SCIPIONEM, CATONEM, LACLIUM, NOSTRUM VERO IN PRIMIS AVUM COGITARE. TANTA
VIS ADMONITIONIS INEST IN LOCIS; UT NON SINE CAUSA EX HIS MEMORIAE DUCTA
SIT DISCIPLINA. Cicero de Finibus, lib. 5.

{"Should I, he said, "attribute to instinct or to some kind of illusion
the fact that when we see those places in which we are told notable men
spent much of their time, we are more powerfully affected than when we
hear of the exploits of the men themselves or read something written?
This is just what is happening to me now; for I am reminded of Plato who,
we are told, was the first to make a practice of holding discussions
here. Those gardens of his near by do not merely put me in mind of him;
they seem to set the man himself before my very eyes. Speusippus was
here; so was Xenocrates; so was his pupil, Polemo, and that very seat
which we may view was his.

"Then again, when I looked at our Senate-house (I mean the old building
of Hostilius, not this new one; when it was enlarged, it diminished in my
estimation), I used to think of Scipio, Cato, Laelius and in particular
of my own grandfather.

"Such is the power of places to evoke associations; so it is with good
reason that they are used as a basis for memory training."}]


No one can doubt but causation has the same influence as the other two
relations; of resemblance and contiguity. Superstitious people are fond
of the relicks of saints and holy men, for the same reason that they seek
after types and images, in order to enliven their devotion, and give them
a more intimate and strong conception of those exemplary lives, which
they desire to imitate. Now it is evident, one of the best relicks a