Humanitas (Jun 2021)
From humanitas to amicitia
Abstract
The article aims to investigate Cicero’s epistle Fam. 15.21 (46 BC), which is addressed to Trebonius, a former colleague of him and now a lieutenant of Caesar, and deals with the oratory of Calvus, an Atticist (and Catullus’ best friend), to whom Cicero had given praise and rhetorical advice in a previous letter. Cicero shows affection to Trebonius, and care to Calvus, although they weren’t quite friends of him and belonged to different parties, both in politics and oratory. An examination of the text from the point of view of form and content shows here a double example of humanitas both as benevolence (philantrophia) and as an intellectual and didactic approach (paideia). It seems the prelude to a true friendship (which is also the theme of a future dialogue of Cicero), maybe with further effects (Trebonius will participate in the conspiracy against Caesar). Moreover, several allusions and some playful situations related to the letter (such as the gift of a book containing Cicero’s jokes) recalls Catullus’ poems to his friends (above all to Calvus), confirming the idea of a literary contact between the poeta novus and the orator. The result is an intertwining of personal and cultural relationships between personalities who are traditionally believed to be on opposite sides, but are closer than one might think in Cicero’s correspondence.
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