Now that the progress of my narrative and the date call our special attention to this family, I wish in order to satisfy the reader's curiosity to execute a promise I made in the previous book and left unfulfilled,
and this was that I would tell how and why the fame of Scipio in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> advanced so far and became so brilliant more quickly than it should,
and to tell also how his friendship and intimacy with the author grew so great that this report about them not only spread to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Italy&groupId=656&placeId=1199">Italy</a> and Greece, but that even further afield their liking and intercourse were a matter of common knowledge.
Now I have already explained that their acquaintance took its origin in the loan of some books and conversation about them.
But as their intimacy grew, and when the Achaeans in detention were sent off to provincial towns, Fabius and Scipio, the sons of Lucius Aemilius, urgently begged the praetor to allow Polybius to remain in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>.
This was done, and their intercourse now becoming much closer, the following incident took place.
On one occasion when they were all coming out together from the house of Fabius, the latter happened to take a turning leading to the forum, while Polybius and Scipio turned off in the opposite direction.
As they advanced Scipio, addressing Polybius in a quiet and gentle voice, and blushing slightly said:
"Why, Polybius, since there are two of us, do you constantly converse with my brother and address to him all your questions and explanations, but ignore me?
Evidently you also have the same opinions of me that I hear the rest of my countrymen have.
For, as I am told, I am believed by everybody to be a quiet and indolent man, with none of the energetic character of a Roman, because I don't choose to speak in the law courts.
And they say that the family I spring from does not require such a protector as I am, but just the opposite; and this is what I feel most."
Walbank Commentary