Advancement of Learning 9 



when Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to 

 Rome, and that the young men of Rome began to flock 

 about him, being allured with the sweetness and majesty 

 of his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate 

 that they should give him his dispatch with all speed, lest 

 he should infect and enchant the minds and affections of 

 the youth, and at unawares bring in an alteration of the 

 manners and customs of the state. 1 Out of the same con 

 ceit or humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage 

 of his country, and the disadvantage of his own profession, 

 make a kind of separation between policy and government, 

 and between arts and sciences, in the verses so much 

 renowned, attributing and challenging the one to the 

 Romans and leaving and yielding the other to the Grecians : 



Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, 

 Has tibi erunt artes, etc. 2 



So likewise we see that Anvtus. the accuser of Socrates, laid 

 it as an article of charge and accusation against him, that 

 he did, with the variety and power of his discourses and 

 disputations, withdraw young men from due reverence to 

 the laws and customs of their country, and that lie did 

 profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was, to 

 make the worse matter seem the better, and to suppress 

 truth by force of eloquence and speech. 3 



(ij But these, and the like imputations, have rather a 

 countenance of gravity than any ground of justice: for 

 experience doth warrant, that both in persons and in times, 

 there hath been a meeting and concurrence in Learning 

 and Arms, flourishing and excelling in the same merTand the 

 same_^tges. For, as for men, there cannot be a better nor 

 the like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and 

 Julius Caesar the Dictator; whereof the one was Aristotle s 

 scholar in philosophy, and the other was Cicero s rival in 

 eloquence : or if any man had rather call for scholars that 

 were great generals, than generals that were great scholars, 

 let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xenophon the 

 Athenian; whereof the one was the first that abated the 

 power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made way 

 to the overthrow of the monarchy of Persia. And this con- 



1 Plut. vit. Cat. 2 Virg. JEn. vi. 851. 



8 PJato, ApoL Soc. i. 19, 24. 



