, and could discourse with the
statesman when he had leisure from public business. Much of this was
no more than fashion, and real endeavour and earnestness were rare;
but the fact remains that one philosophical system, more especially on
its ethical side, took real possession of the best type of Roman mind,
and had permanent and saving influence on it.

Stoicism was brought to Rome by Panaetius of Rhodes, the intimate
friend of Scipio, a mild and tactful Greek whose Rhodian birth gave
him perhaps some advantage in associating with the old allies of his
state. He came to Rome at a critical moment, when even the best men
were drifting into pure material self-seeking; and the results of his
teaching were during two centuries so wholesome and inspiring that we
may almost think of him as a missionary. The ground had been prepared
for him in some sense by Polybius, who introduced him to Scipio and
his circle, and who was then engaged in writing his history. From
Polybius the Romans, the best of them at least, first learnt to
realise their own empire and the great change it had wrought in the
world; to think about what they had done and the qualities that
enabled them to do it. From Panaetius they were to learn a
philosophical creed which might direct and save them in the future,
which might serve as ballast in public and private life, just when the
ship was beginning to drift in moral helplessness. He was the founder
of a school of practical wisdom, singularly well adapted to the Roman
character and intellect, which were always practical rather than
speculative; and far better suited to ordinary human life than the old
rigid and austere Stoic ethics, of which the younger Cato was the
only eminent Roman disciple. From what we know of Panaetius' ethical
teaching,--and in the first two books of Cicero's work, _de Officiis_,
we have a fairly complete view of it,--we do not find the old doctrine
that absolute wisdom and justice are the only ends to pursue, and
everything else indifferent; a doctrine which put the old-fashioned
Stoic out of court in public life. The relative element, the useful,
played a great part in the teaching of Panaetius. Though his system
is based on the highest principles to which moral teaching could then
appeal, it did not exclude the give and take, the compromise without
which no practical man of affairs can make way, nor yet the wealth and
bodily comforts that secure leisure for thought.[172]

Panaet