trial objects as low and transitory things,
incessantly directs its attention to eternal and immutable verities,
and which is persuaded that though others are called men, none are
really so but those who are refined by the appropriate acts of
humanity?

In this sense an expression of Plato or some other philosopher appears
to me exceedingly elegant, who, when a tempest had driven his ship on
an unknown country and a desolate shore, during the alarms with which
their ignorance of the region inspired his companions, observed, they
say, geometrical figures traced in the sand, on which he immediately
told them to be of good cheer, for he had observed the indications of
Man. A conjecture he deduced, not from the cultivation of the soil
which he beheld, but from the symbols of science. For this reason,
Tubero, learning and learned men, and these your favorite studies, have
always particularly pleased me.

XVIII. Then Laelius replied: I cannot venture, Scipio, to answer your
arguments, or to [maintain the discussion either against] you, Philus,
or Manilius.[302] * * *

We had a friend in Tubero's father's family, who in these respects may
serve him as a model.

Sextus so wise, and ever on his guard.

Wise and cautious indeed he was, as Ennius justly describes him--not
because he searched for what he could never find, but because he knew
how to answer those who prayed for deliverance from cares and
difficulties. It is he who, reasoning against the astronomical studies
of Gallus, used frequently to repeat these words of Achilles in the
Iphigenia[303]:

They note the astrologic signs of heaven,
Whene'er the goats or scorpions of great Jove,
Or other monstrous names of brutal forms,
Rise in the zodiac; but not one regards
The sensible facts of earth, on which we tread,
While gazing on the starry prodigies.

He used, however, to say (and I have often listened to him with
pleasure) that for his part he thought that Zethus, in the piece of
Pacuvius, was too inimical to learning. He much preferred the
Neoptolemus of Ennius, who professes himself desirous of philosophizing
only in moderation; for that he did not think it right to be wholly
devoted to it. But though the studies of the Greeks have so many charms
for you, there are others, perhaps, nobler and more extensive, which we
may be better able to apply to the service of real life, and even to
political affairs. As to these abstract sciences