Catulus was followed by Hortensius, who in some way spoke in favour of Antiochean opinions, but to what extent is uncertain[256]. I think it extremely probable that he gave a résumé of the history of philosophy, corresponding to the speech of Varro in the beginning of the _Academica Posteriora_. One main reason in favour of this view is the difficulty of understanding to whom, if not to Hortensius, the substance of the speech could have been assigned in the first edition. In the _Academica Posteriora_ it was necessary to make Varro speak first and not second as Hortensius did; this accounts for the disappearance in the second edition of the polemical argument of Hortensius[257], which would be appropriate only in the mouth of one who was answering a speech already made. On the view I have taken, there would be little difficulty in the fact that Hortensius now advocates a dogmatic philosophy, though in the lost dialogue which bore his name he had argued against philosophy altogether[258], and denied that philosophy and wisdom were at all the same thing[259]. Such a historical résumé as I have supposed Hortensius to give would be within the reach of any cultivated man of the time, and would only be put forward to show that the New Academic revolt against the supposed old Academico-Peripatetic school was unjustifiable. There is actual warrant for stating that his exposition of Antiochus was merely superficial[260]. We are thus relieved from the necessity of forcing the meaning of the word _commoveris_[261], from which Krische infers that the dialogue, entitled _Hortensius_, had ended in a conversion to philosophy of the orator from whom it was named. To any such conversion we have nowhere else any allusion.
The relation in which Hortensius stood to Cicero, also his character and attainments, are too well known to need mention here. He seems to have been as nearly innocent of any acquaintance with philosophy as it was possible for an educated man to be. Cicero's materials for the speech of Hortensius were, doubtless, drawn from the published works and oral teaching of Antiochus.