Cicero, de Oratore (on the Orator)

ToposText · Cicero · 860 sections

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§ 2.338 “But it happens that, because a popular assembly appears to the orator to be his most enlarged scene of action, he is naturally excited in it to a more magnificent species of eloquence; for a multitude has such influence, that, as the flute-player cannot play without his flutes, so the orator cannot be eloquent without a numerous audience.
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§ 2.339 And, as the inclinations of popular assemblies take many and various turns, an unfavourable expression of feeling from the whole people must not be incurred; an expression which may be excited by some fault in the speech, if anything appears to have been spoken with harshness, with arrogance, in a base or mean manner, or with any improper feeling whatever; or it may proceed from some offence taken, or ill-will conceived, at some particular individuals, which is either just, or arising from some calumny or bad report; or it may happen if the subject be displeasing; or if the multitude be swayed by any impulse from their own hopes or fears. To those four causes as many remedies may be applied: the severity of rebuke, if you have sufficient authority for it; admonition, which is a milder kind of rebuke; an assurance, that if they will give you a hearing, they will approve what you say; and entreaty, which is the most condescending method, but sometimes very advantageous.
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§ 2.340 But on no occasion is facetiousness and ready wit of more effect, and any smart saying that is consistent with dignity and true jocularity; for nothing is so easily diverted from gloom, and often from rancour, as a multitude, even by a single expression uttered opportunely, quickly, smartly, and with good humour. [LXXXIV.] “I have now stated to you generally, to the best of my abilities, what it is my practice, in both kinds of causes, to pursue, what to avoid, what to keep in view, and to what method I ordinarily adhere in my pleadings.
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§ 2.341 Nor is that third kind, panegyric, which I in the commencement excluded, as it were, from my rules, attended with any difficulty; but it was because there are many departments of oratory both of greater importance and power, concerning which hardly any author has given particular rules, and because we of this country are not accustomed to deal much in panegyric, that I set this topic entirely apart. For the Greek authors themselves, who are the most worthy of being read, wrote their panegyrics either for amusement, or to compliment some particular person, rather than with any desire to promote forensic eloquence; and books of their composition are extant, in which Themistocles, Aristides, Agesilaus, Epaminondas, Philip, Alexander, and others, are the subjects of praise. Our laudatory speeches, which we deliver in the forum, have either the simple and unadorned brevity of testimony, or are written as funeral orations, which are by no means suitable for the pomp of panegyric. But as we must sometimes attempt that department, and must occasionally write panegyrics, as Caius Laelius wrote one for Publius Tubero, when he wished to praise his uncle Africanus, and in order that we ourselves may be enabled to praise, after the manner of the Greeks, such persons as we may be inclined to praise, let that subject also form part of our discourse.
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§ 2.342 It is clear, then, that some qualities in mankind are desirable, and some praiseworthy. Firth, beauty, strength, power, riches, and other things which fortune bestows, either amid external circumstances, or as personal endowments, carry with them no real praise, which is thought to be due to virtue alone; but, as virtue itself becomes chiefly conspicuous in the use and management of such things, these endowments of nature and of fortune are also to be considered in panegyrics; in which it is mentioned as the highest praise for a person not to have been haughty in power, or insolent in wealth, or to have assumed a preeminence over others from the abundance of the blessings of fortune; so that his riches and plenty seem to have afforded means and opportunities, not for the indulgence of pride and vicious appetites, but for the cultivation of goodness and moderation.
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§ 2.343 Virtue, too, which is of itself praiseworthy, and without which nothing can be deserving of praise, is distinguished, however, into several species, some of which are more adapted to panegyric than others; for there are some virtues which are conspicuous in the manners of men, and consist in some degree in affability and beneficence; and there are others which depend on some peculiar natural genius, or superior greatness and strength of mind. Clemency, justice, benignity, fidelity, fortitude in common dangers, are subjects agreeable to the audience in panegyric;
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§ 2.344 for all such virtues are thought beneficial, not so much to the persons who possess them, as to mankind in general;) while wisdom, and that greatness of soul by which all human affairs are regarded as mean and inconsiderable, eminent power of thought, and eloquence itself, excite indeed no less admiration, but not equal delight; for they appear to be an ornament and support rather to the persons themselves whom we commend, than to those before whom we commend them; yet, in panegyric, these two kinds of virtues must be united; for the ears of men tolerate the praises not only of those parts of virtue which are delightful and agreeable, but of those which excite admiration. [LXXXV.]
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§ 2.345 “Since, also, there are certain offices and duties belonging to every kind of virtue, and since to each virtue its peculiar praise is due, it will be necessary to specify, in a panegyric on justice, what he who is praised performed with fidelity, or equanimity, or in accordance with any other moral duty. In other points, too, the praise of actions must be adapted to the nature, power, and name of the virtue under which they fall.
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§ 2.346 The praise of those acts is heard with the greatest pleasure, which appear to have been undertaken by men of spirit, without advantage or reward; but those which have been also attended with toil and danger to themselves afford the largest scope for panegyric, because they may be set forth with the greatest ornaments of eloquence, and the account of them may be heard with the utmost satisfaction; for that appears the highest virtue in a man of eminence, which is beneficial to others, but attended with danger or toil, or at least without advantage, to himself. It is commonly regarded, too, as a great and admirable merit, to have borne adversity with wisdom, not to have been vanquished by fortune, and to have maintained dignity in the worst of circumstances.
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§ 2.347 It is also an honour to a man that distinctions have been bestowed upon him, rewards decreed to his merit, and that his achievements have been approved by the judgment of mankind; and, on such subjects, to attribute success itself to the judgment of the immortal gods, is a part of panegyric. But such actions should be selected for praise as are either of extraordinary greatness, or unprecedented novelty, or singular in their kind; for such as are trivial, or common, or ordinary, generally appear to deserve no admiration or even commendation.
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§ 2.348 A comparison also with other great men has a noble effect in panegyric. “On this species of eloquence I have felt inclined to say something more than I had proposed, not so much for the improvement of pleading in the forum, which has been kept in view by me through this whole discourse, as that you might see that, if panegyric be a part of the orator’s business, and nobody denies that it is, a knowledge of all the virtues, without which panegyric cannot be composed, is necessary to the orator.
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§ 2.349 As to the rules for censuring, it is clear that they are to be deduced from the vices contrary to these virtues; and it is also obvious, that neither can a good man be praised with propriety and copiousness of matter, without a knowledge of the several virtues, nor a bad man be stigmatized and branded with sufficient distinction and asperity, without a knowledge of the opposite vices. On these topics of panegyric and satire we must often touch in all kinds of causes.
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§ 2.350 “You have now heard what I think about the invention and arrangement of matter. I shall add some observations on memory, with a view to lighten the labour of Crassus, and to leave nothing for him to discuss, but the art of embellishing those departments of eloquence which I have specified.” [LXXXVI.] “Proceed,” said Crassus; “for I feel pleasure in seeing you appear as a professed artist, stripped of the disguises of dissimulation, and fairly exposed to view; and, in leaving nothing for me to do or but little, you consult my convenience, and confer a favour upon me.”
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§ 2.351 “How much I leave you to do,” said Antonius, “will be in your own power; for if you are inclined to act fairly, I leave you everything to do; but if you wish to shrink from any portion of your undertaking, you must consider how you can give this company satisfaction. But to return to the point; I am not,” he continued, “possessed of such intellectual power as Themistocles had, that I had rather know the art of forgetfulness than that of memory; and I am grateful to the famous Simonides of Ceos, who, as people say, first invented an art of memory.
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§ 2.352 For they relate, that when Simonides was at Crannon in Thessaly, at an entertainment given by Scopas, a man of rank and fortune, and had recited a poem which he had composed in his praise, in which, for the sake of embellishment, after the manner of the poets, there were many particulars introduced concerning Castor and Pollux, Scopas told Simonides, with extraordinary meanness, that he would pay him half the sum which he had agreed to give for the poem, and that he might ask the remainder, if he thought proper, from his Tyndaridae, to whom he had given an equal share of praise.
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§ 2.353 A short time after, they say that a message was brought in to Simonides, to desire him to go out, as two youths were waiting at the gate who earnestly wished him to come forth to them; when he arose, went forth, and found nobody. In the meantime the apartment in which Scopas was feasting fell down, and he himself, and his company, were overwhelmed and buried in the ruins; and when their friends were desirous to inter their remains, but could not possibly distinguish one from another, so much crushed were the bodies, Simonides is said, from his recollection of the place in which each had sat, to have given satisfactory directions for their interment. Admonished by this occurrence, he is reported to have discovered, that it is chiefly order that gives distinctness to memory;
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§ 2.354 and that by those, therefore, who would improve this part of the understanding, certain places must be fixed upon, and that of the things which they desire to keep in memory, symbols must be conceived in the mind, and ranged, as it were, in those places; thus the order of places would preserve the order of things, and the symbols of the things would denote the things themselves; so that we should use the places as waxen tablets, and the symbols as letters. [LXXXVII.]
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§ 2.355 “How great the benefit of memory is to the orator, how great the advantage, how great the power, what need is there for me to observe? Why should I remark how excellent a thing it is to retain the instructions which you have received with the cause, and the opinion which you have formed upon it? to keep all your thoughts upon it fixed in your mind, all your arrangement of language marked out there? to listen to him from whom you receive any information, or to him to whom you have to reply, with such power of retention, that they seem not to have poured their discourse into your ears, but to have engraven it on your mental tablet? They alone accordingly, who have a vigorous memory, know what, and how much, and in what manner they are about to speak; to what they have replied, and what remains unanswered; and they also remember many courses that they have formerly adopted in other cases, and many which they have heard from others.
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§ 2.356 I must, however, acknowledge that nature is the chief author of this qualification, as of all those of which I have previously spoken; (but this whole art of oratory, or image and resemblance of an art, has the power, not of engendering and producing anything entirely of itself, of which no part previously existed in our understandings, but of being able to give education and strength to what has been generated, and has had its birth there;)
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§ 2.357 yet there is scarcely any one of so strong a memory as to retain the order of his language and thoughts without a previous arrangement and observation of heads; nor is any one of so weak a memory as not to receive assistance from this practice and exercise. For Simonides, or whoever else invented the art, wisely saw, that those things are the most strongly fixed in our minds, which are communicated to them, and imprinted upon them, by the senses; that of all the senses that of seeing is the most acute; and that, accordingly, those things are most easily retained in our minds which we have received from the hearing or the understanding, if they are also recommended to the imagination by means of the mental eye; so that a kind of form, resemblance, and representation might denote invisible objects, and such as are in their nature withdrawn from the cognisance of the sight, in such a manner, that what we are scarcely capable of comprehending by thought we may retain as it were by the aid of the visual faculty.
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§ 2.358 By these imaginary forms and objects, as by all those that come under our corporeal vision, our memory is admonished and excited; but some place for them must be imagined; as bodily shape cannot be conceived without a place for it. That I may not, then, be prolix and impertinent upon so well-known and common a subject, we must fancy many plain distinct places, at moderate distances; and such symbols as are impressive, striking, and well-marked, so that they may present themselves to the mind, and act upon it with the greatest quickness. This faculty of artificial memory practice will afford, (from which proceeds habit,) as well as the derivation of similar words converted and altered in cases, or transferred from particulars to generals, and the idea of an entire sentence from the symbol of a single word, after the manner and method of any skilful painter, who distinguishes spaces by the variety of what he depicts. [LXXXVIII.]
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§ 2.359 “But the memory of words, which, however, is less necessary for us, is to be distinguished by a greater variety of symbols; for there are many words which, like joints, connect the members of our speech, that cannot possibly be represented by anything similar to them; and for these we must invent symbols that we may invariably use. The memory of things is the proper business of the orator; this we may be enabled to impress on ourselves by the creation of imaginary figures, aptly arranged, to represent particular heads, so that we may recollect thoughts by images, and their order by place.
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§ 2.360 Nor is that true which is said by people unskilled in this artifice, that the memory is oppressed by the weight of these representations, and that even obscured which unassisted nature might have clearly kept in view; for I have seen men of consummate abilities, and an almost divine faculty of memory, as Charmadas at Athens, and Metrodorus the Scepsian in Asia, who is said to be still living, each of whom used to say that, as he wrote with letters on wax, so he wrote with symbols as it were, whatever he wished to remember, on these places which he had conceived in imagination. Though, therefore, a memory cannot be entirely formed by this practice, if there is none given by nature; yet certainly, if there is latent natural faculty, it may be called forth.
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§ 2.361 “You have now had a very long dissertation from a person whom I wish you may not esteem impudent, but who is certainly not over-modest, in having spoken, so copiously as I have done, upon the art of eloquence, in your hearing, Catulus, and that of Lucius Crassus; for of the rest of the company the age might perhaps reasonably make less impression upon me; but you will certainly excuse me, if you but listen to the motive which impelled me to loquacity so unusual with me.” [LXXXIX.]
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§ 2.362 “We indeed,” said Catulus, “(for I make this answer for my brother and myself,) not only excuse you, but feel love and great gratitude to you for what you have done; and, as we acknowledge your politeness and good-nature, so we admire your learning and copious store of matter. Indeed I think that I have reaped this benefit, that I am freed from a great mistake, and relieved from that astonishment which I used always to feel, in common with many others, as to the source from which that divine power of yours in pleading was derived; for I never imagined that you had even slightly touched upon those matters, of which I now perceive that you possess an exact knowledge, gathered from all quarters, and which, taught by experience, you have partly corrected and partly approved.
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§ 2.363 Nor have I now a less high opinion of your eloquence, while I have a far higher one of your general merit and diligence; and I am pleased, at the same time, that my own judgment is confirmed, inasmuch as I always laid it down as a maxim, that no man can attain a character for wisdom and eloquence without the greatest study, industry, and learning. But what was it that you meant, when you said that we should excuse you if we knew the motive which had impelled you to this discourse? What other motive could there be but your inclination to oblige us, and to satisfy the desire of these young gentlemen, who have listened to you with the utmost attention?”
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§ 2.364 “I was desirous,” replied Antonius, “to take away from Crassus every pretence for refusal, who would, I was sure, engage in such a kind of dissertation either a little too modestly, or too reluctantly, for I would not apply the word disdainfully to a man of his affability. But what excuse will he now be able to make ‘That he is a person of consular and censorial dignity? I might have made the same excuse. Will he plead his age? He is four years younger than [I.] Can he say that he is ignorant of these matters, of which I indeed have snatched some knowledge late in life, cursorily, and, as people say, at spare times, while he has applied to them from his youth with the most diligent study, under the most able masters? I will say nothing of his genius, in which no man was ever his equal; for no one that hears me speak, has so contemptible an opinion of himself, as not to hope to speak better, or at least as well; but while Crassus is speaking, no one is so conceited as to have the presumption to think that he shall ever speak like him. Lest persons, therefore, of so much dignity as the present company, should have come to you in vain, let us at length, Crassus, hear you speak.”
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§ 2.365 [XC.] “If I should grant you, Antonius.” replied Crassus, “that these things are so, which however are far otherwise, what have you left for me this day, or for any man, that he can possibly say? For I will speak, my dearest friends, what I really think: I have often heard men of learning, (why do I say often? I should rather say sometimes; for how could I have that opportunity often, when I entered the forum quite a youth, and was never absent from it longer than during my quaestorship?) but I have heard, as I said yesterday, both while I was at Athens, men of the greatest learning, and in Asia that famous rhetorician Metrodorus the Scepsian, discoursing upon these very subjects; but no one of them ever appeared to me to have engaged in such a dissertation with greater extent of knowledge, or greater penetration, than our friend has shown to-day; but if it were otherwise, and if I thought anything had been omitted by Antonius, I should not be so impolite, nay so almost churlish, as to think that a trouble which I perceived to be your desire.”
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§ 2.366 “Have you then forgotten, Crassus,” said Sulpicius, “that Antonius made such a division with you, that he should explain the equipment and implements of the orator, and leave it to you to speak of decoration and embellishment?” “In the first place,” rejoined Crassus, “who gave Antonius leave either to make such a partition, or to choose first that part which he liked best? In the next, if I rightly comprehended what I heard with the utmost pleasure, he seemed to me to treat of both these matters in conjunction.” “But,” observed Cotta, “he said nothing of the embellishments of language, or on that excellence from which eloquence derives its very name.” “ Antonius then,” said Crassus, “left me nothing but words, and took the substance for himself.”
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§ 2.367 “Well,” remarked Caesar, “if he has left you the more difficult part, we have reason to desire to hear you; if that which is the easier, you have no reason to refuse.” “And in regard to what you said, Crassus,” interposed Catulus, “that if we would stay and pass the day with you here, you would comply with our wishes, do you not think it binding on your honour?” Cotta then smiled, and said, “I might, Crassus, excuse you; but take care that Catulus has not made it a matter of religious faith; it is a point for the censor’s cognisance; and you see how disgraceful it would be for a person of censorial dignity to render himself obnoxious to such censure.” “Do as you please, then,” replied Crassus; “but for the present, as it is time, I think we must rise, and take some repose; in the afternoon, if it is then agreeable to you, I will say something on these points, unless perchance you may wish to put me off till tomorrow.” They all replied that they were ready to hear him either at once, or in the afternoon if he preferred; as soon however as possible.
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§ 3.1 BOOK III [I.] WHEN I proceeded to execute my design, brother Quintus, of relating and committing to writing in this third book, the remarks which Crassus made after the dissertation of Antonius, bitter remembrance renewed in my mind its former concern and regret; for the genius worthy of immortality, the learning, the virtue that were in Lucius Crassus, were all extinguished by sudden death, within ten days from the day which is comprised in this and the former book.
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§ 3.2 When he returned to Rome on the last day of the theatrical entertainments, he was put into a violent emotion by that oration which was reported to have been delivered in an assembly of the people by Philippus, who, it was agreed, had declared, “that he must look for another council, as he could not carry on the government with such a senate;” and on the morning of the thirteenth of September, both Crassus and a full senate came into the house on the call of Drusus. There, when Drusus had made many complaints against Philippus, he brought formally before the senate the fact that the consul had thrown such grievous obloquy on that order, in his speech to the people.
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§ 3.3 Here, as I have often heard it unanimously said by men of the greatest judgment, although indeed it continually happened to Crassus, whenever he had delivered a speech more exquisite than ordinary, that he was always thought never to have spoken better, yet by universal consent it was then determined, that all other orators had always been excelled by Crassus, but that on that day he had been excelled by himself; for he deplored the misfortune and unsupported condition of the senate; an order whose hereditary dignity was then being torn from it by a consul, as by some lawless ruffian, a consul whose duty it was to act the part of a good parent or trusty guardian towards it; but said that it was not surprising, if, after he had ruined the commonwealth by his own counsels, he should divorce the counsels of the senate from the commonwealth.
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§ 3.4 When he had applied these expressions, which were like firebrands, to Philippus, who was a man of violence, as well as of eloquence, and of the utmost vigour to resist opposition, he could not restrain himself, but burst forth into a furious flame, and resolved to bind Crassus to good behaviour, by forfeiting his securities. On that occasion, many things are reported to have been uttered by Crassus with a sort of divine sublimity, refusing to acknowledge as a consul him who would not allow him to possess the senatorial dignity: Do you, said he, who, when you thought the general authority of the whole senatorial order entrusted to you as a pledge, yet perfidiously annulled it in the view of the Roman people, imagine that I can be terrified by such petty forfeitures as those? It is not such pledges that are to be forfeited, if you would bind Lucius Crassus to silence; for that purpose you must cut out this tongue; and even if it be torn out, the freedom in my very breath will confound your audacity. [II.]
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§ 3.5 It appeared that a multitude of other expressions were then uttered by him with the most vehement efforts of mind, thought, and spirits; and that that resolution of his, which the senate adopted in a full house, was proposed by him with the utmost magnificence and dignity of language, That the counsel and fidelity of the senate had never been wanting to the commonwealth, in order to do justice to the Roman people; and he was present (as appears from the names entered in the register) at the recording of the resolution.
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§ 3.6 This however was the last swan-like note and speech of that divine orator; and, as if expecting to hear it again, we used, after his death, to go into the senate-house, that we might contemplate the spot on which he had last stood to speak; for we heard that he was seized at the time with a pain in his side while he was speaking, and that a copious perspiration followed; after which he was struck with a chillness, and, returning home in a fever, died the seventh day after of pleurisy.
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§ 3.7 O how fallacious are the hopes of mortals, how frail is our condition, and how insignificant all our ambitious efforts, which are often broken and thrown down in the middle of their course, and overwhelmed as it were in their voyage, even before they gain a sight of the harbour! For as long as the life of Crassus was perplexed with the toils of ambition, so long was he more distinguished for the performance of private duties, and the praises due to his genius, than for any benefit that he reaped from his greatness, or for the dignified rank which he bore in the republic; but the first year which, after a discharge of all the honourable offices of the state, opened to him the entrance to supreme authority by universal consent, overthrew all his hopes, and all his future schemes of life, by death.
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§ 3.8 This was a melancholy occurrence to his friends, a grievous calamity to his country, and a heavy affliction to all the virtuous part of mankind; but such misfortunes afterwards fell upon the commonwealth, that life does not appear to me to have been taken away from Lucius Crassus by the immortal gods as a privation, but death to have been bestowed on him as a blessing. He did not live to behold Italy blazing with war, or the senate overwhelmed with popular odium, or the leading men of the state accused of the most heinous crimes, or the affliction of his daughter, or the banishment of his son-at-law, or the most calamitous flight of Caius Marius, or that most atrocious of all daughters after his return, or, finally, that republic in every way disgraced, in which, while it continued most flourishing, he had by far the preeminence over all other men in glory. [III.]
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§ 3.9 But led away as I am by my reflections to touch upon the power and vicissitudes of fortune, my observations shall not expatiate too widely, but shall be confined almost to the very personages who are contained in this dialogue, which I have begun to detail. For who would not call the death of Lucius Crassus, which has been so often lamented by multitudes, a happy one, when he calls to mind the fate of those very persons who were almost the last that held discourse with him? For we ourselves remember, that Quintus Catulus, a man distinguished for almost every species of merit, when he entreated, not the security of his fortunes, but retreat into exile, was reduced to deprive himself of life.
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§ 3.10 It was then, too, that that illustrious head of Marcus Antonius, by whom the lives of so many citizens had been preserved, was fixed upon the very rostra on which he had so strenuously defended the republic when consul, and which he had adorned with imperial trophies when censor. Not far from his was exposed the head of Caius Julius, (who was betrayed by his Tuscan host,) with that of Lucius Julius his brother; so that he who did not behold such atrocities may justly be thought to have prolonged his life during the existence of the constitution, and to have expired together with it. He neither beheld his near relation, Publius Crassus, a man of the greatest magnanimity, slain by his own hand, nor saw the image of Vesta sprinkled with the blood of the pontifex, his colleague; and (such were his feelings towards his country) even the cruel death of Caius Carbo, his greatest enemy, that occurred on the same day, would have caused additional grief to him.
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§ 3.11 He did not behold the horrible and miserable fate of those young men who had devoted themselves to him; of whom Caius Cotta, whom he had left in a promising condition, was expelled, through popular prejudice, from his office of tribune, a few days after the death of Crassus, and, not many months afterwards, driven from the city. And Sulpicius, who had been involved in the same popular fury, attempted in his tribuneship to spoil of all their honours those with whom, as a private individual, he had lived in the greatest familiarity; but when he was shooting forth into the highest glory of eloquence, his life was taken from him by the sword, and punishment was inflicted on his rashness, not without great damage to the republic.
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§ 3.12 I am indeed of opinion that you, Crassus, received as well your birth as your death from the peculiar appointment of divine providence, both on account of the distinction of your life and the season of your death; for, in accordance with your virtue and firmness of mind, you must either have submitted to the cruelty of civil slaughter; or if any fortune had rescued you from so barbarous a death, the same fortune would have compelled you to be a spectator of the ruins of your country; and not only the dominion of ill-designing men, but even the victory of the honourable party, would, on account of the civil massacres intermingled with it, have been an affliction to you. [IV.]
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§ 3.13 Indeed, when I reflect, brother Quintus, upon the calamities of these great men, (whose fates I have just mentioned,) and those which we ourselves have felt and experienced from our extraordinary and eminent love for our country, your opinions appear to me to be founded on justice and wisdom, as you have always, on account of such numerous, such violent, and such sudden afflictions as have happened to the most illustrious and virtuous men, dissuaded me from all civil contention and strife.
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§ 3.14 But, because we cannot put affairs into the same state as if nothing had occurred, and because our extreme toils are compensated and mitigated by great glory, let us apply ourselves to those consolations, which are not only pleasant to us when troubles have subsided, but may also be salutary while they continue; let us deliver as a memorial to posterity the remaining and almost the last discourse of Lucius Crassus; and let us express the gratitude to him which he so justly merited, although in terms by no means equal to his genius, yet to the best of our endeavours;
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§ 3.15 for there is not any of us, when he reads the admirably written dialogues of Plato, in almost all of which the character of Socrates is represented, who does not, though what is written of him is written in a divine spirit, conceive something still greater of him about whom it is written: and it is also my request, not indeed to you, my brother, who attribute to me perfection in all things, but to others who shall take this treatise into their hands, that they would entertain a nobler conception of Lucius Crassus than any that is expressed by me.
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§ 3.16 For I, who was not present at this dialogue, and to whom Caius Cotta communicated only the topics and heads of the dissertation, have endeavoured to shadow forth in the conversation of the speakers those peculiar styles of oratory, in which I knew that each of them was conspicuous. But if any person shall be induced by the common opinion, to think either that Antonius was more jejune, or Crassus more exuberant in style, than they have been respectively described by me, he will be among the number of those who either never heard these great men, or who have not abilities to judge; for each of them was (as I have explained before) superior to all other speakers, in application, and genius, and learning, as well as excellent in his particular style, so that embellishment in language was not wanting in Antonius, nor redundant in Crassus. [V.]
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§ 3.17 As soon therefore as they had withdrawn before noon, and reposed themselves a little, Cotta said that he particularly observed that Crassus employed all the time about the middle of the day in the most earnest and profound meditation; and that he himself, who was well acquainted with the countenance which he assumed whenever he was going to speak in public, and the nature of his looks when he was fixed in contemplation, and had often remarked them in causes of the greatest importance, came on purpose, while the rest were asleep, into the room in which Crassus had lain down on a couch prepared for him, and that, as soon as he perceived him to be settled in a thoughtful posture, he immediately retired; and that almost two hours passed in that perfect stillness. Afterwards, when they all, as the day was now verging to the afternoon, waited upon Crassus, Caesar said, “Well, Crassus, shall we go and take our seats? though w only come to put you in mind of your promise, and not to demand the performance of it.”
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§ 3.18 Crassus then replied, “Do you imagine that I have the assurance to think that I can continue longer indebted to such friends as you, especially in an obligation of this nature?” “What place then will suit you?” said Caesar; “a seat in the middle of the wood, for that is the most shady and cool?” “Very well,” replied Crassus, “for there is in that spot a seat not at all unsuited for this discourse of ours.” This arrangement being agreeable to the rest of the company, they went into the wood, and sat down there with the most earnest desire to listen.
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§ 3.19 Crassus then said, “Not only the influence of your authority and friendship, but also the ready compliance of Antonius, have taken from me all liberty of refusal, though I had an excellent pretext for refusing. In the partition, however, of this dissertation between us, Antonius, when he assumed to himself the part of speaking upon those matters which form the subject of the orator’s speech, and left to me to explain how they should be embellished, divided things which are in their nature incapable of separation; for as every speech consists of the matter and the language, the language can have no place if you take away the matter, nor the matter receive any illustration if you take away the language.
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§ 3.20 Indeed, the great men of antiquity, embracing something of superior magnificence in their ideas, appear to me to have seen further into the nature of things than the visual faculties of our minds can penetrate; as they said that all these things, above and below, formed one system, and were linked together in strict union by one and the same power, and one principle of universal harmony in nature; for there is no order of things which can either of itself, if forcibly separated from the rest, preserve a permanent existence, or without which the rest can maintain their power and eternal duration. [VI.]
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§ 3.21 “But, if this reasoning appear to be too comprehensive to be embraced by human sense and understanding, yet that saying of Plato is true, and certainly not unknown to you, Catulus, ‘that all the learning of these liberal and polite departments of knowledge is linked together in one bond of union; for when the power of that reason, by which the causes and events of things are known, is once thoroughly discerned, a certain wonderful agreement and harmony, as it were, in all the sciences is discovered.’
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§ 3.22 But, if this also appear to be too sublime a thought for us to contemplate who are prostrate on the earth, it, however, certainly is our duty to know and remember that which we have embraced, which we profess, which we have taken upon ourselves. Since eloquence, as I observed yesterday, and Antonius signified in some passages of his discourse this morning, is one and the same, into whatever tracts or regions of debate it may be carried:
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§ 3.23 for whether it discourses concerning the nature of the heavens or of the earth, whether of divine or human power, whether it speaks from a lower, or an equal, or a superior place, whether to impel an audience, or to instruct, or to deter, or to incite, or to dissuade, or to inflame, or to soothe, whether to a small or to a large assembly, whether to strangers, to friends, or alone, its language is derived through different channels, not from different sources; and, wherever it directs its course, it is attended with the same equipment and decoration.
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§ 3.24 But since we are overwhelmed by opinions, not only those of the vulgar, but those also of men imperfectly instructed, who treat of those things more easily when divided and torn asunder which they have not capacity to comprehend in a general view, and who sever the language from the thoughts like the body from the soul, neither of which separations can be ‘made without destruction, I will not undertake in this discourse more than that which is imposed upon me; I will only signify briefly, that neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.
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§ 3.25 But before I proceed to touch upon those particulars by which I think language is beautified and illumined, I will state briefly what I think concerning eloquence in general. [VII.] “There is no one of the natural senses, in my opinion, which does not include under its general comprehension many things dissimilar one to another, but which are still thought deserving of similar approbation; for we both perceive many things by the ear, which, although they all charm us with their sounds, are yet often so various in themselves, that that which we hear last appears to be the most delightful; and almost innumerable pleasures are received by the eye, which all captivate us in such a manner as to delight the same sense in different ways; and pleasures that bear no sort c f resemblance to each other charm the rest of the senses in such a manner that it is difficult to determine which affords the most exquisite enjoyment.
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§ 3.26 But the same observation which is to be made in regard to nature may be applied also to the different kinds of art. Sculpture is a single art, in which Myron, Polycletus, and Lysippus excelled; all of whom differed one from another, but so that you would not wish any one of them to be unlike himself. The art and science of painting is one, yet Zeuxis, Aglaophon, and Apelles are quite unlike one another in themselves, though to none of them does anything seem wanting in his peculiar style. And if this be wonderful, and yet true, in these, as it were, mute arts, how much more wonderful is’ it in language and speech? which, though employed about the same thoughts and words, yet admits of the greatest variations; and not so that some speakers are to be censured and others commended, but that those who are allowed to merit praise, merit it for different excellences.
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§ 3.27 This is fully exemplified in poets, who have the nearest affinity to orators: how distinct from each other are Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius; how distinct, among the Greeks, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; though almost equal praise may be attributed to them all in different kinds of writing.
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§ 3.28 Then, behold and contemplate those whose art is the subject of our present inquiry; what a wide distinction there is between the accomplisliments and natural abilities of orators! Isocrates possessed sweetness, Lysias delicacy, Hyperides pointedness, Aeschines sound, and Demosthenes energy; and which of them was not excellent? yet which of them resembled any one but himself? Africanus had weight, Laelius smoothness, Galba asperity, Carbo something of fluency and harmony; but which of these was not an orator of the first rank in those times? and yet every one attained that rank by a style of oratory peculiar to himself. [VIII.]
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§ 3.29 “But why should I search into antiquity for examples, when I can point to present and living characters? What was ever more pleasing to the ear than the language of our friend Catulus? language of such purity, that he appears to be almost the only orator that speaks pure Latin; and of such power, that with its peculiar dignity there is yet blended the utmost politeness and wit. In a word, when I hear him, I always think that whatever you should add, or alter, or take away, his language would be impaired and deteriorated.
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§ 3.30 Has not our friend Caesar here, too, introduced a new kind of oratory, and brought before us an almost peculiar style of eloquence? Who has ever, besides him, treated tragical subjects in an almost comic manner, serious subjects with pleasantry, grave subjects with gaiety, and subjects suited to the forum with a grace peculiar to the stage? in such a way that neither is the jocular style excluded by the importance of the subject, nor is the weight of the matter lessened by the humour with which it is treated.
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§ 3.31 Here are present with us two young men, almost of equal age, Sulpicius and Cotta; what things were ever so dissimilar as they are one to another? yet what is so excellent as they are in their respective styles? One is polished and refined, explaining things with the greatest propriety and aptitude of expression; he always adheres to his cause, and, when he has discovered, with his keen discernment, what he ought to prove to the judge, he directs his whole attention and force of oratory to that point, without regarding other arguments; while Sulpicius has a certain irresistible energy of mind, a most full and powerful voice, a most vigorous action, and consummate dignity of motion, united with such weight and copiousness of language, that he appears of all men the best qualified by nature for eloquence. [IX.]
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§ 3.32 “I now return to ourselves; (because there has ever been such a comparison made between us, that we are brought, as it were, into judgment on account of rivalship, in the common conversation of mankind;) what two things can be more dissimilar than Antonius’s manner of speaking and my own 1 though he is such an orator that no one can possibly surpass him; and I, though I am altogether dissatisfied with myself, am yet in preference to others admitted to a comparison with him. Do you notice what the manner of Autonius is? It is bold, vehement, full of energy and action, fortified and guarded on every point of the cause, spirited, acute, explicit, dwelling upon every circumstance, retiring with honour, pursuing with eagerness, terrifying, supplicating, exhibiting the greatest variety of language, yet without satiety to the ear; but as to myself, whatever I am as a speaker (since I appear to you to hold some place among speakers), I certainly differ very greatly from his style.
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§ 3.33 What my talents are it becomes not me to say, because every ere is least known to himself, and it is extremely difficult for any person to form a judgment of his own capacity; but the dissimilitude may be easily perceived, both from the mediocrity of my action, and from the circumstance that I usually conclude in the same track in which I first set out; and that labour and care in choosing words causes me greater anxiety than choice of matter, being afraid that if my language should be a little obsolete, it may appear unworthy of the expectation and silent attention of the audience.
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§ 3.34 But if in us who are present there are such remarkable dissimilitudes, such decided peculiarities in each of us, and in all this variety the better is distinguished from the worse by difference in ability rather than by difference in kind, and everything is praiseworthy that is perfect in its nature, what do you imagine must be the case if we should take into consideration all the orators that anywhere exist, or ever existed? Would it not happen that almost as many kinds of eloquence as of orators would be found? But from this observation of mine, it may perhaps occur to you, that if there be almost innumerable varieties and characters of eloquence, dissimilar in species, yet laudable in their kind, things of so diversified a nature can never be formed into an art by the same precepts and one single method of instruction.
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§ 3.35 This is not the case; and it is to be attentively considered by those who have the conduct and education of others, in what direction the natural genius of each seems principally to incline him. For we see that from the same schools of artists and masters, eminent in their respective pursuits, there have gone forth pupils very unlike each other, yet all praiseworthy, because the instruction of the teacher has been adapted to each person’s natural genius;
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§ 3.36 a fact of which the most remarkable example (to say nothing of other sciences) is that saying of Isocrates, an eminent teacher of eloquence, that he used to apply the spur to Ephorus, but to put the rein on Theopompus; for the one, who overleaped all bounds in the boldness of his expressions, he restrained; the other, who hesitated and was bashful, as it were, he stimulated: nor did he produce in them any resemblance to each other, but gave to the one such an addition, and retrenched from the other so much superfluity, as to form in both that excellence of which the natural genius of each was susceptible. [X.]
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§ 3.37 “I thought it necessary to premise these particulars that if every remark of mine did not exactly adapt itself to the inclinations of you all, and to that peculiar style of speaking which each of you most admired, you might be sensible that I described that character of eloquence of which I myself most approved. “Those matters, therefore, of which Antonius has treated so explicitly, are to be endowed with action and elocution by the orator in some certain manner. What manner of elocution can be better (for I will consider action by-and-by) than that of speaking in pure Latin, with perspicuity, with gracefulness, and with aptitude and congruity to the subject in question?
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§ 3.38 Of the two which I mentioned first, purity and clearness of language, I do not suppose that any account is expected from me; for we do not attempt to teach him to be an orator who cannot speak; nor can we hope that he who cannot speak grammatical Latin will speak elegantly; nor that he who cannot speak what we can understand, will ever speak anything for us to admire. Let us, therefore, omit these matters, which are easy of attainment, though necessary in practice; for the one is taught in school-learning and the rudiments of children; the other is cultivated for this reason, that what every person says may be understood, a qualification which we perceive indeed to be necessary, yet that none can be held in less estimation.
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§ 3.39 But all elegance of language, though it receive a polish from the science of grammar, is yet augmented by the reading of orators and poets; for those ancients, who could not then adorn what they expressed, had almost all a kind of nobleness of diction; and those who are accustomed to their style cannot express themselves otherwise than in pure Latin, even though they desire to do so. Yet we must not make use of such of their words as our modern mode of speaking does not admit, unless sometimes for the sake of ornament, and but sparingly, as I shall explain; but he who is studious and much conversant with ancient writers, will make such use of common expressions as always to adopt the most eligible. [XI.]
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§ 3.40 “In order to speak pure Latin, we must take care not only to use words with which nobody can justly find fault, and preserve the construction by proper cases, and tenses, and genders, and numbers, so that there may be nothing confused, or incongruous, or preposterous; but also that the tongue, and the breath, and the tone of the voice come under proper regulation.
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§ 3.41 I would not have letters sounded with too much affectation, or uttered imperfectly through negligence; I would not have the words dropped out without expression or spirit; I would not have them puffed and, as it were, panted forth, with a difficulty of breathing; for I do not as yet speak of those things relating to the voice which belong to oratorical delivery, but merely of that which seems to me to concern pronunciation. For there are certain faults which every one is desirous to avoid, as a too delicate and effeminate tone of voice, or one that is extravagantly harsh and grating.
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§ 3.42 There is also a fault which some industriously strive to attain; a rustic and rough pronunciation is agreeable to some, that their language, if it has that tone, may seem to partake more of antiquity; as Lucius Cotta, an acquaintance of yours, Catulus, appears to me to take a delight in the broadness of his speech and the rough sound of his voice, and thinks that what he says will savour of the antique if it certainly savour of rusticity. But your harmony and sweetness delight me; I do not refer to the harmony of your words, which is a principal point, but one which method introduces, learning teaches, practice in reading and speaking confirms; but I mean the mere sweetness of pronunciation, which, as among the Greeks it was peculiar to the Athenians, so in the Latin tongue is chiefly remarkable in this city.
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§ 3.43 At Athens, learning among the Athenians themselves has long been entirely neglected; there remains in that city only the seat of the studies which the citizens do not cultivate, but which foreigners enjoy, being captivated in a manner with the very name and authority of the place; yet any illiterate Athenian will easily surpass the most learned Asiatics, not in his language, but in sweetness of tone, not so much in speaking well as in speaking agreeably. Our citizens pay less attention to letters than the people of Latium, yet among all the people that you know in the city, who have the least tincture of literature, there is not one who would not have a manifest advantage over Quintus Valerius of Sora, the most learned of all the Latins, in softness of voice, in conformation of the mouth, and in the general tone of pronunciation. [XII.]
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§ 3.44 “As there is a certain tone of voice, therefore, peculiar to the Roman people and city, in which nothing can offend, or displease, nothing can be liable to animadversion, nothing sound or savour of what is foreign, let us cultivate that tone, and learn to avoid not only the asperity of rustic but the strangeness of outlandish pronunciation.
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§ 3.45 Indeed when I listen to my wife’s mother, Laelia, (for women more easily preserve the ancient language unaltered, because, not having experience of the conversation of a multitude of people, they always retain what they originally learned,) I hear her with such attention that I imagine myself listening to Plautus or Naevius; she has a tone of voice so unaffected and simple, that it seems to carry in it nothing of ostentation or imitation; from whence I judge that her father and forefathers spoke in like manner; not with a rough tone, as he whom I mentioned, nor with one broad, or rustic, or too open, but with one that was close and equable and smooth.
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§ 3.46 Our friend Cotta, therefore, whose broad manner of speaking you, Sulpicius, sometimes imitate, so as to drop the letter I and pronounce E as full as possible, does not seem to me to resemble the ancient orators, but the modern farmers.” As Sulpicius laughed at this, “I will act with you,” said Crassus, “in such a manner, that, as you oblige me to speak, you shall hear something of your own faults.” “I wish we may,” replied Sulpicius, “for that is what we desire; and if you do so, we shall to-day, I fancy, throw off many of our inelegances.”
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§ 3.47 “But,” said Crassus, “I cannot censure you, Sulpicius, without being in danger of censure myself; since Antouius has declared that he thinks you very similar to me.”10 “But,” rejoined Sulpicius, “as Antonius also recommended us to imitate those things which were most conspicuous in any one, I am afraid in consequence that I may have copied nothing from you but the stamping of your foot, and a few particular expressions, and perhaps something of your action.” “With what you have caught from me, then,” said Crassus, “I find no fault, lest I should ridicule myself; (but there are many more and greater faults of mine than you mention;) of faults, however, which are evidently your own, or taken by imitation from any third person, I shall admonish you whenever opportunity may remind me of them. [XIII.]
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§ 3.48 “Let us therefore pass over the rules for speaking the Latin tongue in its purity; which the teaching given to children conveys, which refined knowledge and method in study, or the habit of daily and domestic conversation cherishes, and which books and the reading of the ancient orators and poets confirm. Nor let us dwell long upon that other point, so as to discuss by what means we may succeed in making what we say understood;
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§ 3.49 an object which we shall doubtless effect by speaking good Latin, adopting words in common use, and such as aptly express what we wish to communicate or explain, without any ambiguous word or phrase, not making our sentences too long, not making such observations as are drawn from other subjects, for the sake of comparison, too prolix; avoiding all incoherency of thought, reversion of the order of time, all confusion of persons, all irregularity of arrangement whatever. In short, the whole matter is so easy, that it often appears astonishing to me, that what the advocate would express should be more difficult to understand, than he who employs the advocate would be, if he were to speak on his own business;
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§ 3.50 for the persons themselves who bring cases to us, give us in general such instructions, that you would not desire anything to be delivered in a plainer manner; but as soon as Fufius, or your equal in age Pomponius, proceeds to plead those cases, I do not find them equally intelligible, unless I give an extraordinary degree of attention; their speech is so confused and ill arranged that there is nothing first, and nothing second; there is such a jumble of strange words, that language, which ought to throw a light upon things, involves them in obscurity and darkness; and the speakers, in what they say, seem in a manner to contradict themselves.
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§ 3.51 But, if it is agreeable, since I think that these topics must appear troublesome and distasteful, at least to you of a more advanced age, let us proceed to other matters which may prove still more unsatisfactory.”14 [XIV.] “You see,” said Antonius, “how inattentive we are, and how unwillingly we listen to you, when we might be induced (I judge from myself) to neglect all other concerns to follow you and give you our attention; so elegant are your remarks upon unpleasing, so copious upon barren, so new upon common subjects.”
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§ 3.52 “Those two parts indeed, Antonius,” continued Crassus, “which I have just run over, or rather have almost passed by, that of speaking in pure Latin, and with perspicuity, were easy to treat; those which remain are important, intricate, diversified, weighty, on which depends all the admiration bestowed upon ability and all the praise given to eloquence; for nobody ever admired an orator for merely speaking good Latin; if he speaks otherwise, they ridicule him; and not only do not think him an orator, but not even a man. Nor has any one ever extolled a speaker for merely speaking in such a manner that those who were present understood what he said; though every one has despised him who was not able to do so. Whom then do men regard with awe?
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§ 3.53 What speaker do they behold with astonishment? At whom do they utter exclamations? Whom do they consider as a deity, if I may use the expression, amongst mortals? Him who speaks distinctly, explicitly, copiously, and luminously, both as to matter and words; who produces in his language a sort of rhythm and harmony; who speaks, as I call it, gracefully. Those also who treat their subject as the importance of things and persons requires, are to be commended for that peculiar kind of merit, which I term aptitude and congruity.
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§ 3.54 Antonius said that he had never seen any who spoke in such a manner, and observed that to such only was to be attributed the distinguishing title of eloquence. On my authority, therefore, deride and despise all those who imagine that from the precepts of such as are now called rhetoricians they have gained all the powers of oratory, and have not yet been able to understand what character they hold, or what they profess; for indeed, by an orator everything that relates to human life, since that is the field on which his abilities are displayed, and is the subject for his eloquence, should be examined, heard, read, discussed, handled, and considered;
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§ 3.55 since eloquence is one of the most eminent virtues; and though all the virtues are in their nature equal and alike, yet one species is more beautiful and noble than another; as is this power, which, comprehending a knowledge of things, expresses the thoughts and purposes of the mind in such a manner, that it can impel the audience whithersoever it inclines its force; and, the greater is its influence, the more necessary it is that it should be united with probity and eminent judgment; for if we bestow the faculty of eloquence upon persons destitute of these virtues, we shall not make them orators, but give arms to madmen. [XV.]
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§ 3.56 “This faculty, I say, of thinking and speaking, this power of eloquence, the ancient Greeks denominated wisdom. Hence the Lycurgi, the Pittaci, the Solons; and, compared with them, our Coruncanii, Fabricii, Catos, and Scipios, were perhaps not so learned, but were certainly of a like force and inclination of mind. Others, of equal ability, but of dissimilar affection towards the pursuits of life, preferred ease and retirement, as Pythagoras, Democritus, Anaxagoras, and transferred their attention entirely from civil polity to the contemplation of nature; a mode of life which, on account of its tranquillity, and the pleasure derived from science, than which nothing is more delightful to mankind, attracted a greater number than was of advantage to public concerns.
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§ 3.57 Accordingly, as men of the most excellent natural talents gave themselves up to that study, in the enjoyment of the greatest abundance of free and unoccupied time, so men of the greatest learning, blessed with excess of leisure and fertility of thought, imagined it their duty to make more things than were really necessary the objects of their attention, investigation, and inquiry. That ancient learning, indeed, appeal’s to have been at the same time the preceptress of living rightly and of speaking well; nor were there separate masters for those subjects, but the same teachers formed the morals and the language; as Phoenix in Homer, who says that he was appointed a companion in war to the young Achilles by his father Peleus, to make him an orator in words, and a hero in deeds.
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§ 3.58 But as men accustomed to constant and daily employment, when they are hindered from their occupation by the weather, betake themselves to play at ball, or dice, or draughts, or even invent some new game of their own to amuse their leisure; so they, being either excluded from public employments, as from business, by the state of the times, or being idle from inclination, gave themselves up wholly, some to the poets, some to the geometers, some to music; ethers even, as the logicians, found out a new study and exercise for themselves, and consumed their whole time and lives in those arts which have been discovered to form the minds of youth to learning and to virtue. [XVI.]
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§ 3.59 “But, because there were some, and those not a few, who either were eminent in public affairs, through their twofold excellence in acting and speaking, excellences which are indeed inseparable, as Themistocles, Pericles, Theramenes; or who, though they were not employed themselves in public affairs, were teachers of others in that science, as Gorgias, Thrasymachus, Isocrates; there appeared others who, being themselves men of abundant learning and ingenuity, but averse to political business and employments, derided and despised the exercise of oratory;
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§ 3.60 at the head of which party was Socrates. He, who, by the testimony of all the learned, and the judgment of all Greece, was the first of all men as well in wisdom and penetration, grace and refinement, as in eloquence, variety, and copiousness of language on whatever subject he took in hand, deprived of their common name those who handled, treated, and gave instruction in those matters which are the objects of our present inquiry, when they were previously comprised under one appellation; as all knowledge in the best arts and sciences, and all exercise in them, was denominated philosophy; and he separated in his discussions the ability of thinking wisely, and speaking gracefully, though they are naturally united; Socrates, I say, whose great genius and varied conversation Plato has in his Dialogues consigned to immortality, he himself having left us nothing in writing.
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§ 3.61 Hence arose that divorce as it were of the tongue from the heart, a division certainly absurd, useless, and reprehensible, that one class of persona should teach us to think, and another to speak, rightly: for, as many reasoners had their origin almost from Socrates, and as they caught up some one thing, some another, from his disputations, which were various, diversified, and diffusive upon all subjects, many sects as it were became propagated, dissenting one from another, and much divided and very dissimilar in opinions, though all the philosophers wished to be called, and thought that they were, Socratics. [XVII.]
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§ 3.62 “First from Plato himself came Aristotle and Xenocrates; the one of whom founded the Peripatetic sect, the other the Academy; and from Antisthenes, who was chiefly delighted with the patience and endurance recommended in the discourses of Socrates, sprung first the Cynics, afterwards the Stoics. Next, from Aristippus, for whom the dissertations on pleasure had greater charms, emanated the Cyrenaic philosophy, which he and his followers maintained in its simplicity; those who in our days measure all things by the standard of pleasure, while they act more modestly in this particular, neither satisfy that dignity which they are far from rejecting, nor adhere to that pleasure which they are inclined to embrace. There were also other sects of philosophers, who almost all in general called themselves the followers of Socrates; as those of the Eretrians, Herillians, Megarians, and Pyrrhonians; but these have long since been overthrown and extinguished by the superior arguments of the others.
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§ 3.63 Of those which remain, that philosophy which has undertaken the patronage of pleasure, however true it may appear to some, is very unsuitable for that personage of whom we are forming a conception, and whom we would have to be of authority in public councils, a leader in the administration of government, a consummate master of thought and eloquence, as well in the senate, as in popular assemblies, and in public causes. Yet no injury shall be done to that philosophy by us; for it shall not be repelled from the mark at which it wishes to aim, but shall repose quietly in its gardens, where it wishes, and where, reclining softly and delicately, it calls us away from the rostra, from the courts of justice, and from the senate, and perhaps wisely, especially in such times of the republic as these.
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§ 3.64 But my present inquiry is not which philosophy is the nearest to truth, but which is the best suited to the orator. Let us therefore dismiss those of this sect without any contumely; for they are well-meaning, and, as they seem so to themselves, happy; let us only admonish them to keep that maxim of theirs, though it be eminently true, secret however as a mystery, I mean their denial that it is the part of a wise man to concern himself with public affairs; for if they should convince us, and every man of eminent ability, of the truth of that maxim, they will be unable to remain, as they especially desire, in tranquillity. [XVIII.]
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§ 3.65 “The Stoics, too, whom I by no means disapprove, I notwithstanding dismiss; nor am I afraid that they will be angry, as they are proof against anger; and I feel grateful to them on this account, that they alone, of all the philosophers, have declared eloquence to be virtue and wisdom. But there are two peculiarities in their doctrine, which are quite unsuitable to that orator whom we are forming; one, that they pronounce all who are not wise, to be slaves, robbers, enemies, and madmen, and yet do not admit that any person is wise; (but it would be very absurd to trust the interests of an assembly of the people, or of the senate, or any other body of men, to one to whom none of those present would appear to be in their senses, none to be citizens, none to be freemen;)
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§ 3.66 the other, that they have a manner of speaking which is perhaps subtle, and certainly acute, but for an orator, dry, strange, unsuited to the ear of the populace, obscure, barren, jejune, and altogether of that species which a speaker cannot use to a multitude. Other citizens, or rather all other people, have very different notions of good and evil from the Stoics; their estimation of honour and ignominy, revels and punishments, is entirely different; whether justly or otherwise, is nothing to the present occasion; but if we should adopt their notions, we should never be able to expedite any business by speaking.
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§ 3.67 The remaining sects are the Peripatetic and the Academic; though of the Academics, notwithstanding there is but one name, there are two distinct systems of opinion; for Speusippus, Plato’s sister’s son, and Xenocrates, who had been a hearer of Plato, and Polemo, who had been a hearer of Xenocrates, and Crantor, differed in no great degree from Aristotle, who had also been a hearer of Plato; in copiousness and variety of diction, however, they were perhaps unequal to him. Arcesilas, who had been a hearer of Polemo, was the first who eagerly embraced the doctrine drawn from the various writings of Plato and the discourses of Socrates, that ‘there is nothing certain to be known, either by the senses or the understanding;’ he is reported to have adopted an eminently graceful manner of speaking, to have rejected all judgment of the mind and the senses, and to have established first che practice (though it was indeed greatly adopted by Socrates ) of not declaring what he himself thought, but of disputing against whatever any other person said that he thought.
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§ 3.68 Hence the New Academy derived its origin, in which Carneades distinguished himself by a quickness of wit, that was in a manner divine, and a peculiar force of eloquence. I knew many at Athens who had been hearers of this philosopher, but I can refer for his character to two persons of undoubted authority, my father-in-law Scaevola, who heard him when a youth at Rome, and Quintus Metellus, the son of Lucius, my intimate friend, a man of high dignity, who informed me that in the early part of his life at Athens, he attended for many days the lectures of this celebrated philosopher, then almost broken with age. [XIX.]
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§ 3.69 “But the streams of learning have flowed from the common summit of science, like rivers from the Apennines, in different directions, so that the philosophers have passed, as it were, into the Upper or Ionian sea, a Greek sea, abounding with harbours, but the orators have fallen into the Lower or Tuscan, a barbarian sea, infested with rocks and dangers, in which even Ulysses himself had mistaken his course.
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§ 3.70 If, therefore, we are content with such a degree of eloquence, and such an orator as has the common discretion to know that you ought either to deny the charge which is brought against you, or, if you cannot do that, to show that what he who is accused has committed, was either done justifiably, or through the fault or wrong of some other person, or that it is agreeable to law, or at least not contrary to any law, or that it was done without design, or from necessity; or that it does not merit the term given it in the accusation; or that the pleading is not conducted as it ought to have been or might have been; and if you think it sufficient to have learned the rules which the writers on rhetoric have delivered, which however Antonius has set forth with much more grace and fulness than they are treated by them; if, I say, you are content with these qualifications, and those which you wished to be specified by me, you reduce the orator from a spacious and immense field of action into a very narrow compass:

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by John Selby Watson (1804-84). Composed ca. 55 BCE. Licence: public domain. Source.