Dionysius the tyrant, who otherwise manifested a natural propensity for cruelty and pride, sent a vessel crowned with garlands to meet Plato, that high-priest of wisdom; and on his disembarcation, received him on the shore, in a chariot drawn by four white horses. Isocrates was able to sell a single oration of his for twenty talents.[1131] Æschines, the great Athenian orator, after he had read to the Rhodians the speech which he had made on the accusation of Demosthenes, read the defence made by Demosthenes, through which he had been driven into exile among them. When they expressed their admiration of it, “How much more,” said he, “would you have admired it, if you had heard him deliver it himself;”[1132] a striking testimony, indeed, given in adversity, to the merit of an enemy! The Athenians sent their general, Thucydides, into banishment, but recalled him as their historian, admiring his eloquence, though they had punished his want of valour.[1133] A strong testimony, too, was given to the merit of Menander, the famous comic poet, by the kings of Egypt and Macedonia, in sending to him a fleet and an embassy; though, what was still more honourable to him, he preferred enjoying the converse of his literary pursuits to the favour of kings. The nobles too of Rome have given their testimonies in favour of foreigners, even. Cn. Pompeius, after having finished the war against Mithridates, when he went to call at the house of Posidonius, the famous teacher of philosophy, forbade the lictor to knock at the door, as was the usual custom;[1134] and he, to whom both the eastern and the western world had yielded submission, ordered the fasces to be lowered before the door of a learned man. Cato the Censor, after he had heard the speech of Carneades,[1135] who was one of the embassy sent from Athens, of three men famous for their learning, gave it as his opinion, that the ambassadors ought to be dismissed as soon as possible, because, in consequence of his ingenious method of arguing, it became extremely difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood.[1136] What an extraordinary change too in our modes of thinking! This Cato constantly gave it out as his decided opinion that all Greeks ought to be expelled from Italy, while, on the other hand, his great-grandson, Cato of Utica, upon his return from his military tribuneship, brought back with him a philosopher, and a second one[1137] when he returned from his embassy to Cyprus;[1138] and it is a very remarkable fact, that the same language which had been proscribed by one of the Cato’s, was introduced among us by the other. But let us now give some account of the honours of our own countrymen.