[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.