Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/136

 Sophocles has composed an Electra in the most admirable manner possible, still I think the indifferent translation of it by Atilius worth reading too, though Licinius calls him an iron writer; with much truth in my opinion; still he is a writer whom it is worth while to read. For to be wholly unacquainted with our own poets is a proof either of the laziest indolence, or else of a very superfluous fastidiousness.

My own opinion is, that no one is sufficiently learned who is not well versed in the works written in our own language. Shall we not be as willing to read—

as the same idea when expressed in Greek? And is there any objection to having the discussions which have been set out by Plato, on the subject of living well and happily, arrayed in a Latin dress? And if we do not limit ourselves to the office of translators, but maintain those arguments which have been advanced by people with whom we argue, and add to them the exposition of our own sentiments, and clothe the whole in our own language, why then should people prefer the writings of the Greeks to those things which are written by us in an elegant style, without being translated from the works of Greek philosophers? For if they say that these matters have been discussed by those foreign writers, then there surely is no necessity for their reading such a number of those Greeks as they do. For what article of Stoic doctrine has been passed over by Chrysippus? And yet we read also Diogenes, Antipater, Mnesarchus, Panætius, and many others, and ACAD. ETC.