The time was one of desperate gloom for Cicero. The downfall of the old constitution had overwhelmed him with sorrow, and his brief outburst of joy over Caesar's death had been quickly succeeded by disgust and alarm at the proceedings of Antonius. The deep wound caused by his daughter's death[13] was still unhealed. It is easy to catch in the Cato Maior some echoes of his grief for her. When it is said that of all Cato's titles to admiration none is higher than the fortitude he showed in bearing the death of his son,[14] the writer is thinking of the struggle he himself had been waging against a like sorrow for more than a year past; and when Cato expresses his firm conviction that he will meet his child beyond the grave,[15] we can see Cicero's own yearning for reunion with his deeply loved Tullia. 2. _Greek Sources._ All Cicero's philosophical and rhetorical writings were confessedly founded more or less on Greek originals.[16] The stores from which he principally drew in writing the Cato Maior are clearly indicated in several parts of the work. Passages from Xenophon's _Oeconomicus_ are translated in Chapters 17 and 22. In Chapters 2 and 3 there is a close imitation of the conversation between Socrates and Cephalus at the beginning of Plato's _Republic_, while in Chapter 21 is reproduced one of the most striking portions of the _Phaedo_, 72 E-73 B, 78-80.[17] The view of the divine origin and destiny of the human soul contained in the passage from the _Phaedo_ is rendered by Cicero in many of his works,[18] and was held by him with quite a religious fervor and sincerity. Besides these instances of special indebtedness Cicero, in composing the Cato Maior, was no doubt under obligations of a more general kind to the Greeks. The form of the dialogue is Greek, and Aristotelian rather than Platonic.[19] But further, it is highly probable that Cicero owed to some particular Greek dialogue on Old Age the general outline of the arguments he there brings forward. Many of the Greek illustrative allusions may have had the same origin, though in many cases Roman illustrations must have been substituted for Greek. Whether the dialogue by Aristo Cius, cursorily mentioned in the Cato Maior,[20] was at all used by Cicero or not it is impossible to determine.[21] 3. _Purpose._