Note 195 — XVIII EDITORS’ ADDRESS

Page 384, note 1. Plutarch tells that Cineas, the wise counsellor of Pyrrhus, king of the Epirots, asked his monarch when he set forth to conquer Rome what he should do afterwards. Pyrrhus said he could then become master of Sicily. “And then?” asked Cineas. The king told of further dreams of conquest of Carthage and Libya. “But when we have conquered all that, what are we to do then?” “Why then, my friend,” said Pyrrhus, laughing, “we will take our ease, and drink and be merry.” Cineas, having brought him thus far, replied, “And what hinders us from drinking and taking our ease now, when we have already those things in our hands at which we propose to arrive through seas of blood, through infinite toils and dangers, innumerable calamities which we must both cause and suffer?”