e treatise was never completed, and was perhaps a
posthumous publication: it is not mentioned in the list in _De
Divinatione_ ii. 1-3, and there is no preface, though Cicero says (_ad
Att._ iv. 16, 2) 'in singulis libris utor prooemiis.' Certainly it had
not appeared in B.C. 46, the year of the _Brutus_ (_Brut._ 19). It was
composed after the murder of Clodius in January, B.C. 52 (ii. 42), and
in Pompey's lifetime (iii. 22): probably in 52, as the government of
Cilicia and the civil war left Cicero no time for literature during
the years 51-48.

3. In the spring of 46 was written the short tract _Paradoxa_, a
discussion of six Stoic paradoxes (_e.g._ that the wise man alone is
free). It was addressed to Brutus, and was later than the dialogue
which bears his name; cf. the preface, 'accipies hoc parvum opusculum,
lucubratum his iam contractioribus noctibus, quoniam illud maiorum
vigiliarum munus in tuo nomine apparuit.'

4. The death of Tullia in February, 45, led Cicero to write, at
Astura, a _Consolatio_, of which only fragments survive. Plin. _N.H._
praef. 22, quotes Cicero as saying that he here followed the Greek
philosopher, Crantor, +peri penthous+. It contained notices of
the deaths of great men, _De Div._ ii. 22, 'clarissimorum hominum
nostrae civitatis gravissimos exitus in Consolatione collegimus.'

5. In the _Hortensius_ Cicero appeared as the champion of philosophy:
_De Fin._ i. 2, 'philosophiae vituperatoribus satis responsum est eo
libro, quo a nobis philosophia defensa et collaudata est, cum esset
accusata et vituperata ab Hortensio.' It cannot be traced beyond the
seventh century, and is now represented by a few fragments. In the
Middle Ages it was confounded with the _Prior Academics_, the speakers
in both dialogues being the same. The _Hortensius_ seems to have been
written before Cicero went to Astura in March, B.C. 45: there is no
allusion to it in his letters.

6. The treatise _De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_ discusses various
theories of the _summum bonum_--the Epicurean in Books i.-ii., the
Stoic in iii.-iv., the Peripatetic in v. The scene of the dialogue
changes from Cumae to Tusculum and then to the Academy at Athens. The
work was dedicated to Brutus in June, 45 (_ad Att._ xiii. 12, 3).

7. The _Academics_ appeared in two editions. Of the original edition
Book ii., entitled _Lucullus_, has survived; the speakers in it are
Lucullus, Catulus, Hortensius, and Cicero, and the scene, Hortensius'