In 129, after a violent scene in the senate, where he had opposed the
carrying out of Ti. Gracchus' agrarian law, he was triumphantly escorted
home by a crowd, composed chiefly of Italians whose interests had been
threatened by the law. Next morning he was found dead in his bed. Opinion
as to the cause of his death was divided at the time and so remained. In
the _Laelius_ the death is assumed to have been from natural causes.[52]
Elsewhere, however, Cicero adopts the view of many of Scipio's friends that
he was murdered by Carbo.[53] Carbo afterwards lent color to the suspicions
by putting himself to death, in order, as was supposed, to avoid a direct
prosecution. In ancient times even C. Gracchus was suspected of having thus
avenged his brother's death, but no modern scholar of any rank has
countenanced the suspicion.

Whether the degree of intimacy between Cato and Scipio, which Cicero
assumes, ever existed or not, cannot be determined.[54] There was much in
Scipio that would attract Cato. Unlike the elder Africanus, he was severe
and simple in his outward life, and though a lover of Greek and Greeks, yet
attached to all that was best in the old Roman character and polity. Though
an opponent of revolution, he was far from being a partisan of the
oligarchy. Altogether, of all Romans, he most nearly deserved the
description, 'ανηρ τετραγωνος ανευ ψογου,' 'a man four-square without
reproach.' In his _De Re Publica_, Cicero points to Scipio as the ideal
statesman, and often elsewhere eulogizes him as an almost perfect Roman.

(3.) _Laelius_. Gaius Laelius, born about 186, was Scipio's most
distinguished officer before Carthage, and his most intimate friend
throughout life. The friendship of the two was one of the most famous in
antiquity, and is celebrated in the _Laelius_. Laelius was an able speaker,
writer and soldier, and devoted to Greek learning, particularly to the
Stoic philosophy. He is with Cicero the type of a man of culture.[55] He,