How many books have these men written on the republic!how many on laws! How many precepts in art, and, more than that, how many instances of good speaking in orations have they bequeathed to us! For, in the first place, they said with the greatest degree of polish and fitness those very things which were to be argued in a subtle manner, laying down both definitions and divisions: as your friends have also done: but you have done it in a more shabby manner; while you see how brilliant their language is. In the second place, with what splendid language have they adorned that part of the subject which required ornate and impressive eloquence! how gloriously have they illustrated it! discussing justice, and fortitude, and friendship, and the method of passing life, and philosophy, and the government of the state, and temperance, not like men picking out thorns, like the Stoics, or laying bare the bones, but like men who knew how to handle great subjects elegantly, and lesser ones clearly. What, therefore, are their consolations? What are their exhortations? What also are their warnings and advice written to the most eminent men? For their practice in speaking was, like the nature of the things themselves, of a two-fold character. For whatever is made a question of, contains a controversy either as to the genus itself, without reference to persons or times; or else, with these additions, a dispute as to the fact, or the right, or the name. And therefore, they exercised themselves in both kinds; and that discipline it was which produced that great copiousness of eloquence among them in both kinds of argumentation. Now Zeno, and those who imitated him, were either unable to do much in this kind of argument, or else were unwilling, or at all events they did not do it. Although Cleanthes wrote a treatise on the art of rhetoric, and so too did Chrysippus, but still in such a manner, that if any one were to wish to be silent, he ought to read nothing else. Therefore you see how they speak. They invent new words—they abandon old established terms.
But what great attempts do they make? They say that this universal world is our town; accordingly, this excites those who hear such a statement. You see, now, how greata business you are undertaking; to make a man who lives at Circeii believe that this universal world is merely a town for himself to live in. What will be the end of this? Shall he set fire to it? He will rather extinguish it, if he has received it on fire. The next thing said is that list of titles which you briefly enumerated,—king, dictator, rich man, the only wise man; words poured out by you decorously and roundly: they well might be, for you have learnt them from the orators. But how vague and unsubstantial are those speeches about the power of virtue! which they make out to be so great that it can, by itself, secure the happiness of man. They prick us with narrow little bits of questions as with pins; and those who assent to them are not at all changed in their minds, and go away the same as they came: for matters which are perhaps true, and which certainly are important, are not handled as they ought to be, but in a more minute and petty manner.