Note 8 — JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON (continued 2)

Sidonius Apollinaris, a Christian writer of the fifth century, is here the innocent victim of Petrarch's doubtless excusable ignorance. In speaking of his own letters Sidonius says that he has modestly refrained from attempting to imitate Cicero's style, and cites the fate of Titianus, who brought derision upon himself by so doing. Unless, as is quite possible, the text which Petrarch used was corrupt, it is difficult to explain how, even if, as he admits (see below p. 143), he had never heard of Fronto, the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, he could have so completely missed the point. The offending passage reads: "Nam de Marco Tullio silere me in stylo epistolari melius puto, quem nec Julius Titianus totum ... digna similitudine expressit. Propter quod illum cæteri quique Frontonianorum [i.e., admirers of Fronto], utpote consectaneum æmulati, cum veternorum dicendi genus imitaretur, oratorum simiam nuncupaverunt."—Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. lviii., pp. 444-5.