[84]
For then I challenged my audience to visit their ridicule and contempt upon me if I did not manifestly treat the question in a way which was worthy of the matter in hand and of my reputation and of the time which I had devoted to the discourse.1 But now I dread lest what I say may fall far short of every claim I then made; for, apart from the other disabilities under which I labor, my Panegyricus, which has enriched the other men who make philosophy their business,2 has left me quite impoverished, because I am neither willing to repeat what I have written in that discourse nor am I at my age able to cast about for new things.