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):