[a] In the Dialogues of Plato, and others of the academic school, the
ablest philosophers occasionally supported a wrong hypothesis, in
order to provoke a thorough discussion of some important question.
[b] Cicero was killed on the seventh of December, in the consulship of
Hirtius and Pansa, A.U.C. 711; before Christ, 43. From that time to
the sixth of Vespasian the number of years is exactly 117; though in
the Dialogue said to be 120. See s. xvii. note [e].