[265] Varro observes that for 170 years the ancient Romans worshipped their gods without images; ‘quod si adhuc,’ inquit, ‘mansisset castius Dii observarentur.’ And in the same passage, speaking of mythology, he says, ‘hoc omnia Diis attribuuntur quae non modo in hominem, sed etiam in contemtissimum hominem cadere possunt.’ Augustin., De Civit. Dei, IV., iii., and xxxi., quoted by Zeller, op. cit., p. 674.
[266] Ritter and Preller, Hist. Phil., p. 426; Woltjer, Lucretii Philosophia, p. 5.
[267] The services of Posidonius seem to have been overlooked by M. Gaston Boissier when he implies in his work on Roman Religion (vol. ii., p. 13) that Fabianus, a Roman declaimer under Augustus, was the first to give an eloquent expression to Stoicism.
[268] Zeller, op. cit., pp. 597-8.
[269] Acad., II., xxii., 69.
[270] ibid., xxxi., 99.
[271] De Fin., V., xxi., 59.
[272] Acad., II., xxxix.
[273] For the literary studies of Socrates, see Xenoph., Mem., I., vi., 14; those of Cicero are too manifest to need any special reference.
[274] See the passages quoted by Zeller, op. cit., pp. 659-60.