contrary, there is no other language in which it is so hard to bury
thought or to conceal its absence by superfluous verbiage.

I have used Beier's edition of the _De Amicitia_, adhering to it in the
very few cases in which other good editions have a different reading.
There are no instances in which the various readings involve any
considerable diversity of meaning.

LAELIUS.

Caius Laelius Sapiens, the son of Caius Laelius, who was the life-long
friend of Scipio Africanus the Elder, was born B.C. 186, a little
earlier in the same year with his friend Africanus the Younger. He was
not undistinguished as a military commander, as was proved by his
successful campaign against Viriathus, the Lusitanian chieftain, who had
long held the Roman armies at bay, and had repeatedly gained signal
advantages over them. He was known in the State, at first as leaning,
though moderately and guardedly, to the popular side, but after the
disturbances created by the Gracchi, as a strong conservative. He was a
learned and accomplished man, was an elegant writer,--though while the
Latin tongue retained no little of its archaic rudeness,--and was
possessed of some reputation as an orator. Though bearing his part in
public affairs, holding at intervals the offices of Tribune, Praetor,
and Consul, and in his latter years attending with exemplary fidelity to
such duties as belonged to him as a member of the college of Augurs, he
yet loved retirement, and cultivated, so far as he was able, studious
and contemplative habits. He was noted for his wise economy of time. To
an idle man who said to him, "I have sixty years" [_Sexaginta annos
habeo._] (that is, I am sixty years old), he replied, "Do you mean the
sixty years which you have not?" His private life was worthy of all