And I wish, as I am about to make use of the antagonist arguments of a foreigner, I might also employ a foreign language.

The pleas, therefore, now to be urged by Lucius Furius Philus are those [once employed by] the Greek Carneades, a man who was accustomed to express whatever [served his turn].[335] * * *[336]Let it be understood, therefore, that I by no means express my own sentiments, but those of Carneades, in order that you may refute this philosopher, who was wont to turn the best causes into joke, through the mere wantonness of wit.
VI.

He was a philosopher of the Academic School; and if any one is ignorant of his great power, and eloquence, and acuteness in arguing, he may learn it from the mention made of him by Cicero or by Lucilius, when Neptune, discoursing on a very difficult subject, declares that it cannot be explained, not even if hell were to restore Carneades himself for the purpose.

This philosopher, having been sent by the Athenians to Rome as an ambassador, discussed the subject of justice very amply in the hearing of Galba and Cato the Censor, who were the greatest orators of the day.

And the next day he overturned all his arguments by others of a contrary tendency, and disparaged justice, which the day before he had extolled; speaking not indeed with the gravity of a philosopher whose wisdom ought to be steady, and whose opinions unchangeable, but in a kind of rhetorical exercise of arguing on each side--a practice which he was accustomed to adopt, in order to be able to refute others who were asserting anything.