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15 Imaginary Conversation. 15 and then his holding them together so long, are such miracles, that, cutting thro eternal snows, and marching thro paths which seem to us suspended loosely and hardly poised in the heavens, are less. And these too were his device and work. Drawing of parallels, captain against captain, is the occupation of a trifling and scholastic mind, and seldom is commenced, and never conducted impartially. Yet, my friends, who of these idlers in parallelograms is so idle, as to compare the invasion of Persia with the invasion of Gaul, the Alps, and Italy ; Moors and Carthaginians with Mace- donians and Greeks ; Darius and his hordes and satraps with Roman legions under Roman consuls? While Hannibal lived, O Poly bins and Panetius ! altho his city lay before us smouldering in its ashes, ours would be ever insecure. PANETIUS. You said, O Scipio, that the Romans had learnt but recently the business of sieges ; and yet many cities in Italy appear to me very strong, which your armies took long ago. SCIPIO. By force and patience. If Pyrrhus had never invaded us, we should scarcely have excelled the Carthaginians, or even the Nomades, in castrametation, and have been inferior to both in cavalry. Whatever we know, we have learnt from your country, whether it be useful in peace or war. . I say your country ; for the Macedonians were instructed by the Greeks. The father of Alexander, the first of his family who was not as barbarous and ignorant as a Carian or Armenian slave, received his rudiments in the house of Epaminondas. PANETIUS- Permitt me now to return, O Scipio, to a question not unconnected with philosophy. Whether it was prudent or not in Hannibal to invest the city of Rome after his victory, he might somewhere have employed his army, where it should not waste away with luxury. SCIPIO. Philosophers, O Panetius, seem to know more about luxury than we military men do. I cannot say upon what