Roman Epicurean Lucretius, from destroying the house in which Epicurus had
lived[48]. Cicero seems to have been somewhat disappointed with the state
of philosophy at Athens, Aristus being the only man of merit then resident
there[49]. On the journey from Athens to his province, he made the
acquaintance of Cratippus, who afterwards taught at Athens as head of the
Peripatetic school[50]. At this time he was resident at Mitylene, where
Cicero seems to have passed some time in his society[51]. He was by far the
greatest, Cicero said, of all the Peripatetics he had himself heard, and
indeed equal in merit to the most eminent of that school[52].

The care of that disordered province Cilicia enough to employ Cicero's
thoughts till the end of 50. Yet he yearned for Athens and philosophy. He
wished to leave some memorial of himself at the beautiful city, and
anxiously asked Atticus whether it would look foolish to build a [Greek:
propylon] at the Academia, as Appius, his predecessor, had done at
Eleusis[53]. It seems the Athenians of the time were in the habit of
adapting their ancient statues to suit the noble Romans of the day, and of
placing on them fulsome inscriptions. Of this practice Cicero speaks with
loathing. In one letter of this date he carefully discusses the errors
Atticus had pointed out in the books _De Republica_[54]. His wishes with
regard to Athens still kept their hold upon his mind, and on his way home
from Cilicia he spoke of conferring on the city some signal favour[55].
Cicero was anxious to show Rhodes, with its school of eloquence, to the two
boys Marcus and Quintus, who accompanied him, and they probably touched
there for a few days[56]. From thence they went to Athens, where Cicero
again stayed with Aristus[57], and renewed his friendship with other
philosophers, among them Xeno the friend of Atticus[58].

On Cicero's return to Italy public affairs were in a very critical
condition, and left little room for thoughts about literature. The letters
which belong to this time are very pathetic. Cicero several times contrasts
the statesmen of the time with the Scipio he had himself drawn in the _De
Republica_[59]; when he thinks of Caesar, Plato's description of the tyrant
is present to his mind[60]; when, he deliberates about the course he is
himself to take, he naturally recals the example of Socrates, who refused
to leave Athens amid the misrule of the thirty tyrants[61]. It is curious
to find Cicero, in