Tusculan Disputations 2 ¶25–32 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 2 ¶25–32

A. Hitherto you are on my side. I will see to that by-and-by, and, in the meanwhile, whence are those verses? I do not remember them. M. I will inform you, for you are in the right to ask. Do you see that I have much leisure? A. What, then? M. I imagine, when you were at Athens, you attended frequently at the schools of the philosophers. A. Yes, and with great pleasure. M. You observed, then, that though none of them at that time were very eloquent, yet they used to mix verses with their harangues. A. Yes, and particularly Dionysius the Stoic used to employ a great many. M. You say right, but they were quoted without any appropriateness or elegance. But our friend Philo used to give a few select lines and well adapted, and in imitation of him, ever since I took a fancy to this kind of elderly declamation, I have been very fond of quoting our poets—and where I cannot be supplied from them, I translate from the Greek, that the Latin language may not want any kind of ornament in this kind of disputation.