IV. But, as Aristotle,[4] a man of the greatest genius, and of the most
various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician
Isocrates,[5] commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined
philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside my
former study of oratory, and yet to employ myself at the same time in
this greater and more fruitful art; for I have always thought that to
be able to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important
questions was the most perfect philosophy. And I have so diligently
applied myself to this pursuit, that I have already ventured to have a
school like the Greeks. And lately when you left us, having many of my
friends about me, I attempted at my Tusculan villa what I could do in
that way; for as I formerly used to practise declaiming, which nobody
continued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of
my old age. I desired any one to propose a question which he wished to
have discussed, and then I argued that point either sitting or walking;
and so I have compiled the scholæ, as the Greeks call them, of five
days, in as many books. We proceeded in this manner: when he who had
proposed the subject for discussion had said what he thought proper, I
spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and Socratic method
of arguing against another's opinion; for Socrates thought that thus
the truth would more easily be arrived at. But to give you a better
notion of our disputations, I will not barely send you an account of
them, but represent them to you as they were carried on; therefore let
the introduction be thus:

V. _A._ To me death seems to be an evil.

_M._ What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?

_A._ To both.