was in session, for him who harangued the people to face the
temple where the Senate sat, thus virtually recognizing the supreme
authority of that body.] Yet under my advocacy the religion of the
immortal gods obtained the ascendancy over his plausible speech. That
was during my praetorship, five years before I was chosen Consul. Thus
the cause was gained by its own merits rather than by official
authority.
26. But if on the stage, or--what is the same thing--in the assembly of
the people, in which there is ample scope for false and distorted
representations, the truth only needs to be made plain and clear in
order for it to prevail, what ought to be the case in friendship, which
is entirely dependent for its value on truth,--in which unless, as the
phrase is, you see an open bosom and show your own, you can have nothing
worthy of confidence, nothing of which you can feel certain, not even
the fact of your loving or being loved, since you are ignorant of what
either really is? Yet this flattery of which I have spoken, harmful as
it is, can injure only him who takes it in and is delighted with it.
Thus it is the case that he is most ready to open his ear to flattery,
who flatters himself and finds supreme delight in himself. Virtue indeed
loves itself; for it has thorough knowledge of itself, and understands
how worthy of love it is. But it is reputed, not real, virtue of which I
am now speaking; for there are not so many possessed of virtue as there
are that desire to seem virtuous. These last are delighted with
flattery, and when false statements are framed purposely to satisfy and
please them, they take the falsehood as valid testimony to their merit.
That, however, is no friendship, in which one of the (so-called) friends
does not want to hear the truth, and the other is ready to lie. The
flattery of parasites on the stage would not seem amusing, were there
not in the play braggart soldiers [Footnote: Latin, _milites gloriosi.
Miles Gloriosus_ is the title of one of the comedies of Plautus; and one
of the stock characters of the ancient comedy is a conceited,
swaggering, brainless soldier, who is perpetually boasting of his own
valor and exploits, and who takes the most fulsome and ridiculous
flattery as the due recognition of his transcendent merit. The verse
here quoted is from Terence's _Eunuchus_. Thraso, a _miles gloriosus_
(from whom is derived our adjective _thrasonical_), asks this question
of Gnatho, the parasite, one of whose speeches is quoted in § 25.
_Magnus_ is the word in the question; _ingentes_, in the answer.] to be
flattered.
"Great thanks indeed did Thais render to me?"
"Great" was a sufficient answer; but the answer in the play is
"Prodigious." The flatterer always magnifies what he whom he is aiming
to please wishes to have great. But while this smooth falsehood takes
effect only with those who themselves attract and invite it; even
persons of a more substantial and solid character need to be warned to
be on their guard, lest they be ensnared by flattery of a more cunning
type. No one who has a moderate share of common-sense fails to detect
the open flatterer; but great care must be taken lest the wily and
covert flatterer may insinuate himself; for he is not very easily
recognized, since he often assents by opposing, plays the game of
disputing in a smooth, caressing way, and at length submits, and suffers
himself to be outreasoned, so as to make him on whom he is practising
his arts appear to have had the deeper insight. But what is more
disgraceful than to be made game of? One must take heed not to put
himself in the condition of the character in the play of _The Heiress:_
[Footnote: _Epicleros_, a comedy by Caecilius Statius, of whose works
only a few fragments, like this, are extant. Next to the braggart
soldier, a credulous old man-generally a father-who could have all
manner of tricks played upon him without detecting their import, was the
favorite butt for ridicule in the ancient comedy.]
"Of an old fool one never made such sport As you have made of me this
very day;"
for there is no character on the stage so foolish as that of these
unwary and credulous old men. But I know not how my discourse has
digressed from the friendships of perfect, that is, of wise men,--wise,
I mean, so far as wisdom can fall to the lot of man,--to friendships of
a lighter sort. Let us then return to our original subject, and bring it
to a speedy conclusion.
27. Virtue, I say to you, Caius Fannius, and to you, Quintus
Mucius,--virtue both forms and preserves friendships. In it is mutual
agreement; in it is stability; in it is consistency of conduct and
character. When it has put itself forth and shown its light, and has
seen and recognized the same light in another, it draws near to that
light, and receives in return what the other has to give; and from this
intercourse love, or friendship,--call it which you may,--is kindled.
These terms are equally derived in our language from loving; [Footnote:
_Amor_..._amicitia_..._ab amando_.] and to love is nothing else than to
cherish affection for him whom you love, with no felt need of his
service, with no quest of benefit to be obtained from him; while,
nevertheless, serviceableness blooms out from friendship, however little
you may have had it in view. With this affection I in my youth loved
those old men,--Lucius Paulus, Marcus Cato, Caius Gallus, Publius
Nasica, Tiberius Gracchus, the father-in-law of my friend Scipio. This
relation is more conspicuous among those of the same age, as between
myself and Scipio, Lucius Furius, Publius Rupilius, Spurius Mummius. But
in my turn, as an old man, I find repose in the attachment of young men,
as in yours, and in that of Quintus Tubero, and I am delighted with the
intimacy of Publius Rutilius and Aulus Virginius, who are just emerging
from boyhood. While the order of human life and of nature is such that
another generation must come upon the stage, it would be most desirable,
could such a thing be, to reach the goal, so to speak, with those of our
own age with whom we started on the race; but since man's life is frail
and precarious, we ought always to be in quest of some younger persons
whom we may love, and who will love us in return; for when love and
kindness cease all enjoyment is taken out of life.
For me indeed, Scipio, though suddenly snatched away, still lives and
will always live; for I loved the virtue of the man, which is not
extinguished. Nor does it float before my eyes only, as I have always
had it at hand; it will also be renowned and illustrious with
generations to come. No one will ever enter with courage and hope on a
high and noble career, without proposing to himself as a standard the
memory and image of his virtue. Indeed, of all things which fortune or
nature ever gave me, I have nothing that I can compare with the
friendship of Scipio. In this there was a common feeling as to the
affairs of the State; in this, mutual counsel as to our private
concerns; in this, too, a repose full of delight. Never, so far as I
know, did I offend him in the least thing; never did I hear from him a
word which I would not wish to hear. We had one home; [Footnote: This
may refer to their living together on their campaigns, journeys, and
rural sojourns; but more probably to the fact that each felt as much at
home in the other's house as in his own.] the same diet, and that
simple; [Footnote: Latin, _communis_. I do not find that this word has
in Latin the sense of _cheap_ and _mean_ which our word _common_ has.
But here it cannot mean that Laelius and Scipio fed together, which is
sufficiently said in the preceding _idem victus_. It must therefore
denote such fare as was common to them with their fellow-citizens in
general, and that is simple and not luxurious fare.] we were together,
not only in military service, but also in journeying and in our rural
sojourns. And what shall I say of our unflagging zeal in the pursuit of
knowledge, and in learning everything now within our reach,--an
employment in which, when not under the eyes of the public, we passed
all our leisure time together? Had the recollection and remembrance of
these things died with him, I could not anyhow bear the loss of a man,
thus bound to me in the closest intimacy and holding me in the dearest
love. But they are not blotted out, they are rather nourished and
increased by reflection and memory; and were I entirely bereft of them,
my advanced age would still be my great comfort, for I can miss his
society but for a brief season, and all sorrows, however heavy, if they
can last but a little while, ought to be endured.
I had these things to say to you about friendship; and I exhort you that
you so give the foremost place to virtue without which friendship cannot
be, that with the sole exception of virtue, you may think nothing to be
preferred to friendship.
SCIPIO'S DREAM.
1. When I arrived in Africa, to serve, as you know, in the office of
military Tribune of the fourth Legion, under Manius [Footnote: The
praenomen _Marcus_ is given to Manilius in the manuscript of the _De
Republics_ discovered by Angelo Mai; but Manius is the reading in all
previous authorities as to this special fragment.] Manilius as consul, I
desired nothing so much as to meet Masinissa [Footnote: King of
Numidia,--a country nearly identical in extent with the present province
of Algeria. Its name defines its people, being derived from [Greek:
nomades], _nomads._ Its inhabitants were a wild, semi-savage cluster of
tribes, black and white. Masinissa, though faithful to the Romans after
he had convinced himself that theirs must be the ascendant star, was a
crafty, treacherous, cruel prince, probably with enough of civilization
to have acquired some of its vices, while he had not lost those of the
savage.] the king, who for sufficient reasons [Footnote: The elder
Africanus had confirmed him in the possession of his own Numidia, and
had added to it the adjoining kingdom of Cirta.] stood in the most
friendly relation to our family. When I came to him, the old man
embraced me with tears, and shortly afterward looked up to heaven and
said: "I thank thee, sovereign Sun, [Footnote: The Numidians worshipped
the heavenly bodies.] and all of you lesser lights of heaven, that
before I pass away from this life I behold in my kingdom and beneath
this roof Publius Cornelius Scipio, whose very name renews my strength,
so utterly inseparable from my thought is the memory of that best and
most invincible of men who first bore it." Then I questioned him about
his kingdom, and he asked me about our republic; and with the many
things that we had to communicate to each other, the day wore away.
At a later hour, after an entertainment of royal magnificence, we
prolonged our conversation far into the night, while the old man talked
to me about nothing else but Africanus, rehearsing not only all that he
had done, but all that he had said. When we parted to go to our rest,
sleep took a stronger hold on me than usual, on account both of the
fatigue of my journey and of the lateness of the hour. In my sleep, I
suppose in consequence of our conversation (for generally our thoughts
and utterances by day have in our sleep an effect like that which Ennius
describes in his own case as to Homer, [Footnote: The first verse of the
_Annales_ of Ennius was:--
"In somnis mihi visus Homerus adesse poeta."]
about whom in his waking hours he was perpetually thinking and talking),
Africanus appeared to me, with an aspect that reminded me more of his
bust than of his real face. I shuddered when I saw him. But he said:
"Preserve your presence of mind, Scipio; be not afraid, and commit to
memory what I shall say to you.
2. "Do you see that city, which was brought through me into subjection
to the Roman people, but now renews its old hostility, and cannot remain
quiet,"--and he showed me Carthage from a high place full of stars,
shining and splendid,--"against which you, being little more than a
common soldier, are coming to fight? In two years from now you as Consul
will overthrow this city, and you will obtain of your own right the
surname which up to this time you hold as inherited from me. When you
shall have destroyed Carthage, shall have celebrated your triumph over
it, shall have been Censor, and shall have traversed, as an ambassador,
Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you will be chosen a second time Consul
in your absence, and will put an end to one of the greatest of wars by
extirpating Numantia. But when you shall be borne to the Capitol in your
triumphal chariot after this war, you will find the State disturbed by
the machinations of my grandson. [Footnote: Tiberius Gracchus, whose
mother, Cornelia, was the daughter of the elder Africanus.]
"In this emergency, Africanus, it will behoove you to show your country
the light of your energy, genius, and wisdom. But I see at that time, as
it were, a double way of destiny. For when your age shall have followed
the sun for eight times seven revolutions, and these two numbers
[Footnote: The Pythagoreans regarded seven as the number representing
light, and eight as representing love. Seven was also a perfect number,
as corresponding to the number of celestial orbits (including the sun,
the moon, and the five known planets), the number of days in the quarter
of the moon's revolution, and the number of the gates of sense (so to
speak), mouth, eyes, ears, and nostrils. Eight was a perfect number, as
being first after unity on the list of cubes; and Plato in the _Timaeus_
speaks of eight celestial revolutions--including that of the earth--as
unequal in duration and velocity, but as forming, in some unexplained
way, a cycle synchronous with the year.]--each perfect, though for
different reasons--shall have completed for you in the course of nature
the destined period, to you alone and to your name the whole city will
turn; on you the Senate will look, on you all good citizens, on you the
allies, on you the Latini. You will be the one man on whom the safety of
the city will rest; and, to say no more, you, as Dictator, must
re-establish the State, if you escape the impious hands of your kindred."
[Footnote: See _De Amicitia_ § 3, note.] Here, when Laelius had cried
out, and the rest of the company had breathed deep sighs, Scipio,
smiling pleasantly upon them, said, "I beg you not to rouse me from
sleep and break up my vision. Hear the remainder of it."
3. "But that you, Africanus, may be the more prompt in the defence of
the State, know that for all who shall have preserved, succored,
enlarged their country, there is a certain and determined place in
heaven where they enjoy eternal happiness; for to the Supreme God who
governs this whole universe nothing is more pleasing than those
companies and unions of men that are called cities. Of these the rulers
and preservers, going hence, return hither."
Here I, although I had been alarmed, not indeed so much by the fear of
death as by that of the treachery of my own kindred, yet asked whether
Paulus, my father, and others whom we supposed to be dead were living.
"Yes, indeed," he replied, "those who have fled from the bonds of the
body, like runners from the goal, live; while what is called your life
is death. But do you see your father Paulus coming to you?" When I saw
him, I shed a flood of tears; but he, embracing and kissing me, forbade
my weeping.
Then as soon as my tears would suffer me to speak, I began by saying,
"Most sacred and excellent father, since this is life, as Africanus
tells me, why do I remain on the earth, and not rather hasten to come to
you?" "Not so," said he; "for unless the God who has for his temple all
that you now behold, shall have freed you from this prison of the body,
there can be no entrance for you hither. Men have indeed been brought
into being on this condition, that they should guard the globe which you
see in the midst of this temple, which is called the earth; and a soul
has been given to them from those eternal fires which you call
constellations and stars, which, globed and round, animated with
god-derived minds, complete their courses and move through their orbits
with amazing speed. You, therefore, Publius, and all rightly disposed men
are bound to retain the soul in the body's keeping, nor without the
command of him who gave it to you to depart from the life appointed for
man, lest you may seem to have taken flight from human duty as assigned
by God. But, Scipio, like this your grandfather, [Footnote: By adoption.
The younger Africanus was adopted by a son of the elder.] like me, your
father, cherish justice and that sacred observance of duty to your kind,
which, while of great worth toward parents and family, is of supreme
value toward your country. Such a life is the way to heaven, and to this
assembly of those who have already lived, and, released from the body,
inhabit the place which you now see,"--it was that circle that shines
forth among the stars in the most dazzling white,--"which you have
learned from the Greeks to call the Milky Way." And as I looked on every
side I saw other things transcendently glorious and wonderful. There
were stars which we never see from here below, and all the stars were
vast far beyond what we have ever imagined. The least of them was that
which, farthest from heaven, nearest to the earth, shone with a borrowed
light. But the starry globes very far surpassed the earth in magnitude.
The earth itself indeed looked to me so small as to make me ashamed of
our empire, which was a mere point on its surface.
4. While I was gazing more intently on the earth, Africanus said: "How
long, I pray you, will your mind be fastened on the ground? Do you not
see into the midst of what temples you have come? In your sight are nine
orbs, or rather globes, by which all things are held together. One is
the celestial, the outermost, embracing all the rest,--the Supreme God
himself, [Footnote: Here crops out the Pantheism--the non-detachment or
semi-detachment of God from nature--which casts a penumbra around
monotheism and the approaches to it, almost always, except under Hebrew
and Christian auspices.] who governs and keeps in their places the other
spheres. In this are fixed those stars which ever roll in an unchanging
course. Beneath this are seven spheres which have a retrograde movement,
opposite to that of the heavens. One of these is the domain of the star
which on earth they call Saturn. Next is the luminary which bears the
name of Jupiter, of prosperous and healthful omen to the human race;
then, the star of fiery red which you call Mars, and which men regard
with terror. Beneath, the Sun holds nearly the midway space, [Footnote:
The middle, as the fifth of the nine spheres, enclosed by four; and
enclosing four.] leader, prince, and ruler of the other lights, the mind
and regulating power of the universe, so vast as to illuminate and flood
all things with his light. Him, as his companions, Venus and Mercury
follow on their different courses; and in a sphere still lower the moon
revolves, lighted by the rays of the sun. Beneath this there is nothing
that is not mortal and perishable, except the souls bestowed upon the
human race by the gift of the gods. Above the moon all things are
eternal. The earth, which is the central and ninth sphere, has no
motion, and is the lowest [Footnote: The lowest because central, and
therefore farthest from the outermost or celestial sphere.] of all, and
all heavy bodies gravitate spontaneously toward it."