. however _T.D._ II. 5 _ut
oratorum laus ... senescat ... , philosophia nascatur_.

Sec.15. _haesitaverunt_: Goer. cf. _De Or._ I. 40. _Constitutam_: so in 14.
_Delitisceret_: this is the right spelling, not _delitesceret_, which one
good MS. has here, see Corssen II. 285. _Negavissent_: "had denied, as they
said." _Tollendus est_: a statement which is criticised in 74. _Nominibus
differentis ... dissenserunt_: genuine Antiochean opinions, see the
_Academica Posteriora_ 17, 43. _De se ipse_: very frequent in Cic. (cf.
Madv. _Gram._ 487 _b_). _Diceret_: this is omitted by the MSS., but one has
_agnosceret_ on the margin; see n. on 88. _Fannius_: in his "Annals." The
same statement is quoted in _De Or._ II. 270, _Brutus_ 299. Brutus had
written an epitome of this work of Fannius (_Ad Att._ XII. 5, 3).

Sec.16. _Veteribus_: Bentley's em. of MSS. _vetera_: C.F. Hermann (Schneid
_Philol._ VII. 457), thinking the departure from the MSS. too great, keeps
_vetera_ and changes _incognita_ into _incondita_, comparing _De Or._ I.
197, III. 173. A glance, however, at the exx. in Forc. will show that the
word always means merely "disordered, confused" in Cic. The difference here
is not one between order and no order, but between knowledge and no
knowledge, so that _incognita_ is far better. I am not at all certain that
the MSS. reading needs alteration. If kept the sense would be: "but let us
suppose, for sake of argument, that the doctrines of the ancients were not
_knowledge_, but mere _opinion_." The conj. of Kayser _veri nota_ for
_vetera_ (cf. 76) and _investigatum_ below, is fanciful and improbable.
_Quod investigata sunt_: "in that an investigation was made." Herm. again
disturbs the text which since Madv. _Em._ 127 supported it (quoting _T.D._
V. 15, Liv. XXXV. 16) had been settled. Holding that _illa_ in the former
sentence cannot be the subj. of the verb, he rashly ejects _nihilne est
igitur actum_ as a dittographia (!) from 15 _nihilne explicatum_, and reads
_quot_ for _quod_ with Bentl. For the meaning cf. _T.D._ III. 69 and Arist.
on the progress of philosophy as there quoted. _Arcesilas Zenoni ...
obtrectans_: see n. on I. 34. These charges were brought by each school
against the other. In Plutarch _Adv. Colotem_ p. 1121 F, want of novelty is
charged against Arcesilas, and the charge is at once joyfully accepted by
Plut. The scepticism of Arcesilas was often excused by the provocation Zeno
gave, see Aug. _Contra Acad._