[38] Cicero: Tusc. Disp. i. 1.—“Iam illa quæ natura, non literis, adsecuti sunt, neque cum Græcia neque ulla cum gente sunt conferenda; quæ enim tanta gravitas, quæ tanta constantia, magnitudo animi, probitas, fides, quæ tam excellens in omni genere virtus in ullis fuit, ut sit cum majoribus nostris comparanda?”
[39] A situation forecast in the well-known passage of Plato’s Republic, 619 C, in reference to the soul who has chosen for his lot in life “the most absolute despotism he could find.”—“He was one of those who had lived during his former life under a well-ordered constitution, and hence a measure of virtue had fallen to his share, through the influence of habit, unaided by philosophy.” (Davis and Vaughan’s translation.) What could more accurately describe the character of early Roman morality than these words?
[40] It was inability to grasp this truth that explained the “patriotic” opposition of the Elder Cato to the lectures of Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes. He was “unwilling that the public policy of Rome, which for the Roman youth was the supreme norm of judgment and action, and was possessed of unconditional authority, should, through the influence of foreign philosophers, become subordinated, in the consciousness of these youths, to a more universal ethical norm.” Ueberweg: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Morris and Porter’s translation, p. 189, vol. i.). (Cf. M. Martha: Le Philosophe Carnéade à Rome.)
[41] Cicero: De Officiis, i. 43.—“Princepsque omnium virtutum illa sapientia quam σοφίαν Græci vocant—prudentiam enim, quam Græci φρόνησιν, aliam quandam intellegimus, quæ est rerum expetendarum fugiendarumque scientia; illa autem sapientia quam principem dixi rerum est divinarum et humanarum scientia, in qua continetur deorum et hominum communitas et societas inter ipsos—ea si maxima est, ut est certe, necesse est quod a communitate ducatur officium id esse maximum.”—He is here emphasizing the social duties of the individual man.
[42] De Divinatione, ii. 2.—“Quod enim munus reipublicæ afferre majus meliusve possumus, quam si docemus atque erudimŭs juventutem? his præsertim moribus atque temporibus, quibus ita prolapsa est, ut omnium opibus refrænenda ac coërcenda sit.”—We shall venture to believe that personally Cicero was not a religious man, in spite of the religious usefulness of his philosophic work, and also notwithstanding Trollope’s contention that “had Cicero lived a hundred years later I should have suspected him of some hidden knowledge of Christian teaching.” (Trollope’s Life of Cicero, chapter on “Cicero’s Religion.”) Cicero’s Letters have as much religion in them as Lord Chesterfield’s—and no more.
[43] Herod. ii. 53.
[44] Hesiod: Works and Days, 280 sqq. (cf. 293-326). Here also is to be found that famous description of the hard and easy roads of Virtue and of Vice. The reward held out to progress in Virtue is that this road, too, becomes pleasant and easy at last.
[45] Οὗτος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτῷ πάντα νοήσῃ. (Hesiod: Works and Days, 293.)—It is not surprising that Aristotle quotes this verse with approval, or that it commended itself to the genius of Roman writers. (Cf. Livy, xxii. 29; Cicero: Pro Cluentio, c. 31.)
[46] Pindar: Olymp., 1, v. 28, sqq. (Christ’s Teubner Edition).
[47] Plutarch: De Ε apud Delphos, 385 B.D.