The year 62 released him from the consulship and enabled him to indulge his literary tastes.  To this year belong the publication of his speeches, which were crowded, he says, with the maxims of philosophy[35]; the history of his consulship, in Latin and Greek, the Greek version which he sent to Posidonius being modelled on Isocrates and Aristotle; and the poem on his consulship, of which some fragments remain.  A year or two later we find him reading with enthusiasm the works of Dicaearchus, and keeping up his acquaintance with living Greek philosophers[36].  His long lack of leisure seems to have caused an almost unquenchable thirst for reading at this time.  His friend Paetus had inherited a valuable library, which he presented to Cicero.  It was in Greece at the time, and Cicero thus writes to Atticus:  “If you love me and feel sure of my love for you, use all the endeavours of your friends, clients, acquaintances, freedmen, and even slaves to prevent a single leaf from being lost....  Every day I find greater satisfaction in study, so far as my forensic labours permit[37].”  At this period of his life Cicero spent much time in study at his estates near Tusculum, Antium, Formiae, and elsewhere.  I dwell with greater emphasis on these facts, because of the idea now spread abroad that Cicero was a mere dabbler in literature, and that his works were extempore paraphrases of Greek books half understood.  In truth, his appetite for every kind of literature was insatiable, and his attainments in each department considerable.  He was certainly the most learned Roman of his age, with the single exception of Varro.  One of his letters to Atticus[38] will give a fair picture of his life at this time.  He especially studied the political writings of the Greeks, such as Theophrastus and Dicaearchus[39].  He also wrote historical memoirs after the fashion, of Theopompus[40].

The years from 59—­57 B.C. were years in which Cicero’s private cares overwhelmed all thought of other occupation.  Soon after his return from exile, in the year 56, he describes himself as “devouring literature” with a marvellous man named Dionysius[41], and laughingly pronouncing that nothing is sweeter than universal knowledge.  He spent great part of the year 55 at Cumae or Naples “feeding upon” the library of Faustus Sulla, the son of the Dictator[42].  Literature formed then, he tells us, his solace and support, and he would rather sit in a garden seat which Atticus had, beneath a bust of Aristotle, than in the ivory chair of office.  Towards the end of the year, he was busily engaged on the De Oratore, a work which clearly proves his continued familiarity with Greek philosophy[43].  In the following year (54) he writes that politics must cease for him, and that he therefore returns unreservedly to the life most in accordance with nature, that of the student[44].  During this year he was again for the most part at those of his country villas where his best collections