struggle, I beg of you, and even though weary, yet re-form your
ranks. Happy are they who conquer, happy they who are conquered.
What can be more glorious than the youth who can say to himself--it
would not be right to say it to another--"I have conquered my
father with benefits"? What is more fortunate than that old man who
declares everywhere to everyone that he has been conquered in
benefits by his son? What, again, is more blissful than to be
overcome in such a contest?"




BOOK IV.

I.


Of all the matters which we have discussed, Aebutius Liberalis,
there is none more essential, or which, as Sallust says, ought to
be stated with more care than that which is now before us: whether
the bestowal of benefits and the return of gratitude for them are
desirable objects in themselves. Some men are found who act
honourably from commercial motives, and who do not care for
unrewarded virtue, though it can confer no glory if it brings any
profit. What can be more base than for a man to consider what it
costs him to be a good man, when virtue neither allures by gain nor
deters by loss, and is so far from bribing any one with hopes and
promises, that on the other hand she bids them spend money upon
herself, and often consists in voluntary gifts? We must go to her,
trampling what is merely useful under our feet: whithersoever she