greatly modified his earlier views. That these were of an atheistic
character seems, however, beyond doubt, and that is the decisive point in
this connexion.

Cicero's philosophical standpoint was that of an Academic, _i.e._ a
Sceptic. But--in accord, for the rest, with the doctrines of the school
just at this period--he employed his liberty as a Sceptic to favour such
philosophical doctrines as seemed to him more reasonable than others,
regardless of the school from which they were derived. In his philosophy
of religion he was more especially a Stoic. He himself expressly insisted
on this point of view in the closing words of his work on the _Nature of
the Gods_. As he was not, and made no pretence of being, a philosopher,
his philosophical expositions have no importance for us; they are
throughout second-hand, mostly mere translations from Greek sources. That
we have employed them in the foregoing pages to throw light on the
theology of the earlier, more especially the Hellenistic, philosophy, goes
without saying. But his personal religious standpoint is not without
interest.

As orator and statesman Cicero took his stand wholly on the side of the
established Roman religion, operating with the "immortal gods," with
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, etc., at his convenience. In his works on the
_State_ and the _Laws_ he adheres decidedly to the established religion.
But all this is mere politics. Personally Cicero had no religion other
than philosophy. Philosophy was his consolation in adversity, or he
attempted to make it so, for the result was often indifferent; and he
looked to philosophy to guide him in ethical questions. We never find any
indication in his writings that the gods of popular belief meant anything
to him in these respects. And what is more--he assumed this off-hand to be
the standpoint of everybody else, and evidently he was justified. A great
number of letters from him to his circle, and not a few from his friends
and acquaintances to him, have been preserved; and in his philosophical
writings he often introduces contemporary Romans as characters in the
dialogue. But in all this literature there is never the faintest
indication that a Roman of the better class entertained, or could even be
supposed to entertain, an orthodox view with regard to the State religion.
To Cicero and his circle the popular faith did not exist as an element of
their personal religion.

Such a standpoint is of course, practically