While at his Tusculan villa, soon after the middle of June, B.C. 45, Cicero sent Atticus the Torquatus, as he calls the first book of the De Finibus[164].  He had already sent the first edition of the Academica to Rome[165].  We have a mention that new prooemia had been added to the Catulus and Lucullus, in which the public characters from whom the books took their names were extolled.  In all probability the extant prooemium of the Lucullus is the one which was then affixed.  Atticus, who visited Cicero at Tusculum, had doubtless pointed out the incongruity between the known attainments of Catulus and Lucullus, and the parts they were made to take in difficult philosophical discussions.  It is not uncharacteristic of Cicero that his first plan for healing the incongruity should be a deliberate attempt to impose upon his readers a set of statements concerning the ability and culture of these two noble Romans which he knew, and in his own letters to Atticus admitted, to be false.  I may note, as of some interest in connection with the Academica, the fact that among the unpleasant visits received by Cicero at Tusculum was one from Varro[166].

On the 23rd July, Cicero left Home for Arpinum, in order, as he says, to arrange some business matters, and to avoid the embarrassing attentions of Brutus[167].  Before leaving Astura, however, it had been his intention to go on to Arpinum[168].  He seems to have been still unsatisfied with his choice of interlocutors for the Academica, for the first thing he did on his arrival was to transfer the parts of Catulus and Lucullus to Cato and Brutus[169].  This plan was speedily cast aside on the receipt of a letter from Atticus, strongly urging that the whole work should be dedicated to Varro, or if not the Academica, the De Finibus[170].  Cicero had never been very intimate with Varro:  their acquaintance seems to have been chiefly maintained through Atticus, who was at all times anxious to draw them more closely together.  Nine years before he had pressed Cicero to find room in his works for some mention of Varro[171].  The nature of the works on which our author was then engaged had made it difficult to comply with the request[172].  Varro had promised on his side, full two years before the Academica was written, to dedicate to Cicero his great work De Lingua Latino.  In answer to the later entreaty of Atticus, Cicero declared himself very much dissatisfied with Varro’s failure to fulfil his promise.  From this it is evident that Cicero knew nothing of the scope or magnitude of that work.  His complaint that Varro had been writing for two years without making any progress[173], shows that there could have been little of anything like friendship between the two.  Apart from these causes for grumbling, Cicero thought the suggestion of Atticus a “godsend[174].”  Since the De Finibus was already “betrothed” to Brutus, he promised to transfer to Varro the Academica,