25

(i.e. 7 and its multiples) have always been supposed to be critical years in the human life.

convertet: an apparent antithet to converterit.

boni: 'good patriots': i.e. as elsewhere in Cicero, the optimates. 26 socii: the term Socii et Latini comprehends the Italians generally. As the ager publicus had been originally confiscated from their territory, and was in some cases still farmed by them, they naturally regarded the prospect of its distribution with envy and dismay. Scipio, on his return from Numantia, was induced to take up their cause and became their patronus: thus arraying himself against that faction which endeavoured to prosecute the agrarian reforms of Tiberius Gracchus without regard for the interest of the Italians. In the disputes which ensued, Carbo tried to embarrass Scipio by pointedly asking, what he thought of the murder of his kinsman Gracchus. The answer: iure caesum, "lawfully slain'; the only answer possible, from the stern disciplinarian, who would regard all disturbers of public order as mutineers,―coupled with the supposed jealousy of his wife Sempronia,—was afterwards held to give colour to the suspicion that Scipio was murdered by his wife's relations. But, as Gaius Gracchus, after Scipio's death, supported the claims of the Socii; and as Laelius, Scipio's bosom friend, was, at least for a time, in favour of agrarian reform, it is more likely that Scipio's sudden death was used by the Optimates in invidiam, to discredit the Gracchan party: certain it is that no public inquiry was held; as there would have been if any plausible pretext could have been found. Laelius himself is said to have attributed Scipio's death to natural causes (Schol. Vat. ad Milon., cp. Velleius, 11. 4).

27

ne multa: sc. dicam, a customary ellipse.

constituas: 'establish, set in order': cp. the Greek phrase κalioτάναι τὰ πράγματα.

Mai cites Cicero, de Off. I. xxx. 103, in eius familiari Scipione ambitio maior, vita tristior, as evidence that Scipio himself probably aspired to the Dictatorship; but it is more likely, as Cicero puts it here, that the eyes of all parties in the State spontaneously turned towards Scipio, as the one man, who, both from his high reputation and the freedom from complications of party, which his employment

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abroad in the service of his country might be presumed to have allowed him to maintain, was least likely to exercise these extraordinary powers for furthering the ends of any particular party. Certainly nothing was more natural than that a Dictator should be called for, at a time when civil war was imminent.

impias: 'unnatural': impius is one who violates those duties, viz. towards God, kinsfolk, or fatherland, which the laws of nature impose upon men (cp. § 8 pietatem): manus, like Gk. xeîpes (in the phrase apxew xeɩpŵv ådíkwv), occasionally='violent assaults'.

Laelius Gaius Laelius Sapiens, the friend of the younger, as his father before him of the elder Africanus: his traditional friendship for Scipio as well as the desire to pay a tribute to the memory of his friend and preceptor, Scaevola, the augur, who had married one of the daughters of Laelius, suggested to Cicero the idea of assigning to him the principal part in the dialogue entitled 'Laelius sive de Amicitia'.

eos cet.

parumper : cp. Rep. 1. vii. 12, dent operam parumper atque audiant Some read pax sit rebus, for parumper (MSS have parum rebus) : the Greek interpreter renders ἀλλ ̓ εἰρήνη ἔστω τοῖς πράγ μаow: pax sit rebus is found also in inferior MSS.

§ 5, P. 15.

2 sic habeto: 'believe thou this': habeo has frequently this force of 'believing or being convinced', as in the phrase pro certo habere: the strengthened form of the imperative, sometimes called Future Imp., is especially common with light or monosyllabic verbs, e.g. těneto, scito.

3

5

auxerint: figuratively='aggrandise', 'do honour to': cp. Gk.

αὔξω.

beati: probably euphem. for post mortem, like oi μakápio, by which Planudes renders it in the Greek translation.

quod fiat: the conjunctive is used in relative propositions, which limit something that is stated in general terms to a certain defined class'. Madvig, L. G. 365. 2. Cp. quod sciam, 'so far as I know'.

7

8

II

12

iure sociati: a Stoic definition of civitas: cp. de Rep. I. xxv. 39, est respublica res populi; populus autem non omnis hominum coetus quoquo modo congregatus, sed coetus multitudinis, iuris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus. Cp. de Legg. I. xv. 42. For the attraction of the relative in quae civitates, cp. § 13 n., quem Oceanum.

hinc profecti: cp. Tuscul. 1. 118, in aeternam et plane in nostram domum remigremus.

According to the Stoics, the souls of men were of the same ethereal essence as the soul of the Universe, the mens divina; this they supposed to bear the same relation to the matter of the Universe as the souls of men bear to their bodies. In § 9 we are told that the sublunar regions are the sphere of transition and mortality; while above the moon everything is eternal; and as fire, which was their idea of the ethereal essence, struggles to break through the matter which confines it, and to soar upwards; so the soul strives with the body, seeking to be released from it and to fly back to the region of the eternal, § 21.

86.

Paulus: L. Aemilius P., Macedonicus, son of the noble Paulus, who fell at Cannae; in his 2nd Consulship, B.C. 168, he brought the Macedonian war to a close by defeating Perseus, the last king of Macedon, near Pydna. He was one of the few Roman victors who won for themselves nothing but glory from their conquests. Probably the honourable poverty of this noble house, as well as the careful education, which Paulus is said to have bestowed upon his children, accounts for the fact that his two sons were adopted by the representatives of such illustrious houses as Scipio Africanus and Fabius Maximus.

immo vero: 'in very truth': in-mo, an ablative from a superlative derivat. of in (cp. sum-mus, de-mum)= German 'im innersten' (Vanicek, Etymol.): like Greek μèv ovv‘nay rather', immo is used in replies, where a statement is rejected, or accepted with corrections.

vinculis: Plato is fond of this metaphor: hence the fanciful derivations, not always serious, of σῶμα from σήμα sepulcrum, or σώζεσ Oal, custodiri; déμas from deoμós. Cp. Plato, Cratyl. 400 B, Gorg. 493 A, Phaedo, 67 D; Cic. Lael. IV. 14.

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15

21

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vestra: the plurals, vos and vester, it will be noticed, are used in addressing Africanus, where his fellow-mortals are included; the Latins did not until late use vos and vester, like nos and noster, for the singular. For the sentiment cp. de Senect. xxl. 77.

quin aspicis: 'why, do you not...?' i.e. 'come! look' (quin= old ablative quoi + the negative ne).

venientem: Mai asks: 'quo pacto venientem?' He remarks that Proclus and Porphyry (of the Neo-Platonic School of Philosophy) thought that light was the 'vehiculum animarum'.

vim lacrimarum: 'a flood of tears': like the Greek dúvaμis (cp. the vulgar use of the word power, e.g. 'a power of money') vis is frequently used in the sense of copia: the notion of 'abundance' is further carried on in profudi, 'profuse'.

§ 7.

templum: like Greek Téμevos, ‘a place cut or marked off': hence, in the language of the Augurs, templa were regions, including the prospect of the heavens, marked out by their divining rod (lituus), for the purpose of observing the auspicia.

liberaverit: Plato, Phaedo 62 B, ễv тɩɩ øpovpậ éσμev oi äv@pwπоi καὶ οὐ δεῖ δὴ ἑαυτὸν ἐκ ταύτης λύειν οὐδ ̓ ἀποδιδράσκειν. ‘We mortals are at a post, as it were; and one may not relieve one's self from this, nor desert from it'. Cp. de Senect. XX. 73, vetatque Pythagoras iniussu imperatoris, id est Dei, de praesidio et statione vitae decedere. Cp. Plato, Apolog. 28 E.

tuerentur: 'keep, dwell on': cp. de Senect. XXI. 77, credo deos inmortales sparsisse animos in corpora humana, ut essent qui terras tuerentur, quique, caelestium ordinem contemplantes, imitarentur eum vitae modo atque constantia. Some think that tuerentur=intuerentur; but Scipio is expressly told (§ 12) to disregard things sublunar. As Mr Reid remarks, Cicero carries on Plato's notion of the ppovpá. The imperfect conjunctive, as Moser observes, is used to call attention to the design of God at the time of the creation. (See Madvig, L. G. § 383. 2.)

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medium: the ancients regarded the earth as the central point of the planetary system: cp. § 10.

quae: the relative is frequently accommodated to the gender of the following noun (Madvig, § 316): cp. § 13 n., quem Oceanum.

sidera: 'constellations': Macrobius says: 'sic et apud Graecos ἀστήρ εἰ ἄστρον diversa significant et ἀστήρ stella una est, ἄστρον signum stellis coactum, quod nos sidus vocamus'; but these distinctions are not always observed.

divinis: cp. de N. D. 11. xv. 39, hac mundi divinitate perspecta, tribuenda est sideribus eadem divinitas quae ex nobilissima purissimaque aetheris parte gignuntur neque ulla praeterea sunt admixta natura, totaque sunt callida atque perlucida.

circulos: orbes is probably added by way of explanation (see § 20, natura, note): cp. de N. D. 11. xviii. 47, circulus aut orbis, qui KÚKλos Graece dicitur. Macrobius, however, says that orbis here= the revolution of a planet in its orbit; while circus (M. reads here circos) refers to its passage through the signs of the Zodiac.

migrandum: cp. de Senect. XXIII. 84, ex vita ita discedo tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam e domo, commorandi enim natura deversorium nobis, non habitandi dedit. Plato, Apolog. 40 C, speaks of death as a μεταβολή τις—καὶ μετοίκησις τῇ ψυχῇ τοῦ τόπου τοῦ ἐνθένδε εἰς ἄλλον τόπον, ‘a shifting and a change of habitation for the soul, from this world to another'.

munus: cp. de Senect. XXI. 77, dum sumus in his inclusi compagibus corporis, munere quodam necessitatis et gravi opere (? onere) perfungimur.

[humanum] has every appearance of a gloss.

§ 8, P. 16.

2 qui te genui: 'your sire': pater following avus would have been misleading, as Paulus was not the elder Scipio's son: moreover, by Roman law, Paulus was no longer entitled to this name: cp. § 6. pietatem: § 4, impias, note.

3

in parentibus: 'in the case of parents', 'where parents are con. cerned': in parentes = 'towards parents'. Cp. de Off. I. xvii. 57, sed