XV. * * * * * for he was a man I was very much attached to, and I know that my father Paulus esteemed and placed the highest value on him. I remember when I was but a boy, being with my father, who was then consul in Macedonia; that while we were encamped, our army was struck with a religious dread, because the full and splendid moon in the serenity of the night, was suddenly eclipsed. He being then our lieutenant, the year just before that in which he was declared consul, did not hesitate the following day, to pronounce openly in the camp, that it was no prodigy. And that what had then taken place, would always occur in future at those particular periods, when the position of the sun was such, that its rays could not fall upon the moon. “But how could he,” asked Tubero, “make men half wild, comprehend such matters, or venture to speak of them before the unenlightened?” Scipio. “Indeed he did, and with great * * * * [About two pages wanting.] * * * * * there was neither a haughty ostentation, nor any thing in his speech unbecoming a grave personage; and he accomplished a point of great importance, in removing from the disturbed minds of the men, the influence of an idle and fearful superstition. XVI. There was an occurrence similar to this during the great war, which the Athenians and Lacedemonians waged against each other with so much inveteracy. Darkness being suddenly produced by the obscuration of the sun, and a prodigious fear taking possession of the minds of the Athenians. Pericles, the first man in the city, in authority, in eloquence, and in council; taught the citizens what he had himself learnt from Anaxagoras, whose pupil he had been: that it was an unavoidable appearance at the particular period, when the moon had placed herself immediately before the orb of the sun: and although it did not take place every lunar period; it could nevertheless be occasioned only by the moon’s motion. Having convinced them by reasoning, he delivered the people from their apprehension. For it was then a strange and unknown reason to give for an eclipse, that the sun and moon were in opposition to each other, which it is said, was first observed by Thales the Milesian. At a later period, this had not escaped our Ennius, who wrote about the year 350 of the building of Rome, in the nones of June; that “_the moon and night stood before the sun_.” So great, however, is the advancement of knowledge in these matters, that from this day, which we find noted in the principal annals, and by Ennius; the previous occultations of the sun are fixed up to that which took place in the reign of Romulus, in the nones of the fifth month. During which darkness, Romulus, whom the laws of nature indeed would have carried to the tomb, is said to have been borne by his virtue to heaven. XVII. Then Tubero, “Dost thou not perceive Africanus, that what appeared otherwise to thee a while ago * * * * * *