many Macedonians, when Perseus their king was taken prisoner. I saw,
too, when I was a young man, some Corinthians in the Peloponnesus. They
might all have lamented with Andromache,

All these I saw......;

but they had perhaps given over lamenting themselves, for by their
countenances, and speech, and other gestures you might have taken them
for Argives or Sicyonians. And I myself was more concerned at the
ruined walls of Corinth than the Corinthians themselves were, whose
minds by frequent reflection and time had become callous to such
sights. I have read a book of Clitomachus, which he sent to his
fellow-citizens who were prisoners, to comfort them after the
destruction of Carthage. There is in it a treatise written by
Carneades, which, as Clitomachus says, he had inserted into his book;
the subject was, "That it appeared probable that a wise man would
grieve at the state of subjection of his country," and all the
arguments which Carneades used against this proposition are set down in
the book. There the philosopher applies such a strong medicine to a
fresh grief as would be quite unnecessary in one of any continuance;
nor, if this very book had been sent to the captives some years after,
would it have found any wounds to cure, but only scars; for grief, by a
gentle progress and slow degrees, wears away imperceptibly. Not that
the circumstances which gave rise to it are altered, or can be, but
that custom teaches what reason should--that those things which before
seemed to be of some consequence are of no such great importance, after
all.

XXIII. It may be said, What occasion is there to apply to reason, or to
any sort of consolation such as we generally make use of, to mitigate