Scipio Africanus Minor (Æmilianus) was precisely qualified to be the link between the new and the old school of oratory. His soldier-like character displayed all the vigour and somewhat of the sternness of the old Roman, but the harder outlines were modified by an ardent love of learning. His first campaign was in Greece, under his father Æmilius Paulus. His first literary friendship was formed there with the historian Polybius, which ripened into the closest intimacy when Polybius came as a hostage to Rome. Subsequently he became acquainted with Panætius, who was his instructor in the principles of philosophy. His taste was gratified with Greek refinement, although he abhorred the effeminacy and profligacy of the Greeks themselves. In the spirit of Cato, for whom he entertained the warmest admiration, he indignantly remonstrated against the inroad of Greek manners. In his speech in opposition to the law of C. Gracchus, he warned his hearers of the corruptions which were already insinuating themselves amongst the Roman youth. “I did not believe what I heard,” he says, “until I witnessed it with my own eyes: at the dancing-school I saw more than five hundred of the youth of both sexes. I saw a boy, of at least twelve years old, wearing the badge of noble birth, who performed a castanet dance, which an immodest slave could not have danced without disgrace.” The degeneracy of Greek manners had not corrupted his moral nature, or rendered him averse to the active duties of a citizen; it had not destroyed the frankness, whilst it had humanized the rough honesty, of the Roman, and taught him to love the beautiful as well as the good, and to believe that the former was the proper external development of the latter.