The year 62 released him from the consulship and enabled him to indulge his literary tastes. To this year belong the publication of his speeches, which were
crowded, he says, with the maxims of philosophy[[35]]; the history of his consulship, in Latin and Greek, the Greek version which he sent to Posidonius being modelled on Isocrates and Aristotle; and the poem on his consulship, of which some fragments remain. A year or two later we find him reading with enthusiasm the works of Dicaearchus, and keeping up his acquaintance with living Greek philosophers[[36]]. His long lack of leisure seems to have caused an almost unquenchable thirst for reading at this time. His friend Paetus had inherited a valuable library, which he presented to Cicero. It was in Greece at the time, and Cicero thus writes to Atticus: "If you love me and feel sure of my love for you, use all the endeavours of your friends, clients, acquaintances, freedmen, and even slaves to prevent a single leaf from being lost.... Every day I find greater satisfaction in study, so far as my forensic labours permit[[37]]." At this period of his life Cicero spent much time in study at his estates near Tusculum, Antium, Formiae, and elsewhere. I dwell with greater emphasis on these facts, because of the idea now spread abroad that Cicero was a mere dabbler in literature, and that his works were extempore paraphrases of Greek books half understood. In truth, his appetite for every kind of literature was insatiable, and his attainments in each department considerable. He was certainly the most learned Roman of his age, with the single exception of Varro. One of his letters to Atticus[[38]] will give a fair picture of his life at this time. He especially studied the political writings of
the Greeks, such as Theophrastus and Dicaearchus[[39]]. He also wrote historical memoirs after the fashion, of Theopompus[[40]].
The years from 59—57 B.C. were years in which Cicero's private cares overwhelmed all thought of other occupation. Soon after his return from exile, in the year 56, he describes himself as "devouring literature" with a marvellous man named Dionysius[[41]], and laughingly pronouncing that nothing is sweeter than universal knowledge. He spent great part of the year 55 at Cumae or Naples "feeding upon" the library of Faustus Sulla, the son of the Dictator[[42]]. Literature formed then, he tells us, his solace and support, and he would rather sit in a garden seat which Atticus had, beneath a bust of Aristotle, than in the ivory chair of office. Towards the end of the year, he was busily engaged on the De Oratore, a work which clearly proves his continued familiarity with Greek philosophy[[43]]. In the following year (54) he writes that politics must cease for him, and that he therefore returns unreservedly to the life most in accordance with nature, that of the student[[44]]. During this year he was again for the most part at those of his country villas where his best collections of books were. At this time was written the De Republica, a work to which I may appeal for evidence that his old philosophical studies had by no means been allowed to drop[[45]]. Aristotle is especially mentioned as one of the authors
read at this time[[46]]. In the year 52 B.C. came the De Legibus, written amid many distracting occupations; a work professedly modelled on Plato and the older philosophers of the Socratic schools.
In the year 51 Cicero, then on his way to Cilicia, revisited Athens, much to his own pleasure and that of the Athenians. He stayed in the house of Aristus, the brother of Antiochus and teacher of Brutus. His acquaintance with this philosopher was lasting, if we may judge from the affectionate mention in the Brutus[[47]]. Cicero also speaks in kindly terms of Xeno, an Epicurean friend of Atticus, who was then with Patro at Athens. It was at this time that Cicero interfered to prevent Memmius, the pupil of the great Roman Epicurean Lucretius, from destroying the house in which Epicurus had lived[[48]]. Cicero seems to have been somewhat disappointed with the state of philosophy at Athens, Aristus being the only man of merit then resident there[[49]]. On the journey from Athens to his province, he made the acquaintance of Cratippus, who afterwards taught at Athens as head of the Peripatetic school[[50]]. At this time he was resident at Mitylene, where Cicero seems to have passed some time in his society[[51]]. He was by far the greatest, Cicero said, of all the Peripatetics he had himself heard, and indeed equal in merit to the most eminent of that school[[52]].
The care of that disordered province Cilicia enough to employ Cicero's thoughts till the end of 50.
Yet he yearned for Athens and philosophy. He wished to leave some memorial of himself at the beautiful city, and anxiously asked Atticus whether it would look foolish to build a προπυλον at the Academia, as Appius, his predecessor, had done at Eleusis[[53]]. It seems the Athenians of the time were in the habit of adapting their ancient statues to suit the noble Romans of the day, and of placing on them fulsome inscriptions. Of this practice Cicero speaks with loathing. In one letter of this date he carefully discusses the errors Atticus had pointed out in the books De Republica[[54]]. His wishes with regard to Athens still kept their hold upon his mind, and on his way home from Cilicia he spoke of conferring on the city some signal favour[[55]]. Cicero was anxious to show Rhodes, with its school of eloquence, to the two boys Marcus and Quintus, who accompanied him, and they probably touched there for a few days[[56]]. From thence they went to Athens, where Cicero again stayed with Aristus[[57]], and renewed his friendship with other philosophers, among them Xeno the friend of Atticus[[58]].
On Cicero's return to Italy public affairs were in a very critical condition, and left little room for thoughts about literature. The letters which belong to this time are very pathetic. Cicero several times contrasts the statesmen of the time with the Scipio he had himself drawn in the De Republica[[59]]; when he thinks of Caesar, Plato's description of the tyrant is present to
his mind[[60]]; when, he deliberates about the course he is himself to take, he naturally recals the example of Socrates, who refused to leave Athens amid the misrule of the thirty tyrants[[61]]. It is curious to find Cicero, in the very midst of civil war, poring over the book of Demetrius the Magnesian concerning concord[[62]]; or employing his days in arguing with himself a string of abstract philosophical propositions about tyranny[[63]]. Nothing could more clearly show that he was really a man of books; by nothing but accident a politician. In these evil days, however, nothing was long to his taste; books, letters, study, all in their turn became unpleasant[[64]].