12
Therefore, his life really was such that nothing could be added to it either by good fortune or by fame; and, besides, the suddenness of his death took away the consciousness of dying. It is hard to speak of the nature of his death; you both know what people suspectAfter a violent scene in the Senate, where he opposed Carbo in the execution of the agrarian law, Scipio was escorted home in the evening by admiring crowds. The next morning he was found dead in bed. Cf. Appian, Bell. Civ. i. 20; Vell. Pat. ii. 4. In other works (De or. ii. 170; Fam. ix. 21. 3; Qu. Fr. ii. 3. 3) Cicero takes the view that Carbo murdered him; Cf. also Cic. De fat. 18; Livy, Epit. 59; Plut. C. Grac. 10.; yet I may say with truth that, of the many very joyous days which he saw in the course of his life—days thronged to the utmost with admiring crowds—the most brilliant was the day before he departed this life, when, after the adjournment of the Senate, he was escorted home toward evening by the Conscript Fathers, the Roman populace, and the Latin allies, so that from so lofty a station of human grandeur he seems to have passed to the gods on high rather than to the shades below.