to lonely exile,
Arion hurled from his ship. One of them soothed savage beasts, the
other charmed beasts that were compassionate: both musicians were
unhappy, inasmuch as they strove not for honour nor of their free
choice, but for their safety and of hard necessity. I should have
admired them more if they had pleased men, not beasts. Such solitude
were far better suited to birds, to blackbird and nightingale and
swan. The blackbird whistles like a happy boy in distant wilds, the
nightingale trills its song of youthful passion in the lonely places
of Africa, the swan by far-off rivers chants the music of old age. But
he who would produce a song that shall profit boys, youths, and
greybeards, must sing it in the midst of thousands of men, even as now
I sing the virtues of Orfitus. It is late, perhaps, but it is meant in
all earnestness, and may prove no less pleasing than profitable to the
boys, the youths, and the old men of Carthage. For all have enjoyed
the indulgence of the best of all proconsuls: he has tempered their
desires and restrained them with gentle remedies, he has given to boys
the boon of plenty, to young men merriment, and to the old security.
But now, Scipio, that I have come to touch on your merits, I fear lest
either your own noble modesty or my own native bashfulness may close
my mouth. But I cannot refrain from touching on a very few of the many
virtues which we so justly admire in you. Citizens whom he has saved,
show with me that you recognize them!

_A discourse pronounced before the Carthaginians, incidentally
treating of Thales and Protagoras._

18. You have come in such large numbers to hear me that I feel I ought
rather to congratulate Carthage for possessing so many friends of
learning among her citizens than demand pardon for myself, the
professed philosopher who ventures to speak in public. For the crowd
that has collected is worthy of the grandeur of our city, and the
place chosen for my speech is worthy of so great a multitude.
Moreover, in a theatre we must consider, not the marble of its
pavements, not the boards of the stage, nor the columns of the
back-scene, nay, nor yet the height of its gables, the splendour of
its fretted roofs, the expanse of its tiers of seats; we need not call
to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the
mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the
perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand