ON THE COMMONWEALTH.
PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.
This work was one of Cicero's earlier treatises, though one of those which was most admired by his contemporaries, and one of which he himself was most proud. It was composed 54 B.C. It was originally in two books: then it was altered and enlarged into nine, and finally reduced to six. With the exception of the dream of Scipio, in the last book, the whole treatise was lost till the year 1822, when the librarian of the Vatican discovered a portion of them among the palimpsests in that library. What he discovered is translated here; but it is in a most imperfect and mutilated state.
The form selected was that of a dialogue, in imitation of those of Plato; and the several conferences were supposed to have taken place during the Latin holidays, 129 B.C., in the consulship of Caius Sempronius, Tuditanus, and Marcus Aquilius. The speakers are Scipio Africanus the younger, in whose garden the scene is laid; Caius Lælius; Lucius Furius Philus; Marcus Manilius; Spurius Mummius, the brother of the taker of Corinth, a Stoic; Quintus Ælius Tubero, a nephew of Africanus; Publius Rutilius Rufus; Quintus Mucius Scævola, the tutor of Cicero; and Caius Fannius, who was absent, however, on the second day of the conference.
In the first book, the first thirty-three pages are wanting, and there are chasms amounting to thirty-eight pages more. In this book Scipio asserts the superiority of an active over a speculative career; and after analyzing and comparing the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic forms of government, gives a preference to the first; al-
