time so love their offspring, and are so loved by them, that the mutual
feeling is plainly seen,--a feeling which is much more clearly manifest
in man, first, in the affection which exists between children and
parents, and which can he dissolved only by atrocious guilt; and in the
next place, in the springing up of a like feeling of love, when we find
some one of manners and character congenial with our own, who becomes
dear to us because we seem to see in him an illustrious example of
probity and virtue For there is nothing more lovable than virtue,--
nothing which more surely wins affectionate regard, insomuch that on the
score of virtue and probity we love even those whom we have never seen.
Who is there that does not recall the memory of Caius Fabricius, of
Manius Curius, of Tiberius Coruncanras, whom he never saw, with some
good measure of kindly feeling? On the other hand, who is there that can
fail to hate Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius? Our
dominion in Italy was at stake in wars under two commanders, Pyrrhus and
Hannibal. On account of the good faith of the one, we hold him in no
unfriendly remembrance; [Footnote: Pyrrhus, after the only victory that
he obtained over the Romans, treated his prisoners with signal humanity,
and restored them without ransom. See _De Officiis_, i. 12] the other
because of his cruelty our people must always hate. [Footnote: It may be
doubted wheter Hannibal deserved the reproach here implied. The Roman
historians ascribe to him acts of cruelty no worse than their own
generals were chargeable with: while nothing of the kind is related by
either Polybius, or Plutarch. It is certain that after the battle of
Cannae he checked the needless slaughter of the Roman fugitives, and
Livy relates several instances in which he paid funeral honors, to
distinguished Romans slain in battle. The intense hostility of the
Romans to Carthage may have led to an unfair estimate of the great
general's character, and to the invention or exaggeration of reports to
his discredit.]