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.