So that, as men had now become learned, and as the times themselves were not destitute of knowledge, there was not much room left for the success of mere fictions.

Antiquity indeed has received fables that have at times been sufficiently improbable: but this epoch, which was already so cultivated, disdaining every fiction that was impossible, rejected[314] * * * We may therefore, perhaps, attach some credit to this story of Romulus's immortality, since human life was at that time experienced, cultivated, and instructed.

And doubtless there was in him such energy of genius and virtue that it is not altogether impossible to believe the report of Proculus Julius, the husbandman, of that glorification having befallen Romulus which for many ages we have denied to less illustrious men.

At all events, Proculus is reported to have stated in the council, at the instigation of the senators, who wished to free themselves from all suspicion of having been accessaries to the death of Romulus, that he had seen him on that hill which is now called the Quirinal, and that he had commanded him to inform the people that they should build him a temple on that same hill, and offer him sacrifices under the name of Quirinus.
XI.

You see, therefore, that the genius of this great man did not merely establish the constitution of a new people, and then leave them, as it were, crying in their cradle; but he still continued to superintend their education till they had arrived at an adult and wellnigh a mature age.
Then Laelius said: We now see, my Scipio, what you meant when you said that you would adopt a new method of discussing the science of government, different from any found in the writings of the Greeks.