Polemo—­to Polemo indeed belonged this seat which we have before us.’” This was the Polemo who had been converted, as we should say, when, bursting in after a night of revel upon a lecture in which Xenocrates was discoursing of temperance, he listened to such purpose that from that moment he became a changed man.  Then Atticus describes how he found the same charms of association in the garden which had belonged to his own master, Epicurus; while Quintus Cicero supplies what we should call the classical element by speaking of Sophocles and the grove of Colonus, still musical, it seems, with the same song of the nightingale which had charmed the ear of the poet more than three centuries before.

One or other, perhaps more than one, of these famous places the young Cicero frequented.  He probably witnessed, he possibly took part (for strangers were admitted to membership) in, the celebrations with which the college of Athenian youths (Ephebi) commemorated the glories of their city, the procession to the tombs of those who died at Marathon, and the boat-races in the Bay of Salamis.  That he gave his father some trouble is only too certain.  His private tutor in rhetoric, as we should call him, was a certain Gorgias, a man of ability, and a writer of some note, but a worthless and profligate fellow.  Cicero peremptorily ordered his son to dismiss him; and the young man seems to have obeyed and reformed.  We may hope at least that the repentance which he expresses for his misdoings in a letter to Tiro, his father’s freedman, was genuine.  This is his picture of his life in the days of repentance and soberness:  “I am on terms of the closest intimacy with Cratippus, living with him more as a son than as a pupil.  Not only do I hear his lectures with delight, but I am greatly taken with the geniality which is peculiar to the man.  I spend whole days with him, and often no small part of the night; for I beg him to dine with me as often as he can.  This has become so habitual with him that he often looks in upon us at dinner when we are not expecting him; he lays aside the sternness of the philosopher and jokes with us in the pleasantest fashion.  As for Bruttius, he never leaves me; frugal and strict as is his life, he is yet a most delightful companion.  For we do not entirely banish mirth from our daily studies in philology.  I have hired a lodging for him close by; and do my best to help his poverty out of my own narrow means.  I have begun to practice Greek declamation with Cassius, and wish to have a Latin course with Bruttius.  My friends and daily companions are the pupils whom Cratippus brought with him from Mitylene, well-read men, of whom he highly approves.  I also see much of Epicrates, who is the first man at Athens.”  After some pleasant words to Tiro, who had bought a farm, and whom he expects to find turned into a farmer, bringing stores, holding consultations with his bailiff, and putting by fruit-seeds in his pocket from dessert, he says, “I should be glad if you would send me as quickly as possible a copyist, a Greek by preference.  I have to spend much pains on writing out my notes.”