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ON THE COMMONWEALTH.

Who discovered his violence and unbridled ferocity.

Which has often happened not only to individuals, but also to most powerful nations.

In the whole world.

Because he inflicted the annoyances of his old age on your families.

IX. Cicero, in his treatise on the Commonwealth, says, "As Menelaus of Lacedæmon had a certain agreeable sweetness of eloquence." And in another place he says, "Let him cultivate brevity in speaking."

By the evidence of which arts, as Tully says, it is a shame for the conscience of the judge to be misled. For he says, "And as nothing in a commonwealth ought to be so uncorrupt as a suffrage and a sentence, I do not see why the man who perverts them by money is worthy of punishment, while he who does so by eloquence is even praised. Indeed, I myself think that he who corrupts the judge by his speech does more harm than he who does so by money, because no one can corrupt a sensible man by money, though he may by speaking."

And when Scipio had said this, Mummius praised him greatly, for he was extravagantly imbued with a hatred of orators.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SIXTH BOOK.

In this last book of his Commonwealth, Cicero labors to show that truly pious philanthropical and patriotic statesmen will not only be rewarded on earth by the approval of conscience and the applause of all good citizens, but that they may expect hereafter immortal glory in new forms of being. To illustrate this, he introduces the "Dream of Scipio," in which he explains the resplendent doctrines of Plato respecting the immortality of the soul with inimitable dignity and elegance. This Somnium Scipionis, for which we are indebted to the citation of Macrobius, is the most beautiful thing of the kind ever written. It has been intensely admired by all European scholars, and will be still more so. There are two translations of it in our language; one attached to Oliver's edition of Cicero's Thoughts, the other by Mr. Danby, published in 1829. Of these we have freely availed ourselves, and as freely we express our acknowledgments.

BOOK VI.

SCIPIO'S DREAM.

I. Therefore you rely upon all the prudence of this rule, which has derived its very name (prudentia) from foreseeing (a providendo). Wherefore the citizen must so prepare himself as to be always armed against those things which trouble the constitution of a state. And that
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