Who does not see that those men are in reality more solitary who, in the midst of a crowd, find no one with whom they can converse congenially than those who, without witnesses, hold communion with themselves, and enter into the secret counsels of the sagest philosophers, while they delight themselves in their writings and discoveries? And who would think any one richer than the man who is in want of nothing which nature requires; or more powerful than he who has attained all that she has need of; or happier than he who is free from all mental perturbation; or more secure in future than he who carries all his property in himself, which is thus secured from shipwreck? And what power, what magistracy, what royalty, can be preferred to a wisdom which, looking down on all terrestrial objects as low and transitory things, incessantly directs its attention to eternal and immutable verities, and which is persuaded that though others are called men, none are really so but those who are refined by the appropriate acts of humanity?
In this sense an expression of Plato or some other philosopher appears to me exceedingly elegant, who, when a tempest had driven his ship on an unknown country and a desolate shore, during the alarms with which their ignorance of the region inspired his companions, observed, they say, geometrical figures traced in the sand, on which he immediately told them to be of good cheer, for he had observed the indications of Man. A conjecture he deduced, not from the cultivation of the soil which he beheld, but from the symbols of science. For this reason, Tubero, learning and learned men, and these your favorite studies, have always particularly pleased me.
XVIII. Then Lælius replied: I cannot venture, Scipio, to answer your arguments, or to [maintain the discussion either against] you, Philus, or Manilius.[1] * * *
We had a friend in Tubero's father's family, who in these respects may serve him as a model.
Sextus so wise, and ever on his guard.
Wise and cautious indeed he was, as Ennius justly describes him—not because he searched for what he could
- ↑ Two pages are lost here.
