[Footnote 44: 'Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give their true worth to the things on which we are engaged, among which we live. The virtue of a man is to understand the real meaning of each thing: to understand what is right, useful, honourable for him; what things are good, what bad, what is unprofitable, base, dishonourable; to know the due limit and measure in making money; to give its proper worth to wealth; to assign what is really due to office; to be a foe and enemy of bad men and bad principles; to stand by good men and good principles; to extol the good, to wish them well, to be their friend through life. Lastly, it is true worth to look on our country's weal as the chief good; next to that, the weal of our parents; third and last, our own weal.'] [Footnote 45: 'But now from morning till night, on holiday and work-day, the whole day alike, common people and senators are bustling about within the Forum, never quitting it--all devoting themselves to the same practice and trick of wary word-fencing, fighting craftily, vying with each other in politeness, assuming airs of virtue, plotting against each other as if all were enemies.'] [Footnote 46: Cp. Mr. Monro's criticism in the Journal of Philology.] [Footnote 47: Passages of Lucilius apparently imitated by Lucretius:-- (1) Quantum haurire animus Musarum ec fontibu' gestit. (2) Cum sciam nil esse in vita proprium mortali datum Iam qua tempestate vivo, chresin ad me recipio. (3) Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena Vivere et esse homines, sic istic omnia ficta Vera putant. Virgil's 'rex ipse Phanaeus' is said by Servius to be imitated from the [Greek: Chios te dynastes] of Lucilius. Other imitations are pointed out in Macrobius and in Servius. An apparent imitation by Catullus has been already noticed.] [Footnote 48: Cic. De Fin. i. 3.] [Footnote 49: Detrahere et pellem nitidus qua quisque per ora cederet, introrsum turpis.] CHAPTER IX. REVIEW OF THE FIRST PERIOD. The poetic literature reviewed in the last five chapters is the product of the second century B.C. The latest writers of any importance belonging to the earlier period of the poetry of the Republic were Lucilius and Afranius. Half a century from the death of Lucilius elapsed before the appearance of the poems of Lucretius and Catullus, which come next to be considered. But before passing on to this more familiar ground, a few pages may be devoted to a retrospect of some general characteristics marking the earlier period, and to a consideration of the social and intellectual conditions under which literature first established itself at Rome.