I had these things to say to you about friendship;
and I exhort you that you so give the foremost place
to virtue without which friendship cannot be, that
with the sole exception of virtue, you may think nothing
to be preferred to friendship.
SCIPIO’S DREAM.
1. When I arrived in Africa, to serve, as you
know, in the office of military Tribune of the fourth
Legion, under Manius [Footnote: The praenomen
Marcus is given to Manilius in the manuscript
of the De Republics discovered by Angelo Mai;
but Manius is the reading in all previous authorities
as to this special fragment.] Manilius as consul, I
desired nothing so much as to meet Masinissa [Footnote:
King of Numidia,—a country nearly identical
in extent with the present province of Algeria.
Its name defines its people, being derived from [Greek:
nomades], nomads. Its inhabitants were a wild,
semi-savage cluster of tribes, black and white.
Masinissa, though faithful to the Romans after he
had convinced himself that theirs must be the ascendant
star, was a crafty, treacherous, cruel prince, probably
with enough of civilization to have acquired some
of its vices, while he had not lost those of the savage.]
the king, who for sufficient reasons [Footnote:
The elder Africanus had confirmed him in the possession
of his own Numidia, and had added to it the adjoining
kingdom of Cirta.] stood in the most friendly relation
to our family. When I came to him, the old man
embraced me with tears, and shortly afterward looked
up to heaven and said: “I thank thee, sovereign
Sun, [Footnote: The Numidians worshipped the
heavenly bodies.] and all of you lesser lights of heaven,
that before I pass away from this life I behold in
my kingdom and beneath this roof Publius Cornelius
Scipio, whose very name renews my strength, so utterly
inseparable from my thought is the memory of that best
and most invincible of men who first bore it.”
Then I questioned him about his kingdom, and he asked
me about our republic; and with the many things that
we had to communicate to each other, the day wore away.
At a later hour, after an entertainment of royal magnificence,
we prolonged our conversation far into the night,
while the old man talked to me about nothing else
but Africanus, rehearsing not only all that he had
done, but all that he had said. When we parted
to go to our rest, sleep took a stronger hold on me
than usual, on account both of the fatigue of my journey
and of the lateness of the hour. In my sleep,
I suppose in consequence of our conversation (for
generally our thoughts and utterances by day have
in our sleep an effect like that which Ennius describes
in his own case as to Homer, [Footnote: The first
verse of the Annales of Ennius was:—
“In somnis mihi visus Homerus adesse poeta.”]
about whom in his waking hours he was perpetually
thinking and talking), Africanus appeared to me, with
an aspect that reminded me more of his bust than of
his real face. I shuddered when I saw him.
But he said: “Preserve your presence of
mind, Scipio; be not afraid, and commit to memory
what I shall say to you.
Copyrights
De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
