244. in ea…in ea (245): the ANAPHORA and ASYNDETON here are among several rhetorical devices that lend intensity to Laelius’ closing remarks.
convenientia:harmony, agreement.
247. exardescit: exardescere, to become hot, glow, blaze forth; the vb. continues the metaphor begun in lumen.
sive…sive (248): conj., whether…or.
249. amare: the vb. has a more emotional and physical connotation than diligere, the sense of which is more rational and intellectual.
250. efflorescit: efflorescere, to begin to flower, blossom; another vivid metaphor.
251. minus: = non.
The universal appeal of friendship.
Una est enim amicitia in rebus humanis de cuius utilitate 230 omnes uno ore consentiunt; quamquam a multis virtus ipsa contemnitur et ostentatio esse dicitur. Multi divitias despiciunt, quos parvo contentos tenuis victus cultusque delectat. Honores vero, quorum cupiditate quidam inflammantur, quam multi ita contemnunt ut nihil inanius, nihil esse levius existiment; 235 itemque cetera, quae quibusdam admirabilia videntur, permulti sunt qui pro nihilo putent. De amicitia omnes ad unum idem sentiunt. Serpit enim nescio quo modo per omnium vitas amicitia, nec ullam aetatis degendae rationem patitur esse expertem sui. Sic natura solitarium nihil amat, semperque ad aliquod 240 tamquam adminiculum adnititur quod in amicissimo quoque dulcissimum est. (86–88, excerpts)
Recapitulation and conclusion.
Ad illa prima redeamus eaque ipsa concludamus aliquando. Virtus, virtus inquam, C. Fanni et tu Q. Muci, et conciliat amicitias et conservat. In ea est enim convenientia rerum, in ea 245 stabilitas, in ea constantia; quae cum se extulit et ostendit suum lumen et idem aspexit agnovitque in alio, ad id se movet vicissimque accipit illud quod in altero est, ex quo exardescit sive amor sive amicitia. Utrumque enim dictum est ab amando; amare autem nihil est aliud nisi eum ipsum diligere quem ames, 250 nulla utilitate quaesita, quae tamen ipsa efflorescit ex amicitia, etiam si tu eam minus secutus sis. Sed quoniam res humanae fragiles caducaeque sunt, semper aliqui anquirendi sunt quos diligamus et a quibus diligamur; caritate enim benevolentiaque 255 sublata, omnis est e vita sublata iucunditas. Mihi quidem Scipio, quamquam est subito ereptus, vivit tamen semperque vivet; virtutem enim amavi illius viri quae exstincta non est.
256. vivit tamen semperque vivet: CHIASMUS emphasizes Laelius’ point.
259. tribuit: tribuere, to grant, bestow.
260. quod…senserim (261): idiom, so far as I observed.
261. una…erat (262): sc. nobis, = we had….
262. communis: shared.
militia:military service.
263. peregrinationes: peregrinatio, foreign travel.
rusticationes: rusticatio,visit to the country.
quid…dicam (264):why should I speak; the DELIBERATIVE SUBJUNCT. is often more rhetorical than real, as here, where the meaning in effect is there is no need for me to speak.
266. contrivimus: conterere, to wear out, consume, spend.
una: adv., along, together.
268. illa: i.e., his experiences with Scipio.
269. augentur: augere, to increase.
270. magnum…solacium: the wide separation of adj. and noun is likely meant to emphasize the degree of solace Laelius felt.
aetas: i.e., his own age. Laelius was about 60 at the time of the dialogue; the date of his death is unknown, though the remarks Cicero attributes to him here suggest that he may not have lived much later than 129 B.C., the year that Scipio died and the dramatic date of this dialogue.
271. in hoc desiderio: in this state of bereavement.
273. haec…dicerem: a conventional formula for concluding a discussion, = these are the things I had to say.
ut…locetis (274):that you place or rank.
275. praestabilius: more excellent, better.
Equidem ex omnibus rebus, quas mihi aut fortuna aut natura tribuit, nihil habeo quod cum amicitia Scipionis possim 260 comparare. Numquam illum ne minima quidem re offendi quod quidem senserim; nihil audivi ex eo ipse quod nollem. Una domus erat, idem victus isque communis; neque militia solum sed etiam peregrinationes rusticationesque communes. Nam quid ego de studiis dicam cognoscendi semper aliquid atque 265 discendi, in quibus, remoti ab oculis populi, omne otiosum tempus contrivimus? Quarum rerum recordatio et memoria si una cum illo occidisset, desiderium coniunctissimi atque amantissimi viri ferre nullo modo possem. Sed nec illa exstincta sunt alunturque potius et augentur cogitatione et memoria mea; et si illis plane 270 orbatus essem, magnum tamen affert mihi aetas ipsa solacium, diutius enim iam in hoc desiderio esse non possum; omnia autem brevia tolerabilia esse debent etiam si magna sunt.
Haec habui quae de amicitia dicerem. Vos autem hortor ut ita virtutem locetis, sine qua amicitia esse non potest, ut, ea 275 excepta, nihil amicitia praestabilius putetis. (100–04, excerpts)
“School of Athens” (with Plato and Aristotle at center) Raphael, 1508 Stanze di Raffaelo, Vatican Palace, Vatican State
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
LIVY’S HISTORY OF ROME: “LEGENDS OF EARLY ROME” AND “HANNIBAL AND THE 2ND PUNIC WAR”
Titus Livius, “Livy” as he is commonly known, is one of the most highly regarded of Rome’s historians. Born in the prosperous north Italian town of Patavium (modern Padua), possibly in 59 B.C., he was likely educated there before moving to Rome. Concerning his life we have remarkably few details: he was married (perhaps to a Cassia Prima), had two sons and a daughter, and came to know well and in many respects admire the emperor Augustus. The region around Patavium was noted for its stern moral conservatism, which proved to be an important influence on Livy’s works, a corpus that included some early philosophical dialogues (now lost) and his monumental 142-volume history of Rome, the Ab Urbe Condita (“From the Founding of the City”).
Writing during the reign of Augustus, Livy shared the emperor’s concern over the moral decline that plagued Roman society; “we can tolerate neither our vices nor their remedies” (nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus), he wrote in the Preface to his history. Nevertheless, as he also makes clear in his Preface, he intended his work to be a kind of remedy, a moral remedy, and many of his narratives, especially those looking back to the early republic, were designed and choreographed to portray the glory days of a heroic past as an exemplum for present and future generations. Although Livy was obviously not, therefore, a strictly scientific historian in our sense of the word, he did employ a range of literary sources, often comparing different accounts, and his rich pages provide an accurate assessment of what his fellow Romans thought about the mores and gravitas and fides and virtus of their forebears.
Livy’s ethical didacticism and the frequently epic qualities of his narrative have caused his work, and rightly so, to be regarded in certain respects as the prose counterpart to the Aeneid, the grand epic of his somewhat older contemporary Vergil. Not only does the Ab Urbe Condita begin with an account of Aeneas’ wanderings, which Livy acknowledges is more akin to the tales poets tell than to genuine history, but the diction of his writing is very often, and deliberately, dramatic and rhetorical (with its many speeches in both direct and indirect discourse), and highly poetic. The first-century A.D. rhetorician and educator Quintilian referred to the “milky richness” (lactea ubertas) of his style, a quality that readers of the following selections will come to savor.
