 Cicero’s manifesto to write, in what proved to be his last period of literary production, encyclopedically about philosophy, is set out in the preface to his work of philosophical theology On the Nature of the Gods. The daunting task he sets himself is linked by him to the specific approach of the Academic sceptic. He cites with approval the example of Carneades, who by challenging Stoic theology aroused in people a desire to discover the truth (1.4). Cicero will take this one step further and aspire to examine critically all the relevant theories about the gods. His conception of a worthy philosophical encyclopedia is therefore much more than a dutiful trotting out of who thought what. His aim is to subject all available views to scrutiny.