acter are substituted. The fourth objection is encountered still more boldly, by an eloquent declaration that the chief happiness of old age in the eyes of a philosopher arises from the conviction that it indicates the near approach of the period when the soul shall be released from its debasing connection with the body, and enter unfettered upon the paths of immortality." Smith's Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Mythol. I. p. 732.

XXI. Cato, having asserted, in answer to the fourth complaint, that death should either be utterly despised, if it brings annihilation, or even desired, if it leads to immortality,* proceeds to state more precisely his own views of its effects, in the passage here presented.

Cur. According to Hand, a contracted form of quare, which is itself contracted from cui (old form quoi) rei.

Ab ea propius. This peculiar use of prope, propius, proxime, combined with ab, is not infrequent.

Sed credo.... constantia. For the sentiment, cf. Cic. de Nat. Deor. II. xiv. 37: Ipse autem homo ortus est ad mundum contemplandum et imitandum. Ibid. lvi. 140: [Dii] primum [homines] humo excitatos celsos et erectos constituerunt, ut deorum cognitionem caelum intuentes capere possent. Sunt enim e terra homines, non ut incolae atque habitatores, sed quasi spectatores superarum rerum atque caelestium, quarum spectaculum ad nullum aliud genus animantium pertinet. De Legg. I. ix. 26: Nam quum ceteras animantes [natura] abjecisset ad pastum, solum hominum erexit, ad caelique quasi cognationis domiciliique pristini conspectum excitavit. Acad.

*De Sen. xix. 66, 67: "O miserum senem, qui mortem contemnendam esse in tam longa aetate non viderit! quae aut plane negligenda est, si omnino exstinguit animum, aut etiam optanda, si aliquo eum deducit, ubi sit futurus aeternus. Atqui tertium certe nihil inveniri potest. Quid igitur timeam, si aut non miser post mortém aut beatus etiam futurus sum?"

II. xli. 127: Est enim animorum ingeniorumque naturale quoddam quasi pabulum consideratio contemplatioque naturae. Erigimur, elatiores fieri videmur, humana despicimus, cogitantes supera atque caelestia haec nostra ut exigua et minima contemnimus. Senec. Cons. ad Helv. iii.: Animum contemplatorem admiratoremque mundi. Plutarch. S. N. V. v. The Pythagoreans enjoined the contemplation of the heavens at the beginning of each day, as an incitement to the imitation of the order, constancy, and purity of the celestial bodies. (M. Antonin. Lib. XI.) Anaxagoras (as Diogenes Laërtius relates) being asked for what end he was born, replied, Eis θεωρίαν ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης καὶ οὐρανοῦ.

Incolas paene nostras: Almost countrymen of ours. Pythagoras, after travelling in Egypt and the East, settled at Crotona, a city in that part of Italy called Magna Græcia. Here he gained many distinguished adherents, and established the celebrated Pythagorean club or brotherhood of the Three Hundred.

Qui esset.

....

.judicatus. The words of the oracle are these: Σοφὸς Σοφοκλῆς, σοφώτερος Εὐριπίδης,

Πάντων δὲ σοφώτατος Σωκράτης.

Tot artes tantae scientiae. "Tantae scientiae est genitivus singularis; sensus est tot artes quae magnam doctrinam et scientiam postulant." Schütz.

Haec Platonis fere: These are the principal arguments of Plato. "Haec fere formula est, qua utitur is, qui plurima et potiora dixisse vel exposuisse se declarat." Hand's Tursel. II. p. 700. Some editors read Haec Plato noster; "sed qui sic rescripserunt, minime meminerunt, Catonem hic, non Ciceronem, loqui." Orelli.

XXII. Apud Xenophontem. Cyrop. VIII. vii. Apud, in. "Dicitur de domo et domicilio et de locis in quibus aliquis versari solet. . . . His desumpta est formula, qua auctor alicujus libri vel dicti nominatur. Nam scriptores in libris suis quasi in domicilio habitant." Hand's Tursel. I. p. 409.

Dum eram. "Dum in the sense of quamdiu (as long as) when referring to past time, is regularly joined with the imperfect." Z. § 507. a, in fin. See supra, p. 174, note on dum obsequimur. "Dum formatum esse mihi videtur ita, ut indefiniti temporis signo um praefigeretur de: unde notio exstitit temporis ex aliquo puncto decurrentis." Hand's Tursel. II. p. 291.

Sed. "Sed, ex se factum, propriam vim habet secludendi. .... Sed non opponit, sed secernit et apponit id quod distinguendum videtur." Hand's Tursel. I. p. 425.

Quo diutius memoriam sui teneremus. "Se and suus in subordinate propositions refer, not only to the subject in the same proposition, but also to the subject of the leading proposition, when the dependent proposition is stated as the sentiment of the subject. This is always the case with the accusative and the infinitive, with propositions which denote the object of an action, with final propositions and dependent interrogative propositions, and with such relative and other subordinate propositions as are designated by the subjunctive as the sentiments of another party." M. § 490. c. See Z. § 125, note, and § 550; B. § 151. n. 1.

66

Atqui: And yet. Compounded of at and qui, which is the old form of the ablative quo. Its proper signification, then, is contra quo modo, quodam modo, and, since this relative idea corresponds to the demonstrative, nearly the same as contra hoc modo." Hand's Tursel. I. p. 513. See Z. § 349.

XXIII. An censes, etc. "A common form of direct question with an is when, in an argument, the speaker asks whether some absurd supposition (which is the opposite of what the speaker is maintaining) is true.” Arnold's Lat. Prose Comp., Part II. 447.

Peliam. “Pelias, king of Iolcos, was cut to pieces and boiled by his own daughters, who had been told by Medea that in this manner they might restore their father to vigor and youth." As the story is generally told, Medea mali

ciously deceived the Plautus, in the Pseu juvenating him.

liades, and their father died; but us, represents Medea as actually re

Ad carceres a carevocari. The carceres (literally, enclosures, barriers) were the starting-places in the circus or race-course at Rome a kind of stalls, where the chariots and horses stood until the signal was given. Calx, the goal; see note on calcem, p. 121.

Sed habeat sane: But grant, indeed, that it has advantages. The concessive subjunctive. Sane is here used in a concessive sentence to restrict the meaning; its force may be given by the English expression if you will.

Habet.... modum: Still, it has certainly either satiety or limitation.

༣

· Neque me vixisse poenitet: Nor do I regret that I have lived. See the note on Utme imperii nostri poeniteret, p. 194.

Commorandi... dedit. Grævius cites the words of Seneca, Peregrinatio est vita; multum quum deambulaveris, domum redeundum est. And of Democrates : ̔Ο κόσμος σκηνή, ὁ βίος πάροδος· ἦλθες, ἴδες, ἀπῆλθες.

Catonem meum. M. Porcius Cato Licinianus, the son of Cato the Censor, distinguished as a soldier, and afterwards as a jurist. He died when praetor designatus, about B. C. 152, and a few years before his father.

Quod contra: instead of which. The preposition placed after the relative pronoun. Z. § 324; A. & S. § 279. 10, in

fin.

....

Non quo ..ferrem: Not that I bore it with indifference. The subj. with non quo intimates that the reason assigned is not the true one, after which the true reason is introduced by sed quod with the indic. Cf. A. & S. § 262, Rem. 9; Z. § 536.

Modum: A proper limit.

CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP.

THE dialogue called Laelius, sive De Amicitia, was written B. C. 44, after the Cato Major, and, like that treatise, was very appropriately dedicated to Atticus, "the only individual among his contemporaries to whom Cicero gave his whole

heart."

“The imaginary conversation is supposed to have taken place between C. Lælius Sapiens and his two sons-in-law, C. Fannius and Q. Mucius Scævola, a few days after the death of Africanus (B. C. 129), and to have been repeated, in after times, by Scævola to Cicero. Lælius begins by a panegyric on his friend. Then, at the request of the young men, he explains his own sentiments with regard to the origin, nature, limits, and value of friendship; traces its connection with the higher moral virtues, and lays down the rules which ought to be observed in order to render it permanent and mutually advantageous." Smith's Dict., Vol. I. p. 733.

In the extract here given, Lælius is the speaker.

III. Viderint sapientes: Let wise men see.

Nihil....est. On the sentiment, cf. Tusc. I. xlvi. 111, Nostrum. videamur (p. 61), and the passage from Brutus cited in the note on p. 180.

....

Sibi.... sero: At a time propitious for himself, almost too late for the republic. Sibi suo tempore, i. e. at his own good time.