On this passage Lactantius remarks, that such superstitious fools are much more absurd than the children to whom the satirist compares them, as the latter only mistake statues for men, the former for gods. There are two lines in the 26th book, which every nation should remember in the hour of disaster—
“Ut populus Romanus victus vi, et superatus præliis
Sæpe est multis; bello vero nunquam, in quo sunt omnia[422].”
But the most celebrated and longest passage we now have from Lucilius, is his definition of Virtus—
“Virtus, Albine, est, pretium persolvere verum,
Queis in versamur, queis vivimus rebus, potesse:
Virtus est homini, scire id quod quæque habeat res;
Virtus, scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum,
Quæ bona, quæ mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum;
Virtus, quærendæ rei finem scire modumque: