say. Does he repent of having held such an
opinion? Why did he not cross over to some other school, and especially to
the Stoics? for this disagreement with the Academy was peculiarly theirs.
What? did he repent of Mnesarchus or Dardanus, who at that time were the
chiefs of the Stoics at Athens? He never deserted Philo till after the
time when he himself began to have pupils.

But from whence was the Old Academy on a sudden recalled? He appears to
have wished to preserve the dignity of the name, after he had given up the
reality; which however some people said, that he did from a view to his
own glory, and that he even hoped that those who followed him might be
called Antiochians. But to me it seems, that he could not stand that
concourse of all the philosophers. In truth, there are among them all,
some common principles on the other points; but this doctrine is peculiar
to the Academicians, and not one of the other philosophers approves of it.
Therefore, he quitted it; and, like those men who, where the new shops
stand, cannot bear the sun, so he, when he was hot, took refuge under the
shade of the Old Academicians, as those men do under the shade of the old
shops near the pillar of Maenius. There was also an argument which he was
in the habit of employing, when he used to maintain that nothing could be
perceived; namely, asking whether Dionysius of Heraclea had comprehended
the doctrine which he had espoused for many years, because he was guided
by that certain characteristic, and whether he believed the doctrine of
his master Zeno, that whatever was honourable was the only good; or,
whether he adopted the assertion which he defended subsequently, that the
name of honourableness is a mere phantom, and that pleasure is the chief
good: for from this change of opinion on his part he wished to prove, that
nothing can be so stamped on our minds by the truth, that it cannot also
be impressed on them in the same manner by falsehood; and so he took care
that others should derive from his own conduct the same argument which he
himself had derived from Dionysius.

XXIII. But we will argue this point more at length another time; at
present we will turn what has been said, Lucullus, to you. And in the
first place, let us examine the assertion which you made at the beginning,
and see what sort of assertion it is; namely, that we spoke of the ancient
philosophers in a manner similar to that in which seditious men were in
the habit