The Academica of Cicero

The Academica of Cicero

The Text Revised and Explained

By James S. Reid

Marcus Tullius Cicero

It would seem that Cicero's love for literature was inherited from his father, who, being of infirm health, lived constantly at Arpinum, and spent the greater part of his time in study. From him was probably derived that strong love for the old Latin dramatic and epic poetry which his son throughout his writings displays. He too, we may conjecture, led the young Cicero to feel the importance of a study of philosophy to serve as a corrective for the somewhat narrow rhetorical discipline of the time.

Cicero's first systematic lessons in philosophy were given him by the Epicurean Phaedrus, then at Rome because of the unsettled state of Athens, whose lectures he attended at a very early age, even before he had assumed the toga virilis.