Academic eloquence and the end of Cicero's De finibus

Abstract

The paper considers why the structure of Cicero’s De Finibus implicitly favours the Academy, even though Cicero avoids a decision between the Stoic theory and Antiochus’ theory. Cicero’s educational aims require him to illustrate not only a range of theories but a range of criteria by which theories and the exposition of theories should be judged. By one criterion – style of exposition – the entire Academic tradition, not Antiochus specifically, is endorsed.