BOOK II.
I.[When, therefore, he observed all his friends kindled with the de]sire of hearing him, Scipio thus opened the discussion.

I will commence, said Scipio, with a sentiment of old Cato, whom, as you know, I singularly loved and exceedingly admired, and to whom, in compliance with the judgment of both my parents, and also by my own desire, I was entirely devoted during my youth; of whose discourse, indeed, I could never have enough, so much experience did he possess as a statesman respecting the republic which he had so long governed, both in peace and war, with so much success.

There was also an admirable propriety in his style of conversation, in which wit was tempered with gravity; a wonderful aptitude for acquiring, and at the same time communicating, information; and his life was in perfect correspondence and unison with his language.

He used to say that the government of Rome was superior to that of other states for this reason, because in nearly all of them there had been single individuals, each of whom had regulated their commonwealth according to their own laws and their own ordinances.

So Minos had done in Crete, and Lycurgus in Sparta; and in Athens, which experienced so many revolutions, first Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Clisthenes, afterward many others; and, lastly, when it was almost lifeless and quite prostrate, that great and wise man, Demetrius Phalereus, supported it.