176 
plii^y's nattieal history. 
[Book yii. 
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, while, on 
the other 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. Eut let us now 
give some account of the honours of our own countrymen. 
The elder Africanus 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 Yirgil to be burnt, 
in opposition to the modest directions to that effect, 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 dehvered, 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 Roman youth from 
his demoralizing doctrines. He lived twenty-eight years after this, and 
died at Athens e.g. 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. 
10 See B. xxxiv. c. 19. 
11 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, B. ii. c. 45, and Plutarch refer to this transaction. — B. 
12 This circumstance is related by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 14, and 
is referred to by Cicero in his defence of Archias, sec. 9. — B. 
1^ M. Varro, the philosopher, sometimes called *' the most learned" of 
