al and private troubles
which were pressing upon Cicero when he wrote the work are kept carefully
out of sight. Still we can catch here and there traces of thoughts and
plans which were actively employing the author's mind at Astura. His
intention to visit Tusculum has left its mark on the last section of the
book, while in the last but one the _De Finibus_, the _De Natura Deorum_
and other works are shadowed forth[284]. In another passage the design of
the _Tusculan Disputations_, which was carried out immediately after the
publication of the _Academica_ and _De Finibus_, is clearly to be
seen[285].

Hortensius and Catulus now sink to a secondary position in the
conversation, which is resumed by Lucullus. His speech is especially
acknowledged by Cicero to be drawn from the works of Antiochus[286]. Nearly
all that is known of the learning of Lucullus is told in Cicero's dialogue,
and the passages already quoted from the letters. He seems at least to have
dallied with culture, although his chief energy, as a private citizen, was
directed to the care of his fish-ponds[287]. In his train when he went to
Sicily was the poet Archias, and during the whole of his residence in the
East he sought to attach learned men to his person. At Alexandria he was
found in the company of Antiochus, Aristus, Heraclitus Tyrius, Tetrilius
Rogus and the Selii, all men of philosophic tastes[288]. He is several
times mentioned by Pliny in the _Natural History_ as the patron of Greek
artists. Yet, as we have already seen, Cicero acknowledged in his letters
to Atticus that Lucullus was no philosopher. He has to be propped up, like
Catulus, by the authority of another person. All his arguments are
explicitly stated to be derived from a discussion in which he had heard
Antiochus engage. The speech of Lucullus was, as I have said, mainly a
reply to that of Cicero in the _Catulus_. Any closer examination of its
contents must be postponed till I come to annotate its actual text. The
same may be said of Cicero's answer.

In the intermediate form of the _Academica_, the speech of Lucullus was no
doubt transferred to Brutus, but as he has only such a slight connection
with the work, I do not think it necessary to do much more than call
attention to the fact. I may, however, notice the close relationship in
which Brutus stood to the other persons with whom we have had to deal. He
was nephew of Cato, whose half-sister Servilia was wife of Lucullus[289].
Ca