March 18, 1351
On the one hand, my faith and your kindness suggest that I write you, O illustrious doge; on the other, the state of present affairs and the times compel me to do so.
The first indeed urges me to speak, the second dares me to do so, while the third makes it impossible for me to remain silent. For who would expect silence from a loving friend? The freedom of love is not bridled by modesty. Were the hand of reason to close one's mouth, and were the mind, recognizing itself unequal to the magnitude of affairs, unwilling to lie down or remain silent, the uneasy heart nevertheless breaks out in cries, seeking not unfamiliar thoughts or words, but speaking whatever comes to mind, whatever sorrow and apprehension urge it to express. Its speech is hasty, agitated, tumultuous, and very similar, as is natural, to the mind's fluctuations.
Please know that this is truly happening to me now as never before. I am moved indeed, O illustrious doge, deeply and intensely moved. If you really wish to know the cause of my anxiety, it is that I am disturbed by the storms roaring about us and by the upheavals that we see everywhere. But to leave aside my laments for the entire human race, as an Italian I shall limit myself to my fears for Italy.
At present two powerful peoples are taking up arms, two flourishing cities or, to put it briefly, two bright lights of Italy, which it seems to me Mother Nature has so strategically located on opposite sides of the approaches to the Ausonian land so that, with you in the north and east controlling the Adriatic and with them in the south and west controlling the Tyrrhenian, the four corners of the earth would realize that Italy still is queen, even after the weakening and decline, or rather the prostration and destruction, of the Roman Empire. While the pride of certain peoples may make them seriously question this, surely no one would have the audacity to dispute your supremacy on the sea.
If, as I shudder to contemplate, much less to predict, you now turn your victorious arms against one another, we shall without doubt perish of self-inflicted wounds. Plundered by our own hands, we shall lose not only our fame but our domination of the seas acquired through so much labor, without however losing that comfort in misfortunes that we have often experienced in other moments; for the enemy will be able to enjoy our calamities but not boast about them.
Among my numerous apprehensions which distress or terrify me, I fear none more than the intractable minds and opinions of young people, for youth is an age of ignorance, inexperienced with fortune's fickleness and its power to overthrow empires once great. Young people promise themselves all they desire and consequently very often fail. Just as the words of a famous warrior in Livy are true, “He whom fortune has never deceived does not easily reflect on the uncertain nature of events,” so what follows is similarly true, “Never does the outcome correspond less to one's expectation than in war.” Unfortunately, those men must be deceived to whom fortune's face has always appeared serene and calm, for she is two-faced, considerably more violent than gentle.
I was therefore pleased to hear that you had referred the uncertain state of affairs to a council of elders. This behooved your foresight and your character, whose seriousness and maturity made you leader of that group, although you still belong to the other because of your age. Arrogance is attributed to youth and prudence to old age; for this reason the masters of the Roman republic in antiquity, whose virtue found nothing impossible, whether called fathers out of respect or in recognition of their paternal solicitude, without doubt justly deserved to be called senators because of their age. Now that such responsibility has been given first to young people and more recently in our own age even to children, would that the height from which we have fallen were not so evident! But more about this at another time, for it is difficult for one afflicted with grief and fear to deplore the past and to foresee the future, to shed tears for misfortune and to seek a remedy for danger.
I shall therefore return to my fear tormenting me concerning the future. The condition of your country, I confess, worries and amazes me. What shall I say about you? It would behoove me little to rejoice at your glory and to feel compassion for your toils. I must pity your talent, for I feel the great distance between the clattering of arms and the restfulness of the Muses, the weak sounds of Apollo's lyre amidst the trumpets of Mars. You can really deny nothing to your fatherland, which was so worthy of you in peacetime that neither weariness of war nor fear of death made you forsake it.
If, abandoning Helicon ever so briefly and sending your books on leave, you pursued the path of public service, you performed the office of a grateful citizen, of a good man, and of a distinguished leader. These duties you have discharged in such fashion, however, that, though armed, you think of love and peace, and are convinced that you can offer the fatherland no greater triumph and no finer spoils than peace.
Whenever the subject of peace arises, I gladly make reference to that saying of Hannibal, because truth itself evidently seems to have wrenched from the mouth of that martial man words so opposed to his character. What then does he say according to Livy? “Better and safer is a certain peace than a coveted victory”; and this from a man who burned with a desire for victory and disturbed the peace of the entire world! What, therefore, should a friend of peace say? Should he not rather say, “Better and more sacred is certain peace than certain victory?” This is particularly true because peace is laden with repose and charity and grace, while victory is laden with toil and crimes and arrogance.
Indeed what is more pleasant than peace, what is happier or sweeter? Without peace what is man's life except danger, perpetual fear, and a gloomy workshop of unending cares? I ask you, what pleasure can it be to pass the night under the heavens, to break one's sleep with a horn, to enclose the body in a breastplate, “to conceal gray hair with a helmet” in Maro's words, to die suddenly while still girt in iron, and to remain unburied, which is the greatest concern of brave men? It certainly must be pleasing to consume the wretched heart with stinging anxieties, fear, and hatred, and to waste the uncertain time of this fleeting life in such pursuits!
What safety can there be in fighting simultaneously the sea and an enemy when this means battling a double death? I pray that no one will deceive you: you are waging war with a courageous, unconquered and, I must sadly add, Italian people. Would that your enemies were cities such as Damascus or Susa, Memphis or Smyrna, rather than Genoa! Would that you were fighting the Persians or Arabs, the Thracians or Illyrians!
Now what are you really doing? If you still have any respect for the Latin name, consider that those you endeavor to destroy are your brothers. Alas, as in Thebes long ago, now throughout Italy battle lines of brothers are being drawn, a tearful spectacle for friends, a propitious one for enemies. What could possibly be the purpose of a war when, whether conquerors or conquered (for the game of fortune is uncertain), one of the two lights of Italy must be extinguished and the other dimmed. Decide for yourself whether the expectation of a bloodless victory over such an enemy may be a sign of absurd madness rather than of noble confidence.
See for yourselves, O magnanimous men and most powerful peoples—what I say to one I mean to both, and if these words are sent primarily to you it is because of my respectful familiarity with your virtues and our proximity—consider for yourselves, I say, where to direct your minds and what may be the boundaries of your madness or of your hatred, consider your own security and finally the public welfare which in large measure depends on you.
Bear in mind that, unless some spring of piety extinguishes the heat of this impending war, there will emerge from the wounds inflicted Italian blood, not Numantine or Carthaginian. And it will be the blood of men who, in case of unexpected violence or a foreign attack against our territories (which have sometimes been attempted but never with impunity), will be among the first to take up arms with you in defense of a common cause. It is they who will immediately expose their breasts to death and to enemy weapons, who will be protected by your shields and your bodies as they will protect you with theirs, who will take vengeance on the fleeing enemy once they have surrounded their fleet, and who will die, fight, and triumph along with you.
I cannot understand the pleasure in attacking and destroying men such as these because of brief moments of anger, even though it may be done with impunity. Perhaps the angry minds of those who, in the fashion of women, delight in the punishment of friends and in vengeance for the least offense will better understand it! Certainly it is not useful or noble, and, ultimately, not even human. It is preferable to forget wrongs than to punish them, and to appease an enemy rather than to destroy him, particularly an enemy of great merit who can be counted upon once he returns to the fold. Though the toil may be similar for either goal, gentleness befits men while wrath befits beasts, and not all of these, but only the ignoble ones fashioned by the sinister hand of nature.
If therefore my words reach your advisers, whom I doubt not are many and eminent, not only will you not refuse the coming peace, but you will go to meet it and, embracing it eagerly, you will try to keep it with you eternally. This you will accomplish quite easily if, whatever happens, you call upon reasonable and respected old age to participate in your deliberations. Listen to men who have known the whims of fortune and have learned to love their land, for the sweetness of peace is more pleasing for those who have previously tasted the bitterness of war. Keep the others, as enemies of peace, away from your threshold. Nor would I admit those whose only indications of old age are wrinkles and white hair, baldness and curved backs, “running noses like children and trembling voice and limbs,” as the Satirist says. Let them keep their certainly unenviable traits, for we do not seek men who are falling apart, but mature ones.
Neither do I exclude those men, if there are any at all, who acquired maturity of judgment while still young; I do not scorn in others what I admire in you, provided a precocious wisdom shines forth. I realize how much assistance my young Africanus gave his distressed country, not only with deeds but with counsel, or how Papirius Pretextatus deceived his mother through jest in order to conceal a secret of the Senate; I know what Portius Cato said to his teacher, or how the young Alcibiades persuaded a wretched old man. But believe me, very rare are those men who possess wisdom while still in their youth. Whenever indeed you see such a youth who has progressed beyond his years— I do not deny that it could happen — enroll him in your group of elders.
With such advisers, hasty opinions are not advanced, nor is falsehood hidden secretly under the mantle of truth. You who deserved to be a leading voice of the council and the head of state, bear constantly in mind that the major share of glory or of infamy will touch you; for that reason, though others may sleep, you alone must remain vigilant. Illustrious men have long believed that the labors of a general and of a soldier are not the same. He is more likely to act who is driven by greater hope of reward, and while the types of reward may be many and diverse, toward which we incline differently for a variety of reasons, there is still little doubt that for noble minds glory is the greatest spur after virtue.
With this motivation, then, turn your mind to the most noble concerns, and according to Cicero, “the noblest cares relate to the well-being of the fatherland.” With such concerns, you will prepare a path to heaven for yourself; rise and soar above yourself. Observe, heed, and contemplate all things; and compare successful outcomes of war with unsuccessful ones, destruction with comfort, joy with grief. And since, as I said, a most fitting witness in the cause of peace is Hannibal, take care, as he writes, “lest you risk the happiness of many years in a single hour.”
Consider the great toil with which your power was acquired; consider how many steps are required to reach this pinnacle of fortune! Should you not know it, the fame of your people is very ancient, something which a great number of people do not believe. I read that the reputation not only of the Venetians but, even more astonishing, the name of their leader, Venetus, was famous many years prior to the founding of Rome. You should carefully keep this in mind lest you subject proven valor and honor acquired through the counsel of so man years to the power of ravaging fortune.
Since the reward of fame is virtue's greatest prize, as wise men have always realized, know that you will behave most properly in behalf of the republic if you provide for the public good when circumstances warrant, even at the loss of personal praise; if you give the grumbling crowd advice that is wise rather than specious, and useful rather than pleasing; if you prefer to be called procrastinating rather than precipitous, following the example of the commander Maximus, about whom Ennius says, “he did not place gossip before security”; and if you do not fear the resulting dishonor or the hatred of fools in your pursuit of virtue. As happened to that same leader, you too will enjoy not only greater glory but the love of the people amidst the admiration of all. Even were this hope not realized, still you know through experience and have learned from philosophers what we owe to virtue and what to glory.
With what grief, to be perfectly honest with you, do you think I heard of your recent alliance with the King of Aragon? Is assistance then being sought from foreign kings, so that Italians may be destroyed by Italians? Whence could unfortunate Italy expect aid if her sons not only tear to shreds their mother whom they should cherish, but also have foreigners attack her in public massacre? Someone will remark: “The same sort of evil was previously attempted by the enemy.” I have already emphasized that, although I address one, I am reproving both of you.
How much more proper it would have been to have the Venetians become one with the Genoese, once the rust of wrath had been cleansed, from which neither sincere friendship nor fraternal love nor even the devotion of parents and children is entirely immune, than to tear to pieces the beautiful body of Italy, with you imploring the aid of western tyrants and with them, I understand, imploring the aid of eastern tyrants to take part in this madness. O fatal and useless precautions, O ultimate form of malice, to substitute deputies for crimes which you cannot commit yourself and to seek those whom you could incite to do your work, thereby offering your neighbors reasons for hatred!
The origins of our many afflictions flowed, in fact, from our strong admiration for external affairs while we shamefully considered our own with a strange loathing; we have long since, because of a fatal attitude of ours, neglected Italian loyalty in favor of foreign treachery. We must be insane to seek in venal minds the loyalty which we despair of finding in our own brothers. The result has been that we have most justly fallen into misfortunes that we now lament too late and in vain, since we opened to the Cimbrians, the Huns, the Pannonians, the Gauls, the Teutons, and the Spaniards, with the keys of spite and avarice and arrogance, the Alps and the seas with which Nature had protected us without need of fortifications. These were the gateways to our borders that had been erected and bolted by divine providence. How often have we tearfully recited that pastoral verse of Virgil: “Will an impious soldier possess this well-cultivated meadow, will a foreigner occupy these cornfields? Behold whither discord has led our wretched citizens!”
But to return to my point, I do not know what determinations you are about to make. This much I do know, that once in a similar situation but under dissimilar conditions the occasion arose for the Spartans to destroy the troublesome capital of the Athenians, but they decided against destroying one of the two glories of Greece because the matter had become one of convenience rather than capability. Certainly a remarkable decision, most worthy of the venerable discipline of the Spartans! If that emerged from the mouths of men whom Plato considers hungry for conquest and power, what should I expect of such gentle and modest men as yourselves? The fact is that I am losing peace of mind, being incapable of remaining unmoved by great upheavals and by conflicting feelings such as love, fear, and hope, which simultaneously oppress my heart and struggle among themselves.
I believed myself to be immune from any just reproach if, while some men transform forests into fleets, others sharpen swords and arrows, and still others fortify embattlements and shipyards, I had recourse to the pen, my sole weapon, not as an agent of war but as an emissary of peace. I have for some time thought of concluding this letter, aware of the appropriateness of keeping one's words to a minimum when speaking to superiors; but no one is superior in love. That will compel you to forgive me as it has compelled me to verbosity.
Finally, prostrate and tearful before the leaders of two peoples, I implore one thing: cast off your murderous weapons, shake hands, exchange kisses of peace, and join your minds as well as your banners. Thus, the ocean and the gates of the Black Sea will lie open to your fleets, and all rulers and peoples will respectfully run to welcome you. The Scythians, the British, and the Africans will fear you; and your sailors will safely navigate the shores of Egypt, Tyre, Armenia, and the once feared ports of Cilicia and Rhodes, at one time mistress of the sea; and toward the Sicilian mountains and its sea monsters; and along the Balearic Islands, infamous for piracy in ancient and modern times; and finally toward the Fortunate Isles, the Orkneys, the famous but unknown island of Thule, and all the southern and northern shores. Once you are at peace with each other, there is nothing to fear from any other source.
Farewell, greatest of leaders and of men.
