"[...]libris satiari nequeo. Et habeo plures forte quam oportet; sed sicut in ceteris rebus, sic et in libris accidit: querendi successus avaritie calcar est. uinimo, singulare quiddam in libris est: aurum, argentum, gemme, purpurea vestis, marmorea domus, cultus ager, picte tabule, phaleratus sonipes, ceteraque id genus, mutam habent et superficiariam voluptatem; libri medullitus delectant, colloquuntur, consulunt et viva quadam nobis atque arguta familiaritate iunguntur, neque solum se se lectoribus quisque suis insinuat, sed et aliorum nomen ingerit et alter alterius desiderium facit. Ac ne res egeat exemplo, Marcum michi Varronem carum et amabilem Ciceronis Achademicus fecit; Ennii nomen in Officiorum libris audivi; primum Terrentii amorem ex Tusculanarum questionum lectione concepi; Catonis Origines et Xenophontis Economicum ex libro De senectute cognovi, eundemque a Cicerone translatum in eisdem officialibus libris edidici. Sic et Platonis Thimeus Solonis michi commendavit ingenium, et Platonicum Phedronem mors Catonis, et Ptholomei regis interdictum cyrenaicum Hegesiam, et de Ciceronis epystolis Senece priusquam oculis meis credidi. Et Senece Contra superstitiones librum ut querere inciperem, Augustinus admonuit, et Apollonii Argonautica Servius ostendit, et Reipublice libros cum multi tum precipue Lactantius optabiles reddidit, et Romanam Plinii Tranquillus Historiam et Agellius eloquentiam Favorini itemque Annei Flori florentissima brevitas ad inquirendas Titi Livii reliquias animavit[...]"
("I will never have as many books as I want. Yes, I have more than I should, but, as in other things, so also with books, success in finding the ones I want just makes me covet more. But there is something unique about books: gold, silver, jewels, purple cloth, a palace of marble, fertile fields, paintings, a finely turned-out horse, and other things in this line, give us only a silent, superficial pleasure; books delight us deeply, ask us interesting questions, and are bound to us by a lively familiarity, and do not merely insinuate themselves upon thier readers, but also name other books, each creating the desire for another. So that examples won't be lacking: Marcus Cicero made me know and love Varro with his Academicus, and I heard the name of Ennius in his De Officiis; the Tusculanae Disputationes made me love Terence; I learned of Cato's Origines and Xenophon's Economicus from Cicero's book De Senectute, and that Cicero had translated the Economicus from the De Officiis. In just the same way, Plato's Timaeus commended Solon's genius to me, as Cato's death did Plato's Phaedo. Ptolomy brought Hegesias of Cyrene to my attention, and I trusted Seneca's judgement about Cicero's letter's before I read them for myself. It was Augustine who urged me to begin my search for Seneca's book Contra superstitiones, and Servius reveleaded to me the Argonautica of Apollonius. There are many others. Lactantius, especially, made me desire Cicero's books De Re Publica, and Suetonius brought Pliny's history alive as did Gellius the eloquence of Favorinus, and the most florid brevity of Annaeus Florus animated me to seek out whatever might remain of Livy.")
Do the best contemporary authors still recommend each other in this manner? I certainly hope that they do, although I couldn't give you many recent examples, because in the late 1980's I began to give up reading all of the latest prize-winning English-language literature in favour of reading material which was older, and then older, and then older than that, and here I am three decades later, still slowly learning to read Latin in my spare time.
Petrarch sure was daffy about Cicero, huh? Nothing remarkable about that. Indeed, I think it's about time that I finally reach the conclusion that the number of people who love Cicero's work is equal to the number who have read it, minus me. And perhaps as many as 3 or 4 others over the course of the past 2000 years.
Which, being the eminently reasonable person that I am, is gradually leading me to an agonizing re-appraisal of the whole situation, and the conclusion that I must give Cicero another try.
But I still don't want to. I still feel, based on the very little amount of his work that I have read, that Cicero is thoroughly pedestrian at best, telling us things every half-wit already knows, and perhaps thoroughly bad at worst. "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?" Yeah, well, what if Cicero and his pals weren't patient at all, or honest at all, and the portrait we have of Catiline -- which we have from Cicero -- is completely inaccurate? It's not as if I'm the first one who's asked that.
*sigh* I must give Cicero another try. Perhaps he was a thoroughly bad man and at the same time an utterly brilliant writer. That, too, would not be a first.
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