I would face any danger. But when it occurred to me that by
lowering my voice, by changing my method of speaking, I might avoid the
danger, and at the same time learn to speak with more elegance, I
accepted that as a reason for going into Asia, so that I might study how
to change my mode of elocution. Thus, when I had been two years at work
upon causes, and when my name was already well known in the Forum, I
took my departure, and left Rome."

During the six months that he was at Athens he renewed an early
acquaintance with one who was destined to become the most faithful, and
certainly the best known, of his friends. This was Titus Pomponius,
known to the world as that Atticus to whom were addressed something more
than half the large body of letters which were written by Cicero, and
which have remained for our use.[48] He seems to have lived much with
Atticus, who was occupied with similar studies, though with altogether
different results. Atticus applied himself to the practices of the
Epicurean school, and did in truth become "Epicuri de grege porcus." To
enjoy life, to amass a fortune, to keep himself free from all turmoils
of war or state, to make the best of the times, whether they were bad or
good, without any attempt on his part to mend them--this was the
philosophy of Titus Pomponius, who was called Atticus because Athens,
full of art and literature, easy, unenergetic, and luxurious, was dear
to him. To this philosophy, or rather to this theory of life, Cicero was
altogether opposed. He studied in all the schools--among the Platonists,
the Stoics, even with the Epicureans enough to know their dogmas so that
he might criticise them--proclaiming himself to belong to the new
Academy, or younger school of Platonists, but in truth drawing no system
of morals or rule of life from any of them. To him, and also to Atticus,
no doubt, these pursuits afforded an intellectual pastime. Atticus found
himself able to justify to himself the bent of his disposition by the
name of a philosopher, and therefore became an Epicurean. Cicero could
in no way justify to himself any deviation from the energy of public
life, from its utility, from its ambition, from its loves, or from its
hatred; and from the Greek philosophers whom he named of this or the
other school, received only some assistance in that handling of
so-called philosophy which became the chief amusement of his future
life. This was well understood by the Latin authors