in fact, none seem to have learnt anything except cleverness and indifference to truth. So great
was the influence of Arcesilaus that the Academy remained sceptical for about two hundred years.
In the middle of this sceptical period, an amusing incident occurred. Carneades, a worthy
successor of Arcesilaus as head of the Academy, was one of three philosophers sent by Athens on
a diplomatic mission to Rome in the year 156 B.C. He saw no reason why his ambassadorial
dignity should interfere with the main chance, so he announced a course of lectures in Rome. The
young men, who, at that time, were anxious to ape Greek manners and acquire Greek culture,
flocked to hear him. His first lecture expounded the views of Aristotle and Plato on justice, and
was thoroughly edifying. His second, however, was concerned in refuting all that he had said in
his first, not with a view to establishing opposite conclusions, but merely to show that every
conclusion is unwarranted. Plato's Socrates had argued that to inflict injustice was a greater evil to
the perpetrator than to suffer it. Carneades, in his second lecture, treated this contention with
scorn. Great States, he pointed out, had become great by unjust aggressions against their weaker
neighbours; in Rome, this could not well be denied. In a shipwreck, you may save your life at the
expense of some one weaker, and you are a fool if you do not. "Women and children first," he
seems to think, is not a maxim that leads to personal survival. What would you do if you were
flying from a victorious enemy, you had lost your horse, but you found a wounded comrade on a
horse? If you were sensible, you would drag him off and seize his horse, whatever justice might
ordain. All this not very edifying argumentation is surprising in a nominal follower of Plato, but it
seems to have pleased the modern-minded Roman youths.
There was one man whom it did not please and that was the elder Cato, who represented the stern,
stiff, stupid, and brutal moral code by means of which Rome had defeated Carthage. From youth
to old age, he lived simply, rose early, practised severe manual labour, ate only coarse food, and
never wore a gown that cost over a hundred pence. Towards the State he was scrupulously honest,
avoiding all bribery and plunder. He exacted of other Romans all the virtues that he practised
himself, and asserted that to accuse and pursue the wicked was the best thing an honest man could
do. He enforced, as far as he could, the old Roman severity of manners: