studies, nor chosen for that employment, unless the study of philosophy
had been in vogue with some of the great men at that time; who, though
they might employ their pens on other subjects--some on civil law,
others on oratory, others on the history of former times--yet promoted
this most extensive of all arts, the principle of living well, even
more by their life than by their writings. So that of that true and
elegant philosophy (which was derived from Socrates, and is still
preserved by the Peripatetics and by the Stoics, though they express
themselves differently in their disputes with the Academics) there are
few or no Latin records; whether this proceeds from the importance of
the thing itself, or from men's being otherwise employed, or from their
concluding that the capacity of the people was not equal to the
apprehension of them. But, during this silence, C. Amafinius arose and
took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings the
people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect,
either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they
were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that,
because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered
them. And after Amafinius, when many of the same sentiments had written
much about them, the Pythagoreans spread over all Italy: but that these
doctrines should be so easily understood and approved of by the
unlearned is a great proof that they were not written with any great
subtlety, and they think their establishment to be owing to this.

IV. But let every one defend his own opinion, for every one is at
liberty to choose what he likes: I shall keep to my old custom; and,
being under no restraint from the laws of any particular school, which
in philosophy every one must necessarily confine himself to, I shall
always inquire what has the most probability in every question, and
this system, which I have often practised on other occasions, I have