fully instructed in learning. Geometry was in
high esteem with them, therefore none were more honourable 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 another, and no one
ever takes them up but those who wish to have the same licence for
careless writing allowed to themselves. Wherefore, if oratory has acquired
any reputation from my industry, I shall take the more pains to open the
fountains of philosophy, from which all my eloquence has taken its rise.

IV. But, as Aristotle,(53) a man of the greatest genius, and of the most
various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician
Isocrates,(54) commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined
philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside my former
study of oratory, and yet to employ myself at the same time in this
greater and more fruitful art; for I have always thought, that to be able
to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important questions, was the
most perfect philosophy. And I have so diligently applied myself to this
pursuit that I have already ventured to ha