Cicero mentions the inconsistency of Epicurus in ii, 96: “Listen now ... to the dying words of Epicurus, and observe how widely his deeds and his words disagree;” and again in ii, 99: “But you will find nothing in this splendid letter of Epicurus in accord and consistent with his maxims. He refutes himself, while his theories are set at naught by his upright life.”
As Petrarch says, Books I and II of the _De finibus_ are crowded with favorable and adverse comments on Epicurus and his philosophy. Of the latter it will suffice to refer to i, 22, in which Cicero accuses Epicurus of being utterly wanting in logic; and to i, 26, where he denies that Epicurus can be admitted to the number of the learned.
[14]. Perhaps a reminiscence of Pliny, _N. H._, vii, 30 _extr._: “salve ... facundiae Latiarumque litterarum parens.”
[17]. _Aen._, xii, 168. Donatus, _Vita Verg._, XI, 41 (p. 60 R, through _pronuntiarentur_ only):
The publication of the Bucolics was attended by such great success that they were frequently recited, even by actors on the stage. Cicero once heard some of the verses, and his keen judgment at once perceived that they were written in no common vein. So he ordered the eclogue to be recited from the beginning; and after listening attentively to the very end, he exclaimed, “Rome’s other hope and stay;” as if he himself had been the first hope of the Latin tongue, and Maro were to be the second. These words Maro afterward inserted in the _Aeneid_.
This version does not mention Cicero’s inquiry as to the author of the verses he admired (“quaesivisses auctorem”), nor their meeting (“eumque ... vidisses”) nor the fact that his exclamation was flattering both to himself and to Vergil (“cum propria quidem laude permixtum”). Servius’ version, however, does include these three elements, and hence he is to be considered Petrarch’s source. He writes (_ad Ecl._, vi, 11):
It is said that Vergil’s reading of this eclogue (vi) was received with great favor; so much so, indeed, that when later Cytheris the courtesan (whom Vergil calls Lycoris in the last eclogue) sang it in the theater, Cicero in amazement inquired who the author of it was (“cuius esset requireret”). And when at last Cicero had seen him (“eum ... vidisset”), he is said to have exclaimed, in praise of both himself and that other (“et ad suam et ad illius laudem”), “Rome’s other hope and stay”--a phrase which Vergil afterward applied to Ascanius, as the commentators relate.