“In vain is the wise man wise, who cannot benefit himself.And Ennius is quite right, if only he and I were agreed upon the meaning of “benefit.”
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Why, when Quintus Scaevola, the son of Publius
Scaevola, asked that the price of a farm that he
desired to purchase be definitely named and the
[p. 333]
vendor named it, he replied that he considered it
worth more, and paid him 100,000 sesterces over
and above what he asked. No one could say that
this was not the act of an honest man; but people do
say that it was not the act of a worldly-wise man, any
more than if he had sold for a smaller amount than
he could have commanded. Here, then, is that
mischievous idea—the world accounting some men
upright, others wise; and it is this fact that gives
Ennius occasion to say:
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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