literature should read the Latin poets, and not read the
Latin philosophers? Or again, if Ennius,(8) Pacuvius, Accius, and many
others who have given us, I will not say the exact expressions, but the
meaning of the Greeks, delight their readers; how much more will the
philosophers delight them, if, as the poets have imitated AEschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, they in like manner imitate Plato, Aristotle,
and Theophrastus? I see, too, that any orators among us are praised who
imitate Hyperides or Demosthenes.

But I, (for I will speak the plain truth,) as long as ambition and the
pursuit of public honours and the pleading of causes, and not a mere
regard for the republic, but even a certain degree of concern in its
government, entangled me in and hampered me with the numerous duties in
which those occupations involved me; I kept, I say, all these matters to
myself, and brushed them up, when I could, by reading, to prevent their
getting rusty. But now, having been stricken to the ground by a most
severe blow of fortune, and being discharged from all concern in the
republic, I seek a medicine for my sorrow in philosophy, and consider this
study the most honourable pastime for my leisure. For I may look upon it
as most suitable to my age, and most especially consistent with any
memorable exploits which I may have performed, and inferior to no other
occupation in its usefulness for the purpose of educating my
fellow-countrymen. Or even if this be too high a view to take of it, at
all events I see nothing else which I can do. My friend Brutus, indeed, a
man eminent for every kind of virtue, has illustrated philosophy in the
Latin language in such a way that he has left Greece nothing to wish for
on those subjects. And he adopts the same opinions that you do. For he was
for some time a pupil of Aristus, at Athens, whose brother Antiochus was
your own preceptor. And therefore do you also, I entreat you, apply
yourself to this kind of literature.

IV. Then he replied. I will indeed consider of these matters, but only in
your company. But still, said he, what is this which I hear about you
yourself? On what subject? said I. Why, that the old system is deserted by
you, and that you have espoused the principles of the new school. What of
that? said I. Why should Antiochus, my own intimate friend, be more at
liberty to return back again from the new school to the old, than I myself
to migrate to the new from the old? For certainly