M. TVLLI CICERONIS ACADEMICA THE TEXT REVISED AND EXPLAINED BY JAMES S. REID, M.L., FELLOW AND ASSISTANT TUTOR OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1885 [All Rights reserved.] PREFACE. IN 1874 I published a small edition of the Academica, which is now out of print. The present volume is, however, not a revision of the earlier, but a new work, written on a larger scale from a fresh and extended study of the text, language, and subjectmatter of the treatise. While I have tried in the first place to bring my own reading of the ancient authors to bear on the elucidation of Cicero's work, I have not neglected such modern aids to its study as it seemed of importance to consult. It is to be regretted that these modern aids are comparatively few, and the fact will I trust excuse some of the imperfections in my work. Important and interesting as the Academica is, it has received far less than its fair share of attention from scholars. My volume of 1874 was the first English explanatory edition of the dialogue since the time of Davies (1725), while abroad there has been none since that of Goerenz in 1810. Special articles or pamphlets relating to the Academica have been exceedingly rare, even in Germany; of such I have consulted all to which I could get access. On the other hand I have made no attempt at an exhaustive examination of the numerous histories of philosophy, or fragments of histories, which deal with the doctrines discussed in this treatise. Such works are very often not written from a competent examination at first hand of the ancient sources. Of those that have |