Circeii[[134]]. Here he sought to soften his deep grief by incessant toil. First the book De Consolatione was written. He found the mechanic exercise of composition the best solace for his pain, and wrote for whole days together[[135]]. At other times he would plunge at early morning into the dense woods near his villa, and remain there absorbed in study till nightfall[[136]]. Often exertion failed to bring relief; yet he repelled the entreaties of Atticus that he would return to the forum and the senate. A grief, which books and solitude could scarcely enable him to endure, would crush him, he felt, in the busy city[[137]].
It was amid such surroundings that the Academica was written. The first trace of an intention to write the treatise is found in a letter of Cicero to Atticus, which seems to belong to the first few weeks of his bereavement[[138]]. It was his wont to depend on Atticus very much for historical and biographical details, and in the letter in question he asks for just the kind of information which would be needed in writing the Academica. The words with which he introduces his request imply that he had determined on some new work to which our Academica would correspond[[139]]. He asks what reason brought to Rome the embassy which Carneades accompanied; who was at that time the leader of the Epicurean school; who were then the most noted πολιτικοι at Athens. The meaning of the last question is made clear by a passage in the De Oratore[[140]],
where Cicero speaks of the combined Academic and Peripatetic schools under that name. It may be with reference to the progress of the Academica that in a later letter he expresses himself satisfied with the advance he has made in his literary undertakings[[141]]. During the whole of the remainder of his sojourn at Astura he continued to be actively employed; but although he speaks of various other literary projects, we find no express mention in his letters to Atticus of the Academica[[142]]. He declares that however much his detractors at Rome may reproach him with inaction, they could not read the numerous difficult works on which he has been engaged within the same space of time that he has taken to write them[[143]].
In the beginning of June Cicero spent a few days at his villa near Antium[[144]], where he wrote a treatise addressed to Caesar, which he afterwards suppressed[[145]]. From the same place he wrote to Atticus of his intention to proceed to Tusculum or Rome by way of Lanuvium about the middle of June[[146]]. He had in the time immediately following Tullia's death entertained an aversion for Tusculum, where she died. This he felt now compelled to conquer, otherwise he must either abandon Tusculum altogether, or, if he returned at all, a delay of even ten years would make the effort no less painful[[147]]. Before setting out for Antium Cicero
wrote to Atticus that he had finished while at Astura duo magna συνταγματα, words which have given rise to much controversy[[148]]. Many scholars, including Madvig, have understood that the first edition of the Academica, along with the De Finibus, is intended. Against this view the reasons adduced by Krische are convincing[[149]]. It is clear from the letters to Atticus that the De Finibus was being worked out book by book long after the first edition of the Academica had been placed in the hands of Atticus. The De Finibus was indeed begun at Astura[[150]], but it was still in an unfinished state when Cicero began to revise the Academica[[151]]. The final arrangement of the characters in the De Finibus is announced later still[[152]]; and even at a later date Cicero complains that Balbus had managed to obtain surreptitiously a copy of the fifth book before it was properly corrected, the irrepressible Caerellia having copied the whole five books while in that state[[153]]. A passage in the De Divinatione[[154]] affords almost direct evidence that the Academica was published before the De Finibus. On all these grounds I hold that these two works cannot be those which Cicero describes as having been finished simultaneously at Astura.
Another view of the συνταγματα in question is that they are simply the two books, entitled Catulus and Lucullus, of the Priora Academica. In my opinion
the word συνταγμα, the use of which to denote a portion of a work Madvig suspects[[155]], thus obtains its natural meaning. Cicero uses the word συνταξις of the whole work[[156]], while συνταγμα[[157]], and συγγραμμα[[158]], designate definite portions or divisions of a work. I should be quite content, then, to refer the words of Cicero to the Catulus and Lucullus. Krische, however, without giving reasons, decides that this view is unsatisfactory, and prefers to hold that the Hortensius (or de Philosophia) and the Priora Academica are the compositions in question. If this conjecture is correct, we have in the disputed passage the only reference to the Hortensius which is to be found in the letters of Cicero. We are quite certain that the book was written at Astura, and published before the Academica. This would be clear from the mention in the Academica Posteriora alone[[159]], but the words of Cicero in the De Finibus[[160]] place it beyond all doubt, showing as they do that the Hortensius had been published a sufficiently long time before the De Finibus, to have become known to a tolerably large circle of readers. Further, in the Tusculan Disputations and the De Divinatione[[161]] the Hortensius and the Academica are mentioned together in such a way as to show that the former was finished and given to the world before the latter. Nothing therefore stands in the way of Krische's conjecture, except the doubt I have expressed as to the use of the word συνταγμα, which equally affects the old view maintained by Madvig.
Whatever be the truth on this point, it cannot be disputed that the Hortensius and the Academica must have been more closely connected, in style and tone, than any two works of Cicero, excepting perhaps the Academica and the De Finibus. The interlocutors in the Hortensius were exactly the same as in the Academica Priora, for the introduction of Balbus into some editions of the fragments of the Hortensius is an error[[162]]. The discussion in the Academica Priora is carried on at Hortensius' villa near Bauli; in the Hortensius at the villa of Lucullus near Cumae. It is rather surprising that under these circumstances there should be but one direct reference to the Hortensius in the Lucullus[[163]].
While at his Tusculan villa, soon after the middle of June, B.C. 45, Cicero sent Atticus the Torquatus, as he calls the first book of the De Finibus[[164]]. He had already sent the first edition of the Academica to Rome[[165]]. We have a mention that new prooemia had been added to the Catulus and Lucullus, in which the public characters from whom the books took their names were extolled. In all probability the extant prooemium of the Lucullus is the one which was then affixed. Atticus, who visited Cicero at Tusculum, had doubtless pointed out the incongruity between the known attainments of Catulus and Lucullus, and the parts they were made to take in difficult philosophical discussions. It is not uncharacteristic of Cicero that his first plan for healing the incongruity should be a