* * * * * * “Who can perceive any grandeur in human affairs, whose eyes are accustomed to survey the empire of the gods? What are temporal things in the eyes of those conversant with eternal ones? What is there glorious to the contemplation of him, who looks at the small size of the earth; first as to its whole extent, then to that part of it which men inhabit? And yet we, confined to so small a portion of it, unknown to most nations, hope our name will be diffused to its utmost limits. What are lands, and houses, and flocks, and immense masses of gold and silver to him who neither considers them desirable nor calls them so: the fruition of which appears to him trifling, the use unsatisfactory, the possession uncertain: and which are often in the hands of the most contemptible of men? How fortunate may that man be esteemed, who alone claims a share in all things, not as the privilege of a citizen, but of a philosopher: not by civil rights, but by the common law of nature, which forbids any one to be the proprietor of aught, of the proper use of which he is ignorant! Who considers our consulships and high offices, not to be sought after for the sake of personal advantage or glory; not as things to be coveted, but to be undertaken as duties. The man finally who can say that of himself which my ancestor Africanus, as Cato writes, was wont to say, “that he never was more busy than when he was doing nothing; and that he never was less alone, than when nobody was with him.”
For who can deem Dionysius to have accomplished a greater thing, when by the greatest exertion he snatched their liberties from the citizens, than Archimedes his countryman, who appearing to be occupied in nothing, produced this sphere of which we were but now conversing? Are they not more alone, who find no one in the forum or in the crowd who chooses to talk with them, than those who without any witness can converse with themselves; or as it were, be present at the councils of the most learned men, when they solace themselves with their discoveries and writings? Who in truth can imagine any one to be more rich, than the man who has no wants, beyond the simple calls of nature; or more powerful than him, who has attained the possession of al that he desires; or more blessed than him who is freed from all anxiety of mind? or what man’s fortune is better established than his, who can carry along with him, or out of a shipwreck as men are wont to say, all his possessions? What command, what office, what kingdom can be preferred to that condition of mind, which looking down upon all things human, and esteeming them to be the objects of an inferior wisdom, turns ever to the contemplation of those things that are divine and eternal: persuaded that they only deserve to be called men, who are refined by the sciences of humanity? That which has been said of Plato, or of some other sage, appears to me therefore very excellent. Who being borne by a tempest to unknown lands, and cast on a desert shore, while his companions were apprehensive on account of their ignorance of the place, is said to have perceived geometrical figures described on the sand. Which when he saw, he bade them all be of good heart, for he had seen vestiges of men. Not that he judged so from the cultivation of the fields which he beheld, but from these indications of science. For all these reasons, Tubero, learning, and learned men, and these thy studies have always been pleasing to me.
XVIII. Then said Lælius, “I am not bold enough, Scipio, to speak of these things: nor even to thee, or Philus, or Manilius * * * * *
[Two pages wanting]
* * * * in his paternal house we have had a friend, worthy to be imitated by him.
“Ælius Sextus, conspicuously discreet and wise.” That he was conspicuously discreet and wise, is said by Ennius, not because he sought after what he was not able to discover, but because he answered those who made inquiries of him, in a manner to solve their difficulties and anxieties, in whose mouth when arguing against the studies of Gallus, were always these words of Achilles, in Iphigenia.
“Astrology, its signs; how are they read in heaven?
When goat or scorpion, or ferocious names arise,
The obvious earth is shunned, to scrutinize the skies.”
He also said, for many times and willingly I listened to him, that Zethus the author of Pacuvius, was too great an enemy to science. The Neoptolemus of Ennius pleased him more; who says that he likes to philosophize but only with a few; not willing to give himself up to it altogether. But if the studies of the Greeks delight you so much, there are others freer and more easily diffused, which we may bring to the use of life, or even to that of the republic. As for these arts, their value consists, if in any thing, in stimulating and sharpening the genius of young boys; enabling them in this manner the better to comprehend greater things.