Academica · Marcus Tullius Cicero
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32. I have already said that this most likely belonged to the preliminary assault on the senses made by Cic. in the second book. 33. In the Introd. p. 55 I have given my opinion that the substance of Catulus' speech which unfolded the doctrine of the _probabile_ was incorporated with Cicero's speech in the second book of this edition. To that part this fragment must probably be referred. 34. This important fragment clearly belongs to Book II., and is a jocular application of the Carneadean _probabile_, as may be seen from the words _probabiliter posse confici_. 35. Krische assigns this to the end of Varro's speech in the third Book. With this opinion I find it quite impossible to agree. A passage in the _Lucullus_ (60) proves to demonstration that in the first edition this allusion to the esoteric teaching of the Academy could only have occurred either in the speech of Catulus or in that of Cicero. As no reason whatever appears to account for its transference to Varro I prefer to regard it as belonging to Cic.'s exposition of the positive side of Academic doctrine in the second book. Cic. repeatedly insists that the Academic school must not be supposed to have no truths to maintain, see _Luc._ 119, also 66 and _N.D._ I. 12. Also Aug. _Contra. Ac._ II. 29.
36. It is difficult to see where this passage could have been included if not in that prooemium to the third book which is mentioned _Ad. Att._ XVI. 6, 4. I may here add that Krische seems to me wrong in holding that the whole four books formed one discussion, finished within the limits of a single day. Why interrupt the discussion by the insertion of a prologue of so general a nature as to be taken from a stock which Cic. kept on hand ready made? (Cf. _Ad Att._ as above.) * * * * * Besides the actual fragments of the second edition, many indications of its contents are preserved in the work of Augustine entitled _Contra Academicos_, which, though written in support of dogmatic opinions, imitated throughout the second edition of the _Academica_ of Cic. No writings of the Classical period had so great an influence on the culture and opinions of Augustine as the _Academica_ and the lost _Hortensius_. I give, partly from Krische, the scattered indications of the contents of the former which are to be gathered from the bishop's works. In Aug. _Contr. Ac._ II. 14, 15, we have what appears to be a summary of the lost part of Book I. to the following effect. The New Academy must not be regarded as having revolted against the Old, all that it did was to discuss that new doctrine of καταληψις advanced by Zeno. The doctrine of ακαταληψια though present to the minds of the ancients had never taken distinct shape, because it had met with no opposition. The Old Academy was rather enriched than attacked by the New. Antiochus, in adopting Stoicism under the name of the Old Academy, made it appear that there was a strife between it and the New. With Antiochus the historical exposition of Cic. must have ended.
From this portion of the first book, Aug. derived his opinion (_Contra. Ac._ II. 1) that New Academicism was excusable from the necessities of the age in which it appeared. Indications of Book II. in Aug. are scarce, but to it I refer _Contra. Ac._ I. 7 _placuit Ciceroni nostro beatum esse qui verum investigat etiam si ad eius inventionem non valeat pervenire_, also _ibid._ III. 10 _illis (Academicis) placuit esse posse hominem sapientem, et tamen in hominem scientiam cadere non posse_. These I refer to Cicero's development of the _probabile_ in Book II., although I ought to say that Krische, p. 65, maintains that the substance of Catulus' exposition in the _Ac. Priora_ transferred to Book IV. of the _Ac. Posteriora_. As this would leave very meagre material for Book II., nothing indeed excepting the provisional proof of the deceptiveness of the senses, I cannot accede to his arrangement; mine, I may remark, involves a much smaller departure from the first edition. Allusions in Aug. to the attack on the senses by Cic. in Book II. are difficult to fix, as they apply equally well to the later attack in Book IV. As to Books III. and IV., I do not think it necessary here to prove from Aug. the points of agreement between them and the _Lucullus_, which will find a better place in my notes on the latter, but merely give the divergences which appear from other sources. These are the translation of σοφισματα by _cavillationes_ in _Luc._ 75 (Seneca _Ep._ III.), and the insertion in 118 of _essentia_ as a translation of ουσια.
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