2
Numerous events in the latter’s life often recur to me, but the most memorable one of all occurred at his home, as he was sitting, according to his custom, on a semi-circular garden bench, when I and only a few of his intimate friends were with him, and he happened to fall upon a topic which, just about that time, was in many people’s mouths. You, Atticus, were much in the society of Publius Sulpicius, and on that account are the more certain to remember what great astonishment, or rather complaining, there was among the people when Sulpicius, while plebeian tribune, separated himself in deadly hatred from the then consul, Quintus Pompeius, with whom he had lived on the most intimate and affectionate terms.
3
And so, Scaevola, having chanced to mention this very fact, thereupon proceeded to repeat to us a discussion on friendship, which Laelius had had with him and with another son-in-law, Gaius Fannius, son of Marcus, a few days after the death of Africanus. I committed the main points of that discussion to memory, and have set them out in the present book in my own way; for I have, so to speak, brought the actors themselves on the stage in order to avoid the too frequent repetition of said I and said he, and to create the impression that they are present and speaking in person.
