c. The Second Edition.
When Cicero dedicated the Academica to Varro, very slight alterations were necessary in the scenery and other accessories of the piece. Cicero had a villa close to the Cuman villa of Catulus and almost within sight of Hortensius' villa at Bauli[[291]]. Varro's villa, at which the scene was now laid, was close to the Lucrine lake[[292]]. With regard to the feigned date of the discourse, we may observe that at the very outset of the work it is shown to be not far distant from the actual time of composition[[293]]. Many allusions are made to recent events, such as the utter overthrow of the Pompeian party, the death of Tullia[[294]], and the publication of the Hortensius[[295]]. Between the date of Tullia's death and the writing of the Academica, it can be shown that Varro, Cicero and Atticus could not have met together at Cumae. Cicero therefore for once admits into his works an impossibility in fact. This impossibility would at once occur to Varro, and Cicero anticipates his wonder in the letter of dedication[[296]].
For the main facts of Varro's life the student must be referred to the ordinary sources of information. A short account of the points of contact between his life and that of Cicero, with a few words about his philosophical
opinions, are alone needed here. The first mention we have of Varro in any of Cicero's writings is in itself sufficient to show his character and the impossibility of anything like friendship between the two. Varro had done the orator some service in the trying time which came before the exile. In writing to Atticus Cicero had eulogised Varro; and in the letter to which I refer he begs Atticus to send Varro the eulogy to read, adding "Mirabiliter moratus est, sicut nosti, ελικτα και ουδεν[[297]]." All the references to Varro in the letters to Atticus are in the same strain. Cicero had to be pressed to write Varro a letter of thanks for supposed exertions in his behalf, during his exile[[298]]. Several passages show that Cicero refused to believe in Varro's zeal, as reported by Atticus[[299]]. On Cicero's return from exile, he and Varro remained in the same semi-friendly state. About the year 54 B.C., as we have already seen, Atticus in vain urged his friend to dedicate some work to the great polymath. After the fall of the Pompeian cause, Cicero and Varro do seem to have been drawn a little closer together. Eight letters, written mostly in the year before the Academica was published, testify to this approximation[[300]]. Still they are all cold, forced and artificial; very different from the letters Cicero addressed to his real intimates, such for instance as Sulpicius, Caelius, Paetus, Plancus, and Trebatius. They all show a fear of giving offence to the harsh temper of Varro, and a humility in presence of his vast learning which is by
no means natural to Cicero. The negotiations between Atticus and Cicero with respect to the dedication of the second edition, as detailed already, show sufficiently that this slight increase in cordiality did not lead to friendship[[301]].
The philosophical views of Varro can be gathered with tolerable accuracy from Augustine, who quotes considerably from, the work of Varro De Philosophia[[302]]. Beyond doubt he was a follower of Antiochus and the so-called Old Academy. How he selected this school from, among the 288 philosophies which he considered possible, by an elaborate and pedantic process of exhaustion, may be read by the curious in Augustine. My notes on the Academica Posteriora will show that there is no reason for accusing Cicero of having mistaken Varro's philosophical views. This supposition owes its currency to Müller, who, from Stoic phrases in the De Lingua Latina, concluded that Varro had passed over to the Stoics before that work was written. All that was Stoic in Varro came from Antiochus[[303]].
The exact specification of the changes in the arrangement of the subject-matter, necessitated by the dedication to Varro, will be more conveniently deferred till we come to the fragments of the second edition preserved by Nonius and others. Roughly speaking, the following were the contents of the four books. Book I.: the historico-philosophical exposition of Antiochus' views, formerly given by Hortensius, now by Varro; then the historical justification of the Philonian position,
which Cicero had given in the first edition as an answer to Hortensius[[304]]. Book II.: an exposition by Cicero of Carneades' positive teaching, practically the same as that given by Catulus in ed. I.; to this was appended, probably, that foretaste of the negative arguments against dogmatism, which in ed. 1. had formed part of the answer made by Cicero to Hortensius. Book III.: a speech of Varro in reply to Cicero, closely corresponding to that of Lucullus in ed. 1. Book IV.: Cicero's answer, substantially the same as in ed. 1. Atticus must have been almost a κωφον προσωπον.
I may here notice a fact which might puzzle the student. In some old editions the Lucullus is marked throughout as Academicorum liber IV. This is an entire mistake, which arose from a wrong view of Nonius' quotations, which are always from the second edition, and can tell us nothing about the constitution of the first. One other thing is worth remark. Halm (as many before him had done) places the Academica Priora before the Posteriora. This seems to me an unnatural arrangement; the subject-matter of the Varro is certainly prior, logically, to that of the Lucullus.