the law-courts, it was the one
service he could render[123]. He is within his right when he claims praise
for not abandoning himself to idleness or worse, as did so many of the most
prominent men of the time[124]. For Cicero idleness was misery, and in
those evil times he was spurred on to exertion by the deepest sorrow[125].
Philosophy took the place of forensic oratory, public harangues, and
politics[126]. It is strange to find Cicero making such elaborate apologies
as he does for devoting himself to philosophy, and a careless reader might
set them down to egotism. But it must never be forgotten that at Rome such
studies were merely the amusement of the wealthy; the total devotion of a
life to them seemed well enough for Greeks, but for Romans unmanly,
unpractical and unstatesmanlike[127]. There were plenty of Romans who were
ready to condemn such pursuits altogether, and to regard any fresh
importation from Greece much in the spirit with which things French were
received by English patriots immediately after the great war. Others, like
the Neoptolemus of Ennius, thought a little learning in philosophy was
good, but a great deal was a dangerous thing[128]. Some few preferred that
Cicero should write on other subjects[129]. To these he replies by urging
the pressing necessity there was for works on philosophy in Latin.

Still, amid much depreciation, sufficient interest and sympathy were roused
by his first philosophical works to encourage Cicero to proceed. The elder
generation, for whose approbation he most cared, praised the books, and
many were incited both to read and to write philosophy[130]. Cicero now
extended his design, which seems to have been at first indefinite, so as to
bring within its scope every topic which Greek philosophers were accustomed
to treat[131]. Individual questions in philosophy could not be thoroughly
understood till the whole subject had been mastered[132]. This design then,
which is not explicitly stated in the two earliest works which we possess,
the _Academica_ and the _De Finibus_, required the composition of a sort of
philosophical encyclopaedia. Cicero never claimed to be more than an
interpreter of Greek philosophy to the Romans. He never pretended to
present new views of philosophy, or even original criticisms on its
history. The only thing he proclaims to be his own is his style. Looked at
in this, the true light, his work cannot be judged a failure. Those who
contrive to pronounce