were supposed to have taken place
during the Latin holidays, 129 B.C., in the consulship of Caius
Sempronius, Tuditanus, and Marcus Aquilius. The speakers are Scipio
Africanus the younger, in whose garden the scene is laid; Caius Laelius;
Lucius Furius Philus; Marcus Manilius; Spurius Mummius, the brother of
the taker of Corinth, a Stoic; Quintus AElius Tubero, a nephew of
Africanus; Publius Rutilius Rufus; Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the tutor of
Cicero; and Caius Fannius, who was absent, however, on the second day
of the conference.

In the first book, the first thirty-three pages are wanting, and there
are chasms amounting to thirty-eight pages more. In this book Scipio
asserts the superiority of an active over a speculative career; and
after analyzing and comparing the monarchical, aristocratic, and
democratic forms of government, gives a preference to the first;
although his idea of a perfect constitution would be one compounded of
three kinds in due proportion.

There are a few chasms in the earlier part of the second book, and the
latter part of it is wholly lost. In it Scipio was led on to give an
account of the rise and progress of the Roman Constitution, from which
he passed on to the examination of the great moral obligations which
are the foundations of all political union.

Of the remaining books we have only a few disjointed fragments, with
the exception, as has been before mentioned, of the dream of Scipio in
the sixth.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST BOOK,

BY THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATOR.

Cicero introduces his subject by showing that men were not born
for the mere abstract study of philosophy, but that the study
of philosophic truth should always be made as practical as
possible, and applicable to the great interests of
philanthropy and patriotism. Cicero endeavors to show the
benefit of mingling the contemplative or philosophic with the
political and active life, according to that maxim of
Plato--"Happy is the nation whose philosophers are kings, and
whose kings are philosophers."

This kind of introduction was the more necessary because many
of the ancient philosophers, too warmly attached to
transcendental metaphysics and sequestered speculations, had
affirmed that true philosophers ought not to interest
themselves in the management of public affairs. Thus, as M.
Villemain observe