 Our principal source for the Hellenistic phase of the the first debate and Carneades’ contributions to it is Cicero’s De fato, which has survived only in an incomplete form. (A Latin text with an English translation and helpful notes is found in Sharples, 1991; older but still useful is Bayer, 1963 with a German translation and notes. On the debate as a whole, see Bobzien, 1998). It is clear from the De fato that Carneades took on both the Stoics and the Epicureans. Cicero’s presentation suggests that he may have defended a consistent position distinct from theirs. If he did, here as elsewhere we do not need to decide whether he endorsed it in propria persona or put it forward as an alternative to challenge to the positions on offer. It was at least the latter, serving to show the Epicureans and the Stoics that there was another, arguably better, way to tackle the issues, one that avoided the most troubling and implausible choices to which they had been led in the construction of their own theories.