Cárneades

Cárneades, a Greek philosopher, born at Cyrene, in Africa, about 213 B.C. He studied logic at Athens under Diogenes, but became a partisan of the Academy, and an enemy of the Stoics, whose stern and almost dogmatic ethics did not suit his sceptical predilections. He was in fact one of the most important of the ancient sceptics, and held that no criterion of truth exists either in the senses or the understanding of man. He was founder of the Third or New Academy. In 155 B.C., along with Diogenes and Critolaus, he was sent as ambassador to Rome, where he delivered two orations on justice, in the first of which he eulogised the virtue, and in the second proved that it did not exist. Honest Cato, who had no relish for intellectual jugglery, and thought it a knavish excellence at the best, moved the senate to send the philosopher home to his school, lest the Roman youth should be demoralised. Carneades died at Athens, 129 B.C.