Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/273

 What would you do if these Platonic philosophers, and those, too, who were their pupils, were to come to life again, and address you thus:—“As, O Marcus Cato, we heard that you were a man exceedingly devoted to philosophy, a most just citizen, an excellent judge, and a most conscientious witness, we marvelled what the reason was why you preferred the Stoics to us; for they, on the subject of good and evil things, entertain those opinions which Zeno learnt from Polemo; and use those names which, when they are first heard, excite wonder, but when they are explained, move only ridicule. But if you approved those doctrines so much, why did you not maintain them in their own proper language? If authority had influence with you, how was it that you preferred some stranger to all of us and to Plato himself? especially while you were desirous to be a chief man in the republic, and might have been accomplished and equipped by us in a way to enable you to defend it to your own great increase of dignity. For the means to such an end have been investigated, described, marked down, and enjoined by us; and we have written detailed accounts of the government of all republics, and their descriptions, and constitutions, and changes,—and even of the laws, and customs, and manners of all states. Moreover, how much eloquence, which is the greatest ornament to leading men,—in which, indeed, we have heard that you are very eminent,—might you have learnt, in addition to that which is natural to you, from our records!” When they had said this, what answer could you have made to such men? I would have entreated you, said he, who had dictated their speech to them, to speak likewise for me, or else rather to give me a little room to answer them myself, only that now I prefer listening to you; and yet at another time I should be likely to reply to them at the same time that I answer you.

XXIII. But if you were to answer truly, Cato, you would be forced to say this—That you do not approve of those men, men of great genius and great authority as they are. But that you have noticed that the things which, by reason of their antiquity they have failed to see, have been thoroughly comprehended by the Stoics, and that these latter have discussed the same matters with more acuteness, and have also entertained more dignified and courageous senti-