[433] This is the story which Q. Horatius Flaccus tells in his Epistolæ, Lib. i. Ep. 6.
[434] This is one of many like indications in Plutarch of his good opinion of his countrymen. Compare the life of Crassus, c. 8, where he is speaking of Spartacus.
[435] Plutarch's allusion would be intelligible to a Greek, but hardly so to a Roman, unless he was an educated man. A prytaneum in a Greek city was a building belonging to the community, on the altar of which was kept the ever-burning fire. In the prytaneum of Athens, entertainments were given both to foreign ambassadors and to citizens who had merited the distinction of dining in the prytaneum, a privilege that was given sometimes for life, and sometimes for a limited period. As the town-hall of any community is in a manner the common home of the citizens, so Plutarch compares the house of Lucullus, which was open to all strangers, with the public hall of a man's own city.
[436] Plato established his school in the Academia, a grove near Athens; whence the name of the place, Academia, was used to signify the opinions of the school of Plato and of those schools which were derived from his. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, was his successor in the Academy, and he was followed by Xenokrates, and other teachers who belong to the Old Academy, as it is called, among whom were Polemo, Krates, and Krantor. The New Academy, that is, the philosophical sect so called, was established by Arcesilaus; who was succeeded by several teachers of little note. Karneades, a native of Cyrene, the man mentioned by Plutarch, was he who gave to the New Academy its chief repute. Philo was not the immediate pupil of Karneades. He was a native of Larissa, and during the war with Mithridates he came to Rome, where he delivered lectures. Cicero was one of his hearers, and often mentions him. Philo according to Cicero (Academ. i. i) denies that there were two Academies. Antiochus, of Askalon, was a pupil of Philo, but after he had founded a school of his own he attempted to reconcile the doctrines of the Old Academy with those of the Peripatetics and Stoics; and he became an opponent of the New Academy. Antiochus was with Lucullus in Egypt. (Cicero, Academ. Prior. ii. c. 4.) The usual division of the Academy is into the Old and New; but other divisions also were made. The first and oldest was the school of Plato, the second or middle was that of Arkesilaus, and the third was that of Karneades and Kleitomachus. Some make a fourth, the school of Philo and Charmidas; and a fifth, which was that of Antiochus. (Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 220.)
[437] This is the Second Book of the Academica Priora, in which Lucullus, Catulus, Cicero, and Hortensius arr represented as discussing the doctrines of the Academy in the villa of Hortensius at Bauli.
[438] Plutarch's word is κατάληψις, the word that was used by the Academics. Cicero translates κατάληψις by the Latin word Comprehensio. The doctrine which Lucullus maintains is that the sensuous perception is true. "If all perceptions are such, as the New Academy maintained them to be, that they may be false or cannot be distinguished from what are true, how, it is asked, can we say of anyone that he has come to a conclusion or discovered anything?" (Academ. Prior, ii. c. 9.) The doctrine as to the impossibility of knowing anything, as taught by Karneades, is explained by Sextus Empiricus (Advers. Mathematicos, vii. 159). The doctrine of the incomprehensible nature of things, that there is nothing certain to be collected either from the sense or the understanding, that there is no κατάληψις (comprehensio), comprehension, may be collected from the passages given in Ritter and Preller, Historia Philosophiæ Græco-Romanæ, p. 396, Academic Novi.
[439] Dion Cassius (37, c. 49) states that during the consulship of Lucius Afranius and Q. Metellus Celer B.C. 60, Pompeius, who had brought about their election, attempted to carry a law for the distribution of lauds among his soldiers and the ratification of all his acts during his command. This is the Agrarian Law which was proposed by the tribune Flavius, but opposed by the Senate. (Cicero, Ad Attic. i. 19.) Afranius was, if we may trust Cicero, a contemptible fellow; and Metellus now quarrelled with Pompeius, because Pompeius had divorced Mucia, the sister of Metellus, as Dion calls her, for incontinence during his absence. Cicero says that the divorce was much approved. Mucia was not the sister of Metellus; but she was probably a kinswoman. The divorce, however, could only have been considered a slight affair; for Mucia was incontinent, and divorces were no rare things at Rome. The real ground of the opposition of Metellus to Pompeius was fear of his assumption of still further power. From this time Horatius (Carm. ii. 1, "Motum ex Metello Consule civicum") dates the beginning of the Civil Wars of his period. See Life of Pompeius, c. 46, and of Cato the Younger, c. 31.
[440] It is Brettius in the text of Plutarch, which is evidently a mistake for Bettius, that is, Vettius. This affair of Vettius cannot be cleared up. He had been an informer in the matter of Catiline's conspiracy, and he had attempted to implicate C. Julius Cæsar in it: which of the two parties caused him to be assassinated is doubtful. This affair of Vettius is spoken of by Cicero, Ad Attic. ii. 24, Dion Cassius, 38, c. 9, Appian, Civil Wars, ii. 12. The history of this affair of Vettius is given by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, ii. 334, P. Clodius.
[441] Kaltwasser translates it "he put himself to death:" perhaps the words may have either meaning.
[442] See the Life of Cicero, c. 31, and Life of Cato, c. 34.