When Cicero began to write, the Latin language may be said to have been destitute of a philosophical literature.  Philosophy was a sealed study to those who did not know Greek.  It was his aim, by putting the best Greek speculation into the most elegant Latin form, to extend the education of his countrymen, and to enrich their literature.  He wished at the same time to strike a blow at the ascendency of Epicureanism throughout Italy.  The doctrines of Epicurus had alone appeared in Latin in a shape suited to catch the popular taste.  There seems to have been a very large Epicurean literature in Latin, of which all but a few scanty traces is now lost.  C. Amafinius, mentioned in the Academica[113], was the first to write, and his books seem to have had an enormous circulation[114].  He had a large number of imitators, who obtained such a favourable reception, that, in Cicero’s strong language, they took possession of the whole of Italy[115].  Rabirius and Catius the Insubrian, possibly the epicure and friend of Horace, were two of the most noted of these writers.  Cicero assigns various reasons for their extreme popularity:  the easy nature of the Epicurean physics, the fact that there was no other philosophy for Latin readers, and the voluptuous blandishments of pleasure.  This last cause, as indeed he in one passage seems to allow, must have been of little real importance.  It is exceedingly remarkable that the whole of the Roman Epicurean literature dealt in an overwhelmingly greater degree with the physics than with the ethics of Epicurus.  The explanation is to be found in the fact that the Italian races had as yet a strong practical basis for morality in the legal and social constitution of the family, and did not much feel the need of any speculative system; while the general decay among the educated classes of a belief in the supernatural, accompanied as it was by an increase of superstition among the masses, prepared the way for the acceptance of a purely mechanical explanation of the universe.  But of this subject, interesting and important as it is in itself, and neglected though it has been, I can treat no farther.

These Roman Epicureans are continually reproached by Cicero for their uncouth style of writing[116].  He indeed confesses that he had not read them, but his estimate of them was probably correct.  A curious question arises, which I cannot here discuss, as to the reasons Cicero had for omitting all mention of Lucretius when speaking of these Roman Epicureans.  The most probable elucidation is, that he found it impossible to include the great poet in his sweeping condemnation, and being unwilling to allow that anything good could come from the school of Epicurus, preferred to keep silence, which nothing compelled him to break, since Lucretius was an obscure man and only slowly won his way to favour with the public.