Sec.Sec.13—­18.  Summary.  Cicero seems to me to have acted like a seditious tribune, in appealing to famous old philosophers as supporters of scepticism (13), Those very philosophers, with the exception of Empedocles, seem to me, if anything, too dogmatic (14).  Even if they were often in doubt, do you suppose that no advance has been made during so many centuries by the investigations of so many men of ability?  Arcesilas was a rebel against a good philosophy, just as Ti.  Gracchus was a rebel against a good government (15).  Has nothing really been learned since the time of Arcesilas?  His opinions have had scanty, though brilliant support (16).  Now many dogmatists think that no argument ought to be held with a sceptic, since argument can add nothing to the innate clearness of true sensations (17).  Most however do allow of discussion with sceptics.  Philo in his innovations was induced to state falsehoods, and incurred all the evils he wished to avoid, his rejection of Zeno’s definition of the [Greek:  kataleptike phantasia] really led him back to that utter scepticism from which he was fleeing.  We then must either maintain Zeno’s definition or give in to the sceptics (18).

Sec.13. Rursus exorsus est:  cf. exorsus in 10. Popularis:  [Greek:  demotikous]. Ii a:  so Dav. for MSS. iam. Tum ad hos:  so MSS., Dav. aut hos.  The omission of the verb venire is very common in Cic.’s letters. C.  Flaminium:  the general at lake Trasimene. Aliquot annis:  one good MS. has annos, cf. T.D. I. 4, where all the best MSS. have annos.  The ablative is always used to express point of time, and indeed it may be doubted whether the best writers ever use any accusative in that sense, though they do occasionally use the ablative to express duration (cf.  Prop.  I. 6, 7 and Madv. Gram. 235, 2). L.  Cassium:  this is L. Cassius Longinus Ravilla, a man of good family, who carried a ballot bill (De Leg. III. 35), he was the author of the cui bono principle and so severe a judge as to be called scopulus reorum.  Pompeium:  apparently the man who made the disgraceful treaty with Numantia repudiated by home in 139 B.C. P.  Africanum:  i.e. the younger, who supported the ballot bill of Cassius, but seems to have done nothing else for the democrats. Fratres:  Lamb. viros, but cf. Brut. 98. P.  Scaevolam:  the pontifex, consul in the year Tib.  Gracchus was killed, when he refused to use violence against the tribunes.  The only connection these brothers had with the schemes of Gracchus seems to be that they were consulted by him as lawyers, about the legal effect the bills would have. Ut videmus ... ut suspicantur:  Halm with Gruter brackets these words on the ground that the statement about Marius implies that the demagogues lie about all but him.  Those words need not imply so much, and if they did, Cic. may be allowed the inconsistency.