Cicero subsequently extensively revised and expanded the work, releasing a second edition comprising four books.

It was preceded by the now-lost Hortensius which argued that the pursuit of philosophy is the most important endeavor one can engage in their leisure time.

Gaius Julius Caesar had become both dictator and consul in 46 BCE, and was subverting elements of the Roman Senate, of which the decidedly republican Cicero was a fervent supporter.

[1][2] Cicero had divorced his wife Terentia in 46 BCE,[3] and in 45 BC he married Publilia, a rich young girl in his ward, although the marriage quickly fell apart.

[4] In February 45 BCE, Cicero's daughter, Tullia, whom he loved greatly, died after giving birth.

In a letter to his friend, Titus Pomponius Atticus, Cicero wrote, "I have lost the one thing that bound me to life."

[7] In the Academica Cicero aimed to present a complicated series of philosophical debates that had spanned over 250 years.

The first layer in this series has four main stages, and concerns the debates between the Stoics and Academic Skeptics about epistemology from the third and second centuries BCE.

Chrysippus' defense was elaborated on by his student Diogenes of Babylon and attacked with renewed vigor by the Academic Skeptic Carneades.

He left the Academy and adopted Pyrrhonism, in doing so either reviving or re-founding the school that Pyrrho had started and who had influenced Arcislaus to found Academic Skepticism.

[8] The surviving parts of the Academica are structured with book 1 of the second edition serving as the beginning, abbreviated as "Ac.

The new interlocutors were Marcus Terentius Varro, who was a follower of Antiochus, and Titus Pomponius Atticus, an Epicurean.

After eight or nine years of adhering to the Manichaean faith (as an "auditor", the lowest level in the sect's hierarchy), he turned from Manichaeism, taking up skepticism, which he subsequently rejected in favor of Christianity.

In 386 CE, he published Contra Academicos (Against the Academic Skeptics) which argued against Cicero's claims in the Academica on the following grounds: