times and
periods that were so remote, they inferred from his being so eminent for
his wisdom, that he had been a pupil of Pythagoras.

II. So far we proceed on conjecture. As to the vestiges of the
Pythagoreans, though I might collect many, I shall use but a few; because
they have no connexion, with our present purpose. For, as it is reported
to have been a custom with them to deliver certain precepts in a more
abstruse manner in verse, and to bring their minds from severe thought to
a more composed state by songs and musical instruments; so Cato, a writer
of the very highest authority, says in his Origins, that it was customary
with our ancestors for the guests at their entertainments, every one in
his turn, to celebrate the praises and virtues of illustrious men in song
to the sound of the flute; from whence it is clear that poems and songs
were then composed for the voice. And, indeed, it is also clear that
poetry was in fashion from the laws of the Twelve Tables, wherein it is
provided, that no song should be made to the injury of another. Another
argument of the erudition of those times is, that they played on
instruments before the shrines of their Gods, and at the entertainments of
their magistrates; but that custom was peculiar to the sect I am speaking
of. To me, indeed, that poem of Appius Caecus, which Panaetius commends so
much in a certain letter of his which is addressed to Quintus Tubero, has
all the marks of a Pythagorean author. We have many things derived from
the Pythagoreans in our customs; which I pass over, that we may not seem
to have learned that elsewhere which we look upon ourselves as the
inventors of. But to return to our purpose. How many great poets as well
as orators have sprung up among us! and in what a short time! so that it
is evident that our people could arrive at any learning as soon as they
had an inclination for it. But of other studies I shall speak elsewhere if
there is occasion, as I have already often done.

III. The study of philosophy is certainly of long standing with us; but
yet I do not find that I can give you the names of any philosopher before
the age of Laelius and Scipio: in whose younger days we find that Diogenes
the Stoic, and Carneades the Academic, were sent as ambassadors by the
Athenians to our senate. And as these had never been concerned in public
affairs, and one of them was a Cyrenean, the other a Babylonian, they
certainly would never have been forced fr