But wary makes the persons after him,
When thou didst say,” . . . .
[6]. In Fam., XXIV, 2 (a letter from which we have already quoted in n. 1) there are some passages fairly parallel to this one. The first is (Vol. III, p. 258):
You may remember that Cicero’s name chanced to be mentioned among us, as so often happens among learned men. This put a stop to the desultory conversation in which we had been engaged up to that time. We all became engrossed with this one topic, and nothing else but Cicero was talked of thereafter. We gathered round and each in turn sang the praises of Cicero as seemed best to him. But nothing in this world is perfect (as everyone knows), and there is no one in whom even a gentle critic cannot find just cause for censure. And so it happened that though nearly everything pleases me in Cicero—a man whom I cherish beyond all my other friends—and though I expressed admiration for his golden eloquence and divine intellect, I could not praise the fickleness of his character and his inconstancy, which I had detected in many instances.
And again, at the end of the same letter (Vol. III, p. 261), Petrarch says:
As regards Cicero, I have known him as the best of consuls, vigilantly providing for the welfare of the State, and as a citizen who always evinced the highest love of country. But what more? I cannot bestow praise upon the instability of his friendships, nor upon the serious disagreements arising from slight causes and bringing destruction upon him and benefit to none, nor upon a judgment which, when brought to bear upon questions of private and public affairs, did not well accord with his remarkable acumen in other directions. Above all, I cannot praise, in a philosopher weighed down with years, an inclination for wrangling which is proper to youths and utterly of no avail. Of all this, however, remember that neither you nor anyone else can be in a fit position to judge, until you will have read, and carefully, all the letters of Cicero; for it is these which gave rise to the whole discussion.
[7]. Petrarch has here paraphrased the words of Cicero, who employs such expressions as “maximo in discrimine res publica versatur” (ad Br., i, 12, 1); “ferre praesidium labenti et inclinatae paene rei publicae” (op. cit., i, 18, 2); “res existimabatur in extremum adducta discrimen” (ibid., ii, 1, 1, and ii, 2, 2); “desperatam et afflictam rem publicam” (pseudo-Cic., ad Octavianum, 4); and “mortua re publica” (ibid., 7).
[8]. Cic., ad Brutum, i, 16 (written by Brutus at Athens, May, 43 B. C.):
I have read an extract (sent to me by Atticus) of the letter which you wrote to Octavius. . . . I am most deeply afflicted by that portion of your letter to Octavius which concerns us. You give him thanks for the welfare of the State, and—what shall I say? The conditions imposed by my present lot bring shame upon me, but still the words must be written—you suppliantly and submissively commend our safety to his mercy. . . . For my 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?”