I console myself, and, chief of all, I find comfort in my freedom from
the apprehension that oppresses most men when their friends die, for I
do not think that any evil has befallen Scipio. If evil has befallen, it
is to me. But to be severely afflicted by one's own misfortunes is the
token of self-love, not of friendship. As for him, indeed who can deny
that the issue has been to his pre-eminent glory? Unless he had wished--
what never entered into his mind--an endless life on earth what was
there within human desire that did not accrue to the man who in his very
earliest youth by his incredible ability and prowess surpassed the
highest expectations that all had formed of his boyhood, who never
sought the consulship, yet was made consul twice, the first time before
the legal age,[Footnote: He left the army in Africa B.C. 147 for home to
offer himself as a candidate for the aedileship, for which he had just
reached the legal age of thirty seven; but such accounts of his ability
efficiency, and courage had preceded him and followed him from the army,
that he was chosen Consul, virtually by popular acclamation.] the second
time in due season as to himself, but almost too late for his
country,[Footnote: The war in Spain had been continued for several
years, with frequent disaster and disgrace to the Roman army, when
Scipio, B.C. 134, was chosen Consul with a special view to this war,
which he closed by the capture and destruction of Numantia, inconnection
with which, it must he confessed, his record is rather that of a
relentless and sanguinary enemy than of a generous and placable
antagonist.] who by the overthrow of two cities implacably hostile to
the Roman empire put a period, not only to the wars that were but to
wars that else must have been? What shall I say of the singular
affability of his manners, of his filial piety to his mother, [Footnote:
He was the son of Paulus Aemilius, and the adopted son of Publius
Cornelius Scipio Africanus. His mother, divorced for no assignable
reason, was left very poor, and her son, on the death of the widow of