The Greek philosophers returned to Rome in the year 598, under the sacred character of ambassadors, on occasion of a political complaint which had been made against the Athenians, and from which they found it necessary to defend themselves. Notwithstanding the disrespect with which philosophers had recently been treated in Italy, the Athenians resolved to dazzle the Romans by a grand scientific embassy. The three envoys chosen were at that time the heads of the three leading sects of Greek philosophers,—Diogenes, the Stoic, Critolaus, the Peripatetic, and Carneades of Cyrene, who now held the place of Arcesilaus in the new Academy. Besides their philosophical learning, they were well qualified by their eloquence, (a talent which had always great influence with the Romans,) to persuade and bring over the minds of men to their principles. Such, indeed, were their extraordinary powers of speaking and reasoning, that it was commonly said at Rome that the Athenians had sent orators, not to persuade, but to compel(367). During the period of their embassy at Rome they lectured to crowded audiences in the most public parts of the city. The immediate effect of the display which these philosophic ambassadors made of their eloquence and wisdom, was to excite in the Roman youth an ardent thirst after knowledge, which now became a rival in their breasts to the love of military glory(368). Scipio, Lælius, and Furius, showed the strongest inclination for these new studies, and profited most by them; but there was scarcely a young patrician who was not in some degree attracted by the modest simplicity of Diogenes, the elegant, ornamental, and polished discourse of Critolaus, or the vehement, rapid, and argumentative eloquence of Carneades(369). The principles inculcated by Diogenes, who professed to teach the art of reasoning, and of separating truth from falsehood, received their strongest support from the jurisconsults, most of whom became Stoics; and in consequence of their responses, we find at this day that the stoical philosophy exercised much influence on Roman jurisprudence, and that many principles and divisions of the civil law have been founded on its favourite maxims. Of these philosophic ambassadors, however, Carneades was the most able man, and the most popular teacher. “He was blessed,” says Cicero, “with a divine quickness of understanding and command of expression(370).” “In his disputations, he never defended what he did not prove, and never attacked what he did not overthrow(371).” By some he has been considered and termed the founder of a third Academy, but there appears to be no solid ground for such a distinction. In his lectures, which chiefly turned on ethics, he agreed with both Academies as to the supreme good, placing it in virtue and the primary gifts of nature. Like Arcesilaus, he was a zealous advocate for the uncertainty of human knowledge, but he did not deny, with him, that