[150] Cicero stayed six months at Athens. The New Academy was founded by Arkesilaus. The school taught that certainty was not attainable in anything, and that the evidence of the senses was deceptive. The words “by the evidence and by the senses” are the exact copy of the original. Schaefer proposes to omit “and” (καὶ), in which case the passage would stand thus—“by the evidence of the senses.” Sintenis retains the conjunction (καὶ), and refers to Cicero, Academ. 2. 6 and 7.
[151] Cicero was at Rhodes in B.C. 78 (compare his Brutus, c. 91). Cicero calls this “Apollonius the son of Molo,” simply Molo (see the Life of Cæsar, c. 3, notes). Molo had the two most distinguished of the Romans among his pupils, C. Julius Cæsar and Cicero.
Poseidonius was the chief Stoic of his time.
[152] Cicero never mentions this visit to Delphi in his writings, and Middleton thinks the visit is improbable, because Cicero (De Divinatione, ii. 56) shows that he knew what was the value of the oracle. But a man who despises a popular superstition may try to use it for his purposes, and may be disappointed if he cannot. Perhaps the soundness of the oracle’s advice may be a good reason for disbelieving the story.
Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 77.
[153] This was Q. Roscius, in whose behalf Cicero made a speech in B.C. 76, before C. Piso as judex. The subject of the cause is stated in the arguments to the oration.
Claudius Æsopus, the great tragic actor, whom Cicero considered a perfect master of his art, was probably a Greek and a freedman of some member of the Claudia Gens. He was liberal in his expenditure, and yet he acquired an enormous fortune, which his son spent.
[154] ἐκ τοῦ ὑποκρίνεσθαι, that is, from “acting.” One Greek word for actor is ὑποκριτής. Oratorical action was therefore viewed as a part of the histrionic art; and so it is. But oratorical acting requires to be kept within narrower limits.
[155] Bawling is properly viewed as an effort to accomplish by loudness of voice what ought to be accomplished by other means. It is simply ridiculous, and misses the mark that it aims at. “If you mouth it,” says Hamlet to the players, “as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoke my lines.”—“Let your discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, and the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature.”
[156] Cicero was elected quæstor B.C. 76, when he was thirty years of age. He discharged the duties of his office during B.C. 75. He speaks well of his own quæstorship in his oration for Cn. Plancius (c. 26).