[76]
22. Panaetius praises Africanus for his integrity
in public life. Why should he not? But Africanus
[p. 253]
had other and greater virtues. The boast of official
integrity belongs not to that man alone but also to
his times. When Paulus got possession of all the
wealth of Macedon—and it was enormous—he
brought into our treasury so much money1 that the
spoils of a single general did away with the need for a
tax on property in Rome for all time to come. But to
his own house he brought nothing save the glory of an
immortal name. Africanus emulated his father's
example and was none the richer for his overthrow
of Carthage. And what shall we say of Lucius
Mummius, his colleague in the censorship? Was he
one penny the richer when he had destroyed to its
foundations the richest of cities? He preferred to
adorn Italy rather than his own house. And yet by
the adornment of Italy his own house was, as it
seems to me, still more splendidly adorned.
1 Nearly two million pounds sterling.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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