 In Book 1 Velleius’ lucidity of exposition was pointedly contrasted by Cotta with more typical Epicurean obscurity (notably in Epicurus himself) in a way that seemed to warn that change of style does not necessarily leave substance untouched. Balbus in turn speaks of the advantages of his own full and rich style over the more compressed argumentative method found in the Stoic theoreticians, in particular Stoicism’s founder Zeno of Citium. But he does so in a way calculated by Cicero to raise our suspicions: my style of presentation, says Balbus, flows like a river; and just as flowing rivers avoid being polluted much better than do enclosed pools, so too my stream of eloquence will dilute a critic’s protestations, while a closely reasoned argument cannot so easily protect itself (2.20).