academica of cicero. - 912 Freedom Library

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appear that the main purpose of Cicero in this speech was to justify from the history of
philosophy the position of the New Academy, and not to advance sceptical arguments against
experience, which were reserved for his answer to Lucullus. In his later speech, he expressly tells
us that such sceptical paradoxes as were advanced by him in the first day's discourse were really
out of place, and were merely introduced in order to disarm Lucullus, who was to speak
next [268] . Yet these arguments must have occupied some considerable space in Cicero's speech,
although foreign to its main intention [269] . He probably gave a summary classification of the
sensations, with the reasons for refusing to assent to the truth of each class [270] . The whole
constitution and tenor of the elaborate speech of Cicero in the Lucullus proves that no general or
minute demonstration of the impossibility of ep?st?µ? in the dogmatic sense had been attempted
in his statement of the day before. Cicero's argument in the Catulus was allowed by Lucullus to
have considerably damaged the cause of Antiochus [271] . The three speeches of Catulus,
Hortensius, and Cicero had gone over nearly the whole ground marked out for the
discussion [272] , but only cursorily, so that there was plenty of room for a more minute
examination in the Lucullus.
One question remains: how far did Cicero defend Philo against the attack of Catulus? Krische
believes that the argument of Catulus was answered point by point. In this opinion I cannot
concur. Cicero never appears elsewhere as the defender of Philo's reactionary doctrines [273] . The
expressions of Lucullus seem to imply that this part of his teaching had been dismissed by all the
disputants [274] . It follows that when Cicero, in his letter of dedication to Varro, describes his own
part as that of Philo (partes mihi sumpsi Philonis [275] ), he merely attaches Philo's name to those
general New Academic doctrines which had been so brilliantly supported by the pupil of
Clitomachus in his earlier days. The two chief sources for Cicero's speech in the Catulus were,
doubtless, Philo himself and Clitomachus.
In that intermediate form of the Academica, where Cato and Brutus appeared in the place of
Hortensius and Lucullus, there can be no doubt that Brutus occupied a more prominent position
than Cato. Consequently Cato must have taken the comparatively inferior part of Hortensius,
while Brutus took that of Lucullus. It may perhaps seem strange that a Stoic of the Stoics like
Cato should be chosen to represent Antiochus, however much that philosopher may have
borrowed from Zeno. The rôle given to Hortensius, however, was in my view such as any
cultivated man might sustain who had not definitely committed himself to sceptical principles. So
eminent an Antiochean as Brutus cannot have been reduced to the comparatively secondary
position assigned to Hortensius in the Academica Priora. He would naturally occupy the place
given to Varro in the second edition [276] . If this be true, Brutus would not speak at length in the
first half of the work. Cato is not closely enough connected with the Academica to render it
necessary to treat of him farther.
b. The "Lucullus."
The day after the discussion narrated in the Catulus, during which Lucullus had been merely a
looker-on, the whole party left the Cuman villa of Catulus early in the morning, and came to that
of Hortensius at Bauli [277] . In the evening, if the wind favoured, Lucullus was to leave for his
villa at Neapolis, Cicero for his at Pompeii [278] . Bauli was a little place on the gulf of Baiae,
close to Cimmerium, round which so many legends lingered [279] . The scenery in view was
magnificent [280] . As the party were seated in the xystus with its polished floor and lines of
statues, the waves rippled at their feet, and the sea away to the horizon glistened and quivered
under the bright sun, and changed colour under the freshening breeze. Within sight lay the
Cuman shore and Puteoli, thirty stadia distant [281] .
Cicero strove to give vividness to the dialogue and to keep it perfectly free from anachronisms.
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