people wonder at my following that philosophy[75] chiefly which seems
to take away the light, and to bury and envelop things in a kind of
artificial night, and that I should so unexpectedly have taken up the
defence of a school that has been long neglected and forsaken. But it
is a mistake to suppose that this application to philosophical studies
has been sudden on my part. I have applied myself to them from my
youth, at no small expense of time and trouble; and I have been in the
habit of philosophizing a great deal when I least seemed to think about
it; for the truth of which I appeal to my orations, which are filled
with quotations from philosophers, and to my intimacy with those very
learned men who frequented my house and conversed daily with me,
particularly Diodorus, Philo, Antiochus, and Posidonius,[76] under whom
I was bred; and if all the precepts of philosophy are to have reference
to the conduct of life, I am inclined to think that I have advanced,
both in public and private affairs, only such principles as may be
supported by reason and authority.

IV. But if any one should ask what has induced me, in the decline of
life, to write on these subjects, nothing is more easily answered; for
when I found myself entirely disengaged from business, and the
commonwealth reduced to the necessity of being governed by the
direction and care of one man,[77] I thought it becoming, for the sake
of the public, to instruct my countrymen in philosophy, and that it
would be of importance, and much to the honor and commendation of our
city, to have such great and excellent subjects introduced in the Latin
tongue. I the less repent of my undertaking, since I plainly see that I
have excited in many a desire, not only of learning, but of writing;
for we have had several Romans well grounded in the learning of the
Greeks who were unable to communicate to their countrymen what they had
learned, because they looked upon it as impossible to express that in
Latin which they had received from the Greeks. In this point I think I
have succeeded so well that what I have done is not, even in
copiousness of expression, inferior to that language.

Another inducement to it was a melancholy disposition of mind, and the
great and heavy oppression of fortune that was upon me; from which, if
I could have found any surer remedy, I would not have sought relief in
this pursuit. But I could procure ease by no means better than by not
only applying m