Opening The Academics — Cicero in Plato Scroll…
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Cicero · C. D. Yonge
Translated by C. D. Yonge, 1853. Cicero’s account of Academic scepticism — the debate over whether certain knowledge is possible — defending the probabilism of the New Academy. The following account of the two Books of the Academics is extracted from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, edited by Dr. W. Smith: — “The history of this work, before it finally quitted the hands of its author, is exceedingly curious and somewhat obscure; but must be clearly understood before we can explain the relative position of those portions of it which have been transmitted to modern times. By comparing carefully a series of letters written to Atticus, in the course of b.c. 45 (Ep. ad Att. xiii. 32; 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 35, 44), we find that Cicero had drawn up a treatise upon the Academic Philosophy, in the form of a dialogue between Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius; and …
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