[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 438:  Plutarch’s word is [Greek:  katalepsis], the word that was used by the Academics.  Cicero translates [Greek:  katalepsis] 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 [Greek:  katalepsis] (comprehensio), comprehension, may be collected from the passages given in Ritter and Preller, Historia Philosophiae Graeco-Romanae, p. 396, Academic Novi.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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 Caesar 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.]