litical troubles, he was forced to retire to private life, he
began to carry out a great plan for interpreting the best philosophical
writings of the Greeks to his fellow-countrymen. For this work his liberal
views as a New Academic peculiarly fitted him. His usual method was to take
one or two leading Greek works on the subject with which he was dealing,
and to represent freely in his own language their subject-matter,
introducing episodes and illustrations of his own. He thus presented to the
Romans in their own tongue the most significant portions of the Greek
Philosophy; and in his writings there has come down to us much, especially
of the Post-Aristotelian Philosophy, that was doomed to oblivion in the
original Greek. But further than this, to Cicero more than to any other
Roman is due the formation of a Latin philosophical vocabulary, by which
the language was enriched and fitted for the part it has since taken as the
Language of the Learned. While on many points Cicero's own views can hardly
be determined with perfect exactness, the exalted sentiments and the
exquisite literary finish of his philosophical writings have always won
admiration; and through them he has exerted no small influence on the
literature and life of modern times.[4]

(iii.) THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO.

During the whole of an exceptionally busy public life Cicero devoted his
spare moments to reading and to the society of the learned. After his exile
in 58 and 57 B.C. his political career, except for a brief period just
before his death, was over, and it is at this time that his period of great
literary activity begins, In 55 he produced the work _De Oratore_, in 54
the _De Re Publica_, and in 52 the _De Legibus_, all three works, according
to ancient ideas, entitled to rank as philosophical.[5]

From 51 to 46 B.C., owing first to his absence in Cilicia, then to the
civil troubles, Cicero almost ceased to write. But in the latter year he
was reconciled with Caesar, and as the Senate and law courts were closed
against him on his refusal to compromise his political principles, he
betook himself with greater devotion than ever to literature. The first
work written in 46 was the _Hortensius_, or _De Philosophia_, now lost. It
was founded on a lost dialogue of Aristotle, and set forth the advantages
of studying Philosophy. During the same year Cicero completed several
oratorical works, the _Partitiones Oratoriae_, the _Brutus_, or _De Cla