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