Laudator Temporis Acti

Lucilius 1196-1208 Warmington = 1326-1338 Marx = 1342-1354 Krenkel (tr. E.H. Warmington):

Manliness or virtue, my dear Albinus, is being able to pay in full a fair price in our business dealings and in the affairs which life brings us; virtue is knowing what each affair has within it for a man; virtue is knowing what is right and useful and honourable for a man and what things are good and again what are bad, what is shameful, useless, dishonourable; virtue is knowing the means and the end of seeking a thing, virtue is being able to pay in full the price from our store; virtue is giving that which in all truth is due to honour, being an enemy and no friend of bad men and manners, and on the other hand being a defender of good men and manners; prizing greatly the latter, wishing them well and being a life-long friend to them; and besides all this, thinking our country's interests to be foremost of all, our parents' next, and then thirdly and lastly our own.

Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum,
quis in versamur, quis vivimus rebus potesse;
virtus est homini scire id quod quaeque habeat res;
virtus scire homini rectum utile quid sit honestum,
quae bona quae mala item, quid inutile turpe inhonestum        1200
virtus quaerendae finem re scire modumque;
virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse;
virtus id dare quod re ipsa debetur honori,
hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum
contra defensorem hominum morumque bonorum:        1205
hos magni facere, his bene velle, his vivere amicum;
commoda praeterea patriai prima putare,
deinde parentum, tertia iam postremaque nostra.

See:

• Woldemar Görler, "Zum Virtus-Fragment des Lucilius (1326-1338 Marx) und zur Geschichte der stoischen Güterlehre," Hermes 112 (1984) 445-468, rpt. in his Kleine Schriften zur hellenistisch-römischen Philosophie (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 105-135
• Wendy J. Raschke, "The Virtue of Lucilius," Latomus 49 (1990) 352-369
• Myles McDonnell, Roman Manliness: Virtus and the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 124-128