his brother, my immediate predecessor; but I and my colleague Flaccus could not by any possibility give our implied sanction to lust so infamous, so abandoned, which blended with private ignominy disgrace to the office of supreme commander of our army.
XIII. I have often heard from my seniors in age, who said that they when they were boys had so heard from the old men of their time, that Caius Fabricius was wont to express his amazement when, while he was ambassador to King Pyrrhus, Cineas the Thessalonian told him that there was a certain man in Athens,[1] professing to be a philosopher, who taught that all that we do ought to be referred to pleasure as a standard. Fabricius having told this to Manius Curius and Titus Coruncanius, they used to wish that the Samnites and Pyrrhus himself might become converts to this doctrine, so that, giving themselves up to pleasure, they might be the more easily conquered. Manius Curius had lived in intimacy with Publius Decius, who, five years before Curius was Consul, had in his fourth
- ↑ Epicurus, undoubtedly. Cineas was his contemporary, though probably not his disciple. He was the intimate friend and favorite minister of Pyrrhus, king of Epeirus, who used to say that Cineas had taken more cities by his words than he himself had taken by his sword. This sentence—almost overdone—is evidently framed expressly in imitation of an old man's rambling way of telling a story.
with a sword, and when he attempted to retreat, invoking the good faith of the Roman people, stabbed him to the heart.
