n he could no longer talk
politics, nor act them--when the Forum was no longer open to him, nor
the meetings of the people or of the Senate--when he could no longer
make himself heard on behalf of the State--then he took to discussions
on Carneades. And his discussions are wonderful. How could he lay his
mind to work when his daughter was dead, and write in beautiful language
four such treatises as came from his pen while he was thinking of the
temple which was to be built to her memory? It is a marvel that at such
a period, at such an age, he should have been equal to the labor. But it
was thus that he amused himself, consoled himself, distracted himself.
It is hard to believe that, in the sad evening of his life, such a power
should have remained with him; but easier, I think, than to imagine that
in that year of his life he had suddenly become philosophical.

In describing the Academica, the first of these works in point of time,
it is necessary to explain that by reason of an alteration in his plan
of publishing, made by Cicero after he had sent the first copy to
Atticus, and by the accident that the second part has been preserved of
the former copy and the first part of the second, a confusion has
arisen. Cicero had felt that he might have done better by his friends
than to bring Hortensius, Catulus, and Lucullus discussing Greek
philosophy before the public. They were, none of them, men who when
alive had interested themselves in the matter. He therefore rewrote the
essays, or altered them, and again sent them forth to his friend Varro.
Time has been so far kind to them as to have preserved portions of the
first book as altered, and the second of the four which constituted the
first edition. It is that which has been called Lucullus. The Catulus
had come first, but has been lost. Hortensius and Cicero were the last
two. We may perceive, therefore, into what a length of development he
carried his purpose. It must be of course understood that he dictated
these exercises, and assisted himself by the use of all mechanical means
at his disposal. The men who worked for him were slaves, and these
slaves were always willing to keep in their own hands the good things
which came to them by the exercise of their own intelligence and
adroitness. He could not multiply his own hands or brain, but he could
multiply all that might assist them. He begins by telling Varro that he
has long since desired to illustrate in Latin letters