word preferred is longer than the word good." "That has nothing to do with the matter!" "Possibly not, but the word is certainly more imposing. For I do not know the derivation of the term good, but what is preferred is so called, I suppose, because it is put before other things. This seems to me a great fact." So Piso used to say that greater honour was done to wealth by Zeno who classed it among things preferred than by Aristotle, who admitted it to be a good thing, though a good thing of no great consequence, and one which deserved to be disregarded and even scorned in comparison with righteousness and morality, as being an object in no high degree desirable; and Piso discussed in the same way all these terms as a class, upon which Zeno had made innovations, maintaining that Zeno in dealing with those objects to which he refused the name good and again with those he would not allow to be evil, denoted the one set by more attractive and the other set by gloomier titles than we give them. This then was Piso's fashion and he was a man, as you know, of high excellence and your own devoted admirer; as for myself I must at last conclude, after I have said a few words more; it is a tedious task to answer every single statement you advanced.

XXVII. Now it is a consequence of the same juggling 74 with words that you have acquired kingdoms and empires and riches, and riches so great that you say all property wherever found belongs to the wise man. Moreover he is alone beautiful, alone free, alone possessed of citizenship, while of the fools you say everything that is opposite to this, and even try to make them out to be lunatics. These are what the Stoics call Taρádoğa; let us call them marvels. But what is there in them to marvel at when once you have taken a close view of them? I will compare notes with you to see what meaning you attach to each expression; in no case shall there be any doubt. You say all sins are equal. I shall not jest with you as I did about these same topics when I was counsel for Lucius Murena, and you were against him. What I said then was said among ignorant people; I had actually to humour the crowd to some extent; now I must plead my case in a more refined manner. Sins are equal. How so? Because no one 75

thing is more moral than another, and no one thing is more vicious than another. Go on; that is indeed the very point about which there is serious disagreement; let us glance at your peculiar proofs which demonstrate that all sins are equal. Well, says my opponent, just as when several harps are played together, if no one of them were to have its strings exactly tuned so as to harmonise with the rest, all of them would be equally out of tune, so sins because they jar, all jar equally; so then they are all equal. Here we have a play Here we have a play on two senses of a word. It indeed equally happens in the case of all the harps that they are out of tune; but it does not at once follow that they are all equally out of tune. Your comparison therefore is useless to you; it will certainly not follow that when we have once. asserted all forms of avarice to be equally avarice, we should 76 call all forms of avarice equal. Next we come to another incongruous comparison. We are told that, just as a captain sins equally whether he capsizes a vessel loaded with straw, or loaded with gold, so he who flogs his parent and he who unjustly flogs his slave both sin equally. Fancy the inability to see that the nature of the cargo which the ship is carrying has nothing to do with the art of the pilot, and so that the question whether she is laden with gold or straw makes no difference to his skill in pilotage; but any one can and ought to perceive what difference there is between a parent and a poor slave. So in piloting a ship it matters not under what circumstances the offence is committed, but in a case of obligation circumstances are of the utmost importance. And if in the course of actual navigation the ship capsizes through careless handling, the offence is more serious if the cargo be gold than if it be straw. We expect to find the practice of all arts attended by ordinary foresight, as it is called, and this all are bound to possess, whatever be the craft to which they are appointed. So in this way again sins are not equal.

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XXVIII. Still they press their case, and do not a whit relax their efforts. Say they, seeing that every sin is a testimony of weakness and instability, and these faults are found to an equally serious extent in all fools, it follows that all sins must be equal. You talk as though it were granted that in the

case of all fools certain defects exist in equal degree, and that Lucius Tubulus exhibited the same amount of weakness and instability as that man did under whose bill he was convicted, I mean Publius Scaevola; and as though no differences existed in the circumstances under which sins are committed, so that in proportion as these circumstances are more or less serious, in that proportion the sins committed in connexion with them are either more or less serious!

So (for now my speech must cease) your friends the Stoics 78 seem to me to labour under this one defect more than any other, that they suppose themselves able to support two contradictory views. What inconsistency is there like that of the man who says that what is moral is alone good, and says again that from nature flows the impulse to seek those objects which are suited to preserve our life? So in their desire to uphold the considerations which suit the former opinion, they fall into the ditch along with Aristo; when they try to avoid that fate, they maintain substantially the same doctrines as the Peripatetics, while they cling tenaciously to their own form of expression. Again, because they refuse to allow this form of expression to be torn out of their system, they become very rough, rugged and hard, both in speech and in manners. Now Panaetius, shrinking from this 79 gloom and severity of theirs, did not sanction either the bitterness of their doctrines or their thorny dialectic, and in the one department shewed himself gentler, in the other more luminous, and always had on his lips the names of Plato Aristotle Xenocrates Theophrastus and Dicaearchus, as his own writings shew. Now I give it as my strong opinion that you ought to thumb these philosophers with earnest and careful attention. But as the evening is closing 80 in, and I have to return to my house, for the present this must be enough; but let us often imitate this precedent.' 'That we will,' said he; 'what indeed is there better for us to do? And the first favour I shall require of you will be that you should listen to me when I refute the statements you have made. But do not forget that you hold all 10

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the opinions in which we believe, only you do not like our different use of terms, while I cannot sanction any of the dogmas of your school.' 'You prick my conscience as I am going away,' said I, 'but we shall see.' When we had said this we separated.

END OF BOOK IV.

BOOK V.

I. ONCE, Brutus, when as my custom was I had attended, 1 in company with Marcus Piso, a lecture by Antiochus in the place of exercise called the Ptolomaeum, at which time there were present with us my brother Quintus and also Titus Pomponius with Lucius Cicero, by relationship my father's brother's son, but by attachment my true brother, we agreed to take our afternoon exercise in the Academia, chiefly because the spot was at that time of day entirely undisturbed by the crowd. So we all met in Piso's house at the appointed hour. On leaving we whiled away with general conversation the six stades outside the Double Gate. When however we arrived at the walks of the Academia, so justly famous, we found the quiet which we had desired. Then said 2 Piso shall I call it a natural instinct or in some sense a delusion whereby whenever we cast our eyes on the spots at which, as we have been told, men worthy of a place in history passed much of their time, we are then more excited than we are in listening to a description of their achievements, or in reading some of their works? I for instance feel at this moment such excitement. I call to mind Plato, who, so we have been told, was the first to use this place habitually for debate; and his little garden, which lies quite near us, not only brings him back to my recollection, but seems to place the very man before my eyes. Here stood Speusippus, here Xenocrates, here Polemo his pupil, whose chair was that which we see before us. For my part when I looked at our own senate's assembly hall (I mean the hall of Hostilius, not the new one, which seems in my eyes smaller, since it was enlarged) I used to picture to myself Scipio, Cato, Laelius and above all my own ancestor; such a