Long ago the thought entered my mind of addressing letters of familiar intercourse to certain far-off masters of eloquence, embracing in the number those who had been the rare ornaments of the Latin tongue. I should not wish, therefore, to pass thy name over in silence, the more so that, according to the testimony of great writers, thy fame was second to none. Since, however, thy reputation has come down to us stripped almost bare of facts, it must be substantiated by the writings of others rather than of thyself, a fact which I deservedly number among the shameful losses of our age. I shall have, therefore, but little to say to thee. I congratulate thee in that thou didst enjoy the honors of a consulship as well as those of a triumph;[79] I congratulate thee for the praises bestowed upon thy lofty intellect and polished eloquence, and for thy many other endowments of body and mind and fortune.[80] I give thee special congratulations, however, for having lived under the best of princes, who cherished most dearly both letters and virtues, and who was a competent judge of thy deeds. O happy thou, who didst fill the just measure of thy life while Augustus was still reigning, bringing an illustrious life to a peaceful close at thy Tusculan villa and in the eightieth year of thine age.[81] Thou didst escape the bloody hands of Tiberius, into which the orator Asinius Gallus fell, thy ill-fated offspring who, as we read, was killed by him with dreadful suffering.[82] Fortunate indeed was it that a timely death overtook thee, seeing toward what great misery thy destiny was already beginning to urge thee. Death saved thine eyes from witnessing such a sad spectacle at least. Only a few years more and, to thy great sorrow, thou wouldst have shared the fate of thy son, or wouldst have been compelled to look on.[83] His death must have diminished thy happiness in no slight degree—if it be true (as some thinkers claim) that the dead are affected by the lot of the living. The laws of true friendship forbid me to conceal or pass over a certain thing in silence—for friendship binds me to the names and ashes of the illustrious dead of every age no less effectually than if they were alive. The thing, therefore, which greatly distressed me in thee was, that thou didst resolve to be such a very bitter and severe critic (not to say censurer) of Marcus Tullius.[84] In all justice thou shouldst have been the first to praise and exalt his name in thy writings. If thy defense is that thou hadst a right to freedom of thought, I shall answer that I do not deny thee such freedom, even though I do not agree with thy conclusions. I maintain, however, that thou shouldst have made more sparing use of thy freedom. Such counsel comes too late now, I know. Yet thou canst easily obtain indulgence from others[85] since thou didst so often exercise the same freedom against him who was then ruling the universe.[86] It is rather difficult, I grant thee, for fortune’s favorite to curb the mind and the tongue. The seriousness of purpose consonant with thy great age and learning compels me to exact from thee careful consideration in all matters. Furthermore, it obliges me to censure thee for thy actions more severely than I should either thy son, who held the same opinions as thou because he followed in thy footsteps,[87] or Calvus and others of the same party.[88] I am not so forgetful of myself as to deny thee the exercise of the same privilege in the case of a contemporary (whom thou couldst both see and know) that I have enjoyed, after so many centuries, in the case of a man of such reputation and so far removed from me in time. No one is perfect. Who, then, shall forbid thee, a man of such eminence, to call attention to anything reprehensible in the ways of thy neighbor, when even I who am so far removed have found things to criticise in his writings? But the moment thou dost attack his reputation for eloquence, the moment thou dost endeavor to wrest from him his supremacy in the field of oratory—a supremacy bestowed upon him from heaven and granted to him without dispute and by the common consent of nearly the entire world—that moment see to it that thou be not inflicting too palpable an injury. Beware, and with thee let Calvus beware, that you do not enter upon an ill-matched struggle against Cicero for the palm in oratory. It is a very easy task for us to watch the contest as spectators. But the crown of victory has long since been awarded.[89] You have been conquered. Vain are your struggles and obstructions! The ruffling of your own pride prevents you from seeing the truth. In my opinion you would have been great men, had you been able to acknowledge a greater than yourselves. But man, in his pride, is raised by false opinions to higher levels than those to which he rightfully belongs; and from this high station truth then causes him to sink to a lower level than he might justly have deserved. Many have lost their own reward of glory in hungering after that of others. It was envy, perchance, that prompted your actions, for those of your companions who envied Cicero were as numerous as those who were blinded by their pride. If so, again am I more vexed at thee than at Calvus, for the latter had some cause, in fact had good cause, not merely for envying Cicero but for hating him.[90] I know of not the slightest cause for hatred in thy case. And therefore it seems all the more a pity to me that envy, which is wont to creep along the ground, should have seized upon so lofty an intellect as was thine. Farewell forever. Of the Greek orators, give greetings to Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Aeschines; of the Romans, to Crassus and Antonius, and indeed to Corvinus Messala and Hortensius, provided that the former of these last two, now that he is rid of the encumbrances of the flesh, has regained the memory which he lost two years before departing hence,[91] and that the latter has not lost his. In a suburb of Milan, on the first of August of this last age the thirteen hundred and fifty-third year.
Notes on Fam., XXIV, 9, to Asinius Pollio [79]. Suet., Rel. (Teubner), p. 289, ll. 34 f.: “Asinius Pollio orator et consularis, qui de Dalmatis triumphaverat, in villa Tusculana anno octogesimo aetatis suae moritur” (St. Jerome, Chron., a. Abr., 2020, in Migne, Vol. XXVII, col. 441, and Reiff., p. 82).[80]. Some examples of praises bestowed upon Pollio are: Catullus, Carm., xii, 9: Horace, Carm., ii, 1, 13: Quintilian, x, 2, 25; xii, 10, 11; x, 1, 113 has praise mingled with censure: Asinius Pollio possesses a well-developed faculty of invention, and great accuracy not only of language (which to some, indeed, appears too accurate), but also of method and of spirit. But he is so far from possessing the brilliant and pleasing style of Cicero that he might seem to belong to the preceding century.
[81]. See n. [79] above.[82]. See Smith’s Dict.: Tiberius hated him, partly on account of his freedom in expressing his opinion, but more especially because Asinius Gallus had married Vipsania, the former wife of Tiberius. At last the emperor resolved upon getting rid of him. In A. D. 30 he invited him to his table at Capreae, and at the same time got the senate to sentence him to death. But Tiberius saved his life, only for the purpose of inflicting upon him severer cruelties than death alone. He kept him imprisoned for three years, and on the most scanty supply of food. After the lapse of three years, he died in his dungeon of starvation, but whether it was compulsory or voluntary is unknown.
The last comment is from Tac., Ann., vi, 23. The text which Petrarch must have had before him (and from which he practically quotes), is Suet., Rel. (Teubner), p. 290, ll. 27 f.: “C. Asinius Gallus Asinii Pollionis filius, cuius etiam Virgilius meminit [in Ecl., 4], diris a Tiberio suppliciis necatur.” Petrarch’s words are (Vol. III, p. 283): “quem diris ab illo suppliciis enecatum legimus” (St. Jerome, in Migne, Vol. XXVII, col. 443, and Reiff., p. 86).[83]. C. Asinius Pollio died in 5 A. D.; his son Gallus died in 33 A. D. (See preceding note.)[84]. Quintilian, xii, 1, 22: I pass over those who do not give Cicero and Demosthenes due credit even in oratory. To be sure, Cicero himself does not judge Demosthenes absolutely perfect, saying that now and then the latter becomes drowsy. Cicero is similarly judged by both Brutus and Calvus, who criticize the structure of his periods to his own face; and by the Asinii, father and son, who in many places attack the faults of his language even with bitterness.
Pollio’s hostility to Cicero is mentioned also in Sen., Suas., vi, 14; 24; 27. But Cicero was not the only author who displeased the taste of Pollio; among others were Livy (Quint., i, 5, 56; viii, 1, 3), Sallust (Suet., Gramm., 10), and Caesar (see n. [86]).[85]. Sen., Contr., iv, praef. 3: (Pollio) was somewhat more ornate when declaiming than when pleading a case,... and his judgment was so deficient that in many instances he himself stood in need of that indulgence which it was scarcely possible for others to obtain from him.
[86]. Petrarch’s words are (Vol. III, p. 284): “adversus ipsum mundi Dominum.” It will be noticed that Fracassetti prints the word “Dominum” with a capital letter, thus making the phrase equivalent to the word “God.” In fact he translates the passage “contro lo stesso Signore della terra” (Vol. 5. p. 167), which conveys the same thought. Aside from the fact that Pollio died in A. D. 5, when it was quite too early to speak of Christianity at Rome, we believe that the line in Petrarch can easily be interpreted otherwise. The key is furnished by Suet., Julius, 56: Asinius Pollio thinks that Caesar’s books (on the Gallic War) were written with small accuracy and with but little regard for the truth. For, he says, Caesar was too ready to believe the accounts of deeds performed by others, and published in incorrect form even his own deeds, either purposely or because they had slipped his memory. Pollio, therefore, was of the opinion that Caesar would have rewritten or corrected his work.
And thus it clearly results that it is Caesar who is meant by “ipsum mundi Dominum.”[87]. There is a passage in Gellius written so very much after the heart and spirit of Petrarch, that the temptation to give it here has been too strong to resist. It is Noc. Att., xvii, 1, 1: Just as there have been in this world some monsters of men, who have scattered broadcast unholy and lying doctrines concerning the immortal gods, so have there been men so monstrous and so destitute of reason as to have had the presumption to write of Cicero that his language was by no means pure, and that it gave evidence of a faulty and inconsiderate choice of words. Among these detractors are Asinius Gallus and Largus Licinius, whose book is even yet current under the unspeakable title of Ciceromastix.
These words are such as might have been spoken by the venerable old gentleman of Fam., XXIV, 2. (See the first letter to Cicero, n. [1].)[88]. Sen., Contr., vii, 4, 6: “Calvus who for a long time carried on a very unequal struggle against Cicero for supremacy in oratory.”[89]. Petrarch enlarges upon this point in Rer. mem., II, 2, “De ingenio,” p. 412: It does not seem fitting to omit mention of Asinius Pollio, who, as Seneca has established and as is apparent to all, must be thought to hold the second place of honor between those two very eloquent Romans, M. Tullius and T. Livy [Sen., Ep., 100, 9]. Seneca is an authority by no means to be despised. Thus far in the present chapter (Rer. mem., loc. cit.) I have written of six eloquent men. Seneca chooses none of these except Tullius, and maintains that there are three men foremost in eloquence—three whom in a certain letter of his he seems to prefer to all others. The second place among these he assigns to Pollio, whose style he pronounces different from that of Cicero, and (to use his own words) ‘uneven and jolting and one that breaks off when you least expect it’ [Ep., 100, 7]. Although no specimens of his eloquence have as yet fallen into my hands, and although his name has already become famous and has already spread abroad unaided, still it did not appear just to me (when undertaking to write on the subject of eloquence) to pass his name in silence—the more so that I had already spoken of others inferior to him. And so it has pleased me to place him after Caesar Augustus, under whom he flourished. I shall add this only: that many sang the praises of Pollio; but that his name was especially honored by the Muse of Mantua. But I must now retrace my steps somewhat.
[90]. This is making it unnecessarily strong. Cicero’s statements are more guarded, and his criticisms are milder, than one would be led to suppose from the language of Petrarch. In the Brutus, where Cicero speaks of Calvus at great length, his language is reserved. In sec. 279 he says: “I must first, however, do justice to the memory of two promising youths, who, if they had lived to a riper age, would have acquired the highest reputation for their eloquence.” [In 280:] “You mean, I suppose,” said Brutus, “Gaius Curio and Gaius Licinius Calvus.” “The very same,” replied I.... [283:] But let us return to Calvus, whom we have just mentioned, an orator who had received more literary improvements than Curio, and had a more accurate and delicate manner of speaking, which he conducted with great taste and elegance; but (by being too minute and nice a critic upon himself) while he was laboring to correct and refine his language, he suffered all the force and spirit of it to evaporate. In short, it was so exquisitely polished, as to charm the eye of every skilful observer; but it was little noticed by the common people in a crowded forum, which is the proper theater of eloquence. (Translation of E. Jones, in the volume translated and edited by J. S. Watson.)
It must be noticed, however, that these passages were written after the death of Calvus; but we are compelled to judge from these, since none of the correspondence carried on between Cicero and Calvus on the subject of eloquence is now extant (cf. Cic., ad Fam., XV, 21, 4, with which, however, Petrarch was unacquainted).[91]. Pliny, N. H., vii, 24, and St. Jerome, Chron., a. Abr., 2027 (Migne, Vol. XXVII, coll. 441, 442, and Reiff., p. 83). From the similarity of expressions, it again results that St. Jerome was the direct source; for in Pliny there is no word alluding to the period of two years.
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