I have plighted to Brutus, as you advised, my treatise de Finibus, of which I think very highly, and you wrote to say that he was not unwilling to accept it. So let us transfer to Varro my Academica, in which the speakers are men of rank, as far as that goes, but being in no respect men of learning are made to speak with a subtlety beyond them. It contains the doctrines of Antiochus, with which he is in full agreement.[1] I will make it up to Catulus and Lucullus in some other work. However, this depends on your approval, so pray write me an answer on this point. I have had a letter from Vestorius about the auction of Brinnius's estate. He says that the direction of the business has been unanimously confided to me[2]—they presumed evidently that I should be at Rome or at Tusculum on the 24th of June. Please therefore speak to my co-heir, your friend Spurius Vettius, or to our friend Labeo, to put off the auction a short time, and say that I shall be at Tusculum about the 7th of July. Yes, please settle with Piso. You have Eros with you. Let us give our whole minds to Scapula's pleasure-grounds. The day is close at hand. DCXXIV (A XIII, 13) TO ATTICUS (AT ROME) Arpinum (24 June) Under the influence of your letter—because you wrote to me on the subject of Varro—I have taken my Academica
- ↑ The first edition of the Academica was in two books, and the chief speakers were Catulus and Lucullus. It was afterwards arranged in four books, in which Varro takes the chief part in the dialogues. Antiochus of Ascalon was lecturing at Athens when Cicero was there in B.C. 79. He had also been a friend of Lucullus. His school is sometimes called the "Fifth Academy," approaching nearer to Stoicism and receding from the full scepticism of the New Academy.
- ↑ That is, as Manutius explains, Cicero has been named magister auctionis by his co-heirs, i.e., he is to direct the realization and distribution of the estate.
