Ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum. Notes on Varro's alleged praise or the Menippean praise in Ac.1 9

Abstract

This paper proposes an alternative reading of the praise addressed by Cicero to Varro in Ac.1 9, interpreting the passage not litteratim but in a Menippean key. The author seems to take this dedication to Varro as a literary and philosophical
challenge — a reading for which there are other clues in the dedicatory letter and in the Letters to Atticus. The initial reticence of Varro’s character resembles that attributed by Szlezák to Socrates in the Euthydemus: before being Cicero encourages and seeks to initiate Varro to serious philosophical writing, Varro’s character is reluctant, reactionary. The final observation ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum of Varro’s eulogy would be a fulmen in clausula, used
by the author to emphasize how Varro had yet to prove himself as a philosophical author, particularly one engaged in the ethics learned from his teacher Antiochus. Therefore through his Varro Cicero had already tacitly and rightly affirmed
his victory over Varro.