But for the purposes of this chapter
we may discern and discuss two main types of character in this
aristocracy: first, that on which the new Greek culture had worked to
advantage, not destroying the best Roman qualities, but drawing them
into usefulness in new ways; secondly, that on which the same culture
had worked to its harm by taking advantage of weak points in the Roman
armour, sapping the true Roman quality without substituting any other
excellence. We will briefly trace the growth of these two types, and
take an example of each among Cicero's intimate friends, not from
the famous personages familiar to every one, but from eminent and
interesting men of whom the ordinary student knows comparatively
little.
Ever since the Hannibalic war, and probably even before it, Roman
nobles had felt the power of Greek culture; they had begun to think,
to learn about peoples who were different from themselves in habits
and manners, and to advance, the best of them at least, in wisdom and
knowledge; and this is true in spite of the unquestioned fact that it
was in this same era that the seeds were sown of moral and political
degeneracy.
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