part I

do not believe that all the gods have abandoned their

protection of the Roman people to such an extent that Octavius is to be implored for the safety of any citizen whatsoever, much less, then, for that of the liberators of the entire world.... And can you, Cicero, who confess that Octavius has this power, can you still remain his friend?... For if you are pleased with Octavius, of whom our safety is to be implored, you will seem, not to have rid yourself of a master, but rather to have sought a kindlier lord.

[9]. Cic., _ad Brutum_, i, 17, 5 (Brutus to Atticus, 43 B. C.): “I, in truth, attach no importance to that knowledge with which I know that Cicero was so thoroughly imbued. For what profited him to discourse, and at such great length, on his country’s freedom, on dignity, on death, on exile, and on poverty?”

[10]. The reference is very indefinite: “in tranquillo rure senuisse, de perpetua illa, ut ipse quodam loco ais, non de hac iam exigua vita cogitantem” (Vol. III, p. 263). The passages which Petrarch had in mind may have been _De sen._, 49: “If, however, we have something that may serve as food (so to speak) for study and learning, there is nothing more pleasant than a leisurely old age;” and 51: “I come now to the pleasures of a country life, with which I am infinitely delighted. None of these finds an obstruction in old age, and they are pleasures which appear to me to be most nearly suited to the life of a philosopher.” These two passages affirm that the sage should live a leisurely and studious old age in the country. As to meditating on the eternal life, Petrarch may have been thinking of _Acad. pr._, ii, 127:

By no means, however, do I hold that the studies of the natural philosophers should be excluded. Indeed, a consideration and contemplation of nature constitutes the natural food (so to speak) for our minds and talents. We are elevated thereby, and we seem to rise to a higher state of being. We disdain human affairs; and, in meditating on the higher and heavenly things, we scorn earthly matters as being small and insignificant--“cogitantesque supera atque caelestia haec nostra ut exigua et minima contemnimus.”

There is a marked similarity between the two passages, both in the thought and the wording. As to the latter we must remember that Petrarch was quoting from memory and not from an open book, an inference which (we believe) may be justly drawn from his “ut ipse quodam loco ais.” It is needless to add that the similarity of the two passages lies only in the letter, and that the spirit of Cicero’s words was thoroughly pagan. With Petrarch, in this instance, the wish was father to the thought. Still he could not deceive himself on this point, as is evidenced by the dating of this letter. Elsewhere, too, he expresses his sincere regret, and regards Cicero as a potential Christian, if we may use the phrase. In a letter written to Neri Morando and dated October 15, 1358 or 1359, Petrarch is full and explicit. He says (_Fam._, XXI, 10, Vol. III, pp. 85-87):

I am living in the country not far from the banks of the Adda. I know that I am not more solicitous of your welfare than you of mine. I suppose, therefore, you will be astonished at hearing how I am spending my time. You are well aware that from early boyhood of all the writers of all ages and of all races the one author whom I most admire and love is Cicero. You agree with me in this respect as well as in so many others. I am not afraid of being considered a poor Christian by declaring myself so much of a Ciceronian. To my knowledge, Cicero never wrote one word that would conflict with the principles proclaimed by Christ. If, perchance, his works contained anything contrary to Christ’s doctrine, that one fact would be sufficient to destroy my belief in Cicero, and in Aristotle, too, and in Plato. For how could I place faith in man, I who should believe not even an angel, relying on the words of the Apostle who says, in the Epistle to the Galatians (1:8): “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” But to return to Cicero. He frequently makes mention of the gods, following, of course, the custom of his times. He devotes an entire volume, it is true, to a discussion of the nature of the gods. If you read beneath the surface, however, you will be convinced that he does not so much pay honor to this throng of gods with their empty names, but rather exposes them to ridicule. Where he seriously expresses his own opinion Cicero asserts that there is but one God, and that He is the Prince and Ruler of the universe. I have often pointed out, both in speech and in writing, that in this respect Cicero was fully aware of the danger attending his statement of the truth. And yet, somewhere, he has clearly stated that it is not befitting a philosopher to say that there are many gods. Who, therefore, will declare Cicero hostile to the true faith, or who, because of his crass ignorance of the facts, will cast upon Cicero the opprobrium of stranger and enemy? Christ is my God; Cicero, on the other hand, is the prince of the language I use. I grant you that these ideas are widely separated, but I deny that they are at conflict one with the other. Christ is the Word, and the Virtue, and the Wisdom of God the Father. Cicero has written much on the speech of men, on the virtues of men, and on the wisdom of men--statements that are true and therefore surely acceptable to the God of truth. For since God is the living Truth, and since, as St. Augustine says, all truth proceeds from Him who is the Truth, then surely whatever truth is spoken proceeds from God. I should desire to emphasize the fact that Cicero could not have known Christ, having been called from this world shortly before Christ God became man. Oh, lamentable lot! For, considering his noble and almost divine intellect, if Cicero had seen Christ or had merely heard of His name, not only (in my opinion) would he have embraced the faith, but, with his incomparable eloquence, would most ably have spread the teachings of Christ.

[11]. Cic., _ad Att._, vii, 2, 6 (50 B. C.):

Indeed, I never cherished the slightest desire for a triumph till I saw that Bibulus’ most shameless letters succeeded in winning for him the decree of a thanksgiving. If he had really performed the deeds he wrote of in his letters, I should rejoice and be favorably disposed to the honor decreed him. But that honors should be showered upon him, who never advanced one step beyond the gate so long as the enemy remained on this side of the Euphrates, and that I, in whose forces lay all the hope of his army, should be denied the same honors, is an insult to both of us, to both, I say, including you too in my disgrace. Therefore I shall leave no stone unturned, and, I hope, success will crown my efforts.

II. TO M. T. CICERO

(_Fam._, XXIV, 4)

I fear that my last letter has offended thee; for thou thyself art wont to designate as just the adage of thy friend in his Andria,[12] “Homage begets friends; truth, enemies.” If my fear prove true, then accept what may in some degree soothe thy injured feelings. Let not the truth be a source of ill humor in every and all instances, I beg of thee. Men, I know, are wont to be angered at justifiable censure, and to rejoice in merited praise. Thou, indeed, O Cicero (speaking with thy leave), didst live as a man, didst speak as an orator, didst write as a philosopher. It was thy life that I found fault with, not thy intellectual powers, nor yet thy command of language. Indeed, I admire the former, and am amazed at the latter. And, moreover, in thy life I feel the lack of nothing except the element of constancy, and a desire for peace that was to have been expected of a philosopher. I look in vain for a deep-rooted antipathy to civil dissensions, to strifes utterly of no avail, considering that liberty had been crushed and that the Republic had already been mourned as dead.

Mark how different is my attitude toward thee from thine toward Epicurus on so many occasions, but especially in the _De finibus_. Whenever thou wert so inclined, thou didst praise his life and ridicule his intellect.[13] In thee I ridicule nothing. I take compassion, however, on the life thou didst lead; while, as I have already stated, I rejoice in thy mental abilities and in thy powers of expression. O thou great father of Roman eloquence![14] Not only I, but all who take delight in the elegance of the Latin tongue render thee great thanks. Thou art the fountain-head from which we draw the vivifying waters for our meadows. We frankly confess that we have been guided by thee, assisted by thy judgments, enlightened by thy radiance; and, finally, that it was under thy auspices, so to speak, that I have gained this ability as a writer (such as it is), and that I have attained my purpose.

For the realms of poetry, however, there was at hand a second guide. The nature of the case demanded that there should be two leaders--one whom I might follow in the unencumbered ways of prose, and the other in the more restricted paths of poetry. It was necessary that there should be two men whom I should admire, respectively, for their eloquence and their song. This had needs be so. For--and I beg the kind indulgence of you both for speaking thus boldly--neither of you could serve both purposes; he could not rival thee in thy chosen field, whereas thou couldst not adapt thyself to his measured flow. I would not, indeed, have ventured to be the first to pass such criticism, even though I clearly perceived it to be true. It has already been passed before me--or, peradventure, it may have been quoted from another writer--by that great Annaeus Seneca of Cordova,[15] who, as he himself complains, was prevented from becoming acquainted with thee, not by any lapse of years, but by the fury of civil warfare.[16] He might have seen thee, but did not; withal, he was a constant admirer and worshiper both of thy works and of those of that other. Seneca, therefore, marks out the boundaries of your respective spheres, and enjoins upon each to yield to his coworker in the other field.

But I am keeping thee in suspense too long. Dost thou ask who that other guide is? Thou wilt know the man at once, if thou art merely reminded of his name. It is Publius Vergilius Maro, a citizen of Mantua, of whom thou didst prophesy such great things. For we have read that when thou, then advanced in years, hadst admired some youthful effort of his, thou didst inquire its author’s name, and that, having seen the young man, thou didst express thy great delight. And then, drawing on thy unexhausted fount of eloquence, thou didst pronounce upon him a judgment which, though mingled with self-praise, was nevertheless both honorable and splendid for him: “Rome’s other hope and stay.”[17] This sentence, which he thus heard fall from thy lips, pleased the youth to such a degree, and was so jealously treasured in his mind, that twenty years later, when thou hadst long since ended this earthly career, he inserted it word for word into his divine poem. And if it had been thy lot to see this work, thou wouldst have rejoiced that from the first blossom thou hadst made such accurate prediction of future success. Thou wouldst, moreover, have congratulated the Latin Muses, either for leaving but a doubtful superiority to the arrogant Greek Muses, or else for winning over them a decisive victory. There are defenders for both these opinions, I grant thee. And yet, if I have come to know thee from thy works--and I feel that I know thee as intimately as if I had always lived with thee--I should say that thou wouldst have been a stern defender of the latter view, and that, just as thou hadst already granted to Latium the palm in oratory,[18] thou wouldst have done likewise in the case of poetry. I do not doubt, moreover, that thou wouldst have pronounced the _Aeneid_ superior to the _Iliad_--an assertion which Propertius did not fear to make from the very beginning of Vergil’s labors. For when he had meditated upon the opening lines of the inspired poem, he freely gave utterance to the feelings and hopes aroused by it in these verses:

Yield then, ye bards of Greece, ye Romans yield, A mightier yet than Homer takes the field.[19]

Thus much concerning my second guide for Latin eloquence, thus much concerning Rome’s other hope and stay. I come back to thee now. Thou hast already heard from me my opinions on thy life and on thy genius. Art thou desirous now of learning what lot befell thy works, of knowing in what esteem they are held either by the world in general, or else by the more learned classes? There are extant, indeed, splendid volumes--volumes which I can scarcely enumerate, much less peruse with care. The fame of thy deeds and thy works is very great, and has spread far and wide. Thy name, too, has a familiar ring to all. Very few and rare, however, are those who study thee, and for various reasons: either because of the natural perversity of the times toward such studies, or because the minds of men have become dull and sluggish, or, as I think most likely, because greed has bent their minds in an entirely different direction. Wherefore, some of thy works have (unless I am mistaken) perished in this generation, and I know not whether they will ever be recovered. Oh, how great is my grief thereat; how great is the ignominy of this age; how great the loss to posterity! It was not, I suppose, sufficiently degrading to neglect our own powers, and to bequeath to future generations no fruit of our intellects; but, worse than all else, we had to destroy the fruit also of thy labor with our cruel, our unpardonable disregard. This lamentable loss has overtaken not merely thy works, but also those of many other illustrious authors. But at present I would speak of thy writings only; and the names of those whose loss is the more regrettable are the following: _De republica_, _De re familiari_, _De re militari_, _De laude philosophiae_,[20] _De consolatione_, and the _De gloria_.[21] Concerning the last, however, I entertain a more or less doubtful hope of its recovery, and consequently my despair is not unqualified. Unfortunately, however, even of those books that have come down to us, there are lacking large portions. It is as if we had overcome, after a great struggle, the oblivion threatened by the sloth and inactivity of ages; but, as the price of victory, we had to mourn over our leaders, not only those to be numbered among the dead, but also the maimed and the lost. We miss this loss in many of thy works, but more especially in the _De oratore_,[22] the _Academica_, and the _De legibus_--all of which have reached us in such a fragmentary and mutilated condition that it would have been better, perhaps, had they perished altogether.

There remains still another topic. Art thou desirous of learning the present condition of Rome and of the Roman state? of knowing the actual appearance of thy fatherland, the state of harmony among its citizens, to whom the shaping of its policies has fallen, and by whose wisdom and by whose hands the reins of government are held? Art thou wondering whether or not the Danube, and the Ganges, and the Ebro, and the Nile, and the Don are still the boundaries of our empire? and whether that man has arisen among us

The limits of whose victories Are ocean, of his fame the skies,

and who

O’er Ind and Garamant extreme Shall stretch his reign,

as thy Mantuan friend once sang?[23] I feel sure that thou art most eager to hear such and similar tidings, owing to thy loyalty and the love thou didst bear the fatherland, a love remaining constant even unto death. But it is better to pass over such subjects in silence. Believe me, Cicero, if thou wert to learn of the fallen state of our country, thou wouldst weep bitter tears, be it a region of Heaven that thou inhabitest, or of Hades. Forever farewell.

_From the land of the living, on the left bank of the Rhone, in Transpadane Gaul, in the same year, on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of January (at Avignon, December 19, 1345)._

NOTES ON _Fam._, XXIV, 4, TO CICERO

[12]. Terence, _Andria_, i, 1, 41. Petrarch’s words, “ut ipse soles dicere, quod ait familiaris tuus in Andria” (Vol. III, p. 264), are proof that he was not quoting Terence directly, but the _De amicitia_. In chap. 89 of the latter we read, “Quod in Andria familiaris meus dicit,” and then follows the verse in question. The speaker is of course Laelius, of whom Terence was in fact a friend. Petrarch, therefore, has either momentarily lost sight of the speaker, or, realizing full well that Laelius is Cicero’s mouth-piece, has consciously identified the two. This would, of course, make Terence a friend of Cicero; the “familiaris meus” of the _De amicitia_ and the “familiaris tuus” of Petrarch both, therefore, become equivalent to “familiaris Ciceronis.”

[13]. There is a passage in the _De finibus_ in which Cicero especially contrasts the teachings of Epicurus with his life. It is ii, 80 and 81:

That philosophy which you defend, and those tenets which you have learned, and approve of, destroy friendship to the very roots, even though Epicurus does extol friendship to the skies--as we must confess. “But Epicurus himself cultivated friendships,” you will say. And who, pray, is denying that he was a good and kindly man, full of sympathy for his fellow-beings? We are here discussing his intellect, not his life. We shall leave such fickleness and perversity to the Greeks, who attack with animosity all who may differ from them in their beliefs concerning truth. I must say, however, that, although he was affable in maintaining his friendships (if this be true, for I affirm nothing), yet he did not possess a keen mind. To which you will rejoin, “But he convinced many people.” ... To me, indeed, the fact that Epicurus himself was a good man, and that there have been and are today many Epicureans, loyal in their friendships, consistent in their actions throughout life, serious of disposition and shaping their plans without regard to pleasure but rather through a sense of duty--to me these facts prove that the power of integrity is superior, and that of pleasure inferior. In truth, some persons live in such a way that their life confutes their words. And therefore, just as others are considered to speak better than they act, so these Epicureans (it seems) must be said to act better than they speak.

Cicero mentions the inconsistency of Epicurus in ii, 96: “Listen now ... to the dying words of Epicurus, and observe how widely his deeds and his words disagree;” and again in ii, 99: “But you will find nothing in this splendid letter of Epicurus in accord and consistent with his maxims. He refutes himself, while his theories are set at naught by his upright life.”

As Petrarch says, Books I and II of the _De finibus_ are crowded with favorable and adverse comments on Epicurus and his philosophy. Of the latter it will suffice to refer to i, 22, in which Cicero accuses Epicurus of being utterly wanting in logic; and to i, 26, where he denies that Epicurus can be admitted to the number of the learned.

[14]. Perhaps a reminiscence of Pliny, _N. H._, vii, 30 _extr._: “salve ... facundiae Latiarumque litterarum parens.”

[15]. Seneca, _Contr._, iii, _praef._ 8.

[16]. Seneca, _Contr._, i, _praef._ 11.

[17]. _Aen._, xii, 168. Donatus, _Vita Verg._, XI, 41 (p. 60 R, through _pronuntiarentur_ only):

The publication of the Bucolics was attended by such great success that they were frequently recited, even by actors on the stage. Cicero once heard some of the verses, and his keen judgment at once perceived that they were written in no common vein. So he ordered the eclogue to be recited from the beginning; and after listening attentively to the very end, he exclaimed, “Rome’s other hope and stay;” as if he himself had been the first hope of the Latin tongue, and Maro were to be the second. These words Maro afterward inserted in the _Aeneid_.

This version does not mention Cicero’s inquiry as to the author of the verses he admired (“quaesivisses auctorem”), nor their meeting (“eumque ... vidisses”) nor the fact that his exclamation was flattering both to himself and to Vergil (“cum propria quidem laude permixtum”). Servius’ version, however, does include these three elements, and hence he is to be considered Petrarch’s source. He writes (_ad Ecl._, vi, 11):

It is said that Vergil’s reading of this eclogue (vi) was received with great favor; so much so, indeed, that when later Cytheris the courtesan (whom Vergil calls Lycoris in the last eclogue) sang it in the theater, Cicero in amazement inquired who the author of it was (“cuius esset requireret”). And when at last Cicero had seen him (“eum ... vidisset”), he is said to have exclaimed, in praise of both himself and that other (“et ad suam et ad illius laudem”), “Rome’s other hope and stay”--a phrase which Vergil afterward applied to Ascanius, as the commentators relate.

This version was one which would especially appeal to Petrarch; for, as P. de Nolhac justly observes (I, p. 125), it represents Petrarch’s two literary idols as having been personally acquainted with each other.

And, finally, in favor of the Servian origin is the fact that in Donatus the entire story appears in the interpolated version of the _Vita_, and it is doubtful whether Petrarch was acquainted with this longer version (Sabbadini, _Rend. del R. Ist. Lomb._, [1906], p. 198). The interpolated text of the _Vita_ has, in fact, been traced only as far back as the beginning of the fifteenth century; the date temporarily assigned to it is 1400-20 (Sabbadini, “La ‘Vergilii Vita’ di Donato,” _Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica_, Vol. V, 1897, pp. 384-88).

[18]. Cicero, however, is much more guarded in his statement than we would infer from the words of Petrarch; _Tusc._, i, 3, 5: “Then came the Lepidi, Carbo, and the Gracchi, and so many great orators after them down to our own times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the Greeks.”

[19]. Translation, by Ch. R. Moore (p. 73), of Propertius, ii, 34_b_, 65, 66 (_rec._ Aem. Baehrens, Teubner, 1880) or ii, 34, 65, 66 (H. E. Butler, 1905).

There is abundant proof that Petrarch was acquainted with Propertius (P. de Nolhac, I, pp. 170-72). Still, from the few indirect references to this author, one is inclined to believe that Petrarch here (as elsewhere) is drawing upon the _Life_ by Donatus for biographical information on Vergil. And in fact the Propertian couplet seems to derive from Donatus, _Vita Verg._, XII, 45 (p. 61R), the “operis fundamenta” and “asseverare non timuit” of Petrarch (Vol. III, p. 266), corresponding, respectively, to the “Aeneidos vixdum coeptae” and “non dubitaverit sic praedicare” of Donatus. In commenting upon this famous distich, H. Nettleship says (“Vergil,” in _Classical Writers_ [New York, 1880], p. 86): “Propertius and Ovid saw at once what was in Vergil. Of the _Aeneid_ Propertius said ‘something greater than the _Iliad_ is coming to the birth.’” (Cf. _Ancient Lives of Vergil_ [Oxford, 1879], p. 67.) Comparetti, however, has chosen a different course in his _Vergil in the Middle Ages_ (tr. by Benecke, 1895). On p. 3, after stating that the Romans confessed Vergil’s inferiority to Homer, he continues in a footnote:

The exaggerations of a few enthusiasts must not be reckoned at more than their real value. How great a part of the “Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade” of Propertius was due to his friendship with Vergil becomes clear when we compare with it the praises he lavishes on the _Thebaid_ of another friend, Ponticus.

[20]. In a large tome containing Cicero’s writings, and supposed to have belonged to Petrarch, there occurred the rubric “de laude ac defensione philosophiae, introducens Lucullum loquentem ad Hortensium, liber primus incipit.” Petrarch, misled by this heading, had been of the opinion that the work following was the _Hortensius_. As a matter of fact, it was