Cicero, who was unquestionably the first orator, was as decidedly the most learned philosopher of Rome; and while he eclipsed all his contemporaries in eloquence, he acquired, towards the close of his life, no small share of reputation as a writer on ethics and metaphysics. His wisdom, however, was founded entirely on that of the Greeks, and his philosophic writings were chiefly occupied with the discussion of questions which had been agitated in the Athenian schools, and from them had been transmitted to Italy. The disquisition respecting the certainty or uncertainty of human knowledge, with that concerning the supreme good and evil, were the inquiries which he chiefly pursued; and the notions which he entertained of these subjects, were all derived from the Portico, Academy, or Lyceum.

The leading principles of the chief philosophic sects of Greece flowed originally from Socrates—

and who has been termed by Cicero360 the perennial source of philosophy, much more justly than Homer has been styled the fountain of all poetry. Though somewhat addicted to them from education and early habit, Socrates withdrew philosophy from those obscure and intricate physical inquiries, in which she had been involved by the founders and followers of the Ionic school, and from the subtle paradoxical hypotheses of the sophists who established themselves at Athens in the time of Pericles. It being his chief aim to improve the condition of mankind, and to incline them to discharge the several duties of the stations in which they had been placed, this moral teacher directed his examinations to the nature of vice and virtue, of good and evil. To accomplish the great object he had in view, his practice was to hazard no opinion of his own, but to refute prevalent errors and prejudices, by involving the pretenders to knowledge in manifest absurdity, while he himself, as if in contrast to the presumption of the sophists, always professed that he knew nothing. This confession of ignorance, which amounted to no more than a general acknowledgment [pg 206]of the imbecility of the human understanding, and was merely designed to convince his followers of the futility of those speculations which do not rest on the firm basis of experience, or to teach them modesty in their inquiries, and diffidence in their assertions, having been interpreted in a different sense from that in which it was originally intended, gave rise to the celebrated dispute concerning the certainty of knowledge.

In Greece, the heads of sects were succeeded in their schools or academies as in a domain or inheritance. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, continued to deliver lectures in the Academy, as did also four other successive masters, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates, and Crantor, all of whom retained the name of Academics, and taught the doctrines of their master without mixture or corruption. But on the appointment of Xenocrates to the chair of the Academy, Aristotle, the most eminent of Plato’s scholars, had betaken himself to another Gymnasium, called the Lyceum, which became the resort of the Peripatetics. The commanding genius of their founder enlarged the sphere of knowledge and intellect, devised the rules of logic, and traced out the principles of rhetorical and poetical criticism: But the sect which he exalted to unrivalled celebrity, though differing in name from the contemporary Academics, coincided with them generally in all the principal points of physical and moral philosophy, and particularly in those concerning which the Romans chiefly inquired. “Though they [pg 207]differed in terms,” says Cicero, “they agreed in things361, and those persons are grossly mistaken who imagine that the old Academics, as they are called, are any other than the Peripatetics.” Accordingly, we find that both believed in the superintending care of Providence, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of reward and punishment. The supreme good they placed in virtue, with a sufficiency of the chief external advantages of nature, as health, riches, and reputation. Such enjoyments they taught, when united with virtue, make the felicity of man perfect; but if virtuous, he is capable of being happy, (though not entirely so,) without them.

Plato, in his mode of communicating instruction, and promulgating his opinions, had not strictly adhered to the method of his master Socrates. He held the concurrence of memory, with a recent impression, to be a criterion of truth, and he taught that opinions might be formed from the comparison of a present with a recollected perception. But his successors, both in the Academy and Lyceum, departed from the Socratic method still more widely. They renounced the maxim, of affirming nothing; and instead of explaining everything with a doubting reserve, they converted philosophy, as it were, into an art, and formed a system of opinions, which they delivered to their disciples as the peculiar tenets of their sect. They inculcated the belief, that our knowledge has its origin in the senses—that the senses themselves do not judge of truth, but the mind through them beholds things as they really are—that is, it perceives the ideas which always subsist in the same state, without change; so that the senses, through the medium of the mind, may be relied on for the ascertainment of truth. Such was the state of opinions and instruction in the Academy when Arcesilaus, who was the sixth master of that school from Plato, and in his youth had heard the lessons of Pyrrho the sceptic, resolved to reform the dogmatic system into which his predecessors had fallen, and to restore, as he conceived, in all its purity, the Socratic system of affirming nothing with certainty. This founder of the New, or Middle Academy as it is sometimes called, denied even the certain truth of the proposition that we know nothing, which Socrates had reserved as an exception to his general principle. While admitting that there is an actual certainty in the nature of things, he rejected the evidence both of the senses and reason as positive testimony; and as he denied that there existed any infallible criterion of truth or falsehood, he maintained that no wise man ought to [pg 208]give any proposition whatever the sanction of his assent. He differed from the Sceptics or Pyrrhonists only in this, that he admitted degrees of probability, whereas the Sceptics fluctuated in total uncertainty.

The systems promulgated in the old and new Academy, and the stoical Portico, were those which became most prevalent in Rome. But the Epicurean opinions were also fashionable there. The philosophy of Epicurus has been already mentioned while speaking of Lucretius. Moschus of Phœnicia, who lived before the Trojan war, is said to have been the inventor of the Atomic system, which was afterwards adopted and improved by Leucippus and Democritus, whose works, as Cicero expresses it, were the source from which flowed the [pg 209]streams that watered the gardens of Epicurus362. To the evidence of the senses this teacher attributed such weight, that he considered them as an infallible rule of truth. The supreme good he placed in pleasure, and the chief evil in pain. His scholars maintained, that by pleasure, or rather happiness, he meant a life of wisdom and temperance; but a want of clearness and explicitness in the definition of what constituted pleasure, has given room to his opponents for alleging that he placed consummate felicity in sensual gratification.

It was long before a knowledge of any portion of Greek philosophy was introduced at Rome. For 600 years after the building of the city, those circumstances did not arise in that capital which called forth and promoted philosophy in Greece. The ancient Romans were warriors and agriculturists. Their education was regulated with a view to an active life, and rearing citizens and heroes, not philosophers. The Campus Martius was their school; the tent their Lyceum, and the traditions of their ancestors, and religious rites, their science,—they were taught to act, to believe, and to obey, not to reason or discuss. Among them a class of men may indeed have existed not unlike the seven sages of Greece—men distinguished by wisdom, grave saws, and the services they had rendered to their country; but these were not philosophers in our sense of the term. The wisdom they inculcated was not sectarian, but resembled that species of philosophy cultivated by Solon and Lycurgus, which has been termed political by Brucker, and which was chiefly adapted to the improvement of states, and civilization of infant society. At length, however, in the year 586, when Perseus, King of Macedon, was finally vanquished, his conqueror brought with him to Rome the philosopher Metrodorus, to aid in the instruction of his children363. Several philosophers, who had been retained in the court of that unfortunate monarch, auguring well from this incident, followed Metrodorus to Italy; and about the same time a number of Achæans, of distinguished merit, who were suspected to have favoured the Macedonians, were summoned to Rome, in order to account for their conduct. The younger Scipio Africanus, in the course of the embassy to which he was appointed by the Senate, to the kings of the east, who were in alliance with the republic, having landed at Rhodes, took under his protection the Stoic philosopher Panætius364, who was a native of that island, and carried him back to Rome, where [pg 210]he resided in the house of his patron. Panætius afterwards went to Athens, where he became one of the most distinguished teachers of the Portico365, and composed a number of philosophical treatises, of which the chief was that on the Duties of Man.

But though the philosophers were encouraged and cherished by Scipio, Lælius, Scævola, and others of the more mild and enlightened Romans, they were viewed with an eye of suspicion by the grave Senators and stern Censors of the republic. Accordingly, in the year 592, only six years after their first arrival in Rome, the philosophers were banished from the city by a formal decree of the Senate366. The motives for issuing this rigorous edict are not very clearly ascertained. A notion may have been entertained by the severer members of the commonwealth, that the established religion and constitution of Rome might suffer by the discussion of speculative theories, and that the taste for science might withdraw the minds of youth from agriculture and arms. This dread, so natural to a rigid, laborious, and warlike people, would be increased by the degraded and slavish character of the Greeks, which, having been an accompaniment, might be readily mistaken for a consequence, of their progress in philosophy. As most of the philosophers, too, had come from the states of a hostile monarch, the Senate may have feared, lest they should inspire sentiments in the minds of youth, not altogether patriotic or purely republican.

Though driven from Rome, many of the Greek philosophers took up their residence in the municipal towns of Italy. By the intercession likewise of Scipio Africanus, an exception was made in favour of Panætius and the historian Polybius, who were permitted to remain in the capital. The spirit of inquiry, too, had been raised, and the mind had received an impulse which could not be arrested by any senatorial decree, and on which the slightest incident necessarily bestowed an accelerated progress.

The Greek philosophers returned to Rome in the year 598, under the sacred character of ambassadors, on occasion of a political complaint which had been made against the Athenians, and from which they found it necessary to defend them[pg 211]selves. Notwithstanding the disrespect with which philosophers had recently been treated in Italy, the Athenians resolved to dazzle the Romans by a grand scientific embassy. The three envoys chosen were at that time the heads of the three leading sects of Greek philosophers,—Diogenes, the Stoic, Critolaus, the Peripatetic, and Carneades of Cyrene, who now held the place of Arcesilaus in the new Academy. Besides their philosophical learning, they were well qualified by their eloquence, (a talent which had always great influence with the Romans,) to persuade and bring over the minds of men to their principles. Such, indeed, were their extraordinary powers of speaking and reasoning, that it was commonly said at Rome that the Athenians had sent orators, not to persuade, but to compel367. During the period of their embassy at Rome they lectured to crowded audiences in the most public parts of the city. The immediate effect of the display which these philosophic ambassadors made of their eloquence and wisdom, was to excite in the Roman youth an ardent thirst after knowledge, which now became a rival in their breasts to the love of military glory368. Scipio, Lælius, and Furius, showed the strongest inclination for these new studies, and profited most by them; but there was scarcely a young patrician who was not in some degree attracted by the modest simplicity of Diogenes, the elegant, ornamental, and polished discourse of Critolaus, or the vehement, rapid, and argumentative eloquence of Carneades369. The principles inculcated by Diogenes, who professed to teach the art of reasoning, and of separating truth from falsehood, received their strongest support from the jurisconsults, most of whom became Stoics; and in consequence of their responses, we find at this day that the stoical philosophy exercised much influence on Roman jurisprudence, and that many principles and divisions of the civil law have been founded on its favourite maxims. Of these philosophic ambassadors, however, Carneades was the most able man, and the most popular teacher. “He was blessed,” says Cicero, “with a divine quickness of understanding and command of expression370.” “In his disputations, he never defended what he did not prove, and never attacked what he did not overthrow371.” By some he has been considered and termed the founder of a third Academy, but there appears to be no solid ground for such a distinction. In his lectures, which chiefly turned on ethics, he agreed with both [pg 212]Academies as to the supreme good, placing it in virtue and the primary gifts of nature. Like Arcesilaus, he was a zealous advocate for the uncertainty of human knowledge, but he did not deny, with him, that there were truths, but only maintained that we could not clearly discern them372. The sole other difference in their tenets, is one not very palpable, mentioned by Lucullus in the Academica. Arcesilaus, it seems, would neither assent to anything nor opine. Carneades, though he would not assent, declared that he would opine; under the constant reservation, however, that he was merely opinionating, and that there was no such thing as positive comprehension or perception373. In this, Lucullus, who was a follower of the old Academy, thinks Carneades the most absurd and inconsistent of the two. Carneades succeeded to the old dispute between the Academics and Stoics, and in his prelections he combated the arguments employed by Chrysippus374, in his age the chief pillar of the Portico, as Arcesilaus had formerly maintained the controversy with Zeno, its founder. He differed from the Pyrrhonists, by admitting the real existence of good and evil, and by allowing different degrees of probability375, while his sceptical opponents contended that there was no ground for embracing or rejecting one opinion more than another. Carneades was no less distinguished by his artful and versatile talents for disputation, than his vehement and commanding oratory. But his extraordinary powers of persuasion, and of maintaining any side of an argument, for which the academical philosophy peculiarly qualified him, were at length abused by him, to the scandal of the serious and inflexible Romans. Thus, we are told, that he one day delivered a discourse before Cato, with great variety of thought and copiousness of diction, on the advantages of a rigid observance of the rules of justice. Next day, in order to fortify his doctrine of the uncertainty of human knowledge, he undertook to refute all his former arguments376. It is likely that his attack on justice was a piece of pleasantry, like Erasmus’ Encomium of Folly; and many of his audience were captivated by his ingenuity; but the Censor immediately insisted, that the affairs which had brought these subtle ambassadors to Rome, should be forthwith despatched by the Senate, in order that they might be dismissed with all possible expedition377. Whether [pg 213]Cato entertained serious apprehensions, as is alleged by Plutarch, that the military virtues of his country might be enfeebled, and its constitution undermined, by the study of philosophy, may, I think, be questioned. It is more probable that he dreaded the influence of the philosophers themselves on the opinions of his fellow-citizens, and feared lest their eloquence should altogether unsettle the principles of his countrymen, or mould them to whatever form they chose. Lactantius, too, in a quotation from Cicero’s treatise De Republica, affords what may be considered as an explanation of the reason why Carneades’ lecture against justice was so little palatable to the Censor, and probably to many others of the Romans. One of the objections which he urged against justice, or rather against the existence of a due sense of that quality, was, that if such a thing as justice were to be found on earth, the Romans would resign their conquests, and return to their huts and original poverty378. Cato likewise appears to have had a considerable spirit of personal jealousy and rivalry; while, at the same time, his national pride led him to scorn all the arts of a country which the Roman arms had subdued.

Carneades promulgated his opinions only in his eloquent lectures; and it is not known that he left any writings of importance behind him379. But his oral instructions had made a permanent impression on the Roman youth, and the want of a written record of his principles was amply supplied by his successor Clitomachus, who was by birth a Carthaginian, and was originally called Asdrubal. He had fled from his own country to Athens during the siege of Carthage, by the Romans, in the third Punic war380; and in the year 623 he went from Greece to Italy, to succeed Carneades in the school which he had there established. Clitomachus was a most voluminous author, having written not less than four ample treatises on the necessity of withholding the assent from every proposition whatever. One of these tracts was dedicated to Lucilius, the satiric poet381, and another to the Consul Censorinus. The essence of the principles which he maintained in these works, has been extracted by Cicero, and handed down to us in a passage inserted in the Academica. It is there said, that the resemblances of things are of such a nature that some of them appear probable, and others not; but this is no sufficient ground for supposing that some objects may be correctly perceived, since many falsities are probable, whereas no falsity can be accurately perceived or [pg 214]known: The Academy never attempted to deprive mankind of the use of their senses, by denying that there are such things as colour, taste, and sound; but it denied that there exists in these qualities any criterion or characteristic of truth and certainty. A wise man, therefore, is said, in a double sense, to withhold his assent; in one sense, when it is understood that he absolutely assents to no proposition; in another, when he suspends answering a question, without either denying or affirming. He ought never to assent implicitly to any proposition, and his answer should be withheld until, according to probability, he is in a condition to reply in the affirmative or negative. But as Cicero admits, that a wise man, who, on every occasion, suspends his assent, may yet be impelled and moved to action, he leaves him in full possession of those motives which excite to action, together with a power of answering in the affirmative or negative to certain questions, and of following the probability of objects; yet still without giving them his assent382.

Clitomachus was succeeded by Philo of Larissa, who fled from Greece to Italy, during the Mithridatic war, and revived at Rome a system of philosophy, which by this time began to be rather on the decline. Cicero attended his lectures, and imbibed from them the principles of the new Academy, to which he ultimately adhered. Philo published two treatises, explanatory of the doctrines of the new Academy, which were answered in a work entitled Sosus, by Antiochus of Ascalon, who had been a scholar of Philo, but afterwards abjured the innovations of the new Academy, and returned to the old, as taught by Plato and his immediate successors,—uniting with it, however, some portion of the systems of Aristotle and Zeno383. In his own age, Antiochus was the chief support of the original principles of the Academy, and was patronized by all those at Rome, who were still attached to them, particularly by Lucullus, who took the philosopher along with him to Alexandria, when he went there as Quæstor of Egypt.

In the circumstances of Rome, the first steps towards philosophical improvement, were a general abatement of that contempt which had been previously entertained for philosophical studies—a toleration of instruction—the power of communicating wisdom without shame or restraint, and its cordial reception by the Roman youth. This proficiency, which necessarily preceded speculation or invention, had already taken place. Partly through the instructions of Greek philo[pg 215]sophers who resided at Rome, and partly by means of the practice which now began to prevail, of sending young men for education to the ancient schools of wisdom, philosophy made rapid progress, and almost every sect found followers or patrons among the higher order of the Roman citizens.

From the earliest times, however, till that of Cicero, Greek philosophy was chiefly inculcated by Greeks. There was no Roman who devoted himself entirely to metaphysical contemplation, and who, like Epicurus, Aristotle, and Zeno, lounged perpetually in a garden, paced about in a Lyceum, or stood upright in a portico. The Greek philosophers passed their days, if not in absolute seclusion, at least in learned leisure and retirement. Speculation was the employment of their lives, and their works were the result of a whole age of study and reflection384. The Romans, on the other hand, regarded philosophy, not as the business of life, but as an elegant relaxation, or the means of aiding their advancement in the state. They heard with attention the ingenious disputes agitated among the Greeks, and perused their works with pleasure; but with all this taste for philosophy, they had not sufficient leisure to devise new theories. The philosophers of Rome were Scipio, Cato, Brutus, Lucullus—men who governed their country at home, or combated her enemies abroad. They had, indeed, little motive to invent new systems, since so many were presented to them, ready formed, that every one found in the doctrines of some Greek sect, tenets which could be sufficiently accommodated to his own disposition and situation. In the same manner as the plunder of Syracuse or Corinth supplied Rome with her statues and pictures, and rendered unnecessary the exertions of native artists; and as the dramas of Euripides and Menander provided sufficient materials for the Roman stage; so the Garden, Porch, and Academy, furnished such variety of systems, that new inventions or speculations could easily be dispensed with. The prevalence, too, of the principles of that Academy, which led to doubt of all things, must have discouraged the formation of new and original theories. Nor were even the Greek systems, after their introduction into Italy, classed and separated as they had been in Greece. Most of the distinguished men of Rome, however, in the time of Cicero, were more inclined to one school than [pg 216]another, and they applied the lessons of the sect which they followed with more success, perhaps, than their masters, to the practical purposes of active life. The jurisconsults, chief magistrates, and censors, adopted the Stoical philosophy, which had some affinity to the principles of the Roman constitution, and which they considered best calculated for ruling their fellow-citizens, as well as meliorating the laws and morals of the state. The orators who aspired to rise by eloquence to the highest honours of the republic, had recourse to the lessons of the new Academy, which furnished them with weapons for disputation; while those who sighed for the enjoyment of tranquillity, amid the factions and dangers of the commonwealth, retired to the Gardens of Epicurus. But while subscribing to the leading tenets of a sect, they did not strive to gain followers with any of the spirit of sectarism; and it frequently happened, that neither in principle nor practice did they adopt all the doctrines of the school to which they chiefly resorted. Thus Cæsar, who was accounted an Epicurean, and followed the Epicurean system in some things, as in his belief of the materiality and mortality of the soul, doubtless held in little reverence those ethical precepts, according to which,

The rigid and inflexible Cato, was, both in his life and principles, the great supporter of the Stoical philosophy—conducting himself, according to an expression of Cicero, as if he had lived in the polity of Plato, and not amid the dregs of Romulus. The old Academy boasted among its adherents Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates—the Lorenzo of Roman arts and literature—whose palaces rivalled the porticos of Greece, and whose library, with its adjacent schools and galleries, was the resort of all who were distinguished for their learning and accomplishments. Whilst Quæstor of Macedonia, and subsequently, while he conducted the war against Mithridates, Lucullus had enjoyed frequent opportunities of conversing with the Greek philosophers, and had acquired such a relish for philosophical studies, that he devoted to [pg 217]them all the leisure he could command385. At Rome, his constant companion was Antiochus of Ascalon, who, though a pupil of Philo, became himself a zealous supporter of the old Academy; and accordingly, Lucullus, who favoured that system, often repaired to his house, to partake in the private disputations which were there carried on against the advocates for the new or middle Academy. The old Academy also numbered among its votaries Varro, the most learned of the Romans, and Brutus, who was destined to perform so tragic a part on the ensanguined stage of his country.

Little was done by these eminent men to illustrate or enforce their favourite systems by their writings. Even the productions of Varro were calculated rather to excite to the study of philosophy, than to aid its progress. The new Academy was more fortunate in the support of Cicero, who has asserted and vindicated its principles with equal industry and eloquence. From their first introduction, the doctrines of the new Academy had been favourably received at Rome. The tenets of the dogmatic philosophers were so various and contradictory, were so obstinately maintained, and rested on such precarious foundations, that they afforded much scope and encouragement to scepticism. The plausible arguments by which the most discordant opinions were supported, led to a distrust of the existence of absolute truth, and to an acquiescence in such probable conclusions, as were adequate to the practical purposes of life. The speculations, too, of the new Academy, were peculiarly fitted to the duties of a public speaker, as they left free the field of disputation, and habituated him to the practice of collecting arguments from all quarters, on every doubtful question. Hence it was that Cicero addicted himself to this sect, and persuaded others to follow his example. It has been disputed, if Cicero was really attached to the new Academic system, or had merely resorted to it as being best adapted for furnishing him with oratorical arguments suited to all occasions. At first, its adoption was subsidiary to his other plans. But, towards the conclusion of his life, when he no longer maintained the place he was wont to hold in the Senate or the Forum, and when philosophy formed the occupation “with which existence was just tolerable, and without which it would have been intolerable386,” he doubtless became convinced that the principles of the new Academy, illustrated as they had been by Carneades and Philo, formed the soundest system which had descended to mankind from the schools of Athens.

Cicero was in many respects well qualified for the arduous but noble task which he had undertaken, of naturalizing philosophy in Rome, and exhibiting her, according to the expression of Erasmus, on the Stage of life. He was a man of fertile genius, luminous understanding, sound judgment, and indefatigable industry—qualities adequate for the cultivation of reason, and sufficient for the supply of subjects of meditation. Never was a philosopher placed in a situation more favourable for gathering the fruits of an experience employed on human nature and civil society, or for observing the effects of various qualities of the mind on public opinion and on the actions of men. He lived at the most eventful crisis in the fate of his country, and in the closest connection with men of various and consummate talents, whose designs, when fully developed by the result, must have afforded on reflection, a splendid lesson in the philosophy of mind. But this situation, in some respects so favourable, was but ill calculated for revolving abstract ideas, or for meditating on those abstruse and internal powers, of which the consequences are manifested in society and the transactions of life. Accordingly, Cicero appears to have been destitute of that speculative disposition which leads us to penetrate into the more recondite and original principles of knowledge, and to mark the internal operations of thought. He had cultivated eloquence as clearing the path to political honours, and had studied philosophy, as the best auxiliary to eloquence. But the contem[pg 219]plative sciences only attracted his attention, in so far as they tended to elucidate ethical, practical, and political subjects, to which he applied a philosophy which was rather that of life than of speculation.

In theoretic investigation, then,—in the explication of abstract ideas—in the analysis of qualities and perceptions, Cicero cannot be regarded as an inventor or profound original thinker, and cannot be ranked with Plato and Aristotle, those mighty fathers of ancient philosophy, who carried back their inquiries into the remotest truths on which philosophy rests. Where he does attempt fixing new principles, he is neither very clear nor consistent; and it is evident, that his general study of all systems had, in some degree, unsettled his belief, and had better qualified him to dispute on either side with the Academics, than to examine the exact weight of evidence in the scale of reason, or to exhibit a series of arguments, in close and systematic arrangement, or to deduce accurate conclusions from established and certain principles. His philosophic dialogues are rather to be considered as popular treatises, adapted to the ordinary comprehension of well-informed men, than profound disquisitions, suited only to a Portico or Lyceum. They bespeak the orator, even in the most serious inquiries. Elegance and fine writing, their author appears to have considered as essential to philosophy; and historic, or even poetical illustration, as its brightest ornament. The peculiar merit, therefore, of Cicero, lay in the happy execution of what had never been before attempted—the luminous and popular exposition of the leading principles and disputes of the ancient schools of philosophy, with judgments concerning them, and the application of results, deduced from their various doctrines to the peculiar manners or employments of his countrymen. Hence, though it may be honouring Cicero too highly, to term his works, with Gibbon, a Repository of Reason, they are at least a Miscellany of [pg 220]Philosophic Information, which has become doubly valuable, from the loss of the writings of many of those philosophers, whose opinions he records; and though the merit of originality rests with the Greek schools, no compositions transmitted from antiquity present so concise and comprehensive a view of the opinions of the Greek philosophers387.

That the mind of Cicero was most amply stored with the learning of the Greek philosophers, and that he had the whole circle of their wisdom at his command, is evident, from the rapidity with which his works were composed—having been all written, except the treatise De Legibus, during the period which elapsed from the battle of Pharsalia till his death; and the greater part of them in the course of the year 708.

It is justly remarked by Goerenz, in the introduction to his edition of the book De Finibus388, and assented to by Schütz389, that it seems scarcely possible, that those numerous philosophical works, which are asserted to have been composed by Cicero in the year 708, could have been begun and finished in one year; and that such speed of execution leads us to suppose, that either the materials had been long collected, or that the productions themselves were little more than versions. In his Academica, Cicero remarks,—“Ego autem, dum me ambitio, dum honores, dum causæ, dum reipublicæ non solum cura, sed quædam etiam procuratio multis officiis implicatum et constrictum tenebat, hæc inclusa habebam; et, ne obsolescerent, renovabam, quum licebat, legendo. Nunc vero et fortunæ gravissimo percussus vulnere, et administratione reipublicæ liberatus, doloris medicinam a philosophiâ peto, et otii oblectationem hanc, honestissimam judico.” It is not easy to determine, as Schütz remarks, whether, by the expression “hæc inclusa habebam,” Cicero means merely the writings of philosophical authors, or treatises and materials for treatises by himself. “We ought, however,” proceeds Schütz, “the less to wonder that Cicero composed so many works in so short a time, when we read the following passage in a letter to Atticus, written in July 708—‘De linguâ Latinâ securi es animi, dices, qui talia conscribis! ἀπογραφα sunt; minore labore fiunt: verba tantum affero, quibus abundo390’; which words, according to Gronovius, imply, that the philosophic writings of Cicero are little more than versions from the Greek.”

In the laudable attempt of naturalizing philosophy at Rome, [pg 221]the difficulty which Lucretius had encountered, in embodying in Latin verse the precepts of Epicurus,—