ameter, and suppose it a quotation. But firstly, a verse
so commonplace, if familiar, would occur elsewhere in Cic. as others do, if
not familiar, would not be given without the name of its author. Secondly,
most MSS. have _sint_ or _essent_ before _dicta_. It is more probable
therefore that _omnes_ was added from an involuntary desire to make up the
hexameter rhythm. Phrases like _quae cum essent dicta consedimus_ often
occur in similar places in Cic.'s dialogues cf. _De Div._ II. 150, and
Augustine, the imitator of Cic., _Contra Academicos_, I. 25, also
_consedimus_ at the end of a clause in _Brut._ 24, and _considitur_ in _De
Or._ III. 18. _Mihi vero_: the omission of _inquit_, which is strange to
Goer., is well illustrated in _M.D.F._ I. 9. There is an odd ellipse of
_laudasti_ in _D.F._ V. 81.

Sec.Sec.15--42. Antiochus' view of the history of Philosophy. First part of
Varro's Exposition, 15--18. Summary. Socrates rejected physics and made
ethics supreme in philosophy (15). He had no fixed tenets, his one
doctrine being that wisdom consists in a consciousness of ignorance.
Moral exhortation was his task (16). Plato added to and enriched the
teaching of his master, from him sprang two schools which abandoned the
negative position of Socrates and adopted definite tenets, yet remained
in essential agreement with one another--the Peripatetic and the
Academic (17, 18).

Sec.15. _A rebus ... involutis_: physical phenomena are often spoken of in
these words by Cic., cf. 19, _Timaeus_ c. 1, _D.F._ I. 64, IV. 18, V. 10,
_N.D._ I. 49. Ursinus rejected _ab_ here, but the insertion or omission of
_ab_ after the passive verb depends on the degree to which _natura_ is
personified, if 28 be compared with _Tim._ c. 1, this will be clear.
_Involutis_ = veiled; cf. _involucrum_. Cic. shows his feeling of the
metaphor by adding _quasi_ in II. 26, and often. _Avocavisse philosophiam_:
this, the Xenophontic view of Socrates, was the popular one in Cicero's
time, cf. II. 123, _T.D._ V. 10, _D.F._ V. 87, 88, also Varro in Aug. _De
Civ. Dei_, VIII. 3. Objections to it, however occurred to Cic., and were
curiously answered in _De Rep._ I. 16 (cf. also Varro in Aug. _De Civ.
Dei_, VIII. 4). The same view is supposed to be found in Aristotle, see the
passages quoted by R. and P. 141. To form an opinion on this difficult
question the student should read Schleiermacher's _Essay on the Worth of
Socrates as a