people, if you allow them no
rights, or next to none.

The old Romans would not allow any living man to be either
praised or blamed on the stage.

XI. Cicero says that comedy is an imitation of life; a mirror
of customs, an image of truth.

Since, as is mentioned in that book on the Commonwealth, not
only did AEschines the Athenian, a man of the greatest
eloquence, who, when a young man, had been an actor of
tragedies, concern himself in public affairs, but the
Athenians often sent Aristodemus, who was also a tragic
actor, to Philip as an ambassador, to treat of the most
important affairs of peace and war.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTH BOOK,

BY THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATOR.

In this fifth book Cicero explains and enforces the duties of
magistrates, and the importance of practical experience to
all who undertake their important functions. Only a few
fragments have survived the wreck of ages and descended to
us.

BOOK V.

FRAGMENTS.

I. Ennius has told us--

Of men and customs mighty Rome consists;

which verse, both for its precision and its verity, appears to me as if
it had issued from an oracle; for neither the men, unless the State had
adopted a certain system of manners--nor the manners, unless they had
been illustrated by the men--could ever have established or maintained
for so many ages so vast a republic, or one of such righteous and
extensive sway.

Thus, long before our own times, the force of hereditary manners of
itself moulded most eminent men; and admirable citizens, in return,
gave new weight to the ancient customs and institutions of our
ancestors. But our age, on the contrary, having received the
Commonwealth as a finished picture of another century, but one already
beginning to fade through the lapse of years, has not only neglected to
renew the colors of the original painting, but has not even cared to
preserve its general form and prominent lineaments.

For what now remains of those antique manners, of which the poet said
that our Commonwealth consisted? They have now become so obsolete and
forgotten that they are not only not cultivated, but they are not even
known. And as to the men, what shall I say? For the manners themselves
have only perished through a scarcity of men; of which great misfortune
we are not only called to give an account, but e