"'Grant that man, unenvious, shall wish to hand down your fame to future ages, still there will come those storms of nature. The earth will be immersed in water and scorched with fire; a doom which in the course of ages must happen, and will deny to you any lasting glory. Will you be content that they who are to come only shall hear of you, when to those crowds of better men who have passed away your name shall be as nothing?
"'And remember too that no man's renown shall reach the duration of a year. Men call that space a year which they measure by the return of a single star to its old place. But when all the stars shall have come back, and shall have made their course across the heavens, then, then shall that truly be called a year. In this year how many are there of our ages contained. For as when Romulus died, and made his way here to these temples of the gods, the sun was seen by man to fade away, so will the sun again depart from the heavens, when the stars, having accomplished their spaces, shall have returned to their old abodes. Of this, the true year, not a twentieth part has been as yet consumed. If, then, you despair of reaching this abode, which all of true excellence strive to approach, what glory is there to be gained? When gained, it will not last the space of one year. Look then aloft, my son, and fix your eyes upon this eternal home. Despise all vulgar fame, nor place your hopes on human rewards. Let Virtue by her own charms lead you on to true glory. Let men talk of you—for talk they will. Man's talk of man is small in its space, and short-lived in its time. It dies with a generation and is forgotten by posterity.'
"When he had spoken I thus answered him: 'Africanus,' I said, 'I indeed have hitherto endeavored to find a road to heaven, following your example and my father's; but now, for so great a reward, will I struggle on more bravely.' 'Struggle on,' he replied, 'and know this—not that thou art mortal but only this thy body. This frail form is not thyself. It is the mind, invisible, and not a shape at which a man may point with his fingers. Know thyself to be a god. To be strong in purpose and in mind; to remember to provide and to rule; to restrain and to move the body it is placed over, as the great God does the world—that is to be a god. And as the God who moves this mortal world is eternal, so does an eternal soul govern this frail body.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As I shall explain a few pages farther on, four of these speeches are supposed by late critics to be spurious.
[2] See Mr. Long's introduction to these orations. "All this I admit," says Mr. Long, speaking of some possible disputant; "but he will never convince any man of sense that the first of Roman writers, a man of good understanding, and a master of eloquence, put together such tasteless, feeble, and extravagant compositions."
[3] Pro Cn. Plancio, ca. xxx.: "Nonne etiam illa testis est oratio quæ est a me prima habita in Senatu. * * * Recitetur oratio, quæ propter rei magnitudinem dicta de scripto est."
[4] Quintilian, lib. xi., ca. 1, who as a critic worshipped Cicero, has nevertheless told us very plainly what had been up to his time the feeling of the Roman world as to Cicero's self-praise: "Reprehensus est in hac parte non mediocriter Cicero."
[5] Ad Att., lib. iv., 2. He recommends that the speech should be put into the hands of all young men, and thus gives further proof that we still here have his own words. When so much has come to us, we cannot but think that an oration so prepared would remain extant.
[6] I had better, perhaps, refer my readers to book v., chap. viii., of Mommsen's History.