the philosophy
which Socrates had commended, and he asks Varro why he, who was so much
given to writing, had not as yet written about any of these things. As
Varro boasted afterward that he was the author of four hundred and
ninety books, there seems to be a touch of irony in this. Be that as it
may, Varro is made to take up the gauntlet and to rush away at once amid
the philosophers. But here on the threshold, as it were, of his
inquiries, we have Cicero's own reasons given in plain language: "But
now, hit hard by the heavy blow of fortune, and freed as I am from
looking after the State, I seek from philosophy relief from my pain." He
thinks that he may in this way perhaps best serve the public, or even
"if it be not so, what else is there that he may find to do?"[275] As he
goes on, however, we find that what he writes is about the philosophers
rather than philosophy.

Then we come to the Lucullus. It seems odd that the man whose name has
come down to us as a by-word for luxury, and who is laden with the
reproach of overeating, should be thus brought forward as a philosopher.
It was perhaps the subsequent feeling on Cicero's part that such might
be the opinion of men which induced him to alter his form--in vain, as
far as we are concerned. But Lucullus had lived with Antiochus, a Greek
philosopher, who had certain views of his own, and he is made to defend
them through this book.

Here as elsewhere it is not the subject which delights us so much as the
manner in which he handles certain points almost outside the subject:
"How many things do those exercised in music know which escape us! Ah,
there is Antiope, they say; that is Andromache."[276] What can be truer,
or less likely, we may suppose, to meet us in a treatise on philosophy,
and, therefore, more welcome? He is speaking of evidence: "It is
necessary that the mind shall yield to what is clear, whether it wish it
or no, as the dish in a balance must give way when a weight is put upon
it.[277] * * * You may snore, if you will, as well as sleep," says
Carneades; "what good will it do you?"[278] And then he gives the
guesses of some of the old philosophers as to the infinite. Thales has
said that water is the source of everything. Anaximander would not agree
to this, for he thought that all had come from space. Anaximenes had
affirmed that it was air. Anaxagoras had remarked that matter was
infinite. Xenophanes had declared that everything was one whole, and
that