old age The Wise was generally applied to him as a surname. But you are
regarded as wise on somewhat different grounds, not only for your
disposition and your moral worth, but also for your knowledge and
learning, and not in the estimation of the common people, but in that of
men of advanced culture, you are deemed wise in a sense in which there
is reason to suppose that in Greece--where those who look into these
things most discriminatingly do not reckon the seven who bear the name
as on the list of wise men--no one was so regarded except the man in
Athens whom the oracle of Apollo designated as the wisest of
men.[Footnote: Socrates.] In fine, you are thought to be wise in this
sense, that you regard all that appertains to your happiness as within
your own soul, and consider the calamities to which man is liable as of
no consequence in comparison with virtue. I am therefore asked, and so,
I believe, is Scaevola, who is now with us, how you bear the death of
Africanus; and the question is put to us the more eagerly, because on
the fifth day of the mouth next following, [Footnote: Latin, _proxumis
nonis_. The _nones_, the ninth day before the _ides_, fell on the fifth
of the month, except in March. May, July, and October, when the _ides_
were two days later. We have elsewhere intimation that the Augurs held
a meeting for business on the _nones_ of each month.] when we met, as
usual, in the garden of Decimus Brutus the Augur, to discuss our
official business, you were absent, though it was your habit always on
that day to give your most careful attendance to the duties of your
office.

SCAEVOLA. As Fannius says, Caius Laelius, many have asked me this
question. But I answered in accordance with what I have seen, that you
were bearing with due moderation your sorrow for the death of this your
most intimate friend, though you, with your kindly nature, could not
fail to be moved by it; but that your absence from the monthly meeting