(_Fam._, XXIV, 7)
I had formerly heard of thy name, and had read something of thine,
wondering whence it was that thou hadst gained renown for keen
insight. It is but recently that I have become acquainted with thy
talents. Thy work entitled the _Institutes of Oratory_ has come
into my hands, but alas how mangled and mutilated![62] I recognized
therein the hand of time--the destroyer of all things--and thought
to myself, “O Destroyer, as usual thou dost guard nothing with
sufficient care except that which it were a gain to lose. O slothful
and haughty Age, is it thus that thou dost hand down to us men of
genius, though thou dost bestow most tender care on the unworthy?
O sterile-minded and wretched men of today, why do you devote
yourselves to learning and writing so many things which it were
better to leave unlearned, but neglect to preserve this work intact?”
However, this work caused me to estimate thee at thy true worth. As
regards thee I had long been in error, and I rejoice that I have now
been corrected. I saw the dismembered limbs of a beautiful body,
and admiration mingled with grief seized me. Even at this moment,
indeed, thy work may be resting intact in someone’s library, and,
what is worse, with one who perhaps has not the slightest idea of
what a guest he is harboring unawares.[63] Whosoever more fortunate
than I will discover thee, may he be sure that he has gained a work
of great value, one which, if he be at all wise, he will consider
among his chief treasures.
In these books (whose number I am ignorant of, but which must
doubtless have been many) thou hast had the daring to probe again
a subject treated with consummate skill by Cicero himself when
enriched by the experience of a lifetime. Thou hast accomplished the
impossible. Thou didst follow in the footsteps of so great a man, and
yet thou didst gain new glory, due not to the excellence of imitation
but to the merits of the original doctrines propounded in thine own
work. By Cicero, the orator was prepared for battle; by thee he is
molded and fashioned, with the result that many things seem to have
been either neglected or unheeded by Cicero. Thou gatherest all the
details which escaped thy master’s notice with such extreme care that
(unless my judgment fail me) thou mayest be said to conquer him in
diligence in just the degree that he conquers thee in eloquence.
Cicero guides his orator through the laborious tasks of legal
pleading to the topmost heights of oratory. He trains him for victory
in the battles of the courtroom. Thou dost begin far earlier, and
dost lead thy future orator through all the turns and pitfalls of the
long journey from the cradle to the impregnable citadel of eloquence.
The genius of Cicero is pleasing and delightful, and compels
admiration. Nothing could be more useful to youthful aspirants. It
enlightens those who are already far advanced, and points out to
the strong the road to eminence. Thy painstaking earnestness is of
assistance, especially to the weak, and, as though it were a most
experienced nurse, offers to delicate youth the simpler intellectual
nourishment.
But, lest the flattering remarks which I have been making cause thee
to suspect my sincerity, permit me to say (in counterbalancing them)
that thou shouldst have adopted a different style. Indeed, the truth
of what Cicero says in his _Rhetorica_ is clearly apparent in thy
case, namely that it is of very little importance for the orator to
discourse on the general, abstract theories of his profession, but
that, on the contrary, it is of the very highest importance for
him to speak from actual practice therein.[64] I do not deny thee
experience, the second of these two qualities, as Cicero did to
Hermagoras, of whom he was treating.[65] But I submit that thou didst
possess the latter in only a moderate degree; the former, however, in
such a remarkable degree that it seems now scarcely possible for the
mind of man to add a single word.
I have compared this magnificent work of thine with that book which
thou didst publish under the title _De causis_.[66] (And I should
like to say in passing that this work has not been lost, that it
might result the more clearly that our age is especially neglectful
of only the highest and best things, and not so much so of the
mediocre.) In such comparison it becomes plain to the minds of the
discerning that thou hast performed the office of the whetstone
rather than that of the knife,[67] and that thou hast had greater
success in building up the orator than in causing him to excel in
the courts. Pray do not receive these statements in bad part. For
it is as true of thee as of others (and thou must be aware of the
fact) that a man’s intellectual powers are not equally suited for
development in all directions, but that they will evince a special
degree of qualification in one only. Thou wert a great man, I
acknowledge it; but thy highest merit lay in thy ability to ground
and to mold great men. If thou hadst had suitable material to hand,
thou wouldst easily have produced a greater than thyself, O thou who
didst so wisely develop the rare intellects intrusted to thy care!
There was, however, quite a jealous rivalry between thee and a
certain other great man--I mean Annaeus Seneca. Your age, your
profession, your nationality, even, should have been a common bond
between you; but envy (that plague among equals) kept you apart. In
this respect I think that thou, perhaps, didst exercise the greater
self-restraint; for, whereas thou canst not get thyself to give him
full praise, he speaks of thee most contemptuously. I myself should
hesitate to be judged by an inferior. Yet, if I were constituted
judge of such an important question, I should express this opinion.
Seneca was a more copious and versatile writer, thou a keener; he
employed a loftier style, thou a more cautious one. Furthermore, thou
didst praise his genius and his zeal and his wide learning, but not
his choice nor his taste. Thou dost add, in truth, that his style was
corrupt, and vitiated by every fault.[68] He, on the other hand,
numbers thee among those whose name is buried with them,[69] although
thy reputation is still great, and thou hadst been neither dead nor
buried during his lifetime. For he passed away under Nero, whereas
thou didst go from Spain to Rome under Galba, when both Seneca and
Nero were no more. After many years thou didst assume charge of the
grandnephews of Emperor Domitian by his express orders, and becamest
sponsor for their moral and intellectual development.[70] Thou didst
fulfil thy trust, I believe, so far as lay in thy power and with
hopeful prospects in both these directions; although, as Plutarch
shortly afterward wrote to Trajan, the indiscretions of thy wards
were made to detract from thine own fair name.[71]
I have nothing more to say. I ardently desire to find thee entire;
and if thou art anywhere in such condition, pray do not hide from me
any longer. Farewell.
_Written in the land of the living, between the right slope of
the Apennines and the right bank of the Arno, within the walls
of my own city where I first became acquainted with thee, and
on the very day of our becoming acquainted,[72] on the seventh
of December, in the thirteen hundred and fiftieth year of Him
whom thy master preferred to persecute rather than to profess._