BOOK I PART III
{“Should I, he said, “attribute to instinct or to
some kind of illusion the fact that when we see
those places in which we are told notable men
spent much of their time, we are more pow-
erfully affected than when we hear of the ex-
ploits of the men themselves or read something
written? This is just what is happening to me
now; for I am reminded of Plato who, we are
told, was the first to make a practice of hold-
ing discussions here. Those gardens of his near
by do not merely put me in mind of him; they
seem to set the man himself before my very
eyes. Speusippus was here; so was Xenocrates;
so was his pupil, Polemo, and that very seat
which we may view was his.
“Then again, when I looked at our Senate-ex his memoriae ducta sit disciplina. Cicero de Finibus,
lib. 5.