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What, then, was the subject of your discussion? said Philus. We were talking, said Scipio, of the double suns that recently appeared, and I wish, Philus, to hear what you think of them. XII. Just as he was speaking, a boy announced that Lælius was coming to call on him, and that he had already left his house.
Scipio was asking me, replied Philus, what I thought of the parhelion, or mock sun, whose recent apparition was so strongly attested. Lælius. Do you say then, my Philus, that we have sufficiently examined those questions which concern our own houses and the Commonwealth, that we begin to investigate the celestial mysteries?
XIII. Then Philus, commencing the conversation, said: It does not appear to me that the presence of our new guests need alter the subject of our discussion, but only that it should induce us to treat it more philosophically, and in a manner more worthy of our increased audience. What do you allude to? said Lælius; or what was the discussion we broke in upon?
To these, while deliberating with a few others on the crisis of their affairs, Publius Furius Philus, the son of a man of consular dignity, brings intelligence, "That it was in vain that they cherished hopes which could never be realized: that the state was despaired of, and lamented as lost.
And Philus said: Very well; I obey you, and wilfully, with my eyes open, I will undertake this dirty business; because, since those who seek for gold do not flinch at the sight of the mud, so we who are searching for justice, which is far more precious than gold, are bound to shrink from no annoyance.
In the third book, the subject of justice was discussed by Lælius and Philus; in the fourth, Scipio treated of morals and education; while in the fifth and sixth, the duties of a magistrate were explained, and the best means of preventing changes and revolutions in the constitution itself.
Another member of the circle, Lucius Furius Philus, initiated that connection of Roman law with the Stoic philosophy which continued ever after to be so intimate and so far-reaching. In this circle, too, Roman history began to be written in Latin.
For it often happens that there are certain superiorities, as for example Scipio's in what I may call our set. Now he never assumed any airs of superiority over Philus, or Rupilius, or Mummius, or over friends of a lower rank stilt.
The speakers are Scipio Africanus the younger, in whose garden the scene is laid; Caius Lælius; Lucius Furius Philus; Marcus Manilius; Spurius Mummius, the brother of the taker of Corinth, a Stoic; Quintus Ælius Tubero, a nephew of Africanus; Publius Rutilius Rufus; Quintus Mucius Scævola, the tutor of Cicero; and Caius Fannius, who was absent, however, on the second day of the conference.
There was perhaps a sublatent irony in making Philus play this part; for he was an eminently upright man. FANNIUS. It was indeed easy for the man pre-eminently just to defend justice. SCAEVOLA. As to friendship, then, is not its defence easy for him who has won the highest celebrity on the ground of friendship maintained with pre-eminent faithfulness, consistency, and probity?
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