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[42] Now, why did I quote Archytas? To make you realize that if reason and wisdom did not enable us to reject pleasure, we should be very grateful to old age for taking away the desire to do what we ought not to do. For carnal pleasure hinders deliberation, is at war with reason, blindfolds the eyes of the mind, so to speak, and has no fellowship with virtue.

It was a disagreeable duty that I performed in expelling1 Lucius Flamininus from the senate, for [p. 53] he was a brother of that most valiant man, Titus Flamininus, and had been consul seven years before; but I thought that lust merited the brand of infamy. For, when in Gaul during his consulship, at the solicitation of a courtesan at a banquet, he beheaded a prisoner then under condemnation for some capital offence.2 While his brother, my immediate predecessor, was censor, Lucius escaped punishment, but Flaccus and I could by no means approve of conduct so flagrant and abandoned, especially when to his crime against an individual he added dishonour to the state.

1 This was done while Cato and L. Valerius Flaccus were censors, in 184 B.C. Titus Flamininus was consul in 192, hence seven years intervened between the consulship and the expulsion of Lucius Flamininus from the senate.

2 Cf. Livy xxxix. 42. 7, xxxix. 43. 2.

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