176 pliht's nattjeaIi history. [Book VII. 



from Athens, of three men famous for their learning, gave it as 

 his opinion, that the ambassadors ought to be dismissed as soon 

 as possible, because, in consequence of his ingenious method of 

 arguing, it became extremely difficult to distinguish truth from 

 falsehood.' What an extraordinary change too in our modes of 

 thinking ! This Cato constantly gave it out as his decided opi- 

 nion that all Greeks ought to be expelled from Italy, whUe, on 

 the otlier hand, his great-grandson, Cato of TJtica, upon his 

 return from his military tribuneship, brought back with him a 

 philosopher, and a second one '" when he returned from his 

 embassy to Cyprus ;" and it is a very remarkable fact, that 

 the same language which had been proscribed by one of the 

 Cato's, was introduced among us by the other. But let us now 

 give some account of the honours of our own countrymen. 



The elder Afr-icanus ordered that the statue of Ennius should 

 be placed in his tomb, and that the illustrious surname, which 

 he had acquired, I may say, as his share of the spoil on the 

 conquest of the third part of the world, should be read over 

 his ashes, along with the name of the poet.'* The Emperor 

 Augustus, now deified, forbade the works of Virgil to be burnt, 

 in opposition to the modest directions to that efiect, which the 

 poet had left in his will : a prohibition which was a greater 

 compliment paid to his merit, than if he himself had recom- 

 mended his works. 



M. Varro'^ is the only person, who, during his lifetime, saw 



his famous orations on Justice. The first oration was in commendation of 

 the virtue, and on the ensuing day the next was delivered, by which all the 

 arguments of the first were answered, and justice shown to be not a virtue, 

 but only a matter of compact for the maintenance of civil society. The 

 honesty of Cato was greatly shocked at this, and he moved the senate to 

 send the philosopher back to his school, and save the Eoman youth from 

 liis demoralizing doctrines. He lived twenty-eight years after this, and 

 died at Athens b.c. 129, aged eighty-five, or, according to Cicero, ninety. 



" This is related by Plutarch, in his Life of Cato. His general dislike 

 of the Grecian character is again mentioned, B. xxix. c. 7.— B. 



'" See B. xxxiv. c. 19. 



" We have an account of this embassy in Plutarch. Pliny informs us, 

 B. xxxiv. c. 20, that the only article which Cato retained, of the works of 

 art that he brought from Cyprus, was the statue of Zeno, "not for its in- 

 trinsic merit, but because it was the statue of' a philosopher." Valerius 

 Paterculus, ^. ii. c. 46, and Plutarch refer to this transaction.— B. 



" This cir(?umstance is related by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 14, and 

 is referred to by Cicero in his defence of Archias, sec. 9. B. 



13 M. Varro, the philosopher, sometimes called " the most learned" of 



