knowledge, and in learning everything now within our reach,--an
employment in which, when not under the eyes of the public, we passed
all our leisure time together? Had the recollection and remembrance of
these things died with him, I could not anyhow bear the loss of a man,
thus bound to me in the closest intimacy and holding me in the dearest
love. But they are not blotted out, they are rather nourished and
increased by reflection and memory; and were I entirely bereft of them,
my advanced age would still be my great comfort, for I can miss his
society but for a brief season, and all sorrows, however heavy, if they
can last but a little while, ought to be endured.

I had these things to say to you about friendship; and I exhort you that
you so give the foremost place to virtue without which friendship cannot
be, that with the sole exception of virtue, you may think nothing to be
preferred to friendship.


SCIPIO'S DREAM.


1. When I arrived in Africa, to serve, as you know, in the office of
military Tribune of the fourth Legion, under Manius [Footnote: The
praenomen _Marcus_ is given to Manilius in the manuscript of the _De
Republics_ discovered by Angelo Mai; but Manius is the reading in all
previous authorities as to this special fragment.] Manilius as consul, I
desired nothing so much as to meet Masinissa [Footnote: King of
Numidia,--a country nearly identical in extent with the present province
of Algeria. Its name defines its people, being derived from [Greek:
nomades], _nomads._ Its inhabitants were a wild, semi-savage cluster of
tribes, black and white. Masinissa, though faithful to the Romans after