er that I was as far as possible from agreeing with you.
However, before I enter on the subject of your discourse and what you
have advanced upon it, I will give you my opinion of yourself. Your
intimate friend, L. Crassus, has been often heard by me to say that you
were beyond all question superior to all our learned Romans; and that
few Epicureans in Greece were to be compared to you. But as I knew what
a wonderful esteem he had for you, I imagined that might make him the
more lavish in commendation of you. Now, however, though I do not
choose to praise any one when present, yet I must confess that I think
you have delivered your thoughts clearly on an obscure and very
intricate subject; that you are not only copious in your sentiments,
but more elegant in your language than your sect generally are. When I
was at Athens, I went often to hear Zeno, by the advice of Philo, who
used to call him the chief of the Epicureans; partly, probably, in
order to judge more easily how completely those principles could be
refuted after I had heard them stated by the most learned of the
Epicureans. And, indeed, he did not speak in any ordinary manner; but,
like you, with clearness, gravity, and elegance; yet what frequently
gave me great uneasiness when I heard him, as it did while I attended
to you, was to see so excellent a genius falling into such frivolous
(excuse my freedom), not to say foolish, doctrines. However, I shall
not at present offer anything better; for, as I said before, we can in
most subjects, especially in physics, sooner discover what is not true
than what is.

XXII. If you should ask me what God is, or what his character and
nature are, I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when Hiero
the tyrant proposed the same question to him, desired a day to consider
of it. When he required his answer the next day, Simonides begged two
days more; and as he kept constantly desiring double the number which
he had required before instead of giving his answer, Hiero, with
surprise, asked him his meaning in doing so: "Because," says he, "the
longer I meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to me." Simonides,
who was not only a delightful poet, but reputed a wise and learned man
in other branches of knowledge, found, I suppose, so many acute and
refined arguments occurring to him, that he was doubtful which was the
truest, and therefore despaired of discovering any truth.

But does your Epicurus (for I had rather co