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QUINTUS MUCIUS SCAEVOLA, the augur, used to
relate with an accurate memory and in a pleasing
way many incidents about his father-in-law, Gaius
Laelius, and, in every mention of him, did not
hesitate to call him “the Wise.” Now, I, upon
assuming the toga virilis, 1 had been introduced by
my father to Scaevola with the understanding that,
so far as I could and he would permit, I should
never leave the old man's side. And so it came to
pass that, in my desire to gain greater profit from
his legal skill, I made it a practice to commit to
memory many of his learned opinions and many,
too, of his brief and pointed sayings. After his
death I betook myself to the pontiff, Scaevola, who,
both in intellect and in integrity, was, I venture
to assert, quite the most distinguished man of our
State. But of him I shall speak at another time;
now I return to the augur.
1 If Cicero assumed the toga virilis when he was sixteen, as he probably did (or in the year 90 B.C.), and the augur died in 88 B.C., then Cicero attended his lectures about two years.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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