Further History
Laelius's wife is not known, but c. 188 BC, he fathered a legitimate son who would become consul in 140 BC - Gaius Laelius Sapiens.
Like other superannuated Roman generals, Laelius later served on embassies to King Perseus of Macedon (174-173 BC) and to Transalpine Gaul (170 BC).
It was also in 160 BC, when the aged Laelius (probably then in his mid-seventies) met the author Polybius in Rome during his last years, and gave him much first-hand information about Scipio Africanus. Polybius was a client of Scipio's brother-in-law Aemilius Paullus (who died suddenly in the same year 160 BC), and became a friend to both his sons, notably Scipio Aemilianus (Africanus's adoptive grandson).
Laelius appears to have died some years after 160 BC, but his year of death is not mentioned by Livy nor by Polybius.
Read more about this topic: Gaius Laelius
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)