Marcus Tullius Cicero

And yet Antiochus's master Philo—a great man, as you yourself reckon him—denied in his books, as we also used to hear from his own lips in person, that there were two Academies, and refuted the error of those who thought so.

'In the first place, you seem to me' (he was addressing me by name) 'when you name the ancient natural philosophers, to do the very thing that seditious citizens are wont to do, when they bring forward certain illustrious men of old whom they declare to have been champions of the people, that they themselves may seem to be like them.

for I am moved both by the memory of his grandfather — for you are not unaware how highly I esteemed Caepio, who, as my opinion bears, would now be among the foremost, were he alive — and Lucullus rises before my eyes, a man excelling in all virtues, and joined to me both by friendship and by every wish and opinion.

for a great debate is just arising between Velleius and me on an important subject, and, knowing your interests, it is not amiss that you should take part.