the very midst of civil war, poring over the book of
Demetrius the Magnesian concerning concord[62]; or employing his days in
arguing with himself a string of abstract philosophical propositions about
tyranny[63]. Nothing could more clearly show that he was really a man of
books; by nothing but accident a politician. In these evil days, however,
nothing was long to his taste; books, letters, study, all in their turn
became unpleasant[64].

As soon as Cicero had become fully reconciled to Caesar in the year 46 he
returned with desperate energy to his old literary pursuits. In a letter
written to Varro in that year[65], he says "I assure you I had no sooner
returned to Rome than I renewed my intimacy with my old friends, my books."
These gave him real comfort, and his studies seemed to bear richer fruit
than in his days of prosperity[66]. The tenor of all his letters at this
time is the same: see especially the remaining letters to Varro and also to
Sulpicius[67]. The _Partitiones Oratoriae_, the _Paradoxa_, the _Orator_,
and the _Laudatio Catonis_, to which Caesar replied by his _Anticato_, were
all finished within the year. Before the end of the year the _Hortensius_
and the _De Finibus_ had probably both been planned and commenced. Early in
the following year the _Academica_, the history of which I shall trace
elsewhere, was written.

I have now finished the first portion of my task; I have shown Cicero as
the man of letters and the student of philosophy during that portion of his
life which preceded the writing of the _Academica_. Even the evidence I
have produced, which does not include such indirect indications of
philosophical study as might be obtained from the actual philosophical
works of Cicero, is sufficient to justify his boast that at no time had he
been divorced from philosophy[68]. He was entitled to repel the charge made
by some people on the publication of his first book of the later
period--the _Hortensius_--that he was a mere tiro in philosophy, by the
assertion that on the contrary nothing had more occupied his thoughts
throughout the whole of a wonderfully energetic life[69]. Did the scope of
this edition allow it, I should have little difficulty in showing from a
minute survey of his works, and a comparison of them with ancient
authorities, that his knowledge of Greek philosophy was nearly as accurate
as it was extensive. So far as the _Academica_ is concerned, I have had in
my notes an opportunity