precepts in
a more abstruse manner in verse, and to bring their minds from severe
thought to a more composed state by songs and musical instruments; so
Cato, a writer of the very highest authority, says in his Origins, that
it was customary with our ancestors for the guests at their
entertainments, every one in his turn, to celebrate the praises and
virtues of illustrious men in song to the sound of the flute; from
whence it is clear that poems and songs were then composed for the
voice. And, indeed, it is also clear that poetry was in fashion from
the laws of the Twelve Tables, wherein it is provided that no song
should be made to the injury of another. Another argument of the
erudition of those times is, that they played on instruments before the
shrines of their Gods, and at the entertainments of their magistrates;
but that custom was peculiar to the sect I am speaking of. To me,
indeed, that poem of Appius Caecus, which Panaetius commends so much in a
certain letter of his which is addressed to Quintus Tubero, has all the
marks of a Pythagorean author. We have many things derived from the
Pythagoreans in our customs, which I pass over, that we may not seem to
have learned that elsewhere which we look upon ourselves as the
inventors of. But to return to our purpose. How many great poets as
well as orators have sprung up among us! and in what a short time! so
that it is evident that our people could arrive at any learning as soon
as they had an inclination for it. But of other studies I shall speak
elsewhere if there is occasion, as I have already often done.

III. The study of philosophy is certainly of long standing with us; but
yet I do not find that I can give you the names of any philosopher
before the age of Laelius and Scipio, in whose younger days we find that
Diogenes the Stoic, and Carneades the Academic, were sent as
ambassadors by the Athenians to our senate. And as these had never been
concerned in public affairs, and one of them was a Cyrenean, the other
a Babylonian, they certainly would never have been forced from their
studies, nor chosen for that employment, unless the study of philosophy
had been in vogue with some of the great men at that time; who, though
they might employ their pens on other subjects--some on civil law,
others on oratory, others on the history of former times--yet promoted
this most extensive of all arts, the principle of living well, even
more by their life than by their writin