who did
display the greatest abilities that way were not very inferior to the
Greeks. Do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in
Fabius,[3] a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had
many Polycleti and Parrhasii? Honor nourishes art, and glory is the
spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in
every nation which are looked upon disparagingly. The Greeks held skill
in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and
therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the
greatest man among the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute;
and Themistocles, some years before, was deemed ignorant because at an
entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him. For this
reason musicians flourished in Greece; music was a general study; and
whoever was unacquainted with it was not considered as fully instructed
in learning. Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were
more honorable than mathematicians. But we have confined this art to
bare measuring and calculating.

III. But, on the contrary, we early entertained an esteem for the
orator; though he was not at first a man of learning, but only quick at
speaking: in subsequent times he became learned; for it is reported
that Galba, Africanus, and Laelius were men of learning; and that even
Cato, who preceded them in point of time, was a studious man: then
succeeded the Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, and so many great orators
after them, down to our own times, that we were very little, if at all,
inferior to the Greeks. Philosophy has been at a low ebb even to this
present time, and has had no assistance from our own language, and so
now I have undertaken to raise and illustrate it, in order that, as I
have been of service to my countrymen, when employed on public affairs,
I may, if possible, be so likewise in my retirement; and in this I must
take the more pains, because there are already many books in the Latin
language which are said to be written inaccurately, having been
composed by excellent men, only not of sufficient learning; for,
indeed, it is possible that a man may think well, and yet not be able
to express his thoughts elegantly; but for any one to publish thoughts
which he can neither arrange skilfully nor illustrate so as to
entertain his reader, is an unpardonable abuse of letters and
retirement: they, therefore, read their books to one anothe