id on difficult points,
but to call attention to the finer usages of the Latin, and to add also
whatever explanation seemed necessary to a clear understanding of the
subject-matter. Latin scholarship which shall be at the same time broad and
accurate, including not only a mastery of the language but also a
comprehensive view of the various phases of Roman life and thought, will,
it is believed, be best assured by the slow and careful reading of some
portions of the literature and by the rapid survey of others. Certainly of
the shorter Latin classics few would more fully repay close and careful
study of both language and thought than these charming colloquies on Old
Age and Friendship. While almost faultless in expression, they embody in a
remarkable degree that universal element which characterizes the literary
masterpiece, and makes it the valued possession not merely of an age or a
nation, but of all time.

FRANCIS W. KELSEY

LAKE FOREST, ILL., May, 1882.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION.

I. CICERO AS A WRITER ON PHILOSOPHY.

(i.) STATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN CICERO'S TIME.

In Philosophy the Romans originated nothing. Their energies in the earlier
years of the state were wholly absorbed in organization and conquest.
Resting in a stern and simple creed, they had little speculative interest
in matters outside the hard routine of their daily life. But with the close
of the Period of Conquest came a change. The influx of wealth from
conquered provinces, the formation of large landed estates, the excessive
employment of slave labor, and the consequent rise of a new aristocracy,
prepared the way for a great revolution. The old religion lost its hold on
the higher classes; something was needed to take its place. With wealth and
luxury came opportunity and desire for culture. Greece, with Art,
Literature, and Philosophy fully developed and highly perfected, stood
ready to instruct her rude conqueror.[1]

In Cicero's time the productive era of Greek Philosophy had well-nigh
passed. Its tendency was less speculative, more ethical and practical than
in the earlier time. There were four prominent schools, the New Academy,
the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. The supporters of the
last-named advocated in Science the doctrine of the atom, in Ethics the
pursuit of pleasure, in Religion the complete inactivity of the gods.

The Stoics and Peripatetics were divided by comparatively unimportant
d