As soon as Cicero had become fully reconciled to Caesar in the year 46 he returned with desperate energy to his old literary pursuits. In a letter written to Varro in that year[65], he says "I assure you I had no sooner returned to Rome than I renewed my intimacy with my old friends, my books." These gave him real comfort, and his studies seemed to bear richer fruit than in his days of prosperity[66]. The tenor of all his letters at this time is the same: see especially the remaining letters to Varro and also to Sulpicius[67]. The _Partitiones Oratoriae_, the _Paradoxa_, the _Orator_, and the _Laudatio Catonis_, to which Caesar replied by his _Anticato_, were all finished within the year. Before the end of the year the _Hortensius_ and the _De Finibus_ had probably both been planned and commenced. Early in the following year the _Academica_, the history of which I shall trace elsewhere, was written. I have now finished the first portion of my task; I have shown Cicero as the man of letters and the student of philosophy during that portion of his life which preceded the writing of the _Academica_. Even the evidence I have produced, which does not include such indirect indications of philosophical study as might be obtained from the actual philosophical works of Cicero, is sufficient to justify his boast that at no time had he been divorced from philosophy[68]. He was entitled to repel the charge made by some people on the publication of his first book of the later period--the _Hortensius_--that he was a mere tiro in philosophy, by the assertion that on the contrary nothing had more occupied his thoughts throughout the whole of a wonderfully energetic life[69]. Did the scope of this edition allow it, I should have little difficulty in showing from a minute survey of his works, and a comparison of them with ancient authorities, that his knowledge of Greek philosophy was nearly as accurate as it was extensive. So far as the _Academica_ is concerned, I have had in my notes an opportunity of defending Cicero's substantial accuracy; of the success of the defence I must leave the reader to judge. During the progress of this work I shall have to expose the groundlessness of many feelings and judgments now current which have contributed to produce a low estimate of Cicero's philosophical attainments, but there is one piece of unfairness which I shall have no better opportunity of mentioning than the present. It is this. Cicero, the philosopher, is made to suffer for the shortcomings of Cicero the politician. Scholars who have learned to despise his political weakness, vanity, and irresolution, make haste to depreciate his achievements in philosophy, without troubling themselves to inquire too closely into their intrinsic value. I am sorry to be obliged to instance the illustrious Mommsen, who speaks of the _De Legibus_ as "an oasis in the desert of this dreary and voluminous writer." From political partizanship,