CERO 
 
 ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 HIS LETTERS TO QUINTUS AND BRUTUS. 
 
 TBANSIiAIED OB EDITED 
 
 BY J.' S,' WATSON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1871. 
 
^-^^s^ 
 
 -j\\>^-^ 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A Translation of the Dialogues Be Oratore was published 
 m 1762, bj George Barnes, a Barrister of the Inner Temple. 
 Mr. Barnes's version was made with great care, and, though 
 less known than Guthrie's, was far superior to it. If he 
 occasionally mistook the sense of his author, he seems to 
 have been always diligent in seeking for it. He added some 
 notes, of which those deemed worth preserving are distin- 
 gaished by the letter B. 
 
 Barnes's translation is the groundwork of the present; 
 
 ■ but every page of it has been carefully corrected, 9,nd many 
 pagT^ re-written. The text to which it is made conformable 
 is thait of Orellius, which differs but little from EUendt's, the 
 morel recent editor and illustrator of the work, from whom 
 some uotes have been borrowed. 
 
 No \labour has been spared to produce a faithful and 
 readable translation of a treatise which must always be 
 interestjing to the orator and the student. 
 
 ! The ) translation of Cicero's '^'Brutus; or, Remarks on 
 EmineLv' Orators," is by E. Jones, (first published in 1776,) 
 which r:as long had the well-deserved reputation of com- 
 
 I bining fidelity with elegance. It is therefore reprinted with 
 
 j but little variation. 
 
 I J. S. W. 
 
 I b 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Cicero's Lettees to his Brother Quintus . 1 
 
 Cicero's Letters to Brutus . 90' 
 
 DE OIIATOEE-; or, on the Character of an Orator . . 142 
 
 BRUTUS ; or, Eemarks on Eminent Orators 402 
 
^^?W^ >^e^/^iy^^^ 
 
 CICEEO'S LETTERS 
 
 HIS BEOTHER QUINTUS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 This Letter was written in the year 694 a.u.c, in tlie consulship of 
 Afranius and Metellus, by Cicero to his brother Quintus, who 
 was commanding in Asia, to inform him that his period of command 
 was extended for a third year ; a year fraught with such im- 
 portant events to the republic, that we learn from Horace that 
 PoUio began his history of the civil wars from this date.^ The 
 consuls themselves were men of no very great importance; they 
 were both creatures of Pompey, who had assisted them to obtain 
 the office by the most open corruption : but he was mistaken in 
 reckoning on the adherence of Metellus, whom he had offended by 
 divorcing his sister Mucia ; while Afranius was a man of no character, 
 and of very moderate abilities ; so weak, according to Cicero, as 
 to be ignorant of the value of the consulship which he had bought. ^ 
 With such men for its rulers, the city speedily became a scene of 
 universal dissension. Pompey, who had just celebrated his triumph 
 over Mithridates with unprecedented magnificence, was instigating 
 Flavius, one of the tribunes, to bring forward an agrarian law similar 
 to that of E-uUus, for a division of lands in Italy, — partly consisting 
 of some of the public domains, and partly of estates to be bought 
 
 Motum ex Metello consule civicum 
 Bellique causas, et vitia, et modos, 
 Ludumque Fortunse, gravesque 
 Principum amicitias, et arma 
 Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus; 
 Periculosss plenum opus alese 
 Tractas. — Hor. Carm. IL i. 
 5p. ad Att. i. 19. 
 
 B 
 
2 CICERO's LETTERS 
 
 "witli the spoils of the war in which he had been so victorious, — among 
 the veterans of his army, and the poorer classes in Italy. The 
 senate opposed this measure violently, but Cicero, though he had 
 resisted the former proposition, was now inclined to support 
 this, — taking care, indeed, to preserve the vested interests of the 
 possessors; and thinking that when this was provided for, the bill 
 would supply a means for relieving the city of some of its most 
 dangerous inhabitants, and at the same time peopling parts of Italy 
 which were hitherto little better than a desert/^ No doubt he was 
 partly influenced by his desire to obtain the protection of Pompey in 
 the struggle which he foresaw for himself with Clodius, who was now 
 seeking to be adopted into a plebeian family, in order to be elected 
 a tribune of the people, so as to attack Cicero with greater power of 
 injuring him — for the great Catulus died at this time, and Cicero 
 complains to Atticus, that his death had left him without an ally 
 in the dangers which threatened him, and without a companion in 
 his course of defending and upholding the interests of the nobles.^ 
 
 About the beginning of this year also, news arrived from Gaul of com- 
 motions in that province, which was always in great danger from the 
 frequent inroads of the Helvetii, from whom an invasion on a larger 
 scale was now apprehended. The senate decreed that the consuls 
 should undertake the defence of the Cisalpine and Transalpine pro- 
 vinces, and sent men of consular rank to different districts to levy 
 armies ; but Pompey and Cicero remained at Rome, being, as he tells 
 Atticus, retained by the express command of the senate, as pledges 
 of the safety of the republic.^ 
 
 In the meantime Caesar, who had been serving in Spain as propraetor, 
 wrote letters to the senate to demand a triumph ; but wishing also to 
 obtain the consulship for the succeeding year, he relinquished the idea 
 of the triumph, (which would have prevented him from entering the 
 city till after its celebration,) in order to canvass the citizens for 
 the more substantial honour. Perceiving, on his arrival in Rome, 
 the true posture of affairs, — the power which Crassus possessed, de- 
 rived from his character and riches ; the authority with which 
 his military renown, and his position as the acknowledged leader 
 of the aristocratic party, invested Pompey; and his own need 
 of such coadjutors for the project, which he had already begun to 
 coirceive, of finally making himself master of the republic, — he re- 
 conciled Pompey and Crassus, who had previously been on no very 
 friendly terms ; and then formed that intimate connexion with them 
 both, which is known in history as the first triumvirate ; the three 
 chiefs coming to an agreement to prevent measures of any kind 
 being adopted in the republic without the united consent of them 
 all. Csesar obtained the consulship, but the senate gave him Bibulus 
 for his colleague, and made a further attempt to prevent any great 
 increase to his power or popularity, by assigning to the new consul? 
 
 ^ Qu4 constitute diligenter et sentinam nobis exhaurior; et Italia 
 solitudinem frequentari posse arbitrabar. — Ep. ad Att. i. 19- 
 =» Ep. ad Att. i. 20. s i^q^^^ i 19, 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 6 
 
 only the supervision of the roads and forests : a charge, as Suetonius 
 calls it, of the slightest possible importance. 
 This was the posture of affairs at Eome, afc, and soon after, the time 
 when Cicero addressed this first letter to his brother. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 I. 1. Although I had no doubt that iijany messengers, and 
 common report too, with its invariable rapidity, would out- 
 strip this letter; and that, before its arrival, you would hear 
 from others that a third year has been added to the period 
 during which I have to regret your absence, and you are to 
 continue your labours; still I thought that direct informa- 
 tion of this trouble ought to be conveyed to you from me 
 also. For in my former letters, — and that not once only, but 
 repeatedly, even after the matter was despaired of by others, 
 — I still gave you hope of an early removal; not merely that I 
 might gratify you as long as possible with the pleasing expec- 
 tation, but also because such great exertions were made both 
 by the praetors and by myself, that I would not give up all 
 hope that the matter might be managed. 
 
 2. But now, since it has so turned out, that the praetors 
 have not been able to do any good by their influence, nor 
 I by my own zeal, it is extremely difficult to avoid feeling 
 great vexation ; but still it is not fit that our spirits, w^hich 
 have been tried in managing and supporting matters of the 
 greatest moment, should be crushed and rendered powerless 
 by a petty annoyance. And since men are naturally most 
 concerned at misfortunes which have been incurred by their 
 own fault, there is something in this business that must be 
 borne with more vexation by me than by you. For it hap- 
 pened through my fault, and through acting in opposition to 
 what you had represented to me, both when setting out and 
 afterwards by letter, that a successor was not appointed the 
 year before. In that matter, while I was consulting the 
 safety of the allies, while I was resisting the impudence of 
 some commercial people, and while I was desirous that my 
 reputation should be advanced by your merit, I acted 
 unwisely ; especially as I have given occasion that that second 
 year of your command may draw on a third after it. 
 
 3. Since, then, I confess that the fault is mine, it will be the 
 task of your wisdom and kindness to take care and manage 
 that this matter, too incautiously considered by me, may be 
 
 b2 
 
4: CICERO S LETTERS 
 
 corrected by your own diligence. And if you arouse yourself 
 with fresh energy to cultivate a good reputation in every 
 respect, so as to rival, not others, but yourself ; if you direct 
 all the faculties of your mind, all your care and thoughts, to 
 the pre-eminent object of obtaining praise in all things, — take, 
 my word for it lliat one year added to your Labour will bring 
 happiness for many years to us, and glory to our posterity. 
 
 4. I therefore entreat you above all things not to diminish 
 or lower your spirit, nor to allow yourself to be overwhelmed 
 by the magnitude of the affair, as by a wave of the sea ; but, 
 on the other hand, to bear yourself erect to resist, and even 
 of your own accord to meet difficulties. For you do not 
 manage a department of the public of such a nature that for- 
 tune has the rule in it, but one in which method and dili- 
 gence have the greatest influence. If indeed I saw that your 
 period of command was prolonged while you were engaged 
 in any great and perilous war, I should feel misgivings in 
 my mind, because I should know at the same time that the 
 power of fortune over us was also prolonged. 
 
 5. But at present, that part of the commonwealth is com- 
 mitted to you, in which fortune has no share, or only an ex- 
 ceedingly insignificant one, and which appears to me to 
 depend wholly on your own virtue and moderation of dispo- 
 sition. We apprehend, I think, no insidious attacks of 
 enemies, no struggle in the field, no revolt of our allies, no 
 want of pay or provisions, no mutiny in the army ; accidents 
 which have very often happened to men of the greatest pru- 
 dence: so that, as the most skilful pilots cannot overcome the 
 violence of a storm, they in like manner have been unable to 
 subdue the violent hostility of fortune. To your lot has 
 fallen the most complete peace, the most entire tranquillity, 
 though in such a way that it may even ^ overwhelm a sleeping 
 pilot, or even delight a wakeful one. 
 
 6. For that province of yours consists in the first place of 
 that class of allies which is the most civilized of all the human 
 race ; and secondly, of that class of citizens who either, be- 
 cause they are farmers of the revenue,^ are bound to us by 
 
 ^ Vel, Ernesti condemns this word, and I^Iatthise has ejected it. 
 
 ^ The farmers of the public revenue were generally of the equestrian 
 order, to which Cicero himself belonged ; and in his public character 
 and speeches he had always taken care to maintain the connexion, by 
 Beizing every opportunity of extolling and defending them. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUI^'TUS. 5 
 
 ties of the closest connexion, or who, because they manage 
 their deaUngs so as to become wealthy, think that they pos- 
 sess their fortunes in safety through the beneficial effects ol 
 my consulship. 
 
 11. 7. But, you will urge, between these very men them- 
 selves there are grave disputes : many injuries arise, and great 
 contests follow; as if I supposed that you also do not sustain 
 a considerable weight of business. I am aware that your 
 affairs are of very great importance, and require consummate 
 prudence; but remember that I consider this affair depends 
 more upon prudence than upon fortune ; for what difficulty 
 is there in restraining those over whom you have authority, 
 if you also restrain yourself? This may be a great and 
 arduous task for others, as it is indeed most arduous, but 
 it has always been a very easy one for you ; and in truth so 
 it ought to be, since your natural disposition is such that, 
 even without instruction, it would appear that it might have 
 been excellently regulated, and such an education has been 
 bestowed upon it as might exalt even the most vicious natura. 
 While you yourself resist the temptations of money and of 
 pleasure, and of every sort of desire, as you do resist them, 
 there will be, I suppose, danger lest you may not be able to 
 check the worthless trader, or the somewhat too covetous 
 farmer. The Greeks,"- indeed, will look upon you, while you 
 live in such a manner, as some [hero revived] from the old 
 traditions of their annals, or even as some divine being 
 descended from heaven into the province. 
 
 8. And I write this now, not that you may act thus, [for 
 that you do,] but that you may rejoice in acting and having 
 acted thus. For it is a glorious thing for you to have lived 
 three ^ years in Asia, invested with the highest military- au- 
 thority, in such a manner that no statue, no picture, no vase,^ 
 
 ^ Cicero calls them Greeks, because all the coast of Asia Minor was 
 colonized by Greeks, and the language had gradually come to prevail 
 throughout the whole peninsula. 
 
 2 The text has triennium ; Ernesti and others would read hiennium, 
 to suit the commencement of the letter ; a change rendered necessary, 
 indeed, by the verb fuisse. 
 
 ^ How irresistible such temptations were to Roman governors in 
 general, may be seen in Cicero's orations against V erres ; who was pro- 
 bably only pre-eminent among them for rapacity, because the richness 
 of his province gave him pre-eminent opportunities for displaying it. 
 
b CICEriOS LETTERS 
 
 no present of robes or slaves, no allurement of personal 
 beanty, no opportunity of extorting money, (of all which 
 forms of corruption that province is most prolific,) has been 
 able to turn you aside from perfect integrity and moderation. 
 
 9. And what can be found so admirable, or so thoroughly 
 desirable, as that that virtue, that moderation of mind, that 
 well-regulated abstinence, should not lie hid and be buried 
 in darkness, but should be displayed in the light of Asia, 
 and before the eyes of a most splendid province, and cele- 
 brated in the hearing of every nation and people on the earth ? 
 That men should not be alarmed at your progresses, or 
 exhausted by your expenses, or agitated at your arrival 
 among them ; but that, wherever you come, there should 
 be both publicly and privately the greatest possible joy, while 
 every city looks upon itself as entertaining a protector, not 
 a tyrant, and every family feels that it receives a guest, and 
 not a plunderer ? 
 
 III. 10. But in all these matters experience itself has 
 already, doubtless, taught you, that it is by no means enough 
 for you to have these virtues yourself, but that you must also 
 take dihgent care, in this guardianship of the province, that 
 you may appear to be answerable, not for yourself only, but 
 for all the officers under your government, to the allies, to 
 your fellow- citizens, and to the commonwealth. Although 
 indeed you have lieutenants of such a character that they 
 will of themselves have regard to their own dignity ; among 
 whom Tubero is the first in honour and dignity and age, — a 
 man who, I imagine, especially as he is a writer of history, can 
 find many in the annals of his own family whom he may be 
 both inclined and able to imitate ; and Alienus is completely 
 one of us, not only in his general disposition and benevolence, 
 but also in his imitation of our habits of life. For why need 
 I speak of Gratidius? a man whom I know for certain to be 
 so anxious about his own character, that out of his brotherly 
 love for us, he is anxious also about ours. 
 
 11, You have a quaestor, indeed, not chosen by your own 
 judgment, but the one whom the lot assigned you. It is 
 necessary that he should be moderate in his own inclinations, 
 and obedient to your regulations and precepts. If by chance 
 any one of these men be somewhat sordid, you may bear with 
 him so far as he merely neglects, of himself, those rules by 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 7 
 
 which you yourself are bound j but not so far that he should 
 abuse, for his own private gain^ that power which you con- 
 ceded to him for the support of his dignity : for I am not 
 indeed of opinion, especially as the habits to which I allude 
 have had such a tendency to excessive lenity and to a courting 
 of popularity, that you should look too closely into every bit 
 of meanness, and get rid of every one guilty of it; but I 
 think that you should trust just so much to each as there is 
 trustworthiness in each. And of these men, those whom the 
 republic itself has assigned to you as supporters and assistants 
 in the discharge of the public business, you will confine to 
 those limits which I have already laid down. 
 
 TV. 12. But as to those whom you have selected to have 
 about you as your domestic companions^ or your necessary 
 attendants, and who are generally termed a sort of court of 
 the praetor, not only their actions, but even their whole 
 language, must be answered for by us. But you have such 
 people about you as you can easily love if they act rightly, 
 and with the greatest ease restrain, if they show too little 
 regard for your character ; by whom, when you were inex- 
 perienced, your own ingenuous disposition seems likely to have 
 been deceived ; for the more virtuous any one is himself, the 
 more unwillingly does he suspect others of being wicked ; but 
 now this third year of office should display the same integrity 
 as those preceding, with even more caution and diligence. 
 
 13. Let your ears be such as are thought to hear openly 
 what they do hear, and not such as those into which anything 
 may be whispered falsely and hypocritically for the sake of 
 gain. Let your signet ring be not like a piece of furniture, 
 but as it were another self; not the agent of another person's 
 will, but the witness of your own. Let your sergeant^ be 
 kept in that station in which our ancestors wished him to be; 
 who bestowed the place not as a lucrative appointment, but as 
 one of labour and duty, and not readily to any but their own 
 freedmen, to whom they gave their orders, indeed, in a man- 
 ner not very different from that in which they gave them to 
 
 ^ The Latin is accensus, which was the name of a piiblic officer 
 attending on several of the Eoman magistrates. He anciently preceded 
 the consul who had not the fasces; a custom which, having been 
 long disused, was restored by Caesar the very next year. Varro de- 
 rives this title from accieo, because they summoned the people to the 
 assemblies. 
 
8 Cicero's letters 
 
 their slaves. Let your lictor be the officer, not of his own 
 lenity, but of yours; and let your fasces and axes give him 
 greater insignia of dignity than power. Lastly, let it be 
 known to the whole province, that the safety, the families, 
 the fame, and the fortunes of all those over whom you 
 act as governor, are objects of the dearest interest to you. 
 Moreover, let the opinion prevail, that you will be dis- 
 pleased, not only with those who have accepted any bribe, 
 but with those also w^ho have given one, if you discover the 
 fact. Nor indeed will any one offer a bribe, when it is once 
 clearly ascertained, that nothing is ever obtained from you 
 by the influence of those who pretend to have great weight 
 with you. 
 
 14. Not, indeed, that this advice of mine to you is meant 
 to have such an effect as to make you too harsh or suspicious 
 towards your officers ; for if there be among them any one 
 who during two years has never fallen under any suspicion of 
 avarice, (as I hear that both Csesius and Chserippus and 
 Labeo have not, and because I know them, I believe it;) there 
 is nothing that I should not think might be most judiciously 
 and properly committed to them, and to whoever else is of the 
 same character; but if there be any one in whom you have 
 detected anything, or in whom you have noticed anything 
 unfavourable, trust him with nothing ; do not put any part of 
 your own character in his power. 
 
 / Y. 15. But in the province itself, if you have met with 
 any one who has entered closely into friendship with you, 
 and who was previously unknown to us, take great care 
 how far you ought to trust such a one ; not but that there 
 may be many honest men among the provincials ; but though 
 we may entertain this hope, it is hazardous to judge that it is 
 so ; for the natural character of each individual is concealed 
 under numerous wrappings of disguise, and shrouded, as it 
 were, under veils ; the forehead, the eyes, the whole counte- 
 nance are often false, and the language most frequently of all. 
 On which account, how are you to find out, among that 
 class of men, persons who, influenced by desire for money, 
 can yet do without all those things from which we cannot 
 separate ourselves, and who will love you, a foreigner, with 
 all their heart, and not pretend to do so merely for their own 
 advantage ? To me indeed this seems a consideration of 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 9 
 
 great importance, especially if those very same people scarcely 
 ever profess a regard for any private individnal, but do so 
 at all times for every governor ; therefore, if of this class you 
 have by chance met with any one really more attached to 
 yourself than to the opportunity, (for this may have been 
 possible,) gladly count that man in the list of your friends j 
 but if you do not discover such a disposition, there is no 
 sort of men more carefully to be guarded against in respect to 
 intimacy; because they are acquainted with every avenue 
 of corruption, and do everything for the sake of money, and 
 have no notion of regard for the character of a man with 
 whom they are not going to live permanently. 
 
 16. And even among the Greeks themselves, intimacies 
 must be formed with strict care, excepting [those with] a 
 very few men, such as may be worthy of ancient Greece ; so 
 deceitful, indeed, are the greater number of them, and fickle, 
 and through long slavery inured to excessive flattery; the 
 whole body of whom I admit ought to be treated with libe- 
 rality, and all the most deserving of them admitted to hos- 
 pitality and friendship ; but an excessive intimacy with them 
 is not sufficiently to be trusted, for they do not dare to oppose 
 our inclinations, and are envious, not only of our people, but 
 also of their own countrymen. 
 
 VI. 17. If I then desire to be so cautious and diligent in 
 matters of that sort, in which I am afraid lest I may appear 
 even somewhat over-rigid ; of what opinion do you conceive 
 me to be with respect to slaves'? whom indeed we ought to 
 rule strictly everywhere, and most especially in the provinces. 
 With respect to this class of persons, many rules may be 
 given, but this is the shortest of all, and one which may the 
 most easily be kept in memory, that they are to behave 
 themselves in your Asiatic progresses, as they would if you 
 were travelling along the Appian road,^ and that they are not 
 to think that it makes any difference whether they arrive at 
 Tralles or at Formiee. But if among your slaves there should 
 be any one of exemplary fidelity, let him be employed in your 
 domestic and private affairs ; but as to matters which relate 
 to the duties of your command, or to any of the affairs of the 
 
 ' The Via Appia, or Appian road, was made by Appius Claudiua 
 Caecus as censor, about 442 a.u.c., from Rome to Capua. At a later 
 yeriod it was continued from Capua to Brundusium. 
 
10 Cicero's letters 
 
 commonwealth, let him have no concern with any of them : 
 for there are many things which may without impropriety be 
 entrusted to faithful slaves, but which, for the sake of avoid- 
 ing talk and censure, must not be entrusted to them. 
 
 18. But this letter of mine, I know not how, has run into 
 a process of laying down precepts, though such was not at 
 first my intention. For why should I give precepts to one, 
 whom, particularly in business of this kind, I know to be not 
 at all inferior in prudence to myself, and in practice even 
 superior? But still if my authority were added to enforce 
 the line of conduct which you were already pursuing, I 
 thought that such line of conduct would be more agreeable 
 to you. Let these then be your foundations for dignity of 
 character ; first of all, your own personal integrity and mode- 
 ration; next, self-respect in all those who are about you; 
 and, also, an extremely cautious and most diligent selection 
 in forming intimacies, both with men of the province, and 
 with Greeks ; and the maintenance of a steady and consistent 
 discipline in yoiir household. 
 
 19. As these observances are honourable in our private 
 and daily habits, they must of necessity appear almost divine 
 in so high a command, amid manners so depraved, and in 
 a province which is such a school of corruption. Such a 
 system and such a discipline can maintain that severity in 
 deciding and determining on measures, which you have dis- 
 played in things from which, to my great joy, we experience 
 some enmity; unless perchance you fancy that I am moved 
 by the complaints of I know not what fellow called Paconius, 
 a person who is not even a Greek, but rather a Mysian or 
 Phrygian, or by those of Tuscenius, a raving fellow, foul in 
 his language, out of whose most impure jaws you wrested the 
 prey of his most disgraceful covetousness with consummate 
 justice. 
 
 YII. 20. These and other regulations, full of strictness, 
 which you have appointed in that province, we could not 
 easily maintain without the most complete integrity. Let 
 there be the most rigorous severity, therefore, in administer- 
 ing the law, provided that it be never varied from favour, 
 but observed with uniformity. But still it is of little benefit 
 that the law be administered with uniformity and care by 
 you yourself, unless the same rule of conduct be also observed 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 11 
 
 by those to whom you entrust any share of the same duty. 
 And to me, indeed, there appears to be no great variety of 
 business in the government of Asia, but it seems to be all 
 supported, for the most part, by the exposition of the law; 
 in which, above all other things, the very system of knowledge 
 for the regulation of a province lies. But consistency must 
 be observed, and a dignified gravity, which can resist, not 
 only all influence, but even suspicion. 
 
 21. There is to be added likewise affability in listening to 
 othei-^, gentleness in pronouncing one's decisions, and diligence 
 in satisfying people, and in discussing their claims. It was by 
 such qualifications that Cneius Octavius lately became very 
 popular, as it was under him that the lictor first had nothing 
 to do, the sergeant was reduced to silence, and every one who 
 had a suit before him spoke as often and as long as he 
 pleased. In which particulars he might perchance be looked 
 upon as too remiss, if this very remissness had not been the 
 support of that severity. Sylla's men were compelled to make 
 restitution of the things which they had taken away by 
 violence, a,nd through the influence of fear; and those who 
 in their offices had given unjust decisions, had, when reduced 
 to the rank of private individuals, to bow beneath similar 
 law. This severity of his might appear to have been in- 
 tolerable, had it not been softened by many seasonings of 
 humanity. 
 
 22, But if this kind of lenity is agi'eeable at Rome, where 
 there is such excessive arrogance, such immoderate liberty, 
 such boundless licentiousness among men; and besides such 
 a number of magistrates, so many sources of help, such great 
 power, such absolute authority belonging to the senate ; how 
 attractive surely may the courtesy of a praetor be in Asia, in 
 which such a multitude of citizens, such a number of allies, 
 so many cities, and so many states, look to the nod of one 
 man ; where there is no help, no power of making complaints, 
 no senate, no assembly of the people! It is therefore the 
 part of a very great man, and of one who is both moderate 
 by natural disposition, and who has also been trained by 
 education, and by the study of the most excellent accomplish- 
 ments, to conduct himself, when invested with so great 
 power, in such a manner that no other authority may be 
 wished for by those over whom he is appointed governor. 
 
12 Cicero's letters 
 
 VIII. 23. The ^^ Cyrus" of Xenophon is written not iu 
 accordance with the truth of history, -but to exhibit a represen- 
 tation of a just government; in whose character the greatest 
 gravity is united by that philosopher with singular courtesy. 
 These books our own countryman, the illustrious Africanus, 
 was accustomed, not without reason, scarcely ever to lay out 
 of his hand, for in them is omitted no duty belonging to 
 careful and moderate government; and if he, who was never 
 to become a private individual, paid such attention to those 
 precepts, how ought they to be observed by those to whom 
 authority has been given on condition of laying it down 
 again, and given them too by those laws to the observance of 
 which they themselves must again return? 
 
 24. To me, indeed, everything seems necessary to be re- 
 ferred, by those who rule others, to this principle, that those 
 who shall be under their government may be as happy as 
 possible; an object which has been established by unvarying 
 fame, and the report of all men, as being of primary import- 
 ance with you, and as having been so from the commence- 
 ment, since you first arrived in Asia. And it is the duty, 
 not only of the man who governs allies and fellow-citizens, 
 but even of him who manages slaves, or dumb animals, to 
 have a regard to the comforts and advantage of those beings 
 over whom he presides. 
 
 25, In this respect I find it agreed by all men that the 
 greatest assiduity is exerted by you; that no new debt is 
 contracted by any state, and that many cities have been freed 
 by you from old, great, and heavy debt; that many cities 
 previously in ruins and almost deserted, among which I may 
 mention one, the most eminent city of Ionia, another, the 
 most eminent city of Caria, Samos and Halicarnassus, have 
 been restored by you; that there are no seditions in the 
 towns, no discord; that provision is made by you that the 
 different states shall be regulated by the counsels of the 
 most respectable citizens; that depredations in Mysia are 
 stopped ; that bloodshed has been suppressed in many places ; 
 that peace is established throughout the whole province ; that 
 not only the thefts and robberies on the roads and in the 
 fields, but the more numerous and greater ones in the towns 
 and in the temples, are brought to an end throughout the 
 country; that that most spiteful minister to the avarice of 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUIXTUS. 13 
 
 governors, false accusation, has been repelled in its attacks on 
 the fame and fortune and ease of the wealthy; that the ex- 
 penses and tributes levied on the different cities are borne 
 -svith equanimity by all who inhabit the territories of those 
 cities; that access to you is most easy; that your ears are 
 open to the complaints of all men; that no man's poverty or 
 desolateness is excluded by you, not merely from access to 
 you in public and on the tribunal, but even from your house^ 
 and your private chamber; that, in short, throughout your 
 whole government, there is nothing severe, nothing cruel; 
 but that everything is full of clemency, and gentleness, and 
 humanity. 
 
 IX. 26. Again, how great a benefit is it on your part, that 
 you have delivered Asia from that iniquitous and heavy tax 
 imposed upon it by the sediles,^ though at the expense of 
 great enmity to us. In truth, if one man of noble birth 
 makes a complaint openly that you, by issuing an edict " that 
 money should not be voted for the games at Eome," caused 
 him a loss of two hundred sestertia; how great a sum of 
 money must have been paid, if, as had become the custom, 
 it was exacted in the name of all, whoever they were, that 
 exhibited games at Eome*? Although we checked these com- 
 plaints of our citizens with this desigTi, (which is extolled in 
 Asia, I know not to what extent, and at Eome with no ordi- 
 nary admiration.) inasmuch as when the cities had voted sums 
 of money to erect a temple and monument in our honour, 
 and when they had done so of their own extreme good-will, 
 in return for my great services, and for your excessive kind- 
 nesses, and when the law made an exception in our favour by 
 name, providing that '- it might be permitted to receive money 
 for a temple and a monument;" and that which was then 
 given was not likely to perish, but to remain among the 
 ornaments of the temple, so as to appear to have been given, 
 not more for my sake than that of the Eoman people and the 
 immortal gods ; nevertheless I did not think that even that, in 
 which concurred merit, a special law, and the good-wiU of 
 those who made it, ought to be accepted by me, both for 
 
 ^ The expense of the games exhibited by the ^ediles had grown to be 
 so enormous that they had established a custom of extorting vast sums 
 from the provinces to meet it. The exact sum mentioned in the text 
 would be 161,4:obl 6s. M. 
 
14 CIGERO'S LETTERS 
 
 other reasons, and in order that others to whom nothing was 
 due, and in whose favour no permission was given, might bear 
 the matter with more equanimity. 
 
 27. Apply yourself, therefore, with all your heart and with 
 all your zeal to the course of conduct which you have hitherto 
 pursued, that you may love, and in every way protect, those 
 whom the senate and people of Eome have committed and 
 entrusted to your good faith and power, and that you may 
 take thought for their being as happy as possible. But if 
 chance ^ had set you over Africans, or Spaniards, or Gauls, 
 savage and barbarous nations, it would still have become-your 
 humanity to consult their advantage, and to show a regard 
 for their comfort and safety. Since, however, we govern that 
 race of mankind, among whom not only humanity itself pre- 
 vails, but from whom it is even thought to have spread to 
 other nations, we certainly ought, in the greatest possible 
 degree, to exhibit it to those from whom we received it. 
 
 28. For I shall not now be ashamed to assert this, (espe- 
 cially amidst such a course of life, and after performing such 
 actions, on which no suspicion of indolence or levity can affix 
 itself,) that we have attained those successes which we have 
 achieved, by the aid of those studies and arts which have 
 been handed down to us by the records and discipline of 
 Greece. On those accounts, besides that common good faith 
 which is due to all mankind, we also appear to be in an 
 especial manner the debtors of that race of men, so that we 
 may show a readiness to display in action those principles in 
 which we have been instructed before that very people from 
 which we have learned them. 
 
 X. 29. And, indeed, that chief of all genius and learning, 
 Plato, thought that republics would then at last become happy, 
 if either learned and wise men began to govern them, or 
 if those who governed them devoted all their attention to 
 learning and wisdom. This union of power and wisdom he 
 assuredly thought would be security to a state; a union 
 which may have at some time fallen to the lot of our whole 
 republic, but which has certainly, at this present time, 
 fallen to that province of yours; so that he might have the 
 chief power in it, by whom, from his childhood, the most 
 
 ^ The Latin is sors, lot. The different Koman magistrates had their 
 provinces assigned to them by' lot. 
 
TO HIS BUOTHER QUINTUS. 
 
 15 
 
 study aiKl time has been bestowed on acquiring a thorough 
 understanding of yirtue and humanity. 
 
 30. Be careful, therefore, that this year which is added to 
 your labour may appear at the same time to have been added 
 for the prosperity of Asia. Since Asia has been more for- 
 tunate in her efforts to detain you than we have been in ours 
 to recal you, take care that our regret may be mitigated by 
 the gladness of the province. For if you have been the most 
 diligent of all men in deserving that such great honours 
 should be paid to you as I know not whether any one has 
 received, you ought to exert far greater diligence in preserving 
 those honours. 
 ' 31. I have, indeed, written to you before w^hat I think of 
 honours of that kind. I have always thought them, if they 
 were common, worthless; if they were appointed for some 
 temporary occasion, trifling: but if, as has been the case 
 now, they were granted to your merits, I thought that 
 much exertion should be used by you to preserve them. 
 Since, therefore, you reside wdth supreme power and authority 
 in those cities in w^hich you see your virtues consecrated and 
 ranked in the number of [those of] the gods, in everything 
 which you shall determine, or decree, or do, you will recol- 
 lect what you owe to such high opinions of mankind, such 
 favourable judgment concerning you, such exalted honours. 
 This resolution will be of such influence, that you wull consult 
 the welfare of all, w^ill remedy the distresses of the people, 
 and provide for their safety, and that you will wish to be both 
 called and thought the father of Asia. 
 
 XI. 32. No doubt the farmers of the public revenue offer 
 great obstacles to your desires and efforts. But if we oppose 
 them, we shall separate both from ourselves and from the 
 republic an order of men w^hich deserves well of ourselves per- 
 sonally, and which is by our means attached to the republic. 
 Yet, if we comply with their wishes in everything, we shall be 
 allowing those persons to be utterly ruined, not only whose 
 safety, but whose advantage, we are bound to consult. This, 
 if we would form a correct judgment, is the one difficulty 
 which pervades your whole government. For to be disin- 
 terested, to restrain all one's desires, to keep a check upon 
 one's people, to maintain an equitable system of law, to show 
 oneself courteous in inquiring into matters of business, and 
 
16 CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 affable in listening and giving access to people, is honourable 
 rather than difficult : for it does not depend on any labour, 
 but rather on a certain inclination and willingness of mind. 
 
 33. How great distress the line of conduct adopted by the 
 farmers causes the allies, we have learned from those citizens 
 of our own, who lately, in the matter of the removal of the 
 harbour-dues of Italy, complained not so much of the tax 
 itself, as of certain wrongs committed by the tax-collectors. 
 So that I cannot be ignorant what of happens to the allies in 
 remote districts, when I hear the complaints of my own 
 countrymen in Italy, That you should so conduct yourself, 
 in such circumstances, as both to satisfy the farmers, (espe- 
 cially if they made an unlucky contract for the revenues,) and 
 not to allow the allies to be ruined, appears an achievement 
 worthy of some divine virtue, that is, of your own. 
 
 And in the first place, that which to the Greeks is a most 
 bitter consideration, namely, that they are liable to pay taxes, 
 ought not to appear so bitter; because, without any inter- 
 ference of the power of the Roman people, while they lived 
 under their own laws, they were themselves, and of them- 
 selves, in the same condition; and they have no right to 
 disdain the name of farmer, as they themselves could not pay 
 the tax which Sylla had, with perfect fairness, levied upon 
 them, without a farmer. And that, in exacting the taxes, the 
 Greek farmers are not more lenient than our own, may be 
 seen from this fact, that a little while ago the Caunians, and 
 all the inhabitants of the islands which had been made over 
 to the Rhodians by Sylla, fled to the senate with entreaties to 
 be allowed to pay tribute to us rather than to the Rhodians. 
 Those, therefore, have no right to express any horror of the 
 name of farmer, who have always been liable to the payment 
 of taxes ; nor ought those who by themselves could not pay 
 the taxes, to disdain him; nor ought those to object to him, 
 who have actually asked for his appointment. 
 
 34. Let Asia at the same time recollect, that no calamity 
 of foreign war, or of domestic dissension, would have been 
 absent from her, if she were not held under the dominion 
 of this country. And as that dominion can by no means be 
 upheld without taxes, let her contentedly purchase for herself 
 perpetual peace and tranquillity with a certain portion of her 
 revenues. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 17 
 
 XII. 35, ' And^ if they will endure that class of men, and 
 the name of farmer, with patience, other grievances, through 
 your wisdom and prudence, may possibly appear lighter to 
 them. They may, in making contracts, regard, not the mere 
 Censorian law,^ but rather the convenience of transacting 
 business, and their freedom from trouble. You, too, may do, 
 what you have already done admirably, and what you still 
 are doing, namely, to take frequent occasions to mention how 
 great worth there is in the farmers, and how much we owe to 
 that order ; so that, laying aside authority, and the exertion 
 of power and of the fasces, you may bind the farmers to the 
 Greeks by affection and influence. But you may also beg of 
 those of whom you have deserved extremely well, and who 
 indeed owe everything to you, to allow us, by good-temper 
 on their part, to secure and maintain that connexion which 
 already exists between us and the farmers. 
 
 36. But why do I exhort you to this course of conduct, 
 which you can not only pursue of your own accord without 
 directions from any one, but have already to a great extent 
 practised ? For highly honourable and important companies 
 do not cease to address their thanks to us, and this is the 
 more acceptable to me, because the Greeks do the same. 
 And it is difficult to unite in good- will those things which in 
 interests, utility, and almost in their very nature, are dif- 
 ferent from each other. But I have written what is written 
 above, not for the purpose of instructing you, (for your 
 wisdom stands in need of no instructions from any one,) but 
 because, while thus writing, the commemoration of your 
 virtues was a pleasure to me, although I have been more 
 prolix in this letter than I either intended or expected to be. 
 
 XIII. 37. There is one thing to which I shall not cease 
 to exhort you ; nor will I allow your praises to be spoken, as 
 far as shall be in my power, with any abatement ; for all who 
 come from those regions speak in such a manner of your 
 virtue, integrity, and humanity, as to make, among your 
 great praises, proneness to anger the only exception. This 
 
 ^ The terms on which the revenues of the provinces were let were 
 fixed by the censors, in the edicts called Leges CensoricE; but these were 
 sometimes modified to raise the credit or popularity of the publicans. 
 In the censorship of Cato, 568 a.u.c, the senate itself interfered to lower 
 the terms which his rigour had sought to impose. — Liv. xxxix. 44. 
 
 C 
 
18 CICERO's LETTERS 
 
 fault, even in our private and daily life, appears to be that of 
 an unsteady and weak mind; but nothing is so unseemly as 
 to unite the acerbity of natural ill-temper to supreme power. 
 For this reason I will not now proceed to set before you the 
 observations which are commonly made on passionateness, 
 both because I am unwilling to be too prolix, and because you 
 can easily learn them from the writings of many authors; 
 but that which peculiarly belongs to a letter, I mean that he, 
 to whom it is written, should be informed of matters of which 
 he is ignorant, I think that I ought not to omit. 
 
 38. Every one makes us almost the same report, that, when 
 ill-temper does not affect you, nothing can be more agreeable 
 than your behaviour; but that, when any one's dishonesty 
 or perverseness has provoked you, you become so excited that 
 your natural kindness is missed by every one. Since, there- 
 fore, it is not so much any thirst for glory as mere circum- 
 stances and fortune that have brought us into that station of 
 life in which we are, so that the conversation of mankind 
 respecting us will be incessant, let us, as far as we can pos- 
 sibly achieve and succeed, take care that no remarkable vice 
 may be said to have been in us. Nor do I now insist upon 
 that which is perhaps difficult in every disposition, and is 
 certainly so at our time of life, namely, to change the temper, 
 and suddenly to pluck out whatever is deeply implanted in 
 the character; but I give you this admonition, that if you 
 cannot wholly avoid this habit, because your mind is occu- 
 pied by anger before reason can prevent it from being so 
 occupied, you should still prepare yourself beforehand, and 
 meditate every day that you must resist this proneness to 
 anger, and that, when it has the greatest eifect upon your 
 mind, your tongue must then be most carefully restrained ; 
 for this appears to me at times a virtue not inferior to that 
 of never being angry. For the latter is the consequence, 
 not merely of gravity of temper, but sometimes even of 
 dulness; but to restrain your passion and language when 
 you are provoked, or even to be silent, and to keep your 
 agitation of mind and indignation under control, although it 
 be not a proof of perfect wisdom, is certainly an indication of 
 no moderate mental power. 
 
 39. In this respect men report that you have already 
 become much more moderate and gentle. No extremely 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 19 
 
 violent bursts of passion, no reproaches, no insults, are 
 reported to us ; faults which are not only inconsistent with 
 learning and politeness, but at variance with authority and 
 dignity : for if our anger is implacable, it is extreme rancour ; 
 but if easily appeased, it is extreme levity; which, however, 
 in a choice of evils, is to be preferred to rancour. 
 \ XIY. 40. But since it was your first year that caused the 
 most talk on this subject of censure (I imagine because 
 injustice, and avarice, and insolence in men occurred to you 
 contrary to your anticipation, and on that account appeared 
 intolerable); while the second year was much more quiet, 
 because- habit, and reason, and, as I flatter myself, my letters 
 also, have rendered you more patient and gentle; the third 
 year ought to be so corrected that no one may be able to find 
 even the slightest cause for censure in it. 
 
 41. And now, on this topic, I speak to you not with ex- 
 hortation and precepts, but with brotherly entreaty, beseech- 
 ing you to devote all your thought, care, and meditation 
 to securing the praise of all men in all quarters. If our 
 rank in life were in a moderate position for talk and dis- 
 cussion about us, nothing extraordinary, nothing beyond the 
 common conduct of other men, would be required of you: 
 but now, by reason of the splendour and importance of the 
 circumstances in which we are placed, unless we secure the 
 highest possible praise from that province, we seem scarcely 
 in a condition to escape extreme censure. Such is our posi- 
 tion, that while all good men look with favour on us, they at 
 the same time require and expect from us all imaginable 
 diligence and virtue; but all the unprincipled, because we 
 have engaged in everlasting war against them, seem to be 
 contented with the very smallest pretext for censuring us. 
 
 42. Since, therefore, a theatre of such a kind, that of all 
 Asia, has been presented for the display of your virtues — 
 a theatre crowded with a numerous body of spectators, most 
 ample in size, with an audience of most cultivated judgment; 
 and so well adapted for sound, that the sense and expressions 
 of the actors reach even to Eome ; strive, I entreat you, and 
 labour, not only to appear worthy of the circumstances in 
 which you are placed, but even superior to them by your 
 own good qualities. 
 
 XV. 43. And since, among the different offices of the state, 
 
 c2 
 
20 Cicero's letters 
 
 chance has assigned to me the domestic administration of the 
 repubhc, but to you a provincial government, if my part is 
 inferior to none, take care that yours may surpass that of 
 others. At the same time reflect that we are not now 
 labouring for a reputation as yet unattained, and only ex- 
 pected; but that we are striving for the preservation of one 
 already earned, which indeed was not so much to be desired 
 previously, as it is now to be maintained by us. And if I 
 could have any interests separate from yours, I should desire 
 for myself nothing more honourable than this position which 
 has been already acquired by me. But such is now the state 
 of affairs, that unless all your actions and expressions in that 
 quarter harmonize with my conduct, I shall think that I 
 have gained nothing by such toils and such dangers on my 
 part, in all of which you were a sharer. But if you alone, 
 above all others, assisted me in obtaining a most honourable 
 fame, you will now assuredly strive beyond all others that 
 I may retain it. You must not regard only the opinions and 
 judgments of men who are now living, but also of those who 
 will live hereafter, though indeed their judgment will be more 
 just, as being free from all detraction and malevolence. 
 
 44. Lastly, you ought to remember this too, that you are 
 not seeking glory for yourself alone j though, even were that 
 the case, you would not neglect it, especially when you had 
 desired to consecrate the memory of your name by the most 
 honourable records ; but it is also to be shared with me, 
 and to be handed down to our children. In regard to it, 
 therefore, you must take care lest, if you are too remiss, 
 you should seem, not merely to have managed ill for yourself, 
 but even to have grudged reputation to your relations. 
 
 XVI. 45. These remarks are not made with this view, 
 that my words may seem to have roused you when asleep, 
 but rather to have given you an impulse while running ; for 
 you will always give all men cause, as you have done, to 
 praise your equity, your moderation, your strictness, and 
 your integrity. But from the singular love which I bear 
 you, an insatiable eagerness for your glory possesses me; 
 although I am of opinion, that when Asia ought now to be 
 as well known to you as his own private house is to every 
 man, and when such great experience is added to your excel- 
 lent natural sense, there is nothing which can contribute to 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 21 
 
 glory that you do not thoroughly appreciate, and that does 
 not present itself daily to your mind without exhortation 
 from any one. But I, who, while I read your letters, think 
 that I am listening to you, and while I am writing to you, 
 think that I am conversing with you, am consequently most 
 delighted with your longest letters, and am myself often 
 somewhat prolix in addressing you. 
 
 46. In conclusion, I entreat and exhort you, that as good 
 poets and careful actors are accustomed to do, so you, at 
 the end and termination of your office and administration, 
 should be especially careful, that this third year of your 
 command may, like the third act of a play,^ appear to be 
 the most highly-finished and ornate of the whole. This you 
 will do most easily if you shall imagine that I, whom you 
 have always desired to please more than all the rest of the 
 world, am always present with you, and take part in every- 
 thing which you shall say and do. 
 
 It only remains for me to beg you to take most diligent 
 care of your health, if you wish me and all your friends to be 
 well. Farewell. 
 
 LETTER IL 
 
 The following letter was written in the year after Letter I. Caesar had 
 begun his contests with the aristocratic party ; and had brought in 
 an agrarian law substantially the same as that of Rullus : proposing 
 among other enactments, to plant 20,000 colonists in the public 
 domain in Campania ; and the appointment of the commissionera 
 to superintend the distributions of these lands was to be vested 
 in Caesar himself. Cato opposed the bill in the senate, and Csesar 
 ordered his lictors to seize him and carry him to prison, though 
 he was deterred from executing this menace by the indignation 
 of the whole senate. His colleague Eibulus was resolute in his 
 opposition; but when he endeavoured to resist the passing of the 
 measure in the comitia, he was thrown down the steps of the temple 
 
 ^ Why does Cicero say the third act, which is the middle act of a 
 play ? Does he mean by acts those three parts of a play to which the 
 poets paid so much attention, the protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe, and 
 on the last of which they bestowed the utmost art and industry to 
 secure the applause of the audience ? He has used the same com- 
 parison, in almost the same words, in his Cato. If this explanation 
 satisfy the learned, there is no reason why we should read, as has been 
 proposed, extremus or ultimus, contrary to the old copies. — Males f-ina. 
 
 Cicero speaks as if Quintus were engaged in a play consisting only of 
 three acts; assigning one year to each act. — Fr. Hotomannus. 
 
22 CICERO's LETTERS 
 
 of Castor and Pollux, his fasces were broken, and he liimself and 
 some of his attendants wounded. Caesar now released the farmers 
 of the public revenues in Asia from some of the conditions of their 
 contracts, with which they were dissatisfied. (See preceding Letter.) 
 And on the motion of Vatinius, the province of Cisalpine Gaul and 
 Illyricum was assigned to him for five years ; to which Transalpine 
 Gaul was afterwards added, through the influence of Pompey, who 
 married Julia, Csesar's daughter. Clodius was carrying on the mea- 
 sure of his adoption into a plebeian family, and openly threatening 
 Cicero with impeachment. The consuls-elect for the ensuing year, 
 696 A.U.C., were Aulus Gabinius, and L. Calpurnius Piso, whose 
 daughter Caesar had just married. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quixitus, greeting, 
 
 I. 1. Statius^ arrived at my house on the 25th of October. 
 His arrival, as you had written that you should be torn to 
 pieces by your people while he was away, was a disagreeable 
 one to me. But as it put aside the expectation of yourself, 
 and that concourse of people which would have occurred 
 if he had departed at the same time with you, and had not 
 appeared till you did yourself, it seemed to me to have hap- 
 pened not altogether disadvantageously ; for the talk of men 
 is now exhausted, and expressions of this kind are uttered 
 by many, 
 
 'AAA.' aei riva (pcora [xi'yav,'^ 
 
 which I am glad is accomplished in your absence. 
 
 2. But whereas he seems to have been sent by you for 
 the purpose of clearing himself in my opinion, that was not 
 at all necessary: for, in the first place, he never was sus- 
 pected by me; nor, in what I wrote to you about him, did 
 I write on my own judgment : but as the estimation and safety 
 of all of us who have joined in the affairs of the common- 
 wealth depended not only on truth, but also on reputation, I 
 
 ^ A freedman of Quintus Cicero, and one who had had far too much 
 
 influence over him. 
 
 ^ The lines in Homer, Od. ix. 513, are — 
 
 'AA.A.' aei riva <p6}ra fxeyav kol KaXbv ehlyfj/qv 
 'Ez/0a8' iK^vaeaQai, fjLeydXr}^ eirieLfjieuou olKktiv. 
 "Nvu 5e fi €odv oXiyos re koI ovridai/os koI clkikvs 
 '0(p6aKiuLov ^ aKaooaej/ iirei [x ida/uLacraaTO otvca. 
 
 Thus translated by Pope : — 
 
 I deem'd some godlike giant to behold. 
 Or lofty hero, haughty, brave, and bold ; 
 Not this weak pigmy- wretch, of mean design. 
 Who not by strength subdued me, but by wine. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 25 
 
 have constantly written to you the reports of others, and 
 not my own opinions. How common, indeed, and how un- 
 favourable, such reports were, Statius himself learned on his 
 arrival ; for he came just in time to hear the complaints of 
 certain persons, which were made to me concerning himself, 
 and had an opportunity of experiencing that the conversation 
 of the disaffected broke forth especially against his name. 
 
 3. But that which used to move me most, was when I 
 heard that he had greater influence with you than the gravity 
 of your age, or the prudence requisite for such a command 
 required ; (for how many people do you think have applied 
 to me to recommend them to Statius? how many things do 
 you think he has himself made known, without intending it, 
 in conversation to the same effect?) that did not please me; 
 I warned, advised, deterred you. In such proceedings, even 
 if there is the greatest fidelity in him, (as, indeed, I fully 
 believe, since such is your opinion of him,) yet the mere 
 appearance of a freedman or of a slave having so 'much 
 influence over you, can contribute nothing to your dignity. 
 And you may be assured, (for I feel bound neither to say 
 anything without reason, nor to suppress anything through 
 policy.) that Statius has furnished entire matter for the con- 
 versation of those who seek to disparage you : previouoly, it 
 could only have been understood that some persons were 
 offended with your severity; but since he has been emanci- 
 pated, there has not been wanting to those who were offended 
 a subject on which they might enlarge. 
 
 II. 4. I will now reply to those letters which L. Caesius 
 delivered to me, (whom, as I understand that such is your 
 wish, I will on no occasion fail to support,) one of which 
 relates to Zeuxis of Blandus,^ who, you write, is urgently 
 recommended by me to you, while he has most unques- 
 tionably murdered his mother. On this subject, and con- 
 cerning this whole class of persons, attend to a few words 
 from me, lest you should, perchance, be surprised that I am 
 become so solicitous of pleasing the Greeks. As I perceived 
 that the complaints of the Greeks had too much weight, 
 owing to the natural talent of that nation for deceiving, I 
 sought to pacify, by every me^ns in my power, whomsoever 
 I heard make any complaint of you. In the first place, I 
 1 A town of Phrygia. 
 
24 Cicero's letters 
 
 soothed the people of Dionysopolis, who were most bitter 
 enemies of mine; and their chief man, Hermippus, I won 
 over, not merely by talking to him, but by admitting him 
 to intimacy. I received, with all the courtesy and friend- 
 ship in my power, Hephaestus of Apamea, and that most 
 contemptible of men, Megaristus of Antandros, and Nicias 
 of Smyrna, and all the despicable fellows of the district, even 
 Nymphon of Colophon. All this I did, not because those 
 men, or their whole nation, gave me any pleasure ; for I am 
 thoroughly weary of their levity, their flattery, and their 
 minds that regard no duty but merely time-serving. 
 
 5. But, to return to Zeuxis, when he repeated the very same 
 things which you write, about a conversation held by Marcus 
 Cascellius with him, I objected to what he said, and admitted 
 the man to my intimacy. But I know not what strong 
 desire there was in you, when you say that you wished, since 
 you had sewn up two Mysians in a sack at Smyrna, to give 
 a similar example of your severity in the upper part of 
 the province, and therefore desired by all means to draw 
 forth Zeuxis, — who, if brought before the tribunal, ought 
 perhaps not to have been let go ; but it was not necessary 
 that he should be sought out and enticed by blandishments, 
 as you write, before the court, especially being a man of such 
 a character, that I know him, from the reports of his fellow- 
 citizens, and, every day more and more, from those of many 
 other persons, to be almost of greater respectability than his 
 native city. 
 
 6. But, you will say, I am partial to Greeks only. What'? 
 did I not pacify Lucius Csecilius by every means in my 
 power? and what a man he was I of what anger! of what 
 pride ! Whom, indeed, except Tuscenius, whose case cannot 
 be mended, have I not pacified 1 There just occurs to me 
 Catienus, a fickle and sordid man, though of the equestrian 
 order: even he shall be smoothed down. That you were 
 somewhat severe to his father, I do not blame you, for I well 
 know that you acted with sufficient reason. But what need 
 was there of letters of such a character as you sent to him? 
 telling him that he was of his own accord erecting a cross for 
 himself, from which you had already taken him down ; and 
 that you would now take care that he should be burnt alive 
 with the applause of the whole province. Again, what did 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINT CIS. 25 
 
 you write to an unknown fellow called Caius Fabius, (for 
 Titus Catienus carries about that letter too,) telling him that 
 it was reported to you that Licinius, the kidnapper, with his 
 young chick of an extortioner, is exacting tribute 1 You 
 then ask Fabius to burn both father and son alive if he can, 
 and if not, to send them to you, that they may be burnt by 
 judicial sentence. These letters, sent doubtless in joke by 
 you to Caius Fabius, if indeed they are yours at all, appear, 
 when they are read, to contain a barbarity of language cal- 
 culated to excite odium. 
 
 7. And if you look back at the precepts contained in all 
 my letters, you will see that there is nothing censured by me 
 except the bitterness of your language and your proneness 
 to anger, and perhaps, in one or two instances, your care- 
 lessness as to letters sent by you. If in these matters my 
 authority had had a little more influence over you than either 
 your own natural disposition, which is somewhat too hasty, 
 or a certain pleasure which you find in passionateness, or wit 
 and facetiousness in speaking, there would really be nothing 
 whatever for us to regret. And do you think that I feel only 
 a trifling concern, when I hear in what estimation Vergilius,. 
 and your neighbour Caius Octavius, are held? for if you 
 prefer yourself to your inland neighbours, the Cilician and 
 the Syrian, you do something very great ! And it is a bitter 
 feeling, that while those men whom I have mentioned are 
 not superior to you in innocence, they yet surpass you in 
 the art of conciliating good-will; men who have never read 
 either the Cyrus of Xenophon or his Agesilaus, kings from 
 whom, though possessed of absolute power, no one ever heard a 
 single harsh word. But how much good I have done in recom- 
 mending this conduct to you from the first, I am not unaware. 
 
 III. 8. Now however that you are departing, as you seem 
 to me to be already doing, leave behind you, I entreat, as 
 pleasant a recollection of yourself as possible. You have an 
 exceedingly courteous successor. Your other qualities will 
 be much regretted on his arrival. In sending letters, as I 
 have often written to you, you have shown yourself too easy. 
 Put out of the way, if you can, all that are unjust, all that 
 are of an unusual character, all that are inconsistent one with 
 another. Statins has told me that the letters written to you 
 are often brought, and read by him, and that^ if they are 
 
26 Cicero's letters 
 
 unjust, you are informed of it; but that, before he came to 
 you, there was no selection of your letters, though since that 
 time there have been rolls of selected letters which commonly 
 met with reprobation. 
 
 9. On this subject, indeed, I do not give you any advice 
 now, for it is too late, and you must be aware that I have 
 given you much advice, in various ways, and with great 
 care. Attend to that, however, which I bade Theopompus 
 tell you, when I was reminded of the circumstance by himself, 
 namely, that by means of men well affected to you, these dif- 
 ferent kinds of letters, as is easy, may be put out of the way : 
 in the first place, those which are unjust; next, those which 
 are contradictory; then those written in an absurd and un- 
 usual manner ; and lastly, all that are insulting to any one. 
 I do not indeed believe that these are exactly such as they 
 are stated to be, and if they have escaped observation through 
 the pressure of your business, at least examine them now, and 
 get rid of them. I have read a letter which your nomen- 
 clator Sylla was said to have written himself, and which 
 cannot be approved; I have read some very angry ones. 
 
 10. We will speak, however, of the letters at a fitting 
 time. For while I had hold of this page, Lucius Flavins the 
 prsetor-elect came in to me, a man with whom I am on terms 
 of great intimacy. He told me that you had sent letters to 
 his agents which appeared to me most unreasonable, com- 
 manding them to take nothing from the property which had 
 belonged to Lucius Octavius Naso, to whom Lucius Flavins is 
 heir, until they had paid a sum of money to Gains Fundanius ; 
 and that you had sent also to the people of Apollonia not to 
 allow any portion of the property which had belonged to 
 Octavius to be taken away, until the debt due to Fundanius 
 was paid. These things do not seem to me to be probable, 
 for they are wholly inconsistent with your usual prudence. 
 That the heir shall take none of the property ! •* What if he 
 demurs 1 What if there is no debt at all owing ? What ! is 
 the prsetor accustomed to decide that there is a debt owing ? 
 What ! (you will say) shall I not desire to serve Fundanius ? 
 Am I not his friend 1 Am I not moved with compassion for 
 him 1 — No one more so, but in some cases the path of law is 
 of such a character that there is no room for favour. And 
 Flavins told me that it was so expressed in that letter which 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 27 
 
 he affirmed to be yours, that you would either give the people 
 thanks as your friends, or bring trouble on them as enemies. 
 
 11. In short, he was greatly concerned; he addressed 
 vehement complaints to me on the- subject, and entreated me 
 to write to you with all the . earnestness possible; as I now 
 do, and entreat you most earnestly again and again, to allow 
 the agents of Flavins to use their own discretion as to taking . 
 the property, and to write nothing to the people of Apollonia 
 that is contraiy to the interest of Flavins, and, besides, to do 
 everything to gratify Flavins, and consequently Pompey. I 
 should, in truth, be reluctant to appear to you over liberal, 
 because of your injustice to him; but I entreat you to leave 
 of your own accord some authority and some record of a 
 decree or paper in your own hand-writing, which may have 
 a favourable bearing on the business and cause of Flavins. 
 For the man being at the same time one who pays me great 
 respect, while he is tenacious of his own rights and dignity, 
 is dissatisfied that he had no influence with you, either from 
 considerations of friendship or of right. And, I believe, on 
 some occasion or other, both Pompey and Csesar recommended 
 Flavius's interest to you, and Flavins had written to you 
 himself on the subject, and so, I am sure, did I. If, therefore, 
 there is any one thing which you think you ought to do at 
 my request, let this matter be that one. If you have any 
 regard for me, take care, strive, and manage, that Flavins 
 may feel all the gratitude possible both to you and to me. I 
 ask this of you with such earnestness that I cannot ask any- 
 thing with greater solicitude. 
 
 lY. 12. As to what you write to me about Hermias, it 
 was indeed a matter of great annoyance to me. I had 
 written you a letter, by no means in a brotherly style, which 
 I wrote in excessive anger, when I was provoked by a com- 
 munication from Diodotus, the freedman of Lucullus, stating 
 what I had heard at the moment about the agreement ; and 
 I wished to recal it. This letter, written in an unfraternal 
 spirit, you ought in a fraternal spirit to forgive. 
 
 13. With respect to Censorinus and Antonius, Cassius 
 and Scsevola, I am very glad indeed that you are, as you 
 write, beloved by them. The other matters in that letter 
 were of a graver character than I wished : 6p6dv rav vavv, 
 and liira^ Oaveiv, 
 
28 OICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 Those matters will be more serious. My reproofs were full 
 of affection ; they were not absolutely of no importance, but 
 moderate and light. ^ I should never have thought you de« 
 serving of the very slightest reprehension in anything, while 
 you were conducting yourself with the most rigid propriety, 
 if we had not many enemies. Whatever I wrote at all in 
 the tone of admonition or reproof, I wrote from the anxiety 
 of my caution, in which I still continue, and shall continue, 
 and shall not cease to press you to act in a similar way. 
 
 14. Attains the Iphemian has applied to me to prevail on 
 you not to hinder the money which has been voted for the 
 statue of Quintus Publicenus from being levied; and I do 
 beg this of you, and exhort you not to allow the honour of 
 a man of such a character, and so intimately connected with 
 us, to be at all diminished or obstructed by your means. 
 In the next place, Licinius, the slave of iEsop the tragedian, 
 my great friend, with whose person you are acquainted, has 
 fled; he was at Athens, staying with Patro the Epicurean, 
 as a free man : from thence he proceeded into Asia. After- 
 wards, a man called Plato, a citizen of Sardis, and an Epi- 
 curean, wlio is accustomed to be a good deal at Athens, and 
 who was at Athens at the time when Licinius went thither, 
 arrested the man, when he subsequently learned from ^sop's 
 letters that he was a runaway slave, and delivered him into 
 custody at Ephesus ; but whether he put him in the public 
 prison, or in the private house of correction, I could not well 
 understand from his letter. As he is at Ephesus, I should 
 wish you, by some means or other, to search for the man, 
 and use all your diligence to bring him over with you. Dc 
 not consider of what value he is, for he is of little value 
 who has now proved himself worthless ; but -^sop is so con- 
 cerned and indignant at the wickedness and audacity of the 
 slave, that you can do him no greater favour than to be the 
 means of his recovering him. 
 
 V. 15. Attend now to what you are most desirous to hear. 
 
 * This is rather obscure. Manutius interprets it, that the meaning 
 of the Greek quotations in the letter which Cicero repented of, was, 
 — Let us keep the vessel straight on her course ; if we fail, we 
 can die but once. And now he says, the advice which I am giving 
 you is of greater consequence than the affairs which impelled me 
 then to use that language, in which despondency was mingled with 
 reproof. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINT US. 29 
 
 The republic we have utterly lost; insomuch, that Cato, 
 a young man of no wisdom, but still a Koman citizen and 
 a Cato, scarcely escaped with his life, because, when he was 
 resolved to impeach Gabinius for corruption, and the prsetors 
 would not grant access for some days, or give him any oppor- 
 tunity of addressing them, he made his way to the rostrum, 
 and called Pompey a " private dictator." Nothing was ever 
 more nearly happening, than that he should be killed. From 
 this circumstance you may see what the state of the whole 
 republic must be. 
 
 16. Still men are not likely to be wanting to my own 
 cause.^ They make professions of adherence to me to a 
 wonderful extent, and offer themselves, and make promises. 
 In truth, I am in the greatest hopes, and even in greater 
 confidence. I hope that we shall get the upper-hand. I 
 feel confident that I need fear no misfortune in this state of 
 affairs. But still this is the condition of things. If Clodius 
 impeaches me, all Italy will throng around me to secure my 
 coming off with increased glory; but if he attempts to carry 
 his point by violence, I then hope that we shall resist him 
 with force, not only through the efforts of our friends, but 
 even those of strangers. All men promise me the aid of 
 themselves, and their friends, and fireedmen, and slaves, and 
 even of their money. Our ancient band of worthies glows 
 with zeal and love for me. If in times past any of them 
 have been at all alienated, or cool, they now, from hatred 
 to these kings,^ unite themselves with the good citizens. 
 Pompey promises everything, and so does Csesar; whom I 
 trust so far as to abate nothing of my ovv^n preparation. The 
 tribunes of the people elect are my friends ; the consuls 
 show themselves in a very favourable light. I find the prsetors 
 most excellent friends, and most energetic citizens, especially 
 Domitius, Nigidius, Memmius, and Lentulus; I find, the 
 others^ also good, but these particularly so. Study there- 
 fore to cherish much courage and good hope. Of everything, 
 however, which takes place from day to day I will keep you 
 continually informed. 
 
 ^ The attack with which Clodius was threatening him. 
 
 2 The triumvirs. 
 
 ^ There were eight prsetors altogether. 
 
30 Cicero's letters 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 This letter was written in the next year, 696 A.u.c. Caesar, on the 
 expiration of his consulship, did not depart at once for his province, 
 but remained outside the city with his legions. Clodius, through hia 
 influence, obtained the tribuneship, and having won over the consuls 
 by his promises, began a set of revolutionary measures ; introducing 
 a bill to limit the power of the censors, and another to restore the 
 colleges or guilds which had been suppressed a few years before ; and 
 a third to repeal the Lex ^lia Fufia, which gave the consuls a power 
 of dissolving the comitia by declaring the auspices unfavourable. 
 Having strengthened himself by these measures, he proceeded in his 
 'threatened attack upon Cicero. Ctesar offered him one of his Cam- 
 panian commissionerships as a means of withdrawing in honour for 
 a while ; or a lieutenancy in Gaul under himself ; but he refused 
 these offers, trusting to the attachment of the people and Pompey. 
 When he found them likely to fail him, he, and the greater part of 
 the senate and knights, put on black garments, as a dress of supph- 
 cation ; and Cicero made personal application to Piso for his protec- 
 tion. At last, in the beginning of April, by the advice of his friends, 
 Cicero withdrew from the city, taking an image of Minerva, and 
 placing it in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus as a deposit ; and 
 this letter was written while he was in exile at Thessalonica. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintets, greeting. 
 
 I. 1. My brother, my brother, my brother, were you afraid 
 that, under the influence of some angry feeling, I had sent to 
 you slaves without any letters ; or that I was even unwilling 
 to see you? I angry with you! How could I have been 
 angry with you ? I dare say ; for you, I suppose, have crushed 
 me ; your enemies, your unpopularity has ruined me ; and it 
 is not I who have miserably undone you. That consulship 
 of mine, so much extolled, has torn from me you, my 
 children, my country, my fortunes; would that it may have 
 taken nothing from you but me alone ! But certainly, on 
 your part, everything honourable, agreeable, has befallen me; 
 from me there arises to you only sorrow for my ill-fortune, 
 fear for your own, regret, grief, and selitude. Could I be un- 
 willing to see you? Nay, rather I was unwilling to be seen 
 by you.^ For you would not have seen your brother; you 
 
 ^ Quintus was just quitting his government in Asia, and returning to 
 Rome, where his enemies were preparing to impeach him. He pro- 
 posed to come out of his way to Thessalonica, to see his brother; but 
 Cicero urged him rather to hasten to Rome. He says to Atticus, (Ep. 
 iii. 19,) that it was necessary for his brother "to hasten to Rome with 
 all speed, lest any injury should be done to him in his absence." . . . 
 
TO HIS BKOTHER QUINTUS. 31 
 
 would not have seen him ^hom you had left, him whom you 
 had known, him to whom, weeping, you had bidden farewell, 
 yourself w^eeping, of whom you, when departing, had taken 
 leave, after he had attended you some way on your journey: 
 you would have seen not even a trace or image of him, but 
 a sort of effigy of a breathing corpse. And I wish that you 
 had rather seen or heard that I was dead; I wish that I had 
 left you surviving, not only my life, but my dignity. 
 
 2. But I call all the gods to witness, that I have been re- 
 called from death by this single expression alone, that all men 
 declared that a part of your life also was laid up in my life. 
 I have therefore erred and acted wrongly: for if I had died, 
 my death of itself would have been an ample proof of my love 
 and affection for you; but I have been the cause, that though 
 I am alive, you are without me, and that while I am alive, 
 you are in need of the assistance of others; and that my 
 voice is silent above all in our domestic dangers, after having 
 often been a protection against perils which did not at all 
 affect ourselves. For as to the fact of slaves having come 
 to you without any letters, since you see it did not happen 
 through anger, the cause was assuredly indolence, and an 
 infinite multitude of sorrows and miseries. 
 
 3. With what sorrow do you think that these very words 
 are written? with as much as I know that you read them. 
 Can I ever cease to think of you, or ever think of you without 
 tears'? For when I regret yom- absence, is it a brother alone 
 that I am regretting? J^ay, I rather regret one who is 
 almost a contemporary in affection;^ a son in reverential 
 
 "TTierefore I prefen-ed that he should hasten to Rome, instead of 
 coming to see me ; and at the same time, (for I will tell the plain truth, 
 by which you will be able to see the greatness of my distress,) I could 
 not bring my mind to see him who is so greatly attached to me in such 
 trouble ; nor to exhibit to him my own misery and gi^ief, and the utter 
 ruin of my fortune ; nor could I endure to be seen by him. And I 
 feared, too, what no doubt would have been the case, that he would not 
 be able to tear himself from me." This letter to Atticus bears the same 
 date as the one in the text to Quintus. 
 
 . ^ Suaiitate prope cequalem. Cicero's meaning (if the text be as 
 Cicero wrote it) seems to be, that his brother is almost his equal, not 
 merely in length of life, but in length of affection. Marcus has loved 
 Quintus longer than Quintus has loved Marcus, because Marcus loved 
 Quintus in his infancy before Quintus could return his love. In saying 
 this, I have some doubt whether I am giving the right sense to either 
 
32 , Cicero's letters 
 
 obedience ; a father in wisdom. What has ever been agreeable 
 to me without you, or to you without me ? Why need I add 
 that at the same time I regret the absence of my daughter** 
 A maiden of w^hat affection, what modesty, what abihty 1 the 
 image of my own countenance and conversation and disposi 
 tion. Why need I add, that I regret also my son, that mosi 
 graceful youth, and most dearly loved by me ! w^hom I, like 
 a cruel and hard-hearted man, dismissed from my embrace^ 
 a youth of greater wisdom than I could have wished ; for the 
 unhappy boy had sense to feel what was going on. Why too 
 should I speak of your son, your own image, whom my boy 
 Cicero both loved as a brother and respected even as an elder 
 brother? Why should I observe that I did not permit that 
 most miserable woman, my most faithful wife, to attend me 
 in my exile, in order that there might be some one to protect 
 the relics left from our common calamity, our common 
 children 1 
 
 4. But still, I did write you a letter, in such a way as 
 I could, and gave it to Philogonus your freedman, and I 
 imagine that it was subsequently delivered to you ; in which 
 I continued to exhort and entreat you, as your slaves told 
 you in the verbal message which they gave you from me, to 
 go straight to Rome, and to go with speed. For, in the first 
 place, I wished you to be there to protect yourself, in case 
 there were still any enemies of ours whose cruelty was not 
 yet satisfied with the calamities which had befallen me ; and, 
 in the second place, I dreaded the lamentations which must 
 have broken out at our meeting, and I could not have en- 
 dured your departure ; I feared too that very thing which 
 you mention in your letter, that you would not have been 
 able to tear yourself from me. For these reasons, this great 
 misfortune of not seeing you at all, than which it does not 
 
 suavitas or cequalis. But we can hardly take cequalis in the sense of 
 " equal," for Cicero would have offered poor praise to his brother if he 
 had said to him, *' You are almost my equal in suavitas.*' " Suavitas/' 
 says Malespina, " est inter amicos." But the soundness of the text is 
 extremely doubtful. The old editions have suavitate prope wqualem, 
 pi'ope fratrem ; the modern editors omit prope fratrem. Lambinus 
 would read suavitate fratrem, setate prope wqualem, which Gruter calls 
 a frigid emendation, but which would materially improve the passage. 
 JEtate, however, is by no means necessary; for, if it were omitted, 
 cequalis would still be taken in the sense of •' equal in age." 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 33 
 
 seem possible for any more painful and bitter grief to have 
 befallen affectionate and devoted brothers, was less bitter and 
 less distressing than our meeting and our separation would 
 have been. 
 
 " 5. Now, if you can, do what I, who have always appeared 
 to you to be a man of fortitude, cannot; raise and strengthen 
 yourself if there is any contest to be encountered. I hope, 
 if my hope has any weight, that your own integrity, and the 
 affection which the city bears you, and even pity for me, will 
 bring you some protection. But if you find yourself free 
 from that danger, you will do, I am sure, anything which 
 you shall think possible to be done in my behalf. On this 
 subject many of my friends write me many letters, and show 
 that they still entertain hopes; but I myself do not see clearly 
 what to hope, as my enemies have very great power ; and of 
 my friends, some have deserted me, and some have even 
 betrayed me, as they fear perhaps in my return a reproof to 
 their own wickedness. But what is the real position of affairs 
 in that respect, I should wish you to examine thoroughly, 
 and to let me know. For myself, as long as it shall be of 
 any use to you, if you shall see that there is danger to be 
 met, I will continue to live ; longer than that I cannot exist : 
 for no prudence and no learning has power enough to endure 
 such a weight of sorrow. 
 
 6. I know that there has been a more honourable and 
 a more useful opportunity of dying, but I not only let that 
 slip, but many other things too; but, if I chose to waste 
 time in lamenting what is past, I should be doing nothing 
 but increasing your sorrow, and exhibiting my own folly. 
 What, however, neither ought to be done nor can be done, 
 is for me to remain in so miserable and dishonourable an ex- 
 istence as this any longer than the chance of an opportunity 
 of serving you or any well-grounded hope shall require ; so 
 that I, who was formerly most happy in my brother, in my 
 children, my wife, my resources, and even in respect of riches,^ 
 and in dignity, authority, repute, and favour, not inferior 
 to the greatest men who have ever existed, now, in these 
 crushed and ruined circumstances, am no longer able even to 
 lament myself and my friends. 
 
 ^ Genere ipso pecunice, Paiil Manutius would read, genere ipso, 
 pecunid. 
 
 D 
 
34 Cicero's letters 
 
 7. Why, therefore, have you written to me about any bills 
 of exchange? As if your resources did not now support me, 
 in which very matter, miserable that I am, I both see and 
 feel how great an error I have committed : while you have 
 to satisfy those in whose debt you are, out of your own 
 means and those of your son, I have rsquandered to no pur- 
 pose money drawn out of the treasury in your name. But 
 still, the sum which you mentioned in your letters has been 
 paid to Mark Antony, and the same amount to Csepio. And 
 what I have with me is quite sufficient for the objects which 
 I have in view ; for whether I am restored, or whether I am 
 forced to abandon all hope, I want nothing more here ; and 
 as for you, if perchance any annoyance should arise, I advise 
 you to apply to Crassus and to Calidius. 
 
 8. How much trust may be placed in Hortensius I do not 
 know. He treated me with the greatest possible dishonesty 
 and treachery, though with the greatest pretences of affection, 
 and with unremitting attention day after day, Arrius being 
 also in league with him ; and it was from being deceived by 
 their advice, and promises, and recommendations, that I fell 
 into this misfortune. But you will take no notice of this, 
 that they may not injure you ; only be on your guard on 
 this point, (and with this view I would have you cultivate 
 the friendship of Hortensius himself through the instru- 
 mentality of Pomponius,)^ that that verse ^ which was quoted 
 against you with reference to the Aurelian law, when you 
 were a candidate for the sedileship, may not be confirmed 
 by false witness. For there is nothing that I am so much 
 afraid of as that, when men find out how much pity for me, 
 your prayers, and a regard for your safety, is likely to excite, 
 they will oppose you with greater violence. 
 
 9. I believe that Messala is well afiected towards you ; and 
 I think that even Pompey pretends to be so ; but I wish that 
 you may have no occasion to experience this. And I would 
 pray to the gods that you might not, if they had not given 
 
 ^ Titus Pomponius Atticus. 
 
 2 Cicero was afraid, I imagine, that his brother Quintus might be 
 accused of bribery, because, when he was a candidate for the sedileship, 
 he had given away money contrary to the laws ; on which occasion some 
 verse had been quoted about him, in reference to the Aurelian law, 
 touching upon bribery. We may suppose that by the Aurelian law 
 some provisions were made regarding bribery. — Paul Manutius. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 35 
 
 up attending to my prayers. But still, I do pray that they 
 may be content with the infinite misfortunes which have fallen 
 upon me ; in which, however, there is not only no dishonour 
 from wickedness, but my whole sorrow is that most severe 
 punishments are inflicted upon the most virtuous actions. 
 
 10. Why, my brother, need I recommend to you my daughter 
 and yours, and my little Cicero? One of my sorrows is that 
 their orphaned state will cause you no less grief than it 
 causes me. But, as long as you are safe, they will not be 
 orphans. As to the rest, so may some safety be granted me, 
 and an opportunity of dying in my native land, as tears 
 suffer me to write no more. I would have you also take 
 care of Terentia, and write me an answer with a full account 
 of everything. Keep up your courage as far as the nature 
 of circumstances will allow. 
 
 Dated on the 13th of June at Thessalonica. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 Marciis to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. I ENTREAT you, my brother, if you and all my friends are 
 involved in my individual ruin, do not attribute it to any 
 dishonesty or evil-doing of mine, but rather to my impru- 
 dence and ill-fortune. There is no error on my part, except 
 that I have believed those men, by whom I thought it would 
 be impious for me to be deceived, or even for whose very 
 interests I did not think it would be advantageous. But 
 every one of my most intimate friends — every one most 
 nearly connected with me, and most dear to me, either 
 feared for himself or envied me; and so, wretched that I 
 was, I had nothing but the good faith of my friends. * * * 
 My own prudence was at fault. 
 
 2. But if your own innocence, and the pity which men feel, 
 sufficiently protect you at this moment from annoyance, you 
 no doubt see clearly whether there is any hope of safety left 
 for me. For Pomponius and Sestius, and my friend Piso, 
 have hitherto detained me at Thessalonica, as they prevented 
 me from departing to a greater distance from the city, on 
 
 d2 
 
36 CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 account of I know not what changes ; but I looked for some 
 result, more because of their letters, than from any well- 
 founded hope of my own. For what could I hope, with my 
 enemy in full power, under the rule of mj detractors, with 
 my friends faithless, and numbers envious of me ? 
 
 3. Of the new tribunes of the people,^ Sestius indeed is full 
 of wishes to serve me, and so, as I hope, are Curius, Milo, 
 Fadius, and Fabricins ; though Clodius is most bitter against 
 a man who, even when oat of office, will be able to exert the 
 same power to stir up the assembly: and then, some one 
 will also be prepared to interpose his veto. 
 
 4. These things were not set before me when I was leaving 
 the city, but I was constantly told that I should be brought 
 back in three days with the greatest honour. How did you 
 act then? you will ask me, — How? Many things came 
 together to disturb my mind; the sudden defection of 
 Pompey, the alienation of the consuls, also that of the 
 praetors, the fears of the farmers of the public revenues, the 
 dread of civil war. The tears of my friends prevented me 
 from going forth to encounter death; a course which cer- 
 tainly would have been best suited to my honour, and the 
 best calculated to afford me a refuge from my intolerable 
 miseries. But on this subject I wrote to you in that letter 
 which I gave to Phaethon. Now, since you too are sunk 
 down into such grief and perplexity as no one else ever 
 suffered, if the pity of men can afford any relief in our 
 common calamity, you will certainly gain an incredible 
 advantage ; but if we are utterly ruined (alas, me !) then 
 I shall have been the destruction of all my friends, to whom 
 I was previously no disgrace. 
 
 5. But do you, as I wrote to you before, examine the 
 matter in all its bearings, and acquaint yourself with it 
 thoroughly, and write me the exact truth, as the state of the 
 time with reference to me, and not as your affection for me, 
 dictates. I will cling to life as long as I shall think that it 
 is for your advantage, or that it is possible to retain any 
 hope ; you will know Sestius, who is most friendly to me ; 
 and I imagine you will wish, for your own sake, to know 
 
 ^ The election of tribunes took place in the middle of July, and this 
 letter was apparently written soon afterwards, in the same year as the 
 preceding one. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 37 
 
 Lentulus, who is going to be consul ; although facts are more 
 stubborn things than words. You will see fully what is 
 required, and what is the state of affairs ; if no one shall despise 
 your solitary condition and our common distress, something 
 will be able to be eflFected by you, or else not by any means. 
 But if your enemies begin to attack you, do not be idle; 
 for against me they will not proceed with swords, but with 
 law-suits. However, I trust that there may be nothing of 
 this. I entreat you to write me full information of every- 
 thing; and to think, if you please, that there is in me less 
 courage or wisdom than before, but not less love and affectior 
 for you. 
 
38 CICEEO'S LETTERa 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 This letter was written at the end of the year 697 a.u.c, in the consul- 
 ship of Lentulus Spinther and Metellus Nepos. Cicero had never 
 been formally banished ; for though Clodius had prevailed to inter- 
 dict him from fire and water, he yet did not propose any vote that 
 he should be banished, nor did he attempt to have his name removed 
 from the roll of the senate. He did indeed destroy his house, and 
 dedicate the site to the goddess Liberty ; and the consuls seized 
 his Tusculan villa ; but still no legal sentence had ever been pro- 
 nounced against him. At the end of the year 696, when his enemy 
 Piso, the late consul, was coming to Macedonia, which had been 
 allotted to him as his province, Cicero moved to Dyrrhachium, in 
 order to be nearer Italy, where his brother, and Pomponius Atticus 
 (mentioned in the last letter), were making great exertions to render 
 the people favourable to his return. Pompey had become alienated 
 from Clodius by his violence and insolence ; and Lentulus, one of 
 the consuls, was wholly devoted to Cicero. The consuls formally 
 proposed that Cicero should be invited to return. One of the tri- 
 bunes, Serranus, prevented the formal adoption of any such measure 
 for a time ; but in August it was carried, and in September Cicero 
 returned to Eome, where he was received with acclamations. He 
 immediately began to cultivate the good-will of Pompey, by pro- 
 posing his appointment to an extraordinary commission for supplying 
 the city, which was in great distress from scarcity; and^he himself 
 accepted a subordinate commissionership. The site of his house on 
 the Palatine hill was restored to him, it being declared to have been 
 illegally and informally consecrated ; and a sum of money was voted 
 to him to recompense him for his other losses, though Cicero was 
 not at all satisfied with the amount of compensation. The consuls- 
 elect for the ensuing year were Lentulus Marcellinus, and Marcius 
 Philippus. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. The letter which you read I had written in the morning, 
 but Licinius acted with kind consideration in coming to me 
 in the evening as soon as the senate was adjourned, in order 
 that, if I chose, I might write you an account of all that 
 had taken place. The senate was more numerous than we 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 39 
 
 had thought it could possibly have been in the month of 
 December, close upon the festival days.^ Of the men of 
 consular dignity, we were there ourselves, and the two con- 
 suls-elect; and Publius Servilius, and Marcus LucuUus, and 
 Lepidus, and Yolcatius, and Glabrio, praetors. We certainly 
 •were a very numerous assembly, in all about two hundred. 
 Lupus had excited our expectations; he discussed the ques- 
 tion of the Campanian land with sufficient accuracy. He 
 was listened to with profound silence. You are not ignorant 
 of the subject. He did not pass over a single one of our 
 actions. Some sharp things were said against Caius Csesar; 
 some insulting observations were made on GeUius ; and some 
 expostulations addressed to Pompey in his absence. When 
 he had summed up the whole matter at a late hour, he said 
 he would not ask us for our votes, lest he should lay on us 
 the burden of incurring any one's enmity; from the reproaches 
 which had been uttered on previous occasions, and from the 
 present silence, he was well aware what the feelings of the 
 senate were. Immediately he began to adjourn the senate. 
 Then Marcellinus said, "Do not. Lupus, from our silence 
 attempt to judge what on this occasion we either approve 
 or disapprove; I, as far as I myself am concerned, and I 
 believe that the same feelings influence the rest, am silent, 
 because I do not think that, as Pompey is absent, it is 
 proper for the question of the Campanian land to be dis- 
 cussed." Then he said that he had no wish to detain the 
 senate any longer. 
 
 2. Ilacilius rose, and began to make a motion with respect 
 to the threatened impeachments. And, first of all, he asked 
 Marcellinus's opinion. He, after having complained with 
 great bitterness of the conflagrations, and murders, and 
 stonings perpetrated by Clodius, gave his opinion that he 
 himself should assign the judges by lot with the assistance 
 of the city praetor; that when the business of assigning of 
 the judges was finished, the comitia should be held; and that 
 whoever offered any obstacle to the tribunals would act con- 
 trary to the interests of the republic. After his opinion had 
 been received with great approbation, Caius Cato spoke against 
 
 ^ From the middle of December to the end of the year, the whole 
 time was taken up with the different festivals, — Saturnalia, Opalia, 
 Angeronalia, Larentinalia, and Juvenalia, 
 
40 CICERO S LETTERS 
 
 it, and so did Cassius, calling forth great acclamations from 
 the senate, as he expressed his opinion that the comitia 
 ought to take precedence of the impeachments. Philippus 
 agreed with Lentulus. 
 
 3. Afterwards Eacilius asked me my opinion, first of all the 
 senators out of office. I made a long speech about the whole 
 frenzy and piratical wickedness of Publius Clodius ; I accused 
 him as if he had been on his trial, with incessant and favour- 
 able murmurs of assent from the whole senate. Severus 
 Antistius praised my speech at tolerable length, and in lan- 
 guage far from ineloquent; and he supported the cause of 
 the courts of justice, and said that he should always consider 
 it of the greatest importance. That opinion was adopted. 
 Then Clodius, when he was asked his opinion, began to take 
 up all the rest of the day with his speech ; he declared in 
 furious language, that he had been attacked by E-acilius in 
 a most insulting and discourteous manner. And then his 
 factious mob on a sudden, in the space in front of the senate- 
 house, and on the steps, raised a very great disturbance, being 
 excited, I imagine, against Quintus Sextilius, and the friends 
 of Milo. The fear of this uproar spreading abroad, we im- 
 mediately broke up, with great complaints from all parties. 
 
 You have an account of the transactions of one day. The 
 rest of the business, I imagine, will be postponed till the 
 month of January. Of the tribunes of the people, we find 
 Eacilius by far the best. Antistius, too, seems likely to be 
 friendly to us. As for Plancius, he is wholly devoted to us. 
 If you love me, be very considerate and careful how you put 
 to sea in the month of December. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Marcus to his hrother Quintus^ greeting. 
 
 1. It is not from pressure of business, with which, how- 
 ever, I am pretty much hindered, but from a slight attack 
 of weak eyes, that I am led to dictate this letter, instead of 
 writing with my own hand, as I usually do to you. And 
 in the first place I excuse myself to you in the very par- 
 ticular in which I accuse you ; for no one has ever yet asked 
 me, "Whether I wished to send anything to Sardinia?" but 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 41 
 
 I suppose you often find people ask you, "Whether you 
 wish to send anything to Rome 1 " As to what you wrote to 
 me in the name of Lentulus and Sestius, I spoke on that 
 matter with Cincius. However the business stands, it is 
 not a veiy easy one ; but in truth Sardinia has something 
 very well suited to recal to people's mind a circumstance 
 which had escaped their recollection. For as the great Grac- 
 chus, when he was augur, after he arrived in that province, 
 recollected what had happened to him contrary to the auspices, 
 when holding the comitia in the Campus Martins for the 
 election of consuls, so you, too, seem to me, now that you are 
 in Sardinia,^ to have reflected again at your leisure on the 
 shape of the house of Minucius, and on the debt which you 
 owe to Pomponius. But as yet I have bought nothing. The 
 auction of CuUeo's property has taken place. There was no 
 one to purchase the property; if the terms should be very 
 favourable, perhaps I may not let it slip myself. 
 
 2. About your building, I do not cease to press Cyrus, and 
 I hope that he will attend to his duty; but everything is a 
 little slow, because of the expectation which is entertained of 
 a frantic sedileship.^ For the comitia seem likely to take 
 place without delay; they have been given out for the 22d 
 of January. However, I would not wish you to be uneasy 
 about them ; every kind of caution shall be practised by us. 
 
 3. A vote of the senate has been passed about the king of 
 Alexandria,^ that it appears dangerous to the republic for 
 him to be restored with a multitude; and when there fol- 
 lowed a contest in the senate, whether Lentulus or Pompey 
 should be appointed to restore him, Lentulus appeared to 
 have the majority. In this transaction I satisfied my sense 
 of obligation to Lentulus to admiration^ and that of good- 
 
 ^ Quintus was in Sardinia, as one of Pompey's commissioners to 
 procure com for the city. 
 
 2 Clodius was standing for the sedHeship. 
 
 ^ This was Ptolemy Auletes, who was now at Rome, and who had 
 procured a vote to be passed that he should be restored to his king- 
 dom. The vote that he should not be restored with a multitude, was 
 caused by a verse which Caius Cato, a tribune, professed to have 
 found in the Sibyhine verses, and which he interpreted to mean that 
 an army ought not to be employed in the matter ; while one of the 
 reasons which made so many desirous of the appointment to rest on 
 him, was, that it would furnish a pretext for levying an army. 
 
42 Cicero's letters 
 
 will to Pompey with honour. But, by those who wished to 
 disparage Lentulus, the matter was protracted by means of 
 false accusations. The days of the comitia followed, during 
 which a senate could not be held. What will be the result of 
 the bandit-like conduct of the tribunes, I cannot conceive; 
 but still I suspect that Caninius will carry his motion by 
 force. What Pompey's wishes in that matter are, I do not 
 clearly see ; but every one discerns what his friends want : 
 and the creditors of the king, without any disguise, furnish 
 money to be used against Lentulus. Beyond all doubt, the 
 matter now appears to be out of the reach of Lentulus, to 
 my great sorrow, although he has done many things for 
 which, if it were proper, we might fairly feel angry with him. 
 
 4. I should wish you, if it is convenient, as soon as the 
 weather is fine and settled, to embark on board ship, and 
 come to me; for there are great numbers of things in which 
 I want you daily in every way. Your family and mine are 
 well. " 19 th January. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. I WROTE to you already what happened before; learn 
 now what took place afterwards. The business of embassies 
 was postponed from the 1st of February to the 13th. On 
 that day the matter was not settled. On the 2d of February, 
 Milo was present ; and Pompey came to give him his counte- 
 nance. Marcellus spoke, being asked by me. We came off 
 very respectably. The day of trial was put off to the 6th of 
 February. In the meantime, as the business of the embas- 
 sies was postponed till the 13th, a motion was made about 
 the provinces of the quaestors, and about some compliments 
 to be paid to the praetors ; but, from the introduction of 
 frequent complaints about the general state of affairs,^, no 
 business was transacted. Caius Cato proposed a law to take 
 away his command from Lentulus. His son changed his dress. 
 
 2. On the 6th of February Milo appeared; Pompey spoke, 
 or rather, intended to speak ; for as soon as he was on his 
 legs, the mob in Clodius's pay raised a disturbance, which 
 lasted throughout his whole speech; and in such a manner 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 43 
 
 that he was hindered from being heard, not merely by the 
 noise, but by reproaches and abuse. When he had summed 
 up what he had been saying, (for in that matter he behaved 
 with courage enough; he was not deterred from proceeding; 
 he said all that he meant to say; and, indeed, there were 
 moments when he was heard in silence ; and he continued 
 to the end with great authority; but when he had summed 
 up,) up rose Clodius, when such a shout was raised against 
 him by our party, for we determined to pay him off, that 
 he was master neither of his senses, nor of his expressions, 
 nor of his countenance. This scene was continued till two 
 o'clock, Pompey having scarcely finished his peroration at 
 twelve, while every sort of abuse, and even the most obscene 
 verses, were uttered in the way of attack upon Clodius and 
 Clodia. He, furious with passion, and pale with terror, amid 
 the uproar, addressed questions to his mob : '^ Who was 
 it that was killing the people with famine ? " The mob 
 replied, " Pompey." " Who was it that wanted to go to 
 Alexandria?" They replied again, " Pompey." "Whom did 
 they wish to go V They answered, " Crassus." And he, on 
 this occasion, was present with Milo; but with a disposition 
 far from friendly. At about three o'clock, as if a signal had 
 been given, Clodius's mob began to spit upon our party. 
 Indignation rose to a great height ; they began to press on in 
 order to drive us from our seats. A rush was made upon 
 them by our party; and a flight of the mob took place. 
 Clodius was driven from the rostrum, and we too then fled, 
 lest we should meet with any accident in the confusion. The 
 senate was summoned to the senate-house; Pompey went 
 home. Nor did I indeed attend the senate, that I might neither 
 be silent on matters of such importance, nor offend the feelings 
 of the well-afFected citizens, by defending Pompey; for he 
 was attacked by Bibulus, and Curio, and Favonius, and the 
 younger Servilius. The matter was put ofi" till the next day. 
 Clodius deferrred the day of impeachment to the Quirinalia. 
 3. On the 9th of February, the senate met in the temple 
 of Apollo, in order that Pompey might be present. The 
 matter was handled by him with great gravity. On that day 
 nothing was done. On the 10th of February, a decree of 
 senate was made in the temple of Apollo, " That what had 
 been done on the 6th of February had been contrary to the 
 interests of the republic." On that day Cato inveighed 
 
44 Cicero's letters 
 
 against Pompey with great vehemence ; and throughout his 
 whole speech accused him as if he had been upon his trial. 
 Of' me, much against my will, he said a great deal ; extolling 
 me very highly; and when he exposed Pompey's treachery 
 towards me, he was listened to with profound silence by the 
 disaffected. Pompey replied to him with great energy, and 
 gave a character of Crassus, and said in plain words, that he 
 would be better prepared to defend his life than Africanus 
 had been, whom Caius Carbo had killed. 
 
 4. Thus great matters appeared to me to be in agitation; for 
 Pompey understands these things, and communicates them 
 to me, being well aware that plots are formed against his life ; 
 that Caius Cato is supported by Crassus, that money is fur- 
 nished to Clodius, and that both of them are encouraged by 
 him, by Curio, and Bibulus, and the rest of those who are 
 always disparaging him; and that he has to take the most 
 diligent care not to be overwhelmed, while the populace which 
 attends all the assembHes is almost entirely alienated from 
 him; while the nobility is hostile to him, the senate un- 
 favourable, and the youth of the city corrupted. He is, 
 therefore, preparing himself, and sending for people from the 
 country. And Clodius is strengthening his mob of artisans. 
 A strong force is being prepared for the Quirinalia, and in 
 that respect we are much superior to the number of Pompey's 
 adherents. But a great body of men is also expected from 
 Picenum and Gaul, that we may also resist Cato's motions 
 about Milo and Lentulus. 
 
 5. On the 10th of February, Sestius was impeached under 
 the Pupinian law by Cnseus Nerius the informer, on a charge 
 of corruption, and on the same day by a certain Marcus 
 Tullius for violence. He was sick. Immediately, as it was 
 our duty to do, we went to see him at his house, and pro- 
 mised our entire energies to his service ; and we did this con- 
 trary to the general expectation, (as men thought that we 
 were with reason offended with him,) in order to appear both 
 to him and to all men to be of a most humane and grateful 
 disposition. And so we shall continue to do. 
 
 But this same informer, Nerius, added to the number 
 of those whom he affirmed to be his accomplices, Cnseus 
 Lentulus Yaccias, and Caius Cornelius. On the same day, a 
 vote of the senate was passed, that all the different com- 
 panies, and those who belonged to the different decurise, 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 45 
 
 should depart ; and that a law should be enacted respecting 
 them, to the effect, that those who should not depart, should 
 be liable to the punishment which is inflicted for violence. 
 
 6. On the 11th of February I made a speech in defence of 
 Bestia, who was accused of corruption before Cn^eus Domitiua 
 the praetor, in the middle of the forum, in the presence of 
 a vast crowd of people, and while speaking, I happened to 
 touch upon that occasion when Sestius, after receiving many- 
 wounds in the temple of Castor, was saved by the assistance 
 of Bestia. Here I very seasonably made the best of those 
 things which were imputed to Sestius as crimes, and I extolled 
 him T\ith well-deserved praises, with the great approbation of 
 all men. The affair was exceedingly grateful to the man. 
 And I mention this to you now, because in your letters you 
 have often given me a hint on keeping well with Sestius. 
 
 7. On the 12th of February I wrote this letter before 
 daybreak; on that day I was going to sup with Pomponius 
 on the occasion of his marriage. Everything else in our 
 affairs of this nature is, as you described to me, though I 
 could hardly believe you, full of dignity and influence, which 
 have been restored both to you and to me, ray brother, in 
 consequence of your prudence, patience, integrity, piety, and 
 courteousness. The house of Licinius at the grove of Pise 
 is hired for you ; but I hope that within a few months after 
 the 1st of July, you will move into your own. Those elegant 
 tenants, the Lamiae, have hired your house in the Carinse. I 
 have never received any letter from you since that which was 
 dated at Olbia. I want to know what you are doing, and 
 how you are amusing youi'self ; and above all things, I want 
 to see you as soon as possible. Take care to preserve your 
 health, my brother, and though it is winter, recollect that it 
 is a Sardinian^ winter. 
 
 15th Februarv. 
 
 LETTER lY. 
 
 Marcus to his hrotlier Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. Our friend Sestius was acquitted on the 14th of March, 
 and ho was acquitted unanimously; a point which was oi 
 
 ^ Sardinia had a bad character as an unhealthy island. 
 
46 CICERO's LETTERS 
 
 very great importance to the republic, that there should 
 appear to be no difference of opinion in a cause of that kind. 
 As to that other object too, which I knew was often a cause 
 of anxiety to you, namely, that we should give no oppor- 
 tunity to any ill-disposed person to censure us, (who might 
 say that we were ungrateful if we did not bear with that 
 man's perverseness in some particulars as patiently as pos- 
 sible,) you may be assured that we completely attained it in 
 that trial, so that I was 'considered to have displayed the 
 greatest possible sense of gratitude; for in defending the 
 ill-tempered man I abundantly satisfied him; and, for my 
 own gratification, I, as he was above all things desirous 
 should be done, cut up Yatinius, by whom he was openly 
 attacked, amid the applause of gods and men. Moreover, 
 when our friend Paullus was produced as an evidence against 
 Sestius, he confirmed the statement that he was going 
 to lay an information against Vatinius, if Macer Licinius 
 delayed to do so ; when Macer rose from the seats occupied 
 by the friends of Sestius, and declared that he would not fail 
 to stand by him. Would you know the result? Yatinius, 
 petulant and audacious as he is, went away in great agitation, 
 and greatly weakened in his influence. 
 
 2. Your son Quintus, a most excellent boy, is going on 
 with his education remarkably well ; and I have now the more 
 opportunity of noticing this, as Tyrannio gives him lessons 
 at my house. The building of both our houses is going on 
 vigorously. I have provided for the payment of half his 
 money to your contractor ; and I hope that before the winter 
 we shall be both living together under one roof Respecting 
 my daughter Tullia, a girl who is really very much attached 
 to you, I hope that I have concluded matters with Crassipes.^ 
 There were two days after the Latin holidays which are 
 accounted sacred, or else it would have been settled. Latiar^ 
 was going * * * * * * 
 
 ^ Tullia was a widow now. Her first husband had been Lucius 
 Calpumius Piso Frugi. She now married Junius Crassipes. After his 
 death, she married Dolabella. 
 
 2 There is some error in the MS. here. This name is most likely- 
 wrong; and the end of the letter seems to be lost. There is some 
 difference of opinion between the various editors, as to the division of 
 this, and one or two of the subsequent letters. I have followed the 
 old arrangement, which is also adopted by Nobbe. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 47 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. I HAD written you a letter before, in which it was men- 
 tioned that my daughter Tulha was betrothed to Crassipes 
 on the 4th of April ; and I gave you also other details of 
 the affairs of the republic, and of my own private matters. 
 The following particulars have taken place since: — On the 
 5th of April, a sum of money, to the amount of more than 
 three hundred and twenty thousand pounds,^ was voted to 
 Pompey, by a decree of the senate, to purchase corn for the 
 city. But on the same day there was a violent discussion 
 about the lands in Campania, with an uproar in the senate 
 almost equal to that of an assembly of the people. The 
 want of money, and the high price of corn, made the dispute 
 sharper. 
 
 2. I must not omit to mention this either. The Capitoline " 
 college, and the priests of Mercury, have expelled Marcus 
 Furius Flaccus, a Roman knight, and a most w^orthless 
 fellow, from the college, though he was present when they 
 came to the decision, and threw himself at the feet of every 
 one of them. 
 
 LETTER YI. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. On the 6t?i of April I gave the wedding-feast to Cras- 
 sipes. But at this banquet that excellent boy, your and 
 
 ^ HSCCCC. Paul Manutius considers that quadringenties centena 
 millia nummiXm is meant, i.e. 40,000 sestertia, or something more than 
 £320,000. Let it be observed, however, that with regard to most, or 
 all, of the sums of money mentioned in these letters, there is very 
 great uncertainty. 
 
 2 The Capitoline college consisted of men dwelling In the Capitol 
 and in the citadel, of whom Camillus made a college, for the purpose of 
 superintending the games in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus, which were 
 instituted for the preservation of the Capitol. See Livy, v. 50. 
 
iS CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 my Quintns, was not present, because he had taken some 
 slight offence ; and therefore, two days afterwards, I went to 
 Quintus, and found him quite candid; and he held a long 
 conversation with me, full of good feeling, about the quarrels 
 of our wives. What would you have more"? Nothing could 
 be in better taste than his language. Pomponia, however, 
 made some complaints of you: but these matters we will 
 discuss when we meet. 
 
 2. When I left the boy I went into your grounds ; the 
 business was going on with plenty of builders. I urged 
 Longilius, the contractor, to make haste. He assured me 
 positively that he was anxious to give us satisfaction. It w411 
 be a very fine house, for a better notion could now be formed 
 of it than we had conceived from the plan. At the same time, 
 my house, too, was going on with great speed. That day I 
 supped with Crassipes ; and after supper I went in a litter to 
 see Pompey at his villa. I had not been able to meet Lucceius, 
 because he w^as away, and I. was very anxious to see him, 
 because I was going to leave Rome the next day, and because 
 he was going to Sardinia. At last I found the man, and begged 
 him to send you back to us as soon as possible. He said he 
 would do so immediately. And he was going to set out as 
 he said on the 11th of April, with the intention of embarking 
 either at Leghorn or at Pisa. 
 
 3. As soon as he shall have arrived, my brother, do not 
 let slip the first opportunity for sailing, provided the weather 
 be favourable. That abundance (a/x(^tXa(^ta) which you are 
 in the habit of talking of, I desire sufficiently ; that is to say, 
 so as to receive it willingly if it comes, but not so as now to 
 hunt for it if it keeps out of my way. I am building in 
 three places; restoring and embellishing in others; I live 
 a little more liberally than I used to do. If I had you 
 with me, I should be forced to give a little play to the 
 masons ; but, as I hope, we shall soon talk these things over 
 together. 
 
 4. Affairs at Eome, however, are in the following con- 
 dition: — Lentulus makes a very good consul, his colleague 
 offering no hindrance; indeed he is, I repeat, so good, that 
 I never saw a better. He prevented anything whatever being 
 done in the days of the comitia; for even the Latin holidays 
 are renewed; and yet supplications were not wanting. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 49 
 
 5, In this manner some most pernicious laws are snccess- 
 fully resisted, especially those proposed by Cato, whom our 
 friend Milo has admirably baffled. For that avenger of 
 gladiators and matadors had bought some matadors from 
 Cosconius and Pomponius, and never appeared in public 
 without a troop of them armed. He could not maintain 
 them, so that he could scarcely keep them about him. Milo 
 became aware of this; and gave a commission to a man who 
 was no particular friend of his, to buy the whole establish- 
 ment from Cato without any suspicion; and as soon as it 
 was removed from Cato's house, Eacilius, who at this moment 
 is the only real tribune of the people, divulged the whole 
 matter, and said that those men had been bought for him, 
 (for so it had been agreed upon.) and stuck up a notice, 
 that he was going to sell the establishment of gladiators and 
 matadors belonging to Cato. Much laughter followed this 
 announcement. So now Lentulus has tired Cato of proposing 
 new laws, as well as those persons who proposed those mon- 
 strous enactments with reference to Csesar, which no one 
 chose to impede by his veto. For as to what Caninius 
 intended about Pompey, that has doubtless cooled consider- 
 ably; since the thing itself is disapproved; and our friend 
 Pompey is much bkmed for his conduct with respect to 
 Lentulus,^ who had behaved to him in a friendly manner. 
 And indeed he is not the same person that he used to be ; 
 
 , for he has given no shght offence by his exertions on behalf of 
 ! Milo to those most infamous and despicable dregs of the 
 j people that adhere to Clodius ; and the well-disposed citizens, 
 
 too, want a good deal which they do not find in him, and 
 
 blame a good deal which they do. 
 
 In one respect Marcellinus indeed does not satisfy me; 
 I which is this, that he treats him with too much asperity; 
 
 although he does this not at all against the will of the senate. 
 
 On this account I withdraw with the less reluctance from the 
 
 senate-house and from all connexion with public affairs. 
 
 6. With respect to law proceedings, we are much in the 
 same state that we were ; my house is thronged by the 
 
 ^ Lentulus had been the principal means of the commission to 
 supply Rome with food being entrusted to Pompey; who, however, 
 endeavoured to deprive him of the honour of being appointed to 
 [restore Ptolemy to his kingdom. 
 
 E 
 
50 CICERO 5 LETTERS 
 
 greatest crowds of people imaginable. One thing has hap- 
 pened unpleasantly, through the imprudence of Milo, with 
 respect to Sextus Coelius, whom I did not wish to be prose- 
 cuted at this time, or by accusers who wanted influence. He 
 just wanted three votes of the most worthless men on the 
 bench ; and so the people insist upon it that the man shall 
 be tried again ; and tried again he must be, for men will not 
 bear it. And because he was almost convicted while pleading 
 his cause before his own friends, they look upon him as vir- 
 tually convicted. In that matter also the unpopularity of 
 Pompey was a hindrance to us : for the votes of the senators 
 acquitted him by a majority; those of the knights were 
 equally balanced ; those of the tribunes of the treasury con- 
 demned him. But the daily convictions of some or other 
 of my enemies console me for this disappointment, among 
 whom Servius had a very narrow escape, to my great joy^ 
 the rest are entirely crushed. Caius Cato made a speech, to 
 the effect that he would not permit the comitia to be held 
 if the days for doing business were taken away from the 
 people. Appius had not yet returned from Caesar. 
 
 7. I am amazingly anxious for a letter from you. And I 
 am aware that till this time the sea has been impassable; 
 but still people said that some persons had come from Ostia, 
 who extolled you in an extraordinary degree ; and said that 
 you were very highly esteemed in the province. They added, 
 that the same persons brought word, that you intended to 
 cross at the first opportunity for sailing. I hope you will : 
 but although I am most desirous of all to see yourself, still 
 I hope* for a letter from you first. My brother, farewell. 
 
 LETTER yil. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Qidntus, greeting. 
 
 On the 11th of April I dictated this letter to you before 
 daybreak, and wrote on the road, with the purpose of staying 
 that day with Titus Titius in the neighbourhood of Anagnia. 
 But I thought of staying the next day at Laterium,^ and 
 from thence, after remaining four or five days in the neigh- 
 
 ' Ijaterium was a couutry-house of Quintus Cicero, in the paighbour- 
 hood of Arpinum. 
 
TO HIS BKOTHER QUINTUS. 51 
 
 bourhood of Arpinum, to go to the neighbourhood of Pompeii, 
 and on my return to view the country about Cumse, in order 
 that, as Milo's trial is fixed for the 7th of May, I might arrive 
 at Rome the day before, and on that day, as I hoped, might 
 see you, my dearest and most beloved brother. It has seemed 
 well to me that the beginning of the building at Arcanum^ 
 should be stopped till you arrive. Take care of your health, 
 my brother, and come as soon as possible. 
 
 LETTER YIII. 
 
 'Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. LETTER of yours, most acceptable to me, long ex- 
 pected, at first indeed with eager desire, but now even with 
 some apprehension. Know, too, that this is the only letter 
 which I have received since that which your sailor brought 
 me, and dated from Olbia. But let everything else, as you 
 say in your letter, be reserved till we can talk it over toge- 
 ther. Yet this one thing I cannot forbear to mention. On 
 the 15th of May the senate, being very crowded, was most 
 admirably disposed, as it showed by refusing a supplication in 
 honour of Gabinius.^ Racilius swears that such a thing never 
 happened to any one before. It is very well received out- 
 of-doors. To me it is agreeable on its own account, and more 
 agreeable, because the decision was made in my absence, (for 
 it expresses the real sentiments of the senate,) and without 
 any opposition or influence of mine. I was at Antium at 
 the time. 
 
 2. As to what was said, namely, that there would be a dis- 
 cussion, on the fifteenth and the day after, on the subject of 
 the lands in Campania, there was no discussion. What I 
 myself should say on the subject, I am in doubt; but I shall 
 probably say more than I had intended, for he will be present. 
 Farewell, my most excellent and most wished-for brother, and 
 hasten to me. Our children make you the same request; 
 begging you to be sure to mind this, that you will sup here 
 when you come. 
 
 ^ Arcanum was another villa belonging to Quintus. 
 - Gabinius, as proconsul of Syria, had gained some trifling advan- 
 tiiges over the Arabs on the frontiers of the province. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 CICEEO'S LETTERS 
 
 LEl'TEE IX. 
 
 Thiij letter was written the year after those preceding, in the consul- 
 ^ip of l^ompey and Crassus; both for the second time. Their 
 election had been carried against the senate by the most open vio- 
 lence. Cicero, who had offended the triumvirs by his opposition to 
 Caesar's agrarian law, was anxious to reunite himself to them. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. I HAD a suspicion that my book would please you; that 
 it has pleased you so much as you write that it has, I am 
 greatly delighted. As to what you remind me about our 
 Urania, and advise me to remember the speech of Jupiter, 
 which is at the end of that book, I remember it well enough, 
 and have written all those things more to please myself than 
 others. 
 
 2. But still, the day after you went, I went, late at night, 
 with Vibullius to call upon Pompey ; and when I had talked 
 to him about these works and inscriptions, he answered me 
 with exceeding kindness, and gave me great hopes. He said 
 that he should like to talk with Crassus, and advised me to 
 do the same. I attended Crassus as consul home from the 
 senate ; he undertook the business, and said that there was 
 a pomt which Clodius, at this moment, was very desirous to 
 carry by means of his and Pompey's assistance; and that 
 he thought, if I threw no obstacle in his way, that I might 
 obtain what I wished without any struggle. I entrusted the 
 whole affair to him, and said that I would leave myself 
 entirely in his hands. Publius Crassus was present at this 
 conversation; a young man, as you are aware, devotedly 
 attached to me. JSTow, what Clodius wants is some embassy ; 
 and if he cannot obtain it from the senate, he would have 
 it by means of the people; a free embassy^ to Bvzantium, or 
 
 ^ The Latin is legatio libera. "During the latter period of the republic 
 it had become customary for senators to obtain from the senate permis- 
 sion to travel through or stay in any province, at the expense of the pro- 
 vincials, merely for the purpose of managing and conducting their own 
 personal affairs. There was no restraint as to the length of time the sena- 1 
 tors were allowed to avail themselves of this privilege, which was a heavy I 
 burden on the provincials. This mode of sojourning in a province was ! 
 called legatio libera, because those who availed themselves of it enjoyed , 
 
TO HIS BEOTHER QUINTUS. 53 
 
 to Brogitarus, or to both. It is a means for making a great 
 deal of money. I shall not give myself much trouble on 
 the subject, even though I do not obtain what I want myself. 
 However, Pompey talked the matter over with Crassus; and 
 they seem to have undertaken the business. If they do so, 
 well j if not, then we will return to our Jupiter. ^ 
 
 3. On the 13th of May, a decree of the senate was 
 passed on the subject of corruption, in accordance with the 
 opinion of Afranius, on which I spoke when you were pre- 
 sent; but with great indignation on the part of the senate. 
 The consuls did not follow up their opinions; and when 
 they had expressed their assent to Afranius's proposal, they 
 added a wish that the praetors should be created in such a 
 manner as to leave them private individuals for sixty days. 
 On that day they plainly repudiated Cato. In short, they are 
 absolute masters of everything, and they wish every one to be 
 aware that that is the case. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. You are afraid of interrupting me. In the first place, 
 if I were as much occupied as you fancy, you know what 
 alone can be properly called interruption. Does Ateius ever 
 interrupt you? In truth, you seemed to me to teach me a 
 degree of politeness on that head wKich I certainly never 
 practise towards you. I would wish you to summon me, and 
 interrupt me, and put in your word, and converse with me; 
 for what can be more agTeeable to me ? Upon my word, no 
 Muse-stricken poetaster more gladly reads his last poem than 
 I listen to you on every subject, public or private, rural or 
 civil. But it happened through my own stupid shamefaced- 
 ness, that when I was going away, I did not take you with 
 
 all the privileges of a public ambassador, without having any of his 
 duties to perform. In Cicero's time this practice was greatly abused ; 
 and in his consulship he endeavoured to put an end to it, but only 
 succeeded in limiting its duration to one year. And Caesar afterwards 
 extended the time again to five years, which enactment lasted down to 
 A very late period." — Smith, Diet. Ant. 
 ^ It is not known what this book was. 
 
54 CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 .^e. On one occasion, you opposed to my wishes an excuse 
 which there was no gainsaying — the dehcate health of our 
 dear Cicero : I had nothing to say. A second time you 
 urged the Ciceros : again I ceased to press you. 
 
 2. But now this letter of yours, so full of agreeableness, 
 has caused me this trifle of annoyance, that you seem to me 
 to have feared, and still to fear, lest you should be trouble- 
 some to me. I could quarrel with you, if it were allowable ; 
 but in truth, if I ever suspect anything of the sort, I will 
 say nothing further, but that I shall be afraid lest I should 
 ever be troublesome to you, when I am with you. I see 
 that you groan. This is the case — 
 
 €t 5* iv aXa iQr](Tas : ^ 
 
 for I will never say, 
 
 ea irdaas. 
 
 And I would, indeed, have forced my friend Marius into the 
 litter with me ; not that Anician one of king Ptolemy. For 
 I recollect when I was taking the man to Baia3 from Naples, 
 in the litter given by the king to Anicius, which was borne 
 by eight men, with a hundred guards following us, we were 
 laughing exceedingly, when he, not aware of the escort which 
 was accompanying him, suddenly opened the litter, and 
 almost fell to the ground with fear, while I did the same with I 
 laughing. On that occasion, I say, I should certainly have 
 taken him with me, so as at last to enjoy some of the subtlety 
 of his antique wit, and most agreeable conversation ; but I 
 did not like to invite a man in a weak state of health, and 
 who is not even now very strong, to a villa which was hardly 
 covered in. 
 
 3. But this indeed will be a peculiar pleasure to me, to 
 enjoy his society here too : for you must know that the light 
 of Marius^ is in the neighbourhood of those farms of mine; 
 we shall see at Anicius's house in what state of forwardness 
 his affairs are. For as for ourselves, we are so desirous to 
 acquire information of any sort, that we can even endure 
 living among masons. We have this philosophy, not from 
 Hymettus, but from the Syrian school. Marius is weak 
 both in health and by nature. 
 
 ^ It is not known whence these quotations come, or to what Cicero 
 alludes in them. 
 
 ^ I.e. J says Manutius, Marius, who is as welcome as the light. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 55 
 
 4. In regard of your interruptions, I will take as much 
 time from your visit, for the purpose of writing, as you will 
 give me. I wish you would give me none, so that I may 
 be idle rather from your ill-treatment, than from my own 
 indolence. I am sorry that you are so anxious about the 
 commonwealth, and that you are a better citizen than Phi- 
 loctetes, who, after he had received an injury, sought those 
 sort of spectacles which I see are disagreeable to you. I 
 entreat you hasten to me ; I will comfort you, and wipe 
 away all your sorrow. And, if you love me, bring Marius 
 with youj but come quickly. I have a garden at home. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 This letter was written in the year 700 a.u.c, in the consulship of 
 Domitius and Appius Pulcher. In the preceding year, Cicero had 
 done his best to ingratiate himself with Pompey, who had paid him 
 a visit : and after Crassus had departed for his province of Syria, he 
 studied also to gain his good-will; but he applied himself at this 
 time more to philosophy than to politics. Quintus went this year 
 into Gaul as one of Caesar's lieutenants. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. Your little notes have wrung this letter from me by 
 their reproaches ; for the circumstance itself, and the day in 
 which you set out, gave me no subject for writing; but as, 
 when we are together, conversation is not wont to fail us, so 
 too our letters ought at times to have something sparkling 
 in them. 
 
 2. The liberty of the Tenedians,^ therefore, has been cut 
 down with a Tenedian axe, as no one, except Bibulus^ and 
 Calidius, and Favonius, and me, was found to defend them. 
 
 3. Mention has been made of you by the Magnesians of 
 Sipylus, the more honourable as they said that you were 
 the only person who resisted the demands of Lucius Sextius 
 Pansa. 
 
 ^ The people of Tenedos had petitioned to be allowed to live under 
 their ovni laws. The expression, " a Tenedian axe," is said to refer to 
 a story of their ancient king Tennes, who gave his name to the island ; 
 and one of whose laws was, that if any one detected an adulterer in 
 the fact, he was to be slain with an axe. 
 
56 CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 4. For the rest of the time, if there should be anything 
 which it is desirable for you to knoWj or even if there is 
 nothing- of the sort, still I will write something every day. 
 On the 12th of April I will not be wanting either to you o^ 
 to Pompojiius. 
 
 5. The poems of Lucretius are just what you describe them ; 
 remarkable for no great brilliancy of genius, but for a great 
 deal of art. But when you come, I shall think you a man 
 indeed, if you can read the Empedoclea of Sallust; an 
 ordinary man I shall not think you. Farewell. 
 
 LETTER XIL 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. I AM glad that my letters are acceptable to you, and yet 
 I should not even now have had any subject for writing 
 upon, if 1 had not received yours; for, on the 14th, when 
 Appius had assembled the senate, which met in very scanty 
 numbers, it was so bitterly cold that he was compelled by.' 
 the grumbling of the people to dismiss us. 
 
 2. About the king of Commagene, Appius, both in his own 
 letters to me, and by the mouth of Pomponius, caresses me 
 wonderfully for having frustrated the whole affair ; for he sees 
 that if I adhere to this kind of speaking on other matters, 
 February will be quite barren; and I touched him off in 
 a tolerably sportive humour, and wrung from him not only 
 that little town which was situated on the Euphrates at 
 Zeugma, but ridiculed his prsetexta gown which he had re- 
 ceived in the consulship of Csesar, with much laughter from 
 everybody, 
 
 3. As to his not wishing, said I, to renew the same honours, 
 so as not to have to furbish up his praetexta every year, I 
 do not think we need come to any vote on that point : ^ but 
 you, nobles, who could not bear a man from Bostra wearing 
 the prsetexta, will you endure one from Commagene'? You 
 see the kind, and the topics, of my jokes. I said a great 
 
 ^ Manutius confesses that he is not at all aware what is meant or 
 referred to here. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 57 
 
 deal against an ignoble king, and at the end he was com- 
 pletely hissed out. With this sort of speech^ Appius, as I 
 saidj being delighted, is entirely devoted to me ; for nothing 
 can be more easy than to get rid of all the rest of the 
 business. But I wiU do nothing to offend him/ lest he im- 
 plore the protection of Jupiter Hospitalis ; and call together 
 all the Greeks by whose intervention I have been reconciled 
 to him. 
 
 4. We will give satisfaction to Theopompus. About Csesar 
 it had escaped me to write to you, for I see what a letter you 
 expected j but he wrote to Balbus, that that bundle of letters, 
 in which mine and Balbus's were, was brought to him soaked 
 through and through with water, so that he did not even 
 know that there had been any letter at all from me. But of 
 the letter of Balbus, he had been able to make out a few 
 words ; to which he replied in these terms : — I see that you 
 have said something about Cicero which I have not been able 
 to make out ; but as far as I could guess, it was something of 
 this kind, that I should think him rather to be wished for 
 than hoped for. 
 
 5, I, therefore, subsequently, sent Csesar another copy of 
 that letter; do not you overlook his jest about his dif&culties. 
 And I wrote him word also in reply, that there was nothing 
 that he would be able to throw into disorder from relying 
 on my strong-box : and in this way I jested with him fami- 
 liarly, and at the same time with a proper dignity. His 
 exceeding good-will towards me is communicated by mes- 
 sengers from all quarters. Letters, indeed, referring to what 
 you expect, will very nearly coincide with your return. The 
 other events of each day I will write to you, that is to say, 
 if you will provide couriers. Although, such terrible cold has 
 prevailed, that there was very great danger of Appius's house 
 being burnt down.^ Farewell. 
 
 ^ From his trying to warm it with a stove. 
 
58 CICERO S LETTERS • 
 
 n LETTER XIII. 
 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. I LAUGHED at the black snow;^ and I am very glad that 
 you are in a cheerful humour, and so well incHned to jest. 
 About Pompey I agree with you; or rather you agree with 
 me. For as you know, I have been for a long time talking 
 of nothing but Csesar.^ Believe me, I have taken him to 
 my heart, nor am I to be torn from him. 
 
 2. Now you must learn what was done at the Ides. The 
 tenth day was fixed for the impeachment of Coelius; and 
 Domitius^ had not collected judges in sufficient number. I 
 am afraid lest that rude and brutal man, Servius Pola, may 
 come to the accusation; for our friend Coelius is violently 
 attacked by the whole train of Clodius's friends. There is 
 as yet nothing certain; but we are kept in a state of alarm. 
 On the same day a very full senate assembled to hear the 
 ambassadors of the Tyrians:^ on the other side, the Syrian 
 farmers of the revenue mustered in great numbers ; Gabinius 
 was violently attacked; however, the farmers were roughly 
 handled by Domitius, for having escorted him on horseback. 
 Our friend Caius Lamia spoke somewhat boldly, when Domi- 
 tius had said, " It is through your fault, Roman knights, that 
 these things have happened, because yoa are such profligate 
 judges." He replied : " We judge ; you praise." Xothing 
 was done that day, and night put an end to the discussion. 
 
 3. On the days appointed for holding the comitia, which 
 come immediately after the Quirinalia, Appius explains his 
 notion that he is not prevented by the Pupian law from 
 holding a senate, and that on the contrary, it is especially 
 provided by the Gabinian law, that the senate is obliged to 
 
 ^ This has some reference to a ridiculous doctrine of Anaxagoras, 
 that snow must be black, because water, of which it was composed, was 
 black. 
 
 2 Cicero had lately made a very impressive speech in the senate, 
 extolling Caesar's conduct in his province in the highest terms. 
 
 2 This Domitius was Cnseus D. the praetor. The Domitius men- 
 tioned a few lines lower down, was Domitius Ahenobarbus, the consul. 
 
 ^ The citizens of Tyre had sent an embassy, with complaints of the 
 extortions of the farmers of the revenue in the province of Syria. 
 Gabinius, as has been already said, had been governor of Syria. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 59 
 
 assemble to give audience to ambassadors every day from the 
 1st of February till the 1st of March. In thi way they 
 think that the comitia may be put off till the month of 
 March. But on these days of the comitia the tribunes of 
 
 "the people declare that they will bring on the question 
 about Gabinius. I collect all reports, to have some news to 
 send to you ; but, as you see, matter itself fails me. 
 
 4. I return, therefore, to Callisthenes^ and Phihstus,^ in 
 whose works I see you are occupied. Callisthenes indeed is 
 relating a common and well-known set of transactions, in a 
 style such as that in which several of the Greeks express 
 themselves. But the Sicilian is an admirable writer, impres- 
 sive, acute, concise ; almost a little Thucydides, but which of 
 his books you have, (for there are two volumes of them,) 
 or whether you have them both, I know not. He pleases me 
 most in his account of Dionysius. For Dionysius was a 
 great intriguer, and made himself very familiar with Philistus. 
 But as to what you add in your letter, are you thinking of 
 
 . undertaking a history? In my judgment, you may do so. 
 And since you furnish couriers, you shall have at the Luper- 
 calia an account of what is done to-day. Amuse yourself 
 with my Cicero as weU as you can. 
 
 LETTER XIY. 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. I HAVE as yet received but two letters from you: one 
 of them 'written just after I had left you; the other dated 
 from Ariminum. The additional ones, which you say that 
 you sent, I never received. I have been amusing myself 
 in the neighbourhood of Cumae and Pompeii, pleasantly 
 enough, except that ^I was without your company; and 
 T intended to stay in^hose parts till the 1st of June. I 
 was writing those political treatises which I had mentioned 
 to you; a very large and laborious work; but still, if the 
 result is to my satisfaction, labour will have been well em- 
 ployed; if not, I will throw it into the sea, which I have 
 
 ^ Callisthenes was an Olynthian, and had written a life of Alexander. 
 2 Philistus was a Sicilian, and wrote many books, and among them 
 an account of Dionysius the elder. 
 
60 Cicero's letters 
 
 before my ejes> while I am writing. I shall attempt some 
 other things/ toOj since I cannot remain idle. 
 
 2. I will attend carefully to your injunctions, both as to 
 conciliating same men, and avoiding to alienate others. But 
 it will be my xhief object to see your Cicero, and mine, I 
 mean, every day; but I will examine as often as I can, what 
 he is learning; and, unless he is above it, I will even offer 
 myself as his teacher; an employment in which I have 
 obtained some practice in my leisure during these few days, 
 by training my own Cicero the younger. 
 
 3. You, (as you write me word you will, and as I should 
 be quite certain of your doing most carefully, even if you 
 did not write;) you, I say, will take care to digest my 
 instructions ; follow them up, and fulfil them. When I come 
 to Rome I will never let one single courier of Caesar's go 
 without giving him a letter for you ; but while I have been 
 here (you will excuse my silence), there has been no one to 
 whom I could give one before this Marcus Orfius, a Eoman 
 knight, attached to me, both as being exceedingly intimate 
 with me, and as being from the municipality of Atella, which 
 you know is faithful to me. I therefore recommend him to 
 you in an extraordinary degree, as being a man of a high 
 consideration at home, and of great influence away from 
 home. Take care to bind him to yourself by your libe- 
 rality. He is a military tribune in our army. You will 
 find him a man of a very grateful disposition, and eager to 
 be of service to you. I press upon you earnestly to be very 
 civil to Trebatius. Farewell. 
 
 LETTER XY. A. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. On the 2d of June, the day on which I arrived at 
 Eome, I received your letter dated from Placentia ; and then, 
 the next day, I received a second dated at Blandeus,^ with 
 a letter from Csesar, full of expressions of respect, zeal to 
 serve me, and courtesy. These are things of great, or rather 
 of the very greatest consequence ; for they contribute very 
 1 There is some error in the text here. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTU^^. 61 
 
 greatly to our reputation and high dignity. But, believe me, 
 whom you know well, that what I value most in all these 
 matters I have already secured; namely, that, in the first 
 place, I see you contributing so much to our common dig- 
 nity; secondly, the extraordinary liking of Julius Csesar for 
 me, a man whom I prefer to all the honours which he wishes 
 me to expect from him. His letter wa.s dated at the same 
 time with your own ; the beginning of it is, how acceptable 
 your arrival was to him, and his recollection of our old 
 friendship ; then assuring me that he would take care that in 
 the midst of my sorrow and regret for your absence, while 
 you are away, I should be pleased, above all, that you were 
 with him. The letter delighted me amazingly. 
 
 2. You, therefore, act in a most brotherly spirit when you 
 exhort me. though in truth I am running of my own accord 
 the same way, to devote all my energies to his single service; 
 and perhaps by my eager zeal I shall do what often happens 
 to travellers when they are in haste, that if by chance they 
 have got up later than they intended, they still, by making 
 haste, arrive where they wish earlier than they would have 
 done if they had lain awake a great part of the night ; and 
 so now I, since I have been asleep a long time as to paying 
 attention to that man, though you in truth have often tried 
 to wake me, shall now by my speed make amends for my 
 slowness, both on horseback, and (since you write me word 
 that my poem is approved by him) in the coach and four of 
 poetry; only give me Britain to paint with your colours 
 and my pencil. But of what am I thinking? what spare 
 time presents itself to me, particularly while I remain at 
 Eome, as he begs me to do ? However, I will see. For 
 perhaps, as is often the case, my affection for you will over- 
 come every difficulty. He thanks me with a good deal of 
 humour, and with great civility too, for having sent him 
 Trebatius; for he says that in all that number of persons 
 who were with him, there was not one who could draw a 
 bail-bond. I asked him for the tribuneship for Marcus 
 Curtius, (for Domitius would have thought that he was being 
 turned into ridicule if he had been solicited by me, since it 
 is a daily saying of his, that he cannot make even a tribune 
 of the soldiers; and even in the senate he rallied Appius his 
 colleague, saying that he had gone to Csesar, with the view of 
 
62 CICERO'S LETTEES 
 
 getting «ome tribuneship or other,) but only for the year 
 after next. And that was what Curtius wished too. 
 
 3. Know that, as y ou think it behoves you to be, in regard 
 to public affairs and our private enmities, so I myself both 
 am, and shall be, of a very gentle and moderate demeanour. 
 
 4. Affairs at E-ome were in this state. There was some 
 expectation of the 'sbmitia, but a doubtful one: there was 
 some suspicion of a dictatorship, but not even that was 
 certain. There is a, perfect cessation of all business in the 
 courts of law, but more as if the state was growing indolent 
 from age than from real tranquillity. Our own opinion deli- 
 vered in the senate was of such a kind that others agreed 
 with it more than we did ourselves. 
 
 Such are the evils of disastrous war.^ 
 
 LETTER XY. B. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. What is to be done shall be done with a pen, and the 
 finest ink, and glazed paper : for you say that you have 
 hardly been able to read my last letters, for which, however, 
 my brother, there were none of the reasons which you fancy; 
 for I was neither busy, nor had I been worried or angry with 
 any one; but I always make it a practice, whatever pen 
 comes first to hand, to use it as if it were a good one. 
 
 2. But listen now, my most excellent and kind brother, 
 while I answer the things which you wrote in this same short 
 letter of yours in a very business-like manner. As to what 
 you ask, that I should write to you without concealing any- 
 thing, or dissembling anything, or saying anything merely 
 for the sake of pleasing you, but frankly and as a brother, 
 that is, whether you should hasten, as we said, or, if there 
 should be sufficient reason, delay, for the purpose of setting 
 yourself clear, — if, my dear Quintus, it were any unimportant 
 matter on which you were asking me my wishes, still after 
 having left it to yourself to do what you thought best, I 
 should point out what I wished myself But in the present 
 
 ^ Toiavff 6 rXrifjLav Trc'Ae/^os i^epydC^rai. A Hne from the SuppUcea 
 of Euripides. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUI^'TUS. 63 
 
 state of affairs, you ask me plainly what sort of year I expect 
 the ensuing one to be ; certainly one of tranquillity for me, 
 or at least one of very great security, as the state of my own 
 house, and my reception in the forum, and the way in which 
 I am gTceted at the theatre, indicate every day. And^ * * -st 
 no man is unwilling to see * * * that I am in favour with 
 both Caesar and Pompey — these things give me confidence. 
 If any rage from that senseless man > breaks out, everything 
 is prepared for putting him down. 
 
 3. These are my real sentiments and opinions, and I write 
 them to you in all plainness. And I beg of you not to feel 
 a doubt, speaking not like a flatterer, but as a brother; so 
 that, for the sake of your enjoying the pleasant condition in 
 which I find myself, I should wish you to come at the time 
 which you have mentioned. But still I should prefer beyond, 
 that the events which you expect * * * * And I attach 
 great consequence to your abundance, and to the expectations 
 of your obligations being acquitted. Of this you may be 
 assured, that if we succeed, nothing can be more fortunate 
 than we shall be when freed from all annoyance. There is 
 not much which is wanting to make us happy after our own 
 fashion; and that is very easy to be procured, provided I 
 keep my health. 
 
 4. An amazing degree of corruption prevails again; never 
 was it so great. In the middle of July, interest was double 
 what it had been, from the coalition into which Memmius 
 entered with Domitius for the sake of beating Scaurus. 
 Messala has a bad chance ; ^ I do not exaggerate, when 1 say 
 
 ^ There is something lost here, which makes this sentence unintel- 
 hgible ; and it is probable that there is a little corruption in the former 
 part of the letter, and a few sentences later. 
 
 2 Clodins. 
 
 ^ The candidates for the consulship in the next year, 701 a.u.c, 
 were Memmius, Domitius Calvinus, JSmilius Scaurus, and Valerius 
 Messala. Memmius and Domitius had won over the existing consuls 
 by a promise of procuring them whatever provinces they chose ; but at 
 last Pompey persuaded Memmius to break with Domitius, and join the 
 triumvirs. The senate instituted an inquiry. The year 700 passed 
 without any election of consuls for the ensuing year. Interest rose to 
 8 per cent, a-month ; and the year 701 opened with an interregnum, 
 and it was not till half the year had elapsed, that Cnaeus Domitius 
 Calvinus, and Messala, were elected consuls for the remainder of the 
 year. 
 
64 ClCERO's LETTERS 
 
 that the prerogative century will get above eighty thousand 
 pounds for its vote. The business is extremely unpopular ; 
 the candidates for the tribuneship have come to an agree- 
 ment^ that every one of them shall place above four thousand 
 pounds a-piece in Cato's hands, as a pledge to conduct their 
 canvass as he approves ; and those who forfeit their pledge are 
 to forfeit the money. And if the comitia for their election 
 is really unbribed, as i^ expected, Cato alone will have had 
 more influence than all^the laws and all the judges. 
 
 LETTER XYI. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. When you have received a letter from me written in 
 the hand of my secretary, you must consider that I had not 
 even a little leisure ; when it is written in my own hand, that 
 I had a little. For you must understand, that I was never 
 more distracted by causes and trials, and that too at a most 
 unhealthy time of the year, and when the heat is greatest. 
 But this, since that is your advice, must be borne; nor must 
 I give cause for appearing to have been wanting, either to 
 your hopes or opinion; especially when, although that is 
 somewhat more difficult, I am still likely to gain great 
 influence and great dignity from these exertions; therefore, 
 as you wish, I take great pains to oflend no one, and even 
 to be loved by those very men who are sorry to see me 
 so united with Csesar, and also to be earnestly caressed and 
 loved by all impartial persons, and even by those who are 
 inclined to favour the other side. 
 
 2. While there was a most violent discussion in the senate 
 for many days on the subject of corruption, because the con- 
 sular candidates had gone such lengths that it could not be 
 endured any longer, I was not present in the senate. I de- 
 termined not to come forward to offer any remedy for the 
 evils of the commonwealth without strong protection. 
 
 3. The day that I wrote this, Drusus had been acquitted 
 of prevarication^ by the tribunes of the treasury, by foui 
 
 ' Prevarication was the betrayal of his chent's cause by an advocate 
 wno had undertaken it. 
 
TO HIS BROTHTilR QUINTUS. 65 
 
 votes in all, after the senators and knights had condemned 
 him. The same day, in the afternoon, I appeared in court 
 to defend Yatinius; that was not a difficult task. The 
 comitia are postponed till the month of September. The trial 
 of Scaurus will be brought on immediately, and we shall 
 not be wanting in our exertions on his behalf. I by no 
 means approved of the Messmates of Sophocles, although I 
 see that the piece was very neatly acted by you. 
 
 4. Now I come to that, which perhaps ought to have made 
 the first part of my letter. how delightful to me are your 
 letters from Britain. I was afraid of the ocean : I was afraid 
 of the shore of the island. I do not indeed despise the 
 obstacles which may yet remain, but they present more 
 ground for hope than for fear, and I am anxious more because 
 of the eagerness of my expectation than from any alarm. And 
 I see that you have an admirable subject for writing about. 
 What a situation you have to describe, what natural cha- 
 racteristics of circumstances and places, what customs of the 
 people, what nations and battles, and even what a commander ! 
 I will with all my heart help you, as you ask, in whatever you 
 wish; and will send you the verses for which you ask, like 
 an owl to Athens. 
 
 5. But ah ! I see that I am kept in the dark by you ; for 
 how, my dear brother, did Csesar express himself about mj 
 verses ? for he wrote me word before, that he had read my first 
 book, and praised the beginning so much that he says he has 
 not read anything better even in Greek. What came after, 
 he thought, was in some places a little paOvfjiorepa (more 
 careless), this is the very word that he uses. Tell me the 
 truth, is it the matter, or the style that does not please him ? 
 There is no reason why you should fear to tell me the truth, 
 for I shall not be an atom the less satisfied with myseif. 
 Write to me on this subject with frankness, and, as jou 
 always do, with brotherly afiection. 
 
66 CIOERO'S LETTERS 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. 1. After the great heat, (for T do not recollect ever 
 having felt greater^) I refreshed myself in the neighbourhood 
 of Arpinum, with the extreme agreeableness of the river, 
 during the days of the games, ^ having recommended the 
 men of my tribe to Philotimus. I was at Arcanum on the 
 10th of September : there I found Messidius and Philoxenus, 
 and the water which they had contracted to bring near the 
 villa flowing pleasantly enough, especially considering the 
 great general drought ; and they said that they would collect 
 it in somewhat larger quantities. Everything was going on 
 well with Herus.2 At your Manlian farm T found Diphilus 
 slower than Diphilus; yet nothing remained for him to do, 
 except the bath-rooms, the colonnade to walk under, and 
 the aviary. The villa pleased me exceedingly, because the 
 paved portico had an appearance of great dignity, which was 
 now for the first time visible to me, since it is completely 
 uncovered, and the columns are polished. Everything now 
 depends on the ceiling being elegant, which shall be an object 
 of attention to me. The pavements appeared to me to be 
 done correctly; some of the rooms I did not quite like, and 
 ordered them to be altered. 
 
 2. Where they say that you have written orders for a small 
 hall to be made in the colonnade, the place pleased me 
 better as it is; for there did not seem to be room enough even 
 for a little hall, nor is one usually made, except in houses in 
 which there is a larger hall; nor could it have any bed- 
 chambers attached to it, or apartments of that kind. But 
 now, even from the mere beauty of the vaulted roof, it will 
 get the character of an excellent summer retreat.^ However, 
 
 1 The Koman games took place in September. ^ The bailiff. 
 
 ^ Manutius thinks this quite corrupt and unintelHgible. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 67 
 
 if you are of a different opinion, write again at the first 
 opportunity. In the bath-rooms I have moved forward the 
 stoves into the other comer of the dressing-room ; because 
 they were before placed in such a manner, that their chimney, 
 from which the heat comes, was situated under the bed- 
 chambers. But I greatly approved of having a tolerably 
 large bed-chamber and a lofty winter-room, because they 
 were of a good size, and admirably situated on one side of 
 the covered walk, — on that side, I mean, which is next to the 
 bath-rooms. Diphilus had not put the pillars upright, nor 
 opposite to one another ; he will accordingly pull them down 
 again. Some day or other he will learn how to use a perpen- 
 dicular and a line. Altogether, I hope that Diphilus's work 
 will be finished in a few months, for Csesius, who was with 
 me on that occasion, gives most diligent attention to it. 
 
 IL 3. From that place we went straight along the Yitu- 
 larian road to your Fufidian farm, which, according to the 
 last communication, I had bought of Fufidius at Arpinum, 
 for a little more than eight thousand pounds. I never saw a 
 place more shady in the summer, with water flowing through 
 the land in many places, and in great abundance. What 
 would you have ? Caesius thought that you would easily be 
 able to irrigate fifty acres of meadow-land. This, at all events, 
 which I understand better, I can affirm positively, that you 
 will have a villa of exceeding pleasantness, with a fish-pond, 
 and springs of water besides, and a palsestra, and a green 
 wood. I hear that you wish to retain this farm near Bovillse ; 
 what you may choose to do about it, you will decide yourself. 
 Calvus said that though the water was excepted, and the 
 right over that water reserved, and though a service^ lay upon 
 the farm, still we could keep up the price if we chose to sell 
 it. I had Messidius with me : he said that he had agreed 
 with you at three sestertii'^ a foot ; and observed that he 
 himself had measured the distance, by steps, making fourteen 
 hundred paces. To me it appeared more; but I will under- 
 take to say, that the money could nowhere be more advan- 
 tageously spent. I had sent for Chilo from Yenafrum j but 
 
 Service, servitus, on a piece of land, when there was a right of way 
 through it, of carrying water through it, of taking water from it, 
 feeding cattle on it, &c. - 
 
 ^ The sestertius was equal to 1 penny 3f farthings. 
 
 f2 
 
(jS Cicero's letters 
 
 that very day a subterraneous passage atVenafrum had crushed 
 four of his fellow-workmen and apprentices. 
 
 4. On the 13th of September I was at Laterinm. I saw 
 the road, which pleased me so much, that I thought it was 
 a public work, with the exception of a hundred and fifty 
 paces ; for I measured it from the little bridge, which is close 
 to the temple of Farina on the side of Satricum. At that 
 spot, dust has been thrown in and not gravel ; but that shall 
 be altered; and that part of the road is very steep; but I was 
 told that it could not have been carried in any other direction, 
 especially as you did not wish to have it go through the farm 
 of Locusta, or through that of Yarro. Varro had almost com- 
 pleted the roads through his estate before. Locusta had not 
 touched his; but I shall call upon him at Rome, and, as I 
 expect, shall move him ; and at the same time I will ask 
 Marcus Taurus, who is now at Rome, and who, I hear, gave 
 you a promise on the subject, about carrying the water through 
 his farm. 
 
 5. I conceived a good opinion of Nicephorus, your bailiff, 
 and I asked him, whether you had given him any charge 
 about that little building at Laterium of which you spoke to 
 me. And then he told me, in reply, that he himself had 
 contracted for that work for about a hundred and thirty 
 pounds; but that afterwards you had added a good deal 
 to the work to be done, but nothing to the money to be paid 
 for it ; and that, therefore, he had given up the contract. I 
 am in truth exceedingly well-pleased that you should add 
 those things as you determined ; although the villa which 
 at present exists, seems to be something like philosophy re- 
 proving the insanity visible in other villas : however, that 
 addition will give great pleasure. 
 
 I praised, too, your ornamental gardener ; he clothes every- 
 thing so with ivy, not only the foundations of the villa, but 
 the spaces between the pillars of the covered walk. So that 
 those figures in the Greek dresses appear to be cutting the 
 trees into shape, and to be selling the ivy. As for the dressing- 
 room, nothing can be more cool and mossy. 
 
 6. You have now heard nearly all that 1 have to say about 
 country affairs. He and Philotimus and Cincius are press- 
 ing forward the polishing of your town-house; but I myself 
 also frequently go to look at it, as is easy to be done ; and I 
 
TO HIS BKOTHER QUINTUS. 69 
 
 therefore hope you will feel relieved from that cause of 
 anxiety. 
 
 III. 7. As to what you are always asking me about Cicero, 
 I pardon you, indeed ; but I also wish you to pardon me. For 
 I will not allow you to love him more than I do myself; 
 and I wish that he had been with me during those days 
 in the country near Arpinum, as he himself had desired, 
 and I no less. As to Pomponia, if it seems good to you, I wish 
 you would send an order, that when we go anywhere she is 
 to go with us, and take the boy. I shall raise a perfect 
 uproar if I can have him with me without his having any- 
 thing to do j for at Eome he has no breathing room. You 
 know that I promised you that before gratuitously : what do 
 you think now that so great a bribe is offered me from you ? 
 
 8. I now come to your letters ; of which I received several 
 while I was in the neighbourhood of Arpinum ; for three 
 were delivered to me on one day, and indeed, as they seemed, 
 all written by you at one time. One was at great length, in 
 which the first statement was, that an earlier day was men- 
 tioned in your letter than in that of Csesar. Oppius some- 
 times does that from necessity ; because, after he has arranged 
 to send off the couriers, and has received a letter from us, he 
 is hindered by some new business ; and of necessity sends it 
 off later than he had intended to do ; nor do we, when the 
 letter is once dated, care about the date being altered. 
 
 9. You mention Caesar's exceeding regard for us : you will 
 do your best to cherish this ; we too will increase it by all the 
 means in our power. With regard to Pompey, I do with all 
 diligence, and will continue to do, what you advise. That 
 my permission for you to remain longer is acceptable to you, 
 though to my own great sorrow and regret, I am yet partly 
 glad. What your object is in sending for horsebreakers and 
 others I have no notion ; there is not one of that sort of people 
 who will not expect a present from you equal to a suburban 
 farm. And as for your mixing up my friend Trebatius with 
 that fellow, for that you have no foundation. I sent him to 
 Caesar, because he had previously satisfied me ; if he does not 
 please him equally, I am not bound to anything, and I acquit 
 and release you also of any charge in respect of him. With 
 regard to your statement, that you are every day more and 
 in ore esteemed bv Caesar, I am rejoiced beyond all expression. 
 
70 Cicero's letters 
 
 I am also very much attached to Balbus, who is, as you write, 
 an active assistant in that business; I am very glad too that 
 my friend Trebonius is beloved by you, and you by him. 
 
 10. As to what you write about the tribuneship, I asked 
 it for Curtius by name ; and Csesar wrote me back word that 
 it was secured for Curtius, also mentioning him by name ; 
 and he reproached me for my shamefacedness in asking. If 
 I ever ask for any one again, (as I told Oppius too, that 
 he might write to him,) I shall easily allow a refusal to be 
 given me, since those who are troublesome to me^ do not easily 
 allow refusals to be given them from me. I love Curtius, (as 
 I told the man himself,) on account not only of your asking, 
 but of your testimony in his favom*, — because from your 
 letters I easily perceived his zeal for our safety. 
 
 With respect to the affairs of Britain, I learned from your 
 letters that there was no reason either why we should fear, 
 or why we should rejoice. With respect to public affairs, on 
 which you wish Tiro to write to you, I was already writing to 
 you rather carelessly myself ; because I knew that everything, 
 as well of the smallest as of the greatest importance, was sent 
 to Caesar. 
 
 lY. 11. I have now completed my answer to your longest 
 letter: hear now as to your little one; in which the first 
 remark is, about Clodius's letter to Caesar, in which affair I 
 approve of Caesar's conduct, in not granting you leave, though 
 you asked it in the most affectionate manner, to write a single 
 word of answer to that Fury. The next observation is about 
 the speech of Marius Calventius. I marvel at your saying 
 that you think I should write a reply to it, especially as no 
 one is likely to read it if I write nothing in reply, while all 
 the children will learn my answer to him by heart as a lesson. 
 
 I have begun those books of mine which you are looking 
 for, but am unable to finish them at the present time. I have 
 completed the required speeches for Scaurus and for Plancius. 
 The poem to Caesar, which I had composed, I have destroyed.^ 
 What you ask, I will write for you, since the springs them- 
 selves are now thirsty, if I have any room. 
 
 ^ Noble considers that the text is here incorrect or defective. 
 
 2 Incidi. Ernesti interprets this verb by conscindere ; and Schiller 
 agrees with him in giving it the sense of "cutting to pieces," or 
 " annulling." 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 71 
 
 12. I now come to the third letter. As to what you say, 
 that Balbus is soon coming to Eome with a number of com- 
 panions, and that he will be constantly with me till the 
 middle of May ; that will be very pleasant and delightful to 
 me. As to the exhortations which you give m«, in the same 
 letter, as oftentimes before, to ambition and to diligence, I will 
 observe them; but when am I to enjoy life ? 
 
 13. A fourth letter was delivered to me on the 13th of 
 September, which you had dated from Britain on the 10th 
 of August. In it there was no news, except about the Erigona ; 
 which if I receive from Oppius, I will write you word what 
 I think of it; and I have no doubt that it will give me 
 pleasure. And (a matter w^hich I have passed over) with 
 respect to the person who, you say, wrote to Caesar about the 
 applause which Milo received, I readily allow Csesar to imagine 
 that the applause was very great ; and, in fact, so it was; and 
 yet the applause which is given to him appears in some degree 
 to be given to us. 
 
 14. A very old letter from you has also been brought me, 
 but brought rather late, in which you give me instructions 
 about the temple of Tellus, and the portico of Catulus. Both 
 works are going on with all speed ; at the temple of Tellus, in- 
 deed, I have also placed your statue. Also, as to the wishes that 
 you express about the gardens, I never was very desirous of 
 such things ; and my house now makes up to me for the want 
 of the luxury of a garden. 
 
 When I came to Rome, on the 19th of September, I found 
 the roof of your house completed, which, above the chambers, 
 you had decided should not have any great number of gables ; 
 but it slopes down in anything but a neat manner to the roof 
 of the colonnade below. While I have been absent, my Cicero 
 has not ceased from his attendance on the rhetorician : you 
 have no reason to be anxious about his attainments, since 
 you know his natural abilities ; and his studious disposition I 
 see myself. All his other interests I look to, as if I thought 
 that I were going surety for them. 
 
 V. 15. As yet, three parties are prosecuting Gabinius : 
 
 Lucius Lentulus, the son of the flamen, who has already lodged 
 
 an accusation of treason^ against him ; Tiberius Nero, with his 
 
 well-disposed backers; and Caius Memmius, the tribune of 
 
 ^ Majestas. See note, p. 74. 
 
72 CICERO 'S LETTERS 1 i 
 
 the people, with Lucius Capito. He arrived in the city on 
 the 20th of September; no entrance was ever more mean or 
 more sohtary. But I do not dare to place any confidence in 
 these trials. Because Cato was indisposed^ he has not as yet 
 been prosecuted for peculation. Pompey labours very hard 
 to reconcile me to him ; but he has not succeeded as yet, and, 
 if I retain any portion of my liberty, he shall not succeed. I 
 am extremely anxious for a letter from you. 
 
 16. As to what you write me word that you have heard, 
 namely, that I interfered in the coalition of the candidates for 
 the consulship, it is not true ; for agreements were made in 
 that coalition of such a character (which Memmius subse- 
 quently exposed) that no respectable person ought to have 
 been concerned in them : and, besides, it was not a proceed- 
 ing for me, to have anything to do with a coalition from which 
 Messala was excluded, — a man with whom I agree perfectly in 
 all points; and, in my opinion, also with Memmius. I have 
 already done many things for Domitius, which he wished, and 
 which he requested of me ; and I have laid Scaurus under 
 great obligations to me by defending him. As yet it has been 
 uncertain, both when the comitia would take place, and who 
 were to be the new consuls. 
 
 17. When I was just folding up this letter, a courier 
 arrived from you on the 21st of September, having made the 
 journey in twenty days. how anxious I am ! How much 
 I have grieved over that most kind letter from Csesar; bat 
 the more kind it was, the greater grief did that misfortune 
 of his cause me.^ But I come to your own letter. In the 
 first place, I approve above all things of your intention of 
 remaining, especially since, as you write me word, you have 
 consulted Csesar on the subject. I wonder that Oppius should 
 have said anything to Publius, for I did not like the man. 
 
 18. As to what you write in your enclosure, that I should 
 be appointed one of Pompey's lieutenants in the middle 
 of September, I have not heard it; and I have written to 
 Caesar, that Yibullius brought directions from Csesar about 
 my stay to Pompey, but not to Oppius. With what object ? 
 Although I detained Oppius, because the right of speaking 
 
 ^ It seems probable that this refers to a storm mentioned in the 
 fourth book of his account of the Gallic war, in which he lost a great 
 number of ships. His daughter Julia, too, died nearly about this time. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 73 
 
 firat to Pompey belonged to Yibullius ; for Csesar had talked 
 the matter over in an interview with him ; to Oppius he had 
 written. However, I can have no second thoughts in Csesar's 
 afiairs. He is next to you and to our children in my heart ; 
 so near, indeed, that he is almost equal to them. I seem to 
 myself to feel thus from judgment ; for indeed I ought ; but 
 still I am warmed with love for him. 
 
 YI. 19. When I had written these last lines, which are in 
 my own hand, your Cicero came in to us to supper, as Pom- 
 ponia was supping out. He gave me your letter to read, 
 which he had received a short time before; a letter written 
 in the Aristophanic spirit, being in truth both pleasant and 
 sensible; and I was greatly pleased with it. He also gave 
 me that other letter of yours, in which you enjoin him to 
 attach himself as much to me as to his tutor. How those 
 letters delighted him! how they gratified me! Nothing 
 can be more engaging than that boy, — no one can be more 
 attached to me. These lines I dictated to Tiro while at 
 supper, that you may not be surprised at their being in 
 a different hand. 
 
 20. Your letters were very acceptable also to Annalis, as 
 they showed that you were very anxious about him, and, 
 at the same time, assisted him with most serious advice. 
 Publius Servilius the father, from the letters which he says 
 have been sent him from Caesar, intimates that you have done 
 what was very acceptable to him, in having spoken with 
 great courtesy and great earnestness of his attachment to 
 Csesar. 
 
 21. When I had returned to Rome from the neighbour- 
 hood of Arpinum, I was told that a horsebreaker had set out 
 to go to you. I cannot say that I was astonished at his 
 having acted so like a barbarian as to go without any letter 
 from me to you; 1 merely say that it was vexatious to me, — 
 for I had been thinking of it for a long time, — in consequence 
 of what you wrote to me, that if there should be anything 
 which I should wish to be conveyed to you with extra- 
 ordinary care, I was to give it to him; because, in truth, in 
 these letters which I usually send to you, I generally write 
 nothing which would cause me any annoyance if it fell into 
 other hands. I used to keep myself for Minucius, and 
 Salvius^ and Labeo. Labeo will either go at a late period^ or 
 
74 Cicero's letters 
 
 will remain here. The horsebreaker did not even ask if I 
 wished to send anything. 
 
 22. Titus Pinarius sends very kindly-expressed letters about 
 you to me ; saying that he is beyond all measure delighted 
 with your letters, conversation, and, besides, with your sup- 
 pers. That man has always pleased me, and his brother is a 
 great deal with me. Do you, therefore, as you have begun 
 to do, cherish that young man. 
 
 VII. 23. As I have had this letter under my hands several 
 days, owing to the delay of the couriers, many different 
 things have consequently been thrown into it, one thing at 
 one time, and another at another ; as for instance this : Titus 
 Anicius has already often said to me, that he should not 
 hesitate to purchase a suburban villa for you, if he could 
 meet with one. In regard to this remark of his, I cannot but 
 wonder at two things : that though you write to him about 
 buying you a suburban villa, you not only do not write to me 
 about it, but even write to quite the contrary effect: and 
 also, that when you are writing to him, you recollect nothing 
 about him, nothing about those letters of his which you 
 showed me when you were at Tusculum, and nothing about 
 the precepts of Epicharmus, " Take notice how he treats any 
 one else." You forget, in short, the man's whole countenance, 
 and language, and disposition; and, as I conjecture, just as 
 if — ^ but to these things you must look yourself. 
 
 24. Take care that I may know what you really wish 
 about this suburban villa, and take care at the same time that 
 he does not cause any trouble. What more have I to say? 
 What] Oh, this : Gabinius, on the 28th of September, 
 entered the city by night; and to-day, at the eighth hour, 
 when, according to the edict of Caius Alfius, he ought to have 
 appeared to the accusation of majesty,^ he was almost over- 
 whelmed by the concourse and by the detestation of the whole 
 people. Nothing ever was more contemptible than his ap- 
 pearance. Piso, however, comes very near to him; I am 
 therefore thinking of introducing a marvellous episode in the 
 
 * Orellius says that this is not an aposiopesiSf but that some Greek 
 word or phrase is lost. 
 
 2 Majesty was nearly equivalent to treason. It was a general 
 term for any offence committed against the Roman people, or its 
 security. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 75 
 
 second of my books : Apollo in the council of the gods pre- 
 dicting what sort of return that of the two generals will be, of 
 whom one has lost his army, and the other has sold it. 
 
 25, Caesar wrote me a letter from Britain on the 1st of 
 September, which I received on the 28th, giving a satis- 
 factory account of the affairs of Britain; in it, that I may 
 not be surprised at receiving no letter from you, he says that 
 he had been without your company, as he had gone to the 
 coast. I have not sent him any answer to that letter, not 
 even to congratulate him, because of his private mourning. 
 Again and again, my dear brother, I beg you to take care of 
 your health. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Maixus Cicero to his hr other QuintuSy greeting. 
 
 1. On the 10th of October, Salvius went by sea to Ostia, 
 late in the evening, with the things which you wished to have 
 sent to you from home. On the same day, Memmius had 
 given Gabinius a warming before the people with so lucid an 
 accusation, that Calidius was unable to utter a single word on 
 his behalf. But the day after, which was coming on as I was 
 writing this before dawn, a great argument was to be held 
 at Gate's between Memmius and Tiberius Nero, and Gaius 
 Antonius and Lucius Antonius, the sons of Marcus, as to who 
 should manage the prosecution against Gabinius. We thought 
 that it would be allotted to Memmius, although there was 
 an extraordinary struggle on the part of Nero. What would 
 you have? The matter is well pressed forward, did not our 
 friend Pompey, in spite of both gods and men, upset the 
 business. 
 
 2. Understand now the boldness of the man, and that some- 
 thing still amuses us in so distressed a condition of public 
 affairs. After Gabinius, wherever he went, had said that he 
 was demanding a triumph, and after this good general had 
 suddenly entered the city by night, (as if, evidently, it had been 
 the city of an enemy,) he did not venture to present himself 
 before the senate. In the meantime, on the tenth day after 
 his arrival, on which he ought to have given in his report of 
 the numbers of the enemies and of our troops, he sneaked 
 
7^' CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 into the senate-house with a very small following. When he 
 was about to depart, he was detained by the consuls. The 
 farmers of the revenues were introduced. The man, being 
 attacked on all sides, and being wounded by me most of all, 
 could bear it no longer, and with a trembling voice called 
 me an exile. On this, (0 ye gods ! nothing more honourable 
 ever happened to me,) the whole senate to a man rose in an 
 uproar against him, so that they came close to him ; while 
 the farmers of the revenue started up with a similar noise 
 and rush. What more do you ask"? All of them behaved 
 as if you yourself had been there. Nothing can be more 
 complimentary than the language of men out-of-doors. I, 
 however, restrain myself from accusing him, with difficulty 
 indeed, but I do restrain myself, not only because I do not 
 wish to oppose Pompey, (the business which presses me about 
 Milo is quite enough,) but because we have no judges whom 
 we can trust. I dread a failure. I may take also into con- 
 sideration the malevolence of men, and I am afraid that if I 
 were to accuse him, something might happen to him; nor 
 do I despair that the matter may be accomplished without 
 me, though in some degree by my means. 
 
 3. All who are candidates for the consulship are impeached 
 on the charge of bribery. Domitius by Memmius, Memmius 
 by Quintus Curtius, a good and accomplished young man; 
 Messala by Quintus Pompey, Scaurus by Triarius. It is a 
 great measure in agitation, because the ruin either of the 
 men, or of the laws, is threatened. Some efforts are made, 
 that no trials may take place. The affair appears to point to 
 an interregnum. The consuls wish to hold the comitia; the 
 impeached parties are against it, and Memmius above all, 
 because on the arrival of Caesar he hopes to become consul. 
 But he has an extraordinarily bad chance. Domitius and 
 Messala appeared sure of success ; Scaurus had lost heart. 
 Appius asserts, that if it were not for a lex curiata, he should 
 succeed our friend Lentulus, who on that day showed won- 
 derful vigour against Gabinius, (a thing which I had almost 
 forgotten to mention;) he accused him of treason; names of 
 witnesses were given in ; while Gabinius did not say a word. 
 You now know the affairs of the forum. At home things go 
 on well, and the house itself is proceeding with great rapidity 
 under the hands of the contractors. 
 
TO HIS BHOTHER QUINTUS. 77 
 
 LETTER III. 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. The hand of my secretary may be a sign to you how 
 busy I am. Be assured that there does not a day pass in 
 which I do not speak on behalf of some accused person. 
 Thus, whatever I compose or meditate, I generally throw into 
 the time of my walk. In this state is my public business : 
 our domestic affairs go on as I wish. The boys are well ; 
 they learn with great diligence ; they are taught with great 
 pains; they love us, and love one another. The polishing 
 of both our houses is going on; while your rural matters 
 at Arcanum and Laterium are advancing to completion.^ 
 Besides, in one of my letters, I omitted nothing to give you 
 a clear account about the water, and the road. 
 
 But this subject of anxiety disturbs and annoys me, that 
 for the space of now more than fifty days, not only no letter 
 has come from you, none from C^sar, none from that country, 
 but not even a single report ; and that sea, and that country, 
 keep me now in a state of anxiety. Nor do I cease (as is 
 the case with persons in love) to imagine the things which I 
 least wish. I do not therefore now ask you to write to me 
 about yourself and about affairs in that quarter, (for I know 
 that you never omit to do so when you have an oppor- 
 tunity,) but I wish you to know, that I scarcely ever longed 
 for anything so much, as, when I wrote this, I did for a letter 
 from you. 
 
 2. Hear now what is going on in the republic. Day after 
 day appointed for the comitia is constantly cancelled by 
 notices of ill omens, to the great joy of the well-affected 
 citizens, in such unpopularity are the consuls on account of 
 the suspicion of their having bargained for bribes from the 
 candidates. There are four candidates for the consulship ; 
 all are prosecuted ; the causes are difficult ones ; but still we 
 will exert ourselves that Messala may come off safe; a result 
 which is even connected with the safety of the rest. Publius 
 Sylla has impeached Gabinius of bribery, his stepson Mem- 
 mius supporting the accusation, as well as his brother Caecilius, 
 
 ^ A corrupt passage, says Orellius. There are various readings, but 
 Done satisfactory. 
 
7 5 CICERO S LETTERS 
 
 and his son Sylla. Lucius Torquatus made objections, but 
 failed in his purpose, to the great joy of all men. 
 
 3. Do you ask, what is to become of Gabinius? We shall 
 know in three days about the impeachment for treason ; on 
 which charge he is weighed down by the detestation of all 
 classes; and is especially damaged by the evidence. He has 
 very cool accusers; the bench is of a varied character; the 
 chief judge, Alfius, is a man of high and resolute temper. 
 Pompey is earnest in canvassing the judges; how it will end 
 I know not; but I see no room for him in the city. I have 
 a moderate wish for his downfal, but the faintest possible as 
 to the result of the whole proceedings. 
 
 4. You have now an account of almost everything. I will 
 add this one particular : your Cicero and mine is now apply- 
 ing himself with great diligence to the instructions of Pseonius, 
 a rhetorician, a man, in my opinion, well accomplished, and 
 of excellent character; but you know well enough that my 
 own style of education is a little more learned and philo- 
 sophical. Though, therefore, I do not wish Cicero's progress, 
 and that course of instruction, to be impeded ; and the boy 
 himself seems to be greatly charmed and delighted with the 
 exercise in declamation ; (and as I was myself also practised 
 in it, I would allow him to go on in my steps, for I feel sure 
 that he will arrive at the same end,) but still, if I take him 
 anywhere into the country with me, I shall lead him into 
 my own method and practice. For a great reward is offered 
 me from you, which certainly I shall not fail to gain through 
 my own fault. In what parts you are going to winter, and 
 with what expectations, I should wish you to write me word 
 with all possible minuteness. Farewell. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. Gabinius has been acquitted. Altogether, nothing could 
 be more childish than Lentulus, his accuser, and his fellow- 
 prosecutors, nothing more corrupt than the bench ; but still, 
 if the exertion and entreaties of Pompey had not been extra- 
 ordinary, and if the report of a coming dictatorship had not 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QU1>;TUS. 79 
 
 been full of alarm, he would not have made any reply even 
 to Lentulus ; and yet with him for his accuser, and with that 
 bench for his judges, he had thirty-two votes against him, 
 seventy persons voting. Certainly, this trial is of so severe 
 a character, that he seems likely to be convicted on the other 
 accusations, and especially on that of peculation ; but you 
 see that there is really no republic at all, no senate, no 
 judges, no dignity in any one of us. 
 
 Why should I say more about the judges ? Two men of prae- 
 torian rank were on the bench ; Domitius Calvinus ; he voted 
 openly for his acquittal, so that all might see it; and Cato;^ 
 he, after the votes had been counted, withdrew himself from the 
 circle, and was the first to announce the result to Pompey. 
 
 2. Some say, and Sallust among them, that I ought to have 
 been the accuser. Should I trust myself to such judges ? 
 What would have been thought of me if he had escaped 
 while I had pleaded against him ? But other considerations 
 influenced me. Pompey would have thought that he had 
 a dispute with me, not about the safety of Gabinius, but his 
 own dignity. He would have entered the city. The matter 
 would have come to a regular quarrel ; I should have seemed 
 like Pacideianus when matched with ^serninus the Samnite; 
 perhaps he would have bitten off my ear. He would at least 
 have been reconciled to Clodius. With my own conduct 
 certainly, I am thoroughly satisfied, particularly if you do 
 not disapprove of it. He, after he had been honoured by me 
 with eminent exertions on my part, and though I owed him 
 nothing, and he owed everything to me, was still unable to 
 bear my differing in opinion with him about the affairs of the 
 commonwealth, (I will not use a harsher expression ;) and 
 even at the period when he was less powerful, he showed how 
 much he could do against me when I was at the height of 
 my reputation. Isow, when I myself am not even anxious to 
 acquire any great influence, when the republic itself has cer- 
 tainly no power at all, and when he has power over everything, 
 could I possibly contend with him '? For so I must have 
 done. I do not believe that you think that I ought tq have 
 undertaken such a task. 
 
 3. [You should,] Sallust still argues, [have done] one of 
 
 ^ What Cat©, is Tincertain ; but it was not, as Paul Manutius observes, 
 the Cato afterwards called Uticensis. 
 
80 Cicero's letters 
 
 two things ; [if you did not accuse him,] you should have 
 defended him, and have granted that to the entreaty of 
 Pompey : for indeed he did entreat very earnestly. A plea- 
 sant friend certainly Sallust is, who thinks that I was bound 
 either to incur a most dangerous enmity or everlasting 
 infamy. But I myself am pleased with this middle course ; 
 and it is gratifying to me, that after I had with great serious- 
 ness given my evidence in accordance with good faith and 
 religion, the defendant said, that if he could possibly have 
 been in the city, he would have satisfied me ; ^ nor did he put 
 a single question to me. 
 
 4. With respect to the verses which you wish me to write 
 out for you, the task cannot be undertaken by me, a task 
 which requires not only time, but also a mind free from all 
 care. But enthusiasm is also wanting, for I am not altogether 
 without anxiety as to the coming year, though I am without 
 apprehension. And at the same time (I assure you that I 
 speak without the slightest irony) I assign a higher place in 
 that kind of writing to you than to myself 
 
 5. As to completing your Greek library, changing some 
 books, and procuring some Latin ones, I wish indeed that those 
 matters may be done, especially as they have reference to my 
 accommodation. But I myself have no person by whose 
 agency I can get such things done for me; for the books 
 which have attractions for me are not for sale, and cannot be 
 completed except by a man who is both skilful and diligent : 
 however, I will give Chrysippus a commission, and I will 
 speak with Tyrannio. I will inquire too, what Scipio has 
 done about the money. Whatever seems proper, I will attend 
 to it. As to Ascanio, you shall do whatever you please ; I 
 will interpose no obstacle on my own account. I commend 
 you for not being in a hurry about your suburban villa, but 
 I advise you to have one. 
 
 6. I have written this on the 24th of October, the 
 day on which the games were beginning, as I was going 
 to my Tusculan villa, and taking my Cicero with me for a 
 game 2- of instruction, not of amusement ; on that account 
 
 1 Would have thanked me, for not having been his accuser, but 
 having merely given testimony against him. — Paul Manutius. 
 
 2 In ludum discendi, non lusionis. He plays on the word ludus, which 
 he had used just before; ludi committebantur 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 81 
 
 [ did not go further than I wanted, because I desired to be 
 present at the triumph of Pomptinius/ on the 3d of Novem- 
 ber ; for there will be I know not what trifle of business ; 
 since Cato and Servilius, the praetors, threaten that they will 
 prevent it; and I do not know what they can do, as he will 
 both have Appius the consul with him, and the majority of 
 the praetors, and the tribunes of the people. However, they 
 so threaten, and especially Quintus Scaevola, who breathes 
 nothing but war. My kindest and dearest brother, take care 
 of your health. 
 
 LETTERS y. VI. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. With respect to your question, what I have done about 
 those books which, when I was in the neighbourhood of 
 Cumse, I began to write, I have not been idle, nor am I idle ; 
 but I have several times changed my whole plan and method 
 of treating the subject : for after two books were completed, 
 in which, during that nine days' festival which took place in 
 the consulship of Tuditauus and Aquilius, a conversation is 
 commenced by me between Africanus,^ a little before his 
 death, and Lselius, Philus, Manilius, Quintus Tubero, and 
 Fannius and Sceevola, the sons-in-law of Laelius ; and that 
 conversation is extended over nine days, and through nine 
 books, being on the best form of government, and the charac- 
 ter of the best citizen, (the work in truth was put together 
 with sufficient clearness, and the dignity of the speakers added 
 some weight to the arguments ;) — when these books were read 
 by me at my Tusculan villa in the hearing of Sallust, I was 
 assured by him that opinions might be given on those sub- 
 jects with much greater authority, if I myself were to speak 
 on the republic, especially as I was not a Heraclides of Pon- 
 tus, but a man of consular rank, and one who had myself been 
 concerned in the most important affairs of state; but that 
 what I attributed to characters of such antiquity, would 
 appear to be fictitious; that as to the dialogue upon oratory 
 
 ^ Over the Allobroges. 
 
 ^ That is, the younger Africanus. The book alluded to is the treatisa 
 De Republic^,, discovered in this, century. 
 
 G 
 
82 CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 in those treatises of mine, I bad done well not to utter in m}^ 
 own character what was said on the art of speaking, but to 
 refer it to those men whom I had seen myself; but that 
 Aristotle himself delivers in his own character what he writes 
 about the commonwealth, and the most excellent kind of 
 citizen. 
 
 2. He made an impression upon me, and so much the 
 more because, [by the plan that I had adopted,] I was unable 
 to touch upon the greatest disturbances in our commonwealth, 
 inasmuch as they were posterior to the age of the speakers ; 
 though at first I had made this very thing one of my objects, 
 lest in touching on our own times, I should give offence to any 
 one. Now I shall both avoid that, and shall myself converse 
 with you ; but, nevertheless, if I come to Rome, I shall send 
 you what I had originally written ; for I imagine that you 
 will be of opinion, that those books were not put aside by 
 me without some feeling of disappointment. 
 
 3. I am exceedingly gratified by Caesar's great good-will, of 
 which he has assured me in his letter : but I do not depend 
 much on the promises which he holds out. I am neither 
 eager for honours nor anxious for glory; and I am more 
 desirous of the duration of his good- will, than the fulfilment 
 of his promises. Nevertheless, I live amidst the same ambi- 
 tion and labour, as if I were expecting what I never solicit. 
 
 4. As to what you ask me about making verses, it is in- 
 credible, my dear brother, how much I want time; nor indeed 
 am I sufficiently animated in thought to sing of those things 
 which you wish. And do you, who have surpassed all men 
 in that description of language and expression, ask me for 
 suggestions on a subject which I cannot fully grasp even with 
 the utmost exertion of thought 1 Nevertheless, I would do 
 it as well as I could, but, (what by no means escapes your 
 knowledge,) there is need, for composing a poem, of a certain 
 cheerfulness of spirit, which the times altogether take away 
 from me. I indeed free myself, as far as I can, from all 
 anxiety on account of the commonwealth, and devote myself 
 to literature; but still I will tell you what in truth I wished 
 above all things concealed from you : I am made wretched, 
 my dearest brother, I am made wretched by the consideration 
 that there is no commonwealth ; no courts of justice ; and that 
 this present time of life of mine, which ought to be in full 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 83 
 
 possession of the authority of a senator, is either harassed 
 with the labour of pleading in the forum, or endured with 
 the aid of private literary pursuits ; and that the idea which 
 I cherished from my childhood, 
 
 At all times to excel, and be above 
 
 My fellows, 
 
 is all come to nothing ; that of my enemies, some are not 
 attacked by me, some are even defended ; that not only my 
 inclinations, but my very dislikes are not free ; and that 
 Csesar is the only one of all men who is found to love me as 
 much as I desire ; or even, as some think, is the only one who 
 is inclined to love me. 
 
 Yet none of these vexations are of such a nature that 
 
 ' I cannot every day soothe myself with great consolation ; but 
 
 the greatest consolation of all will be if we shall be together 
 
 again; but, at present, to those other disquietudes of mine, 
 
 there is added even the most vehement longing to see you. 
 
 5. If, as Pansa thinks that I ought to have done, I had 
 defended Gabinius, I should have been utterly ruined; those 
 who hate him, and they are all ranks of men, would have 
 begun to hate me, on account of him whom they already 
 hate. I bore myself, in my opinion, admirably, so as to do 
 only so much as every one might see. And in the whole of 
 my conduct, as you advise me, I devote myself greatly to the 
 cultivation of ease and tranquillity. 
 
 6. In respect of the library, it is Tyrannio who is the 
 idler. I will speak to Chrysippus; but it is a troublesome 
 
 I task, and one that requires a very diligent man. I find this 
 j myself, who, with a great deal of trouble, meet with no suc- 
 j cess. But for Latin books, I know not whither to turn my- 
 j self; so faultily are they copied, and so dishonestly are they 
 I sold ; however, I will not neglect to do what may be done. 
 I Crebrius, as I wrote you word before, is at Rome, and the 
 , aien who take their oaths to anything, tell me that he is under 
 ' ^eat obligations to you. I fancy that the money matters have 
 j oeen settled in my absence. 
 
 7. When you say that you have finished four tragedies in 
 sixteen days, are you borrowing anything from any one else ? 
 And are you aiming at credit ^ by copying out the Electra 
 )v the Troades ? Do not be an idler; and do not fancy that 
 
 ' Most texts have xP^^s : Gronovius and some others prefer kK4os. 
 
 g2 
 
84 CICERO'S LETTERS 
 
 the saying yi/w^i aeavTov is intended merely to diminish 
 arrogance, but that it also intimates that we should know 
 our own powers. However, I would wish you to send me 
 both them, and the Erigona. You have in this packet my 
 last two letters. 
 
 LETTER YII. 
 
 Marcus Cicero to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. There is a wonderful flood at Rome, and especially 
 along the Appian road, as far as the temple of Mars; the 
 walks of Crassipes, and his gardens, have been carried away, 
 and many shops. There has been an amazing quantity of 
 water down as far as the public fish-ponds. The passage of 
 Homer ^ is powerfully illustrated : — 
 
 As on an autumn day, when Jupiter 
 
 Pours violent waters forth, whene'er, enraged, 
 
 His anger burns 'gainst men : 
 
 For it applies well to the acquittal of Gabinius : — 
 
 Men who by force in council will pronounce 
 Judgments unjust, and banish right, the voice 
 Of heav'n not heeding. 
 
 But I have made up my mind not to trouble myself about 
 these matters. 
 
 2. When I arrive at Rome, I will write you word what 
 I observe, and especially about the dictatorship; and I will 
 give the courier letters, both for Labienus and for Ligurius. 
 
 I wrote this before daybreak, by the light of a little wooden 
 candlestick, which was very acceptable to me, because they 
 said that you, when you were at Samos, had had it made. 
 Farewell, my most affectionate and most excellent brother. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 Marcus to his brother Quintus, greeting. 
 
 1. There is no need for me to reply to your former letter, 
 
 which is full of discontent and complaints; of which kind 
 
 too you say that you had given Labienus another the day 
 
 before ; but he has not arrived yet. For your more recent 
 
 1 II. xvi. 386. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 85 
 
 letter has removed from me every feeling of annoyance ; only 
 I both advise and entreat you, to recollect amid all those 
 annoyances and labours and feelings of regret, what our 
 intention was in your journey. For we were not aiming at 
 any trifling or ordinary advantages ; for what advantage could 
 there have been which we should have thought worth pur- 
 chasing at the price of our separation ? We were seeking 
 most powerful protection, for the full maintenance of our 
 dignity, from the good-will of a most excellent and most 
 influential man. More is risked on hope than on money; 
 everything else will go ^ to loss. If, therefore, you often turn 
 back your thoughts to the consideration of our old objects 
 and hopes, you will more easily bear those hardships of 
 military service, and other things which annoy you; and 
 still you will be able to shake them ofi" when you please. 
 But the full time for that matter has not arrived yet, though 
 it is approaching. 
 
 2. Moreover, I recommend you not to trust anything to 
 your letters, from which, if it should be divulged, we should 
 suffer annoyance. There are many things of which I had 
 rather be ignorant than be informed of them at any risk. 
 I will write to you further with a mind at ease, when my 
 Cicero is going on well again, as I hope he will. I would 
 wish you to take care and let me know to whom I must give 
 the letter which I am to send you next ; whether to the 
 couriers of Caesar, that he may at once send them on to you, 
 or to those of Labienus ; for where those Nervii ^ are, or how 
 far off they are, I know not. 
 
 3. I derived great pleasure from your letter concerning the 
 virtue and gravity of Caesar, which he had displayed when 
 under deep affliction. And as to your requesting me to 
 finish the poem which I have begun to him, although I am 
 distracted with labour, and still more in mind, still, since 
 Caesar has learned from the letter which I had sent to you, 
 that I have begun something, I will resume what I had 
 commenced, and complete it in these idle days of supplica- 
 tions ; during which I am extremely glad that our friend 
 
 ^ Struentur is the reading of OrelHus and most other editors ; Nobbe 
 has struantur. 
 
 2 The Nervii in Gaul, among whom Quintus was in winter quarters 
 with his legion. Cses. B. G. v. — Paul Manutius. 
 
86 CICERO S LETTERS 
 
 Messala and the rest are relieved from annoyance, and when you 
 set him down as quite sure to be consul with Domitius, you do 
 not in the least dissent from my own opinion. I will under- 
 take for Messala's conduct to Caesar; but Memmius places 
 hopes in the arrival of Caesar, in which I think he is mis- 
 taken ; here at least he is coldly regarded : as for Scaurus, 
 Pompey cast him off some time ago. 
 
 4. Matters are postponed ; the comitia are brought to an 
 interregnum. The rumour of a dictator is disagreeable to the 
 well-affected; but what they say is far more disagreeable to 
 me. However, the whole business is regarded with alarm, 
 and goes on slowly. Pompey plainly denies that he has any 
 inclination for it. Before he did not use to deny it to me. 
 Hirrus seems likely to propose it. ye gods, what a fool of 
 a man ! how does he love himself without a rival ! He 
 frightened off, by my means, Crassus Junianus,^ a man wholly 
 devoted to me. It is very hard to know whether he wishes it, 
 or whether he does not. However, while Hirrus is acting, he 
 will not make people believe that he has any disinclination. 
 People at this time were talking of nothing else with regard 
 to public affairs ; at all events, nothing else is done. 
 
 5. The funeral of Serranus Domesticus the son, was a very 
 mournful one : it took place on the 19th of November. The 
 father spoke a funeral panegyric over him, of my writing. 
 
 6. Now as to Milo : Pompey has given nothing to him, 
 and everything to Gutta; and says that he will take care 
 that Caesar shall use all his endeavours to further his interest. 
 Milo is apprehensive of this, — and not without reason, — and 
 almost despairs, if he becomes dictator. If he with any armed 
 force, or with his protection, should assist any one who inter- 
 posed a veto to his dictatorship, he fears Pompey would be 
 his enemy; and if he does not assist some one, then he is 
 afraid that matters will be carried by violence. He is pre- 
 paring the most magnificent games,^ of such a character that 
 no man has ever exhibited any more costly ones; a double 
 and a treble piece of folly, as they are not demanded,^ — either 
 because he had already exhibited a very fine show, or because 
 
 ^ The name is probably corrupt. 
 
 2 In honour of the dead, by whose will he had received a bequest. 
 — Paul Manutius. 
 
 2 By the people. See Ep. ad Fam. ix. 8. — Idem, 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 87 
 
 means were wanting, or because he was a director/ or because 
 he might fairly look upon himself as a director, and not as 
 an sedile.^ I have now written nearly all that I had to say. 
 My dearest brother, take care of your health. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Marcus to Ms hr other Quintus, greeting, 
 
 1. In the matter of Gabinius, none of those things which 
 were most affectionately imagined by you, were necessary to 
 be done: 
 
 Then may the wide-mouthed earth, with ample yawn, 
 Swallow me quick. 
 
 I acted with the most consummate dignity, as all men are of 
 opinion, and also with the greatest lenity, in all the steps 
 which I took : I neither pressed him hard, nor relieved him. 
 I was a very strong witness ; in other respects I was quiet. 
 The disgraceful and ruinous result of the trial I took very 
 easily; and my prudence indeed now redounds to my ad- 
 vantage; so that I am not in the least moved by these 
 calamities of the commonwealth, and the licentiousness of 
 audacious citizens, with which I used to be distracted ; for 
 nothing can be more utterly lost than these men and these 
 times. 
 
 2. Since, therefore, no pleasure can now be derived from 
 public affairs, I do not know why I should vex myself. 
 Literature, my studies, and leisure, my country-houses, and 
 especially our boys, give me great pleasure. Milo is the only 
 one that gives me annoyance ; but I wish that the consulship 
 may put an end to it ; in regard to which I will use no less 
 exertions than I used about my own ; and you, from where 
 you are, will be able to help me, as indeed you do. Concerning 
 
 ^ Magister. A director or trustee to see the property divided among 
 the legatees. — Idem. 
 
 2 Cicero's meaning is, that to exhibit games was the part of aediles, 
 not of magistrif directors or trustees, and that Milo, therefore, as ha 
 was only a magister, and not an sedile, ought to have forborne fronj 
 exhibiting games. — Idem. 
 
88 Cicero's letters 
 
 that matter, the other points, unless violence breaks them off, 
 are going on well. For his estate I am in fear : 
 
 But the man rages beyond all endurance, 
 
 and is preparing games which are to cost a hundred thousand 
 pounds.^ But in this one particular I will bear with his in- 
 considerateness as well as I can ; and it is for your firmness 
 to be able to bear it. 
 
 3. With respect to the commotions of the coming year, I 
 had wished you to understand that there is no cause for 
 domestic apprehension, but only for the common condition of 
 the republic, about which, if I am not able to effect any good, 
 I am still unable to be wholly indifferent. But how cautious 
 I wish you to be in writing, you may conjecture from this, 
 that I do not even write to you any account of the disturb- 
 ances which are openly made in the republic, lest my letters, 
 being intercepted, should hurt any one's feelings. I there- 
 fore would have you free from domestic anxiety. As to the 
 interests of the commonwealth, I know how anxious you 
 always are about them. 
 
 1 see that our friend Messala is consul ; if by the interven- 
 tion of the interrex, without any proper decision ; if by the 
 dictator's ^ influence, still without danger j he has no unpopu- 
 larity to contend with. The ardour of Hortensius will have 
 great influence : the acquittal of Gabinius is looked on as the 
 promulgation of a law of impunity. By the bye, there has 
 not been anything done yet about a dictator. 
 
 Pompey is away ; Appius disturbs everything ; Hirrus is 
 preparing to act. Many people are counted ready to inter- 
 pose their veto. The people does not care ; the chiefs are 
 adverse; I take no part. 
 
 4. I am greatly obliged to you for the promises which you 
 make about the slaves, and I am, as you write word, but very 
 poorly attended both in Eome and in the country ; but take 
 care of troubling yourself, I intreat you, about anything which 
 regards my convenience, unless it is entirely convenient to 
 you, and quite within your power. 
 
 ^ Copies vary as to this sum. Most of them have hsccc ; which has 
 been generally thought corrupt. 
 
 2 Per dictatorem. An allusion to Pompey, whom a party wished to 
 make dictator. 
 
TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 89 
 
 5. I laughed at Yatinius's letter j but I am well aware that 
 I am observed by him in such a manner, that I must not 
 only swallow his existing hatred, but even digest [and put 
 up with] it. 
 
 6. As to the work which you exhort me to finish, I have 
 finished a very pleasant epic poem, (as it appears to me,) to 
 Caesar ; but I want a trustworthy courier, lest that should 
 happen which happened to your Erigona, for which alone, 
 since Caesar has had the command, the road out of Gaul has 
 not been safe. 
 
 7. * * * Well? if I have not good mortar, 
 ought I to pull down the house? which indeed pleases me 
 more and more every day ; and, above all, the lower portico ; 
 and the rooms out of it are admirably made. As to Arcanum, 
 that is a work of Caesar himself, or indeed of some still neater 
 workman : for those images, and that palaestra, and fish-pond, 
 and stream, is the work of many Philotimi, not Diphili. But 
 I will myself go there, and send orders, and give directions. 
 
 8. You would complain still more of the will of Felix, if you 
 knew the truth ; for the documents which he thought that 
 he was signing, in which he had laid down strict directions as 
 to the division of his property, he did not sign ; (he mistook 
 partly though his own blunder, and partly through that of 
 his slave, Sicuras;) and he signed documents which he did 
 not intend to sign. But let him bemoan himself. Let us 
 take care of ourselves. 
 
 9. I love your Cicero as you beg me, and as he deserves, 
 and as I ought ; but I do not keep him always with me, both 
 that I may not withdraw him from his teachers, and because 
 his mother Porcia is away, without whom I am afraid of the 
 boy's appetite ; but still we are a great deal together. I have 
 now replied to everything in your letter, my most affectionate 
 and most excellent brother. Fare you well. 
 
90 Cicero's letters to brutus. 
 
 CICERO'S LETTERS TO BRUTUS, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The genuineness of this volume has been very commonly doubted; 
 but that question is one on which it seems now hardly worth while 
 to enter. 
 
 The first of these Letters was written in the year of Caesar's murder, 
 710 A.U.C., in the consulship of Antonius and Dolabella, who seized 
 that office on the death of Caesar, which he himself had previously 
 promised to resign to him. 
 
 Cicero, though he had not been privy to the conspiracy, yet as soon as 
 the deed was done, ranged himself on the side of the conspirators, 
 as being the only party with sufficient power to secure order. In 
 a few days, however, they negotiated with Antony, and he, desirous 
 to grasp the power which had been possessed by Caesar, procured 
 them distant provinces, some of which had been previously assigned 
 to them by Caesar. Brutus was to have Macedonia ; Cassius, Syria ; 
 and Decimus Brutus, Cisalpine Gaul. Soon afterwards Octavius re- 
 turned to Italy, arriving at Naples in the middle of April, where he 
 had an interview with Cicero ; and before the end of the month, he 
 arrived in Rome. Brutus and Cassius had already become unpopular 
 in the city, and retreated to Lavinium ; and Antony now began to 
 show his hostility to their party, forbidding Decimus Brutus to go 
 to his province, and prevailing on the senate to transfer Macedonia 
 and Syria from Marcus Brutus and Cassius to himself and Dolabella, 
 while they were to have, instead, the charge of supplying the city 
 with grain. The day after this vote was passed, (June 6,) Cicero had 
 an interview with Brutus and Cassius at Antium, where nothing was 
 decided on. As the city-praeix)r, Brutus ought to have exhibited the 
 Ludi Apollinares ; but he was afraid to return to the city, which 
 indeed even Cicero did not think that he could do with safety. He 
 retired to the neighbourhood of Baiae, while his colleague presided 
 . over the games, which were celebrated at his expense, and with great 
 magnificence. The conspirators were a little encouraged by news of 
 some advantages which Sextus Pompey had gained in Spain, though 
 he did not belong to their party; but he, in consequence, and 
 learning that Lepidus was raising an army to attack him, proposed 
 a general disarming of all parties. 
 
 Cicero himself was absent from Rome, visiting different places on the 
 coast, during the summer. Antony reconciled himself to Antonius, 
 and by his aid prevailed on the senate to allow him to resign Mace- 
 donia to his brother Caius, and to give him Decimus Brutus's 
 province of Cisalpine Gaul. Brutus and Cassius, as praetors, had no 
 right to be absent from the city without leave ; but they obtained it 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 91 
 
 from the senate, and subsequently quitted Italy for the East, with 
 the resolution to endeavour to make themselves masters by force of 
 the provinces v/hich had been originally assigned to them, and of 
 which they had now been deprived. Cicero sailed from Italy, and 
 went to Syracuse, intending to proceed to Athens ; but the wind 
 being unfavourable, he was driven back to Italy. He returned to 
 Rome on the last day of August, where he was received with accla- 
 mations by all parties ; but as he refused to appear the next day in 
 the senate, Antony was offended, and attacked him: and the day 
 afterwards Cicero delivered his first Philippic. Antony and Octavius 
 quarrel : Antony leaves Rome for Brundusium, to take the command 
 of the legions assembled there ; and Octavius visits the colonies in 
 Campania, and then Ravenna, and the towns between Rome and the 
 frontiers of Gaul. Cicero supports Octavius. Antony returns to 
 Rome, and again leaves it, and goes northward to attack Decimus 
 Brutus, who throws himself into Mutina. The consuls-elect for the 
 ensuing year were Hirtius and Pansa. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 Lucius Clodius,^ tribune of the people elect, has a very great 
 liking for me ; or, that I may use a more emphatic expression, 
 has a very great love for me ; and as I am quite certain of 
 that, I have no doubt that you (for you know my disposition 
 thoroughly) will suppose that he also is beloved by me : for 
 nothing appears to me to be less becoming to a man, than 
 not to respond in attachment to those by whom you are in- 
 vited to it. 
 
 He appeared to me to suspect, (and not indeed, without 
 great concern,) that something has been reported to you by 
 his enemies, or rather through the agency of his enemies, by 
 which your affection has been alienated from him. It is 
 not my custom, my dear Brutus, (and this I think you know,) 
 to say anything rashly about another; for it is dangerous, 
 on account of the secret nature of men's wishes, and the 
 variety of their characters. But I have thoroughly examined 
 and understood and appreciated the disposition of Clodius : 
 there are many indications of it, but not necessary to be 
 written ; for I wish you to look upon this rather as a testi- 
 monial than as a letter. He was promoted by the favour of 
 Antony, and a great portion of that very favour is owing to 
 you; and therefore, as long as it did not interfere with our 
 ^ Nothing more is known of this Clodius. 
 
92 BRUTUS TO CICERO,. 
 
 safety, he would be glad to see him safe. But he is aware 
 that matters have been brought into such a state, (for he is, 
 as you are aware, by no means deficient in acuteness,) that 
 both cannot be safe : and therefore he prefers that we should 
 be so. And of you yourself he speaks and feels with the 
 greatest friendliness : so that if any one has written you a 
 different account of him, or has sought to give you a different 
 impression in conversation, I beg of you over and over again 
 rather to believe me, who am both able to judge of him more 
 easily than any obscure informer, and am more sincerely at- 
 tached to you : think therefore that Clodius is most friendly 
 to you, and that he is such a citizen as a man of the greatest 
 prudence and of the most affluent fortune ought to be. 
 
 LETTER IT. 
 
 Brutus to Cicero, greeting. 
 
 I HAVE been earnestly expecting your letter, which you 
 wrote after you received the news of the state of our affairs, 
 and of the death of Trebonius ; ^ for I have no doubt that you 
 fully explain your views to me. By a most shameful atrocity, 
 we have lost a most excellent citizen, and have been expelled 
 from the possession of the province, which it is easy to 
 recover; nor will it be less disgraceful or iniquitous that it 
 should not be recovered, if it be possible. Antony^ is as yet 
 with us ; but, I assure you, I am both moved by the entreaties 
 of the man, and I am afraid that the madness of some parties 
 may fall upon him. I am altogether in perplexity. But if I 
 knew what you thought best, I should be free from anxiety, 
 
 ^ This was the first blood shed by either party after the death of 
 Csesar. Trebonius had been assigned the province of Asia Minor, and 
 had taken possession of it ; but Dolabella proceeded through Asia 
 Minor, to take possession of Syria, where Cassius was already in arms. 
 Trebonius did not dare openly to defy him ; but the gates of the dif- 
 ferent cities were closed against him. He attacked Smyrna, in which 
 Trebonius himself was, scaled the walls by night, seized him in his bed, 
 and beheaded him ; while the soldiers mutilated the body, and tearing 
 down the head from Dolabella's tribune, kicked it about the streets, till 
 the features could no longer be recognised. This occurred about the 
 end of February 711 A.u.C. 
 
 2 Caius Antony, who was a prisoner. 
 
 I 
 
BRUTUS TO CICERO. 93 
 
 for I should feel sure that that really was the best. As 
 soon as possible, therefore, make roe acquainted with your 
 opinions. 
 
 Our friend Cassius has S}T:ia, and the Syrian legions ; having 
 been invited spontaneously by Murcus and Martins, and by 
 the troops themselves. I have written to my sister Tertia, 
 and to my mother, not to spread any account of this most 
 admirable and fortunate exploit of Cassius, till they knew 
 your opinion, and till you thought it desirable to do so. 
 
 I have read your two speeches; of which you spoke on-e 
 on the 1st of January, and the other was in reply to Calenus, 
 on the subject of my letters. You now doubtless expect me 
 to praise them : I know not whether the merit of courage or 
 of ability displayed in them be the greater. I now grant that 
 they may be called Philippics, as you wrote, jestingly, in one 
 of your letters. We are in need of two things, my dear 
 Cicero ; money, and reinforcements ; one of which may be 
 hastened by you, I mean that some portion of the troops 
 jfrom Italy may be sent to us, either secretly, and in spite of 
 Pansa, or else by an open motion in the senate ; the other 
 thing, money, which is still more necessary, not more for my 
 troops than those of the other commanders, * * 
 
 On this account I am the more concerned that we have lost 
 Asia; which I hear is oppressed to such a degree by Dolabella, 
 that the murder of Trebonius no longer appears his most 
 barbarous action. Yetus Antistius, however, has aided me 
 with money. 
 
 Your son Cicero endears himself to me so greatly by his 
 industry, patience, diligence, and magnanimity, — in short, by 
 the performance of every kind of duty, that he seems never 
 for a moment to forget whose son he is. Though, therefore, 
 I cannot make you love him more than you do, since he is 
 already most dear to you; at least allow so much weight to 
 my opinion, as to feel sure that he will not have to appropriate 
 any of your glory, in order to arrive at honours similar to 
 those of his father. 
 
 Dyrrhachium, the 1st of April.^ 
 
 ^ These letters are differently arranged in different editions. I have 
 followed the arrangement of Middleton as most consistent with the 
 historical order of the events alluded to ; but the letters of Brutus are 
 just as spurious as those attributed to Cicero. It may save trouhJe 
 
94: 
 
 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 You have been able to learn the admirable disposition of 
 Plancus for the good of the commonwealth, and the number 
 of his legions and auxiliary troops, and, in short, of his whole 
 force, from his letters, of which I suppose that a copy has 
 been sent to yoa. I imagine too, that from the letters of 
 your own friends, you have arrived at a complete understand- 
 ing of the levity and inconsistency of your friend Lepidus, 
 
 to give the arrangement of the different editions, — that adopted by 
 Middleton, and the ordinary arrangement, which divides these Letters 
 into two books : — 
 
 FIRST WORDS. 
 
 MIDDLETON. 
 
 ORDINARY EDITION. 
 
 Lucius Clodius . , 
 
 L . . Book 
 
 L 1. 
 
 Literas tuas . . . 
 
 IL . . 
 
 
 IL 5. 
 
 Planci animum . . 
 
 in. . 
 
 
 IL 2. 
 
 Datis mane . . . 
 
 IV. . 
 
 
 IL 4. 
 
 Quae liter89 . . . 
 
 V. . 
 
 
 IL 7. 
 
 Veteris Antistii . . 
 
 VL . 
 
 
 L 11. 
 
 Multos tibi . . . 
 
 VIL . 
 
 
 L 8. 
 
 Cum hsec scribebam 
 
 vin. . 
 
 
 IL 1. 
 
 Nostree res . . . 
 
 IX. . 
 
 
 I. 3. 
 
 A. d. V. Calendas . 
 
 X. . 
 
 
 I. 5. 
 
 Quanta sim Isetitia 
 
 XL . 
 
 
 L 4. 
 
 Lucius Bibulus . . 
 
 xn. . 
 
 
 L 7. 
 
 Noh expectare . . 
 
 XIIL . 
 
 
 L 6. 
 
 Scripta et obsignate 
 
 XIV. . 
 
 
 I. 2. 
 
 Scribis mihi . . . 
 
 XV. . 
 
 
 L17. 
 
 Fungerer 
 
 XVI. . 
 
 
 L 9. 
 
 Etsi daturus . . . 
 
 XVIL . 
 
 
 L 12. 
 
 De Marco Lepido . 
 
 XVIII. . 
 
 
 L 13. 
 
 Nullas adhuc . . . 
 
 XIX . . 
 
 
 I. 10. 
 
 Breves tuse . . . . 
 
 XX. . , 
 
 
 1.14. 
 
 Messalam habes . 
 
 XXI. . . 
 
 
 L15. 
 
 Particulam literarum 
 
 XXIL . 
 
 
 L16. 
 
 Cum ssepe te . . 
 
 XXIIL . 
 
 
 L18. 
 
 Si per tuas . . . 
 
 XXIV. . . 
 
 
 IL 8. 
 
 There is also one given in 
 
 the ordinary editions 
 
 as a fragment of 
 
 a separate letter ; but printed 
 
 by Middleton as the end of Letter IL 
 
 and one beginning " Quod egei 
 
 e," which Middleton considers a portion 
 
 of Letter IV., but which I hav 
 
 3 followed the ordinary 
 
 edition in giving 
 
 is a separate letter, and which v 
 
 dll be found as Letter IV. Letter XXlV. 
 
 M'iddleton himself gives up as 
 
 a forgery. 
 
 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 05 
 
 (who, next to his own brother, hates his relations above all 
 people,) and his invariably hostile feelings towards the com- 
 monwealth. My expectation disquiets me, the fulfilment of 
 which is wholly reduced to an extremely critical state ; for all 
 my hopes depend on the delivery of Brutus, for whom I was 
 in a state of great alarm. 
 
 At present, I have sufficient difficulty here, with that mad- 
 man Servilius, with whom I have borne longer than my 
 dignity fairly allowed ; but I did bear with him for the sake 
 of the republic, that I might not give the profligate portion 
 of the citizens a man, not indeed of great wisdom, but of 
 noble birth, to whom they might flock as a leader— which, 
 nevertheless, they do. But I did not think it right that he 
 should be alienated from the republic. However, I have done 
 with enduring him now, for he had begun to show such inso-, 
 lence, that he looked upon no one as free. In the case of 
 Plancus, he burst forth with incredible indignation, and con- 
 tended with me in such a spirit for two days, and was so 
 completely beaten by me, that I hope that he will be more 
 modest hereafter. And while this very contest was going 
 on, at the time when the debate was proceeding with the 
 greatest vehemence, on the 9 th of April, a letter w^as deli- 
 vered to me in the senate, from our friend Lentulus, with an 
 account of Cassius and his legions, and Syria; and as soon 
 as I had read it aloud, Servilius lost heart, as well as many 
 others, for there are several other persons of high rank who 
 are thoroughly disaffected : but Servilius was exceedingly 
 indignant that assent was expressed to my opinion about 
 Plancus. He is a great monster in regard to the common- 
 wealth, but * * :t: 
 
 LETTER lY. 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 As to your remark that you are in need of two necessary 
 things, reinforcements and money, it is very difficult to know 
 what advice to give you ; for no means occur to my recol- 
 lection, which I consider that you can use, except those which 
 the senate has voted, giving you the powei of borrowing 
 money from the difl'erent cities. But about the reinforce- 
 
Of) CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 meiit, I do not see what can be done ; for so far is Pan^^a 
 from being able to afford you any portion of his army, or 
 of his new levies, that he is even greatly annoyed at so many 
 volunteers going to you; in my opinion, because he thinks 
 that for those affairs about which there is now a contention 
 in Italy, no forces can be too great ; but as many people 
 suspect, because he has no desire for you to become too strong. 
 I, however, have no suspicion of this kind. 
 
 With regard to what you say, that you have written to 
 your sister Tertia, bidding her not to make public the things 
 which have been done by Cassius, till I approved of it, I see 
 that you were afraid of what there was good reason to fear, 
 namely, that the disposition of Caesar's party (as parties have 
 still distinctive appellations) would be greatly excited by the 
 intelligence. But, before we received your letters, the affair 
 was known and spread abroad; and, besides, your couriers 
 had brought letters to many of your friends. The fact was 
 therefore not to be suppressed, since, indeed, it could not be 
 done; and if it could have been done, we should have thought 
 it a matter not to be published, rather than wholly concealed. 
 With respect to my Cicero, if there really is as much in him 
 as you say in your letter, I am as glad as I ought to be; and 
 if, because you love him, you make his merits so much the 
 greater, I still rejoice extremely on that very account, that he 
 is beloved by you. 
 
 April 12th. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 After I had given Scaptius letters for you on the morning 
 of the 11th of April, the same day I received one from you 
 in the evening, dated on the 1st of April, from Dyrrhachium; 
 and, therefore, w^hen on the next day I was informed by 
 Scaptius that the men to whom he had given the letters the 
 day before had not started, but were going to set off imme- 
 diately, I scratched these few lines to you in the midst of the 
 confusion of my morning levee. About Cassius I am delighted, 
 and congratulate the republic on his success; I congra- 
 tulate myself too, for having delivered my opinion in spite of 
 
CICEKO TO BEUTUS. 97 
 
 the opposition and anger of Pansa, that Cassins should pur- 
 sue Dolabella actively as an enemy; and I declared with 
 great boldness that he was already carrying on that war with- 
 out waiting for any decree of the senate from us. I also said 
 about you what I thought at that time ought to be said. 
 
 This speech of mine will be sent to you, since I see that you 
 are pleased with my Philippics. 
 
 As to my advice that you ask respecting Caius Antonius, 
 I think that you ought to keep him prisoner till we know the 
 result of the affairs of Brutus.^ From the letters which you 
 have sent me, Dolabella seems to be oppressing Asia, and 
 conducting himself most shamefully in that province; but 
 you have written to several people that '' Dolabella has been 
 shut out by the Ehodians." Now, if he has been to Rhodes, 
 it seems to me that he must have left Asia; and if that 
 be the case, I think that you ought to stay there ; but if 
 he has once got possession of the place, then, believe me, you 
 ought not, but should, as I think, pursue him into Asia. 
 You seem to be likely to do nothing better at the present 
 moment * * * 
 
 LETTEE VL 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting, 
 
 I CONCLUDE that your relations, to none of whom do I yield 
 
 in attachment to you, have informed you what letter was 
 
 read publicly in the senate on the 13th of April in your 
 
 name, and at the same time in that of Antony. But it 
 
 j was not necessary that we should all write about the same 
 
 I things; what was necessary for me to write to you was, what 
 
 i I thought of the entire conduct of this war, and what my 
 
 deliberate opinion and sentiments were. My feeling, my 
 
 dear Brutus, with respect to the republic in general, has 
 
 I always been the same as your own; my plan of action in some 
 
 I points, not indeed in all, may perhaps have been a little more 
 
 i vigorous. You know that my opinion has always been, that 
 
 I the republic should be delivered not only from the tyrant, but 
 
 I also from the tyranny. You adopted more gentle notions. 
 
 1 ^ Decimus Brutus. 
 
 H 
 
i?^ CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 certainly, to your own immortal honom^; but which of the 
 two plans was the better, we have felt with great grief, and 
 still feel, to our great danger. On that recent occasion you 
 referred everything to the object of ensuring peace, which 
 could not be managed by mere speeches ; I directed all my 
 aims to secure liberty, which indeed can have no existence 
 without peace : and peace itself I thought could be best esta- 
 blished by war and arms. 
 
 Zeal was not wanting to those who cried for arms, but we 
 repressed their impetuosity, and checked their ardour. In 
 consequence, our affairs fell into such a state, that if some 
 god had not inspired Caesar Octavianus with the feelings which 
 animated him, we must have fallen into the power of that 
 most abandoned and infamous man, Mark Antony, with whom 
 you see how great and perilous a contest there is ; and there 
 would have been none, if Antony had not been spared on 
 that occasion. 1 
 
 But T forbear to speak of those matters ; for the exploit 
 then performed by you,^ an exploit ever memorable, and almost 
 divine, precludes all blame ; and, indeed, it cannot be extolled 
 with all the praise that it deserves. 
 
 You have lately appeared of a grave countenance. You 
 have collected by yourself, in a short time, an army, and 
 troops, and a sufficient number of legions. ye immortal gods, 
 what an announcement was that, what a letter ! how great 
 was the joy of the senate ! how extreme the alacrity of the 
 whole city ! I never saw anything extolled with such unani- 
 mity. There had been some expectation about the remains 
 of Antony's force, whom you had deprived of his cavalry and 
 of the chief part of his legions ; but it came to such an end 
 as we could have wished ; for your letter, which was read in 
 the senate, shows the wisdom of the general, the valour of the 
 soldiers, the industry of your friends, and among them of my 
 Cicero. Had it seemed advisable to your friends that a 
 motion should be made respecting your letter, and had it not 
 arrived at a most turbulent time, after the departure of Pansa 
 the consul, proper and deserved honours would have been 
 decreed to the immortal gods on the occasion. 
 
 Behold, on the 13th of April, early in the morning, your 
 rapid courier, Pilus, arrives. What a man ! ye gods, how 
 
 ^ When Csesar was murdered. ^ rpj^^ assassination of Caesar. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 99 
 
 grave ! how steady ! how well affected to the republic ! He 
 brings two letters, one in your name, and one in that of 
 Antony. He delivers them to Servilius the tribune of the 
 people, Servilius gives them to Cornutus; they are read in 
 the senate : " Antony the proconsul." There was great asto- 
 nishment, just as if any one had read '^ Dolabella the 
 emperor : " from whom, indeed, couriers had arrived, but no 
 one like Pilus, bold enough to produce the letters, or deliver 
 them to the magistrates. 
 
 Your letter was read; it was short, indeed, but very 
 mild towards Antony. The senate admired it greatly ; to me 
 it was not quite clear what I ought to do. Should I pronounce 
 it forged ? But what if you owned it ? Should I pronounce 
 it genuine ? That was not for your honour.^ The day, there- 
 fore, was suffered to pass in silence. 
 
 But the next day, when conversation on the matter had 
 become general, and when Pilus had given a great deal of 
 apparent offence, a commencement was fairly made on my 
 part. I said a good deal about the '^proconsul Antony." 
 Sextius was not wanting to the cause; and afterwards he 
 spoke to me, observing in how much danger he thought his 
 son and mine would be, if they had taken up arms against a 
 proconsul. You know the man; he did full justice to the 
 argument. Others spoke too ; and our friend Labeo remarked 
 that your seal was not affixed to the letter, or the date added, 
 and that you had not written to your relations, as you used 
 to do. By this he wished to prove that the letter was forged ; 
 ' and, if you wish to know more, did prove it. 
 
 Now, my dear Brutus, you have to decide upon the whole 
 plan of the war. I see that you are pleased with lenity, and 
 think it of the greatest advantage. It is very honourable, but 
 it is in a different situation of affairs, and at other seasons, 
 that there is room for clemency. At present, my dear 
 Brutus, what is the state of affairs ^ The hopes of the needy 
 and profligate point to the destruction of the temples of the 
 immortal gods ; nor, indeed, is anything else to be determined 
 by this war, but whether we are to exist, or not. 
 
 "Who is it that we are sparing, and what are we doing? 
 
 ^ For if Antony had been a legal proconsul, it must have been not 
 oaly dishonourable, but criminal in Brutus, to act against him as an 
 rti^smy.—Middleton. 
 
 u2 
 
100 BRUTUS TO CICERO. 
 
 Are we thinking of the safety of those, by whom, if they should 
 be victorious, not a trace of us will be left 1 For what differ- 
 ence is there between Dolabella and any one of the three 
 Antonies ? If we spare any one of them, we shall have been 
 too harsh with Dolabella. Although the state of affain 
 themselves compelled the senate and people of Rome t( 
 embrace such opinions as these, still it was only brought about 
 in a very great degree by my prudence and authority. 
 
 If you do not approve this course, I will defend the opinion 
 which you may express, but shall not abandon my own. Men 
 expect from you nothing careless on the one hand, or cruel 
 on the other. Moderation in this matter is easy, by being 
 strict to the leaders, but liberal to the common soldiers. 
 
 I wish, my dear Brutus, that you would have my Cicerc 
 with you as much as possible. He will find no better schoo 
 of virtue than the contemplation and imitation of you. 
 
 16th of April. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 Brutus to Cicero, .greeting. 
 
 Such are the feelings of Yetus Antistius towards the com- 
 monwealth, that I do not doubt that he would have proved 
 himself a most strenuous defender of the common liberty in 
 reference to Csesar and Antony, if he could have found an 
 opportunity ; for he who, when he encountered Dolabella in 
 Achaia, furnished with infantry and cavalry, preferred to run 
 any risk from the treachery of a bandit ready for everything, 
 rather than seem either to have been compelled to give, or to 
 have given willingly, any money to that most profligate and 
 infamous person, has of his own accord promised us, and 
 actually given, above sixteen thousand pounds^ out of his 
 own funds ; and, what is much more valuable still, he has 
 offered us himself, and united himself to us. 
 
 I have endeavoured to persuade him to remain as general 
 in the camp, and to aid in the defence of the republic ; but 
 he considered that he ought to depart, since he had disbanded 
 
 ^ HSXX. Paul Manutius admonishes us that we must take this for 
 vicies. centena.miUia nummilm, i.e. 2,000 sestertia, or, as Middleton gives 
 it, 16,144?. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 101 
 
 his army; but he promised to return to us immediately, 
 accepting an appointment as lieutenant, unless the consuls 
 should proceed to hold comitia for the election of prsetors. 
 For I earnestly recommended him, as he was so well affected 
 to the commonwealth, not to postpone offering himself as a 
 candidate. His conduct ought to be acceptable to all, at 
 least such as look upon this as the army of the republic ; and 
 so much the more pleasing to you, as you defend our liberty 
 with greater courage and glory, and as you will gain a greater 
 accession of dignity, if that result for which we hope shall 
 attend our counsels. 
 
 Moreover, my dear Cicero, I beg of you most particularly, 
 and as a friend may, to look favourably on Yetus, and to 
 exert yourself to add to his honours ; since, although nothing 
 can turn him aside from the path which he has chosen, yet 
 he may be excited by your praises and kindness to adhere 
 more vigorously and tenaciously to his resolution ; and this 
 win very much oblige me. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting, 
 
 1 HAVE recommended many persons to you, and I must 
 continue to recommend ; for every virtuous man and good 
 citizen is guided chiefly by your judgment, and all men of 
 courage are eager to exert their efforts and spirit in your 
 service; nor is there any one who does not think that my 
 interest and influence have great weight with you. But I 
 recommend to you Caius Nasennius, a native of the municipal 
 town of Suessa, in such a way that I cannot recommend any 
 one with more sincerity. For in the Cretan war, he com- 
 manded the eighth century of the Principes under Metellus, 
 and, since that time, he has been occupied in his own family 
 affairs. At present, being influenced both by the state of 
 the republic and by your pre-eminent dignity, he would be 
 glad to obtain some post by your means. 
 
 I recommend to you, my dear Brutus, a brave man, a pru- 
 dent man, and, if that be anything to the purpose, a wealthy 
 man. It will give me great pleasure if you treat him in such 
 a manner that he may thank me for your favour to him. 
 
102 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 At the time that I was writing this letter, matters were 
 supposed to have been reduced to the last extremity; for 
 melancholy letters and news arrived about our friend Brutus. 
 They did not indeed very much disturb me, for I could by no 
 means distrust the armies and generals whom we have ; 
 yet I did not agree with the majority, for I had not a bad 
 opinion of the fidelity of the consul-s, which was strongly 
 suspected. I desired in some particulars more prudence and 
 promptness ; and if they had exerted those qualities, we 
 should have already reestablished the republic. 
 
 For you are not ignorant how great is the importance 
 of seasonableness in public affairs, and what a difference it 
 makes, whether the same thing be determined, undertaken, 
 or done, a little sooner or a little later. If everything that 
 was voted with resolution in this tumult, had either been 
 done on the day on which I delivered my opinion, and not 
 postponed from day to day, or if, from the time when things 
 were engaged to be done, they had not been still delayed and 
 procrastinated, we should now have no war at all. 
 
 I, my dear Brutus, have done everything for the republic 
 that a man is bound to do, who has been placed in the rank 
 in which I have been, by the deliberate judgment of the 
 senate and people ; not merely those things, which indeed are 
 all that are to be required of a man, good faith, vigilance, 
 and attachment to my country; for those are duties which 
 every man ought to practise ; but, by him who delivers his 
 opinion on affairs of a state among the chief men of it, I 
 think that prudence ought also to be exhibited; nor, when 
 I have taken so much upon myself as to assume the helm 
 of the state, do I think myself less liable to reproof if I have 
 given any unprofitable advice to the senate, than I should 
 be if I had given any that is treacherous. 
 
 I am aware that a careful account is sent to you of what 
 has been done, and what is going forward. But there is also 
 something on my part of which I wish you to be informed, 
 namely, that my mind is fixed on the war, and that I attend 
 
 II 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 103 
 
 to no other object, unless perchance the advantage of the 
 republic calls me to something else; and the chief part of 
 my thoughts are directed towards Cassius and yourself. Pre- 
 pare yourself, therefore, my dear Brutus, to understand, that 
 if affairs turn out well at this crisis, it is by you that the 
 republic must be improved ; or, if any miscarriage takes place, 
 it is by you that the republic must be restored. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 Our affairs seemed to be in a better position ; for I know 
 for a certainty that an account has been sent to you of 
 what has taken place. The consuls have proved to be just 
 such men as I often described them to you ; but the natural 
 inclination of young Caesar for virtue is marvellous. I trust 
 that when he is in the full possession of honours and influence, 
 we may be able to guide and restrain him with as much ease 
 as we have controlled him hitherto. No doubt that will be 
 a more difficult task, but still we do not despair, for the 
 young man feels altogether persuaded, chiefly by me, that it 
 is through his means that we have been saved ; and, doubt- 
 less, if he had not kept Antony away from the city, all would 
 have been lost. 
 
 But three or four days before this most fortunate event, 
 the whole city, under the influence of some alarm, were 
 running off with their wives and children to you ; but having 
 by the 20th of April recovered their spirits, they were de- 
 sirous rather that you should come hither, than that they 
 should go to you. On that day, indeed, I reaped the greatest 
 reward of all my great labours and long anxiety, if indeed 
 there is any reward in solid and true glory ; for a concourse 
 of as numerous a multitude as our city can contain flocked to 
 my house ; by whom I was conducted as far as the Capitol, 
 and then, with the utmost acclamations and applause, placed 
 in the rostrum. There is no vanity in me, nor ought there 
 to be any; but yet the unanimity, the avowed gratitude, and 
 the congratulations of all ranks of men excite me, because it 
 is glorious for me to be popular from having secured the 
 welfare of the people. But I would rather that you should 
 
104 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 hear of these things from others; and I would wish you 
 to keep me informed, with the utmost care, of all your affairs 
 and plans, and to beware lest your easiness of dealing with 
 people may seem to resemble indifference. The senate feels, 
 and the Roman people feel, that no enemies were ever more 
 worthy of the last extremity of punishment, than those 
 citizens who in this war have taken up arms against their 
 country ; on whom I cry for vengeance, and whom I attack 
 with every vote that I give, while all honest men approve of 
 my conduct. 
 
 How you ought to judge of this matter, is a question for 
 your own prudence. My opinion is, that the cause of the 
 three brothers is one and the same. We have lost two con- 
 suls, honest men, indeed, but honest men merely. Hirtius, 
 it is true, died in the hour of victory, after he had defeated 
 the enemy, a few days before, in a great battle; for Pansa 
 had retired from the field, after receiving some wounds under 
 which he could not support himself. Brutus ^ is pursuing 
 the remains of the enemy, and so is Csesar. All those who 
 have adhered to the party of Mark Antony have been de- 
 clared public enemies; and accordingly most men interpret 
 that decree of the senate as affecting those whom you have 
 in your hands, whether captured, or having surrendered. I 
 myself, indeed, advanced nothing more severe when I was 
 giving judgment on Caius Antonius by name, as I had settled 
 my opinion, that the senate ought to learn his case from vou. 
 
 22d of April. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 On the 22d of April, when opinions were given in the 
 senate about the propriety of pursuing with war those who 
 had been declared enemies, Servilius included Yentidius in 
 the number, and added, that Cassius ought to pursue Dola- 
 bella. Having expressed my agreement with him, I proposed 
 further, that you also, if you thought it desirable, and for the 
 advantage of the state, should pursue Dolabella with your 
 
 I Decimus Brutus. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 105 
 
 army ; but that, if you could not do so with any benefit to 
 the state, or if you did not conceive that it would be for 
 the public advantage, you should keep your army where it 
 is. The senate could do nothing more honourable, than to 
 leave it wholly to you to decide upon what appeared to you 
 most beneficial for the commonwealth. 
 
 My own opinion, indeed, is, that if Dolabella has any force, 
 if he has a camp, or any ground on which to make a stand, 
 it will be becoming your character and your dignity to pur- 
 sue him. 
 
 Of the forces of our friend Cassius we knew nothing, for 
 no letters have come from him, nor was any news brought 
 upon which we could rely as certain. But of how much 
 importance it is that Dolabella should be crushed, you are 
 certainly aware, not only that he may receive the punishment 
 due to his atrocities, but that there may be no place to 
 which the leaders of the rebels may betake themselves in 
 their flight from Mutina. And that this was my opinion 
 even before, you may call to mind from my former letters; 
 although at that time there was a haven of refuge in your 
 camp, and a resource for safety in your army; for which 
 reason, now that we are delivered from our dangers, as I 
 trust that we are, we ought the more to devote ourselves to 
 the destruction of Dolabella. However, you will give a still 
 more diligent consideration to these matters, and come to a 
 wise determination respecting them. You will give us in- 
 formation, if you please, how you decide, and what you are 
 doing. 
 
 I am very anxious to have my Cicero elected into your 
 college,! and I certainly think that, in the comitia for the 
 election of priests, a regard for the wishes of the absent mem- 
 bers may be had; for such a thing has been done before ; 
 since Cains Marius, when he was in Cappadocia, was made 
 augur by the Domitian law: nor has any law prohibited such 
 a thing from being done in future. 
 
 Moreover, in the Julian law, which is the most recent law 
 jn the subject of appointments to the priesthood, there is a 
 clause in these words, " Who is present as a candidate, or to 
 »vhom regard shall be had," which clearly shows that regard 
 
 ^ That is, of the Pontifices, or minor priests, in which there were 
 several vacancies at this time. — See Letter XIY. MiddUton. 
 
106 BRUTUS TO CICERO. 
 
 may be had to a person, even though he is not present. On 
 this subject I have written to him to follow your advice, as in 
 everything else. You must also determine what is to be done 
 with respect to Domitius and to our friend Cato. But, though 
 it may be lawful for regard to be had to a person in his 
 absence, yet everything is easier to those who are on the spot. 
 If you decide, however, that you must go into Asia, there will 
 be no possibility of bringing our friends hither for the 
 comitia. 
 
 We certainly expected that if Pansa had been alive, every- 
 thing would have been sooner settled ; for he would at once have 
 chosen himself a colleague, [in the room of Hirtius,] and then 
 the comitia for the election of priests would have taken place 
 before those for the election of praetors ; but now I foresee a 
 great deal of delay by means of the auspices; for, while there 
 shall be one patrician magistrate, the auspices cannot lapse 
 into the hands of the senators. Certainly affairs are in a state 
 of great confusion. I should wish you to put me in posses- 
 sion of your sentiments on the whole matter. — The 5th of 
 May. Farewell. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 Brutus to Cicero y greeting. 
 
 It is easier for you to imagine, than for me to express, how 
 much delight I felt on learning the exploits of our Brutus 
 and the consuls. I am pleased with other things, and am glad 
 that they happened; but I am especially delighted that the 
 sally made by Brutus was not only advantageous to him- 
 self, but of the greatest service to the attainment of the 
 victory. As to what you say, in your letter, that the cause 
 of the three Antonies is one and the same, and that it is for 
 me to determine what opinions I should entertain, I have 
 no opinion but this, that the right of decision concerning 
 those citizens who were not killed in the battle against us, 
 belongs to the senate or people of Rome. 
 
 But, you will reply, you are wrong in this, that you call 
 men of a hostile disposition to the republic, citizens. Nay, 
 I am strictly right ; for what the senate has not yet decreed, 
 or the Roman people ordered, I do not arrogantly pre- 
 
BRUTUS TO CICERO. 107 
 
 judge, or bring under my own decision. Nor do I change 
 my feelings with regard to this particular in my conduct, 
 that from him whom circumstances did not compel me to 
 put to death/ I neither took anything away with cruelty, 
 nor did I treat him with at all too much indulgence, but kept 
 him in my power as long as the war lasted. I look upon it 
 as by far more honoui-able, and what the republic may 
 better allow, to abstain from persecuting the miserable in 
 their misfortunes, rather than to heap boundless powers on 
 those already powerful, which may but excite their cupidity 
 and arrogance. 
 
 In this respect, my dear Cicero, best and bravest of men, 
 deservedly most dear to me for my own sake, and for that of 
 the republic, you seem to trust too much to your hopes, and to 
 be too willing, as soon as any one has done anything properly, 
 to give and entrust everything to him, as if it were not easy 
 for a mind corrupted by bribery to be led away to evil counsels. 
 Such is your good temper, that you will bear an admonition 
 with equanimity, especially in regard to the safety of the 
 commonwealth. Still, you will do what you yourself think 
 best, and I will do the same when you have given me your 
 opinion. 
 
 At present, my dear Cicero, we must take care not to exult 
 idly at the overthrow of Antony, and not to allow our method 
 of eradicating the first evil to cause the production of a 
 second and worse calamity ; for no misfortune can now befal 
 us, either through inadvertence, or passive permission, in 
 which there would not be something to blame in all, and 
 especially in you, whose authority the senate and people of 
 Rome not only allow, but desire to be, as great as that of one 
 man can possibly be in a free state ; — authority which you 
 are bound to uphold by cherishing sentiments, not only of 
 honour, but of prudence. Nor is any exercise of prudence, 
 of which you have abundance, necessary to be demanded 
 from you, except moderation in dispensing honours. All 
 other eminent qualities are found in you in such a degree 
 that they may be compared to those of any of the ancients ; 
 but this one propensity of yours, proceeding, as it does, from 
 grateful and liberal feelings, requires to be checked by a more 
 
 ^ He refers again to Caius Antony, who was in his power, and seems 
 to think the war terminated by the battle of Mutina. 
 
108 BRUTUS TO CICERO. 
 
 cautious and moderate exercise of generosity; for the senate 
 ought to give nothing to any one, which may be either a pre- 
 cedent or a protection to disaffected persons. I am very 
 apprehensive, therefore, about the consulship, lest your friend 
 Caesar should think that he has already mounted higher 
 through your decrees than he will rise from his present 
 eminence, if he become consul. But if Antony found in 
 the instruments of regal power left him by another an oppor- 
 tunity of assuming regal power himself, of what disposition 
 do you think any one likely to be, who by the authority, not 
 of a slain tyrant, but of the senate itself, imagines that he has 
 a right to covet all imaginable power ? 
 
 I shall then, accordingly, praise your good fortune and your 
 prudence, when I begin to see clearly that Csesar will be 
 contented with the extraordinary honours which he has al- 
 ready received. Are you then, you will say, going to make 
 me liable for the misconduct of another? For another's mis- 
 conduct assuredly, if measures might have been taken to 
 prevent its occurrence. I only wish that you could clearly 
 see my fears respecting him. 
 
 After I had written this letter, I heard that you were made 
 consul. If I really see that come to pass, I shall then indeed 
 begin to imagine to myself a true republic, relying on its own 
 strength. Your son is well, and has been sent forward into 
 Macedonia with the cavalry. 
 
 The 15th of May. From the camp. 
 
 LETTER XIIL 
 
 Brutus to Cicero, greeting. 
 
 No one can know better than yourself, whose exertions and 
 anxieties for the commonwealth have been so great, how dear 
 Lucius Bibulus ought to be to me. And, therefore, either 
 his own virtue, or our friendship, ought sufficiently to recom- 
 mend him to you ; so that I think I need not write at any 
 length to you. For my wishes ought to have influence with 
 you, provided they are reasonable, or provided they are ex- 
 pressed in compliance with a necessary duty. He has resolved 
 to be a candidate foi Pansa's place; and we both solicit 
 
BRUTUS TO CICERO. 109 
 
 a nomination for it from you ; for you cannot confer this 
 favour on one more closely connected with you than I am, or 
 nominate any one more deserving than Bibulus. 
 
 Why need I say anything about Domitius and Apuleius, 
 when they are thoroughly recommended to you by their owd 
 good qualities? Still you ought to support Apuleius by your 
 influence ; but the character of Domitius will be made 
 apparent from his own letter. Do not exclude Bibulus from 
 your confidence, a man of such merit already, that, believe 
 me, he is likely to become one that may deserve the praises 
 of the few resembling yourself. 
 
 LETTEE XIY. 
 Brutus to Cicero^ greeting. 
 
 Do not wait for me to offer you any formal expression of 
 thanks ; for such formality ought long ago to have been 
 banished from our friendship, which has arrived at the utmost 
 degree of affection. 
 
 Your son is not with me at present ; but we are to meet in 
 Macedonia; for he has been ordered to bring the cavalry 
 from Ambracia through Thessaly, and I have written to him 
 to meet me at Heraclea. When I see him, since you give me 
 leave to do so, we will settle the matter together about his 
 returning to offer himself a candidate, or to recommend him- 
 self for that honour. I most earnestly recommend to you 
 Glycon, Pansa's physician, who is married to the sister of our 
 fiiend Achilles ; for we hear that he has fallen under sus- 
 picion with Torquatus of having been accessory to the death 
 of Pansa, and is kept in prison as a murderer; but nothing 
 is less worthy of belief; for who has suffered more misfortune 
 by the death of Pansa ? Moreover, he is a modest and pru- 
 dent man; one whom no personal advantage seems likely 
 to have prompted to crime. I entreat you, and, indeed, 
 earnestly entreat you, (for our friend suffers no less anxiety 
 than is natural,) to deliver him from custody and to save 
 him. I think that this concerns my duty in regard to my 
 private affairs as much as any other thing whatever. 
 
 While I was writing this letter to you, a letter was 
 
110 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 delivered to me by Satrius, the lieutenant of Caius Trebonius, 
 from Tullius and Deiotarus, with the news that Dolabella had 
 been defeated and put to flight. 
 
 I have sent you a Greek letter from a man named Cyche- 
 reus, which was written to Satrius. 
 
 My friend Flavins has chosen you as arbitrator in a dis- 
 pute which he has with the people of Dyrrhachium about an 
 estate ; and both I and Flavins^ my dear Cicero, entreat you 
 to bring the affair to a settlement. There is no doubt what- 
 ever, that the city was indebted to the man who has made 
 Flavins his heir ; nor do the Dyrrhachians themselves deny 
 this ; but they declare that the debt was remitted by Csesar. 
 Do not allow an injury to be done by your friends to my 
 friend. 
 
 The 16th of May. The camp in the lower part of Candavia.^ 
 
 LETTER XY. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 After my letter had been written and sealed up, a letter 
 was brought to me from you full of news : and, what was the 
 strangest of all things, saying, that Dolabella had sent five 
 cohorts into the Chersonese. Has he such an abundance of 
 men with him, that he, who was said to be fleeing from Asia, 
 can attempt to attack Europe? And did he think that he 
 would be able to do anything with five cohorts, when you 
 have in that country five legions, an excellent body of cavalry, 
 and a very numerous force of allies? I hope indeed that 
 those cohorts are already yours, since that robber has been 
 so insane. 
 
 I greatly approve of your wisdom, in not having moved 
 your army from ApoUonia and Dyrrhachium until you heard 
 of the flight of Antony, the sally of Brutus, and the victory 
 of the Roman people. As to what you write, therefore, that 
 you have since determined to lead your army into the 
 Chersonese, and not to permit the empire of the Roman 
 people to be a sport to a most profligate enemy, you act as 
 becomes your own dignity, and for the advantage of the 
 republic. 
 
 ^ A mountainous district between Macedonia and Illyricum. 
 
BRUTUS TO ATTICUS. Ill 
 
 With respect to your intelligence of the sedition which has 
 taken place in the fourth legion about Caius Antony, (you 
 will take what I say in good part,) the severity of the soldiers 
 pleases me better than your own. 
 
 I am very glad indeed that you have experienced the good- 
 will of the army and of the cavalry. 
 
 If you have any news about Doiabella, you will send me 
 word of it, as you promise; with respect to whom, I am 
 very much pleased that I had provided beforehand that your 
 judgment should be unfettered as to carrying on war against 
 him j it was of very great importance to the republic, as I 
 perceived at the time; and, as I now think, to your own 
 dignity. 
 
 As to what you write, that *• I have managed so as to be 
 able to pursue the Antonies at perfect leisure," and praise me 
 for having done so, I dare say that such appears to you to be 
 the case; but I myself am far from approving of the dis- 
 tinction which you draw ; for you write, that '- civil wars are 
 to be prevented with more resolution, than revenge is to be 
 inflicted on the vanquished." On this point, my dear Brutus, 
 I most completely disagree with you ; not that I yield to 
 you in clemency; but a salutary severity is far superior to an 
 empty show of mercy. If we are determined to be merciful, 
 we shall never be without civil wars. However, this you 
 must settle. As to myself, I may say what the Father in 
 Plautus's Trinummus savs. 
 
 But for my part, my life is almost ended ; 
 You are the most concern' d. 
 
 Take my word for it, my dear Brutus, you will be crushed, 
 if you do not take care : for you will not always have the 
 people in the same disposition as at present; nor the senate; 
 nor the leader of the senate. You may receive this as de- 
 clared to you by the oracle of the Pythian Apollo; nothing 
 can be more true. 18th of May. 
 
 LETTER XYI. 
 
 Brutus to Atticus, greeting. 
 
 You write me word, that Cicero is surprised that I never 
 give any opmion of his actions. Since you press the question. 
 
112 BRUTUS TO ATTICUSo 
 
 I will, under compulsion from you, tell you what I think. I 
 know that Cicero has done everything with the best inten- 
 tions: for what is better known to me than his disposition 
 towards the republic? Yet he seems to me, though of all 
 men the most prudent, to have done some things (what shall 
 I say*?) imprudently, or with a view to popularity, since in 
 the cause of the republic he has not hesitated to make the 
 most powerful Antony his enemy. I know not what to say 
 to you, except this one thing, that the cupidity and boldness 
 of the boy Caesar have been rather excited than repressed by 
 Cicero ; and that he gives way so much to his indulgence for 
 him, as not to restrain himself from attacks upon others, 
 attacks which recoil upon himself with double force; since 
 he himself has put more persons than one to death,^ and 
 since he must confess himself to be an assassin before he 
 makes the objections to Casca's^ act which he does make, and, 
 in his conduct to Casca, imitates Bestia.^ 
 
 Because we are not every moment boasting of the ides of 
 March, as he is always talking of the nones^ of December, 
 will Cicero, for that reason, condemn that most laudable act 
 on a better pretext than that on which Bestia and Clodius 
 have been accustomed to inveigh against his consulship ? 
 Our good friend Cicero boasts to me, that he has supported 
 the whole war against Antony in the garb of peace. Of 
 what profit is that to me, if a succession to the position occu- 
 pied by Antony is demanded as the wages for having put 
 Antony down, and if he, who has repressed that evil, has 
 become the author of another, which will have a more solid 
 foundation, and a deeper root, if we will but allow it 1 for the 
 line of conduct which he has' taken is that of one who is 
 
 ^ In Catiline's plot, for wMch he put five of the principal conspira- 
 tors to death. — Middleton. 
 
 2 The passage seems to imply that Cicero had reproached him for 
 killing Caesar, and called him an assassin. — Middleton. 
 
 ^ L. Calpurnius Bestia was a tribune of the people, at the expiration 
 of Cicero's consulship ; supposed to have been deeply engaged in 
 Catiline's conspiracy ; and, when Cicero laid down his office, joined 
 with his colleague Metellus in prohibiting him from speaking to the 
 people ; and was ever after a perpetual enemy and reviler of his admi- 
 nistration. — Vid. Sallust, c. 43 ; Plutar. in Cic. — Middleton. 
 
 ^ It was on the nones of December that Cicero crushed the con- 
 spiracy of Catiline. The whole tone of this letter proves it to be a 
 forgery, and a very clumsy one. 
 
BRUTUS TO ATTICUS. 113 
 
 afraid, not of tyranny itself, but of Antony being the 
 tyrant. 
 
 But I do not thank the man who, provided that he is not 
 slave to an angry master, does not object to slavery itself; 
 but to whom even triumphs and rewards are decreed, and 
 who is honoured with every sort of complimentary vote. 
 A man ought to be ashamed to desire that fortune of which 
 he has now taken on him the name ! Is this the conduct of 
 a man of consular rank ] Does this become Cicero 1 Since 
 you would not let me be silent, you will read what must of 
 necessity be unpleasant to you. Indeed, I feel myself with 
 how much uneasiness I write this to youj nor am I ignorant 
 what your sentiments are with regard to the present state of 
 affairs, which, though desperate, you think may still be 
 retrieved. And in truth, my dear Atticus, I do not blame 
 you; for your age, your habits, and your family, render you 
 inactive, as, indeed, I have learned from the report of our 
 friend Flavins. 
 
 But I return to Cicero. What difference is there between 
 Salvidienus and him 1 or what more would Salvidienus pro- 
 pose to be voted to Octavius than he does ? You will reply, 
 he is still afraid of the remains of civil war. Is there then 
 any one so afraid of a defeated enemy, as not to think that 
 there is also reason to fear the power of one who has a vic- 
 torious army, and the rashness of a boy 1 Or does he act 
 thus, because he thinks that everything ought to be sur- 
 rendered to Octavius, at once and voluntarily, because of his 
 great dignity 1 the great folly of fear, so to guard against 
 that very object which we fear, that, when we perhaps might 
 have avoided it, we of our own accord invite it and draw it 
 upon ourselves ! We are too much afraid of death and exile 
 and poverty : these things appear to Cicero to be the very 
 extreme of evils ; and as long as he finds people from whom 
 he can obtain what he wishes, and by whom he may be 
 honoured and praised, he does not despise slavery, provided 
 it be honourable ; if indeed anything can be honourable in 
 the worst and most wretched of all contumely. 
 
 Though Octavius, therefore, call Cicero his father; though 
 he refer everything to him, and extol him, and thank him ; 
 yet it will be seen at last that his words are at variance with 
 his acts : for what can be so inconsistent with everv feelinoj of 
 
114 BRUTUS TO ATTICU8. 
 
 a human being, as to look upon that man as a parent, who 
 is not even in the condition of a free man 1 Yet that excel- 
 lent man directs his efforts only to this end, makes this his 
 aim, hastens to attain this object, that Octavius may be 
 favourable to him. I indeed now think nothing of those 
 accomplishments, with which I know that Cicero is so com- 
 pletely furnished; for of what profit to him are the writings 
 which he has composed in such vast abundance, in defence of 
 the liberty of our country, concerning dignity, concerning 
 death, and exile, and poverty 1 and how much more justly 
 does Philippus ^ appear to understand things, who has given 
 less to a stepson than Cicero gives to a stranger 1 Let him 
 cease, therefore, in his boasting, to insult our sorrows ; for what 
 advantage is it to us that Antony has been defeated, if he is 
 defeated only that what he held may be open to another ? 
 Although your letter intimates that things are doubtful. 
 
 Let Cicero then live, as he can endure to do so, a suppliant, 
 and submissive to another; if he has no regard either to 
 his age, his honours, or his past achievements. As for me, 
 there will assuredly be no condition of slavery so attractive, 
 as that I should be diverted by it from waging war with the 
 thing itself, that is to say, with kingly authority, with extra- 
 ordinary commands, with absolute dominion, and with power 
 that seeks to set itself above the laws, even though Antony 
 be a good man, as you describe him, but as I never thought 
 him to be. But our ancestors would have no master over 
 them, even if he had been their father. 
 
 ^ If I did not love you really as much as Cicero is persuaded 
 that he is loved by Octavius, I should not have written this 
 to you. I am sorry that you must be vexed at what I have . 
 now written, since you are greatly attached to all your friends, 
 and especially to Cicero ; but assure yourself that nothing is 
 abated of my good-will towards him, though much of my 
 favourable opinion of him ; for it can never be, but that as 
 anything appears to a man, so he will form his opinion of it. 
 I wish you had sent me word, what are the conditions offered 
 to my dear Attica ;2 I might have been able to tell you some- 
 
 ^ Philippus had married Atia, the mother of Octavius ; but the letter 
 is mistaken, for Philippus had gone far beyond Cicero in the honours 
 which he wished to procure for Octavius. 
 
 ^ The daughter of Atticus. Paul Manutius supposes that the allu- 
 sion intended is to a proposal of marriage. 
 
CICEKO TO BRUTUS. 115 
 
 thing of my own feelings on the subject. I do not wonder 
 that the health of my dear Portia is an object of concern to 
 you. 
 
 To conclude, I will cheerfully do what you ask me ; for my 
 sisters also make the same request; and I know the man, 
 and what it is that he wants. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting, 
 
 I • SHOULD perform the same office for you, which you per- 
 formed for me in my sorrow/ and should endeavour to comfort 
 you by letter, if I did not know that you do not require in 
 your distress the remedies with which you alleviated my 
 grief; and I wish that you may now cure yourself with 
 greater ease than I, on that occasion, cured myself. For it 
 is inconsistent with the character of so gTeat a man as you 
 are, not to be able to do himself, what he has recommended 
 to another. As for myself, not only the arguments which you 
 had collected, but your authority, deterred me from indulging 
 in too much sorrow : for, when I appeared to you to bear my 
 distress with less fortitude than became a man, especially one 
 who was in the habit of addressing consolation to others, you 
 reproached me in your letters in harsher language than was 
 your habit. Having, therefore, a high opinion of your 
 wisdom, and being in awe of it, I recollected myself, and 
 attached the more weight to the things which I had formerly 
 learned and read and heard, after your authority was added 
 to them. 
 
 And at that time, my dear Brutus, I had to obey only 
 duty, and my natural disposition ; you have to regard the 
 people, and the public stage (as we say) on which you are ; 
 for since the eyes, not only of your own army, but of all your 
 fellow-citizens, and almost of all nations, are turned upon you, 
 it least of all becomes him by whose means we are rendered 
 bolder, to appear himself weakened • in spirit. You have 
 indeed met with affliction, (for you have lost that to which 
 there was nothing similar on earth,) and you must grieve at 
 ^ For his daughter TuUia. 
 i2 
 
118 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 SO severe a misfortune, lest to want all sense of grief should 
 be found more wretched than to grieve; but as it is bene- 
 ficial to others to mourn with moderation, it is for you 
 necessary. 
 
 I would say more, if even what I have said was not too 
 much to say to you. 
 
 We are looking for you and your army, without which, 
 (though everything else may succeed to our wish,) we 
 scarcely seem likely to have sufficient freedom. Of the 
 general aspect of the affairs of the commonwealth, I will 
 write more at length; and, perhaps, with more certainty, 
 in a letter which I was thinking of entrusting to our friend 
 Yetus. 
 
 LETTER XVIIT. 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 Although I was just going to give a letter to Messala 
 Corvinus, still I did not like my friend Yetus to go to you 
 without a letter from me. The republic, my dear Brutus, is 
 in a situation of the greatest danger; and though victorious, 
 we are forced to fight again; this has happened through the 
 wickedness and folly of Marcus Lepidus. 
 
 For the republic, there was nothing at which I felt greater 
 concern, than that I was unable to yield to the entreaties of 
 your mother and sister; for I thought that I should easily 
 satisfy you, which is an object of the highest importance 
 with me. 
 
 For in no way could the cause of Lepidus be distinguished 
 from that of Antony; indeed, in everybody's judgment it was 
 the worse of the two, because after Lepidus had been com- 
 plimented by the senate with the highest honours, and after 
 he had only a few days before sent an admirable letter to 
 the senate, he suddenly not only received the relics of our 
 defeated enemies as his friends, but is even carrying on a most 
 vigorous war against us by land and sea, of which it is uncer- 
 tain what will be the result. When we are asked, therefore, 
 to show pity to his children, no argument is advanced why 
 the greatest severities are not to be endured by us, (may 
 
BRUTUS TO CICERO. 117 
 
 Jupiter avert the omen !) if the father of those children should 
 be victorious. 
 
 Not indeed that it escapes my recollection, how bitter 
 a thing it is that the crimes of fathers should be atoned for 
 by the punishment of their children ; but this has been 
 admirably provided by the laws, that their affection for their 
 children may make the parents more truly attached to the 
 repubhc. It is Lepidus, therefore, who is cruel to his chil- 
 dren, not he who pronounces Lepidus a public enemy; and 
 if he, after laying down his arms, had been condemned for 
 violence to the state, in a trial for which he would have 
 had nothing to say in his defence, his children would suffer 
 the same punishment, — their property being confiscated; 
 although what your mother a-nd sister deprecate for those 
 children, the same and many more cruel evils Lepidus, 
 Antony, and the rest of our enemies, are denouncing against 
 us all. 
 
 At this time, therefore, our greatest hope is placed in you, 
 and in your army. It is of the very greatest consequence, 
 both to the general state of the commonwealth, and also to 
 your own glory and dignity, that you, as I have written before, 
 should come into Italy with all possible speed; for the 
 republic is in the greatest need, both of your forces, and of 
 your wisdom. 
 
 Because of your letter, I gladly embraced Yet us, out of 
 regard to his good- will and singular service to you; and I 
 see that he really is most thoroughly attached and devoted 
 both to you and to the republic. I shall see my Cicero, as I 
 hope, shortly, for I trust that he will very soon come into 
 Italy with you. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 Brutus to Cicero, greeting. 
 
 The fear that every one else entertains of Marcus Lepidus, 
 makes me also fear. If he should withdraw himself from us, 
 (a suspicion which I hope that men have entertained of him 
 groundlessly and wrongfully,) I beg and entreat you, my 
 dear Cicero, invoking our intimate friendship and your good- 
 will to me, to forget that the children of my sister are sons 
 
118 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 of Lepidus, and to think that I have succeeded to the place 
 of father to them; if I obtain this of you, then there is 
 nothing, assuredly, which you will hesitate to undertake in 
 their behalf. 
 
 Other people live with their relations on different terms; 
 I can do nothing for the children of my sister sufficient to 
 satisfy either my inclination or my feelings of duty. But 
 what is there that good citizens can grant me, (if I am worthy 
 of having anything granted me,) or what is there that I can 
 do for my mother or sister, or for these children, if their 
 uncle Brutus has no weight with you, and the rest of the 
 senate, to counterbalance the conduct of their father Lepidus ? 
 I am not able to write you a long letter, for my anxiety 
 and sorrow; nor, indeed, have I any reason: for if in a 
 matter of such importance, and one that touches ' me so 
 closely, there is need of words to arouse or to encourage 
 you, there is no hope that you will do what I wish, and 
 what you ought. 
 
 Do not, therefore, expect a long entreaty from me. Look 
 upon me ; consider who I am ; a man that has a right to 
 obtain this favour either from Cicero, as one closely attached 
 to me as a private individual, or from a man of consular 
 rank, and of such a character, without reference to private 
 friendship. What you resolve to do, I should wish you as 
 soon as possible to let me know in reply. 
 
 The 1st of July. — At the camp. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 As yet I have received no letter from you ; nor even any 
 report to tell me that you, having received the authority of 
 the senate for such a step, were proceeding with your army 
 to Italy ; though the republic was very desirous for you to do 
 that, and to do it with all speed. For our intestine evil 
 grows worse and worse every day; nor do we suffer more 
 from our foreign enemies than from our domestic foes, who 
 existed, indeed, at the very beginning of the war, but who at 
 that time were more easily put down. The senate then 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 119 
 
 assumed a more erect attitude, being roused not only by my 
 known opinions, but also by my exhortations. 
 
 In the senate, Pansa was energetic and fierce enough, both 
 against the rest of this faction, and especially against his 
 father-in-law, who, as consul, wanted neither courage at the 
 beginning of his office, nor fidelity at the end. The war was 
 carried on at Mutina in such a way that there was no fault to 
 be found with Caesar. There may have been something to 
 blame in Hirtius ; and the general fortune of the war, if 
 compared with prosperous ones, has been wavering ; if with 
 disastroias ones, good. The republic was victorious, the troops 
 of Antony having been routed, and he himself expelled by 
 1 Brutus. But so many errors were afterwards committed, 
 that, as one may say, victory sHpped through our fingers; 
 our generals did not pursue the enemy, though disheartened, 
 disarmed, disabled ; and an opportunity was given to Lepidus, 
 through which we might feel his inconstancy, often felt 
 indeed before in still greater disasters. The armies of Brutus 
 and Plancus are good, but untrained. The auxiliary forces 
 from the Gauls are very faithful and very numerous. But 
 some persons, by most scandalous letters, and by treacherous 
 accounts and information, have excited Caesar, who has 
 hitherto been governed by my counsels, and who is himself 
 of a most excellent disposition and admirable steadiness, to 
 conceive a confident hope of obtaining the consulship. And 
 as soon as I perceived that such was the case, I never ceased 
 to warn him, as he was absent, by letter, nor to reproach his 
 friends, who were here on the spot, and who appeared to be 
 encouraging that desire of his : nor did I, in the senate, 
 hesitate to lay open the true source of those most flagitious 
 counsels ; nor do I remember the senate or the magistrates to 
 have been on any occasion better disposed. For it has never 
 happened before, when there has been a question about con- 
 ferring some honour out of the usual course of things on 
 a powerful man — I may even say, on the most powerful man 
 in the state (since power now depends on force and arms) — 
 that no tribune of the people, no one invested with any other 
 magistracy, no private individual, ever could be found to 
 propose it. 
 
 But still, with all this exhibition of resolution and virtue, 
 the city was nevertheless in an anxious state ; for we are 
 
120 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 mocked, my dear Brutus, both by the licentiousness of the 
 soldiers and the insolence of the generals. Every one de- 
 mands to have as much authority in the republic as he has 
 force at command. Neither reason, nor moderation, nor 
 law, nor precedent, nor duty, nor even the deliberate judg- 
 ment and opinion of the citizens, nor regard for the estima- 
 tion of posterity, has any weight at all. 
 
 I, foreseeing all this a long time ago, was fleeing from Italy, 
 at the very time when the news of your edicts caused me to 
 return. But you, Brutus, roused me again at Yelia ; for 
 although I grieved that I was going to a city from which you, 
 who had delivered it, were taking flight, (which indeed had 
 formerly happened to me also, under a similar danger and 
 sadder fortune,-^) still I proceeded, and came to Eome, and 
 without any support made Antony quake ; and, in opposi- 
 tion to his impious arms, I by my authority and counsels 
 secured for us the protection of Csesar, which was volun- 
 tarily offered; and if he remains in the same disposition 
 and continues to be guided by me, we seem likely to have 
 quite sufficient defence. But if the counsels of bad men 
 have more weight than mine, or if the tenderness of his age 
 -proYQ unable to support the heavy burden of affairs, all our 
 hope is in you. Fly to us, therefore, I beseech you ; and, in 
 the result, complete the deliverance of that republic which 
 you have already delivered, more through your own virtue and 
 magnanimity than through any train of circumstances. A 
 general concourse of all classes will gather round you. Exhort 
 Cassius to the same course by letter. There is no hope of 
 liberty anywhere except in the head-quarters of your united 
 armies. In the west, we find both generals and armies 
 entirely true to us. And, for my part, I feel confident that 
 the support of the young Octavius may be relied on ; but so 
 many persons are trying to shake his fidelity, that I some- 
 times am afraid that he may be influenced by them. 
 
 You now know the general aspect of the affairs of the com- 
 monwealth, as they stood at the time when I wrote this letter. 
 I trust that, in process of time, they may grow better ; but if 
 
 ^ He alludes to tlie case of his exile, when lie was .not only driven 
 out of the city by his enemies, as Brutus now was, but was banished 
 by a particular law, which had not yet happened to Brutus, though it 
 did in a short time Sifter.— Middleion. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 121 
 
 the contrary should be the case, (which presage may the gods 
 avert !) I shall grieve for the fate of the republic which de- 
 served to be immortal : but for myself how short a space of 
 life is left ! 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 Your letter was short. Short, do I say? It was no letter 
 at all. Does Brutus, at such a crisis as this, write me those 
 lines only. You had better have written nothing at all ; and 
 yet you expect letters from me. Which of your friends has 
 ever come to you without a letter from me *? And which of 
 my letters had not something of consequence in it ? If, indeed, 
 they have failed to reach you. I suppose that not even your 
 own family letters have arrived either. 
 
 You write me word, however, that you will send me a 
 longer letter by my son Cicero. You will indeed do well; 
 but still this one ought to have been longer. But I, as soon 
 as you wrote to me about Cicero's departure from you,^ im- 
 mediately packed off a courier with letters for him, bidding 
 him, even if he had reached Italy, to return to you; for 
 nothing could be more agreeable to me, or more honourable 
 to him, although I had several times written to him that the 
 comitia for the election of priests had, by my extreme exer- 
 tions, been postponed to another year; a delay which I exerted 
 myself to procure, not only for the sake of Cicero himself, but 
 for that of Domitius, Cato, Lentulus, and the Bibuli, as I also 
 wrote to you. 
 
 However, when yoa sent off to me that dwarfish letter of 
 yours, this was not yet known to you. 
 
 I do therefore, my dear Brutus, beg of you with all earnest- 
 ness, not to let my son depart from you, but to bring him 
 with you when you come ; and this, if you have any just 
 regard for the republic, for the benefit of which you were 
 born, you ought to do instantly. For the war has revived, 
 and that through the no small wickedness of Lepidus. And 
 
 ^ This alludes, as Middleton observes, to Letter XIII., in which it 
 was said that young Cicero was to come to Rome, to be a candidate for 
 one of the vacant priesthoods. 
 
122 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 Caesar's army, which was most excellent, is not only of no use 
 to us, but even compels us to demand the presence of yours. 
 If that once reaches Italy, then there will be no citizen, at 
 least no one who deserves to be called a citizen, who will not 
 betake himself to your camp, although we have Decimus 
 Brutus admirably united with Plancus. But "you are not 
 ignorant how little to be trusted the dispositions of men are 
 when infected with party spirit, and how uncertain, too, are 
 the events of battles. 
 
 Moreover, if we conquer, as I hope we shall, still affairs will 
 require the powerful direction of your wisdom and influence 
 to guide them. Come therefore to our assistance, I implore 
 you, and come as soon as possible ; and be assured that you 
 did not do a greater service to your country on the ides of 
 March, on which you repelled slavery from your fellow-citizens, 
 than you will do now if you come speedily. July the 13th. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 You have Messala with you : how then shall I be able, by 
 any letter which I may write with ever so much care, to ex- 
 plain to you more clearly than he can what is going on in 
 the republic, and what is the state of affairs in it, since he is 
 thoroughly acquainted with everything, and is able also tc 
 set it before you, and represent it to you in the neatest pos- 
 sible manner? For do not fancy, my dear Brutus (although 
 it is not necessary for me to write to you what is already well 
 known to you, yet I cannot pass over in silence such excel- 
 lence in all qualities which deserves praise) ; do not fancy, 
 I sa;y , that there is any man like him for honesty, consistency, 
 anxiety, and zeal for the commonwealth; so that eloquence, 
 in which he wonderfully excels, seems scarcely to find in his 
 character any room as a subject of praise, although in this 
 very particular his wisdom is the more conspicuous; with 
 such dignified judgment and exceeding skill has he practised 
 himself in the soundest kind of oratory. So great, too, is 
 his modesty, so incessant his application to study, that it is 
 not to his genius (eminent as it is) that his greatest obligations 
 appear to be due. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 123 
 
 But I am letting myself be carried away too far by my 
 regard for him; for it was not my sole object in this letter 
 to extol j^Iessala. especially to Brutus, to whom his merit is 
 not less known than to myself, and to whom are still better 
 known those studies of his which I am now praising. And 
 though I was grieved at taking leave of him, I was comforted 
 by this one consideration, that as he was going to you, whom 
 I look upon as another self, he was both performing his duty 
 and pursuing a path to the greatest glory. 
 
 But enough of this. I come now, after a long interval 
 certainly, to a certain letter of yours, in which, while praising 
 me on many accounts, you found fault with me in one point 
 as being too liberal, and as it were prodigal, in giving my 
 voice for awarding honours.^ It is for this that you blame 
 me ; others, perhaps, charge me with being too severe as to 
 punishment and penalties; unless, perhaps, you bring both 
 accusations against me. If such be the case, I desire that my 
 opinion on both these subjects should be thoroughly under- 
 stood by you; not merely that I may cite the saying of 
 Solon, who was both the wisest of the seven wise men, and 
 also the only legislator of the seven, and who said that com- 
 monwealths were held together by two things, rewards and 
 punishments ; for I would add, that there certainly is mode- 
 ration to be observed in both these points as in all other 
 things, and a certain medium to be kept as to each of them. 
 But it is not my purpose to discuss so important a topic in 
 this place. 
 
 However, I do not think it improper to explain to you 
 what I have aimed at during this war in the several votes 
 which I have given in the senate. 
 
 After the death of Caesar and your memorable ides of 
 !\Iarch, my dear Brutus, you have not forgotten what I 
 said had been omitted ^ by you, and how great a tempest 
 I declared to be hanging over the republic. A great plague 
 had been repelled by you, a great stain on the Eoman 
 people had been effaced, and an immortal glory had been 
 gained by yourselves. But the whole equipage of kingly 
 power was only transferred to Lepidus and Antony, one of 
 whom was a vacillating man, the other polluted with vice ; 
 both of them were afraid of peace, and enemies to tranquillity. 
 
 ^ Especially to Octavius. 2 /,g_ the putting Antony to death. 
 
124 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 While these men were burning with a desire of throwing the 
 republic into confusion, we had no force that could be opposed 
 to them ; but the whole city had roused itself with entire 
 unanimity to preserve its freedom. We were at that time 
 too energetic ; you perhaps acted more wisely in quitting the 
 city which you had delivered, and declined the aid of Italy, 
 which offered its services in your cause. When, therefore, 
 I saw the whole city occupied by traitors, that neither you 
 nor Cassius could be safe in it, and that it was overawed by 
 the forces of Antony, I thought that I also ought to depart. 
 For a city overwhelmed by wicked men, and deprived of all 
 power of helping itself, was a wretched spectacle. 
 
 But the same disposition which is always in me, through 
 devotion to my country, could not bear to be absent from its 
 dangers ; and accordingly, in the middle of my voyage to 
 Achaia, when, at the times of the Etesian winds, the west 
 wind, as if dissuading me from my resolution, had brought 
 me back to Italy, I met you at Velia, and expressed the 
 greatest concern on the occasion. For you were retreating, 
 my dear Brutus: you were retreating, I say; since our 
 friends the Stoics deny that it is for a wise man to flee. When 
 I came to Eome, I immediately put myself forward to check 
 the wickedness and insanity of Antony; and when I had 
 exasperated him against myself, I began to adopt resolutions 
 quite in the character of Brutus himself (for such resolutions 
 are the peculiar inheritance of your family) to deliver the 
 republic. 
 
 The long recital of what followed I shall omit, for it relates 
 to myself; I will only say that the character of this young 
 man Csesar, by whose means, if we would but confess the 
 truth, we still exist, has sprung wholly from the source of 
 my counsels. No honours have been paid him from me, my 
 dear Brutus, that were not justly his due; none that were 
 not absolutely necessary. For when we first began to recover 
 our liberties, when not even the divine virtue of Decimus 
 Brutus had exerted itself in such a manner that we could 
 appreciate its value, and when our whole hope of defence lay 
 in that boy who had turned Antony away from our throats, 
 what honour was too great to be voted to him? Although 
 at that moment I paid him honour only in words, and that 
 expressed in moderate terms, I also proposed to invest him with 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 125 
 
 militai-y command; and though this may have appeared a 
 compliment to one of his age, yet it was indispensable, as he 
 had an army; and what is an army without such command? 
 Philippus proposed to vote him a statue ; Servius, first of all, 
 voted him the privilege of standing for offices before the usual 
 time ; Servilius made that time still earlier j nothing at that 
 moment appeared too great for him. 
 
 But, I know not how, men are more commonly found to be 
 liberal under the influence of fear than grateful in the hour of 
 victory. For I myself, when Decimus Brutus had been de- 
 livered; when that day, most joyful to the city, had shed its 
 light upon it, and that very day, as it happened, was the birth- 
 day of Brutus, proposed a vote that the name of Brutus should 
 be attached to that day in the calendar. And in this proposi- 
 tion T followed the precedent of our ancestors, who paid this 
 compliment to Larentia,^ a woman at whose altar in the Yela- 
 . brum you pontiffs are in the habit of offering sacrifice. When 
 I proposed this honour to Brutus, my object was that there 
 should be in the calendar a memorial of his most welcome 
 victory; but on that day I found that there were rather 
 more malevolent than gTateful people in the senate. At that 
 very time too I lavished, if you will have it so, honours on the 
 dead, Hirtius and Pansa, as well as Aquila ; and who would 
 blame me for so doing but those who, now that they are 
 delivered firom their fear, have forgotten also their past 
 danger 1 
 
 To the grateful recollection of these services there was 
 added another reason for my conduct, which I hoped might 
 have a beneficial efiect upon posterity; for I wished that 
 there should exist undying records of the public hatred to our 
 most cruel enemies. I suspect, too, that this other matter is 
 the less approved by you, because it is not approved by your 
 friends, who are very excellent men indeed, but of no expe- 
 rience in public affairs ; namely, the vote which I proposed, 
 that Caesar might be permitted to enter the city with an 
 ovation. But I am of opinion (though I may perhaps be 
 
 ^ It is rather uncertain who Larentia was : the tradition is that she 
 was Romulus's nurse, and that Romulus instituted a yearly sacrifice 
 and festival in her honour. The Yelabrum was a street or square, as 
 Middleton remarks, where the Forum Boarium and Temple of Janus 
 stood. 
 
126 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 mistaken, nor is my temper such that my own opinions 
 delight me in preference to those of others), that during the 
 whole of this war I have not done a wiser thing. Why it is so 
 I must not explain, lest I should seem to have been prudent 
 rather than grateful; and even to say this is to say too much ; 
 let us therefore turn to something else. 
 
 I proposed that honours should be voted to Decimus 
 Brutus, and also to Lucius Plancus. Those, indeed, are noble 
 dispositions which are attracted by glory; but the senate 
 also is wise, w^hich employs every method, provided it be 
 honourable, by which it thinks that any one can be induced 
 to support the republic. 
 
 But in the case of Lepidus I am blamed; inasmuch as 
 after I had proposed to erect a statue to him in the rostra, 
 I at a subsequent time proposed to remove it. The truth 
 was, that I sought by means of that honour to recall him 
 from desperate measures; but the insane folly of that most 
 vacillating of men defeated my prudence ; nor was so much 
 harm done in raising a statue to Lepidus, as good in over- 
 throwing it. 
 
 I have said enough on the subject of honours ; I must now 
 add a few words on the subject of punishment ; for I have re- 
 peatedly understood from your letters, that you were desirous 
 of having your clemency extolled towards those whom you 
 had defeated in war. I believe that nothing is done by you 
 otherwise than wisely; but to omit inflicting punishment on 
 guilt, (for that is what is called pardoning,) even though 
 under other circumstances it may be endurable, I think 
 ruinous in this war. For of all the civil wars which within 
 my recollection have taken place in our republic, there has not 
 been one of such a character that, whichever side proved vic- 
 torious, there would not still have been some form of a com- 
 monwealth left : but in this war, what sort of republic we 
 shall have, if victorious, I would not willingly say; if defeated, 
 we shall certainly have none at all. I therefore pronounced 
 very severe opinions against Antony; I pronounced severe 
 ones against Lepidus ; not so much for the sake of inflicting 
 vengeance upon them, as with a view at present to deter un- 
 principled citizens by fear from making war on their country, 
 and, for the future, to raise a record to prevent any one from 
 imitating such rashness, although this opinion was not more 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 127 
 
 my own in particular than that of all the citizens. And in it 
 there is indeed this appearance of cruelty, that the penalty 
 reaches to their children who have deserved no punishment. 
 But it is an ancient custom, and one which prevails in all 
 states; since even the children of Themistocles were reduced 
 to want. And if the same punishment falls on citizens 
 judicially condemned, how could we be more merciful to 
 enemies 1 
 
 And what ground of complaint has any one against me, who 
 must confess that if he had been victorious, he would himself 
 have been more severe towards me? 
 
 You have now the ground of the opinions which I de- 
 livered, at least on this subject of honours and penalties. 
 What opinions I entertained, and what votes I gave, on 
 other matters, I think you have heard; but to mention these 
 is not of so much necessity; what is absolutely necessary is, 
 that you, my dear Brutus, should come into Italy with 
 your army with all speed ; there is the strongest desire for 
 your arrival; if you but set foot in Italy, all will flock to you. 
 For whether we are victorious (and we should indeed already 
 have been most gloriously victorious, if Lepidus had not 
 chosen to overturn everything, and ruin himself as well as his 
 friends), we shall require your authority to establish some 
 constitution in the state ; or whether there be still struggles 
 to come, our greatest hope is still in your authority and in 
 the power of your army. But hasten to us, I conjure you 
 by the gods ; for you know how much depends on opportu- 
 nities, how much depends on promptness. 
 
 I. will take all possible care of the interests of your sister's 
 sons, as I hope that you will learn from the letters of your 
 mother and your sister ; in which cause I have a greater 
 regard for your wishes, which are most dear to me, than, as 
 some think, for my own consistency. But in nothing have I 
 a stronger wish both to be and to seem consistent, than in 
 my affection for you. 
 
128 BRUTUS TO CICERO. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 Brutus to Cicero, greeting, 
 
 I HAVE read a small part of your letter, which you sent to 
 Octavius, and which was forwarded to me by Atticus. Your 
 zeal and anxiety for my safety have given me no new delight ; 
 for it is not only a common thing, but one of even daily 
 occurrence, for me to hear something about you which you 
 have said or done, faithfully and honourably, for the mainte- 
 nance of my dignity. Yet that same part of the letter 
 which you wrote to Octavius about me has caused me as 
 much concern as I am capable of feeling ; for you thank him 
 on behalf of the republic in such language, in such a suppliant 
 and humble tone, (what shall I say? I am ashamed of our 
 condition and fortune, but still I must write it; you recom- 
 mend my safety to him ; and what kind of death would not 
 be preferable to safety so secured*?) that you show plainly 
 that the overbearing power has not been removed, but only 
 the master changed. Recollect the words that you have 
 used, and then deny, if you can, that they are the language 
 of prayer addressed by a slave to his king. You say that 
 there is one thing only which is demanded and expected from 
 him; namely, that he should allow those citizens, of whom 
 virtuous men and the Roman people have a favourable 
 opinion, to live in security. But what if he will not allow 
 it ? Are we to have no existence 1 But it would be better to 
 \iave none than to exist only through his permission. I, 
 assuredly, do not believe that all the gods are so unfavourable 
 to the safety of the Roman people that Octavius must be 
 entreated for the safety of any citizen; I will not say for 
 that of the deliverers of the whole world. For I am glad to 
 take a high tone ; and it is fit that I should do so towards 
 those who know not what is to be feared for each individual, 
 or what ought to be asked of any one. 
 
 Do you then confess, Cicero, that Octavius has this power, 
 and are you nevertheless a friend to him? or, if you have 
 any regard for me, do you wish me to appear at Rome, when 
 I must first be recommended to that boy that I may have the 
 liberty of being there? And for what have you to thank him, 
 if you think be must be entreated to consent and allow us to 
 
BRUTUS TO CICERO. 12l| 
 
 live in safety*? Is this to be regarded as a favour, that he 
 prefers to be the person himself from whom such things are 
 to be petitioned, rather than Antony ? Does any one address 
 entreaties to a person who is the chastiser of the domineering 
 power of another, and not rather his successor in it, that men 
 who have dono great services to the republic may be per- 
 mitted to live in it in safety? But that imbecility and 
 despair (the fault of which is not to be imputed to you in a 
 greater degree than to every one else) both impelled Julius 
 Caesar to covet kingly power, and after his death persuaded 
 Antony to endeavour to occupy the place of him who had 
 been slain ; and now, too, it has elevated that boy to such 
 a degree, that you have thought that the safety of such men 
 as we are must be obtained of him by entreaties; and have 
 considered that we shall only be safe through the mercy 
 of one who is hardlv yet a man, and by no other means. 
 But if we had recollected that we were Romans, these vilest 
 of men would not be more bold in their desires to grasp 
 dominion, than we should be in our determination to stop 
 their course; nor would Antony have been more encouraged 
 by the height of power attained by Csesar, than deterred by 
 his fate. 
 
 How can you, a man of consular rank, and the avenger of 
 such atrocious crimes (though, while they are checked, I still 
 fear that our ruin has only been postponed by you for a short 
 time), how can you, I say, contemplate what you yourself 
 have done, and at the same time approve those other things, 
 or at least bear them with so lowly and acquiescent a spirit as 
 to wear the appearance of one who does approve of them? 
 
 What private ill-feeling had you towards Antony? None, 
 for any other reason but that he assumed such authority, 
 requiring that mens safety should be begged of him; that 
 we, from whom he himself had received liberty, should enjoy 
 only a precarious safety ; and that his will as to the common- 
 wealth should be absolute. You then thought it time to 
 seek for arms, by which he might be prevented from lording 
 it .over us: but was it your object that, while he was pre- 
 vented from so doing, we might address our prayers to some 
 one else, who would permit himself to be put in his stead ; or 
 that the republic might have its full rights and be mistress 
 of itself? unless, indeed, our objection was not to slavery 
 
 K 
 
130 BRUTUS TO CICERO. 
 
 itself, but to some particular kind of slavery. But we might 
 not only have endured our fortune, with Antony for an easy 
 master, but with advantages also and honours, as sharers in 
 them with him, to whatever extent we pleased; for what 
 would he have denied to those whose patience he found to be 
 the main support of his authority? But none of these con- 
 siderations were of such importance that we should sell our 
 good faith and Hberty for it. What would not this very boy, 
 whom the name of Csesar appears to excite against the de- 
 stroyers of Csesar, what would not he think it worth, (if there 
 were an opportunity for such a bargain,) to have, with our 
 support, as much power as he certainly is likely to have, 
 since we are so eager to live, and to retain our fortunes, and 
 to be called men of consular rank? But then that other 
 Caesar will have been slain to no purpose ; and why did we 
 3-ejoice at his death, if, after it, we were to be slaves no less 
 than before? 
 
 Let no anxiety be felt, then, by others. But, as for me, 
 may all the gods and goddesses deprive me of everything, 
 sooner than of the determination not to allow to the heir of 
 the man whom I have slain what I did not allow to the man 
 himself, and what I would not allow even to my own father, 
 if he were to come to life again ; namely, that he should have 
 more power than the laws and the senate with my permission. 
 Can you possibly believe that the rest of the citizens will be 
 free under him, without whose permission there is no room 
 for us in the city? How, moreover, is it possible for you to 
 obtain what you ask? for you ask him to permit us to be 
 safe. Do we appear to you, then, certain of receiving safety 
 from him when we have received life? And how can we 
 receive it, if we first throw away our dignity and our freedom? 
 Do you think that to live at Kome is to be safe? It is cir- 
 cumstances, and not place, which must procure me safety. 
 T was not safe while Caesar was alive, unless indeed it was 
 after I had resolved upon that deed. Nor can I be an exile 
 anywhere as long as I hate to be a slave, and to endure in- 
 sults worse than all other evils. Is not this to fall back into 
 the same darkness, when we request of him who has taken to 
 himself the name of a tyrant, (while in Grecian states even 
 the children of tyrants, after the parents are put down, are 
 subjected to the same fate,) that the mortal enemies and 
 
BRUTUS TO CICERO. 131 
 
 suppressors of absolute power may be allowed to live in 
 safety 1 Can I wish to see this state in such a condition, or 
 even think it a state at all, if it is not able to receive freedom 
 when put into its hands, and even forced upon it ; and when 
 it is more afraid of the name of the king who has been re- 
 moved, in the person of a boy, than confident in itself, even 
 after it has seen that very man who had the greatest power 
 of all cut off by the public spirit of a few individuals ? Here- 
 after, do not recommend me to your C^sar; no, nor even 
 yourself, if you will listen to me. You value the number of 
 years, which your time of life renders it probable that you 
 may enjoy, at a very high rate, if, for the sake of them, you 
 will supphcate that boy. 
 
 In the next place, with regard to the admirable line of 
 conduct which you have adopted, and still pursue, towards 
 Antony, take care lest, instead of being praised as the part of 
 great magnanimity, it should be imputed to fear. For if you 
 like Octavius, as one from whom we must beg our safety, you 
 will appear not to have objected to a master, but only to have 
 been desirous of a more friendly one. That you praise him 
 for what he has hitherto done, I commend you; for his 
 conduct deserves to be praised ; provided only that he under- 
 took that course of action in opposition to the power of an- 
 other, and not for the sake of establishing his own. But when 
 you judge that it is not only lawful for him to have such 
 power, but also that it should be given him by you, so that 
 he must be entreated not to prohibit us from living in safety, 
 you then grant too high a reward to his merits ; for you are 
 bestowing on him that very thing which the republic appeared 
 to possess in consequence of his conduct. 
 
 Nor does it occur to you, that if Octavius deserves any 
 
 honours for waging war against Antony, the Roman people 
 
 could then never bestow on those who eradicated that evil, 
 
 and of whom these are the relics, anything with which their 
 
 merit could be compensated, even if it were to heap upon 
 
 them all honours and rewards at once. Bik see how much 
 
 more lively men's fears are than their recollections, because 
 
 Antony is alive and in arms ; but with respect to Caesar, all 
 
 ! that was possible, or ought to have been done, has been done ; 
 
 ; nor can it now be recalled and undone. But is Octavius a 
 
 I person of such importance, that the Roman people ought to 
 
 K 2 
 
132 BRUTUS TO CICERO. 
 
 wait to see what decision he will form respecting us? And 
 are we of so little consequence, that it seems proper to entreat 
 a single individual for our safety? 
 
 I, however, (to return to that point,) am of such a disposi- 
 tion, that I not only would not address supplications to any 
 one, but would repress those who require supplications to be 
 made to them ; or else I will withdraw from those who are 
 slaves, and fancy that Rome is in any place wherever I am 
 permitted to be free. And I will pity you, in whom neither 
 age, nor honours, nor the example of other men's virtue, can 
 diminish the fond desire of life. For my part, I shall seem 
 to myself to be happy, if I can but perpetually and constantly 
 cherish the persuasion that due gratitude has been shown for 
 my affection for my country. For what is more desirable 
 than for a man, enjoying the recollection of glojrious actions 
 and the possession of liberty, to look down upon human 
 affairs? At all events, I will not yield to those who yield; 
 nor will I be conquered by those who wish themselves to be 
 conquered; and I will make every possible effort and 
 endeavour, and never cease to attempt to free our city from 
 slavery. If that fortune which ought to follow my endeavours 
 shall attend them, we shall all rejoice; if not, at least I myself 
 shall rejoice. For in what acts or meditations can my life be 
 better spent, than in such as have for their object the deliver- 
 ance of my fellow-citizens? You, my dear Cicero, I beg and 
 exhort not to be weary, nor to distrust the event. Ever, in 
 averting present evils, attend also to those which may come 
 hereafter, lest they should make a way for themselves, unless 
 you check them in time. Consider that the bold and free 
 spirit, such as that with which you saved the state when 
 consul, and uphold it now when you are of consular rank, is 
 valueless without consistency and steadiness. I admit, indeed, 
 that the condition of tried, is harder than that of untried 
 virtue; for we expect services from it as debts ; and if any thing 
 turns out unfortunately, we then reproach the possessors of it 
 in a hostile spirit, as though we had been deceived by them. 
 
 Although, therefore, it is conduct worthy of great praise 
 
 for Cicero to resist Antony, yet, because his character as 
 
 consul^ seemed necessarily to promise that he would be of 
 
 similar character as a consular,^ no man wonders at it. But 
 
 ^ In suppressing the conspii-acy of Catiline. ^ In resisting Antony. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 133 
 
 if the same Cicero should waver in that judgment with regard 
 to others, which he has used with such firmness and magna- 
 nimity in repelling Antony, he will not only deprive himself 
 of all hope of future glory, but will cause even the renown 
 of his past achievements to be forgotten. 
 
 For nothing is great in itself, except that in which a prin- 
 ciple of sound judgment is visible. And as it becomes no 
 one more than yourself, to be attached to the republic, and 
 to be the defender of its liberties, both from your talents and 
 your actions, and in accordance with the wishes and demands 
 of all men, Octavius must, consequently, not be solicited to 
 allow us to live in safety. Eouse yourself rather, that you may 
 feel convinced that that city, in which you have performed 
 the greatest deeds, will ever be free and honourable, provided 
 that the people have proper leaders to resist the counsels of 
 the unprincipled. 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 Cicero to Brutus, greeting. 
 
 After I had repeatedly exhorted you by letter to come as 
 soon as possible to the succour of the republic, and to bring 
 your army into Italy, and did not suppose that your own 
 friends had any scruples about the propriety of the measure, 
 I was requested by that most prudent and anxious lady, your 
 mother,^ whose every care is bent upon you and devoted to 
 you, to pay her a visit on the twenty-fifth of July, which I, 
 as I was bound to do, did without hesitation. When I 
 arrived, Casca and Labeo and Scaptius were with her. But 
 she immediately mentioned the business on which she sent 
 for me, and asked me what my opinion was: whether we 
 ought to send for you, and consider such a step to be for your 
 advantage, or whether it would be better for you to delay 
 and remain where you were. I gave such an answer as I 
 
 ^ Servilia, the mother of Brutus, who is referred to in this letter, 
 had intrigued with Caesar ; so that scandal had even called Brutuu 
 Caesar's son. Brutus appears to have had a great opinion of her abilities, 
 and to have been greatly guided by her in the transactions which fol- 
 lowed upon Caesar's death. 
 
134 CICERO TO BRUTUS. 
 
 thought most suited to your dignity and reputation ; saying 
 that you should, at the earliest possible moment, bring your 
 aid to the tottering and almost falling repubhc. For what 
 misfortune, do you think, is not to be expected in a war in 
 which the victorious armies declined to pursue a fleeing 
 enemy ;^ in which a general, in the enjoyment of complete 
 safety, of the most ample honours and the most abundant 
 fortune, blessed with a wife and children, near relations of 
 your own,^ declares war against the republic? and during 
 which, (need I add?) amid the great unanimity of senate and 
 people, there is still such a vast amount of evil remaining 
 within the walls? But, at the time that I was writing this, 
 I was afflicted with the utmost grief, because, when the re- 
 public had accepted me as a surety,^ as it were, for this young 
 man, this almost boy, I scarcely thought that I should be 
 able to perform what I had undertaken. And an engagement 
 for another person's principles and sentiments, especially in 
 affairs of preeminent importance, is a graver obligation, and 
 one more difficult to endure, than an engagement for money. 
 For money can be paid, and the loss of property may be 
 borne; but how are you to discharge that for which you have 
 engaged to the state, unless he on whose behalf you made 
 the engagement is willing to allow it to be discharged? Yet 
 I shall be able, as I hope, to hold this youth to his engage- 
 ments, in spite of many that offer resistance to me. For 
 there seems to be in him a good natural disposition; but his 
 age is ductile, and many are ready to lead him astray, who, 
 by holding out to him the splendour of false honour, think 
 that the perspicacity of his judgment may be dazzled. 
 
 To my other troubles, therefore, is added the labour also 
 of using every contrivance to keep the young man to his 
 duty, that I may not incur the imputation of rashness. 
 And yet what rashness is it? For I have bound him for 
 whom I have become surety, rather than myself. JSTor is it 
 possible that the republic should repent that I have become 
 surety for him, since in his conduct he has grown more 
 
 ^ This alludes, observes Middleton, to Octavius, who, with Decimua 
 Brutus, forbore to pursue Antony after the battle at Mutina. 
 
 2 This refers to Lepidus, whose wife was the sister of Brutus. 
 
 ^ When Cicero speaks of being surety for Octavius, he refers to the 
 Fifth Philippic, c. 8. Octavius was at this time only twenty years 
 of age. 
 
CICERO TO BRUTUS. 135 
 
 steady, not only from his natural disposition, but in conse- 
 quence also of my promise. 
 
 However, if I am not mistaken, the greatest difficulty in 
 the republic is the want of pecuniary resources; for the re- 
 spectable classes stop their ears more and more daily against 
 the call for tribute ;^ because that which was collected by the 
 tax of one per cent.,^ where the rich were iniquitously rated, 
 has all been spent in rewards to the legions. 
 
 Boundless expenses also threaten us, both for those armies 
 with which we are now defended, and also for yours ; as to 
 Cassius, he seems likely to come sufficiently provided. But 
 I wish to discuss these and many other matters m conversa- 
 tion with you ; and I trust to do so very soon. 
 
 With respect to your sister's sons, my dear Brutus, I did 
 not wait for you to write to me. Doubtless the times them- 
 selves (for this war is sure to be protracted) reserve the whole 
 aifair for you.^ But, from the very first, when I could form 
 no conjecture with respect to the duration of the war, I 
 pleaded the cause of the boys in the senate with such earnest- 
 ness as I suppose you have already understood from their 
 mother's letters. Nor shall there ever be any matter in 
 which, even at the peril of my life, I will not both do and 
 say what I think that you wish, and what I conceive to be 
 for your advantage. Farewell. The 27th of July. 
 
 ^ This tribute seems to have been a sort of capitation tax, propor- 
 tioned to each man's substance, and had been wholly disused in Kome 
 ever since the conquest of Macedonia by Paullus ^milius, which pro- 
 duced a revenue sufficient to ease the republic ever after from that 
 burden, until the present necessity obliged them to renew it. Phn. 
 H. iN". xxxiii. 3. Middleton. 
 
 2 1 per cent, a month. 
 
 ^ Cicero, perceiving Brutus's great tenderness for his sister's chil- 
 dren, puts him here again in mind that before the receipt even of his 
 letters, he 'aad been using his authority with the senate to make that 
 matter easj to them; but that, without any endeavours of his, the 
 times then:selves would throw the affair into his hands whenever he 
 should come into Italy, since the war, by the treachery of Lepidus, wa? 
 DOW likely to be carried into length. Middleton. 
 
136 CICERO TO OCTAVIUS. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 Cicero to Octavius, greeting} 
 
 Had permission been allowed me by your legions, which 
 are most hostile to my name and to the Roman people, to 
 come into the senate and discuss the affairs of the republic 
 before that assembly, I should have done so ; and that not 
 so much from inclination as from necessity; for no remedies 
 which are applied to wounds cause such severe pain as those 
 which tend to effect a complete cure. But since the senate 
 is surrounded with armed men, it cannot honestly come to 
 any decision but that it is afraid : (there are the standards of 
 armies in the capitol; soldiers are strolling about the city;^ a 
 camp is pitched in the Campus Martins; and all Italy is 
 occupied in every quarter by legions raised to protect our 
 liberties, but brought hither to enslave us, and by the cavalry 
 of foreign nations :) I will for the present yield to you the 
 forum, and the senate-house, and the most sacred temples of 
 the immortal gods, in which (liberty, that revived for a time, 
 being now again put down) the senate is consulted about 
 nothing, fears much, and agrees to everything. 
 
 In a short time, if the times should require such a step, I 
 will also depart from the city, which, having been saved by 
 me, in order that it might be free, I shall not endure to see 
 in slavery. I shall be willing even to depart from life, which, 
 although it is full of anxiety, yet, as long as it is likely to be 
 of service to the state, consoles me with favourable hopes of 
 a fair reputation with posterity ; but should those hopes be 
 taken away, I shall die without hesitation; and I shall depart 
 in such a manner, that good fortune shall appear to have been 
 wanting to my judgment, rather than courage to myself 
 
 But this one thing, which is at once an indication of my 
 present distress, an evidence of the past injustice with which 
 
 ^ Midcileton himself gives up this letter as spurious, chiefly because 
 he fancies that the style is inferior to others of Cicero's letters. " In 
 short, it is no epistle, but the declamation of some boy \enting his 
 indignation, and trying, under the person of Cicero, how weil he could 
 harangue on the perfidy and ingratitude of Octavius." — Middleton*s 
 Preface to the Epistles to Quintus and Brutus. 
 
 2 It was contrary to the Roman constitution and laws to introduce 
 the legions into the city. 
 
CICERO TO OCTAVIUS. 137 
 
 [ have been treated, and a proof of my feeling for those from 
 whom I am separated, I will not omit to mention, in order 
 that since I am forbidden to do so while present, I may be 
 of service in my absence : if indeed my personal safety is 
 either useful to the commonwealth, or at the least connected 
 with the public safety. For. by the faith of the immortal 
 gods, (unless haply I appeal to those in vain whose ears apd 
 minds are alienated from us.) and by the fortune of the 
 Roman people, (which although it is now unfavourable to us, 
 was at one time, and, as I trust, will again be propitious.) 
 who is there so devoid of humanity, who so bitterly hostile 
 to the name of this city, and to the homes of the citizens, as 
 to be able either to conceal his grief, or to feel none, at such 
 events as these ? Or who, if he cannot by any means remedy 
 the public miseries, would not withdraw from his own share 
 in the danger by death? 
 
 For, that I may begin at the beginning, and proceed to the 
 end, and compare the last events with the first, what day, as 
 it has arrived, has not been more miserable than the preced- 
 ing one? And what successive hour has not been more full 
 of calamities to the Eoman people than that which was before 
 it? Mark Antony, a man of the greatest courage, (would 
 that he had also been a man of wise counsels !) after Caius 
 Csesar had been removed (bravely, indeed, but far from for- 
 tunately) from the dominion which he was exercising over 
 the republic, had become eager to obtain a more king-like 
 authority than a free city could possibly endure. He squan- 
 dered the public money; he drained the treasury; he dimi- 
 nished the revenues; he lavished the freedom of the city in 
 every direction, in professed compliance with Caesar's will; 
 he exercised a dictatorship ; he imposed laws ; he prevented 
 a dictator from being appointed by law ; he himself in the 
 senate opposed the decrees of the senate; he desired to en- 
 gross all the provinces to himself. From a man, indeed, by 
 whom Macedonia was despised as a province, though Csesar, 
 when victorious, had taken it for himself, what could we hope 
 or expect? 
 
 You stood forward as the assertor of our freedom, a most 
 excellent assertor according to your conduct at that time; 
 (would that neither our own opinion, nor your assurances oi 
 good-faith, had deceived us !) and collecting all the vetemn? 
 
138 CICERO TO OCTAVIUS. 
 
 into one body, and drawing off two of the legions, from 
 menacing the ruin of their country, to contribute to its 
 safety, you suddenly, by your own power, raised up the repub- 
 lic when in great distress and almost overthrown. What at 
 that time did not the senate bestow upon you before you 
 solicited it, more abundantly than you even desired, and with 
 more frequency than you had ventured to hope? It gave 
 you the forces, in order that it might have a defender armed 
 with authority, not that it might arm an adversary with 
 military power against itself It gave you the title of 
 Imperator, after the army of the enemy ^ had been routed, 
 assigning you honour, and not intending that that army, 
 fleeing and routed, should confer such a title on you by its 
 utter defeat. It voted you a statue in the forum, a place 
 in the senate, the highest honours in the state, before you 
 arrived at the legal age for them. If there is anything else 
 which can be bestowed on you, let it add that ; but what is 
 there beyond this that you can wish to receive? 
 
 If, however, everything has been bestowed on you without 
 any regard to your age, or to precedent, or even to the fact 
 that you are a mortal man, why do you so cruelly, if un- 
 grateful, so wickedly, if forgetful of the benefits heaped upon 
 you, thus seek to cripple the power of the senate? Whither 
 have we sent you? from whom are you returning? Against 
 whom is it that we have armed you? Against whom is it 
 that you are thinking of waging war? From whom are you 
 leading away your army? Against whom are you marshalling 
 your troops? Why is any enemy left? Why is a citizen re- 
 garded as an enemy? Why, in the middle of your march, 
 is your camp moved further from that of the enemy, and 
 nearer to the city? 
 
 Alas me! never really wise, though at one time vainly 
 thought to be that which I was not, how greatly, Roman 
 people, has your opinion of me deceived you ! Alas for my 
 unfortunate and rash old age ! Alas for my grey hairs, dis- 
 honoured at the end of a life deprived of judgment! It was 
 I that incited the conscript fathers to the ruin of their 
 country ; it was I that deceived the republic. It was I my- 
 self that persuaded the senate to lay violent hands on its own 
 
 ^ The army of Antony, defeated at the battle of Mutina. 
 
CICERO TO OCTAVIUS. 139 
 
 existencGj when I called you a Junonian^ youth, and the 
 golden offspring of your mother. But the fates of your 
 native land pointed you out as its future Paris, one who 
 should lay waste the city with conflagration, Italy with war ; 
 one who should pitch his camp in the temples of the immor- 
 tal gods, and hold the senate m his camp. 
 
 Alas ! for the miserable change in the affairs of the com- 
 monwealth, so rapid and sudden, so different from all former 
 circumstances ! What writer will ever exist of such genius, 
 as to be able so to give an account of these events that they 
 shall appear to be facts and not fictions? What reader will 
 ever exist of so credulous a disposition, as not to think those 
 things akin to fable which will then be handed down in our 
 records with the greatest truth? For reflect that Antony 
 was pronounced a public enemy; that the consul elect, the 
 very father of the republic, was besieged by him ; that you 
 went forth to deliver the consul and to crush the enemy; that 
 the enemy was routed by you, and the consul delivered from 
 his state of siege; then, that a short time afterwards that 
 very enemy who had been routed was sent for by you, and 
 united as a coheir with you to seize the goods of the Eoman 
 people, as if the republic had been dead; that the consul 
 , elect was again blockaded in a place where he defended him- 
 self, not with walls, but with rivers and mountains : — Who 
 will attempt to relate such events as these? Who will dare 
 to believe them? It may indeed be permitted to a man to 
 have erred once with impunity ; and a frank confession may 
 be an excuse for an offender ; for I will speak the truth ;• I 
 would rather, Antony, that we had not driven you away 
 when you were our master, than that we should receive this 
 youth in that character ! Not that any slavery is desirable, 
 hut because the fortune of the slave is more or less dis- 
 honourable according to the dignity of his master ; and of 
 two evils, while we have to avoid the greater, we must choose 
 the less. 
 
 Antony, however, condescended to obtain by entreaty the 
 things which he wished to appropriate ; you, Octavius, extort 
 them by force. He applied for a province legitimately, as a 
 
 ^ Either because Mars, the god of war, was the son of Juno ; or 
 because all the sons of Juno were godlike beings. Facciol. in voc. 
 Junonius. 
 
140 CICERO TO OCTAVIUS. 
 
 consul ; you coveted one, though invested with no office. He 
 erected tribunals, and passed laws, to ensure the safety of the 
 wicked; you do so to procure the destruction of the most 
 virtuous. He protected the capital from bloodshed and from 
 conflagration at the hands of slaves; you wish to destroy 
 everything, and bury it under blood and flame. If he acted 
 as a king, who assigned provinces to Cassius and the Bruti, 
 and those other protectors of our name, what will he do who 
 seeks to rob them of life? If he who drove them out of the 
 city was a tyrant, what shall we call him who does not leave 
 them even a place to live in exile? 
 
 If, therefore, there is any sense at all in those buried re- 
 mains of our ancestors ; if all sense and feeling is not con- 
 sumed in the same fire with the body; w^hat, if they should 
 ask what the Roman people are now doing, — what, I say, will 
 any one of us reply who next takes his departure to those 
 eternal mansions'? Or what account will those ancient heroes 
 of our race, the Africani, the Fabii, the Paulli, and the 
 Scipios, receive of their posterity? What will they fear 
 concerning their country, which they themselves decorated 
 with spoils and triumphs? Will any one venture to tell them 
 that there is a certain young man, about eighteen years old, 
 whose grandfather was a banker, whose father was a mere 
 hack bail, each of them subsisting on precarious sources of 
 livelihood ; the one continuing such practices till his old age, 
 so that he cannot deny it ; the other beginning them in his 
 boyhood, so that it is impossible for him not to confess it: 
 that this youth is plundering and ravaging the republic ; a 
 youth to w^hom no valour, no provinces reduced in war and 
 annexed to the empire, no dignity on the part of his ances- 
 tors, had attached the assistance of the powerful, but whose 
 beauty, by infamous practices, had gained him money, and 
 caused, in his person, a respectable name to be polluted with 
 licentiousness; that he had collected the veteran gladiators 
 of Julius, worn out with wounds and age, the needy relics of 
 the school of Csesar, to take up arms again, surrounded with 
 whom he might throw everything into confusion, show pity 
 for no one, and live for himself alone; a youth who obtained 
 possession of the republic as if it were a dowry settled on 
 him at his marriage, or bequeathed to him by will? 
 
 The two Decii will hear that those citizens are now slaves, 
 
 I ... 
 
CICERO TO OCTAVIUS. 141 
 
 to secure whose dominion over their enemies they devoted 
 themselves to death as the only means of victory. Caius 
 Marius will hear that we are under the orders of a licentious 
 master ; he who would not keep even a private soldier of loose 
 character in his army. Brutus will hear that that people, 
 whom he himself in the first instance, and whom his posterity 
 in a subsequent age, emancipated from kingly power, is now 
 surrendered to slavery as the price of shameless debauchery. 
 If this intelligence is conveyed to them by no one else, it 
 shall certainly be soon conveyed to them by me; for if, 
 while alive, I shall be unable to escape those evils, I have 
 determined to flee from them by quitting life at the same 
 time. 
 
CICERO'S DIALOGUES 
 
 DE OEATORE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 OX THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 
 
 V 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 N^ These Dialogues were written, or at least published, by Cicero in the 
 year B.C. 55, when he was about fifty -two years old, in the second 
 consulship of Pompey and Crassus. He composed them at the re- 
 quest of his brother Quintus, in order that he might set forth in 
 better form, at a more advanced period of life, and after his long 
 experience, those opinions on oratory which he had somewhat hastily 
 and crudely advanced in his early years in his books on Invention. 
 The Dialogues are supposed to have been held B.C. 91, when there 
 were great contentions at Rome respecting the proposal of the 
 tribune Marcus Livius Drusus to allow the senators, in common with 
 the equites, to be judges on criminal trials. 
 The persons present at the dialogue related in the first book are Lucius 
 Licinius Crassus, Marcus Antonius, his friend, the two most eminent 
 orators of their day; Quintus Mucins Scsevola, the father-in-law of 
 Crassus, who was celebrated for his knowledge of the civil law, and 
 from whom Cicero himself received instruction in his youth ; and two 
 young men, Caius Amelius Cotta, and Publius Sulpicius Rufus, youths 
 of much ability and promise, who were anxious to distinguish them- 
 selves in oratory, and for whose instruction the precepts and obser- 
 vations conveyed in the Dialogues are supposed to have been delivered. 
 The scene of the conversations is the Tusculan villa of Crassus, to 
 which he had retired from the tumults at Rome, and where he was 
 joined by the rest of the party. 
 \v The object of Cicero, in these books, was to set before his reader all 
 that was important in the rhetorical treatises of Aristotle, Isocrates, 
 and other ancient writers on oratory, divested of technicalities, and 
 presented in a pleasing form. 
 Crassus and Antonius, in the first book, discourse on all the qualifica- 
 -v,^^ tions of a perfect orator, Crassus being the exponent of the senti- 
 ments of Cicero himself, and maintaining that a complete orator 
 must be acquainted with the whole circle of art and science. 
 Antonius expresses his opinion that far less learning is required in 
 the orator than Crassus supposes, and that, as universal knowledge 
 
C. I.] DE ORATORE. 143 
 
 is unattainable, it will be well for him not to attempt to acquire too 
 much, as he will thus only distract his thoughts, and render himself 
 less capable of attaining excellence in speaking, than if, contenting 
 himself with moderate acquirements, he devoted his attention chiefly 
 to the improvement of his natural talents and qualifications for 
 oratory. 
 Cicero bestowed great consideration on the work, and had it long in 
 hand. Ep. ad Att iv. 12. See also Ad Att. iv. 16; xiii. 19; Ad 
 Fam. i. 9. 
 
 I. As I frequently contemplate and call to mind the times 
 of oldj those in general seem to me, brother Quintus, to have 
 been supremely happy, who, while they were distinguished 
 with honours and the glory of their actions in the best days-^ 
 of the republic, were enabled to pursue such a course of Hfe, 
 that they could continue either in employment without 
 danger, or in retirement with dignity. To myself, also, there 
 was a time^ when I thought that a season for relaxation, and 
 for turning my thoughts again to the noble studies once 
 pursued by both of us, would be fairly allowable, and be 
 conceded by almost every one; if the infinite labour of 
 forensic business and the occupations of ambition should be 
 brought to a stand, either by the completion of my course of 
 honours,^ or by the decline of age. Such expectations, with 
 regard to my studies and designs, not only the severe cala- 
 mities resulting from public occurrences, but a variety of 
 our own private troubles,^ have disappointed. For in that 
 period,^ which seemed likely to offer most quiet and tran- 
 quillity, the greatest pressures of trouble and the most 
 turbulent storms arose. Nor to our washes and earnest 
 desires has the enjoyment of leisure been granted, to culti- 
 vate and revive between ourselves those studies to which we 
 have from early youth been addicted. For at our first 
 entrance into life we fell amidst the perturbation^ of all 
 
 ^ After his consulship, A.u.c. 691, in the forty-fourth year of his age. 
 
 ^ There was a certain course of honours through which the Eomans 
 passed. After attaining the quaestorship, they aspired to the sedileship, 
 and then to the prcctorship and consulate. Cicero was augur, quaestor, 
 sedile, praetor, consul, and proconsul of Asia. Proust. 
 
 ^ He refers to his exile, and the proposed union between Caesar and 
 Pompey to make themselves masters ot the whole commonwealth; 
 a matter to which he was unwilling to allude more plainly. Ellendt. 
 
 * Qui locus. Quae vitae pars. Prouat. 
 
 - The civil wais of Marius and Sylla. Ellendt. 
 
144 DB obatore; or, [b. l 
 
 ancient order; in my consulship we were involved in strug- 
 gles and the hazard of everything;^ and all the time since 
 that consulship we have had to make opposition to those 
 waves which, prevented by my efforts from causing a general 
 destruction, have abundantly recoiled upon myself. Yet, 
 amidst the difficulties of affairs, and the straitness of time, 
 I shall endeavour to gratify my love of literature ; and what- 
 ever leisure the malice of enemies, the causes of friends, or 
 the public service will allow me, I shall chiefly devote to 
 writing. As to you, brother, I shall not fail to obey your 
 exhortations and entreaties; for no person can have more 
 influence with me than you have both by authority and 
 affection. 
 
 II. Here the recollection of an old tradition must be 
 revived in my mind, a recollection not indeed sufficiently 
 distinct, but adapted, I think, so far to reply to what you 
 ask, that you may understand what opinions the most famous 
 and eloquent men entertained respecting the whole art of 
 oratory. For you wish, as you have often said to me. (since 
 what went abroad rough and incomplete^ from our own note- 
 books, when we were boys or^young men, is scarcely worthy 
 of my present standing in life, and that experience which I 
 have gained from so many and such important causes as 
 I have pleaded,) that something more polished and complete 
 should be offered by me on the same subjects ; and you are 
 at times inclined to dissent from me in our disputations on 
 this matter; inasmuch as I consider eloquence to be the 
 offspring of the accomplishments of the most learned men f 
 but you think it must be regarded as independent of ele- 
 gant learning, and attributable to a peculiar kind of talent 
 and practice. 
 
 Often, indeed, as I review in thought the greatest of man- 
 kind, and those endowed with the highest abilities, it has 
 appeared to me worthy of inquiry what was the cause tliat 
 a greater number of persons have been admirable in every 
 other pursuit than in speaking. For which way soever you 
 direct your view in thought and contemplation, you will see 
 
 ^ Alluding to the conspiracy of Catiline. 
 2 The two books De Inventione Ehetoricd. 
 
 ' Prudentissimorum. Equivalent to doctissimorum. Pearce. Some 
 manuscripts have eruditissimorum. 
 
C. III. J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 145 
 
 numbers excellent in every species, not only of the humble, 
 but even of the highest arts. Who, indeed, is there, that, if 
 he would measure the qualifications of illustrious men, either 
 by the usefulness or magnitude of their actions, would not 
 prefer a general to an orator? Yet who doubts that we can , 
 produce, from this city alone, almost innumerable excellent^ 
 commanders, while we can number scarcely a few eminent in 
 speaking? There have been many also in our own mengory, 
 and more in that of our fathers, and even of our forefathers, 
 who had abilities to rule and govern affairs of state by their 
 counsel and wisdom; while for a long period no tolerable 
 orators were found, or scarcely one in every age. But lest 
 any one should think that the art of speaking may more 
 justly be compared with other pursuits, which depend upon 
 abstruse studies, and a varied field of learning, than with the 
 merits of a general, or the wisdom of a prudent senator, let 
 him turn his thoughts to those particular sciences themselves, 
 and contemplate who and how many have flourished in them, 
 as he will thus be best enabled to judge how great a scarcity 
 of orators there is and has ever been. 
 
 III. It does not escape your observation that what the > 
 Greeks call philosophy, is esteemed by the most learned / 
 men, the originator, as it were, and parent of all the arts ' 
 which merit praise; philosophy, I say, in which it is dif&cult 
 to enumerate how many distinguished men there have been, 
 and of how great knowledge, variety, and comprehensiveness 
 in their studies, men who have not confined their labours to 
 one province separately, but have embraced whatever they 
 could master either by scientific investigations, or by pro- 
 cesses of reasoning. Who is ignorant in how great obscurity 
 of matter, in how abstruse, manifold, and subtle an art they 
 who are called mathematicians are engaged? Yet in that 
 pursuit so many men have arrived at excellence, that not one 
 seems to have applied himself to the science in earnest 
 without attaining in it whatever he desired. Who has ever 
 devoted himself wholly to music; who has ever given himself 
 up to the learning which they profess who are called gramma- 
 rians, without compassing, in knowledge and understanding, 
 the whole substance and matter of those sciences, though 
 almost boundless? Of all those who have engaged in the most 
 liberal pursuits and departments of such sciences, I think I 
 
 L 
 
X 
 
 ( 
 
 146 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. I. 
 
 may truly say that a smaller number of eminent poets have 
 arisen than of men distinguished in any other branch of litera- 
 ture; and in the whole multitude of the learned, among whom 
 there rarely appears one of the highest excellence, there will 
 be found, if you will but make a careful review of our own 
 list and that of the Greeks, far fewer good orators than good 
 poets. This ought to seem the more wonderful, as attain- 
 ments in other sciences are drawn from recluse and hidden 
 springs; but the whole art of speaking lies before us, and is 
 concerned with common usage and the custom and language 
 of all men ; so that while in other things that is most excel- 
 lent which is most remote from the knowledge and under- 
 standing of the illiterate, it is in speaking even the greatest 
 of faults to vary from the ordinary kind of language, and the 
 practice sanctioned by universal reason. 
 
 IV. Yet it cannot be said with truth, either that more are 
 devoted to the other arts, or that they are excited by greater 
 pleasure, more abundant hope, or more ample rewards ; for to 
 say nothing of Greece, which was always desirous to hold 
 the first place in eloquence, and Athens, that inventress 
 of all literature, in which the utmost power of oratory was 
 both discovered and brought to perfection, in this very city 
 of ours, assuredly, no studies were ever pursued with more 
 earnestness than those tending to the acquisition of elo- 
 quence. For when our empire over all nations was esta- 
 blished, and after a period of peace had secured tranquillity, . 
 there was scarcely a youth ambitious of praise who did not 
 think that he must strive, with all his endeavours, to attain 
 the art of speaking. For a time, indeed, as being ignorant 
 of all method, and as thinking there was no course of ex- 
 ercise for them, or any precepts of art, they attained what 
 they could by the single force of genius and thought. But 
 afterwards, having heard the Greek orators, and gained an 
 acquaintance with Greek literature, and procured instruc- 
 tors, our countrymen were inflamed with an incredible 
 passion for eloquence. The magnitude, the variety, the mul- 
 titude of all kind of causes, excited them to such a degree, 
 that to that learning which each had acquired by his indi- 
 vidual study, frequent practice^, which was superior to the 
 precepts of all masters, was at once added. There were then, 
 lis there are also now, the highest inducements offered for the 
 
C. v.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 147 
 
 cultivation of this study, in regard to public favour, wealth, 
 and dignity. The abilities of our countrymen (as we may 
 judge from many particulars,) far excelled those of the men 
 of every other nation. For which reasons, who would not 
 justly wonder that in the records of all ages, times, and states, 
 so small a number of orators should be found 1 
 
 But the art of eloquence is something greater, and col- 
 lected from more sciences and studies, than people imagine. 
 V. For who can suppose that, amid the greatest multitude of 
 students, the utmost abundance of masters, the most emi- 
 nent geniuses among men, the infinite variety of causes, 
 the most ample rewards offered to eloquence, there is any 
 other reason to be found for the small number of orators 
 than the incredible magnitude and difficulty of the art-1 A 
 knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, without 
 which volubility of words is empty and ridiculous ; speech 
 itself is to be formed, not merely by choice, but by carefu^ 
 construction of words ; and all the emotions of the mind, 
 which nature has given to man, must be intimately known ; 
 for all the force and art of speaking must be employed in 
 allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this 
 must be added a certain portion of grace and wit, learning 
 worthy of a well-bred man, and quickness and brevity in 
 replying as well as attacking, accompanied with a refined 
 decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and 
 a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory ; nor is 
 the knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in par- 
 ticular, to be neglected. • And why need I add any remarks 
 on delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of 
 body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and varia- 
 tion of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in 
 itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage 
 proves, on which though all bestow their utmost labour to 
 form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few 
 there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with 
 patience ? What can I say of that repository for all things, 
 the memory, which, unless it be made the keeper of the 
 matter and words that are the fruits of thought and inven- 
 tion, all the talents of the orator, we see, though they be 
 of the highest degree of excellence, will be of no avail ? Let 
 us then cease to wonder what is the cause of the scarcity of 
 
 l2 
 
 7 
 
148 i>E oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 good speakers, since eloquence results from all those quali- 
 fioationSj in each of which singly it is a great merit to labour 
 successfully; and let us rather exhort our children, and others 
 whose glory and honour is dear to us, to contemplate in their 
 minds the full magnitude of the object, and not to trust that 
 they can reach the height at which they aim, by the aid of the 
 precepts, masters, and exercises, that they are all now follow- 
 ing, but to understand that they must adopt others of a 
 different character. 
 
 VI. In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator 
 ^ pobisessed of every praiseworthy accomplishment, unless he 
 ) has attained the knowledge of everything important, and of 
 all liberal arts, for his language must be ornate and copious 
 from knowledge, since, unless there be beneath the surface 
 matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes 
 an empty and almost puerile flow of words. Yet I will 
 not lay so great a burden upon orators, especially our own, 
 amid so many occupations of public and private life, as 
 to think it allowable for them to be ignorant of nothing; 
 although the qualifications of an orator, and his very pro- 
 fession of speaking well, seem to undertake and promise that 
 he can discourse gracefully and copiously on whatever sub- 
 ject is proposed to him. But because this, I doubt not, will 
 appear to most people an immense and infinite undertaking, 
 and because I see that the Greeks, men amply endowed not 
 only with genius and learning, but also with leisure and appli- 
 cation, have made a kind of partition of the arts, and have 
 not singly laboured in the whole circle of oratory, but have 
 separated from the other parts of rhetoric that department 
 of eloquence which is used in the forum on trials or in deli- 
 berations, and have left this species only to the orator ; I 
 shall not embrace in these books more than has been attri- 
 buted to this kind of speaking^ by the almost unanimous 
 consent of the greatest men, after much examination and 
 discussion of the subject ; and I shall repeat, not a series of 
 precepts drawn from the infancy of our old and boyish learn- 
 ing, but matters which I have heard were formerly argued 
 in a discussion among some of our countrymen who were 
 of the highest eloquence, and of the first rank in every kind 
 
 ^ Deliberative and judicial oratory ; omitting the epideictic or demon- 
 strative kind. 
 
C. VII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 14:9 
 
 of dignity. Not that I contemn the instructions which the 
 Greek rhetoricians and teachers have left us, but, as they are 
 already public, and within the reach of all, and can neither 
 be set forth more elegantly, nor explained more clearly by 
 my interpretation, you will, I think, excuse me, my brother, 
 if I prefer to the Greeks the authority of those to whom the 
 utmost merit in eloquence has been allowed by our own 
 countrymen. 
 
 VII. At the time, then, when the consul Philippus was vehe- 
 mently inveighing against the cause of the nobility, and the 
 tribuneship of Drusus, undertaken to support the authority 
 of the senate, seemed to be shaken and weakened, I was told, 
 I remember, that Lucius Crassus, as if for the purpose of 
 collecting his thoughts, betook himself, dmdng the days of the 
 Roman games, to his Tusculan country-seat, whither also 
 Quintus Mucins, who had been his father-in-law, is said to have 
 xjome at the same time, as well as Marcus Antonius, a sharer 
 in all the political proceedings of Crassus, and united in the 
 closest friendship with him. There went out with Crassus him- 
 self two young men besides, great friends of Drusus, youths 
 of whom our ancestors then entertained sanguine hopes that 
 they would maintain the dignity of their order ; Caius 
 Cotta, who was then a candidate for the tribuneship of the 
 people, and Publius Sulpicius, who was thought likely to 
 stand for that office in due course. These, on the first day, 
 conferred much together until very late in the evening, 
 concerning the condition of those times, and the whole com- 
 monwealth, for which purpose they had met. Cotta re- 
 peated to me many things then prophetically lamented and 
 noticed by the three of consular dignity in that conversation \ 
 so that no misfortune afterwards happened to the state which 
 they had not perceived to be hanging over it so long before . 
 and he said that, when this conversation was finished, there 
 was such politeness shown by Crassus, that after they had 
 bathed and sat down to table, all the seriousness of the former 
 discourse was banished ; and there appeared so much plea- 
 santry in him, and so much agreeableness in his humour 
 that though the early part of the day might seem to have 
 been passed by them in the senate-house, the banquet showed 
 all the delights of the Tusculan villa. 
 
 But on the next day, when the older part of the company 
 
150 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. I. 
 
 had taken sufficient repose, and were come to their walk, 
 he told me that Scsevola, after taking two or three turns, 
 said, *' Why should not we, Crassus, imitate Socrates in the 
 Phaedrus of Plato '? ^ for this plane-tree of yours has put me 
 in mind of it, which diffuses its spreading boughs to over- 
 shade this place, not less widely than that did whose covert 
 Socrates sought, and which seems to me to have grown not 
 so much from the rivulet which is described, as from the 
 language of Plato : and what Socrates, with the hardest of 
 feet, used to do, that is, to throw himself on the grass, while 
 he delivered those sentiments which philosophers say were 
 uttered divinely, may surely, with more justice, be allowed to 
 my feet." Then Crassus rejoined, "Nay, we will yet further 
 consult your convenience ;" and called for cushions ; when 
 they all, said Cotta, sat down on the seats that were under 
 the plane-tree. 
 
 VIII. There, (as Cotta used to relate,) in order that the 
 minds of them all might have some relaxation from their 
 former discourse, Crassus introduced a conversation on the 
 study of oratory. After he had commenced in this manner. 
 That indeed Sulpicius and Cotta did not seem to need his 
 exhortations, but rather both to deserve his praise, as they 
 had already attained such powers as not only to excel their 
 equals in age, but to be admitted to a comparison with their 
 seniors; "Nor does anything seem to me," he added, "more 
 
 \ noble than to be able to fix the attention of assemblies of 
 ^en by speaking, to fascinate their minds, to direct their 
 passions to whatever object the orator pleases, and to dissuade 
 them from whatsoever he desires. This particular art has 
 constantly flourished above all others in every free state, and 
 ^especially in those which have enjoyed peace and tranquillity, 
 "and has ever exercised great power. For what is so admirable 
 as that, out of an infinite multitude of men, there should 
 arise a single individual, who can alone, or with only a few 
 others, exert effectually that power which nature has granted 
 to all ? Or what is so pleasant to be heard and understood as 
 1 P. 229. Compare Ruhnken ad Lex. Timaei, v. a/ixcpiAacpSs, and 
 Manutius ad Cic. Div. ii. 11, p. 254. Cicero aptly refers to that 
 dialogue of Plato, because much is said about eloquence in it. The 
 plane-tree was greatly admired by the Romans for its wide-spreading 
 shade. See I. H. Vossius ad Virg. Georg. ii. 70 ; Plin. H. N. xii. 1; 
 xvii. 15 ; Hor. Od. ii. 15. 5; Gronov. Obss. i. 5. Ellendt, 
 
C. IX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 151 
 
 an oration adorned and polished with wise thoughts and 
 weighty expressions ? Or what is so striking, so astonishing, 
 as that the tumults of the people, the religious feelings of 
 judges, the gravity of the senate, should be swayed by the speech 
 of one man ? Or what, moreover, is so kingly, so liberal, so 
 munificent, as to give assistance to the suppliant, to raise 
 the afflicted, to bestow security, to deliver from dangers, to 
 maintain men in the rights of citizenship ? What, also, is 
 so necessary as to keep arms always ready, with which you 
 may either be protected yourself, or defy the malicious, or 
 avenge yourself when provoked 1 Or consider, (that you 
 may not always contemplate the forum, the benches, the 
 rostra, and the senate,) what can be more delightful in leisure, 
 or more suited to social intercourse, than elegant conversa- 
 tion, betraying no want of intelligence on any subject 1 For 
 it is by this one gift that we are most distinguished from 
 brute animals, that we converse together, and can express our 
 thoughts by speech. Who therefore would not justly make 
 this an object of admiration, and think it worthy of his utmost 
 exertions, to surpass mankind themselves in that single ex- 
 cellence by which they claim their superiority over brutes'? 
 But, that we may notice the most important point of all, 
 what other power could either have assembled mankind, 
 when dispersed, into one place, or have brought them from 
 wild and savage life to the present humane and civilized 
 state of society; or, when cities were established, have 
 described for them laws, judicial institutions, and rights ? 
 And that I may not mention more examples, which are almost 
 without number, I will conclude the subject in one short 
 sentence : for I consider, that by the judgment and wisdom 
 of the perfect orator, not only his own honour, but that of 
 many other individuals, and the welfare of the whole state, 
 are principally upheld. Go on, therefore, as you are doing, 
 young men, and apply earnestly to the study in which you 
 are engaged, that you may be an honour to yourselves, an 
 advantage to your friends, and a benefit to the republic." 
 
 IX. Scsevola then observed with courtesy, as was always 
 
 his manner, " I agree with Crassus as to other points (that 
 
 I may not detract from the art or glory of Lselius, my 
 
 father-in-law, or of my son-in-law here),^ but I am afraid, 
 
 ^ Crassiis. 
 
152 DE oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 Crassus, that I cannot grant you these two points ; one, that 
 states were, as you said, originally established, and have often 
 been preserved, by orators ; the other, that, setting aside the 
 forum, the assemblies of the people, the courts of judicature, 
 and the senate-house, the orator is, as you pronounced, accom- 
 plished in every subject of conversation and learning. For 
 who will concede to you, either that mankind, dispersed 
 originally in mountains and woods, enclosed themselves in 
 towns and walls, not so much from being convinced by the 
 counsels of the wise, as from being charmed by the speeches 
 of the eloquent '^ Or that other advantages, arising either 
 from the establishment or preservation of states, were settled, 
 not by wise and brave men, but by fluent and elegant 
 speakers'? Does Romulus seem to you to have assembled 
 the shepherds, and those that flocked to him from all parts, 
 or to have formed marriages with the Sabines, or to have 
 repelled the power of the neighbouring people, by eloquence, 
 and not by counsel and eminent wisdom 1 Is there any trace 
 of eloquence apparent in Numa Pompilius, in Servius Tullius, 
 or in the rest of our kings, from whom we have many excel- 
 lent regulations for maintaining our government ? After the 
 kings were expelled (though we see that their expulsion was 
 eflected by the mind of Lucius Brutus, and not by his tongue), 
 we not perceive that all the subsequent transactions are full 
 of wise counsel, but- destitute of all mixture of eloquence? 
 But if I should be inclined to adduce examples from our 
 own and other states, I could cite more instances of mischief 
 than of benefit done to public affairs by men of eminent 
 eloquence; but, to omit others, I think, Crassus, that the 
 most eloquent men I ever heard, except you two,^ were the 
 Sempronii, Tiberius and Caius, whose father, a prudent and 
 grave man, but by no means eloquent, on several other occa- 
 sions, but especially when censor, was of the utmost service 
 to the republic ; and he, not by any faultless flow of speech, 
 but by a word and a nod, transferred the freedmen into the 
 city tribes;^ and, if he had not done so, we should now have 
 
 ^ Crassus and Antonius. 
 
 ^ Livy, xlv. 15, says that the freedmen were previously dispersed 
 among all the four city tribes, and that Gracchus included them all in 
 the Esquiline tribe. The object was to allow the freedmen as little 
 influence as possible in voting. 
 
C. X.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 153 
 
 no republic, ^vhich we still maintain with difficulty; but his 
 sons, who were eloquent, and qualified for speaking by all the 
 helps of nature and of learning, having found the state in 
 a most flourishing condition, both through the counsels of 
 their father, and the arms of their ancestors, brought their 
 country, by means of their oratory, that most excellent ruler 
 of states as you call it, to the verge of ruin. 
 
 X. " Were our ancient laws, and the customs of our an- 
 cestors; were the auspices, over which you, Crassus, and 
 I preside with great security to the republic ; were the reli- 
 gious rites and ceremonies; were the civil laws, the know- 
 ledge of which has long prevailed in our family, (and without 
 any praise for eloquence.) either invented, or understood, or 
 in any way ordered by the tribe of orators 1 I can remember 
 that Servius Galba, a man of godlike power in speaking, as 
 well as Marcus JEmilius Porcina, and Cneius Carbo himself, 
 whom you defeated when you were but a youth,^ was igno- 
 rant of the laws, at a loss in the practices of our ancestors, 
 and unlearned in civil jurisprudence; and, except you, Crassus, 
 who, rather from your own inclination to study, than because 
 it w^as any peculiar business of an orator, have learned the 
 civil law from us, as I am sometimes ashamed to say, this 
 generation of ours is ignorant of law. 
 
 ^' But what you assumed, as by a law of your own, in 
 the last part of your speech, that an orator is able to speak 
 fluently on any subject, I would not, if I were not here in 
 your own domain, tolerate for a moment, but would head 
 a party who should either oppose you by an interdict,^ or 
 summon you to contend with them at law, for having so 
 unceremoniously invaded the possessions of others. In the 
 first placCj all the Pythagoreans, and the followers of Demo- 
 critus, would institute a suit against you, with the rest of the 
 natural philosophers, each in his own department, men who 
 
 ^ Caius Papirius Carbo, after having been a very seditions tribune, 
 went over in his consulship to the side of the patricians, and highly 
 extolled Lucius Opimius for killing Caius Gracchus. But, at the ex- 
 piration of his consulship, being impeached by Crassus, on what grounds 
 we do not know, he put himself to death. Cic. Orat. iii. 20, 74 ; 
 Brut. 27, 103. Ellendt. 
 
 2 An edict of the praetor forbidding something to be done, in con- 
 tradistinction to a decree, which ordered something to be done. Ellendt 
 refers to Gaius, iv. 139, 160. 
 
154: DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 are elegant and powerful speakers, with whom you could not 
 contend on equal terms. ^ Whole troops of other philosophers 
 would assail you besides, even down from Socrates their 
 origin and head, and would convince you that you had 
 learned nothing about good and evil in life, nothing about 
 the passions of the mind, nothing about the moral conduct of 
 mankind, nothing about the proper course of life ; they would 
 show you that you have made no due inquiry after know- 
 ledge, and that you know nothing ; and, when they had made 
 an attack upon you altogether, then every sect would bring 
 its separate action against you. The Academy would press 
 you, and, w^hatever you asserted, force you to deny it. Our 
 friends the Stoics would hold you entangled in the snares of 
 their disputations and questions. The Peripatetics would prove 
 that those very aids and ornaments to speaking, which you 
 consider the peculiar property of the orators, must be sought 
 from themselves; and they would show you that Aristotle 
 and Theophrastus have written not only better, but also far 
 more copiously, on these subjects, than all the masters of the 
 art of speaking. I say nothirig of the mathematicians; the 
 grammarians, the musicians, with whose sciences this art of 
 speaking of yours is not connected by the least affinity. I 
 think, therefore, Crassus, that such great and numerous pro- 
 fessions ought not to be made. What you can effect is suf- 
 ficiently great; namely, that in judicial matters the cause 
 which you plead shall seem the better and more probable; 
 that in public assemblies, and in delivering opinions, your 
 oratory shall have the most power to persuade; that, finally, 
 you shall seem to the wise to speak with eloquence, and even to 
 the simple to speak with truth. If you can do more than this, 
 it will appear to me that it is not the orator, but Crassus 
 himself that effects it by the force of talents peculiar to 
 himself, and not common to other orators." 
 
 XI. Crassus then replied, " I am not ignorant, Scsevola, 
 that things of this sort are commonly asserted and maintained 
 among the Greeks; for I was an auditor of their greatest 
 
 ^ Justo Sacramento. The sacramentmn was a deposit of a certain sum 
 of money laid down by two parties who were going to law; and 
 when the decision was made, the victorious party received his money 
 back, while that of the defeated party went into the public treasury. 
 Varro, L. L. v. 180 
 
CXI.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 155 
 
 men, when I came to Athens as quaestor from Macadonia/ 
 and when the Academy was in a flourishing state, as it was 
 represented in those days, for Charmadas, and Chtomachus, 
 and ^schines were in possession of it. There was also Me- 
 trodorus, who, with the others, had been a diligent hearer of 
 the famous Carneades himself, a man beyond all others, as 
 they told me, a most spirited and copious speaker. Mnesar- 
 chus, too, was in great esteem, a hearer of your friend 
 Pansetius, and Diodorus, a scholar of Critolaus the Peri- 
 patetic; and there were many other famous men besides, 
 highly distinguished in philosophy, by all of whom, with one 
 voice as it were, I observed that the orator was repelled from 
 the government of states, excluded from all learning and 
 knowledge of great affairs, and degraded and thrust down 
 into the courts of justice and petty assemblies, as into a 
 workshop. But I neither assented to those men, nor to the 
 originator of these disputations, and by far the most eloquent 
 of them all, the eminently grave and oratorical Plato ; whose 
 Gorgias I then diligently read over at Athens with Char- 
 madas ; from which book I conceived the highest admiration 
 of Plato, as he seemed to me to prove himself an eminent 
 orator, even in ridiculing orators. A controversy indeed 
 on the word orator has long disturbed the minute Grecians, 
 who are fonder of argument than of truth. For if any one 
 pronounces him to be an orator who can speak fluently only 
 on law in general, or on judicial questions, or before the 
 people, or in the senate, he must yet necessarily grant and 
 allow him a variety of talents; for he cannot treat even of 
 these matters with sufficient skill and accuracy without great 
 attention to all public affairs, nor Avithout a knowledge of 
 laws, customs, and equity, nor without understanding the 
 nature and manners of mankind ; and to him who knows these 
 things, without which no one can maintain even the most 
 minute points in judicial pleadings, how much is wanting 
 of the knowledge even of the most important affairs? But if 
 you allow nothing to belong to the orator but to speak aptly, 
 ornately, and copiously, how can he even attain these qualities 
 without that knowledge which you do not allow him'? for 
 there can be no true merit in speaking, unless what is said is 
 
 ^ Crassus was quaestor in Asia, a.u.c. 645, and, on his return, at the 
 expiration of his office, passed through Macedonia. Eilendt. 
 
Id 6 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. I. 
 
 thoroughly understood by him who says it. If, therefore, the 
 natural philosopher Democritus spoke with elegance, as he is 
 reported to have spoken, and as it appears to me that he did 
 speak, the matter on which he spoke belonged to the philosopher, 
 but the graceful array of words is to be ascribed to the orator. 
 And if Plato spoke divinely upon subjects most remote from 
 civil controversies, as I grant that he did; if also Aristotle, 
 and Theophrastus, and Carneades, were eloquent, and spoke 
 with sweetness and grace on those matters which they dis- 
 cussed; let the subjects on which they spoke belong to other 
 studies, but their speech itself, surely, is the peculiar offspring 
 of that art of which we are now discoursing and inquiring. 
 For we see that some have reasoned on the same subjects 
 jejunely and drily, as Chrysippus, whom they celebrate as the 
 acutest of philosophers; nor is he on this account to be 
 thought to have been deficient in philosophy, because he did 
 not gain the talent of speaking from an art which is foreign 
 to philosophy. 
 
 XII. " Where then lies the difference ? Or by what 
 term will you discriminate the fertility and copiousness of 
 speech in those whom I have named, from the barrenness 
 of those who use not this variety and elegance of phrase ] 
 One thing there will certainly be, which those who speak well 
 will exhibit as their own ; a graceful and elegant style, dis- 
 tinguished by a peculiar artifice and polish. But this kind 
 • of diction, if there be not matter beneath it clear and 
 j intelligible to the speaker, must either amount to nothing, or 
 be received with ridicule by all who hear it. For what savours 
 so much of madness, as the empty sound of words, even the 
 ^ (^ ,, choicest and most elegant, when there is no sense or knowledge 
 contained in them 1 Whatever be the subject of a speech, 
 therefore, in whatever art or branch of science, the orator, if 
 he has made himself master of it, as of his client's cause, 
 will speak on it better and more elegantly than even the 
 very originator and author of it can.^ If indeed any 
 one shall say that there are certain trains of thought and 
 reasoning properly belonging to orators, and a knowledge of 
 certain things [circumscribed within the limits of the forum, 
 I will confess that our common speech is employed about 
 these matters chiefly ; but yet there are many things, in 
 ^ See Quintilian, ii. 21. 
 
C. XIII.] Ox. _ " CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 157 
 
 these very topics, which those masters of rhetoric, as they are 
 called, neither teach nor understand. For who s ignorant 
 that the highest power of an orator consists in exciting the 
 minds of men to anger, or to hatred, or to grief, or in recall- 
 ing them from these more violent emotions to gentleness and 
 compassion 1 which power will never be able to effect its ob- 
 ject by eloquence, unless in him who has obtained a thorough 
 insight into the nature of mankind, and all the passions of 
 humanity, and those causes by which our minds are either 
 impelled or restrained. But ail these are thought to belong 
 to the philosophers, nor will the orator, at least with my con- 
 sent, ever deny that such is the case ; but when he has 
 conceded to them the knowledge of things, since they are 
 willing to exhaust their labours on that alone, he will assume 
 to himself the treatment of oratory, which without that yy 
 knowledge is nothing. For the proper concern of an orator/y 
 as I have already often said, is language of power and/ 
 elegance accommodated to the feelings and understandings of 
 mankind. 
 
 XIII. " On these matters I confess that Aristotle and Theo- 
 phrastus have written.^ But consider, Scsevola, whether this 
 is not wholly in my favour. For I do not borrow from them 
 what the orator possesses in common with them ; but they 
 allow that what they say on these subjects belongs to oratory. 
 Their other treatises, accordingly, they distinguish by the 
 name of the science on which each is written ; their treatises 
 on oratory they entitle and designate as books of rhetoric. 
 For when, in their discussions, (as often happens,) such topics 
 present themselves as require them to speak of the immortal 
 gods, of piety, of concord, of friendship, of the common 
 rights of their fellow-citizens, or those of all mankind, of the 
 law of nations, of equity, of temperance, of greatness of 
 mind, of every kind of virtue, all the academies and schools 
 of philosophy, I imagine, will cry out that all these subjects 
 are their property, and that no particle of them belongs to 
 the orator. But when I have given them liberty to reason 
 on all these subjects in corners to amuse their leisure, I shall 
 give and assign to the orator his part, which is, to set forth 
 with full poAver and attraction the very same topics which 
 they discuss in such tame and bloodless phraseology. These 
 
 ^ Though they are philosophers, and not orators or rhetoricians. 
 
158 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 points I tlten discussed with the philosophers in person at 
 Athens, for Marcus Marcellus, our countryman, who is now 
 curule sedile, obhged me to do so, and he would certainly 
 have taken part in our present conversation, were he not now 
 celebrating the public games ; for he was then a youth mar- 
 vellously given to these studies. 
 
 ''Of the institution of laws, of war, of peace, of alliances, 
 of tributes, of the civil law as relating to various ranks and 
 ages respectively,^ let the Greeks say, if they will, that Ly- 
 curgus or Solon (although I think that these should be 
 enrolled in the number of the eloquent) had more knowledge 
 than Hypereides or Demosthenes, men of the highest accom- 
 plishments and refinement in oratory ; or let our countrymen 
 prefer, in this sort of knowledge, the Decemviri who wrote 
 the Twelve Tables, and who must have been wise men, to 
 Servius Galba, and your father-in-law Lselius, who are al- 
 lowed to have excelled in the glorious art of speaking. I, 
 indeed, shall never deny that there are some sciences pecu- 
 liarly well understood by those who have applied their whole 
 study to the knowledge and consideration of them ; but the 
 accomplished and complete orator I shall call him who can 
 speak on all subjects with variety and copiousness. XIV. For 
 cften in those causes which all acknowledge properly to 
 belong to orators, there is something to be drawn forth and 
 adopted, not from the routine of the Forum, which is the 
 only knowledge that you grant to the orator, but from some 
 of the more obscure sciences. I ask whether a speech can be 
 made for or against a general, without an acquaintance with 
 military affairs, or often without a knowledge of certain 
 inland and maritime countries'? whether a speech can be 
 made to the people about passing or rejecting laws, or in the 
 senate on any kind of public transactions, without the greatest 
 knowledge and judgment in political matters'? whether a 
 speech can be adapted to excite or calm the thoughts and 
 
 ^ De jure civili generatim in ordines cetatesqiie descHpto. Instead of 
 civili, the old reading was civium, in accordance with which Lambinus 
 altered descripto into descripto7'um. Civili was an innovation of Ernesti, 
 which Ellendt condemns, and retains civium; observing that Cicero 
 means jura civium publica singulis ordinibus et cetatibus assignata. " By 
 ordines," says Ernesti, " are meant patricians and plebeians, senators, 
 knights, and classes in the census; by cetates, younger paid older 
 persons." 
 
C. XV.] ox THE CHABACTER OF THE ORATOR. 159 
 
 passions (which alone is a great business of the orator) 
 without a most diligent examination of all those doctrines 
 which are set forth on the nature and manners of men by the 
 philosophers ] I do not know whether I may not be less 
 successful in maintaining what I am going to say; but I 
 shall not hesitate to speak that which I think. Physics, and 
 mathematics, and those other things which you just now 
 decided to belong to other sciences, belong to the peculiar 
 knowledge of those who profess them; but if any one would 
 illustrate those arts by eloquence, he must have recourse to 
 the power of oratory. Nor, if, as is said, Philo,^ the famous 
 architect, who built an arsenal for the Athenians, gave that 
 people an eloquent account of his work, is it to be imagined 
 that his eloquence proceeded from the art of the architect, 
 but from that of the orator. Or, if our friend Marcus Antonius 
 had had to speak for Hermodorus- on the subject of dock- 
 building, he would have spoken, when he had. learned the 
 case fi"om Hermodorus, with elegance and copiousness, drawn 
 from an art quite unconnected with dock-building. And 
 Asclepiades,^ whom we knew^ as a physician and a fi^iend, did 
 not, when he excelled others of his profession in eloquence, 
 employ, in his graceful elocution, the art of physic, but that 
 of oratory. What Socrates used to say, that all men ar^i^^y 
 sufficiently eloquent in that which they understand, is very -^ 
 plausible, but not true. It would have been nearer truth to 
 say, that no man can be eloquent on a subject that he does 
 not understand; and that, if he understands a subject ever' 
 so well, -but is ignorant how to form and polish his speech, 
 he cannot express himself eloquently even about what he does 
 understand. 
 
 XY. '' If, therefore, any one desires to define and compre- 
 hend the whole and peculiar power of an orator, that man, in 
 my opinion, will be an orator, worthy of so great a name, 
 who, whatever subject comes before him, and requires rheto- 
 rical, elucidation, can speak on it judiciously, in set form, 
 
 ^ He is frequently mentioned by the ancients ; the passages relating 
 to him have been collected by Junius de Pictura in Catal. Artif. 
 Ernesti. See Plin. H. N. vii. 38 ; Plut. Syll. c. 14 ; Yal. Max. vii. 12. 
 
 ^ A Roman shipbuilder. See Tumeb. Advers. xi. 2. 
 
 ^ See Plin. H. X. vii. 37. Celsus often refers to his authority as the 
 founder of a new party. Ellendt. 
 
160 DE oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 elegantly, and from memory, and with a certain dignity of 
 action. But if the phrase which I have used, ' on whatevei 
 subject,' is thought by any one too comprehensive, let him 
 retrench and curtail as much of it as he pleases ; but this 
 I will maintain, that though the orator be ignorant of what 
 belongs to other arts and pursuits, and understands only 
 what concerns the discussions and practice of the Forum, yet 
 ■^he has to speak on those arts, he will, when he has learned 
 what pertains to any of them from persons who understand 
 them, discourse upon them much better than the very persons 
 of whom those arts form the peculiar province. Thus, if our 
 friend Sulpicius have to speak on military affairs, he will 
 inquire about them of my kinsman Caius Marius,^ and when he 
 has received information, will speak upon them in such a' 
 manner, that he shall seem to Marius to understand them 
 better than himself Or if he has to speak on the civil law, 
 he will consult with you, and will excel you, though eminently 
 wise and learned in it, in speaking on those very points which 
 he shall have learned from yourself Or if any subject pre- 
 sents itself, requiring him to speak on the nature and vices of 
 men, on desire, on moderation, on continence, on grief, on 
 death, perhaps, if he thinks proper, (though the orator ought 
 to have a knowledge of these things,) he will consult with 
 Sextus Pompeius,^ a man learned in philosophy. But this he 
 will certainly accomplish, that, of whatever matter he gains 
 a knowledge, or from whomsoever, he will speak upon it 
 much more elegantly than the very person from whom he 
 gained the knowledge. But, since philosophy is distinguished 
 into three parts, inquiries into the obscurities of physics, the 
 subtilties of logic, and the knowledge of life and manners, let 
 us, if Sulpicius will listen to me, leave the two former, and 
 consult our ease; but unless we have a knowledge of the 
 third, which has always been the province of the orator, we 
 
 ^ The son of the great Caius Marius, seven times consul, had married 
 Mucia, the daughter of the augur Scsevola. In Cicero's Oration for 
 Balbus, also, c. 21, 49, where the merits of that eminent commander 
 are celebrated, Crassus is called his affinis, relation by marriage. 
 Henrichsen, 
 
 ^ The uncle of Cneius Pompey the Great, who had devoted excel- 
 lent talents to the attainment of a thorough knowledge of civil law, 
 geometry, and the doctrines of the Stoics. See Cic. Brut. 47 ; Philipp. 
 xii. 11 ; Beier, ad Off. i. 6, 19. Ellendt, 
 
C. XVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 161 
 
 shall leave him nothing in which he can distinguish himself. 
 The part of philosophy, therefore, regarding life and manners, 
 must be thoroughly mastered by the orator; other subjects, 
 even if he has not learned them, he will be able, whenever 
 there is occasion, to adorn by his eloquence, if they are brought 
 before him and made known to him. 
 
 XVI. ^^For if it is allowed amongst the learned that Aratus, 
 a man ignorant of astronomy, has treated of heaven and the 
 constellations in extremely polished and excellent verses j if 
 K'icander,^ of Colophon, a man totally unconnected with the 
 country, has written well on rural affairs, with the aid of 
 poetical talent, and not from understanding husbandry, what 
 reason is there why an orator should not speak most elo- 
 quently on those matters of which he shall have gained 
 a knowledge for a certain purpose and occasion? For the. 
 poet is nearly allied to the orator; being somewhat more 
 restricted in numbers, but less restrained in the choice of 
 words, yet in many kinds of embellishment his rival and 
 almost equal; in one respect, assuredly, nearly the same, 
 that he circumscribes or bounds his jurisdiction by no limits, 
 but reserves to himself full right to range wherever he 
 pleases with the same ease and liberty. For why did you 
 say, Scsevola,^ that you would not endure, unless you were in 
 my domain, my assertion, that the orator ought to be accom- 
 plished in every style of speaking, and in every part of 
 polite learning? I should certainly not have said this if I 
 had thought myself to be the orator whom I conceive in my 
 imagination. But, as Caius Lucilius used frequently to say 
 (a man not very friendly to you,^ and on that account less 
 familiar with me than he could wish, but a man of learning 
 and good breeding), I am of this opinion, that no one is to"! 
 be numbered among orators who is not thoroughly accom- \ 
 
 .^ Kicander, a physician, grammarian, and poet, flourislied in the 
 time of Attains, the second king of Pergamus, about fifty years before 
 Christ. His Theriaca and Alexipharmaca are extant ; his Georgica, to 
 ;which Cicero here alludes, has perished. Henrichsen. 
 
 ^ See c. X. 
 
 ^ It is Lucilius the Satirist that is meant. "V^^lat cause there had 
 been for unfriendliness between him and Scpevola is unknown ; perhaps 
 be might have spoken too freely, or made some satirical reniaik on the 
 accusation of Scfevola by Albucius for bribery, on which there are 
 some verses in b. iii. c. 43.- Ellendt. 
 
162 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. I. 
 
 plished in all branches of knowledge requisite for a man of 
 good breeding; and though we may not put forward such 
 Knowledge in conversation, yet it is apparent, and indeed 
 evident, whether we are destitute of it, or have acquired it ; 
 as those who play at tennis do not exhibit, in playing, the 
 gestures of the paleestra, but their movements indicate whe- 
 ther they have learned those exercises or are unacquainted 
 with them; and as those who shape out anything, though 
 they do not then exercise the art of painting, yet make it 
 clear whether they can paint or not ; so in orations to courts 
 of justice, before the people, and in the senate, although 
 other sciences have no pecidiar place in them, yet is it easily 
 proved whether he who speaks has only been exercised in 
 the parade of declamation, or has devoted himself to oratory 
 after having been instructed in all liberal knowledge." 
 
 XVII. Then Scsevola, smiling, said : ^' I will not struggle 
 with you any longer, Crassus ; for you have, by some artifice, 
 made good what you asserted against me, so as to grant me 
 whatever I refused to allow to the orator, and yet so as to 
 wrest from me those very things again I know not how, and 
 to transfer them to the orator as his property.^ When 
 I went as praetor to Rhodes, and communicated to Apol- 
 lonius, that famous instructor in this profession, what I had 
 learned from Paneetius, Apollonius, as was his manner, ridi- 
 culed these matters,^ threw contempt upon philosophy, and 
 made many other observations with less wisdom than wit; 
 but your remarks were of such a kind as not to express con- 
 tempt for any arts or sciences, but to admit that they are all 
 attendants and handmaids of the orator; and if ever any one 
 should comprehend them all, and the same person should add 
 to that knowledge the powers of supremely elegant oratory, 
 I cannot but say that he would be a man of high distinction 
 
 ^ You granted me all that I desired when you said that all arts and 
 sciences belong, as it were, respectively to those who have invented, or 
 profess, or study them ; . . . . but when you said that those arts and 
 sciences are necessary to the orator, and that he can speak upon them, 
 if he wishes, with more elegance and effect than those who have made 
 them their peculiar study, you seemed to take them all from me again, 
 and to transfer them to the orator as his own property. Proust. 
 
 2 Orellius reads Hcec — irrisit, where the reader will observe that the 
 pronoun is governed by the verb. Ellendt and some others read Qucb 
 instead of Hcec. Several alterations have been proposed, but none of 
 them bring the sentence into a satisfactory state. 
 
C. SVlII.j ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. lf^3 
 
 and worthy of the greatest admiration. But if there should 
 be such a one, or indeed has ever been, or can possibly be, 
 you alone would be the person; who, not only in my judg- 
 ment, but in that of all men, have hardly left to other 
 orators (I speak it with deference to this company) any glory 
 to be acquired. If, however, there is in yourself no deficiency 
 of knowledge pertaining to judicial and political affairs, 
 and yet you have not mastered all that additional learning 
 which you assign to the complete orator, let us consider whe- 
 ther you do not attribute to him more than possibility and 
 truth itself will allow." Here Crassus rejoined : " Remember 
 that I have not been speaking of my own talents, but of 
 those of the true orator. For what have I either learned or 
 had a possibility of knowing, who entered upon pleading 
 before I had any instruction ; whom the pressure of business 
 overtasked amidst the occupations of the forum, of canvassing, 
 of public affairs, and the management of the causes of friends, 
 before I could form any true notion of the importance of 
 such great employments'? But if there seem to you to be so 
 much in me, to whom, though capacity, as you think, may 
 not greatly have been wanting, yet to whom leai'ning, leisure, 
 and that keen application to study which is so necessary, 
 have certainly been wanting, what do you think would be the 
 case if those acquirements, which I have not gained, should 
 be united to some greater genius than mine*? How able, how 
 gi'eat an orator, do you think, would he prove?" 
 
 XYIII. Antonius then observed : " You prove to me, 
 Crassus, what you advance ; nor do I doubt that he will 
 have a far greater fund of eloquence who shall have learned 
 the reason and nature of everything and of all sciences. But, 
 in the first place, this is difficult to be achieved, especially 
 in such a life as ours and such occupations; and next, it 
 is to be feared that we may, by such studies, be drawn away 
 from our exercise and practice of speaking before the people 
 and in the forum. The eloquence of those men whom you 
 mentioned a little before, seems to me to be of a quite dif- 
 ferent sort, though they speak with grace and dignity, as well 
 on the nature of things as on human life. Theirs is a neat 
 and florid kind of language, but more adapted for parade 
 and exercise in the schools, than for these tumults of the 
 city and forum. For when I, who late in life, and then but 
 
 m2 
 
164 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 lightly, touched upon Greek learning, was going as proconsul 
 into Cilicia, and had arrived at Athens^ I waited there several 
 days on account of the difficulty of sailing; and as I had 
 every day with me the most learned men, nearly the same 
 that you have just now named, and a report, I know not 
 how, had spread amongst them that I, like you, was versed 
 in causes of great importance, every one, according to his 
 abilities, took occasion to discourse upon the office and art of 
 an orator. Some of them, as Mnesarchus himself, said, that 
 those whom we call orators were nothing but a set of me- 
 chanics with glib and well-practised tongues, but that no 
 one could be an orator but a man of true wisdom ; and that 
 eloquence itself, as it consisted in the art of speaking well, 
 was a kind of virtue,^ and that he who possessed one virtue 
 possessed all, and that virtues were in themselves equal and 
 alike ; and thus he who was eloquent possessed all virtues, 
 and was a man of true wisdom. But their phraseology was in- 
 tricate and dry, and quite unsuited to my taste. Charmadas 
 indeed spoke much more diffusely on those topics ; not that 
 he delivered his own opinion (for it is the hereditary custom 
 of every one in the Academy to take the part of opponents 
 to all in their disputations), but what he chiefly signified was, 
 that those who were called rhetoricians, and laid down rules 
 for the art of speaking, understood nothing; and that no 
 man could attain any command of eloquence who had not 
 mastered the doctrines of the philosophers. 
 
 XIX. ^^ Certain men of eloquence at Athens, versed in 
 public affairs and judicial pleadings, disputed on the other 
 side j among whom was Menedemus, lately my guest at Rome ; 
 but when he had observed that there is a sort of wisdom 
 which is employed in inquiring into the methods of settling 
 and managing governments, he, though a ready speaker^ was 
 promptly attacked by the other,^ a man of abundant learning, 
 and of an almost incredible variety and copiousness of argu- 
 ment; who maintained that every portion of such wisdom 
 must be derived from philosophy, and that whatever was 
 established in a state concerning the immortal gods, the dis- 
 cipline of youth, justice, patience, temperance, moderation in 
 everything, and other matters, without which states would 
 
 ^ The Stoics called eloquence one of their virtues. See Quintilian, 
 ii. 20. ^ Charmadas. 
 
C. XX.] ox THE OHiKACTER OF THE ORATOR. 165 
 
 either not subsist at all, or be corrupt in morals, was nowhere 
 to be found in the petty treatises of the rhetoricians. For if 
 those teachers of rhetoric included in their art such a mul- 
 titude of the most important subjects, why, he asked, were 
 their books crammed with rules about proems and perorations, 
 and such trifles (for so he called them), while about the 
 modelling of states, the composition of laws, about equity, 
 justice, integrity, about mastering the appetites, and forming 
 the morals of mankind, not one single syllable was to be 
 found in their pages ? Their precepts he ridiculed in such 
 a manner, as to show that the teachers were not only desti- 
 tute of the knowledge which they arrogated to themselves, 
 but that they did not even know the proper art and method 
 of speaking; for he thought that the principal business of an 
 orator was, that he might appear to those to whom he spoke\ 
 to be such as he would wish to appear (that this was to be 
 attained by a life of good reputation, on which those teachers / 
 of rhetoric had laid down nothing in their precepts); and 
 that the minds of the audience should be affected in such 
 a manner as the orator would have them to be affected, an 
 object, also, which could by no means be attained, unless the 
 speaker understood by what methods, by what arguments, 
 and by what sort of language the minds of men are moved 
 in any particular direction; but that these matters were 
 involved and concealed in the profoundest doctrines of phi- 
 losophy, which these rhetoricians had not touched even with 
 the extremity of their lips. These assertions Menedemus 
 endeavoured to refute, but rather by authorities than by 
 arguments ; for, repeating from memory many noble passages 
 from the orations of Demosthenes, he showed that that 
 orator, while he swayed the minds of judges or of the people 
 by his eloquence, was not ignorant by what means he attained 
 his end, which Charmadas denied that any one could know 
 without philosophy. 
 
 XX. " To this Charmadas replied, that he did not deny that 
 Demosthenes was possessed of consummate ability and the 
 utmost energy of eloquence; but whether he had these 
 powers from natural genius, or because he was, as was 
 acknowledged, a diligent hearer of Plato, it was not what 
 Demosthenes could do, but what the rhetoricians taught, 
 that was the subject of inquiry. Sometimes too tie was 
 
168 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. I. 
 
 carried so far by the drift of his discourse, as to maintain 
 that there was no art at ail in speaking; and having shown 
 by various arguments that we are so formed by nature as to 
 be able to flatter, and to insinuate ourselves, as suppliants, 
 into the favour of those from whom we wish to obtain any- 
 thing, as well as to terrify our enemies by menaces, to relate 
 matters of fact, to confirm what we assert, to refute what is 
 said against us, and, finally, to use entreaty or lamentation; 
 particulars in which the whole faculties of the orator are 
 employed; and that practice and exercise sharpened the 
 understanding, and produced fluency of speech, he rested his 
 cause, in conclusion, on a multitude of examples that he 
 adduced; for first, as if stating an indisputable fact,^ he 
 affirmed that no writer on the art of rhetoric was ever even 
 moderately eloquent, going back as far as I know not what 
 \ Corax and Tisias,^ who, he said, appeared to be the in- 
 j venters and first authors of rhetorical science; and then 
 named a vast number of the most eloquent men who had 
 neither learned, nor cared to understand the rules of art, 
 and amongst whom, (whether in jest, or because he thought, 
 or had heard something to that effect,) he instanced me as 
 one who had received none of their instructions, and yet, as 
 he said, had some abilities as a speaker; of which two 
 observations I readily granted the truth of one, that I had 
 never been instructed, but thought that in the other he was 
 either joking with me, or was under some mistake. But he 
 denied there was any art, except such as lay in things that 
 were known and thoroughly understood, things tending to 
 the same object, and never misleading; but that everything 
 treated by the orators was doubtful and uncertain; as it was 
 uttered by those who did not fully understand it, and was 
 heard by them to whom knowledge was not meant to be 
 communicated, but merely false, or at least obscure notions, 
 
 1 Quasi deditd opera. As if Charmadas himself had collected all the 
 writers on the art of rhetoric, that he might be in a condition to prove 
 what he now asserted ; or, as if the writers on the art of rhetoric them- 
 selves had purposely abstained from attempting to be eloquent. But 
 Charmadas was very much in the wrong ; for Gorgias, Isocrates, Prota- 
 goras, Theophrastus, and other teachers of rhetoric were eminent for 
 eloquence. FroiLst. 
 
 '' Two Sicilians, said to have been the most ancient writers on rhetoric. 
 See Quint ilian, iii. 1. 
 
C. XXI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 167 
 
 intended to live in their minds only for a short time. In 
 short, he seemed bent on convincing me that there was no 
 art of speaking, and that no one could speak skilfully, or so 
 as fully to illustrate a subject, but ©ne who had attained that 
 knowledge which is delivered by the most learned of the 
 philosophers. On which occasions Charmadas used to say, 
 with a passionate admiration of your genius, Crassus, that 
 I appeared to him very easy in listening, and you most 
 pertinacious in disputation. 
 
 XXI. " Then it was that I, swayed by this opinion, re- 
 marked in a little treatise^ which got abroad, and into 
 people's hands, without my knowledge and against my will, 
 that I had known many good speakers, but never yet any one 
 that was truly eloquent ; for I accounted him a good spealcer, 
 who could express his thoughts with accuracy and perspi- 
 cuity, according to the ordinary judgment of mankind, before 
 an audience of moderate capacity; but I considered him alone 
 eloquent^ who could in a more admirable and noble manner 
 amplify and adorn whatever subjects he chose, and who em- 
 braced in thought and memory all the principles of everything 
 relating to oratory. This, though it may be difficult to us, 
 who, before we begin to speak in public, are overwhelmed by 
 canvassings for office and by the business of the forum, is 
 yet within the range of possibility and the powers of nature. 
 For I, as far as I can divine by conjecture, and as far as I can 
 estimate the abilities of our countrymen, do not despair that 
 there may arise at some time or. other a person, who, when, 
 with a keener devotion to study than we feel, or have ever 
 felt, with more leisure, with better and more mature talent 
 for learning, and with superior labour and industry, he shall 
 have given himself up to hearing, reading, and writing, may 
 become such an orator as we desire to see, — one who may 
 justly be called not only a good speaker, but truly eloquent; 
 and such a character, in my opinion, is our friend Crassus, or 
 some one, if such ever was, of equal genius, who, having 
 heard, read, and written more than Crassus, shall be able to 
 make some little addition to it." 
 
 Here Sulpicius observed : " That has happened by acci- 
 dent, Crassus, which neither Cotta nor I expected, but which 
 we both earnestly desired, — I mean, that you should in- 
 ^ See c. 47 — Cicero speaks of it as exilis, poor and dry, Brut. 44 ; Orat. 5. 
 
168 DE oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 sensibly glide into a discourse of this kind. For, as^ we were 
 coming hither, we thought it would be a pleasure, if, while 
 you were talking on other matters, we might gather some- 
 thing worthy to be remembered from your conversation ; but 
 that you should go into a deep and full discussion on this 
 very study, or art, or faculty, and penetrate into the heart of 
 it, was what we could scarcely venture to hope. For I, who, 
 from my early youth, have felt a strong affection for you 
 both, and even a love for Crassus, having never left his com- 
 pany, could never yet elicit a word from him on the method 
 and art of speaking, though I not only solicited him myself, 
 but endeavoured to move him by the agency of Drusus ; on 
 which subject you, Antonius, (I speak but the truth,) never 
 failed to answer my requests and interrogatories, and have 
 very often told me what you used to notice in speaking. And 
 since each of you has opened a way to these subjects of our 
 research, and since Crassus was the first to commence this 
 discourse, do us the favour to acquaint us fully and exactly 
 what you think about the various kinds of eloquence. If we 
 obtain this indulgence from you, I shall feel the greatest 
 obligation to this school of yours, Crassus, and to your Tus- 
 culan villa, and shall prefer your suburban place of study to 
 the famous Academy and Lyceum." 
 
 XXII. " Nay rather, Sulpicius," rejoined Crassus, " let us 
 ask Antonius, who is both capable of doing what you desire, 
 and, as I hear you say, has been accustomed to do so. As to 
 myself, I acknowledge that I have ever avoided all such kind 
 of discourse, and have often declined to comply with your 
 requests and solicitations, as you just now observed. This 
 I did, not from pride or want of politeness, nor because I 
 was unwilling to aid your just and commendable aspirations, 
 especially as I knew you to be eminently and above others 
 formed and qualified by nature to become a speaker, but, in 
 truth, from being unaccustomed to such kind of discussions, 
 and from being ignorant of those principles which are laid 
 down as institutes of the art." " Then," said Cotta, ^' since 
 we have got over what we thought the greatest difficulty, 
 to induce you, Crassus, to speak at all upon these subjects, 
 for the rest, it will be our own fault if we let you go before 
 you have explained all that we have to ask." '' I believe 
 I must answer/' says Crassus, " as is usually written in the 
 
C. XXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 1G9 
 
 formulae for entering on inheritanceSj^ concerning such points 
 AS I KNOW AND SHALL BE ABLE." " And which of US," rejoined 
 Cotta, '* can be so presuming as to desire to know or to be 
 able to do anything that you do not know or cannot do ? " 
 " Well, then," returned Crassus, " on condition that I may 
 say that I cannot do what I cannot do, and that I may own 
 that I do not know what I do not know, you may put ques- 
 tions to me at your pleasure." " We shall, then, first ask of 
 you," said Sulpicius, " what you think of what Antonius has 
 advanced ; whether you think that there is any art in speak- 
 ing 1 " " What ! " exclaimed Crassus, '^ do you put a trifling 
 question to me, as to some idle and talkative, though perhaps 
 studious and learned Greek, on which I may speak accord- 
 ing to my humour ? When do you imagine that I have ever 
 regarded or thought upon such matters, or have not always 
 rather ridiculed the impudence of those men who, seated 
 in the schools, would demand if any one, in a numxcrous 
 assembly of persons, wished to ask any question, and desire 
 him to speak 1 This Gorgias the Leontine is said to have 
 first done, who was thought to undertake and promise some- 
 thing vast, in pronouncing himself prepared to speak on all 
 subjects on which any one should be inclined to hear him. 
 But afterwards those men made it a common practice, and 
 continue it to this day ; so that there is no topic of such 
 importance, or so unexpected, or so new, on which they do 
 not profess that they will say all that can be said. But if I 
 had thought that you, Cotta, or you, Sulpicius, were desirous 
 to hear such matters, I would have brought hither some 
 Greek to amuse you with their manner of disputation; for 
 there is with M. Piso,^ (a youth already addicted to this intel- 
 lectual exercise, and one of superior talents, and of great affec- 
 tion for me,) the peripatetic Staseas, a man with whom I am 
 well acquainted, and who, as I perceive is agreed amongst the 
 learned, is of the first eminence in his profession." 
 
 ^ Cretionibus. An heir was allowed a certain time to determine, 
 cernere, whether he would enter upon an estate bequeathed to him, or 
 not. See Cic. ad Att. xi. 12; xiii. 46; Gains, Instit. ii. lt)4 ; Ulpian, 
 Fragm. xxii. 27; Heinecc. Syntagm. ii. 14, 17. 
 
 2 Marcus Pupius Piso Calpurnianus, to whom Cicero was introduced 
 by his father, that he might profit by his learning and experience. 
 See Ascon. Pedian. ad Pison. 26 ; Cic. Brut. 67 ; De Nat. Deor, 
 i. 7, 16. 
 
 
170 DE oratore; or, [b. I. 
 
 XXIII. "Why do you speak to me," says Scaevola, "of 
 this Staseas, this peripatetic ? You must comply with the 
 wishes of these young gentlemen, Crassus, who do not want 
 the common, profitless talk of any Greek, or any empty 
 declamation of the schools, but desire to know the opinions 
 of a man in whose footsteps they long to tread, — one who is 
 the wisest and most eloquent of all men, who is not dis- 
 tinguished by petty books of precepts, but is the first, both 
 in judgment and oratory, in causes of the greatest conse- 
 quence, and in this seat of empire and glory. For my part, 
 as I always thought you a god in eloquence, so I have never 
 attributed to you greater praises for oratory than for polite- 
 ness ; which you ought to show on this occasion especially, 
 and not to decline a discussion on which two young men of 
 such excellent ability invite you to enter." " I am certainly," 
 replied Crassus, " desirous to oblige them, nor shall I think it 
 any trouble to speak briefly, as is my manner, what I think 
 upon any point of the subject. And to their first question, 
 (because I do not think it right for me to neglect your admo- 
 nition, Scsevola,) I answer, that I think there is either no art of 
 speaking at all, or but very little j but that all the disputation 
 about it amongst the learned arises from a difierence of opinion 
 about the word. For if art is to be defined according to what 
 Antonius just now asserted,^ as lying in things thoroughly 
 understood and fully known, such as are abstracted from the 
 caprice of opinion and comprehended in the limits of science, 
 there seems to me to be no art at all in oratory; since all 
 the species of our forensic diction are various, and suited to 
 the common understanding of the people. Yet if those things 
 which have been observed in the practice and method of 
 speaking, have been noted and chronicled by ingenious and 
 skilful men, have been set forth in words, illustrated in their 
 several kinds, and distributed into parts, (as I think may 
 possibly be done,) I do not understand why speaking may not 
 be deemed an art, if not according to the exact definition of 
 Antonius, at least according to common opinion. But whether 
 it be an art, or merely the resemblance of an art, it is not, 
 indeed, to be neglected; yet we must understand that there 
 are other things of more consequence for the attainment of 
 eloquence." 
 
 1 Cap. XX. 
 
C.XXV.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 171 
 
 XXiy. Antonius then observed, that he was very strongly 
 of opinion with Crassus ; for he neither adopted such a defini- 
 tion of art as those preferred who attributed all the powers of 
 eloquence to art, nor did he repudiate it entirely, as most of 
 the philosophers had done. " But I imagine, Crassus," added 
 he, " that you will gratify these two young men, if you will 
 spQcify those particulars which you think may be more con- 
 ducive to oratory than art itself." " I will indeed mention 
 them," said he, *' since I have engaged to do so, but must beg 
 Cjou not to publish my trifling remarks; though I will keep 
 myself unJer such restraint as not to seem to speak like 
 a master, or artist, but like one of the number of private 
 citizens, moderately versed in the practice of the forum, and 
 not altogether ignorant ; not to have offered anything from 
 myself, but to have accidentally fallen in with the course of 
 your conversation. Indeed, when I was a candidate for office, 
 I used, at the time of canvassing, to send away Scsevola from 
 me, telling him I wanted to be foolish, that is, to solicit with 
 flattery, a thing that cannot be done to any purpose unless it 
 be done foolishly; and that he was the only man in the world 
 in whose presence I should least like to play the fool ; and 
 yet fortune has appointed him to be a witness and spectator 
 of my folly. ^ For what is more foolish than to speak about 
 speaking, when speaking itself is never otherwise than foolish, ; 
 except it is absolutely necessary I" " Proceed, however, Cras- - 
 sus," said Scaevola; "for I will take upon myself the blame 
 which you fear." 
 
 XXY. " I am, then, of opinion," said Crassus, ^' that nature 
 and genius in the first place contribute most aid to speaking ; 
 and that to those writers on the art, to whom Antonius just 
 now alluded, it was not skill and method in speaking, but 
 natural talent that was wanting; for there ought to be cer- 
 tain lively powers in the mind^ and understanding, which 
 may be acute to invent, fertile to explain and adorn, and 
 strong and retentive to remember; and if any one imagines 
 that these powers may be acquired by art, (which is false, for 
 
 ^ See Val. Max. iy. 5. 4. 
 
 2 Aninii atque ingenii celeres quidam motus. This sense of raotiis, as 
 Ellendt observes, is borrowed from the Greek Kivqais, by which the 
 philosophers intimated an active power, as, without motion, all things 
 would remain unchanged, and nothing be generated. See Matth. ad 
 Cic. pro Sest. 68, 143. 
 
172 DE oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 it is very well if they can be animated and excited by art ; 
 but they certainly cannot by art be ingrafted or instilled, 
 since they are all the gifts of nature,) what will he say of 
 those qualities which are certainly born with the man him- 
 self, volubility of tongue, tone of voice, strength of lungs, 
 and a peculiar conformation and aspect of the whole coun- 
 tenance and body *? I do not say, that art cannot improve in 
 these particulars, (for I am not ignorant that what is good 
 may be made better by education, and what is not very 
 good may be in some degree polished and amended;) but 
 there are some persons so hesitating in their speech, so inhar- 
 monious in their tone of voice, or so unwieldy and rude 
 in the air and movements of their bodies, that, whatever 
 power they possess either from genius or art, they can never 
 be reckoned in the number of accomplished speakers; while 
 there are others so happily qualified in these respects, so 
 eminently adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem 
 not to have been born like other men, but moulded by some 
 divinity. It is, indeed, a great task and enterprise for a 
 person to undertake and profess, that while every one else is 
 silent, he alone must be heard on the most important sub- 
 jects, and in a large assembly of men; for there is scarcely 
 any one present who is not sharper and quicker to discover 
 defects in the speaker than merits ; and thus whatever offends 
 the hearer effaces the recollection of what is worthy of praise. 
 I do not make these observations for the purpose of altogether 
 deterring young men from the study of oratory, even if they 
 be deficient in some natural endowments. For who does not 
 perceive that to C. Caeliiis, my contemporary, a new man^ the 
 mere mediocrity in speaking, which he was enabled to attain, 
 was a great honour ? Who does not know that Q. Yarius, 
 your equal in age, a clumsy, uncouth man, has obtained 
 his great popularity by the cultivation of such faculties as 
 he has ? 
 
 XXYI. " But as our inquiry regards the complete orator, 
 we must imagine, in our discussion, an orator from whom 
 every kind of fault is abstracted, and who is adorned with 
 every kind of merit. For if the multitude of suits, if the 
 variety of causes, if the rabble and barbarism of the forum, 
 afford room for even the most wretched speakers, we musJ 
 not, for that reason, take our eyes from the object of out 
 
C. XXVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 173 
 
 inquiry. In those arts, in which it is not indispensable 
 usefulness that is sought, but liberal amusement for the 
 mind, how nicely, how almost fastidiously, do we judge ! For 
 there are no suits or controversies which can force men, 
 though they may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, 
 to endure also bad actors upon the stage. The orator there- 
 fore must take the most studious precaution not merely to 
 satisfy those whom he necessarily must satisfy, but to seem 
 worthy of admiration to those who are at liberty to judge 
 disinterestedly. If you would know what I myself think, 
 I will express to you, my intimate friends, what I have 
 hitherto never mentioned, and thought that I never should 
 mention. To me, those who speak best, and speak with the' 
 utmost ease and grace, apj-ear, if they do not commence' 
 their speeches with some timidity, and show some confusion 
 in the exordium, to have almost lost the sense of shame, 
 though it is impossible that such should not be the case;^ 
 for the better qualified a man is to speak, the more he fears"" 
 the difficulties of speaking, the uncertain success of a speech^'-' 
 and the expectation of the audience. But he who can pro- 
 duce and deliver nothing worthy of his subject, nothing 
 worthy of the name of an orator, nothing worthy the attention 
 of his audience, seems to me, though he be ever so confused 
 while he is speaking, to be downright shameless ; for we ought 
 to avoid a character for shamelessness, not by testifying 
 shame, but by not doing that which does not become us. 
 But the speaker who has no shame (as I see to be the case 
 with many) I regard as deserving, not only of rebuke, but of 
 personal castigation. Indeed, what I often observe in you I 
 rery frequently experience in myself, that I turn pale in the 
 Dutset of my speech, and feel a tremor through my whole 
 thoughts, as it were, and limbs. When I was a young man, 
 I was on one occasion so timid in commencing an accusation, 
 that I owed to Q. Maximus^ the greatest of obligations for 
 immediately dismissing the assembly, as soon as he saw me 
 absolutely disheartened and incapacitated through fear."..; 
 Here they all signified assent, looked significantly at one 
 
 ^ Tametsi id accidere non potest. " Quamvis id fieri non possit, ut 
 qui optinie dicit, in exordio non perturbetur." Proust. 
 
 2 He seems to be Quintus Fabius Maximus Eburnus, who was consul 
 A.u.c. 638, and who, it is probable, presided as prsetor on the occasion 
 of which Crassus speaks. Ellendt. 
 
174. DE OKATOEEj OK, [b. I. 
 
 .anotherj and began to talk together; for there was a won- 
 /derful modesty in Crassus, which however was not only no 
 \ disadvantage to his oratory, but even an assistance to it, by 
 •giving it the recommendation of probity. 
 V XXYII. Antonius soon after said, " I have often observed, 
 as you mention, Crassus, that both you and other most 
 accomplished orators, although in my opinion none was ever 
 equal to you, have felt some agitation in entering upon their 
 / speeches. When I inquired into the reason of this, and 
 considered why a speaker, the more ability he possessed, felt 
 the greater fear in speaking, I found that there were two 
 causes of such timidity : one, that those whom experience 
 and nature had formed for speaking, well knew that the 
 event of a speech did not always satisfy expectation 
 even in the greatest orators; and thus, as often as they 
 spoke, they feared, not without reason, that what sometimes 
 happened might happen then; the other (of which I am 
 often in the habit of complaining) is, that men, tried and 
 approved in other arts, if they ever do anything with less 
 success than usual, are thought either to have wanted in- 
 clination for it, or to have failed in performing what they 
 knew how to perform from ill health. ' Roscius,' they say, 
 * would not act to-day,' or, ^ he was indisposed.' But if any 
 deficiency is seen in the ora.tor, it is thought to proceed from 
 want of sense ; and want of sense admits of no excuse, because 
 nobody is supposed to have wanted sense because he ^ was in- 
 disposed,' or because ^ such was his inclination.' Thus we 
 undergo a severer judgment in oratory, and judgment is 
 ' pronounced upon us as often as we speak; if an actor is 
 once mistaken in an attitude, he is not immediately con- 
 sidered to be ignorant of attitude in general; but if any 
 fault is found in a speaker, there prevails for ever, or at least 
 for a very long time, a notion of his stupidity. 
 
 XXYIII. " But in what you observed, as to there being 
 many things in which, unless the orator has a full supply of 
 them from nature, he cannot be much assisted by a master, 
 I agree with you entirely; and, in regard to that point, I 
 have always expressed the highest approbation of that emi- 
 • ., nent teacher, Apollonius of Alabanda,^ who, though he taught 
 
 ' A town of Caria. The Apollonius mentioned above, c. 17, was 
 Apollonius Moio, a native of Rhodes. Proust, 
 
C. XX VIII. J ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 175 
 
 for pay, would not suffer such as he judged could never become 
 orators, to lose their labour with him; and he sent them 
 away with exhortations and encouragements to each of 
 them to pursue that peculiar art for which he thought him 
 naturally qualified. To the acquirement of other arts it is 
 sufficient for a person to resemble a man, and to be able to 
 comprehend in his mind, and retain in his memory, what is 
 instilled, or, if he is very dull, inculcated into him ; ho volu- 
 bility of tongue is requisite, no quickness of utterance ; none 
 of those things which Vv'e cannot form for ourselves, aspect, 
 countenance, look^ voice. But in an orator, the acuteness of 
 the logicians, the wisdom of the philosophers, the language 
 almost of poetry, the memory of lawyers, the voice of tra- 
 gedians, the gesture almost of the best actors, is requiredj 
 Nothing therefore is more rarely found among mankind than 
 a consummate orator; for qualifications which professors of 
 other arts are commended for acquiring in a moderate degree, 
 each in his respective pursuit, will not be praised in the 
 orator, unless they are all combined in him in the highest 
 possible excellence." 
 
 '•'Yet observe," said Crassus, ^^how much more diligence 
 is used in one of the light and trivial arts than in this, which 
 is acknowledged to be of the greatest importance ; for I often 
 hear Roscius say, that ' he could never yet find a scholar that 
 he was thoroughly satisfied with; not that some of them 
 were not worthy of approbation, but because, if they had 
 any fault, he himself could not endure it.' Nothing indeed 
 is so much noticed, or makes an impression of such lasting 
 continuance on the memory, as that in which you give any 
 sort of offence. To judge therefore of the accomplishments 
 of the orator by comparison with this stage-player, do you 
 not observe how everything is done by him unexceptionably ; 
 everything with the utmost grace ; everything in such a way 
 as is becoming, and as moves and delights all? He has 
 accordingly long attained such distinction, that in whatever 
 pursuit a man excels, he is called a Roscius in his art. For 
 my own part, while I desire this finish and perfection in an 
 orator, of which I fall so far short myself, I act audaciously ; 
 for I wish indulgence to be granted to myself, while I grant 
 none to others; for I think that he who has not abilities, 
 who is faulty in action, who, in short, wants a graceful 
 
176 BE ORATOREj OR, [b. L 
 
 manner, should be sent off, as Apollonius advised, to that for 
 which he has a capacity." 
 
 XXIX. " Would you then," said Sulpicius, " desire me, or 
 our friend Cotta, to learn the civil law, or the military art?^ 
 for who can ever possibly arrive at that perfection of yours, 
 that high excellence in every accomplishment?" "It was," 
 replied Crassus, ^^ because I knew that there was in both of 
 you excellent and noble talents for oratory, that I have 
 expressed myself fully on these matters; nor have I adapted 
 my remarks more to deter those who had not abilities, than 
 to encourage you who had; and though I perceive in you 
 both consummate capacity and industry, yet I may say that 
 the advantage of personal appearance, on which I have 
 perhaps said more than the Greeks are wont to say, are in 
 you, Sulpicius, even godlike. For any person better qualified 
 for this profession by gracefulness of motion, by his very 
 carriage and figure, or by the fulness and sweetness of his 
 voice, I think that I have never heard speak; endowments 
 which those, to whom they are granted by nature in an 
 inferior degree, may yet succeed in managing, in such 
 measure as they possess them, with judgment and skill, and 
 in such a manner as not to be unbecoming ; for that is what 
 is chiefly to be avoided, and concerning which it is most dif- 
 ficult to give any rules for instruction, not only for me, who 
 talk of these matters like a private citizen, but even for 
 Roscius himself, whom I often hear say, *that the most 
 essential part of art is to be hecoming' which yet is the only 
 thing that cannot be taught by art. But, if it is agreeable, 
 let us change the subject of conversation, and talk like our- 
 selves a little, not like rhetoricians." 
 
 " By no means," said Cotta, " for we must now intreat you 
 (since you retain us in this study, and do not dismiss us to 
 any other pursuit) to tell us something of your own abilities, 
 whatever they are, in speaking; for we are not inordinately 
 ambitious ; we are satisfied with that mediocrity of eloquence 
 of yours ; and what we inquire of you is (that we may not 
 attain more than that humble degree of oratory at which you 
 have arrived) ^ what you think, since you say that the endow- 
 
 * The young Roman nobles were accustomed to pursue one of three 
 studies, jurisprudence, eloquence, or war. Proust. 
 ^ Cotta speaks ironically. 
 
C. XXXI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 177 
 
 ments to be derived from nature are not very deficient in us, 
 we ought to endeavour to acquire in addition." 
 
 XXX. Crassus, smiling, replied, ^^ What do you think is 
 wanting to you, Cotta, but a passionate inclination, and a 
 sort of ardour like that of love, without which no man will J 
 ever attain anything great in life, and especially such dis- 
 tinction as you desire ? Yet I do not. see that you need any j 
 encouragement to this pursuit; indeed, as you press rather 
 hard even upon me, I consider that you burn with an extra- 
 ordinarily fervent affection for it. But I am aware that 
 a desire to reach any point avails nothing, unless you know 
 what will lead and bring you to the mark at which you aim. 
 Sinc^ therefore you lay but a light burden upon me, and do 
 not question me about the whole art of the orator, but about 
 my own ability, little as it is, I will set before you a course, 
 not very obscure, or very difficult, or grand, or imposing, the 
 course of my own practice, which I was accustomed to pursue 
 when I had opportunity, in my youth, to apply to such 
 studies." 
 
 ^' day much wished for by us, Cotta ! " exclaimed Sul- 
 picius j " for what I could never obtain, either by entreaty, or 
 stratagem, or scrutiny, (so that I was unable, not only to see 
 what Crassus did, with a view to meditation or composition, 
 but even to gain a notion of it from his secretary and reader, 
 Diphilus.) I hope we have now secured, and that we shall 
 learn from himself all that we have long desired to know." 
 
 XXXI. "I conceive, however," proceeded Crassus, ^^that 
 when you have heard me, you will not so much admire 
 what I have said, as think that, when you desired to hear, 
 there was no good reason for your desire; for I shall say 
 nothing abstruse, nothing to answer your expectation, nothing 
 either previously unheard by you, or new to any one. In the 
 first place, I will not deny that, as becomes a man well born ; 
 and liberally educated, I learned those trite and common! 
 precepts of teachers in general ; first, that it is the business ' 
 of an orator to speak in a manner adapted to persuade ; next, 
 that every speech is either upon a question concerning a 
 matter in general, without specification of persons or times, or 
 concerning a matter referring to certain persons and times. 
 But that, in either case, whatever falls under controversy, 
 
 'the question with regard to it is usually^ whether such a 
 
 N 
 
178 DE ORATOEEj OR, [b. I. 
 
 thing has been done, or, if it has been done, of what nature 
 it is, or by what name it should be called; or, as some add, 
 whether it seems to have been done rightly or not. That 
 controversies arise also on the interpretation of writing, in 
 which anything has been expressed ambiguously, or contra- 
 dictorily, or so that what is written is at variance with the 
 writer's evident intention ; and that there are certain lines of 
 argument adapted to all these cases. But that of such sub- 
 jects as are distinct from general questions, part come under 
 the head of judicial proceedings, part under that of delibe- 
 rations ; and that there is a third kind which is employed in 
 praising or censuring particular persons. That there are 
 also certain common places on which we may insist in judicial 
 proceedings, in which equity is the object; others, which we 
 may adopt in deliberations, all which are to be directed to 
 the advantage of those to whom we give counsel; others in 
 panegyric, in which all must be referred to the dignity of the 
 persons commended. That since all the business and art of 
 an orator is divided into five parts,-^ he ought first to find 
 out what he should say; next, to dispose and arrange his 
 matter, not only in a certain order, but with a sort of power 
 and judgment; then to clothe and deck his thoughts with 
 language; then to secure them in his memory; and lastly, 
 to deliver them with dignity and grace. I had learned and 
 understood also, that before we enter upon the main subject, 
 the minds of the audience should be conciliated by an exor- 
 dium; next, that the case should be clearly stated; then, 
 that the point in controversy should be established; then, 
 that what we maintain should be supported by proof, and 
 that whatever was said on the other side should be refuted; 
 and that, in the conclusion of our speech, whatever was in our 
 favour should be amplified and enforced, and whatever made 
 for our adversaries should be weakened and invalidated. 
 
 XXXII. " 1 had heard also what is taught about the 
 costume of a speech ; in regard to which it is first directed 
 that we should speak correctly and in pure Latin; next, 
 intelligibly and with perspicuity; then gracefully; then 
 suitably to the dignity of the subject, and as it were becom- 
 ingly; and I had made myself acquainted with the rules 
 
 1 Invention, disposition, embellislinient. memory, and delivery. See 
 ii. 19. Ellendt. 
 
C. XXXIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 179 
 
 relating to every particular. Moreover, I had seen art applied 
 to those things which are properly endowments of nature ; 
 for I had gone over some precepts concerning action, and 
 some concerning artificial memory, which were short indeed, 
 but requiring much exercise; matters on which almost all 
 the learning of those artificial orators is employed ; and if I 
 should say that it is of no assistance, I should say what is not 
 true; for it conveys some hints to admonish the orator, as 
 it were, to what he should refer each part of his speech, 
 and to what points he may direct his view, so as not to 
 wander from the object which he has proposed to himself. 
 Bat I consider that with regard to all precepts the case is 
 this, not that orators by adhering to them have obtained dis- 
 tinction in eloquence; but that certain persons have noticed 
 what men of eloquence practised of their own accord, and 
 formed rules accordingly ; ^ so that eloquence has not sprung 
 from art, but art from eloquence ; not that, as I said before, 
 I entirely reject art, for it is, though not essentially necessary 
 to oratory, yet proper for a man of liberal education to learn. 
 And by you, my young friends, some preliminary exercise 
 must be undergone; though indeed you are already on the 
 course; but those ^ who are to enter upon a race, and those 
 who are preparing for what is to be done in the forum, as 
 their field of battle, may alike previously learn, and try their 
 powers, by practising in sport." "That sort of exercise," 
 said Sulpicius, " is just what we wanted to understand ; but 
 we desire to hear more at large what you have briefly and 
 cursorily delivered concerning ar1>; though such matters are 
 not strange even to us. Of that subject, however, we shall 
 inquire hereafter; at present we wish to know your sen- 
 timents on exercise." 
 
 XXXIII. '^I like that method," replied Crassus, "which 
 you are accustomed to practise, namely, to lay down a case 
 similar to those which are brought on in the forum, and to 
 
 ^ Atque id egisse. Most critics have supposed these words in some 
 I "way faulty. Gesner conjectured, atque digessisse; Lambinus, atque in 
 ' artem redegisse ; Ernesti, ad artemque redegisse. Ellendt supposes that 
 i id egisse may mean ei rei operam dedisse. 
 
 I ^ Sed iis, qui ingrediuntur. Orellius and Ellendt retain this reading, 
 I though Ernesti hr.d long before observed that there is no verb on whici 
 iis can be considcj-ed as dependent, and that we must read ii or hi as 
 a nominative to the following jjossunt. 
 
 n2 
 
180 DE oratore: or, [b. t. 
 
 speak upon it, as nearly as possible^ as if it were a real case.^ 
 But in such efforts the generality of students exercise only 
 their voice (and not even that skilfully), and try their 
 strength of lungs, and volubility of tongue, and please them- 
 , selves with a torrent of their own words ; in which exercise 
 ; what they have heard deceives them, that men hy speaking 
 
 ■ succeed in becoming speakers. For it is truly said also, That 
 A Men hy speaking badly make sure of becoming bad speakers. 
 
 In those exercises, therefore, although it be useful even fre- 
 quently to speak on the sudden, yet it is more advantageous, 
 after taking time to consider, to speak with greater prepara- 
 tion and accuracy. But the chief point of all is that which 
 (to say the truth) we hardly ever practise (for it requires great 
 labour, which most of us avoid) : I mean, to write as much as 
 possible. Writing is said to be the best and most excellent 
 modeller and teacher of oratory ; and not without reason; for 
 if what is meditated and considered easily surpasses sudden 
 
 ; and extemporary speech, a constant and diligent habit of 
 writing will surely be of more effect than meditation and 
 consideration itself; since all the arguments relating to the 
 subject on which we write, whether they are suggested by 
 art, or by a certain power of genius and understanding, will 
 present themselves, and occur to us, while we examine and 
 contemplate it in the full light of our intellect ; and all the 
 thoughts and words, which are the most expressive of their 
 
 ' kind, must of necessity come under and submit to the keen- 
 ness of our judgment while writing; and a fair arrangement 
 
 ■ and collocation of the words is effected by writing, in a 
 certain rhythm and measure, not poetical, but oratorical. 
 
 ^ Such are the qualities which bring applause and admiration to 
 good orators ; nor will any man ever attain them, unless after 
 long and great practice in writing, however resolutely he may 
 have exercised himself in extemporary speeches ; and he who 
 comes to speak after practice in writing brings this advantage 
 with him, that though he speak at the call of the moment, 
 yet what he says will bear a resemblance to something written; 
 and if ever, when he comes to speak, he brings anything with 
 him in writing, the rest of his speech, when he departs from 
 what is written, will flow on in a similar strain. As, when 
 
 ^ Qudm maxime ad veritajtem accommodate, " with as much adapta- 
 tion as possible to truth." 
 
C. XXXIV. J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 181 
 
 a boat has once been impelled forward, though the rowers 
 suspend their efforts, the vessel herself still keeps her motion 
 and course during the intermission of the impulse and force 
 of the oars ; so, in a continued stream of oratory, when 
 written matter fails, the rest of the speech maintains a similar 
 flow, being impelled by the resemblance and force acquired 
 from what was written. 
 
 XXXI Y. ^' But in my daily exercises I used, when a youth, 
 to adopt chiefly that method which I knew that Caius Carbo, 
 my adversary,^ generally practised; which was, that, having 
 selected some nervous piece of poetry, or read over such 
 a portion of a speech as I could retain in my memory, I used 
 to declaim upon what I had been reading in other words, 
 chosen with all the judgment that I possessed. But at length 
 I perceived that in that method there was this inconvenience, 
 that Ennius, if I exercised myself on his verses, or Gracchus, 
 if I laid one of his orations before me, had forestalled such 
 words as were peculiarly appropriate to the subject, and such 
 as were the most elegant and altogether the best; so that, if 
 I used the same words, it profited nothing ; if others, it was 
 even prejudicial to me, as I habituated myself to use such 
 as were less eligible. Afterwards I thought proper, and 
 continued the practice at a rather more advanced age,^ to 
 translate the orations of the best Greek orators;^ by fixing 
 upon which I gained this advantage, that while I rendered 
 into Latin what I had read in Greek, I not only used the 
 best words, and yet such as were of common occurrence, but 
 also formed some words by imitation, which would be new to 
 our countrymen, taking care, however, that they were unob- 
 jectionable. 
 
 '^ As to the exertion and exercise of the voice, of the breath, 
 of the whole body, and of the tongue itself, they do not so 
 much require art as labour ; but in those matters we ought to 
 be particularly careful whom we imitate and whom we would 
 wish to resemble. Not only orators are to be observed by 
 us, but even actors, lest by vicious habits we contract any 
 awkwardness or ungracefulness. The memory is also to be 
 
 ^ See c. X. 
 
 2 Adolescens, When he imitated the practice of Carbo, he was, he 
 says, adolescentulus. 
 
 ^ A practice recommended by Quintilian, x. 5. 
 
182 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. T. 
 
 ! exercised, by learning accurately by heart as many of om- own 
 
 . "writings, and those of others, as we can. In exercising the 
 memory, too, I shall not object if you accustom yourself to 
 adopt that plan of referring to places and figures which is 
 taught in treatises on the art.^ Your language must then be 
 brought forth from this domestic and retired exercise, into 
 the midst of the field, into the dust and clamour, into the 
 camp and military array of the forum ; you must acquire 
 practice in everything; you must try the strength of your 
 understanding; and your retired lucubrations must be ex- 
 
 j posed to the light of reality. The poets must also be studied ; 
 
 •an acquaintance must be formed with history; the writers 
 and teachers in all .the liberal arts and sciences must be read, 
 and turned over, and must, for the sake of exercise, be praised, 
 interpreted, corrected, censured, refuted; you must dispute 
 on both sides of every question; and whatever may seem 
 maintainable on any point, must be brought forward and" 
 illustrated. The civil law must be thoroughly studied; laws 
 in general must be understood; all antiquity must be known ; 
 the usages of the senate, the nature of our government, the 
 rights of our allies^ our treaties and convention?, and what- 
 ever concerns the interests of the state, must be learned. 
 A certain intellectual grace must also be extracted from every 
 kind of refinement, with which, as with salt, every oration 
 must be seasoned. I have poured forth to you all I had to 
 say, and perhaps any citizen whom you had laid hold of in 
 any company whatever, would have replied to your inquiries 
 
 , on these subjects equally well." 
 
 '"^ XXXy. When Crassus had uttered these words a silence 
 ensued. But though enough seemed to have been said in the 
 opinion of the company present, in reference to what had 
 been proposed, yet they thought that he had concluded his 
 speech more abruptly than they could have wished. Scsevola 
 then said, "What is the matter, Cotta? why are you silent? 
 Does nothing more occur to you which you would wish to 
 ask Crassus?" " Nay," rejoined he, "that is the very thing 
 of which I am thinking; for the rapidity of his words was 
 such, and his oration was winged with such speed, that 
 though I perceived its force and energy I could scarcely see 
 
 ^ This is sufficiently explained in book ii. c. 87. See also Quint. 
 xi. 2. 
 
C. XXXV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. * 183 
 
 its tmck and course; and, as if I had come into some ricli 
 and well-furnished house, where the furniture^ was not un- 
 packed, nor the plate set out, nor the pictures and statues 
 placed in view, but a multitude of all these magnificent 
 things laid up and heaped together; so just now, in the 
 speech of Crassus, I saw his opulence and the riches of his 
 genius, through veils and curtains as it were; but when I 
 desired to take a nearer view, there was scarcely opportunity 
 for taking a glance at them ; I can therefore neither say that 
 I am wholly ignorant of what he possesses, nor that I have 
 plainly ascertained and beheld it." " Then," said Scsevola, 
 " why do you not act in the same way as you would do, if 
 you had really come into a house or villa full of rich fur- 
 niture? If everything was put by as you describe, and you 
 had a great curiosity to see it, you would not hesitate to ask 
 the master to order it to be brought out, especially if he was 
 your friend ; in like manner you will now surely ask Crassus 
 to bring forth into the light that profusion of splendid objects 
 which are his property, (and of which, piled together in one 
 place, we have caught a glimpse, as it were through a lattice,^ 
 as w^e passed by,) and set everything in its proper situation." 
 " I rather ask you, Scsevola," says Cotta, "to do that for me; 
 (for modesty forbids Sulpicius and myself to ask of one of 
 the most eminent of mankind, who has ever held in contempt 
 this kind of disputation, such things as he perhaps regards 
 only as rudiments for children ;) but do you oblige us in this, 
 Scsevola, and prevail on Crassus to unfold and enlarge upon 
 those matters which he has crowded together, and crammed 
 into so small a space in his speech." " Indeed," said Scsevola, 
 '" I desired that before, more upon your account than my 
 own ; nor did I feel so much lono'ing for this discussion from 
 Crassus, as I experience pleasure from his orations in pleading. 
 But now, Crassus, I ask you also on my own account, that since 
 we have so much more leisure than has been allowed us for 
 long time, you would not think it troublesome to complete 
 tlvQ edifice which you have commenced; for I see a finer 
 
 ^ Veste. Under this word is included tapestry, coverings of conches, 
 and other things of that sort. 
 
 ^ An illustration, says Proust, borrowed from the practice of trader?, 
 who allow goods, on which they set a high value, to be seen only through. 
 Mtice-work. 
 
184 • DE OKATORE j OR, [B. 1, 
 
 and better plan of the whole work than I could have ima- 
 gined, and one of which I strongly approve." 
 
 XXXYI. " I cannot sufficiently wonder," says Crassus, 
 "that even you, Scaevola, should require of me that which 
 I do not understand like those who teach it, and which is of 
 such a nature, that if I understood it ever so well, it would 
 be unworthy of your wisdom and attention." *^Say you 
 so?" replied Sceevola. "If you think it scarcely worthy of 
 my age to listen to those ordinary precepts, commonly known 
 everywhere, can we possibly neglect those other matters which 
 you said must be known by the orator, respecting the dispo- 
 sitions and manners of mankind, the means by which the 
 minds of men are excited or ca-lmed, history, antiquity, the 
 administration of the republic, and finally of our own civil 
 law itself? For I knew that all this science, this abundance 
 of knowledge, was within the compass of your understanding, 
 but had never seen such rich furniture among the equipments 
 of the orator." 
 
 " Can you then," says Crassus, "(to omit other things in- 
 numerable and without limit, and come to your study, the 
 civil law,) can you account them orators, for whom Scsevola,^ 
 though in haste to go to the Campus Martins, waited several 
 hours, sometimes laughing and sometimes angry, while Hyp- 
 seeus, in the loudest voice, and with a multitude of words, was 
 trying to obtain of Marcus Crassus, the praetor, that the party 
 whom he defended might be allowed to lose his suit; and 
 Cneius Octavius, a man of consular dignity, in a speech of equal 
 length, refused to consent that his adversary should lose his 
 cause, and that the party for whom he was speaking should 
 be released from the ignominious charge of having been un- 
 faithful in his guardianship, and from all trouble, through 
 the folly of his antagonist ?" ^ " I should have thought such 
 
 ^ Not Quintus Scsevola the augur, the father-in-law of Crassus, in 
 whose presence Crassus is speaking, but another Quintus Scsevola, who 
 was an eminent lawyer, and held the office of pontifex; but at the time 
 to which Crassus alludes he was tribune of the people, B.C. 105. Proust. 
 
 2 The cause was as follows : — As Scsevola the pontiff was going into 
 the field of Mars, to the election of consuls, he passed, in his way, 
 through the forum, where he found two orators in much litigation, and 
 blundering grievously through ignorance of the civil law. One of them 
 was Hypsseus, the other Cneius Octavius, who had been consul B.C. 128. 
 Hyps^us was accusing some guardian of mal-administration of the 
 
C. XXXVII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 185 
 
 men/' replied Scsevola, " (for I remember Mucins^ told me the 
 story,) not only unworthy of the name of orators, but un- 
 worthy even to appear to plead in the forum." "Yet," 
 rejoined Crassus, ^Hhose advocates neither wanted eloquence, 
 nor method, nor abundance of words, but a knowledge of the 
 civil law : for in this case one, in bringing his suit, sought to 
 recover more damages than the law of the Twelve Tables 
 allowed, and, if he had gained those damages, would have 
 lost his cause : the other thought it unj ust that he himself 
 should be proceeded against for more than was allowed in 
 that sort of action, and did not understand that his adversary, 
 if he proceeded in that manner, would lose his suit. 
 
 XXXYII. " Within these few days,^ while we were sitting 
 
 fortunes of his ward. This sort of cause was called judicium tutelce. 
 Octavius defended the guardian. The judge of this controversy was 
 Marcus Crassus, then city praetor, B.C. 105. He that was condemned on 
 such a trial, was decreed to pay damages to his ward to the amount of 
 what his affairs had suffered through his means, and, in addition, by 
 the law of the Twelve Tables, was to pay something by way of fine. But 
 if the ward, or his advocate, sought to recover more from the defendant 
 than was due, he lost his cause. Hypsseus proceeded in this manner, 
 and therefore ought to have been nonsuited. Octavius, an unskilful 
 defender of his client, should have rejoiced at this, for if he had made 
 the objection and proved it, he would have obtained his cause ; but 
 he refused to permit Hypsseus to proceed for more than was due, 
 though such proceeding would, by the law, have been fatal to his suit. 
 Proust. 
 
 ^ Quintus Mucins Scsevola, mentioned in the last note but one. 
 
 ^ The cause was this. One man owed another a sum of money, to 
 be paid, for instance, in the beginning of January ; the plaintiff would 
 not wait till that time, but brought his action in December; the igno- 
 rant lawyer who was for the defendant, instead of contesting with the 
 plaintiff this point, that he demanded his money before it was due, 
 (which if he had proved, the plaintiff would have lost his cause,) only 
 prayed the benefit of the exception, which forbade an action to be 
 brought for money before the day of payment, and so only put off the 
 cause for that time. This he did not perceive to be a clause inserted 
 for the advantage of the plaintiff, that he might know when to bring 
 his suit. Thus the plaintiff, when the money became due, was at 
 liberty to bring a new action, as if this matter had never come to trial, 
 which action he could never have brought, if the first had been deter- 
 mined on the other point, namely, its having been brought before the 
 money was due ; for then the defendant might have pleaded a former 
 judgment, and precluded the plaintiff from his second action. See 
 Justin. Instit. iv. 13. 5. de re judicata. " Of which sum there is a time 
 for payment," were words of form in the exception from whence it was 
 nominated ; as, " That the matter had before come into judgment," 
 
186 DE oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 at the tribunal of our friend Quintus Pompeius, the city praetor, 
 did not a man who is ranked among the eloquent pray that 
 the benefit of the ancient and usual exception, of which sum 
 there is time for payment, might be allowed to a party from 
 whom a sum of money was demanded ; an exception which 
 he did not understand to be made for the benefit of the 
 creditor; so that if the defendant^ had proved to the judge 
 that the action was brought for the money before it became 
 due, the plaintiff,^ on bringing a fresh action, would be pre- 
 cluded by the exception, that the matter had before come into 
 judgment. What more disgraceful therefore can possibly be 
 said or done, than that he who has assumed the character of 
 an advocate, ostensibly to defend the causes and interests of 
 his friends, to assist the distressed, to relieve such as are sick 
 at heart, and to cheer the afflicted, should so err in the 
 slightest and most trivial matters, as to seem an object of. 
 pity to some, and of ridicule to others'? I consider my 
 relation, Publius Crassus, him who from his wealth had the sur- 
 name of Dives,^ to have been, in many other respects, a man 
 of taste and elegance, but especially worthy of praise and 
 commendation on this account, that (as he was the brother 
 of Publius Scsevola) ^ he was accustomed to observe to him, 
 that neither could he^ have satisfied the claims of the civil law if 
 he had not added the power of speaking (which his son here, 
 who was my colleague in the consulate, has fully attained) ; 
 nor had he himself^ begun to practise, and plead the causes of 
 his friends, before he had gained a knoivledge of the civil law, 
 
 were in the other exception reijudicatce. Proust. £. See Gains, Instit. 
 iv. 131, and Hefffcer, Obs. on Gains, iv. 23, p. 109 seq. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ Infitiator. The defendant or debtor. 
 
 2 Petitor. The plaintiff or creditor. 
 
 ^ Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus, son of Publius Mucins Scaevola, 
 who had been adopted into the Licinian family. He was consul with 
 
 Lucius Valerius Flaccus, a.u.c. 623 But the name of Dives had 
 
 previously been in the family of the Crassi, for Publius Crassus. who 
 Was consul with Publius Africanus, a.u.c. 549, was so called. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ By birth. He had his name of Crassus from adoption, as stated in 
 the preceding note. 
 
 ^ Publius Scsevola, his brother. In the phrase, neque ilium in jure 
 tivili satis illi arti facere posse, the words illi arti are regarded by 
 Ernesti and Orellius as spurious, but Ellendt thinks them genuine, 
 explaining in jure civili by quod ad jus civile attinet. I have followed 
 Orellius and Ernesti in my translation. 
 
 ^ Publius Crassus. 
 
C. XXXVIII. ] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 1 87 
 
 What sort of character was the illustrious Marcus Cato ? Was 
 he not possessed of as great a share of eloquence as those times 
 and that age^ would admit in this city, and at the same time the 
 most learned of all men in the civil law? I have been speaking 
 for some time the more timidly on this point, because there 
 is with us a man^ eminent in speaking, whom I admire as an 
 orator beyond all others; but who has ever held the civil 
 law in contempt. But, as you desired to learn my sentiments 
 and opinions, I will conceal nothing from you, but, as far as 
 I am able, will communicate to you my thoughts upon every 
 subject. 
 
 XXXYIII. '^ The almost incredible, unparalleled, and divine 
 power of genius in Antonius, appears to me, although wanting 
 in legal knowledge, to be able easily to sustain and defend 
 itself with the aid of other weapons of reason; let him there- 
 fore be an exception; but I shall not hesitate to condemn 
 others, by my sentence, of want of industry in the first 
 place, and of want of modesty in the next. For to flutter 
 about the forum, to loiter in courts of justice and at 
 the tribunals of the praetors, to undertake private suits in 
 matters of the greatest concern, in which the question is 
 often not about fact, but about equity and law, to swagger in 
 causes heard before the centumviri,^ in which the laws of 
 prescriptive rights, of guardianship, of kindred,^ of agnation,^ 
 of alluvions, circumluvions,^ of bonds, of transferring pro- 
 
 ^ Ilia fempora at que ilia cetas. By tempora is meant the state of the 
 times as to political afiairs ; by cetas, the period of advancement in 
 learning and civilization which Kome had reached. 
 
 ^ Antonius. 
 
 ^ A body of inferior judices, chosen three out of each tribe, so that 
 the full number was a hundred and five. They took cognisance of such 
 minor causes as the preetor entrusted to their decision. 
 
 * Gentilitatum. Kindred or family. Persons of the same family or 
 descent had certain peculiar rights, e.g. in entering upon an inheritance, 
 in undertaking guardianship. In such rights slaves, freedmen, and 
 capite deminuti had no participation. See Cic. Top. 6, 29. Proust. 
 
 ^ The agnati, as a brother by the same father, a brother's son or 
 grandson, an uncle's son or grandson, had their peculiar rights. See 
 Gains, i. 156. 
 
 ^ About these, various controversies might arise ; as, when the force 
 of a river has detached a portion from your land, and added it to that 
 of your neighbour, to whom does that portion belong? Or if trees 
 have been carried away from your land to that of your neighbour, and 
 have taken root there, &c. Proust, 
 
188 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 perty, of party walls^ lights, stillicidia,'^ of wills, transgressed 
 or established, and innumerable other matters are debated, 
 when a man is utterly ignorant what is properly his own, and 
 what his neighbour's, why any person is considered a citizen 
 or a foreigner, a slave or a freeman, is a proof of extraordinary 
 impudence. It is ridiculous arrogance for a man to confess 
 himself unskilful in navigating smaller vessels, and yet say 
 that he has learned to pilot galleys with five banks of oars, 
 or even larger ships. You who are deceived by a quibble of 
 -your adversary in a private company, you who set your seal 
 to a deed for your client, in which that is written by which 
 he is overreached; can I think that any cause of greater 
 consequence ought to be entrusted to you'? Sooner assuredly 
 shall he who oversets a two-oared boat in the harbour steer 
 the vessel of the Argonauts in the Euxine Sea. 
 
 '' But what if the causes are not trivial, but often of the 
 utmost importance, in which disputes arise concerning points 
 of civil law ? What front must that advocate have who dares 
 to appear in causes of such a nature without any knowledge 
 of that law? What cause, for instance, could be of more 
 consequence than that of the soldier, of whose death a false 
 report having been brought home from the army, and his 
 father, through giving credit to that report, having altered 
 his will, and appointed another person, whom he thought 
 proper, to be his heir, and having then died himself, the 
 afiair, when the soldier returned home, and instituted a suit 
 for his paternal inheritance, came on to be heard before the 
 centumviri? The point assuredly in that case was a question 
 of civil law, whether a son could be disinherited of his father's 
 possessions, whom the father neither appointed his heir by 
 will, nor disinherited by name?^ 
 
 ^ When a person was obliged to let the water, which dropped from 
 his house, run into the garden or area of his neighbour ; or to receive 
 the water that fell from his neighbour's house into his area. Adam's 
 Roman Antiquities, p. 49. 
 
 2 For he who had a son under his power should have taken care to 
 institute him his heir, or to disinherit him by name ; since if a father 
 pretermitted or passed over his son in silence, the testament was of no 
 effect. Just. Inst. ii. 13. And if the parents disinherited their chil- 
 dren without cause, the civil law was, that they might complain that 
 such testaments were invalid, under colour that their parents were not 
 of sound mind when they made them. Just. Inst. ii. 18. B. 
 
C. XXXIX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 189 
 
 XXXIX. " On the point too which the centumviri decided 
 between the Marcelli and the Claudii, two patrician families, 
 when the Marcelli said that an estate, which had belonged to 
 the son of a freedman, reverted to them by right of stirps, 
 and the Claudii alleged that the property of the man reverted 
 to them by right of gens, was it not necessary for the pleaders 
 in that cause to speak upon all the rights of stirps and gens .? ^ 
 As to that other matter also, which we have heard was con- 
 tested at law before the centumviri, when an exile came to 
 Eome, (who had the privilege of living in exile at Rome, if he 
 attached himself to any citizen as a patron,) and died in- 
 testate, was not, in a cause of that nature, the law of attach- 
 ment,'^ obscure and indeed unknown, expounded and illustrated 
 by the pleader? When I myself lately defended the cause 
 of Sergius Aurata, on a private suit against our friend 
 Antonius, did not my whole defence turn upon a point of 
 law*? For when Marius Gratidianus had sold a house to 
 Aurata, and had not specified, in the deed of sale, that any 
 part of the building owed service,^ we argued, that for v/hat- 
 
 ^ The son of a freedman of the Claudian family had died without 
 making a wi]l, and his property fell by law to the Claudii : but there 
 were two families of them, — the Claudii Pulcliri, who were patricians, 
 and the Claudii Marcelli, who were plebeians; and these two families 
 went to law about the possession of the dead man's property. The 
 patrician Claudii (whose family was the eldest of the name) claimed 
 the inheritance by right of genu, on the ground that the freedman was 
 of the gens Claudia, of which their family was the chief ; . . . . while 
 the Claudii Marcelli, or plebeian Claudii, claimed it by right of stirps, 
 on the ground that the freedman was more nearly related to them than 
 to the Pulchri. Fearce. The term gens was used in reference to patri- 
 cians ; that of stirps, to plebeians. Proust. 
 
 ^ Jus apfjlicationis This was a right which a Roman quasi-patronus 
 had to the estate of a foreign client dying intestate. He was called 
 quasi-pjatronus, because none but Roman citizens could have patrons. 
 The difficulty in this cause proceeded from the obscurity of the law 
 on which this kind of right was founded. 
 
 ^ The services of city estates are those which appertain to buildings. 
 It is required by city services that neighbours should bear the burdens 
 of neighbours ; and, by such services, one neighbour may be permitted 
 to place a beam upon the wall of another ; may be compelled to receive 
 the droppings and currehts from the gutter-pipes of another man's 
 house upon his own house, area, or sewer ; or may be exempted from 
 receiving them ; or may be restrained from raising his house in height, 
 lest he should darken the habitation of his neighbour. Harris's Jus- 
 tinian, ii. 3. B. 
 
190 BE ORATOREj OR, [b. L 
 
 ever incumbrance attended the thing sold, if the seller knew of 
 it, and did not make it known, he ought to indemnify the pur 
 chaser.^ In this kind of action our friend Marcus Bucculeiua 
 a man not a fool in my opinion, and very wise in his own, 
 and one who has no aversion to the study of law, made 
 a mistake lately, in an affair of a somewhat similar nature. 
 For when he sold a house to Lucius Fufius, he engaged, in the 
 act of conveyance, that the window-lights should remain as they 
 then were. But Fufius, as soon as a building began to rise 
 in some part of the city, which could but just be seen from 
 that house, brought an action against Bucculeius, on the 
 ground that whatever portion of the sky was intercepted, 
 at however great a distance, the window-light underwent 
 a.change.2 Amidst what a concourse of people too, and with 
 what universal interest, was the famous cause between Manius 
 Curius and Marcus Coponius lately conducted before the cen- 
 tumviri! On which occasion Quintus Scsevola, my equal in 
 age, and my colleague,^ a man of all others the most learned 
 in the practice of the civil law, and of most acute genius and 
 discernment, a speaker most polished and refined in his lan- 
 guage, and indeed, as I am accustomed to remark, the best 
 orator among the lawyers, and the best lawyer among the 
 
 ^ There is a more particular statement of this cause between Grati- 
 dianus and Aurata in Cicero's Offices, iii. 16. The Eoman law, in that par- 
 ticular founded on the law of nature, ordained, to avoid deceit in bargain 
 and sale, that the seller should give notice of all the bad qualities in^ 
 the thing sold which he knew of, or pay damages to the purchaser for / 
 his silence ; to which law Horace alludes, Sat. iii. 2 : / 
 
 Mentem nisi litigiosus 
 Exciperet dominus cum venderet. 
 But if he told the faults, or they were such as must be seen by a person 
 using common care, the buyer suffered for his negligence, as Horace 
 again indicates, Epist, ii. 2 : 
 
 Hie feret pretium poenae securus opinor : 
 Prudens emisti vitiosum. Dicta tibi est Lex. 
 See also Grotius, ii. 12, and Puffendorf, v. 3. s. 4, 5. B. 
 
 ^ The mistake of Bucculeius seems to have consisted in this; he 
 meant to restrain Fufius from raising the house in height, which might 
 darken, or making any hew windows which might overlook, some 
 neighbouring habitation which belonged to him; but by the use of 
 words adapted by law for another purpose, he restrained himself from 
 building within the prospect of those windows already made in the 
 house which Fufius purchased. B. 
 
 3 In the consulship. 
 
C. XL.] OX THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 191 
 
 orators, argued the law from the letter of the will, and 
 maintained that he who was appointed second heir, after a 
 posthumous son should be born and die, could not possibly 
 inherit, unless such posthumous son had actually been born, 
 and had died before he came out of tutelage : I, on the other 
 side, argued that he who made the will had this intention, 
 that if there w^as no son at all who could come out of tute- 
 lao:e, Manius Curius should be his heir. Did either of us, in 
 that cause, fail to exert ourselves in citing authorities, and 
 precedents, and forms of wills, that is, to dispute on the pro- 
 foundest points of civil law*?^ 
 
 XL. " I forbear to mention many examples of causes of the 
 greatest consequence, which are indeed without number. It 
 may often happen that even capital cases may turn upon 
 a point of law ; for, as an example, Publius Kutilius, the son 
 of Marcus, when tribune of the people, ordered Caius Man- 
 cinus, a most noble and excellent man, and of consular 
 dignity, to be put out of the senate; on the occasion when 
 the chief herald had given him up to the Numantines, 
 according to a decree of the senate, passed on account of the 
 odium which he had incurred by his treaty with that people, 
 and they would not receive him,^ and he had then returned 
 home, and had not hesitated to take his place in the senate ; 
 the tribune, I say, ordered him to be put out of the house, 
 maintaining that he was not a citizen ; because it w^as a re- 
 ceived tradition, That he whom his own father, or the people, 
 had sold, or the chief herald had given up, had no postlimi- 
 nium^ or right of return. What more important cause or 
 argument can we find, among all the variety of civil transac- 
 tions, than one concerning the rank, the citizenship, the 
 liberty, the condition of a man of consular dignity, especially 
 as the case depended, not on any charge which he might 
 deny, but on the interpretation of the civil law? In a like 
 case, but concerning a person of inferior degree, it was in- 
 quired among our ancestors, whether, if a person belonging 
 
 ^ This celebrated cause is so clearly stated by Cicero as to require 
 no explanation. It was gained by Crassus, the evident intention of 
 the testator prevailing over the letter of the wiU. It is quoted as 
 a precedent by Cicero, pro Caecina, c. 18. 
 
 2 See Florus, ii. 18 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 1. 
 
 3 See Cic. Topic, c. 8; Gaius, i. 129 ; Aul. Gell. vii. 18. 
 
192 DE oratore; or, [b. i. 
 
 to a state in alliance with Eome had been in servitude 
 amongst us, and gained his freedom, and afterwards returned 
 home, he returned by the right of postliminium, and lost the 
 citizenship of this city. May not a dispute arise on a point 
 of civil law respecting liberty, than which no cause can be of 
 more importance, Avhen the question is, for example, whether 
 he who is enrolled as a citizen, by his master's consent, is free 
 at once, or Avhen the lustrum is completed? As to the case 
 also, that happened in the memory of our fathers, when the 
 father of a family, who had come from Spain to Rome, and 
 had left a wife pregnant in that province, and married another 
 at Eome, without sending any notice of divorce to the former, 
 ^nd died intestate, after a son had been born of each wife, 
 did a small matter come into controversy, when the question 
 was concerning the rights of two citizeus, I mean concerning 
 the boy who was born of the latter wife and his mother, who, 
 if it were adjudged that a divorce was effected from a former 
 wife by a certain set of words, and not by a second marriage, 
 Vwould be deemed a concubine? For a man, then, who is 
 ignorant of these and other similar laws of his own country, 
 to wander about the forum with a great crowd at his heels, 
 erect and haughty, looking hither and thither with a gay and 
 assured face and air, offering and tendering protection to his 
 clients, assistance to his friends, and the light of his genius 
 and counsel to almost all his fellow-citizens, is it not to be 
 bought in the highest degree scandalous? 
 
 XLI. " Since I have spoken of the audacity, let me also 
 censure the indolence and inertness of mankind. For if the 
 study of the law were illimitable and arduous, yet the great- 
 ness of the advantage ought to impel men to undergo the 
 labour of learning it; but, ye immortal gods, I would not say 
 this in the hearing of Scsevola, unless he himself were accus- 
 tomed to say it, namely, that the attainment of no science seems 
 to him more easy. It is, indeed, for certain reasons, thought 
 otherwise by most people, first, because those of old, who 
 were at the head of this science, would not, for the sake of 
 securing and extending their own influence, allow their art 
 to be made public; in the next place, when it was published, 
 the forms of actions at law being first set forth by Cneius 
 Flavins, there were none who could compose a general system 
 of those matters arranged under regular heads. For nothing 
 
C. XLII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 193 
 
 can be reduced into a science, unless he who understands the 
 matters of which he would form a science, has previously 
 gained such knowledge as to enable him to constitute a 
 science out of subjects in which there has never yet been 
 any science. I perceive that, from desire to express this 
 briefly, I have expressed it rather obscurely; but I will 
 make an effort to explain myself, if possible, with more 
 perspicuity. 
 
 XLII. " All things which are now comprised in sciences, 
 were formerly unconnected, and in a state, as it were, of dis- 
 persion; as in music, numbers, sounds, and measures; in 
 geometry, lines, figures, spaces, magnitudes ; in astronomy, 
 the revolution of the heavens, the rising, setting, and other 
 motions of the stars; in grammar, the study of the poets, 
 the knowledge of history, the interpretation of words, the 
 peculiar tone of pronunciation ; and finally, in this very art 
 of oratory, invention, embellishment, arrangement, memory, 
 delivery, seemed of old not to be fully understood by any, and 
 to be wholly unconnected. A certain extrinsic art was therefore 
 applied, adopted from another department of knowledge,^ 
 which the philosophers wholly claim to themselves, an art 
 which might serve to cement things previously separate and 
 uncombined, and unite them in a kind of system. 
 
 " Let then the end proposed in civil law be the preserva- 
 tion of legitimate and practical equity in the affairs and 
 causes of the citizens. The general heads of it are then to 
 be noted, and reduced to a certain number, as few as may be. 
 A general head is that which comprehends two or more par- 
 ticulars, similar to one another by having something in 
 common, but differing in species. Particulars are included 
 under the general heads from which they spring. All names, 
 which are given either to general heads, or particulars, must 
 be limited by definitions, showing what exact meaning they 
 have. A definition is a short and concise specification of 
 whatever properly belongs to the thing which we would 
 define. I should add examples on these points, were I not 
 sensible to whom my discourse is addressed. I will now 
 comprise what I proposed in a short space. For if I should 
 have leisure to do what I have long meditated, or if any 
 other person should undertake the task while I am occupied, 
 ^ From philosophy. 
 O 
 
194 DE OBATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 or accomplish it after my death, (I mean, to digest, first of all, 
 the whole civil law under general heads, which are very few ; 
 next, to branch out those general heads, as it were, into 
 members; then to explain the peculiar nature of each by 
 ^ definition ;) you will have a complete system of civil law, 
 large and full indeed, but neither difficult nor obscure. In 
 the meantime, while what is unconnected is being combined, 
 a person may, even by gathering here and there, and col- 
 lecting from all parts, be furnished with a competent know- 
 ledge of the civil law. 
 
 XLIII. '- Do you not observe that Caius Aculeo,^ a Roman 
 knight, a man of the most acute genius in the world, but of 
 little learning in other sciences, who now lives, and has always 
 lived with me, understands the civil law so well, that none 
 even of the most skilful, if you except my friend Scsevola 
 here, can be preferred to him*? Everything in it, indeed, is 
 set plainly before our eyes, connected with our daily habits, 
 with our intercourse among men, and with the forum, and is 
 not contained in a vast quantity of writing, or many large 
 volumes; for the elements that were at first published by 
 several writers are the same; and the same things, with the 
 ^ change of a few words, have been repeatedly written by the 
 i^same authors. Added to this, that the civil law may be 
 more readily learned and understood, there is (what most 
 people little imagine) a wonderful pleasure and delight in 
 acquiring a knowledge of it. For, whether any person is 
 attracted by the study of antiquity,^ there is, in every part 
 of the civil law, in the pontifical books, and in the Twelve 
 
 ^ This Aculeo married Cicero's aunt by the mother's side, as he tells 
 us in the beginning of the second book of this treatise, c. 1, and his 
 sons by that marriage, cousins to Cicero and his brother Quintus, were 
 all bred up together with them, in a method approved by L. Crassus, 
 the chief character in this dialogue, and by those very masters under 
 whom Crassus himself had been. B, 
 
 2 Orellius retains hcec aliena studia in his text, but acknowledgea 
 aliena to be corrupt. Wyttenbach conjectured ahtiqua studia, for 
 antiquitatis studia. Ellendt observes fchat Madvig proposed JElianaf 
 from Lucius ^lius Stilo, the master of Varro, extolled by Cicero, 
 Brut. 56 ; Acad. i. 2, 8 ; Legg. ii. 23. See Suetonius, de 111. Gramm. 
 0. 3 ; and Aul. Cell. x. 21. This conjecture, says Henrichsen, will 
 suit very well with the word hcac, which Crassus may be supposed 
 to have used, because ^lius Stilo was then alive, and engaged in thost- 
 studies. 
 
a XLIV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 195 
 
 Tables, abundance of instruction as to ancient matters, since 
 not only the original sense of words is thence understood, 
 but certain kinds of law proceedings illustrate the customs 
 and lives of our ancestors; or if he has a view to the science 
 of government (which Scsevola judges not to belong to the 
 orator, but to science of another sort), he will find it all com- 
 prised in the Twelve Tables, every advantage of civil govern- 
 ment, and every part of it being there described; or if 
 authoritative and vaunting philosophy delight him, (I will 
 speak very boldly,) he will find there the sources of all the 
 philosophers' disputations, which lie in civil laws and enact- 
 ments; for from these we perceive that virtue is above all 
 things desirable, since honest, just, and conscientious industry 
 is ennobled with honours, rewards, and distinctions ; but the 
 vices and frauds of mankind are punished by fines, ignominy, 
 imprisonment, stripes, banishment, and death; and we are 
 taught, not by disputations endless and full of discord, but 
 by the authority and mandate of the laws, to hold our appe- 
 tites in subjection, to restrain all our passions, to defend our 
 own property, and to keep our thoughts, eyes, and hands, 
 from that of others. 
 
 XLIV. ^' Though all the world exclaim against me, I will 
 say what I think : that single little book of the Twelve Tables, 
 if any one look to the fountains and sources of laws, seems 
 to me, assuredly, to surpass the libraries of all the philo- 
 sophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of 
 utility. And if our country has our love, as it ought to 
 have in the highest degree, — our country, I say, of which the 
 force and natural attraction is so strong, that one of the 
 wisest of mankind preferred his Ithaca, fixed, like a little 
 nest, among the roughest of rocks, to immortality itself, — 
 with what affection ought we to be warmed towards such 
 a country as ours, which, preeminently above all other 
 countries, is the seat of virtue, empire, and dignity? Its 
 spirit, customs, and discipline ought to be our first objects of 
 study, both because our country is the parent of us all, and 
 because as much wisdom must be thought to have been em- 
 ployed in framing such laws, as in establishing so vast and 
 powerful an empire. You will receive also this pleasure and 
 delight from the study of the law, that you will then most 
 readily comprehend how far our ancestors excelled other 
 
 o2 
 
196 DE ORATOEE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 uations in wisdom, if you compare our laws with those of 
 their Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. It is indeed incredible 
 how undigested and almost ridiculous is all civil law, except 
 our own; on which subject I am accustomed to say much in 
 my daily conversation, when I am praising the wisdom of 
 our countrymen above that of all otheY men, and especially 
 of the Greeks. For these reasons have I declared, Scsevola, 
 that the knowledge of the civil law is indispensable to those 
 who would become accomplished orators. 
 
 XLY. " And who does not know what an accession of honour, 
 popularity, and dignity, such knowledge, even of itself, brings 
 with it to those who are eminent in if? As, therefore, among 
 the Greeks, men of the lowest rank, induced by a trifling 
 reward, offer themselves as assistants to the pleaders on trials 
 (men who are by them called pragmatici)} so in our city, on 
 the contrary, every personage of the most eminent rank and 
 character, such as that ^lius Sextus,^ who, for his knowledge 
 in the civil law, was called by our great poet, 
 
 * A man of thought and prudence, nobly wise,* 
 and many besides, who, after arriving at distinction by means 
 
 ^ It appears from Quintilian and Juvenal, that this was a Roman 
 custom as well as a Grecian, under the emperors ; they are also men- 
 tioned by Ulpian. But in Cicero's time the Patroni causarum, or 
 advocates, though they studied nothing but oratory, and were in 
 general ignorant of the law, yet did not make use of any of these low 
 people called Pragmatici, as the Greeks did at that time, but upon 
 any doubts on the law, applied themselves to men of the greatest repu- 
 tation in that science, such as the Scaevolse. But under the emperors 
 there was not the same encouragement for these great men to study 
 that science ; the orators, therefore, fell of necessity into the Grecian 
 custom. Quint, sii. 3 : " Neque ego sum nostri moris ignarus, obli- 
 tusve eorum, qui velut ad Arculas sedent, et tela agentibus submi- 
 nistrant, neque idem Grsecos nescio factitare, undo nomen his Prag- 
 maticorum datum est." Juv. Sat. vii. 123 : 
 
 Si quater egisti, si contigit aureus unus, 
 
 Inde cadunt partes ex foedere Pragmaticorum. B. 
 
 2 As the collection of forms published by Flavins, and from "him 
 called Jus civile Flavianum, soon grew defective, as new contracts arose 
 every day, another was afterwards compiled, or rather only made public, 
 by Sextus^lius, for the forms seem to have been composed as the dif- 
 ferent emergencies arose, by such of the patricians as understood the law, 
 and to have been by them secreted to extend their own influence; however, 
 this collection, wherein were many new forms adapted to the cases and 
 circumstances which had happened since the time of Flavins, went under 
 the title of Jus Jliianim, from this ^lius here praised by Ennius. B 
 
C. XLVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 197 
 
 of their ability, attained such influence, that in answering 
 questions on points of law,^ they found their authority of 
 more weight than even their abihty. For ennobling and 
 dignifying old age, indeed, what can be a more honourable 
 resource than the interpretation of the law? For myself, I 
 have, even from my youth, been securing this resource, not 
 merely with a view to benefit in pleadings in the forum, but 
 also for an honour and ornament to the decline of life ; so 
 that, when my strength begins to fail me (for which the time 
 is even now almost approaching), I may, by that means, pre- 
 serve my house from solitude. For what is more noble than 
 for an old man, who has held the highest honours and offices 
 . of the state, to be able justly to say for himself, that which 
 the Pythian Apollo says in Ennius, that he is the person 
 from whom, if not nations and kings, yet all his fellow- 
 citizens, solicit advice, 
 
 * Uncertain how to act ; whom, by my aid, 
 I send away undoubting, full of counsel, 
 1^0 more with rashness things perplex'd to sway ; ' 
 
 f^or without doubt the house of an eminent lawyer is the' 
 \oracle of the whole city. Of this fact the gate and vestibule of 
 our friend Quintus Mucins is a proof, which, even in his very 
 infirm state of health, and advanced age, is daily frequented 
 by a vast crowd of citizens, and by persons of the highest 
 rank and splendour. 
 
 XLVI. '' It requires no very long explanation to show why 
 I think the public laws^ also, which concern the state and 
 government, as well as the records of history, and the prece- 
 
 ^ The custom Respondendi de Jure, and the interpretations and de- 
 cisions of the learned, were so universally approved, that, although 
 uhey were unwritten, they became a new species of law, and were 
 called Auctoritas, or JResponsa Prudenfum. This custom continued to 
 the time of Augustus without interruption, who selected particular 
 lawyers, and gave them the sanction of a patent; but then grew into 
 desuetude, till Hadrian renewed this office or grant, which made so 
 considerable a branch of the Roman law. B, 
 
 2 Jura publica. Dr. Taylor, in his History of the Roman Law, p. 62, 
 has given us the heads of the Roman /'if5_pw5??cwm, which were, — religion 
 and divine worship — peace and war— legislation — exchequer and resfisci, 
 escheats — the prerogative — law of treasons — taxes and imposts — coin- 
 age — jurisdiction — magistracies — regalia — embassies — honours and 
 titles — colleges, schools, corporations — castles and fortifications — fairs, 
 mercats, staple — forests— naturalization. £. 
 
• 198 DE obatore; or, [b. i. 
 
 dents of antiquity, ought to be known to the orator; for as 
 in causes and trials relative to private affairs, his language is 
 often to be borrowed from the civil law, and therefore, as we 
 said before^ the knowledge of the civil law is necessary to the 
 orator ; so in regard to causes affecting public matters, before 
 our courts, in assemblies of the people, and in the senate, all 
 the history of these and of past times, the authority of public 
 law, the system and science of governing the state, ought to 
 be at the command of orators occupied with affairs of govern- 
 ment, as the very groundwork of their speeches.^ For we 
 are not contemplating, in this discourse, the character of an 
 every-day pleader, bawler, or barrator, but that of a man, 
 
 )( who, in the first place, may be, as it were, the high-priest of 
 this profession, for which, though nature herself has given 
 rich endowments to man, yet it was thought to be a god that 
 gave it, so that the very thing which is the distinguishing 
 property of man, might not seem to have been acquired by 
 ourselves, but bestowed upon us by some divinity; who, in 
 the next place, can move with safety even amid the weapons 
 of his adversaries, distinguished not so much by a herald's 
 caduceus,^ as by his title of orator; who, likewise, is able, by 
 means of his eloquence, to expose guilt and deceit to the 
 hatred of his countrymen, and to restrain them by penalties ; 
 who can also, with the shield of his genius, protect inno- 
 cence from punishment ; who can rouse a spiritless and de- 
 sponding people to glory, or reclaim them from infatuation, 
 or inflame their rage against the guilty, or mitigate it, if 
 incited against the virtuous ; who, finally, whatever feeling in 
 the minds of men his object and cause require, can either 
 excite or calm it by his eloquence. If any one supposes 
 that this power has either been sufficiently set forth by those 
 who have written on the art of speaking, or can be set 
 forth by me in so brief a space, he is greatly mistaken, and 
 understands neither my inability, nor the magnitude of the 
 subject. For my own part, since it was your desire, I thought 
 
 ' f. that the fountains ought to be shown you, from which you 
 
 ^ Tanquam aliqua materies. Ernesti's text, says Orellius, has alia, 
 by mistake. Aliqua is not very satisfactory. Nobbe, the editor of 
 Tauchnitz's text, retains Ernesti's alia. 
 
 2 The herald's caduceus, or wand, renders his person inviolabl©* 
 Pearce. 
 
C. XLVII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 199 
 
 might draw, and the roads which you might pursue, not so 
 that I should become your guide (which would be an endless 
 and unnecessary labour), but so that I might point out to ycu 
 the way, and, as the practice is, might hold out my finger 
 towards the spring."-^ 
 
 XLYII. " To me," remarked Scaevola, '^ enough appears to 
 have been said by you, and more than enough, to stimulate 
 the efforts of these young men, if they are but studiously 
 inclined ; for as they say that the illustrious Socrates used to 
 observe that his object was attained if any one was by his 
 exhortations sufficiently incited to desire to know and under- 
 stand virtue ; (since to those who were persuaded to desire 
 nothing so much as to become good men, what remained to 
 be learned was easy ;) so I consider that if you wish to pene- 
 trate into those subjects which Crassus has set before you in 
 his remarks, you will, with the greatest ease, arrive at your 
 object, after this course and gate has been opened to you." 
 " To us," said Sulpicius, " these instructions are exceedingly 
 pleasant and delightful ; but there are a few things more 
 which we still desire to hear, especially those which were 
 touched upon so briefly by you, Crassus, in reference to ora- 
 tory as an art, when you confessed that you did not despise 
 them, but had learned them. If you will speak somewhat more 
 at length on those points, you will satisfy all the eagerness of 
 our long desire. For we have now heard to what objects we 
 must direct our efforts, a point which is of great importance ; 
 but we long to be instructed in the ways and means of 
 pursuing those objects." 
 
 '' Then," said Crassus, ^' (since I, to detain you at my house 
 with less difficulty, have rather complied with your desires, 
 than my own habit or inclination,) what if we ask Antonius 
 to tell us something of what he still keeps in reserve, and has 
 not yet made known to us, (on which subjects he complained, 
 a while ago, that a book has already dropped from his pen,) 
 and to reveal to us his mysteries in the art of speaking T' 
 " As you please," said Sulpicius, " for, if Antonius speaks, we 
 shall still learn what you think." " I request of you then, 
 Antonius," said Crassus, " since this task is put upon men of 
 
 ^ Ut fieri solet. Ernesti conjectures w^ c^za so^e^. Ell endt thinks the 
 common reading right, requiring only that we should understand 
 d commonstrantibus. 
 
200 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 our time of life by the studious inclinations of these youths, 
 to deliver your sentiments upon these subjects which, you 
 see, are required from you." 
 
 XLYIII. " I see plainly, and understand indeed," replied 
 Antonius, "that I am caught, not only because those things 
 are required from me in which I am ignorant and unprac- 
 tised, but because these young men do not permit me to 
 avoid, on the present occasion, what I always carefully avoid 
 in my public pleadings, namely, not to speak after you, 
 Crassus. But I will enter upon what you desire the more 
 boldly, as I hope the same thing will happen to me in this 
 discussion as usually happens to me at the bar, that no 
 flowers of rhetoric will be expected from me. For I am not 
 going to speak about art, which I never learned, but about 
 my own practice ; and those very particulars which I have 
 entered in my common-place book are of this kind,^ not ex- 
 pressed with anything like learning, but just as they are 
 treated in business and pleadings ; and if they do not meet 
 with approbation from men of your extensive knowledge, you 
 must blame your own unreasonableness, in requiring from me 
 what I do not know ; and you must praise my complaisance, 
 since I make no difficulty in answering your questions, being 
 induced, not by my own judgment, but your earnest desire." 
 " Go on, Antonius," rejoined Crassus, "for there is no 
 danger that you will say anything otherwise than so discreetly 
 that no one here will repent of having prompted you to 
 speak." 
 
 " I will go on, then," said Antonius, " and will do what I 
 think ought to be done in all discussions at the commence- 
 ment; I mean, that the subject, whatever it may be, on 
 which the discussion is held, should be defined ; so that the 
 discourse may not be forced to wander and stray from its 
 course, from the disputants not having the same notion of the 
 matter under debate. If, for instance, it were inquired, ^What 
 is the art of a general?' I should think that we ought to settle, 
 at the outset, what a general is ; and when he was defined to 
 be a commander for conducting a war, we might then proceed 
 to speak of troops, of encampments, of marching in battle 
 array, of engagements, of besieging towns, of provisions, of 
 
 ^ Not recorded with any elegance, but in the plain style in which 
 I am now going to express myself. Ernesti. 
 
C. XLIX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 201 
 
 laying and avoiding ambuscades, and other matters relative 
 to the management of a war; and those who had the capacity 
 and knowledge to direct such affairs I should call generals ; 
 and should adduce the examples of the Africani and Maximi, 
 and speak of Epaminondas, and Hannibal, and men of such 
 character. But if we should inquire what sort of character 
 he is, who should contribute his experience, and knowledge, 
 and zeal to the management of the state, I should give this 
 sort of definition, that he who understands hy what means the 
 interests of the republic are secured and "promoted^ and employs 
 those means, is ivorthy to he esteemed a director in affairs of 
 government, and a leader in "public councils; and I should 
 mention Publius Lentulus, that chief of the senate,^ and 
 Tiberius Gracchus the father, and Quintus Metellus, and 
 Publius Africanus, and Caius Lselius, and others without 
 number, as well of our ow^n city as of foreign states. But 
 if it should be asked, ^Who truly deserved the name of a 
 lawyer % ' I should say that he deserves it who is learned in \ 
 the laws, and that general usage^ luhich private persons observe 
 in their intercourse in the community, who can give an answer 
 on any point, can plead, and can take precautio7is for the ^ 
 interests of his client; and I should name Sextus iElius/ 
 Manius Manilius, Publius Mucins, as distinguished in those 
 respects. XLIX. In like manner, to notice sciences of a less 
 important character, if a musician, if a grammarian, if a poet 
 were the subject of consideration, I could state that which 
 each of them possesses, and than which nothing more is to 
 be expected from each. Even of the philosopher himself, who 
 alone, from his abilities and wisdom, professes almost every- 
 / thing, there is a sort of definition, signifying, that he who studies 
 to learn the powers, nature^ and causes of all things, divine and 
 human, and to understand and explain the whole science of 
 living virtuously, may justly deserve this appellation. 
 
 " The orator, however, since it is about him that we 
 are considering, I do not conceive to be exactly the same cha- 
 racter that Crassus makes him, who seemed to me to in- 
 clude all knowledge of all matters and sciences, under the 
 single profession and name of an orator ; but I regard him 
 
 1 Principem ilium, Nempe senates. He was consul with Cneiua 
 Domitius, a.u.c. 592. Ellendt. 
 ^ The unwritten law. 
 
202 DB ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 as one who can use words agreeable to hear, and thoughts 
 adapted to prove, not only in causes that are pleaded in the 
 forum, hut in causes in general. Him I call an orator, and 
 would have him besides accomplished in delivery and action, 
 and with a certain degree of wit. But our friend Crassus 
 seemed to me to define the faculty of an orator, not by the 
 proper limits of his art, but by the almost immense limits of 
 his own genius; for, by his definition, he delivered the helm 
 of civil government into the hands of his orator; a point, 
 which it appeared very strange to me, Scsevola, that you 
 should grant him ; when the senate has often given its assent 
 on affairs of the utmost consequence to yourself, though you 
 have spoken briefly and without ornament. And M . Scaurus, 
 who I hear is in the country, at his villa not far off, a man 
 eminently skilled in affairs of government, if he should hear 
 that the authority which his gravity and counsels bear with 
 them, is claimed by you, Crassus, as you say that it is the 
 property of the orator, he would, I believe, come hither 
 without delay, and frighten us out of our talk by his very 
 countenance and aspect ; who, though he is no contemptible 
 speaker, yet depends more upon his judgment in affairs of 
 consequence, than upon his ability in speaking; and, if any 
 one has abilities in both these ways, he who is of authority 
 in the public councils, and a good senator, is not on those 
 accounts an orator ; and if he that is an eloquent and powerful 
 speaker be also eminent in civil administration, he did not 
 acquire his political knowledge^ through oratory. Those 
 talents differ very much in their nature, and are quite sepa- 
 rate and distinct from each other; nor did Marcus Cato, 
 Publius Africanus, Quintus Metellus, Cains Lselius, who were 
 all eloquent, give lustre to their own orations, and to the 
 dignity of the republic, by the same art and method. 
 
 L. " It is not enjoined, let me observe, by the nature of 
 things, or by any law or custom, that one man must not 
 know more than one art; and therefore, though Pericles was 
 the best orator in Athens, and was also for many years 
 director of the public counsels in that city, the talent for 
 
 ^ Aliquam scientiam. For aliquam Manutius^conjectured illamy which 
 Lambinus, Ernesti, and Miiller approve. Wyttenbach suggested alienam, 
 which has been adopted by Schutz and Orellius. I have followed 
 Manutius. 
 
C. LI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 203 
 
 both those characters must not be thought to belong to the 
 same art because it existed in the same man ; . nor if Publius 
 Crassus was both an orator and a lawyer, is the knowledge 
 of the civil law for that reason included in the power of 
 speaking. For if every man who, while excelling in any art or 
 science, has acquired another art or science in addition, shall 
 represent that his additional knowledge is a part of that in 
 which he previously excelled,^ we may, by such a mode of 
 argument, pretend that to play well at tennis or counters,^ 
 is a part of the knowledge of civil law, because Publius Mucins 
 was skilled in both ; and, by parity of reasoning, those whom 
 the Greeks call ^vcriKoi, ^natural philosophers,' may be re- 
 garded as poets, because Empedocles the natural philosopher 
 wrote an excellent poem. But not even the philosophers 
 themselves, who would have everything, as their own right, to 
 be theirs, and in their possession, have the confidence to say 
 that geometry or music is a part of philosophy, because all 
 acknowledge Plato to have been eminently excellent in those 
 sciences. And if it be still your pleasure to attribute all 
 sciences to the orator, it will be better for us, rather, to 
 express ourselves to this effect, that since eloquence must not 
 be bald and unadorned, but marked and distinguished by 
 a certain pleasing variety of manifold qualities, it is necessary 
 for a good orator to have heard and seen much, to have gone 
 over many subjects in thought and reflection, and many also 
 in reading; though not so as to have taken possession of 
 them as his own property, but to have tasted of them as 
 things belonging to others. For I confess that the orator 
 should be a knowing man, not quite a tiro or novice in any 
 subject, not utterly ignorant or inexperienced in any business 
 of Ufe. 
 
 LI. " Nor am I discomposed, Crassus, by those tragic argu- 
 ments of yours,^ on which the philosophers dwell most of. all; 
 
 ^ Sciet — excellet The commentators say nothing against these futures. 
 
 2 Duodecim scriptis. This was a game played with counters on 
 a board, moved according to throws of the dice, but different from our 
 backgammon. The reader may find all that is known of it in Adam's 
 Roman Antiquities, p. 423, and Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Ant. 
 art. Latrunculi. 
 
 ^ Istis tragcediis tuis. Persons are said tragcedias in nugis agere, who 
 make a small matter great by clamouring over it, as is done by actors 
 in tragedies. Proust. See b. ii. c. 51; Quint. vL 1. 36. 
 
204: DE oratoee; or, [b. i. 
 
 I mean, when you said, That no man can, hy speaking, excite 
 the passions of his audience, or calm them when excited, (in 
 which efforts it is that the power and greatness of an orator are 
 chiefly seen,) unless one who has gained a thorough insight into 
 the nature of all things, and the dispositions and motives of 
 mankind; on which account philosophy must of necessity he 
 studied hy the orator ; a study in which we see that the whole 
 lives of men of the greatest talent and leisure are spent; the 
 copiousness and magnitude of whose learning and knowledge 
 I not only do not despise, but greatly admire ; but, for us 
 who are engaged in so busy a state, and such occupations in 
 the forum, it is sufficient to know and say just so much about 
 the manners of mankind as is not inconsistent with human 
 nature. For what great and powerful orator, whose object 
 was to make a judge angry with his adversary, ever hesitated, 
 because he was ignorant what anger was, whether ^ a heat of 
 temper,' or ^ a desire of vengeance for pain received V^ Who, 
 when he wished to stir up and inflame other passions in the 
 minds of the judges or people by his eloquence, ever uttered 
 such things as are said by the philosophers? part of whom 
 deny that any passions whatever should be excited in the mind, 
 and say that they who rouse them in the breasts of the judges 
 are guilty of a heinous crime, and part, who are inclined to 
 be more tolerant, and to accommodate themselves more to the 
 realities of life, say that such emotions ought to be but very 
 moderate and gentle. But the orator, by his eloquence, 
 represents all those things which, in the common affairs of 
 life, are considered evil and troublesome, and to be avoided, 
 as heavier and more grievous than they really are ; and at the 
 same time amplifies and embelHshes, by power of language, 
 those things which to the generality of mankind seem inviting 
 and desirable ; nor does he wish to appear so very wise among 
 fools, as that his audience should think him impertinent or a ' 
 pedantic Greek, or, though they very much approve his under- 
 standing, and admire his wisdom, yet should feel uneasy that 
 they themselves are but idiots to him; but he so eff'ectually 
 penetrates the minds of men, so works upon their senses and 
 feelings, that he has no occasion for the definitions of philoso- 
 phers, or to consider in the course of his speech, ^ whether the 
 chief good lies in the mind or in the body ;' ' whether it is to be 
 1 See Aristotle, Rhetor, ii. 2 ; Cic. Tusc. Qusest. iv. 
 
C. LII.] ON THE CHAEACTER OF THE ORATOR. 205 
 
 defined as consisting in virtue or in pleasure ; ' ^ whether these 
 two can be united and coupled together/ or ^whether/ as 
 some think, ^nothing certain can be known, nothing clearly 
 perceived and understood ; ' questions in which I acknowledge 
 that a vast multiplicity of learning, and a great abundance of 
 varied reasoning is involved : but we seek something of a far 
 different character ; we want a man of superior intelligence,' 
 sagacious by nature and from experience, who can acutely divine 
 what his fellow-citizens, and all those whom he wishes to con- 
 vince on any subject by his eloquence, think, feel, imagine, oi^ 
 hope. LII. He must penetrate the inmost recesses of the mind 
 of every class, age, and rank ; and must ascertain the senti- 
 ments and notions of those before whom he is pleading,^ or in- 
 tends to plead ; but his books of philosophy he must reserve to 
 himself, for the leisure and tranquillity of such a Tusculan 
 villa as this, and must not, when he is to speak on justice and 
 honesty, borrow from Plato ; who, when he thought that 
 such subjects were to be illustrated in writing, imagined in 
 his pages a new kind of commonwealth ; so much was that 
 w^hich he thought necessary to be said of justice, at variance 
 with ordinary life and the general customs of the world. But 
 if such notions were received in existing communities and 
 nations, who would have permitted you, Crassus, though 
 a man of the highest character, and the chief leader in the 
 city, to utter what you addressed to a vast assembly of your 
 fellow-citizens'?^ Deliver us from these miseries, deliver us 
 
 FROM THE JAWS OF THOSE WHOSE CRUELTY CANNOT BE SATIATED 
 EVEN WITH BLOOD j SUFFER US NOT TO BE SLAVES TO ANT BUT 
 YOURSELVES AS A PEOPLE, WHOM WE BOTH CAN AND OUGHT TO 
 
 SERVE. I say nothing about the word miseries, in which, 
 as the philosophers say,"^ a man of fortitude cannot be; 
 I say nothing of the jaws from which you desire to be 
 
 ^ Most copies have aget ; Pearce, with the minority, prefers agit. 
 
 2 These words are taken from a speech which Crassus had a short 
 time before delivered in an assembly of the people, and in which he had 
 made severe complaints of the Eoman knights, who exercised their 
 judicial powers with severity and injustice, and gave great trouble to 
 the senate. Crassus took the part of the senate, and addressed the 
 exhortation in the text to the people. Proust. Crassus was supporting 
 the Servilian law. Maniitius. 
 
 ^ Ut illi aiunt. The philosophers, especially the Stoics, who affirmed 
 that the wise man alone is happy. Ellendt. 
 
206 DE oeatore; or, [b. i. 
 
 delivered, that your blood may not be druuk by an unjust 
 sentence ; a thiDg which they say cannot happen to a wise 
 man ; but how durst you say that not only yourself, but the 
 whole senate, whose cause you were then pleading, were 
 SLAVES 1 Can virtue, Crassus, possibly be enslaved, accord- 
 ing to those whose precepts you make necessary to the science 
 of an orator ; virtue which is ever and alone free, and 
 which, though our bodies be captured in war, or bound with 
 fetters, yet ought to maintain its rights and liberty inviolate 
 in all circumstances P And as to what you added, that the 
 senate not only can but ought to be slaves to the people, 
 what philosopher is so effeminate, so languid, so enervated, 
 so eager to refer everything to bodily pleasure or pain, as to 
 allow that the senate should be the slaves of the people, 
 to whom the people themselves have delivered the power, like 
 certain reins as it were, to guide and govern them? 
 
 LIII. '' Accordingly, when I regarded these words of yours 
 as the divinest eloquence, Publius Rutilius Rufus,^ a man 
 of learning, and devoted to philosophy, observed that what 
 you had said was not only injudicious, but base and dis- 
 honourable. The same Eutilius used severely to censure 
 Servius Galba, whom he said he very well remembered, be- 
 cause, when Lucius Scribonius brought an accusation against 
 him, and Marcus Cato, a bitter and implacable enemy to 
 Galba, had spoken with rancour and vehemence against him 
 before the assembled people of Eome, (in a speech which he 
 published in his Origines,^) Rutilius, I say, censured Galba, 
 for holding up, almost upon his shoulders, Quintus, the 
 orphan son of Caius Sulpicius Gallus, his near relation, that 
 he might, through the memory of his most illustrious father, 
 draw tears from the people, and for recommending two little 
 sons of his own to the guardianship of the public, and saying 
 that he himself (as if he was making his will in the ranks 
 before a battle,^ without balance or writing tables,^) appointed 
 
 ^ See the Paradox of Cicero on the words Omnes sapientes liberi, 
 omnes stulti servi. 
 
 2 Mentioned by Cic. Brut. c. 30. P7'oust. He was a perfect Stoic. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ A work on the origin of the people and cities of Italy, and other 
 matters, now lost. Cic. Brut. c. 85 ; Com. Nep. Life of Cato, c. 3. 
 
 * When a soldier, in the hearing of three or more of his comrades, 
 named some one his heir in case he should fall in the engagement. 
 
 * When a person, in the presence of five witnesses and a libripens, 
 
C. LTV. I ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 207 
 
 the people of Rome protectors of their orphan condition. As 
 Galba, therefore, laboured under the ill-opinion and dislike 
 of the people, Rutilius said that he owed his deliverance to 
 such tragic tricks as these ; and I see it is also recorded in 
 Cato's book, that if he had not employed children and tears, 
 he would have suffered. Such proceedings Rutilius severely 
 condemned, and said banishment, or even death, was more 
 ehgible than such meanness. Nor did he merely say this, but 
 thought and acted accordingly; for being a man, as you 
 know, of exemplary integrity, a man to whom no person in 
 the city was superior in honesty and sincerity, he not only 
 refused to supplicate his judges, but would not allow his 
 cause to be pleaded with more ornament or freedom of lan- 
 guage than the simple plainness of truth carried with it.^ 
 Small was the part of it he assigned to Cotta here, his sister's 
 son, and a youth of great eloquence; and Quintus Mucins 
 also took some share in his defence, speaking in his usual 
 manner, without ostentation, but simply and with perspi- 
 cuity. But if you, Crassus, had then spoken, — you, who just 
 now said that the orator must seek assistance from those dis- 
 putations in which the philosophers indulge, to supply himself 
 with matter for his speeches, — if you had been at liberty to 
 speak for Publius Rutilius, not after the manner of philo- 
 sophers, but in your own way, although his accusers had 
 been, as they really were, abandoned and mischievous citizens, 
 and worthy of the severest punishment, yet the force of your 
 eloquence would have rooted all their unwarrantable cruelty 
 from the bottom of their hearts. But, as it was, a man of 
 such a character was lost, because his cause was pleaded in 
 I such a manner as if the whole affair had been transacted in 
 the imaginary commonwealth o£ Plato. Not a single indi- 
 vidual uttered a groan ; not one of The advocates gave vent 
 to an exclamation; no one showed any appearance of grief; 
 no one complained ; no one supplicated, no one implored the 
 mercy of the public. In short, no one even stamped a foot 
 on the trial, for fear, I suppose, of renouncing the doctrine of 
 the Stoics. 
 
 LIV. " Thus a Roman, of consular dignity, imitated the 
 
 assigned his property to somebody as his heir. Gaius, ii. 101 : Aul, 
 Gell. XY. 27. 
 
 ^ He was falsely accused of extortion in his province of Asia, and, 
 being condemned, was sent into exile. Cic. Bnit. c. 30. Proust, 
 
208 DE oratore; or, [b. l 
 
 illustrious Socrates of old, who, as he was a man of the 
 greatest wisdom and had lived in the utmost integrity, spoke 
 for himself, when on trial for his life, in such a manner as 
 not to seem a suppliant or prisoner, but the lord and master 
 of his judges. Even when Lysias, a most eloquent orator, 
 brought him a written speech, which, if he pleased, he might 
 learn by heart, and repeat at his trial, he wilHngiy read it 
 over, and said it was written in a manner very well suited to 
 the occasion ; but, said he, if you had brought me Sicyonian 
 shoes,^ I should not wear them, though they might be easy 
 and suit my feet, because they would be effeminate; so that 
 speech seems to me to be eloquent and becoming an orator, 
 but not fearless and manly. In consequence, he also was 
 condemned, not only by the first votes, by which the judges 
 only decided whether they should acquit or condemn, but 
 also by those which, in conformity with the laws, they were 
 obhged to give afterwards. For at Athens, if the accused 
 person was found guilty, and if his crime was not capital, 
 there was a sort of estimation of punishment; and when sen- 
 tence was to be finally given by the judges, the criminal was 
 asked what degree of punishment he acknowledged himself, 
 at most, to deserve; and when this question was put to 
 Socrates, he answered, that he deserved to be distinguished 
 with the noblest honours and rewards, and to be daily main- 
 tained at the public expense in the Prytaneum ; an honour 
 which, amongst the Greeks, is accounted the very highest. 
 By which answer his judges were so exasperated, that they 
 condemned the most innocent of men to death. But had he 
 been acquitted, (which, indeed, though it is of no concern to 
 us, yet I could wish to have been the case, because of the 
 greatness of his genius,) how could we have patience with 
 those philosophers who now, though Socrates was condemned 
 for no other crime but want of skill in speaking, maintain 
 that the precepts of oratory should be learned from them- 
 selves, who are disciples of Socrates 1 With these men I have 
 no dispute as to which of the two sciences is superior, or 
 carries more truth in it ; I only say that the one is distinct 
 from the other, and that oratory may exist in the highest 
 perfection without philosophy. 
 
 ' Shoes made at Sicyon, and worn only by the effeminate and luxu- 
 rious. Lucret. iv. 1121. 
 
C. LV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 209 
 
 LY. ^^ In bestowing such warm approbation on the civil law, 
 Crassus, I see what was your motive ; when you were speak- 
 ing, I did not see it.^ In the first place, you were willing to 
 oblige Sceevola, whom we ought all to esteem most deservedly 
 for his singularly excellent disposition; and seeing his science 
 undowried Eind unadorned, you have enriched it with your 
 eloquence as with a portion, and decorated it with a pro- 
 fusion of ornaments. In the next, as you had spent much 
 pains and labour in the acquisition of it, (since you had in 
 your own house one ^ who encouraged and instructed you in 
 that study,) you were afraid that you might lose the fruit of 
 your industry, if you did not magnify the science by your 
 eloquence. But I have no controversy with the science ; let 
 it be of as much consequence as you represent it ; for without 
 doubt it is of great and extensive concern, having relation to 
 multitudes of people, and has always been held in the highest 
 honour; and our most eminent citizens have ever been, and 
 are still, at the head of the profession of it; but take care, 
 Crassus, lest, while you strive to adorn the knowledge of 
 the civil law with new and foreign ornaments, you spoil 
 and denude her of what is granted and accorded to her as 
 her own. For if you were to say, that he who is a lawyer is 
 also an orator, and that he who is an orator is also a lawyer, 
 you would make two excellent branches of knowledge, each 
 equal to the other, and sharers of the same dignity ; but now 
 you allow that a man may be a lawyer without the eloquence 
 which we are considering, and that there have been many 
 such ; and you deny that a man can be an orator who has not 
 acquired a knowledge of law. Thus the lawyer is, of himself, ^ 
 nothing with you but a sort of wary and acute legalist, an 
 instructor in actions,^ a repeater of forms, a catcher at sylla- 
 bles ; but because the orator has frequent occasion for the aid 
 of the law in his pleadings, you have of necessity joined legal 
 knowledge to eloquence as a handmaid and attendant. 
 
 ^ TvLm, quum dicehas, non vidfham. Many copies omit the negative; 
 an omission approved by Ernesti, Henrichsen, and Ellendt. 
 
 2 Either Sc^evola, the father-in-law of Crassus, or Lucius Coelius 
 Antipater, whom Cicero mentions in his Brutus. Prousf. 
 
 ^ PrcBco aciionum. One who informs those who are ignorant of law 
 when the courts will be open ; by what kind of suit any person must 
 prosecute his claims on any other person ; and acts in law proceedings 
 AS another sort of prceco acts at auctions. Strehceus. 
 
 P 
 
210 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 LYI. '^ But as to your wonder at the effrontery of those 
 advocates who, though they were ignorant of small things, 
 profess great ones, or who ventured, in the management of 
 causes, to treat of the most important points in the civil law, 
 though they neither understood nor had ever learned them, the 
 defence on both charges is easy and ready. For it is not at 
 all surprising that he who is ignorant in what form of words 
 a contract of marriage is made, should be able to defend the 
 cause of a woman who has formed such a contract; nor, 
 though the same skill in steering is requisite for a small 
 as for a large vessel, is he therefore, who is ignorant of 
 the form of words by which an estate is to be divided, in- 
 capable of pleading a cause relative to the division of an 
 estate.^ For though you appealed to causes of great conse- 
 quence, pleaded before the Centiimviri, that turned upon 
 points of law, what cause was there amongst them all, which 
 could not have been ably pleaded by an eloquent man un- 
 acquainted with law? in all which causes, as in the cause of 
 Manius Curius, which was lately pleaded by you,^ and that of 
 Caius Hostilius Mancinus,^ and that of the boy who was born 
 ^ of a second wife, without any notice of divorce having been 
 ■; sent to the first^^ there was the greatest disagreement among 
 the most skilful lawyers on points of law. I ask, then, how in 
 these causes a knowledge of the law could have aided the orator, 
 when that lawyer must have had the superiority, who was 
 supported, not by his own, but a foreign art, not by know- 
 
 ^ Herctum cieri — herciscimdce families. Co-heirs, when an estate de- 
 scended amongst them, were, by the Roman law, bound to each other 
 by the action familice herciscundce ; that is, to divide the whole family 
 inheritance, and settle all the accounts which related to it. Just. Inst, 
 iii. 28. 4. The word herctum, says Festus, signifies whole or undivided, 
 and CIO, to divide ; so, familiam herctam ciere was to divide the inherit- 
 ance of the family, which two -words, herctum ciere, were afterwards 
 contracted into herciscere : hence this law-term used here, familiam 
 \erciscere. Servius has, therefore, from Donatus, thus illustrated a passage 
 in Virgil, at the end of the Vlllth ^neid,— 
 
 Citse Metium.in diversa quadrigae 
 Distulerant. 
 
 Citce, says he, is a law-term, and signifies divided, as hereto non cito, the 
 inheritance being undivided. Citoi quadrigce, therefore, in that passage, 
 does not mean quick or swift, as is generally imagined, but drawing 
 different ways. B. 
 
 2 See c. 39 ^ c. 40. C. 40. 
 
C. LVII.] ON THE CHARACTER OP THE ORATOR. 211 
 
 ledge of the law, but by eloquence? I have often heard that, 
 
 when Publius Crassus was a candidate for the aedileship, and 
 Servius Galba, though older than he, and even of consular 
 dignity, attended upon him to promote his interest, (having 
 betrothed Crassus's daughter to his son Caius,) there came a 
 countryman to Crassus to consult him on some matter of 
 law j and when he had taken Crassus aside, and laid the affair 
 before him, and received from him such an answer as was 
 rather right than suited to his wishes, Galba, seeing him look 
 dejected, called Jiim by his name, and asked him on what 
 matter he had consulted Crassus j when, having heard his 
 case, and seeing the man in great trouble, ^I perceive,' said 
 he, ' that Crassus gave you an answer while his mind was 
 anxious, and pre-occupied with other affairs.' He then took 
 Crassus by the hand, and said, ' Hark you, how came it into 
 your head to give this man such an answer "? ' Crassus, who 
 was a man of great legal knowledge, confidently repeated that 
 the matter was exactly as he had stated in his answer, and 
 that there could be no doubt. But Galba, referring to a 
 variety and multiplicity of matters, adduced abundance of 
 similar cases, and used many arguments for equity against 
 the strict letter of law; while Crassus, as he could not main- 
 tain his ground in the debate, (for, though he was numbered 
 among the eloquent, he was by no means equal to Galba,) had 
 recourse to authorities, and showed what he had asserted in 
 the books of his brother Publius Mucins,^ and in the com- 
 mentaries of Sextus ^lius; though he allowed, at the same 
 time, that Galba's arguments had appeared to him plausible, 
 and almost true. 
 
 LVII. ^^ But causes which are of such a kind, that there 
 ! can be no doubt of the law relative to them, do not usually 
 ; come to be tried at. all. Does any one claim an inheritance 
 ,' under a will, which the father of a family made before he had 
 j a son born? Nobody; because it is clear that by the birth 
 I of a son the will is cancelled. ^ Upon such points of law, 
 \ therefore, there are no questions to be tried. The orator, 
 accordingly, may be ignorant of all this part of the law 
 
 II 
 
 ^ The Crassus here mentioned was Publius Crassus Dives, brother of 
 Publius Mucius, Pontifex Maximus. See c. 37. Ellendt, 
 
 ^ Cicero pro Csecina, c. 25; Gains, ii. 138. 
 I p2 
 
212 DE OEATORE ; OR, [b. I. 
 
 relative to controversies,^ which is without doubt the far 
 greater part ; but on those points which are disputed, even 
 among the most skilful lawyers, it will not be difficult for 
 the orator to find some writer of authority on that side, 
 whichsoever it be, that he is to defend, from whom, when he 
 has received his javelins ready for throwing, he will hurl them 
 with the arm and strength of an orator. Unless we are to 
 suppose, indeed, (I would wish to make the observation with- 
 out offending this excellent man Scsevola,) that you, Crassus, 
 defended the cause of Manius Curius out of the writings and 
 rules of your father-in-law. Did you not, on the contrary, 
 undertake the defence of equity, the support of wills, and 
 the intention of the dead ? Indeed, in my opinion, (for I was 
 ' frequently present and heard you,) you won the far greater 
 number of votes by your wit, humour, and happy raillery, 
 when you joked upon the extraordinary acuteness, and ex- 
 pressed admiration of the genius, of Scaevola, who had 
 discovered that a man must he horn hefore he can die; and> 
 when you adduced many cases, both from the laws and decrees 
 of the senate, as well as from common life and intercourse, 
 not only acutely, but facetiously and sarcastically, in which, 
 if we attended to the letter, and not the spirit, nothing 
 would result. The trial, therefore, was attended with abun- 
 dance of mirth and pleasantry; but of what service your 
 knowledge of the civil law was to you upon it, I do not 
 understand ; your great power in speaking, united with the 
 utmost humour and grace, certainly was of great service. 
 Even Mucins himself, the defender of the father's right, who 
 fought as it were for his own patrimony, what argument did 
 he advance in the cause, when he spoke against you, that 
 appeared to be drawn from the civil law? What particular law 
 did he recite? What did he explain in his speech that was 
 unintelligible to the unlearned ? The whole of his oration was 
 employed upon one point; that is, in maintaining that what 
 was written ought to be valid. But every boy is exercised 
 on such subjects by his master, when he is instructed to 
 
 ^ Omnem hanc partem juris in controversiis. For in controversiis 
 Lambinus and Ernesti would read, from a correction in an old copy, 
 incontroversi ; but as there is no authority for this word, EUendt, with 
 Bakius, prefers non controversi. With this alteration, the sense will be, 
 " all this uncontroverted part of the law." 
 
C. LVIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 213 
 
 support^ in such cases as these, sometimes the written letter, 
 sometimes equity. In that cause of the soldier, I presume, 
 if you had defended either him or the heir, you would have 
 had recourse to the cases of Hostilius,^ and not to your own 
 power and talent as an orator. Nay, rather, if you had 
 defended the will, you would have argued in such a manner, 
 that the entire validity of all wills whatsoever would have 
 seemed to depend upon that single trial; or, if you had pleaded 
 the cause of the soldier, you would have raised his father, 
 with your usual eloquence, from the dead ; you would have 
 placed him before the eyes of the audience ; he would have em- 
 braced his son, and with tears have recommended him to the 
 Centumviri ; you would have forced the very stones to weep 
 and lament, so that all that clause, as the tongue had 
 DECLARED, would Seem not to have been written in the Twelve 
 Tables, which you prefer to all libraries, but in some mere 
 formula of a teacher. 
 
 LVIII. "As to the indolence of which you accuse our 
 youth, for not learning that science, because, in the first 
 place, it is very easy, (how easy it is, let them consider who 
 strut about before us, presuming on their knowledge of the 
 science, as if it were extremely difficult; and do you yourseli 
 also consider that point, who say, that it is an easy science, 
 which you admit as yet to be no science at all, but say that 
 if somebody shall ever learn some other science, so as to be 
 able to make this a science, it will then be a science ;) and 
 because, in the next place, it is fall of pleasure, (but as to 
 that matter, every one is willing to leave the pleasure to 
 yourself, and is content to be without it, for there is not one 
 of the young men who would not rather, if he must get 
 anything by heart, learn the Teucer of Pacuvius than the 
 Manilian laws^ on emption and vendition ;) and, in the third 
 place, because you think, that, from love to our country, we 
 ought to acquire a knowledge of the practices of our an- 
 cestors; do you not perceive that the old laws are either 
 
 ^ Certain legal foim-ulte, of which some lawyer named Hostihus was 
 the author. Ernesti. 
 
 2 Manilianas — leges. They were formulse which those who wished 
 not to be deceived might use in buying and selling ; they are called 
 
 actiones by Varro, K. R. ii. 5, 11 The author was Manius Manilius, 
 
 an eminent lawyer, who was consul a.u.C. 603. Ernesti. 
 
214 r>E oratoee; or, [b. i. 
 
 grown out of date from their very antiquity, or are set aside 
 by such as are new"?^ As to your opinion, that men are 
 rendered good by learning the civil law, because, by laws, 
 rewards are appointed for virtue, and punishments for vice ; 
 "i, for my part, imagined that virtue was instilled into man- 
 kind (if it can be instilled by any means) by instruction 
 and persuasion, not by menaces, and force, and terror. As 
 to the maxim that we should avoid evil, we can understand 
 how good a thing it is to do so without a knowledge of the 
 law. And as to myself, to whom alone you allow the power 
 of managing causes satisfactorily, without any knowledge of 
 law, I make you, Crassus, this answer : that I never learned 
 the civil law, nor was ever at a loss for the want of know- 
 ledge in it, in those causes which I was able to defend in the 
 courts.^ It is one thing to be a master in any pursuit or 
 art, and another to be neither stupid nor ignorant in common 
 life, and the ordinary customs of mankind. May not every 
 one of us go over our farms, or inspect our country affairs, 
 for the sake of profit or delight at least '?^ No man lives 
 without using his eyes and understanding, so far as to be 
 entirely ignorant what sowing and reaping is ; or what pruning 
 vines and other trees means; or at what season of the 
 year, and in what manner, those things are done. If, there- 
 fore, any one of us has to look at his grounds, or give any 
 directions about agriculture to his steward, or any orders 
 to his bailiff, must we study the books of Mago the Car- 
 thaginian,^ or may we be content with our ordinary know- 
 ledge"? Why, then, with regard to the civil law, may we not 
 also, especially as we are worn out in causes and public busi- 
 ness, and in the forum, be , sufficiently instructed, to such 
 a degree at least as not to appear foreigners and strangers in 
 
 ^ There is no proper grammatical construction in this sentence. 
 Ernesti observes that it is, perhaps, in some way unsound. 
 
 2 In jure, " Apud tribunal prsetoris." Ernesti. 
 
 ^ I translate the conclusion of this sentence in conformity with the 
 text of Orellius, who puts tamen at the end of it, instead of letting it 
 stand at the beginning of the next sentence, as is the case in other 
 editions. His interpretation is, invisere saltern. " Though we be much 
 occupied, yet we can visit our farms." 
 
 * He wrote eight-and-twenty books on country affairs in the Punic 
 language, which were translated into Latin, by order of the senate, by 
 Cassius Dionysius of Utica. See Yarro, R. E. i. 1 ; and Columella, who 
 calls him the father of farming. Proust. 
 
C. LIX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 215 
 
 our own country? Or, if any cause, a little more obscure 
 than ordinary, should be brought to us, it would, I presume, 
 be difficult to communicate with our friend Scsevola here; 
 although indeed the parties, whose concern it is, bring nothing 
 to us that has not been thoroughly considered and investi- 
 gated. If there is a question about the nature of a thing 
 itself under consideration; if about boundaries; (as we do not 
 go in person to view the property itself;^) if about writings 
 and bonds ;^ we of necessity have to study matters that are 
 intricate and often difficult ; and if we have to consider laws, 
 or the opinions of men skilled in law, need we fear that we 
 shall not be able to understand them, if we have not studied 
 the civil law from our youth'? 
 
 LIX. '^ Is the knowledge of the civil law, then, of no ad- 
 vantage to the orator? I cannot deny that every kind of 
 knowledge is of advantage, especially to him whose eloquence 
 ought to be adorned with variety of matter; but the things 
 which are absolutely necessary to an orator are numerous, 
 important, and difficult, so that I would not distract his indus- 
 try among too many studies. Who can deny that the gesture 
 and grace of Roscius are necessary in the orator's action and 
 deportment? Yet nobody would advise youths that are 
 studying oratory to labour in forming their attitudes like 
 players. What is so necessary to an orator as the voice? 
 Yet, by my recommendation, no student in eloquence will 
 be a slave to his voice like the Greeks and tragedians,^ who 
 pass whole years in sedentary declamation, and daily, before 
 they venture upon delivery, raise their voice by degrees as 
 they sit, and, when they have finished pleading, sit down 
 again, and lower and recover it, as it were, through a scale, 
 from the highest to the deepest tone. If we should do this, 
 they whose causes we undertake would be condemned, before 
 
 ^ Quum in rem prcesenfem non venimus. We do not go ad locum, 
 unde prcBsentes rem et fines inspicere possimus. EUendt. 
 
 2 Perscriptionihus. Perscriptio is considered by Ellendt to signify 
 a draft or checque to be presented to a banker. 
 
 ^ Grcecorum more et tragoedorum. Lambinus would strike out et, on 
 the authority of three manuscripts ; and Pearce thinks that the con- 
 junction ought to be absent. Ernesti thinks that some substantive 
 belonging to GrcBcorum has dropped out of the text. A Leipsic edition, 
 he observes, has Grcecorum more sophistarum et tragoedorvmi, but on 
 what authority he does not know. 
 
216 DE ORATOKE ; OR, [b. I. 
 
 we had repeated the pcean and the munio^ as often as is pre- 
 scribed. But if we must not employ ourselves upon gesture, 
 which is of great service to the orator, or upon the culture of 
 the voice, which alone is a great recommendation and support 
 of eloquence; and if we can only improve in either, in 
 proportion to the leisure afforded us in this field of daily 
 business ; how much less must we apply to the occupation 
 of learning the civil law? of which we may learn the chief 
 points without regular study, and which is also unlike those 
 other matters in this respect, that power of voice and gesture 
 cannot be got suddenly, or caught up from another person; 
 but a knowledge of the law, as far as it is useful in any 
 cause, may be gained on the shortest possible notice, either 
 from learned men or from books. Those eminent Greek 
 orators, therefore, as they are unskilled in the law themselves, 
 have, in their causes, men acquainted with the law to assist 
 them, who are, as you before observed, called pragmatici. 
 In this respect our countrymen act far better, as they would 
 have the laws and judicial decisions supported by the autho- 
 rity of men of the highest rank. But the Greeks would not 
 have neglected, if they had thought it necessary, to instruct 
 tlie orator in the civil law, instead of allowing him a prag- 
 maticus for an assistant. 
 
 LX. '^ As to your remark, that age is preserved from soli- 
 tude by the science of the civil law, we may perhaps also say 
 that it is preserved from solitude by a large fortune. But 
 we are inquiring, not what is advantageous to ourselves, but 
 what is necessary for the orator. Although (since we take 
 so many points of comparison with the orator from one sort 
 of artist) Eoscius, whom we mentioned before, is accustomed 
 to say, that, as age advances upon him, he will make the 
 measures of the flute-player slower, and the notes softer. 
 But if he who is restricted to a certain modulation of 
 numbers and feet, meditates, notwithstanding, something for 
 his ease in the decline of life, how much more easily can we, 
 I will not say lower our tones, but alter them entirely? For 
 it is no secret to you, Crassus, how many and how various 
 
 * Pceanem aut munionem. The word munionem is corrupt. Many- 
 editions have nomium, which is left equally unexplained. The best 
 conjectural emendation, as Orellius observes, is iiomiim, proposed by 
 a critic of Jena. 
 
a LX.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 2l^ 
 
 are the modes of speaking; a yariety Trhich I know not 
 whether you yourself have not been the first to exhibit to 
 us, since you have for some time spoken more softly and 
 gently than you used to do; nor is this mildness in your 
 eloquence, which carries so high authority with it, less ap- 
 proved than your former vast energy and exertion; and there 
 have been many orators, as we hear of Scipio and Lselius, 
 who always spoke in a tone only a little raised above that 
 of ordinary conversation^ but never exerted their lungs or 
 throats like Servius Galba. But if you shall ever be unable 
 or unwilling to speak in this manner, are you afraid that 
 your house, the house of such a man and such a citizen, 
 will, if it be not frequented by the litigious, be deserted by 
 the rest of mankind? For my part, I am so far from having 
 any similar feeling with regard to my own house, that I not 
 only do not think that comfort for my old age is to be ex- 
 pected from a multitude of clients, but look for that solitude 
 which you dread, as for a safe harbour ; for I esteem repose 
 to be the most agreeable solace in the last stage of life. 
 
 " Those other branches of knowledge (though they certainly 
 assist the orator) — I mean general history, and jurisprudence, 
 and the course of things in old times, and variety of prece- 
 dents — I will, if ever I have occasion for them, borrow from 
 my friend Longinus,^ an excellent man, and one of the 
 gi-eatest erudition in such matters. Nor will I dissuade 
 these youths from reading everything, hearing everything, 
 and acquainting themselves with every liberal study, and all 
 polite learning, as you just now recommended; but, upon 
 my word, they do not seem likely to have too much time, if 
 they are inclined to pursue and practise all that you, Crassus, 
 have dictated; for you seemed to me to impose upon their 
 youth obligations almost too severe, (though almost necessary 
 I admit, for the attainment of their desires,) since extemporary 
 exercises upon stated cases, and accurate and studied medi- 
 tations, and practice in writing, which you truly called the 
 modeller and finisher of the art of speaking, are tasks of 
 much difficulty; and that comparison of their own composi- 
 tion with the writings of others, and extemporal discussion 
 on the work of another by way of praise or censure, con- 
 
 _ ^ Ernesti supposes him to he Caius Cassius Longinus, who is men- 
 tioned by Cicero, pro Planco, c. 24. 
 
"18 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. I. 
 
 firmation or refutation, demand no ordinary exertion, either 
 of memory or powers of imitation. 
 
 LXI. " But what you added was appalling, and indeed will 
 have, I fear, a greater tendency to deter than to encourage. 
 You would have every one of us a Roscius in our profession; 
 and you said that what w^as excellent did not so much attract 
 approbation, as what was faulty produced settled disgust; 
 but I do not think that want of perfection is so disparagingly 
 regarded in us as in the players ; and I observe, accordingly, 
 that we are often heard with the utmost attention, even when 
 we are hoarse, for the interest of the subject itself and of the 
 cause detains the audience; while ^Esopus, if he has the 
 least hoarseness, is hissed ; for at those from whom nothing 
 is expected but to please the ear, offence is taken whenever 
 the least diminution of that pleasure occurs. But in elo- 
 quence there are many qualities that captivate; and, if they 
 are not all of the highest excellence, and yet most of them 
 are praiseworthy, those that are of the highest excellence 
 must necessarily excite admiration. 
 
 " To return therefore to our first consideration, let the 
 orator be, as Crassus described him, one who can speak in a 
 manner adajDted to persuade; and let him strictly devote 
 himself to those things which are of common practice in 
 civil communities, and in the forum, and, laying aside all 
 other studies, however high and noble they may be, let him 
 apply himself day and night, if I may say so, to this one 
 pursuit, and imitate him to whom doubtless the highest 
 excellence in oratory is conceded, Demosthenes the Athenian, 
 in whom there is said to have been so much ardour and per- 
 severance, that he overcame, first of all, the impediments of 
 nature by pains and diligence; and, though his voice was so 
 inarticulate that he was unable to pronounce the first letter 
 of the very art which he was so eager to acquire, he accom- 
 plished so much by practice that no one is thought to have 
 spoken more distinctly ; and though his breath was short, he 
 effected such improvement by holding it in while he spoke, 
 that in one sequence of words (as his writings show) two 
 risings and two fallings of his voice were included ; ^ and he 
 
 ^ In one period or sentence he twice raised and twice lowered his 
 voice ; he raised it in the former members of the period, and lowered 
 it in the latter ; and this he did in one breath. Proust. This seems 
 
C. LXII.J OX THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 219 
 
 also (as is related), after putting pebbles into his mouth, used 
 to pronounce several verses at the highest pitch of his voice 
 without taking breath, not standing in one place^ but walking 
 forward, and mounting a steep ascent. With such encou- 
 ragements as these, I sincerely agree with you, Crassus, 
 that youths should be incited to study and industry ; other 
 accomplishments which you have collected from various and 
 distinct arts and sciences, though you have mastered them 
 all yourself, I regard as unconnected with the proper business 
 and duty of an orator." 
 
 LXII. When Antonius had concluded these observations, 
 Sulpicius and Cotta appeared to be in doubt whose discourse 
 of the two seemed to approach nearer to the truth. Crassus 
 then said, *' You make our orator a mere mechanic, Antonius, 
 but I am not certain whether you are not really of another 
 opinion, and whether you are not practising upon us your 
 wonderful skill in refutation, in which no one was ever your 
 superior j a talent of which the exercise belongs properly to 
 orators, but has now become common among philosophers, 
 especially those who are accustomed to speak fully and 
 fluently on both sides of any question proposed. But I did 
 not think, especially in the hearing of these young men, that 
 merely such an orator was to be described by me, as would 
 pass his whole life in courts of justice, and would carry 
 thither nothing more than the necessity of his causes re- 
 quired; but I contemplated something greater, when I ex- 
 pressed my opinion that the orator, especially in such a 
 republic as ours, ought to be deficient in nothing that could 
 adorn his profession. But you, since you have circumscribed 
 the whole business of an orator within such narrow limits, will 
 explain to us with the less difficulty what you have settled 
 as to oratorical^ duties and rules; I think, however, that 
 this may be done to-morrow, for we have talked enough for 
 to-day. And Sceevola, since he has appointed to go to his own 
 Tusculan seat,^ will now repose a little till the heat is abated ; 
 
 not quite correct. Cicero appears to mean, that of the two members 
 the voice was once raised and once lowered in each. 
 
 ^ Orellius's text has jprceceptis oratoris ; but we must undoubtedly- 
 read oratoriis with Pearce. 
 
 2 Atticus was exceedingly pleased with this treatise, and commended 
 it extremely, but objected to the dismission of Scaevola from the dis- 
 putation, after he had been introduced into the first dialogue. Cicero 
 
220 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 and let us also, as the day is so far advanced, consult our 
 health."^ The proposal pleased the whole company. Scsevola 
 then said, ''Indeed, I could wish that I had not made an 
 appointment with Laelius to go to that part of the Tusculan 
 territory to-day. I would willingly hear Antonius;" and, as 
 he rose from his seat, he smiled and added, '^ for he did not 
 offend me so much when he pulled our civil law to pieces, as 
 he amused me when he professed himself ignorant of it." 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE AEGUMENT. 
 
 In this book Antonius gives instructions respecting invention in ora- 
 tory, and the arrangements of the different parts of a speech ; de- 
 partments in which he was thought to have attained great excellence, 
 though his language was not always highly studied or elegant. See 
 Cic. de Clar. Orat. c. 37. As humour in speaking was considered as 
 a part of invention, Caius Julius Caesar, who was called the most face- 
 tious man of his time, speaks copiously on that subject, c. 54 — 71. 
 
 I. There was, if you remember, brother Quintus, a strong 
 persuasion in us when we were boys, that Lucius Crassus had 
 acquired no more learning than he had been enabled to gain 
 from instruction in his youth, and that Marcus Antonius was 
 entirely destitute and ignorant of all erudition whatsoever; 
 and there were many who, though they did not believe that 
 such was really the case, yet, that they might more easily 
 deter us from the pursuit of learning, when we were inflamed 
 
 defends himself by the example of their " god Plato," as he calls him, 
 in his book De Eepuhlicd ; where the scene being laid in the house of 
 an old gentleman, Cephalus, the old man, after bearing a part in the 
 first conversation, excuses himself, saying, that he must go to prayers, 
 and returns no more, Plato not thinking it suitable to his age to be de- 
 tained in the company through so long a discourse. With greater reason, 
 therefore, he says that he had used the same caution in the case of 
 Scsevola ; since it was not to be supposed that a person of his dignity, 
 extreme age, and infirm health, would spend several successive days in 
 another man's house : that the first day's dialogue related to his parti- 
 cular profession, but the other two chiefly to the rules and precepts (»f 
 the art, at which it was not proper for one of Scsevola's temper and 
 character to be present only as a hearer. Ad Attic, iv. 16. £, 
 ^ Eetire from the heat, like Scaevola, and take rest. 
 
C. I.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 221 
 
 with a desire of attaining it, took a pleasure in reporting 
 what I have said of those orators ; so that, if men of no 
 learning had acquired the greatest wisdom, and an incredible 
 degree of eloquence, all our industry might seem vain, and 
 the earnest perseverance of our father, one of the best and 
 most sensible of men, in educating us, might appear to be 
 folly. These reasoners we, as boys, used at that time to 
 refute with the aid of witnesses whom we had at home, our 
 father, Caius Aculeo our relative, and Lucius Cicero our uncle ; 
 for our father, Aculeo (who married our mother's sister, and 
 whom Crassus esteemed the most of all his friends), and our 
 own uncle (who went with Antonius into Cilicia, and quitted 
 it at the same time with him), often told us many particulars 
 about Crassus, relative to his studies and learning ; and as 
 we, with our cousins, Aculeo's sons, learned what Crassus 
 approved, and were instructed by the masters whom he 
 engaged, we had also frequent opportunities of observing 
 (since, though boys,^ we could understand this) that he spoke 
 Greek so well that he might have been thought not to know 
 any other language, and he put such questions to our masters, 
 and discoursed upon such subjects in his conversation with 
 them, that nothing appeared to be new or strange to him. 
 But with regard to Antonius, although we had frequently 
 heard from our uncle, a person of the greatest learning, how 
 he had devoted himself, both at Athens and at Rhodes, to the 
 conversation of the most learned men; yet I myself also, 
 when quite a youth, often asked him many questions on the 
 subject, as far as the bashfulness of my early years would 
 permit. What I am writing will certainly not be new to you, 
 (for at that very time you heard it from me,) namely, that 
 from many and various conversations, he appeared to me 
 neither ignorant nor unaccomplished in anything in those 
 branches of knowledge of which I could form any opinion. 
 But there was such peculiarity in each, that Crassus desired 
 not so much to be thought unlearned as to hold learning in 
 contempt, and to prefer, on every subject, the understanding 
 of our countrymen to that of the Greeks ; while Antonius 
 thought that his oratory would be better received by the 
 Roman people, if he were believed to have had no learning at 
 
 ^ The words cum essemus ejusmodi in this parenthesis, which all 
 commentators regard as corrupt, are left untranslated. 
 
222 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 all ; and thus the one imagined that he should have more 
 authority if he appeared to despise the Greeks, and the other 
 if he seemed to know nothing of them. 
 
 ^ But what their object was, is certainly nothing to our 
 present purpose. It is pertinent, however, to the treatise 
 which I have commenced, and to this portion of it, to remark 
 that no man could ever excel and reach eminence in eloquence, 
 without learning, not only the art of oratory, but every branch 
 of useful knowledge. II. For almost all other arts can sup- 
 port themselves independently, and by their own resources ; 
 but to speak well, that is, to speak with learning, and skill, 
 and elegance, has no definite province within the limits of 
 
 / which it is enclosed and restricted. Everything that can pos- 
 sibly fall under discussion among mankind, must be effectively 
 treated by him who professes that he can practise this art, or 
 he must relinquish all title to eloquence. For my own part, 
 therefore, though I confess that both in our own country and 
 in Greece itself, w^hich always held this art in the highest 
 estimation, there have arisen many men of extraordinary 
 powers, and of the highest excellence in speaking,^ without 
 this absolute knowledge of everything; yet I affirm that such 
 a degree of eloquence as was in Crassus and Antonius, could 
 not exist without a knowledge of all subjects that contribute 
 to form that wisdom and that force of oratory which were seen 
 Lin them. On this account, I had the greater satisfaction in 
 committing to writing that dialogue which they formerly held 
 on these subjects ; both that the notion which had always 
 prevailed, that the one had no great learning, and that the 
 other was wholly unlearned, might be eradicated, and that I 
 might preserve, in the records of literature, the opinions which 
 I thought divinely delivered by those consummate orators 
 concerning eloquence, if I could by any means learn and fully 
 register them ; and also, indeed, that I might, as far as I 
 should be able, rescue their fame, now upon the decline, from 
 silence and oblivion. If they could have been known from 
 writings of their own, I should, perhaps, have thought it less 
 
 ^ Multos et ingeniis et magna laude dicendi. This passage, as Ellendt 
 observes, is manifestly corrupt. He proposes ingeniis magnos et laude 
 dicendi ; but this seems hardly Ciceronian. Aldus Manutius noticed that 
 an adjective was apparently wanting to ingeniis, but other editors have 
 passed the passage in silence. 
 
C. III.] ox THE CHAKACTER OF THE ORATOR. 223 
 
 necessary for me to be thus elaborate; but as one left but 
 little in writing, (at least, there is little extant,) and that he 
 wrote in his youth,^ the other almost nothing, I thought it . 
 due from me to men of such genius, while we still retain 
 a lively remembrance of them, to render their fame, if I could, 
 imperishable. I enter upon this undertaking with the greater 
 hopes of effecting my object,^ because I am not writing of 
 the eloquence of Servius Galba or Caius Carbo, concerning 
 w^hich I should be at liberty to invent whatever I pleased, as 
 no one now living could confute me : but I publish an account 
 to be read by those who have frequently heard the men them- 
 selves of whom I am speaking, that I may commend those 
 two illustrious men to such as have never seen either of 
 them, from the recollection, as a testimony, of those to w^hom 
 both those orators were known, and who are now alive and 
 present among us. 
 
 III. Nor do I now aim at instructing you, dearest and best 
 of brothers, by means of rhetorical treatises, which you re- 
 gard as unpolished ; (for what can be more refined or grace- 
 ful than your own language 1) but though, whether it be, as 
 you use to say, from judgment, or, as Isocrates, the father 
 of eloquence, has written of himself, from a sort of bashful- 
 ness and ingenuous timidity, that you have shrunk from 
 speaking in public, or whether, as you sometimes jocosely 
 remark, you thought one orator sufficient, not only for one 
 family, but almost for a whole community, I yet think that 
 these books will not appear to you of that kind which may 
 deservedly be ridiculed on account of the deficiency in elegant 
 learning in those who have discussed the art of speaking ; for 
 nothing seems to me to be wanting in the conversation of 
 Crassus and Antonius, that any one could imagine possible to 
 be known or understood by men of the greatest genius, the 
 keenest application, the most consummate learning, and the 
 utmost experience; as you will very easily be able to judge, 
 w^ho have been pleased to acquire the knowledge and theory 
 of oratory through your own exertions, and to observe the 
 practice of it in mine. But that we may the sooner accom- 
 plish the task which we have undertaken, and w^hich is no 
 
 ^ See Bnit. c. 43, 44. 
 
 ^ Spe aggredior majore ad prohandum. That ad probandum is to be 
 joined with spe, not with aggrediorj is shown by EUendt on b. i. c. 4, 
 
224 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 ordinary one, let us leave our exordium, and proceed to the 
 conversation and arguments of the characters whom I have 
 offered to your notice. 
 
 The next day, then, after the former conversation had 
 taken place, about the second hour,^ while Crassus was yet in 
 bed, and Sulpicius sitting by him, and Antonius walking with 
 Cotta in the portico, on a sudden Quintus Catulus ^ the elder, 
 with his brother Caius Julius,^ arrived there ; and when 
 Crassus heard of their coming, he arose in some haste, and 
 they were all in a state of wonder, suspecting that the occa- 
 sion of their arrival was of more than common importance. 
 The parties having greeted each other with most friendly 
 salutations, as their intimacy required, " What has brought 
 you hither at last?" said Crassus; "is it anything new?" 
 " Nothing, indeed," said Catulus ; " for you know it is the 
 time of the public games. But (you may think us, if you 
 please," added he, '' either foolish or impertinent) when Csesar 
 came yesterday in the evening to my Tusculan villa, from his 
 own, he told me that he had met Scsevola going from hence ; 
 from whom he said that he had heard a wonderful account, 
 namely, that you, whom I could never entice into such con- 
 versation, though I endeavoured to prevail on you in every 
 way, had held long dissertations with Antonius on eloquence, 
 and had disputed, as in the schools, almost in the manner of 
 the Greeks ; and my brother, therefore, entreated me, not 
 being of myself, indeed, averse to hear you, but, at the same 
 time, afraid we might make a troublesome visit to you, to 
 come hither with him j for he said that Scsevola had told 
 him that a great part of the discourse was postponed till 
 to-day. If you think we have acted too forwardly, you will 
 lay the blame upon Csesar, if too familiarly, upon both of 
 us j for we are rejoiced to have come, if we do not give you 
 
 ^ The second hour of the morning, answering to our eight o'clock. 
 
 2 The same that was consul with Caius Marius, when they obtained, 
 in conjunction, the famous victory over the Cimbri. 
 
 2 He was the brother of Quintus Catulus, by the mother's side, and 
 about twenty years his junior. Their mother's name was Popilia. 
 Ellendt. See c. 11. He was remarkable for wit, but his oratory is said 
 to have wanted nerve. Brut. c. 48. Cicero with great propriety makes 
 Sulpicius sit with Crassus, and Cotta walk with Antonius: for Sul- 
 picius wished to resemble Crassus in his style of oratory ; Cotta pre- 
 ferred the manner of Antonius. Brutus, c. ^^. 
 
C. IV.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 225 
 
 trouble by our visit." lY. Crassus replied, "Whatever object 
 had brought you hither. I should rejoice to see at my house 
 men for whom I have so much affection and friendship ; but 
 yet, (to say the truth,) I had rather it had been any other 
 object than that which you mention. For I, (to speak as I 
 think,) was never less satisfied with myself than yesterday; 
 though this happened more through my own good nature 
 than any other fault of mine ; for, while I complied with the 
 request of these youths, I forgot that I was an old man, 
 and did that which I had never done even when young; 
 I spoke on subjects that depended on a certain degree of 
 learning. But it has happened very fortunately for me, that as 
 my part is finished, you have come to hear Antonius." " For 
 my part, Crassus," returned Csesar, ^'I am indeed desirous 
 to hear you in that kind of fuller and continuous discussion, 
 yet so that, if I cannot have that happiness, I can be contented 
 with your ordinary conversation. I will therefore endeavour 
 that neither my friend Sulpicius, nor Cotta, may seem to 
 have more influence with you than myself; and will certainly 
 entreat you to show some of your good nature even to 
 Catulus and me. But if you are not so inclined, T will not 
 press you, nor cause you, while you are afraid of appearing 
 impertinent yourself, to think me impertinent." " Indeed, 
 Caesar," replied Crassus, " I have always thought of all Latin 
 words there was the greatest significance in that which you 
 have just used ; for he whom we call impertinent, seems to me 
 to bear an appellation derived from not heing pertinent; and 
 that appellation, according to our mode of speaking, is of 
 I very extensive meaning; for whoever either does not discern 
 what occasion requires, or talks too much, or is ostentatious 
 of himself, or is forgetful either of the dignity or convenience 
 I of those in whose presence he is, or is in any respect awkward 
 ' or presuming, is called impertinent. With this fault that 
 most learned nation of the Greeks abounds ; and, conse- 
 quently, because the Greeks do not feel the, influence of this 
 evil, they have not even found a name for the foible; for 
 
 I though you make the most diligent inquiry, you will not find 
 
 II out how the Greeks designate an imi^ertinent person. But 
 of all their other impertinences, which are innumerable, I do 
 not know whether there be any greater than their custorfi of 
 raising the most subtile disputations on the most difficult or 
 
 Q 
 
226 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 unuecessarj points, in whatever place, and before whatever 
 persons they think proper. This we were compelled to do by 
 these youths yesterday, though against our will, and though 
 we at first declined." 
 
 V. " The Greeks, however, Crassus," rejoined Catulus, " who 
 were eminent and illustrious in their respective states, as you 
 are, and as we all desire to be, in our own republic, bore no 
 resemblance to those Greeks who force themselves on our 
 ears ; yet they did not in their leisure avoid this kind of dis- 
 course and disputation. And if they seem to you, as they 
 ought to seem, impertinent, who have no regard to times, 
 places, or persons, does this place, I pray, seem ill adapted 
 to our purpose, in which the very portico where we are 
 walking, and this field of exercise, and the seats in so many 
 directions, revive in some degree the remembrance of the 
 Greek gymnasia and disputations 1 Or is the time unsea- 
 sonable, during so much leisure as is seldom afforded us, and 
 is now afforded at a season when it is most desirable ? Or are 
 the company unsuited to this kind of discussion, when we 
 are all of such a character as to think that life is nothing 
 without these studies V "I contemplate all these things," 
 said Crassus, " in a quite different light ; for I think that even 
 the Greeks themselves originally contrived their palaestrse, and 
 seats, and porticoes, for exercise, and amusement, not for dis- 
 putation; since their gymnasia were invented many genera- 
 tions before the philosophers began to prate in them ; and at 
 this very day, when the philosophers occupy all the gymnasia, 
 their audience would still rather hear the discus than a phi- 
 losopher ; and as soon as it begins to sound, they all desert 
 the philosopher in the middle of his discourse, though dis- 
 cussing matters of the utmost weight and consequence, to 
 anoint themselves for exercise; thus preferring the lightest 
 amusement to what the philosophers represent to be of the 
 utmost utility. As to the leisure which you say we have, 
 I agree with you; but the enjoyment of leisure is not exertion 
 of mind, but relaxation. YI. I have often heard from my 
 father-in-law, in conversation, that his father-in-law Lselius 
 was almost always accustomed to go into the country with 
 Scipio, and that they used to grow incredibly boyish again 
 when they had escaped out of town, as if from a prison, into 
 ^«he open fields. I scarcely dare to say it of such eminent 
 
C. VI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 227- 
 
 persons, yet Scaevola is in the habit of relating that they used 
 to gather shells and pebbles at Caieta and Laurentum, and to 
 descend to every sort of pastime and amusement. For such 
 is the case, that as we see birds form and build nests for the 
 sake of procreation and their own convenience, and, when 
 they have completed any part, fly abroad in freedom, dis- 
 engaged from their toils, in order to alleviate their anxiety; 
 so our minds, wearied with legal business and the labours of 
 the city, exult and long to flutter about, as it were, relieved 
 from care and solicitude. In what I said to Scsevola, there- 
 fore, in pleading for Curius,^ I said only what I thought. 
 ' For if,' said I, ' Scaevola, no will shall be properly made but 
 what is of your writing, all of us citizens will come to you 
 with our tablets, and you alone shall write all our wills ; but 
 then,' continued I, ' when will you attend to public business *? 
 when to that of your friends '? when to your own ? when, in 
 a word, will you do nothing ^ ' adding, ^ for he does not seem 
 to me to be a free man, who does not sometimes do nothing ;' 
 of which opinion, Catulus, I still continue ; and, when I come 
 hither, the mere privilege of doing nothing, and of being 
 fairly idle, delights me. As to the third remark which you 
 added, that you are of such a disposition as to think life 
 insipid without these studies, that observation not only does 
 not encourage me to any discussion, but even deters me from 
 it. For as Caius Lucilius, a man of great learning and wit, 
 used to say, that what he wrote he would neither wish to have 
 read by the most illiterate persons, nor by those of the greatest 
 learning, since the one sort understood nothing, and the 
 other perhaps more than himself; to which purpose he also 
 wrote, I do not care to read Persius ^ (for he was, as we know, 
 about the most learned of all our countrymen) ; hut I wish to 
 read Lcelius Decimus (with whom we were also acquainted, 
 a man of worth and of some learning, but nothing to Persius) ; 
 so I, if I am now to discuss these studies of ours, should not 
 wish to do so before peasants, but much less before you; for 
 I had rather that my talk should not be understood than be 
 ' censured." 
 
 ^ In the speech which he made on behalf of Curius, on the occasion 
 ; mentioned in book i. c. 39. Proust. 
 
 2 A learned orator, who wrote in the time of the Gracchi, and who 
 is mentioned by Cicero^ Brut. c. 26. Proust. Of Decimus Lselius 
 nothing is knovra. Ellendt, 
 
 q2 
 
-28 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II, 
 
 VII. " Indeed, Catulus," rejoined Csesar, " I think I have 
 already gained some profit^ by coming hither; for these 
 reasons for decUning a discussion have been to me a very 
 agreeable discussion. But why do we delay Antonius, whose 
 part is, I hear, to give a dissertation upon eloquenoe in 
 general, and for whom Cotta and Sulpicius have been some 
 time waiting?" ^^ But I," interposed Crassus, ^^ will neither 
 allow Antonius to speak a word, nor will I utter a syllable 
 myself, unless I first obtain one favour from you." "What 
 is if?" said Catulus. "That you spend the day here." Then, 
 while Catulus hesitated, because he had promised to go to his 
 brother's house, " I," said Julius, " will answer for both. We 
 will do so ; and you would detain me even in case you were 
 not to say a single word." Here Catulus smiled, and said, 
 " My hesitation then is brought to an end; for I had left no 
 orders at home, and he, at whose house I was to have been, has 
 thus readily engaged us to you, without waiting for my assent." 
 
 They then all turned their eyes upon Antonius, who cried 
 out, " Be attentive, I say, be attentive, for you shall hear 
 a man from the schools, a man from the professor's chair, 
 deeply versed in Greek learning ; " and I shall on this account 
 speak with the greater confidence, that Catulus is added to 
 the audience, to whom not only we of the Latin tongue, but 
 even the Greeks themselves, are wont to allow refinement 
 and elegance in the Greek language. But since the whole 
 process of speaking, whether it be an art or a business, can 
 be of no avail without the addition of assurance, I will 
 teach you, my scholars, that which I have not learned myself, 
 what I think of every kind of sioeahing.'' When they all 
 laughed, " It is a matter that seems to me," proceeded he, 
 " to depend very greatly on talent, but only moderately on 
 art; for art lies in things which are known; but all the 
 pleading of an orator depends not on knowledge, but on 
 opinion; for we both address ourselves to those who are 
 ignorant, and speak of what we do not know ourselves; and 
 consequently our hearers think and judge difierently at dif- 
 ferent times concerning the same subjects, and we often take 
 contrary sides, not only so that Crassus sometimes speaks 
 against me, or I against Crassus, when one of us must of 
 
 • ^ Navdsse operam ; that is, hene coUocdsse. Ernesti. 
 
 2 Ironically spoken. 
 
C. VIII.] ON THE CHAEACTER OF THE ORATOR. 220 
 
 necessity advance what is false; but even that each of us, at 
 different times, maintains different opinions on the same 
 question; when more than one of those opinions cannot pos- 
 sibly be right. I will speak, therefore, as on a subject which 
 is of a character to defend falsehood, which rarely arrives at 
 knowledge,^ and which is ready to take advantage of the 
 opinions and even errors of mankind, if you think that there 
 is still reason why you should listen to me." 
 
 YIII. " We think, indeed, that there, is very great reason," 
 said Catulus, '^ and the more so, as you seem resolved to use 
 no ostentation ; for you have commenced, not boastfully, but 
 rather, as you think, wdth truth, than with any fanciful 
 notion of the dignity of your subject." " As I have acknow^- 
 ledged then," continued Antonius, '' that it is not one of the 
 greatest of arts, so I allow, at the same time, that certain 
 artful directions may be given for moving the feelings and 
 gaining the favour of mankind. If any one thinks proper 
 to say that the knowledge how to do this is a great art, I 
 shall not contradict him; for as many speakers speak upon 
 causes in the forum without due consideration or method, 
 while others, from study, or a certain degree of practice, do 
 their business with more address, there is no doubt, that if 
 any one sets himself to observe what is the cause why some 
 speak better than others, he may discover that cause; and, 
 consequently, he who shall extend such observation over the 
 whole field of eloquence, i(\'ill find in it, if not an art abso- 
 lutely, yet something resembling an art. And T could wish, 
 that as I seem to see matters as they occur in the forum, 
 and in pleadings, so I could now set them before you just as 
 they are conducted ! 
 
 ^' But I must consider my own powers. I now assert only 
 that of which I am convinced, that although oratory is not 
 an art, no excellence is superior to that of a consummate 
 orator. For to say nothing of the advantages of eloquence, 
 which has the highest influence in every well-ordered and 
 free state, there is such delight attendant on the very power 
 of eloquent speaking, that nothing more pleasing can be re- 
 ceived into the ears or understanding of man. What music 
 
 ^ Quos ad scientiam non scepe perveniat. Ellendt encloses these words 
 in brackets as spurious, regarding them as a gloss on the preceding 
 phrase that has crept into the text. Their absence is desirable. 
 
23d DE ORATORE j OR, [i3. II. 
 
 , can be found more sweet than the pronunciation of a well- 
 ordered oration ? What poem more agreeable than the skilful 
 structure of prose? What actor has ever given greater plea- 
 sure in imitating, than an orator gives in supporting, truth? 
 What penetrates the mind more keenly than an acute and 
 quick succession of arguments'? What is more admirable 
 than thoughts illumined by brilliancy of expression? What 
 nearer to perfection than a speech replete with every variety 
 of matter? for there is no subject susceptible of being treated 
 with elegance and effect, that may not fall under the province 
 of the orator. IX. It is his, in giving counsel on important 
 affairs, to deliver his opinion with clearness and dignity; it 
 is his to rouse a people when they are languid, and to calm 
 them w^hen immoderately excited. By the same power of 
 language, the wickedness of mankind is brought to destruction, 
 and virtue to security. Who can exhort to virtue more 
 ardently than the orator? Who reclaim from vice with 
 greater energy? Who can reprove the bad with more aspe- 
 rity, or praise the good with better grace? Who can break 
 the force of unlawful desire by more effective reprehension? 
 Who can alleviate grief with more soothing consolation? 
 By what other voice, too, than that of the orator, is history, 
 the evidence of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, 
 the directress of life, the herald of antiquity, committed to 
 immortality? For if there be any other art, which professes 
 skill in inventing or selecting words ; if any one, besides the 
 orator, is said to form a discourse, and to vary and adorn it 
 with certain distinctions, as it were, of words and thoughts; 
 or if any method of argument, or expression of thought, or 
 distribution and arrangement of matter, is taught, except by 
 this one art, let us confess that either that, of which this art 
 makes profession, is foreign to it, or possessed in common 
 
 [with some other art. But if such method and teaching be 
 confined to this alone, it is not, though professors of other 
 arts may have spoken well, the less on that account the pro- 
 perty of this art ; but as an orator can speak best of all men 
 on subjects that belong to other arts, if he makes himself 
 acquainted with them, (as Crassus observed yesterday,) so the 
 professors of other arts speak more eloquently on their own 
 subjects, if they have acquired any instruction from this art; 
 for if any person versed in agriculture has spoken or written 
 
C. X.] ON THE CnARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 231 
 
 with eloquence on rural affairs, or a physician, as many have 
 done, on diseases, or a painter upon painting, his eloquence is 
 not on that account to be considered as belonging to any of 
 those arts ; although in eloquence, indeed, such is the force of 
 human genius, many men of every class and profession^ 
 attain some proficiency even without instruction ; but though 
 you may judge what is peculiar to each art, when you have 
 observed what they severally teach, yet nothing can be more 
 certain than that all other arts can discharge their duties 
 without eloquence, but that an orator cannot even acquire 
 his name without it; so that other men, if they are eloquent, 
 borrow something from him; while he, if he is not supplied 
 from his own stores, cannot obtain the power of speaking 
 from any other art." 
 
 X. Catulus then said, ^' Although, Antonius, the course of 
 your remarks ought by no means to be retarded by inter- 
 ruption, yet you will bear with me and grant me pardon; 
 for I cannot help crying out, as he in the Trinummus^ says, 
 so ably do you seem to me to have described the powers of 
 the orator, and so copiously to have extolled them, as the 
 eloquent man, indeed^ must necessarily do; he must extol 
 eloquence best of all men ; for to praise it he has to employ 
 the very eloquence which he praises. But proceed, for I 
 agree with you, that to speak eloquently is all your own ; 
 and that, if any one does so on any other art, he employs an 
 accomplishment borrowed from something else, not peculiar 
 to him, or his own." " The night/' added Crassus, '^ has made 
 you polite to us, Antonius, and humanized you; for in yes- 
 terday's address to us,^ you described the orator as a man 
 that can do only one thing, like a waterman or a ^poHer, as 
 Csecilius^ says; a fellow void of all learning and politeness." 
 ^'Why yesterday," rejoined Antonius, "I had made it my 
 object, if I refuted you, to take your scholars from you;^ 
 but now, as Catulus and Csesar make part of the audience, 
 I think I ought not so much to argue against you, as to 
 
 ^ The reader will observe that the construction in the text is 
 multi omnium generum atque artium, as EUendt observes, referring to 
 Matthiae. 2 iii^ 2, 7. ^ See b. i. c. 62. 
 
 * The writer of Comedies, Vincere Ccecilius gravitate^ Terentius arte. 
 Hor. 
 
 ^ I wished to refute you yesterday, that I might draw Sc99vola and 
 Cotta from you. This is spoken in jest. Proust. 
 
232 DB ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 declare what I myself think. It follows then, that, as the 
 orator of whom we speak is to be placed in the forum, and 
 in the view of the public, we must consider what employ- 
 ment we are to give him, and to what duties we should wish 
 him to be appointed. For Crassus^ yesterday, when you, 
 Catulus and Caesar, were not present, made, in a few words, 
 the same statement, in regard to the division of the art, that 
 most of the Greeks have made; not expressing what he 
 himself thought, but what was said by them ; that there are 
 two principal sorts of questions about which eloquence is 
 employed; one indefinite, the other definite. He seemed to 
 me to call that indefinite in which the subject of inquiry is 
 general, as. Whether eloquence is desirable; whether honours 
 should be sought; and that definite in which there is an 
 inquiry with respect to particular persons, or any settled and 
 defined point; of which sort are the questions agitated in 
 the forum, and in the causes and disputes of private citizens. 
 These appear to me to consist either in judicial pleadings, or 
 in giving counsel ; for that third kind, which was noticed by 
 Crassus, and which, I hear, Aristotle^ himself, who has fully 
 illustrated these subjects, added, is, though it be useful, less 
 necessary." "What kind do you mean"?" said Catulus; ^^is it 
 panegyric? for I observe that that is introduced as a third kind." 
 XI. "It is so," says Antonius; "and as to this kind of 
 oratory, I know that I myself, and all who were present, 
 were extremely delighted when your mother Popilia^ was 
 honoured with a panegyric by you; the first woman, I think, 
 to whom such honour was ever paid in this city. But it 
 does not seem to me that all subjects on which we speak are 
 to be included in art, and made subject to rules; for from 
 those fountains, whence all the ornaments of speech are 
 drawn, we may also take the ornaments of panegyric, without 
 requiring elementary instructions; for who is ignorant, 
 though no one teach him, what qualities are to be com- 
 mended in any person 1 For if we but look to those things 
 which Crassus has mentioned, in the beginning of the speech 
 which he delivered when censor in opposition to his col- 
 league,'* That in those things which are bestowed on mankind 
 bij nature or fortune^ he could contentedly allow himself to he 
 
 1 B. i. c. 31. 2 i^iiet. i. 3, 1. ^ ggg ^^^6 on c. 3. 
 
 ^ Domitius Ahenobarbus. Plin. H. E". xvii. 1. 
 
c. xil] on the character of the orator. 233 
 
 excelled; hut that in whatever men could procure for them- 
 selves, he could not suffer himself to he excelled, he who would 
 pronounce the panegyric of any person, will understand that 
 he must expatiate on the blessings of fortune; and these are 
 advantages of birth, wealth, relationship, friends, resources, 
 health, beauty, strength, talent, and such other qualities as 
 are either personal, or dependent on circumstances; and, if 
 he possessed these, he must show that he made a proper use 
 of them ; if not, that he managed wisely without them ; if 
 he lost them, that he bore the loss with resignation ; he must 
 then state what he whom he praises did or suffered with 
 w^isdom, or with liberality, or with fortitude, or with justice, 
 or with honour, or with piety, or with gratitude, or with 
 humanity, or, in a word, under the influence of any virtue. 
 These particulars, and whatever others are of similar kind, 
 he will easily observe who is inclined to praise any person; 
 and he who is inclined to blame him the contrary." " Why 
 then do you hesitate," said Catulus, ^* to make this a third 
 kind, since it is so in the nature of things'? for if it is more 
 easy than others, it is not, on that account, to be excluded 
 from the number." '' Because I am unwilling," replied 
 Antonius, '' to treat of all that falls under the province of 
 an orator, as if nothing, however small it may be, could be 
 uttered without regard to stated rules. Evidence^ for in- 
 stance, is often to be given, and sometimes with great exact- 
 ness, as I was obliged to give mine against Sextus Titius,^ a 
 seditious and turbulent member of the commonwealth ; when, 
 in delivering my evidence, I explained all the proceedings 
 of my consulate, in which I, on behalf of the commonwealth, 
 opposed him as tribune of the people, and exposed all that I 
 thought he had done contrary to the interest of the state ; 
 I was detained long, I listened to much, I answered many 
 objections ; but would you therefore wish, when you give 
 precepts on eloquence, to add any instructions on giving 
 evidence as a portion of the art of oratory ? " 
 
 XII. "There is, indeed," said Catulus, '^ no necessity." "Or 
 if (as often happens to the greatest men) communications 
 are to be delivered, either in the senate from a commander in 
 
 1 A tribune of the people, a.tj.c. 655, whom Antonius opposed about 
 the Agrarian law. He is mentioned also in c. QQ, and appears to be the 
 same that is said to have played vigorously at ball, ii. 62, iii. 23. 
 Ellendt, See also Cic. Brut. c. 62. 
 
234 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 chief, or to such a commander, or from the sena^te to any 
 king or people, does it appear to yoa that because, on such 
 subjects, we must use a more accurate sort of language than 
 ordinary, this kind of speaking should be counted as a 
 department of eloquence, and be furnished with peculiar 
 precepts ? " " By no means," replied Catulus ; " for an 
 eloquent man, in speaking on subjects of that sort, will not 
 be at a loss for that talent which he has acquired by 
 practice on other matters and topics." " Those other kinds 
 of subjects, therefore," continued Antonius, '' which often 
 require to be treated with eloquence, and which, as I said 
 just now, (when I was praising eloquence,) belong to the 
 orator, have neither any place in the division of the parts 
 of oratory, nor fall under any peculiar kind of rules, and yet 
 must be handled as eloquently as arguments in pleadings; 
 such are reproof, exhortation, consolation, all which demand 
 the finest graces of language ; yet these matters need no 
 rules from art." "I am decidedly of that opinion," said 
 Catulus. " Well, then, to proceed/' said Antonius, '- what 
 sort of orator, or how" great a master of language, do you think 
 it requires to write history 1 " " If to write it as the 
 Greeks have written, a man of the highest powers," said 
 Catulus ; ^^ if as our own countrymen, there is no need of an 
 orator ; it is sufficient for the writer to tell truth." '' But," 
 rejoined Antonius, " that you may not despise those of our 
 own country, the Greeks themselves too wrote at first just 
 like our Cato, and Pictor, and Piso. For history was nothing 
 else but a compilation of annals ; and accordingly, for the 
 sake of preserving the memory of public events, the pontifex 
 maximus used to commit to writing the occurrences of every 
 year, from the earliest period of Roman affairs to the time 
 of the pontifex Publius Mucins, and had them engrossed on 
 white tablets, which he set forth as a register in his own 
 house, so that all the people had liberty to inspect it ; and 
 these records are yet called the Great Annals. This mode of 
 writing many have adopted, and, without any ornaments of 
 style, have left behind them simple chronicles of times, per- 
 sons, places, and events. Such, therefore,- as were Pherecydes, 
 Hellanicus, Acusilas,^ and many others among the Greeks, 
 
 ^ Of these, Acusilas or Acusilaus, a native of Argos, was the most 
 ancient, according to Suidas. Ellendt. The others are better known. 
 
C. XIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 235 
 
 are Cato, and Pictor, and Piso with us, who neither under- 
 stand how composition is to be adorned (for ornaments of 
 style have been but recently introduced among us), and, pro- 
 vided what they related can be understood, think brevity of 
 expression the only merit. Anti pater/ an excellent man, 
 the friend of Crassus, raised himself a little, and gave history 
 a higher tone ; the others were not embellishers of facts, but 
 mere narrators." 
 
 XIII. "It is," rejoined Catulus, ^^ as you say; but Anti- 
 pater himself neither diversified his narrative by variety of 
 thoughts, nor polished his style by an apt arrangement of 
 words, or a smooth and equal flow of language, but rough- 
 hewed it as he could, being a man of no learning, and not 
 extremely well qualified for an orator ; yet he excelled, as 
 you say, his predecessors." " It is far from being wonderful," 
 said Antonins, " if history has not yet made a figure in our 
 language ; for none of our countrymen study eloquence, un- 
 less that it may be displayed in causes and in the forum ; 
 whereas among the Greeks, the most eloquent men, wholly 
 unconnected with public pleading, applied themselves as well 
 to other honourable studies as to writing history; for of 
 Herodotus himself, who first embellished this kind of writing, 
 we hear that he was never engaged in pleading ; yet his 
 eloquence is so great as to delight me extremely, as far as I 
 can understand Greek writing. After him, in my opinion, 
 Thucydides has certainly surpassed all historians in the art of 
 composition; for he is so abundant in matter, that he almost 
 equals the number of his words by the number of his thoughts; 
 and he is so happy and judicious in his expressions,^ that you 
 are at a loss to decide whether his facts are set off by his 
 style, or his style by his thoughts; and of him too we do not 
 hear, though he was engaged in public affairs, that he was of 
 the number of those who pleaded causes, and he is said 
 to have written his books at a time when he was removed 
 from all civil employments, and, as usually happened to every 
 
 ^ Lucius Cselius Antipater published a history of the Punic "Wars, as 
 Cicero says in his Orator, and was the master of Crassus, the speaker in 
 these dialogues, as appears from Cic. Brut. c. 26. Proust. 
 
 2 Aptus et pressus. A scriptor, or orator aptus, will be one " struct^ 
 et rotunda compositione verborum utens " ; and p7^essus will be, " in 
 verborum circuitione nee superfluens nee claudicans." Ellendt. 
 
236 DE oratore; or, [b. il 
 
 eminent man at Athens, was driven into banishment. He was 
 followed loj Philistus^ of Syracuse, who, living in great fami- 
 liarity with the tyrant Dionysius, spent his leism^e in writing- 
 history, and, as I think, principally imitated Thucydides. 
 But afterwards, two men of great genius, Theopompus and 
 Ephorus, coming from what we may call the noblest school of 
 rhetoric, applied themselves to history by the persuasion of 
 their master Isocrates, and never attended to pleading at all. 
 XIV. At last historians arose also among the philosophers ; 
 first Xenophon, the follower of Socrates, and afterwards Calli- 
 sthenes, the pupil of Aristotle and companion of Alexander. 
 The latter wrote in an almost rhetorical manner; the former 
 used a milder strain of language, which has not the anima- 
 tion of oratory, but, though perhaps less energetic, is, as it 
 seems to me, much more pleasing. Timseus, the last of all 
 these, but, as far as I can judge, by far the most learned, 
 and abounding most with richness of matter and variety of 
 thought, and not unpolished in style, brought a large store of 
 eloquence to this kind of writing, but no experience in plead- 
 ing causes." 
 
 When Antonius had spoken thus, "What is this, Catulusf 
 said Caesar. " Where are they who say that Antonius is igno- 
 rant of Greek ? how many historians has he named ! and how 
 learnedly and judiciously has he spoken of each ! " '^ On my 
 fword," said Catulus, " while I wonder at this, I cease to won- 
 der at what I regarded with much greater wonder before, 
 namely, that he, being unacquainted with these matters, 
 should have such power as a speaker." " But, Catulus," said 
 Antonius," my custom is to read these books, and some others, 
 when I have leisure, not to hunt for anything that may 
 improve me in speaking, but for my own amusement. What 
 profit is there from it then 1 I own that tliere is not much ; 
 yet there is some : for as, when I walk in the sun, though 
 I may walk for another purpose, yet it naturally happens that 
 I gain a deeper colour ; so when I have read those books 
 attentively at Misenum,^ (for at Eome I have scarcely oppor- 
 tunity to do so,) I can perceive that my language acquires 
 a complexion,^ as it were, from my intercourse with them. 
 
 1 He is called Pusillus Thucydides by Cicero, Ep. ad Q. Fratr. xii. 
 
 2 A promontory of Campania, where Antonius had a country house. 
 
 3 Ruhnken, in a note on Tim3eus*s Lex. p. 78, expresses a suspicion 
 
C. XV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE .ORaTOR. 237 
 
 But, that you may not take what I say in too wide a sense, 
 I only understand such of the Greek writings as their authors 
 wished to he understood by the generahty of people. If I ever 
 fall in with the philosophers, deluded by the titles to their 
 books, as they generally profess to be written on well-known 
 and plain subjects, as virtue, justice, probity, pleasure, I do not 
 understand a single word of them; so restricted are they to 
 close and exact disputations. The poets, as speaking in a 
 different language, I never attem^pt to touch at all ; but amuse 
 myself, as I said, with those who have written history, or their 
 own speeches,^ or who have adopted such a style that they 
 seem to wish to be familiar to us who are not of the deepest 
 erudition. XY. But I return to my subject. Do you see 
 how far the study of history is the business of the orator? 
 I know not whether it is not his most important business, 
 for flow and variety of diction; yet I do not find it any- 
 where treated separately under the rules of the rhetoricians. 
 Indeed, all rules respecting it are obvious to common view ; 
 for who is ignorant that it is the first law in writing history, 
 that the historian must not dare to tell any falsehood, and 
 the next, that he must be bold enough to tell the whole 
 truth? Also, that there must be no suspicion of partiality 
 in his writings, or of personal animosity'? These fundamental 
 rules are doubtless universally known. The superstructure 
 depends on facts and style. The course of facts requires atten- 
 tion to order of time, and descriptions of countries; and since, 
 in great affairs, and such as are worthy of remembrance, first 
 the designs, then the actions, and afterwards the results, are 
 expected, it demands also that it should be shown, in regard 
 to the designs, what the writer approves, and that it should 
 be told, in regard to the actions, not only what was done or 
 said, but in what manner ; and when the result is stated, that 
 all the causes contributing to it should be set forth, whether 
 arising from accident, wisdom, or temerity; and of the cha- 
 racters concerned, not only their acts, but, at least of those 
 
 that Cicero, when he wrote this, was thinking of a passage in Plato's 
 Letters, Ep. vii. p. 718, F. Greenwood. Orellius very judiciously in- 
 serts tactu, the conjecture of Ernesti, in his text, instead of the old 
 reading cantu, which, though Ellendt retains and attempts to defend it, 
 cannot be made to give any satisfactory sense. 
 
 ^ Cicero means orators. The speeches which historians have written 
 are not given as their own, but put into the mouths of others. Ellendt, 
 
238 PE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 eminent in reputation and dignity, the life and manners of 
 each. The sort of language and character of style to be ob- 
 served must be regular and continuous, flowing with a kind 
 of equable smoothness, without the roughness of judicial 
 
 ppleadings, and the sharp-pointed sentences used at the bar. 
 
 ' Concerning all these numerous and important points, there 
 are no rules, do you observe, to be found in the treatises of 
 the rhetoricians. 
 
 " In the same silence have lain many other duties of the 
 orator; exhortation, consolation, precept, admonition, all of 
 which are subjects for the highest eloquence, and yet have 
 no place in those treatises on the art which are in circulation. 
 Under this head, too, there is an infinite field of matter ; for 
 
 p(as Crassus observed) most writers assign to the orator two 
 kinds of subjects on which he may speak; the one concerning 
 stated and defined questions, such as are treated in judicial 
 pleadings or political debates, to which he that will may add 
 panegyrics; the other, what all authors term, (though none 
 give any explanation,) questions unlimited in their kind, with- 
 out reference to time or person. When they speak of this sort 
 of subjects, they do not appear to know the nature and extent 
 of it ; for if it is the business of an orator to be able to speak 
 on whatever subject is proposed without limitation, he will 
 have to speak on the magnitude of the sun, and on the shape 
 of the earth; nor will be able, when he has undertaken 
 such a task, to refuse to speak on mathematical and musical 
 subjects. In short, for him who professes it to be his business 
 to speak not only on those questions which are confined to 
 certain times and persons, (that is, on all judicial questions,) 
 but also on such as are unlimited in their kinds, there can be 
 no subject for oratory to which he can take exception. 
 
 XVI. " But if we are disposed to assign to the orator that 
 sort of questions, also, which are undefined, unsettled, and of 
 extreme latitude, so as to suppose that he must speak of 
 good and evil, of things to be desired or avoided, honourable 
 or dishonourable, profitable or unprofitable ; of virtue, justice, 
 temperance, prudence, magnanimity, liberality, piety, friend- 
 ship, fidelity, duty, and of other virtues and their opposite 
 vices, as well as on state affairs, on government, on military 
 matters, on civil polity, on morality ; let us take upon us that 
 sort of subjects also, ])ut so that it be circumscribed by mo- 
 
C. XVII.] ON THE CHAKACTER OF THE ORATOR. 239 
 
 derate limits. I think, indeed, that all matters relative'; 
 to intercourse between fellow-citizens, and the transactions of 
 mankind in general, every thing that concerns habits of life, 
 administration of public affairs, civil society, the common 
 sense of mankind, the law of nature, and moral duties, falls 
 within the province of an orator, if not to such an extent 
 that he may answer on every subject separately, like the 
 philosophers, yet so at least that he may interweave them 
 judiciously into his pleadings; and may speak upon such 
 topics as those w^ho established laws, statutes, and common- 
 wealths, have spoken upon them, with simplicity and perspi- 
 cuity, without any strict order of discussion, or jejune conten- 
 tion about words. That it may not seem wonderful that no 
 rules on so many topics of such importance are here laid 
 down by me, I give this as my reason : As, in other arts, 
 when the most difficult parts of each have been taught, other 
 particulars, as being easier, or similar, are not necessary to 
 be taught: for example, in painting, he who has learned to 
 paint the figure of a man, can paint one of any shape or 
 age without special instruction; and as there is no danger 
 that he who excels in painting a lion or a bull, will be unable 
 to succeed in painting other quadrupeds ; (for there is indeed 
 no art whatever, in which everything capable of being effected 
 by it is taught by the master; but they who have learned 
 the general principles regarding the chief and fixed points, 
 accomplish the rest of themselves without any trouble ;) so I 
 conceive that in oratory, whether it be an art, or an attain- 
 ment from practice only, he who has acquired such ability, that 
 he can, at his pleasure, influence the understandings of those 
 who listen to him with some power of deciding, on questions 
 concerning public matters, or his own private affairs, or con- 
 cerning those for or against whom he speaks, will, on every 
 other kind of oratorical subject, be no more at a loss what to 
 say than the famous Polycletus, when he formed his Hercules, 
 w^as at a loss how to execute the lion's skin, or the hydra, al- \ 
 though he had never been taught to form them separately." -^ 
 
 XVII. Catulus then observed, '- You seem to me, Anto- 
 nius, to have set clearly before us what he who designs to be 
 an orator ought to learn, and what he may assume from 
 that which he has learned without particular instruction; 
 for you have reduced his whole business to two kinds oiF 
 
240 DE OEATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 causes only, and have left particulars, which are innumerable, 
 to practice and comparison. But take care lest the hydra 
 and lion's skin be included in those two kinds, and the 
 Hercules, and other greater works be left among the matters 
 which you omit. For it does not seem to me to be less diffi- 
 cult to speak on the nature of things in general, than on the 
 causes of particular persons, and it seems even much more 
 difficult to discourse on the nature of the gods, than on mat- 
 ters that are litigated amongst men." '' It is not so," replied 
 Antonius; "for to you, Catulus, I will speak, not so much 
 like a person of learning, as, what is more, one of experience. 
 To speak on all other subjects is, believe me, mere play to 
 a man who does not want parts or practice, and is not desti- 
 tute of common literature or polite instruction; but, in con- 
 tested causes, the business is of great difficulty; I know not 
 whether it be not the greatest by far of all human efforts, 
 where the abilities of the orator are, by the unlearned, esti- 
 mated according to the result and success ; where an adver- 
 sary presents himself armed at all points, who is to be at 
 once attacked and repelled ; where he, who is to decide the 
 question, is averse, or offended, or even friendly to your 
 adversary, and hostile to yourself ; when he is either to be 
 instructed or undeceived, /estrained or incited, or managed 
 in every way, by force of argument, according to the cause 
 and occasion ; when his benevolence is often to be turned to 
 hostility, and his hostility to benevolence ; when he is to be 
 moved, as by some machinery, to severity or to indulgence, to 
 sorrow or to merriment, — you must exert your whole power 
 of thought, and your whole force of language; with which 
 must be joined a delivery varied, energetic, full of life, full of 
 spirit, full of feeling, full of nature. If any one, in such efforts 
 as these, shall have mastered the art to such a degree, that, 
 like Phidias, he can make a statue of Minerva, he will, like 
 that great artist, find no difficulty in learning how to execute 
 the smaller figures upon the shield," 
 
 XYIII. '^The greater and more wonderful you repre- 
 sent such performances," said Catulus, " the greater longing 
 possesses me to know by what methods or precepts such 
 power in oratory may be acquired; not that it any longer 
 concerns me personally, (for my age does not stand in need of 
 it, and we used to pursue a different plan of speaking, as we 
 
C. XIX. J ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 241 
 
 never extorted decisions from the judges by force of elo- 
 quence, but rather received them from their hands^ aftet 
 conciliating their goodwill only so far as they themselves 
 would permit.) yet I wish to learn your thoughts, not for any 
 advantage to myself, as I say, but from a desire for know- 
 ledge. Nor have I occasion for any Greek master to repeat 
 his hackneyed precepts, when he himself never saw the forum, 
 or was present at a trial ; presumption similar to what is 
 told of PhorDiio the peripatetic ; for when Hannibal, driven 
 from Carthage, came to Ephesus as an exile to seek the pro- 
 tection of Antiochus, and, as his name was held in great 
 honour among all men, was invited by those who entertained 
 him to hear the philosopher whom I mentioned, if he were 
 inclined ; and when he had signified that he was not unwilling, 
 that copious speaker is said to have harangued some hours 
 upon the duties of a general, and the whole military art ; 
 and when the rest of the audience, who were extremely 
 delighted, inquired of Hannibal what he thought of the phi- 
 losopher, the Carthaginian is reported to have answered, not 
 in very good Greek, but with very good sense, that 'he had seen 
 many doting old men, but had never seen any one deeper in 
 his dotage than Phormio.' Nor did he say so, indeed, without 
 reason; for what could have been a greater proof of arro- 
 gance, or impertinent loquacity, than for a Greek, who had 
 never seen an enemy or a camp, or had the least concern 
 in any public employment, to deliver instructions on the 
 military art to Hannibal, who had contended so many years 
 for empire with the Romans, the conquerors of all nations 1 
 In this manner all those seem to me to act, who give rules on 
 the art of speaking ; for they teach others that of which they 
 have no experience themselves. But they are perhaps less in 
 error in this respect, that they do not attempt to instruct you, 
 Catulus, as he did Hannibal, but boys only, or youths.'' 
 
 XIX. " You are wrong, Catulus," said Antonius, " for I 
 myself have met with many Phormios. Who, indeed, is 
 there among those Greeks that seems to think any of us un- 
 derstand anything ? To me, however, they are not so veiy 
 troublesome; I easily bear with and endure them all; for 
 they either produce something which diverts me, or make 
 me repent less of not having learned from them. I dismiss 
 them less contumeliously than Hannibal dismissed the philo- 
 
 B 
 
./ 
 
 242 DE ORATOEE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 soplier, and on that account, perhaps, have more trouble with 
 them; but certainly all their teaching, as far as I can judge, 
 is extremely ridiculous. For they divide the whole matter 
 of oratory into two parts; the controversy about the cause 
 and about the question. The cause they call the matter 
 relating to the dispute or litigation affecting the persons con- 
 cerned ; ^ the question, a matter of infinite doubt. Respecting 
 the cause they give some precepts ; on the other part of 
 [pleading they are wonderfully silent. They then make five 
 parts, as it were, of oratory ; to invent what you are to say, to 
 arrange what you have invented, to clothe it in proper 
 language, then to commit it to memory, and at last to deliver 
 it with due action and elocution; a task, surely, requiring no 
 
 _very abstruse study. For who would not understand without 
 assistance, that nobody can make a speech unless he has 
 settled what to say, and in what words, and in what order, 
 and remembers it ? Not that I find any fault with these 
 rules, but I say that they are obvious to all ; as are likewise 
 those four, five, six, or even seven partitions, (since they are 
 differently divided by different teachers,) into which every 
 
 / oration is by them distributed ; for they bid us adopt such 
 an exordium as to make the hearer favourable to us, and 
 willing to be informed and attentive ; then to state our case 
 in such a manner, that the detail may be probable, clear, and 
 concise ; next^ to divide or "Jropound the question ; to confirm 
 / what makes for us by arguments and reasoning, and refute 
 what makes for the adversary; after'^this some place the 
 conclusion of the speech, and peroration as it were; others 
 direct you, before you come to the peroration, to make a 
 digression by way of embellishment or amplification, then to 
 
 \_sum up and conclude. JSTor do I altogether condemn these 
 divisions ; for they are made with some nicety, though with- 
 out sufficient judgment, as must of necessity be the case 
 with men who had no experience in real pleading. For the 
 precepts which they confine to the exordium and statement 
 of facts are to be observed through the whole speech ; since 
 I can more easily make a judge favourable to me in the pro- 
 gress of my speech, than when no part of the cause has been 
 
 .^ Reorum. This reading is very properly adopted by Orellius and 
 Ellendt, in place of the old revum. Ellendt refers to c. 43 and 79 for 
 the sense of reus. 
 
C. XX.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 243 
 
 heard ; and desirous of information, not when I promise that 
 I will prove something, but when I actually prove and 
 explain ; and I can best make him attentive, not by the first 
 statement, but by working on his mind through the whole 
 course of the pleading. As to their direction that the state- 
 ment of facts should be probable, and clear, and concise, they 
 direct rightly; but in supposing that these qualities be- 
 long more peculiarly to the statement of facts than to the 
 whole of the speech, they seem to me to be greatly in error ; 
 and their whole niistake lies assuredly in this, that they think 
 oratory an art or science, not unlike other sciences, such as 
 Crassus said yesterday might be formed from the civil law 
 itself; so that the general heads of the subject must first 
 be enumerated, when it is a fault if any head be omitted ; 
 next, the particulars under each general head, when it is 
 a fault if any particular be either deficient or redundant; 
 then the definitions of all the terms, in which there ought to 
 be nothing either wanting or superfluous. 
 
 XX. '' But if the more learned can attain this exactness in 
 the civil law, as well as in other studies of a small or moderate 
 extent, the same cannot, I think, be done in an afiair of this 
 compass and magnitude. If, however, any are of opinion 
 that it can be done, they must be introduced to those who 
 profess to teach these things as a science; they will find 
 everything ready set forth and complete ; for there are books) 
 without number on these subjects, neither concealed nor' 
 obscure. But let them consider what they mean to do; 
 whether they will take up arms for sport or for real warfare; 
 for with us a regular engagement and field of battle require 
 one thing, tjie parade and school of exercise another. Yet 
 preparatory exercise in arms is of some use both to the gladi- 
 ator and the soldier ; but it is a bold and ready mind, acute 
 and quick at expedients, that renders men invincible, and 
 certainly not less efiectively if art be united with it. 
 
 " I will now, therefore, form an orator for you, if I can ; com- 
 mencing so as" to ascertain, first of all, what he is able to do. 
 Let him have a tincture of learning; let him have heard and 
 read something; let him have received those very instruc- 
 tions in rhetoric to which I have alluded. I will try what 
 becomes him; what he can accomplish with his voice, his 
 lungs, his breath, and his tongue. If I conceive that he may 
 
 r2 
 
244 DE ORATOEE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 reach the level of eminent speakers, I will not only exhort 
 him to persevere in labour, but, if he seem to me to be a 
 good man,^ will entreat him; so much honour to the w^hole 
 community do I think that there is in an excellent orator, 
 who is at the same time a good man. But if he shall 
 appear likely, after he has done his utmost in every way, to 
 be numbered only among tolerable speakers, I will allow him 
 to act as he pleases, and not be very troublesome to him. 
 But if he shall be altogether unfit for the profession, and 
 wanting in sense, I will advise him to make no attempts, or 
 to turn himself to some other pursuit. For neither is he, 
 who can do excellently, to be left destitute of encouragement 
 from us, nor is he, who can do some little, to be deterred; 
 because one seems to me to be the part of a sort of divinity; the 
 other, either to refrain from what you cannot do extremely 
 well, or to do what you can perform not contemptibly, is the 
 part of a i-easonable human being ; but the conduct of the 
 third character, to declaim, in spite of decency and natural 
 deficiency, is that of a man who, as you said, Catulus, of a 
 certain haranguer, collects as many witnesses as possible of his 
 folly by a proclamation from himself Of him then, who 
 shall prove such as to merit our exhortation and encourage- 
 ment, let me so speak as to communicate to him only what 
 experience has taught myself, that, under my guidance, he 
 may arrive at that point which I have reached without any 
 guide ; for I can give him no better instructions. 
 
 XXI. " To commence then, Catulus, by taking an example 
 from our friend Sulpicius here; I first heard him, when he was 
 but a youth, in a cause of small importance ; he was possessed 
 of a voice, figure, deportment, and other qualifications suited 
 for the profession which we are considering. His mode of 
 speaking was quick and hurried, which w^as owing to his 
 genius; his style animated and somewhat too redundant, 
 which was owing to his youth. I was very far from enter-- 
 
 ^ Cato defined an orator mr bonus dicendi peritus. Cicero in this 
 passage, under the character of Antonius, and in his own person, De 
 Inv. i. 3, 4, signifies that though he thinks a good character of great 
 importance in an orator, he does not deny that much eloquence may at 
 times be found in a man of bad character. Cato and Cicero spoke each 
 according to the character of his own age. Quintilian, xii. 1, goes back 
 ^ to the opinion of Cato. Aristotle had previously required good morals 
 in an orator, Rhet. i. 2, 4 ; ii. 1, 5. Ellendt. . 
 
C. XXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 245 
 
 taining a slight opinion of him, since I like fertiHty to show 
 itself in a young man ; for, as in vines, those branches which 
 have spread too luxuriantly are more easily pruned than new 
 shoots are produced by culture if the stem is defective ; so I 
 would wish there to be that in a youth from which I may 
 take something away. The sap cannot be enduring in that 
 which attains maturity too soon. I immediately saw his 
 ability ; nor did I lose any time, but exhorted him to consider 
 the forum as his school for improving himself, and to choose 
 whom he pleased for a master ; if he would take my advice, 
 Lucius Crassus. To this advice he eagerly listened, and assured 
 me that he would act accordingly ; and added also, as a compli- 
 ment, that I too should be a master to him. Scarce a year 
 had passed from the time of this conversation and recom- 
 mendation of mine, when he accused Caius Norbanus,^ and I 
 defended him. It is incredible what a difference there appeared 
 to me between him as he was then and as he had been a year 
 before; nature herself led him irresistibly into the magnificent 
 and noble style of Crassus ; but he could never have arrived 
 at a satisfactory degree of excellence in it,' if he had not 
 directed his efforts, by study and imitation, in the same 
 course in which nature led him, so as intently to contemplate 
 Crassus with his whole mind and faculties. 
 
 XXII. " Let this, then, be the first of my precepts, to 
 point out to the student whom he should imitate, and in such 
 a manner that he may most carefully copy the chief excellen- 
 cies of him whom he takes for his model. Let practice then 
 follow, by which he may represent in his imitation the exact 
 resemblance of him whom he chose as his pattern; not as 
 I have known many imitators do, who endeavour to acquire 
 by imitation what is easy, or what is remarkable, or almost 
 faulty; for nothing is easier than to imitate any person's 
 dress, or attitude, or carriage ; or if there is anything offensive 
 in a character, it is no very difficult matter to adopt it, and be 
 offensive in the same way ; in like manner as that Fusius, who 
 even now, though he has lost his voice, rants on public topics, 
 could never attain that nervous style of speaking which Caius 
 Fimbria had, though he succeeds in imitating his distortion of 
 features and broad pronunciation ; but he neither knew how to 
 choose a pattern whom he would chiefly resemble, and in him 
 ^ See c. 47. 
 
246 DE oratore; or, [b. ii. 
 
 that he did choose, he preferred copying the blemishes. But he 
 who shall act as he ought, must first of all be very careful in 
 making this choice, and must use the utmost diligence to 
 attain the chief excellencies of him whom he has approved. 
 
 " What, let me ask, do you conceive to be the reason why 
 almost every age has produced a' peculiar style of speaking ] 
 a matter on which we cannot so easily form a judgment in 
 regard to the orators of our own country, (because they 
 have, to say the truth, left but few writings from which such 
 judgment might be formed,) as those of the Greeks, from 
 whose writings it may be understood what was the character 
 and tendency of eloquence in each particular age. The most 
 ancient, of whom there are any works extant, are Pericles ^ 
 and Alcibiades,^ and, in the same age, Thucydides, writers 
 perspicacious, pointed, concise, abounding more in thoughts 
 than in words. It could not possibly have happened that 
 they should all have the same character, unless they had pro- 
 posed to themselves some one example for imitation. These 
 were followed in order of time by Critias, Theramenes, and 
 Lysias. There are extant many writings of Lysias, some of 
 Critias j^ of Theramenes^ we only hear. They all still re- 
 tained the vigorous style of Pericles, but had somewhat more 
 exuberance. Then behold Isocrates arose, from whose school,^ 
 
 ^ Cicero, Brut, c 7, says that some conipositions were in circulation 
 under the name of Pericles ; and Quintilian, iii. 1, 12, looking to that 
 observation of Cicero, tacitly assents to those who denied the genuine- 
 ness of those compositions. See also Quint, x. 2, 22; 10, 49. EllevLdt. 
 
 2 That Alcibiades left nothing in writing, though he had great repu- 
 tation as a speaker, seems to be rightly inferred by Ruhnken from 
 Demosth. De Cor. c. 40. Thucydides is here mentioned among orators, 
 on account of the orations which he inserted in his history. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ He wrote not only orations, which are mentioned by Dionys. 
 Halicarn. de Lysia jud. c. 2, cf. de Is£eo, c. 2, by Phrynichus, ap. Phot, 
 cod. 158, and by others, but also tragedies, elegies, and other works. 
 That he was eloquent and learned we are told by Cicero, De Or. iii, 34, 
 Brut. c. 7. Henrichsen. The remains of his writings were collected by 
 Bach, 1&27. Ellendt. 
 
 * The eloquence of Theramenes is mentioned by Cicero, iii. 16, 
 Brut. c. 7. The writings which Suidas enumerates as being his were 
 doubtless spurious. See Ruhnken, Hist. Crit. Or. Gr. p. xl. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ The words magister istorum omnium, which, though retained by 
 Orellius, are pronounced spurious by Lambinus, Ernesti, Ruhnken, 
 Schutz, and Ellendt, are left untranslated. '^ They cannot be Cicero's 
 words," says Ellendt, '' even though they are found quoted by Nonius, 
 p. 344." 
 
C. XXIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OP THE ORATOR. 247 
 
 as from the Trojan horse, none but real heroes proceeded; 
 but some of them were desirous to be distinguished on parade, 
 some in the field of battle. XXIII. Accordingly those 
 Theopompi, Ephori, Philisti,^ Naucratse,^ and many others, 
 differ in genius, but in their manner bear a strong resem- 
 blance both to each other and to their master; and those 
 who applied themselves to causes, as Demosthenes, Hyperides, 
 ^schines, Lycurgus, Dinarchus, and a multitude of others, 
 although they were dissimilar in abilities one to another, 
 yet were all engaged in imitating the same kind of natural 
 excellence ; and as long as the imitation of their manner 
 lasted, so long did that character and system of eloquence 
 prevail. Afterwards, when these were dead, and all recollec- 
 tion of them grew gradually obscure, and at last vanished, 
 more lax and remiss modes of speaking prevailed. Subse- 
 quently Demochares, who, they say, was the son of Demo- 
 sthenes' sister and the famous Demetrius Phalereus, the most 
 polished of all that class, in my opinion, and others of like 
 talents, arose; and if we choose to pursue the list: down to 
 the present times, we shall understand, that, as at this day 
 all Asia imitates the famous Menecles of Alabanda, and his 
 brother Hierocles, to both of whom we have listened, so there 
 has always been some one whom the generality desired to 
 resemble. 
 
 " Whoever, then, shall seek to attain such resemblance, 
 let him endeavour to acquire it by frequent and laborious 
 exercise, and especially by composition ; and if our friend 
 Sulpicius would practise this, his language would be more 
 compact; for there is now in it at times, as farmers say of their 
 
 * Henrichsen and Ellendt read Philisci. Philistus, apparently, from 
 the way in which he is mentioned in c. 13, has, as Ellendt observes, no 
 place here. " Philiscus of Miletijs, a disciple of Isocrates (see Anon. 
 Vit. Isocr.), and master of Timseus the historian (see Suidas, under 
 Philiscus and Timaeus), wrote a treatise on rhetoric, orations, and a 
 life of Lycurgus, noticed by Olympiodorus in Comment, ad Plat. Gorg. 
 and other works. See Rnhnken, Hist. Crit. Gr. Or. p. Ixxxiii. Goell. 
 de Situ et Orig. Syracus. p. 114." Henrichsen. 
 
 ^ Naucrates, a native of Erythrae, called 'icroKpdrovs kraipos by Dio- 
 nysius Halicarnassensis, Rhet. vi. 1, was distinguished for the composi- 
 tion of funeral orations. He seems also to have written on "rhetoric. 
 See Cicero, De Orat. iii. 44 ; Brut. 51 ; Quintil. iii. 6, 3 ; also Taylor, 
 Lectt. Lys. c. 3, p. 232 ; Ruhnk. Hist. Crit. Or. Gr. p. Ixxxiv. Hen- 
 richsen. 
 
24:8 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. IL 
 
 corn when in the blade, amidst the greatest fertility, a sort of 
 luxuriance which ought to be, as it were, eaten down ^ by the 
 use of the pen." Here Sulpicius observed, '^ You advise me 
 rightly, and I am obliged to you ; but I think that even you, 
 x4.ntonius, have never written much." " As if," rejoined An- 
 tonius, " I could not direct others in matters in which I am 
 deficient myself; but. indeed, I am supposed not to write 
 even my own accounts. But in this particular a judgment 
 may be formed from my circumstances, and in the other 
 from my ability in speaking, however small it be, what I do 
 in either way. We see, however, that there are many who 
 imitate nobody, but attain what they desire by their own 
 natural powers, without resembling any one ; a fact of which 
 an instance may be seen in you, Ceesar and Cotta; for one of 
 you has acquired a kind of pleasing humour and wit, unusual 
 in the orators of our country; the other an extremely keen 
 and subtle species of oratory. Nor does Curio, who is about 
 your age, and the son of a father who was, in my opinion, 
 very eloquent for his time, seem to me to imitate any one 
 much; but by a certain force, elegance, and copiousness of 
 expression, has formed a sort of style and character of elo- 
 quence of his own ; of which I was chiefly enabled to judge 
 in that cause which he pleaded against me before the Cen- 
 tumviri, in behalf of the brothers Cossi, and in which no 
 quality was wanting in him that an orator, not merely of 
 fluency, but of judgment, ought to possess. 
 
 XX I Y. '^ But to conduct, at length, him whom we are 
 forming to the management of causes, and those in which 
 there is considerable trouble, judicial trials, and contested 
 suits, (somebody will perhaps laugh at the precept which I 
 am going to give, for it is not so much sagacious as necessary, 
 and seems rather to proceed from a monitor who is not quite 
 a fool, than from a master of profound learning,) our first 
 
 ^ This is one of Virgil's directions to the farmer in the first Georgic, 
 where he gives the reason for it, 
 
 Quid, qui ne gravidis procumbat culmus aristis, 
 Luxuriem segetum tenera depascit in herba, 
 Cum primum sulcos eequant sata? — Georg. i. 114. 
 And Pliny, 1. 18 : " Luxuries segetum castigatur dente pecoris, in 
 herba duntaxat, et depastae quidem vel ssepius nullam in spica inju- 
 riam sentiunt : ita juvenilis ubertas et luxuries orationis stylo et 
 assiduitate scribendi quasi absumitur et reprimitur." — B. 
 
C. XXIV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 249 
 
 precept for him shall be, That whatever causes he undertakes 
 to plead, he must acquire a minute and thorough knowledge 
 of them. This is not a precept laid down in the schools ; for 
 easy causes are given to boys. ^ The law forbids a stranger 
 to ascend the wall ; he ascends it ; he beats back the enemy ; 
 he is accused.' It is no trouble to understand such a cause 
 as this. They are right, therefore, in giving no precepts about 
 learning the cause ; for such is generally the form of causes in 
 the schools. But in the forum, wills, evidence, contracts, 
 covenants, stipulations, relationship by blood, by afi&nity, 
 decrees, opinions of lawyers, and even the lives and characters 
 of those concerned in the cause, are all to be investigated ; 
 and by negligence in these particulars we see many causes 
 lost, especially those relative to private concerns, as they are 
 often of greater intricacy. Thus some, while they would 
 have their business thought very extensive, that they may 
 seem to fly about the whole forum, and to go from one cause 
 to another, speak upon causes which they have not mastered, 
 whence they incur much censure ; censure for negligence, if 
 they voluntarily undertake the business, or for perfidiousness, 
 if they undertake it under any engagement ;^ but such censure 
 is assuredly of worse consequence than they imagine, since- 
 nobody can possibly speak on a subject which he does not 
 understand, otherwise than to his own disgrace; and thus, 
 while they despise the imputation of ignorance, which is in 
 reality the greater fault, they incur that of stupidity also, 
 which they more anxiously avoid. 
 
 " It is my custom to use my endeavour, that every one of 
 my clients may give me instructions in his own affairs him- 
 self, and that nobody else be present, so that he may speak 
 with the greater freedom. ^ I am accustomed also to plead to 
 him the cause of his adversary, in order to engage him to 
 plead his own, and state boldly what he thinks of his own 
 case. When he is gone, I conceive myself in three characters, 
 
 ^ Magna offensio vel negligentice, susceptis rebus, vel perfidice, receptis. 
 Recipere is used with a reference to others, by whom we allow some 
 duty to be laid upon us ; suscipere regards only ourselves. Ellendt. 
 
 2 Inertia. This passage puzzled Lambinus and others, who did not 
 see how the reproach of inertia in an orator could be greater than that 
 of tarditas, or stupidity. But inertia here . signifies artis ignorantiay 
 ignorance of his art, which is doubtless the greatest fault in an orator. 
 Verhurg. 
 
250 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 my own, that of the adversary, and that of the judge. What- 
 ever circumstance is such as to promise more support or as- 
 sistance than obstruction, I resolve to speak upon it ; where- 
 ever I find more harm than good, I set aside and totally 
 reject that part entirely; and thus I gain this advantage, 
 that I consider at one time what I shall say, and say it at 
 another; two things which most speakers, relying upon 
 their genius, do at one and the same time; but certainly 
 those very persons would speak considerably better, if they 
 would but resolve to take one time for premeditation, and 
 another for speaking. 
 
 *^ When I have acquired a thorough understanding of the 
 business and the cause, it immediately becomes my con- 
 sideration what ground there may be for doubt. For of all 
 points that are disputed among mankind, whether the case is 
 of a criminal nature, as concerning an act of violence ; or 
 controversial, as concerning an inheritance; or deliberative, 
 as on going to war ; or personal, as in panegyric ; or argu- 
 mentative, as on modes of life ; there is nothing iu which 
 the inquiry is not either what has been done, or is being 
 done, or will be done, or of what nature a thing is, or how it 
 should be designated. 
 
 XXY. " Our causes, such at least as concern <;riminal 
 matters, are generally defended by the plea of not guilty ; for 
 in charges of extortion of money, which are the most im- 
 portant, the facts are almost all to be denied ; and in those of 
 bribery to procure offices, it is seldom in our power to distin • 
 guish munificence and liberality from corruption and criminal 
 largess. In accusations of stabbing, or poisoning, or embezzle- 
 ment of the public money, we necessarily deny the charge. 
 On trials, therefore, the first kind of causes is that which 
 arises from dispute as to the fact. In deliberations, the dis- 
 cussion generally springs from a question as to what is to be 
 done, rarely about anything present or already done. But 
 oftentimes the question is not whether a thing is a fact or not, 
 but of what nature it is ; as when the consul. Gains Carbo, in 
 my hearing, defended the cause of Opimius before the people, 
 he denied no circumstance of the death of Cains Gracchus, but 
 maintained that it was a lawful act for the good of his country ; 
 or, as when Publius Africanus replied to the same Garbo, 
 (then tribune of the people, engaging in political affairs with 
 
J. XXVI. J ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 251 
 
 very different views/ and asking a question about the death of 
 Tiberius Gracchus,) 'that he seemed to have been lawfully put 
 to death,' But every thing may be asserted to have been done 
 lawfully, which is of such a kind that it may be said that it 
 ought to have been done, or was properly or necessarily done, 
 or done unawares, or by accident. Then the question, ' what 
 a thing should be called,' arises when there is a dispute by 
 what term an act should be designated; as was the great 
 point of dispute between myself and our friend Sulpicius in 
 iSi orbanus's cause ; for though I admitted most of the charges 
 made by him on the other side, I still denied that treason 
 had been committed by Norbanus; on the signification of 
 which word, by the Apuleian law,^ the whole cause depended. 
 And in this species of causes some lay it down as a rule, that 
 both parties should define clearly and briefly the term that 
 gives rise to the question. This seems to me extremely 
 puerile ; for it is quite a different thing from defining words, 
 when any dispute arises among the learned about matters 
 relating to science; as when it is inquired, what is an art, 
 what is a law, what is a state? On which occasions reason and 
 learning direct, that the whole force of the thing which you 
 define should be expressed in such a manner that there be 
 nothing omitted or supei-fluous ; but this neither Sulpicius did 
 in that cause, nor did I attempt to do it ; for each of us, to the 
 best of our abilities, enlarged with the utmost copiousness of 
 language upon what it was to commit treason. Since, in the 
 first place, a definition, if one word is objectionable, or may be 
 added or taken away, is often wrested out of our hands ; and 
 in the next, the very practice itself savours of school learning 
 and almost puerile exercise ; and besides, it cannot penetrate 
 into the mind and understanding of the judge, for it glides 
 off.before it has made any impression. 
 
 XXYI. " But in that kind of causes in which it is disputed 
 of what nature any thing is, the contest often arises from 
 the interpretation of writing ; when there can be no contro- 
 versy but about something that is doubtful. For even the 
 case, in which the written letter differs from the intention, 
 
 ^ Because he was then attached to the party of the Gracchi. Proust. 
 
 ^ A law of Lucius Apuleius Saturninus, tribune of the people, a.u.C. 
 652. It is also mentioned in c. 49. But neither the cause nor subject 
 of it is at all known. EllendU 
 
252 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 involves a species of doubt, which is cleared up when the 
 words which are wanting are supplied ; and such addition 
 being made, it is maintained that the intention of the writ- 
 ing was clear ; and if any doubt arises from contradictory 
 writings, it is not a new kind of controversy that arises, 
 but a cause of the former sort is doubled ;^ and this can 
 either never be determined, or must be so determined, 
 that by supplying the omitted words, the writing which 
 we defend, whichsoever of the two it is, may be rendered 
 complete. Thus, of those causes which arise from a contro- 
 versy about a writing, when anything is expressed ambi- 
 guously, there exists but one kind. But as there are many 
 sorts of ambiguities, (which they who are called logicians 
 seem to me to understand better than other men; while 
 those of our profession, who ought to know them full as well, 
 seem to be ignorant of them,) so that is the most frequent 
 in occurrence, either in discourse or writing, when a question 
 arises from a word or words being left out. They make 
 another mistake when they distinguish this kind of causes, 
 which consist in the interpretation of writing, from those in 
 which it is disputed of what nature a thing is; for there is 
 nowhere so much dispute respecting the exact nature of a 
 thing as in regard to writing, which is totally separated from 
 controversy concerning fact. There are in all, therefore, three 
 sorts of matters, which may possibly fall under doubt and 
 discussion ; what is now done, what has been done, or what 
 is to be done; what the nature of a thing is, or how it 
 should be designated; for as to the question which some 
 Greeks add, whether a thing be rightly done, it is wholly 
 included in the inquiry, what the nature of the thing is. 
 
 XXVII. " But to return to my own method. When, after 
 hearing and understanding the nature of a cause, I proceed 
 to examine the subject matter of it, I settle nothing until I 
 have ascertained to what point my whole speech, bearing 
 
 immediately on the question and case, must be directed. I 
 then very diligently consider two other points ; the one, how 
 to recommend myself, or those for whom I plead ; the other, 
 
 / how to sway the minds of those before whom I speak to that 
 
 ^ Superioris generis causa duplicatur, Ellendt explains these words 
 thus : "in the same cause, the allegations of the two parties are judged 
 as two separate questions of the same kind." 
 
C. XXVII.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 253 
 
 which I desire. Thus the whole business of speaking rests! 
 upon three things for success in persuasion; that we prove 
 what we maintain to be true ; that we conciliate those who 1 
 hear; that we produce in their minds whatever feeling our' 
 cause may require. For the purpose of proof, two kinds of] 
 matter present themselves to the orator; one, consisting of 
 such things as are not invented by him, but, as appertaining 
 to the cause, are judiciously treated by him, as deeds, testi- 
 monies, covenants, contracts, examinations, laws, acts of the 
 senate, precedents, decrees, opinions of lawyers, and whatever 
 else is not found out by the orator, but brought under his 
 notice by the cause and by his clients ; the other, consist- 
 ing entirely in the orator's own reasoning and arguments : 
 so that, as to the former head, he has only to handle the 
 arguments with which he is furnished ; as to the latter, to 
 invent arguments likewise. Those who profess to teach elo- 
 quence, after dividing causes into several kinds, suggest 
 a number of arguments for each kind ; which method, though 
 it may be better adapted to the instruction of youth, in order 
 that when a case is proposed to them they may have some- 
 thing to which they may refer, and from whence they may 
 dmw forth arguments ready prepared; yet it shows a slow- 
 ness of mind to pursue the rivulets, instead of seeking for 
 the fountain-head ; and it becomes our age and experience 
 to derive what we want to know from the source, and to ascer- 
 tain the spring from which everything proceeds. 
 
 " But that first kind of matters which are brought before 
 the orator, ought to be the constant subject of our contem- 
 plation for general practice in affairs of that nature. For in 
 support of deeds and against them, for and against evidence, 
 for and against examinations by torture, and in other sub- 
 jects of that sort, we usually speak either of each kind in 
 general and abstractedly, or as confined to particular occa- 
 sions, persons, and causes ; and such common-places (I speak 
 to you, Cotta and Sulpicius) you ought to keep ready and 
 prepared with much study and meditation. It would occupy 
 too much time at present to show by what means we should 
 confirm or invalidate testimony, deeds, and examinations. 
 These matters are all to be attained with a moderate share 
 of capacity, though with very great practice; and they 
 require art and instruction only so far, as they should be 
 
254: pE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 illustrated with certain embellishments of language. So also 
 those which are of the other kind, and which proceed wholly 
 from the orator, are not difficult of invention, but require 
 perspicuous and correct exposition. As these two things, 
 therefore, are the objects of our inquiry in causes, first, what 
 we shall say, and next, how we shall say it ; the former, 
 which seems to be wholly concerned with art, though it does 
 indeed require some art, is yet an affair of but ordinary un- 
 derstanding, namely, to see what ought to be said ; the latter 
 is the department in which the divine power and excellence 
 of the orator is seen; I mean in delivering what is to be 
 said with elegance, copiousness, and variety of language. 
 
 XXYIII. " The former part,^ then, since you have once 
 declared it to be your pleasure, I will not refuse to finish off 
 and complete, (how far I shall succeed you will best judge,) 
 and shall show from what topics a speech must be furnished 
 
 JLn order to effect these three objects which alone have power 
 to persuade ; namely, that the minds of the audience be con- 
 ciliated, informed^ and moved, for these are the three; but 
 
 ■ how they should be illustrated, there is one present who can 
 instruct us all; one who first introduced this excellence into 
 our practice, who principally improved it, who alone has 
 brought it to perfection. For I think, Catulus, (and I will 
 say this without any dread of a suspicion of flattery,) that 
 there is no orator, at all more eminent than ordinary, either 
 Grecian, or Roman, that our age has produced, whom I have 
 not heard often and attentively ; and, therefore, if there is 
 any ability in me, (as I may now presume to hope, since you, 
 men of such talents, take so much trouble in giving me 
 audience,) it arises from thm, that no orator ever delivered 
 anything in my hearing, which did not sink deeply into my 
 memory ; and I, such as I am, and as far as I have capacity 
 to form a judgment, having heard all orators, without any 
 hesitation decide and pronounce this. That none of them all 
 had so many and such excellent accomplishments in speaking 
 as are in Crassus. On which account, if you also are of the 
 same opinion, it will not, as I think, be an unjust partition, 
 if, when I shall have given birth and education and strength 
 to this orator whom I am forming, as is my design, I deliver 
 
 * Which shows what a speaker ought to say, and what is effective ia 
 persuading an audience. Proust. 
 
C. XXVIII. J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 
 
 him to Crassus to be furnished with apparel and 
 ments." 
 
 Crassus then said, " Do you rather, Antonius, go on as ^ 
 have commenced ; for it is not the part of a good or Hberall 
 parent not to clothe and adorn him Avhom he has engendered^ 
 and brought up ; especially as you cannot deny that you are 
 wealthy enough. For what grace, what power, what spirit, 
 what dignity was wanting to that orator, who at the close of 
 a speech did not hesitate to call forth his accused chent, 
 though of consular rank, and to tear open his garment, and to ^ 
 expose to the judges the scars on the breast of the old com- 
 mander'?^ who also, when he defended a seditious madman,^ 
 Sulpicius here being the accuser, did not hesitate to speak in 
 favour of sedition itself, and to demonstrate, with the utmost 
 power of language, that many popular insurrections are just, for 
 which nobody could be accountable? addingthat manyseditions 
 had occurred to the benefit of the commonwealth, as when 
 the kings were expelled, and when the power of the tribunes 
 was established ; and that the sedition of Norbanus, proceed- 
 ing from the grief of the citizens, and their hatred to Csepio, 
 who had lost the army, could not possibly be restrained, and 
 was blown up into a flame by a just indignation. Could this, 
 so hazardous a topic, so unprecedented, so delicate, so new, 
 be handled without an incredible force and power of elo- 
 quence ■? What shall I say of the compassion excited for 
 Cneius Manhus,^ or that in favour of Quintus Rex 1 * What 
 of other innumerable instances, in which it was net* that ex- 
 traordinary acuteness, w^iich everybody allows you, that was 
 most conspicuous, but it was those very qualities which you 
 
 ^ Manius Aquilius, who, after the termination of the servile war in 
 Sicily, was brought to trial on a charge of extortion. As he was -un- 
 willing to entreat the pity of the judges, Antonius, who pleaded for 
 him, tore open his tunic in front, and showed the scars of the honour- 
 able wounds which he had received in battle. He was acquitted. Livy, 
 Epit. Proust. 
 
 2 Norbanus the tribune. See note on c. 47. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ He was consul with Publius Eutilius, a.u.c. 649 ; and having refused 
 to unite his troops with those of Quintus Caepio, the proconsul, was de- 
 feated by the Cimbri, and lost his army. Livy, Ep. Ixvii. For this 
 miscarriage he was, with Caepio, brought to trial, and must have been 
 defended by Antonius. Ellendt. 
 
 * Of the trial of Quintus Marcius Eex nothing is known. EllericiU 
 
DE ORATORE ; OR, 
 
 !ribe to me, that were always eiD 
 
 II. 
 
 Qt 
 
 XXIX. " For my part," said Catulus is- 
 :omed most to admire in you both, is, that v ly 
 
 'unlike each other in your manner of s . -■ of 
 
 you speaks so well, that nothing seems 3n 
 
 denied you by nature, or not to have b*- •.. )u 
 
 by learning. You, therefore, Crassus, from y ig 
 
 disposition, will neither withhold from r-h thj^ \\ . . of 
 
 "^ whatever may have been inadvertently ( ,•,.; it .(J 
 
 by Antonius ; nor if you, Antonius, do riot ?peak • • :y 
 point, we shall think, not that you could not speak o • it 
 
 that you preferred that it should be i.reated * ,." 
 
 Here Crassus said, " Do you rather, Antonius, se 
 
 particulars which you have proposed to treat, ana whicii no. 
 one here needs, namely, from what to ■'•'■'*« ih^ ^^^<1-,^^> ^nts 
 made in pleadings are to be derived, .. .gii they 
 
 would be treated by you in a new and excellent way, are in 
 their nature very easy, and commonly set forth in books of 
 rules; but show us those resources whence you draw that 
 eloquence which you frequently exert, and always divinely." 
 " I will indeed show you them," said Antonius ; " and that 
 I may the more easily obtain from you what I require, I will 
 refuse you nothing that you ask. The supports of my whole 
 eloquence, and that power of speaking which Crassus just 
 now extolled to the skies, are, as I observed before, three 
 / processes; the first, that of conciliating my hearers; the second, 
 
 C^hat of iDstructing them ; and the third, that of moving them. 
 The first of these divisions requires mildness of address ; the 
 second penetration ; the third energy ; for it is impossible but 
 that he, who is to determine a cause in our favour, must 
 either lean to our side from propensity of feeling, or be swayed 
 by the arguments of our defence, or be forced by action upon 
 his mind. Bat shice that part, in which the opening of the 
 case itself and the defence lie, seems to comprehend all that 
 is laid down as doctrine on this head, I shall speak on that 
 first, and say but few words ; for I seem to have but few 
 observations gained from experience, and imprinted as it were 
 on my memory. 
 
 XXX. " We shall willingly consent to your judicious pro- 
 posal, Crassus, to omit those defences for every sort of causes, 
 
C. XXX.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 257 
 
 which the masters of rlietoric are accustomed to teach boys ; 
 and to open those sources whence all arguments for every 
 cause and speech are derived. For neither, as often as we 
 have occasion to writj any word, need the letters of that 
 word be so often collected in our thoughts ; nor, as often as. 
 we are to plead a cause, need we turn to the separate argu- 
 ments for that cause ; but we should have certain common- 
 places which, like letters for forming a word, immediately 
 occur to us to aid in stating a cause. But these common- 
 places can be of advantage only to that orator who is conver- 
 sant in business, and has that experience which age at length 
 brings with it ; or one w^ho has so much attention and power 
 of thought as to anticipate age by study and diligence. For 
 if you bring to me a man of ever so deep erudition, of ever 
 so acute and subtile an intellect, or ever so ready an elocu- 
 tion, if he be a stranger to the customs of civil communities, 
 to the examples, to the institutions, to the manners and 
 inclinations of his fellow-citizens, the common-places from 
 which arguments are drawn will be of little benefit to him. 
 I must have a well-cultivated genius, like a field not once 
 ploughed only, but again and again, with renewed and re- 
 peated tillage, that it may produce better and larger crops ; 
 and the cultivation here required is experience, attentive 
 hearing of other orators, reading, and writing. 
 
 " First, then, let him examine the nature of his cause, which 
 is never obscure so far as the inquiry ^ whether a thing has 
 been done or not ;' or ' of what nature it is ;' or ^ what name 
 it should receive ;' and when this is ascertained, it imme- 
 diately occurs, with the aid of natural good sense, and not of 
 those artifices which teachers of rhetoric inculcate, ^what con- 
 stitutes the cause,' that is, the point without which there 
 would be no controversy; then, 'what is the matter for trial,* 
 which they direct you to ascertain in this manner : Opimius 
 slew Gracchus : what constitutes the cause ? ' That he slew 
 him for the good of the republic, when he had called the 
 people to arms, in consequence of a decree of the senate.' 
 Set this point aside, and there will be no question for trial. 
 But Decius denies that such a deed could be authorized 
 contrary to the laws. The point therefore to be tried will 
 be, 'whether Opimius had authority to do so from the decree 
 of the senate, for the good of the commonwealth.' These 
 
 s 
 
; ojE, 
 
 258 DE ORATOBEj OJE, [b. II. 
 
 matters are indeed clear, and may be settled by common 
 sense j but it remains to be considered what arguments, re- 
 lative to the point for trial, ought to be advanced, as well by 
 the accuser as by him who has undertaken the defence. 
 
 XXXI. " Here we must notice a capital error in those mas- 
 ters to whom we send our children ; not that it has much to 
 do with speaking, but that you may see how stupid and un- 
 polished a set of men they are who imagine themselves learned. 
 For, in distinguishing the different kinds of speaking, they 
 make two species of causes. One they call, Hhat in which 
 the question is about a general proposition, without reference 
 to persons and times ;' the other, ' that which is confined to 
 certain persons and times ;' being ignorant that all contro- 
 versies must have relation to the force and nature of the 
 general position ; for in that very cause which I mentioned, 
 the person of Opimius or Decius has nothing to do with the 
 common arguments of the orator ; since the inquiry has un- 
 restricted reference to the question in general, ' whether he 
 seems deserving of punishment who has slain a citizen under 
 a decree of the senate for the preservation of his country, 
 when such a deed was not permitted by the laws.' There is 
 indeed no cause in which the point that falls under dispute 
 is considered with reference to the parties to the suit, and not 
 from arguments relating to. such questions in general. But 
 even in those very cases where the dispute is about a fact, as 
 ' whether Publius Decius^ has taken money contrary to law, 
 the arguments both for the accusation and for the defence 
 must have reference to the general question, and the general 
 nature of the case; as, to show that the defendant is expen- 
 sive, the arguments must refer to luxury ; that he is covetous 
 of another's property, to avarice ; that he is seditious, to 
 turbulent and ill-designing citizens in general ; that he is 
 convicted by many proofs, to the general nature of evidence : 
 and, on the other side, whatever is said for the defendant, must 
 of necessity be abstracted from the occasion and individual, 
 and referred to the general notions of things and questions of 
 the kind. These, perhaps, to a man who cannot readily compre- 
 hend in his mind all that is in the nature of things, may seem 
 
 ^ He was accused of having been bribed to bring Opimius to triaj 
 for having caused the death of Caius Gracchus. See Smith's Diet, of 
 Eiog. and Mythol. Art. Decius, n 4. 
 
C. SXXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 259 
 
 extremely numerous to come under consideration when the 
 question is about a single fact ; but it is the number of 
 charges, and not of modes of defence, or topics for them, that 
 is infinite.^ 
 
 XXXII. "But when there is no contest about facts, the 
 questions on the nature of facts, if you reckon them from 
 the number of the partie"s accused, are innumerable and in- 
 tricate j if from the facts themselves, very few and clear. 
 For if we consider the case of Mancinus ^ so as referring to Man- 
 cinus alone, then, whenever a person whom the chief herald 
 has surrendered to the enemy is not re-admitted into his 
 country, a new case will arise. But if what gives rise to the 
 controversy be the general question, ^ whether to him whom 
 the chief herald has surrendered, if he has not been re-admitted 
 into his country, there seems to be a right of return,' the 
 name of Mancinus has nothing to do with the mode of speak- 
 ing upon it, or the arguments for the defence. And if the 
 merit or demerit of the person give rise to any discussion, it 
 is wholly beside, the question; and the part of the speech re- 
 ferring to the question must, of necessity, be adapted to such 
 arguments in general. I do not reason upon these subjects 
 for the purpose of confuting learned teachers; although those 
 merit reproof, who, in their general definition, describe this 
 sort of causes as relating to persons and times. For, although 
 times and persons are incident to them, yet it should be 
 understood, that the causes depend not upon them, but ujpon 
 the gep^ral question. But this is not my business ; for w^e 
 ought to have no contest with that sort of people ; it is suffi- 
 cient that this only should be known, that they have not 
 even attained a point which they might have effected amid 
 so much leisure, even without any experience in affairs of 
 the forum ; that is, they might have distinguished the gene- 
 ral natures of cases, and explained them a little more accu- 
 rately. But this, as I' said, is not my business ; it is mine, 
 and much more yours, my friends Cotta and Sulpicius, to 
 know, that as their artificial rules now stand, the multitude 
 
 ^ Innumerable accusations may be brought against a person, as 
 against Verres by Cicero ; but the loci, common topics or grounds, on 
 which the attack or defence will rest, (respecting, for instance, avarice, 
 luxury, violence, treason,) will be but few. Ellendt, 
 
 2 See i. 40. 
 
 S2 
 
?^^ DE oratore; or, [b. it. 
 
 of causes is to be dreaded; for it is infinite, if they are 
 referred to persons ; so many men, so many causes ; but, if 
 they are referred to general questions, they are so limited and 
 few, that studious orators of good memory and judgment 
 ought to have them digested in their minds, and, I may almost 
 say, learned by heart ; unless perhaps you imagine that Lucius 
 Crassus took his notion of that famous cause ^ from Manius 
 Curius personally; and thus brought many arguments to 
 show why, though no posthumous son was born, yet Curius 
 ought to be the heir of Coponius. The name of Coponius, or 
 of Curius, had no influence at all on the array of arguments 
 advanced, or on the force and nature of the question ; the 
 whole controversy had regard to all affairs and events of that 
 kind in general, not to particular occasions or names ; since 
 the writing was thus. If a son is horn to me, and lie die 
 before , etc., then let him he my heir ; and if a son was not 
 born, the question was whether he ought to be heir who was 
 appointed heir on the death of the son. 
 
 XXXIII. '' A question regarding unvarying equity, and of 
 a general nature, requires no names of persons, but merely 
 skill in speaking, and sources of proper argument. In this 
 respect even the lawyers themselves are an impediment to 
 us, and hinder us from learning; for I perceive it to be gene- 
 rally reported in the books of Cato and of Brutus, what 
 answers they gave on points of law to any particular man or 
 woman by name; that we might imagine, I suppose, some 
 cause for consultation or doubt to have arisen from the per- 
 sons, not from the thing; so that, since persons are innu- 
 merable, we might be deterred from the study of the law, 
 and lay aside all inclination to learn it, at the same time with 
 all hope of ever attaining a thorough knowledge f)f it. 
 
 " But Crassus will some day make all these points clear to 
 us, and set them forth arranged under general heads ; for 
 you must know, Catulus, that he promised us yesterday, 
 that he would reduce the civil law, which is now in a state 
 of confusion and dispersion, under certain general heads, and 
 digest it into an easy system." " And indeed," said Catulus, 
 '^ that is by no means a difficult undertaking for Crassus, 
 who has all of law that can be learned, and he will supply 
 tliat which was wanting in those who taught him; for he will 
 ^ See i. 39. 
 
C. XXXIV.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 261 
 
 be able to define exactly, and to illustrate eloquently, every 
 point comprehended in the law." '" We shall then," said 
 Antonius, " learn all these things from Crassus, when he shall 
 have betaken himself, as he intends, from the tumult of 
 public business and the benches of the forum, to a quiet 
 retreat, and to his thrrne."^ '* I have indeed often," observed 
 Catulus, " heard hipi say, ' that he was resolved to retire 
 from pleading and the courts of justice j' but, as I frequently 
 tell him, it will never be in his power ; for neither will he 
 permit his assistance to be repeatedly implored in vain by 
 persons of character, nor will the public endure his retire- 
 ment patiently, as they will think that if they lose the elo- 
 quence of Lucius Crassus, they will lose one of the principal 
 ornaments of the city." " Indeed then," remarked Antonius, 
 " if what Catulus says is true, Crassus, you must still live on 
 in the same workshop with me, and we must give up thai; 
 yawning and sleepy science to the tranquillity of the Scsevolae 
 and other such happy people." Here Crassus smiled a little, 
 and said, *^ Finish weaving, Antonius, the web which . you 
 have begun ; yet that yawning science, as you term it, when 
 I have sheltered myself under it, will vindicate my right to 
 liberty." 
 
 XXXiy. " This is indeed the end," continued Antonius, 
 *^of that part on which I just now entered; for it is now 
 understood that all matters which a'dmit of doubt are to be 
 decided, not with reference to individuals, who are innu- , 
 merable, or to occasions, which are infinitely various, but to ' 
 general considerations, and the nature of things ; that general 
 considerationFare not only limited in number, but very few; 
 that those who are studious of speaking should embrace in 
 their minds -the subjects peculiar to the several departments 
 of eloquence, arranged under general heads, as well as arrayed 
 and adorned, I mean with thoughts and illustrations. These 
 will, by their own force, beget words, w^hich always seem to 
 me to be elegant enough, if they are such that the subject 
 seems to have suggested them. And if you ask the truth, (as 
 far, that is, as it is apparent to me, for I can affirm nothing 
 more than my own notions and opinions,) we ought to carry this 
 preparatory stock of general questions and common-places 
 into the forum with us ; and not, when any cause is brought 
 ^ See i 45; also iii. 33; ii 55; and De Legg. i. 3. 
 
2(j2 DE ORATOEEj OE, [b. II. 
 
 before us, begin then to seek for topics from which we may 
 draw our arguments ; topics which, indeed, by all who have 
 made, them the subject of but moderate consideration, may 
 be thoroughly prepared by means of study and practice ; but 
 the thoughts must still revert to those general heads and 
 common-places to which I have so often alluded, and from 
 which all arguments are drawn for every species of oratory. 
 All that is required, whether it result from art, or observation, 
 or practice, is but to know those parts of the field in which 
 you may hunt for, and trace out, what you wish to find; for 
 when you have embraced in your thoughts the whole of any 
 topic, if you are but well practised in the treatment of sub- 
 jects, nothing will escape you, and every circumstance mate- 
 rial to the question will occur and suggest itself to you. 
 
 XXXY. ^' Since, then, in speaking, three things are re- 
 quisite for finding argument; genius, method, (which, if we 
 please, we may call art,) and diligence, I cannot but assign 
 the chief place to genius ; yet diligence can raise even genius 
 itself out of dulness; diligence, I say, which, as it avails in 
 all things, is also of the utmost moment in pleading causes. 
 Diligence is to be particularly cultivated by us ; it is to be 
 constantly exerted ; it is capable of effecting almost every- 
 thing. That a cause is thoroughly understood, as I said at 
 first, is owing to diligence; that we listen to our adversary 
 attentively, and possess ourselves, not only of his thoughts, 
 but even of his every word; that we observe all the motions 
 of his countenance, which generally indicate the workings of 
 the mind, is owing to diligence ; [but to do this covertly, that 
 he may not seem to derive any advantage to himself, is the 
 part of prudence ;] ^ that the mind ruminates on those topics 
 which i shall soon mention, that it insinuates itself tho- 
 roughly into the cause, that it fixes itself on it with care 
 and attention, is owing to diligence; that it applies the 
 memory like a light, to all these matters, as well as the tone 
 of voice and power of delivery, is owing to diligence. Betwixt 
 genius and diligence there is very little room left for art; 
 art only shows you where to look, and where that lies 
 which you want to find; all the rest depends on care, 
 attention, consideration, vigilance, assiduity, industry; all 
 
 ' The words in brackets are regarded by all the best critics as the 
 production of some interpolator. 
 
C. XXXVII.] ox THE CHARACTER OP THE ORATOR. 263 
 
 which I include in that one word which I have so often 
 repeated, diligence; a single virtue, in which all other 
 virtues are comprehended. For we see how the philosophers 
 abound in copiousness of language, who, as I think, (but you, 
 Catulus, know these matters better,) lay down no precepts of 
 eloquence, and yet do not, on that account, the less under- 
 take to speak with fulness and fluency on whatever subject is 
 proposed to them." 
 
 XXXVI. Catulus then observed, "It is as you say, 
 Antonius, that most philosophers deliver no precepts of 
 eloquence, and yet are prepared with something to say on 
 any subject. But Aristotle, he whom I admire more than any 
 of them, has set forth certain topics from which every line of 
 argument may be deduced, not only for the disputations of 
 philosophy, but even for the reasoning which we use in 
 pleading causes; from whose notions your discourse, Anto- 
 nius, has for some time past not varied; whether you, froni 
 a resemblance to that divine genius, hit upon his ti-ack, or 
 whether you have read and made yourself master of his 
 w^ritings; a supposition indeed w^hich seems to be more pro- 
 bable than the other, for I see that you have paid more atten- 
 tion to the Greek writers than we had imagined." " You shall 
 hear from myself," said he, ^'Catulus, what is really the case : 
 I always thought that an orator would be more agreeable to 
 the Roman people, and better approved, w^ho should give, 
 above all, as little indication as possible of artifice, and none 
 at all of having studied Grecian literature. At the same 
 time, when the Greeks undertook, professed, and executed 
 such great things, when they offered to teach mankind how- 
 to penetrate the most obscure subjects, to live virtuously and 
 to speak eloquently, I thought it the part of an irrational 
 animal rather than a man, not to pay them some degree of 
 attention, and, if we cannot venture to hear them openly, 
 for fear of diminishing our authority with our own fellow- 
 citizens, to catch their words at least by listening privately, 
 and hearkening at a distance to w^hat they stated ; and thus 
 I have acted, Catulus, and have gained a general notion of 
 the arguments and subjects of aU their writers." 
 
 XXXYII. '-'Really and truly," said Catulus, "you have 
 steered your bark to the coasts of philosophy with the utmost 
 caution, as if you had been approaching some rock of un- 
 
264 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b.II. 
 
 lawful desire/ though this country has never despised philo- 
 sophy. For Italy was formerly full of Pythagoreans, at the 
 time when part of this country was called Great Greece:^ 
 (whence some report that Numa Pompilius, one of our kings, 
 was a Pythagorean; though he lived many years before the 
 time of Pythagoras ; for which reason he is to be accounted 
 the greater man, as he had the wisdom and knowledge to 
 regulate our state, almost two centuries before the Greeks 
 knew that it had arisen in the w^orld;) and certainly this 
 country never produced men more renowned for glorious 
 actions, or of greater gravity and authority, or possessed of 
 more polite learning than Publius Africanus, Caius Leelius, 
 and Lucius Furius, who always had about them publicly the 
 most learned men from Greece. I have often heard them 
 say, that the Athenians had done what was very pleasing to 
 them, and to many of the leading men in the city, in sending, 
 w^hen they despatched ambassadors to the senate about im- 
 portant concerns of their own, the three most illustrious 
 philosophers of that age, Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes; 
 who, during their stay at Rome, were frequently heard lec- 
 turing by them and others. And when you had such authori- 
 ties as these, Antonius, I wonder why you should, like Zethus 
 in Pacuvius's play,^ almost declare war against philosophy." 
 " I have not by any means done so," replied Antonius, '' for 
 I have determined rather to philosophize, like Ennius's 
 Neoptolemus, a little, since to he absolutely a philosopher is 
 not agreeable to me. But my opinion, which I think I have 
 clearly laid down, is this: I do not disapprove of such 
 studies, if they be but moderately pursued ; but I think that 
 
 ^ That the allusion is to the islands of the Sirens, who tried to allure 
 Ulysses to listen to their song, the commentators have already observed. 
 Elleyidt. 
 
 2 Quum erat in hac genite Magna ilia Grcecia, "when Great Greece 
 was in (or among) this people." In hac gente, 1. e. in Italis, among the 
 Italians, or in Italy. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ In one of the tragedies of Pacuvius were represented two brothers, 
 Amphion and Zethus, the former fond of philosophy, music, and the 
 refined arts, the other of a rougher disposition, addicted to war and 
 despising science. To this story Horace also alludes, Ep. i. 18. 41 : 
 Gratia sic fratrum geminorum Amphionis atque 
 Zethi, dissiluit, donee suspecta severo 
 Conticuit lyra. Fraternis cessisse putatur 
 Moribus Amphion. i>. 
 
C. XXXVIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 265 
 
 the reputation of that kind of learning, and all suspicion of 
 artifice, is prejudicial to the orator with those who have the 
 decision of affairs; for it diminishes the authority of the 
 speaker and the credit of his speech." 
 
 XXXYIII. " But that our conversation may return to 
 the point from which it digressed, do you observe that of 
 those three illustrious philosophers, who, as you said, came 
 to Rome, one was Diogenes, wdio professed to teach the art of 
 reasoning w^ell, and distinguishing truth from falsehood, w^hich 
 he called by the Greek name SiaXeKTiKyj, or logic'? In this 
 art, if it be an art, there are no directions how truth may be 
 discovered, but only how it may be judged. For everything 
 of which we speak we either affirm to be or not to be ; ^ and 
 if it be expressed absolutely, the logicians take it in hand to 
 judge whether it be true or false ; or, if it be expressed con- 
 ditionally, and qualifications are added, they determine whe- 
 ther such qualifications are rightly added, and whether the 
 conclusion of each syllogism is true ; and at last they torment 
 themselves wdth their own subtilties, and, after much dis- 
 quisition, find out not only what they themselves cannot resolve, 
 but even arguments, by which what they had before begun 
 to resolve, or rather had almost made clear, is again involved 
 in obscurity. Here, then, that Stoic ^ can be of no assistance 
 to me, because he does not teach me how to find out what to 
 say ; he is rather even an impediment to me ; for he finds 
 many difficulties which he says can by no means be cleared, 
 and unites with them a kind of language that .is not clear, 
 easy, and fluent; but poor, dry, succinct, and concise; and 
 if any one shall approve such a style, he will approve it w^ith 
 the acknowledgment that it is not suited to the orator. For 
 our mode of speaking is to be adapted to the ear of the mul- 
 titude, to fascinate and excite their minds, and to prove- 
 matters that are not weighed in the scales of the goldsmith, 
 but in the balance, as it were, of popular opinion; we may 
 therefore entirely dismiss an art which is too silent about the 
 invention of arguments, and too full of words in pronouncing 
 judgment on them. That Critolaus^ whom you mention as 
 
 ^ In this passage I adopt the correction, or rather restoration, ol 
 Ellendt, Nam et omne, quod eloquimur, fit, tU id aut esse dicamus aut 
 non esse. All other modern editions for fit have sic, 
 
 2 Diogenes, and other Stoics like him. Proust, 
 
266 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. II. 
 
 having come hitlier with Diogenes, might, I fancy, have been 
 of more assistance to our studies, for he was out of the 
 school of that Aristotle from whose method I seem to you 
 not greatly to differ. Between this Aristotle, (of whom I 
 have read, as well that book in which he explains the rhe- 
 torical systems of all who went before him, as those in 
 which he gives us some notions of his own on the art,) 
 between him, I say, and the professed teachers of the art, 
 there appeared to me to be this difference : that he with the 
 same acuteness of intellect with which he had penetrated 
 the qualities and nature of things throughout the universe, 
 saw into everything that pertained to the art of rhetoric, 
 which he thought beneath him ; but they, who thought this 
 . art alone worthy of cultivation, passed their whole lives in con- 
 templating this one subject, not with as much ability as he, 
 but with constant practice in their single pursuit, and greater 
 devotion to it. As to Carneades, that extraordinary force 
 and variety of eloquence which he possessed would be ex- 
 tremely desirable for us; a man who never took up any 
 argument in his disputations which he did not prove ; never 
 attacked any argument that he did not overthrow. But this 
 is too arduous an accomplishment to be expected from those 
 who profess and teach rhetoric. 
 
 XXXIX. "If it were my desire that a person totally 
 illiterate should be instructed in the art of speaking, I would 
 willingly send him to these perpetual workers at the same 
 employment, who hammer day and night on the same anvil, 
 and who would put his literary food into his mouth, in the 
 smallest pieces, minced as fine as possible, as nurses put theirs 
 into the mouths of children. But if he were one who had 
 had a liberal education, and some degree of practice, and 
 seemed to have some acuteness of genius, I would instantly 
 conduct him, not where a little brook of water was confined 
 by itself, but to the source whence a whole flood gushed 
 forth ; to an instructor who would show him the seats and 
 abodes, as it were, of every sort of arguments, and would 
 Ulustrate them briefly, and define them in proper terms. 
 For what point is there in which he can hesitate, who shall 
 see that whatever is assumed in speaking, either to prove or 
 to refute, is either derived from the peculiar force and 
 nature of the subject itself, or borrowed from something 
 
C. XL.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 267 
 
 foreign to it ? From its own peculiar force : as when it is 
 inquired, * what the nature of a whole thing is/ or ^ a part of 
 it/ or ' what name it has/ or whatever belongs to the whole 
 matter. From what is foreign to it : as when circumstances 
 which are extrinsic, and not inherent in the nature of 
 the thing, are enumerated in combination. If the inquiry 
 regard the whole, its whole force is to be explained by a defi- 
 nition, thus: *If the majesty of a state be its greatness and 
 dignity, he is a traitor to its majesty who delivers up an 
 army to the enemies of the Eoman people, not he who 
 delivers up him who has violated it into the power of the 
 Eoman people.' But if the question respect only a part, 
 the matter must be managed by partition in this manner: 
 ^ Either the senate should have been obeyed concerning the 
 safety of the republic, or some other authority should have 
 been constituted, or he should have acted on his own judg- 
 ment: to constitute another authority had been haughty; 
 to act on his own judgment had been arrogant; he had 
 therefore to obey the direction of the senate.' If we argue 
 from a name, we may express ourselves like Carbo : ^ If he be 
 a consul who consults the good of his country, what else has 
 Opimius done?' But if we argue from what is intimately 
 connected with the subject, there are many sources of argu- 
 ments and common-places; for we shall look to adjuncts, to 
 general views, to particulars falling under general views, to 
 things similar and dissimilar, contraiy, consequential ; to such 
 as agree with the case, and are, as it were, forerunners of it, and , 
 such as are at variance with it ; we shall investigate the causes 
 of circumstances, and whatever has arisen from those causes ; ^ 
 and shall notice cases that are stronger, or similar, or weaker. 
 XL. " From things closely relating to the subject argu- 
 ments are drawn thus : ' If the utmost praise is to be attri- 
 buted to filial duty, you ought to be moved when you see 
 Quintus Metellus mourn so tenderly.' From general consider- 
 ations, thus : ' If magistrates ought to be under the power of 
 the Roman people, of what do you accuse Norbanus, whose 
 tribunesliip was subservient to the will of the state V From 
 particulars that fall under the general consideration, thus: 
 * If all who consult the interest of the public ought to be 
 dear to us, certainly military commanders should be pecu- 
 liarly dear, by whose conduct, courage, and exposure to 
 
268 DE OKATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 danger, we preserve our own safety and the dignity of the 
 empire.' From similarity, thus : ' If wild beasts love their 
 offspring, what affection ought we to feel for our children ? ' 
 From dissimilarity, thus : ^ If it be the character of barbarians 
 to live as it were for a short season, our plans ought to have 
 respect to perpetuity.' In both modes of comparison, from 
 similarity as well as dissimilarity, examples are taken from 
 the acts, sayings, and successes of others; and fictitious nar- 
 ratives may often be introduced. From contraries, argu- 
 ments are drawn thus : ^ If Gracchus acted in a detestable, 
 Opimius has acted in a glorious, manner.' From subsequent 
 circumstances, thus : ' If he be slain with a weapon, and you, 
 his enemy, are found on the very spot with a bloody sword, 
 and nobody but you is seen there, and no one else had any 
 reason to commit the act, and you were always of a daring 
 character, what ground is there on which we can possibly 
 doubt of your guilt?' From concurrent, antecedent, and 
 repugnant circumstances, thus, as Crassus argued when he 
 was quite a young man : * Although, Carbo, you defended 
 Opimius, this audience will not on that account esteem you 
 a good citizen ; for it is clear that you dissembled and had 
 other views, because you often, in your harangues, deplored 
 the fate of Tiberius Gracchus, because you were an accom- 
 plice in the death of Publius Africanus, because you proposed 
 a law of such a nature in your tribuneship, because you have 
 always dissented from good members of the state.' From the 
 causes of things, thus : ^ If you would abolish avarice, yoin 
 must abolish the parent of it, luxury.' From whatever arises} 
 from those causes, thus : ^ If we use the money in the treasury 
 as well for the services of war as the ornaments of peace, let 
 us take care of the public revenues.' Stronger, weaker, and 
 parallel instances, we shall compare thus: from a stronger 
 we shall argue in this way, ^ If a good name be preferable to\^ 
 riches, and money is pursued with so much industry, with / 
 how much more exertion is glory to be sought 1 ' From a / 
 weaker, thus : 
 
 " Since merely for a small acquaintance' sake 
 He takes this woman's death so nearly, what 
 If he himself had loved ? what would he feel 
 For me, his father ? ^ 
 
 * Terence, Andr. i. 1. 83. Colman's Translation. 
 
C. XLI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 269 
 
 '' From a parallel case, thus : ' It is natural to the same 
 character, to be rapacious of the public money, and to be 
 profuse of it to the public prejudice.' But instances borrowed 
 from extraneous circumstances are such as are not supported 
 by their own strength, but somewhat foreign : as, 'This is true : 
 for Quintus Lutatius has affirmed it:' ' This is false; for an 
 examination has been made :' ' This must of necessity follow; 
 for I shall read the writings ;' on which head I spoke fully a 
 little while ago." XLI. I have been as brief in the exempli- 
 fication of these matters as their nature would permit. For 
 as, if I wished to make known to any one a quantity of gold, 
 that was buried in separate heaps, it ought to be sufficient if 
 I told him the signs and marks of the places, with the know- 
 ledge of which he might dig for himself, and find what he 
 wished with very little trouble, and without any mistake; so 
 I wished to specify such marks, as it were, of arguments, as 
 would let him who seeks them know where they are:^ what 
 remains is to be brought out by industry and thought. 
 What kind of arguments is most suitable to any particular 
 kind of cause it requires no exquisite skill to prescribe, but 
 merely moderate capacity to determine. For it is not now 
 my design to set forth any system of rhetoric, but to com- 
 municate to men of eminent learning some hints drawn from 
 my own experience. These common-places, therefore, being 
 fixed in the mind and memory, and called forth on every 
 subject proposed to be discussed, there will be nothing that 
 can escape the orator, not merely in matters litigated in the 
 forum, but in any department of eloquence whatever. But if 
 he shall attain such success, as to seem to be what he would 
 wish to seem, and to affect the minds of those before whom 
 he pleads in such a manner as to lead or rather force them 
 in whatever direction he pleases, he will assuredly require 
 nothing else to render him accomplished in oratory. 
 
 ^' We now see. that it is by no means sufficient to find out 
 what to say, unless we can handle it skilfully when we have 
 found it. This treatment ought to be diversified, that he who 
 
 ^ I follow Ellendt's text : Sic has ego argument or um volui notas quce- 
 renti denionstrare vM sint. Orellius and most other editors have Sic 
 has ego argumeiitorum novi notas, quce ilia mihi qucerenti demonstrant, 
 " sententia perinepta," as Ellendt observes ; for it was not what An- 
 tonius himself knew that was to be specified, but how he wished 
 learners to be assisted. 
 
270 DE oratorb; or, [b. ii. 
 
 listens may neither discover any artifice, nor be tired and 
 satiated with uniformity. Whatever you advance, should be 
 laid down as a proposition, and you should show why it is so ; 
 and, from the same premises, you should sometimes form a 
 conclusion, and sometimes leave it to be formed by the hearer, 
 and make a transition to something else. Frequently, how- 
 ever, you need make no proposition, but show, by the reason- 
 ing which you shall use, what proposition might have been 
 made. If you produce a comparison to anything, you should 
 first confirm what you offer as a comparison ; and then apply 
 to it the point in question. In general, you should shade 
 the distinctive points of your arguments, so that none of 
 your hearers may count them ; and that, while they appear 
 clear as to matter, they may seem blended in your mode of 
 speaking on them. 
 
 XLII. " I run over these matters cursorily, as addressing 
 men of learning, and, being myself but half-learned, that we 
 may at length arrive at matters of greater consequence. For 
 there is nothing, Catulus, of more importance in speaking 
 than that the hearer should be favourable to the speaker, and 
 be himself so strongly moved that he may be influenced 
 more by impulse and excitement of mind, than by judgment 
 . or reflection. For mankind make far more determinations 
 through hatred, or love, or desire, or anger, or grief, or joy, or 
 hope, or fear, or error, or some other affection of mind, than 
 from regard to truth, or any settled maxim, or principle of 
 right, or judicial form, or adherence to the laws. Unless 
 anything else, therefore, be agreeable to you, let us proceed 
 to consider these points." 
 
 ^^ There seems," observed Catulus, " to be still some little 
 wanting to those matters which you have discussed, Antonius, 
 something that requires to be explained before you pro- 
 ceed to what you propose." " What is it ?" asked Antonius. 
 " What order," replied Catulus, " and arrangement of argu- 
 ments, has your approbation; for in that department you 
 always seem a god to me." " You may see how much of 
 a god I am in that respect, Catulus," rejoined Antonius; "for 
 I assure you the matter would never have come into my 
 thoughts if I had not been reminded of it; so that you may 
 suppose I am generally led by mere practice in speaking, or 
 rather perhaps by chance, to fix on that arrangement of 
 
c. xliil] ox the character of the orator. 271 
 
 matter by which I seem at times to produce some effect. 
 However, that very point which I, because I had no thought 
 of it, passed by as I should by a person unknown to me, is of 
 such efi&cacy in oratory, that nothing is more conducive to 
 victory ; but yet you seem to me to have required from me 
 prematurely an account of the order and disposition of the 
 orator's material ; for if I had placed all his power in argu- 
 mentation, and in proving his case from its own inherent 
 merits, it might be time to say something on the order and 
 arrangement of his arguments ; but as three heads were 
 specified by me, and I have spoken on only one, it will be 
 proper, after I have attended to the other two, to consider, 
 last of all, about the general arrangement of a speech. 
 
 XLIII. '^ It contributes much to success in speaking, that 
 the morals, principles, conduct, and lives of those who plead 
 causes, and of those for whom they plead, should be such as 
 to merit esteem ; and that those of their adversaries should be 
 such as to deserve censure \ and also that the minds of those 
 before whom the cause is pleaded should be moved as much as 
 possible to a favourable feeling, as well towards the speaker as 
 towards him for whom he speaks. The feelings of the hearers 
 are conciliated by a person's dignity, by his actions, by the 
 character of his life; particulars which can more easily be 
 adorned by eloquence, if they really exist, than be invented, 
 if they have no existence. But the qualities that attract 
 favour to the orator are a soft tone of voice, a countenance 
 expressive of modesty, a mild manner of speaking; so that if 
 he attacks any one with severity, he may seem to do so 
 unwillingly and from compulsion. It is of peculiar advantage 
 that indications of good nature, of liberality, of gentleness, of 
 piety, of grateful feelings, free from selfishness and avarice, 
 should appear in him ; and everything that characterizes men 
 of probity and humility, not acrimonious, nor pertinacious, 
 nor litigious, nor harsh, very much conciliates benevolence, 
 and alienates the affections from those in whom such qualities 
 are not apparent. The contrary qualities to these, therefore, 
 are to be imputed to your opponents. This mode of address 
 is extremely excellent in those causes in which the mind of 
 the judge cannot well be inflamed by ardent and vehement 
 incitation; for energetic oratory is not always desirable, but 
 often smooth, submissive, gentle language, which gains much 
 
272 r 
 
 ^ DE ORATOKE j OB, [b. II. 
 
 .avour for rei, or defendants, a term by which I designate 
 not only such as are accused, but all persons about whose 
 affairs there is any litigation ; for in that sense people formerly 
 used the word. To describe the character of your clients in 
 your speeches, therefore, as just, full of integrity, religious, 
 unpresuming, and patient of injuries, has an extraordinary 
 eflFect ; and such a description, either in the commencement, or 
 in your statement of facts, or in the peroration, has so much 
 influence, if it is agreeably and judiciously managed, that it 
 often prevails more than the merits of the cause. Such 
 influence, indeed, is produced by a certain feeling and art in 
 speaking, that the speech seems to represent, as it were, the 
 character of the speaker ; for, by adopting a peculiar mode of 
 thought and expression, united with action that is gentle and 
 indicative of amiableness, such an effect is produced, that the 
 speaker seems to be a man of probity, integrity, and virtue. 
 
 XLiy. ^^ To this mode of speaking we may subjoin the 
 opposite method, which moves the minds of the judges by 
 very different means, and impels them to hate, or love, or 
 envy, or benevolence, or fear, or hope, or desire, or abhor- 
 rence, or joy, or grief, or pity, or severity; or leads them to 
 whatever feelings resemble and are allied to these and 
 similar emotions of mind. It is desirable, too, for the orator, 
 that the judges may voluntarily bring to the hearing of the 
 cause some feelings in their breasts favourable to the object 
 of the speaker. For it is easier, as they say, to increase the 
 speed of him that is already running, than to excite to motion 
 him that is torpid. But if such shall not be the case, or be 
 somewhat doubtful, then, as a careful physician, before he 
 proceeds to administer any, medicine to a patient, must not 
 only understand the disease of him whom he would cure, 
 but also his habit and constitution of body when in health ; so 
 I, for my part, when I undertake a cause of such doubt and 
 importance as is likely to excite the feelings of the judges, 
 employ all my sagacity on the care and consideration of 
 ascertaining, as skilfully as I can, what their sentiments and 
 opinions are, what they expect, to which side they incline, 
 and to what conclusion they are likely to be led, with the 
 least difiiculty, by the force of oratory. If they yield them- 
 selves up, and, as I said before, voluntarily incline and pre- 
 ponderate to the side to which I would impel them, I embrace 
 
C. XLV.] ON THE CHARACTER OP THE ORATOR. 273 
 
 what is offered, and turn my sails to that quarter from 
 whence any breath of wind is perceived to blow. But if the 
 judge is unbiassed, and free from all passion, it is a work of 
 greater difficulty ; for every feeling must then be moved by the 
 power of oratory, without any assistance from nature. But 
 so great are the powers of that which was rightly termed by 
 a good poet/ 
 
 Incliner of the soul, and queen of all things, 
 • 
 Eloquence, that it can not only make him upright who is 
 biassed, or bias him who is steadfast, but can, like an able 
 and resolute commander, lead even him captive who resist? 
 and opposes. 
 
 XLY. " These are the points about which Crassus just 
 now jocosely questioned me when he said that I treated them 
 divinely, and praised what I did, as being meritoriously done, 
 in the causes of Manius Aquilius,^ Caius ISTorbanus,^ and some 
 others ; but really, Crassus, when such arts are adopted by you 
 in pleading, I use to feel terrified ; such power of mind, such 
 impetuosity, such passion, is expressed in your eyes, your 
 countenance, your gesture, and even in your very finger f 
 such a torrent is there of the most emphatic and best chosen 
 words, such noble thoughts, so just, so new, so free from all 
 disgTiise or puerile embellishment, that you seem not only 
 to me to fire the judge, but to be yourself on fire. Nor is it 
 possible that the judge should feel concern, or hate, or envy, 
 or fear in any degree, or that he should be moved to com- 
 passion and tears, unless all those sensations which the 
 orator would awaken in the judge shall appear to be deeply 
 felt and experienced by the orator himself. For if a coun- 
 terfeit passion were to be assumed, and if there were nothing, 
 in a speech of that kind, but what was false and simulated, 
 still greater art would perhaps be necessary. What is the 
 case with you, however, Crassus, or with others, I do not 
 know; as to myself, there is no reason why I should say 
 what is false to men of your great good sense and friendship 
 
 ^ Pacuvius in his Hermione, as appears from Nonius y. flexanima. 
 The thought is borrowed from Euripides, Hec. 816. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ See note on c. 28. " See note on c. 47. 
 
 * The forefinger, which Crassus is said to have pointed with won- 
 derful effect. See Quintilian, xi. 3. 94. 
 
 T 
 
274 DE OEATORE ; OR, [b. IL 
 
 for me, — I never yet, upon my honour, tried to excite sorrow, 
 or compassion, or envy, or hatred, when speaking before a 
 court of judicature, but I myself, in rousing the judges, was 
 affected with the very same sensations that I wished to 
 produce in them. For it is not easy to cause the judge to be 
 angry with him with whom you desire him to be angry, if 
 you yourself appear to take the matter coolly ; or to make 
 him hate him whom you wish him to hate, unless he first 
 see you burning with hatred; nor will he be moved to pity, 
 unless you give him plain indications of your own acute 
 feelings, by your expressions, sentiments, tone of voice, look, 
 and finally by sympathetic tears ; for as no fuel is so com- 
 bustible as to kindle without the application of fire, so no 
 disposition of mind is so susceptible of the impressions of the 
 orator as to be animated to strong feeling, unless he himself 
 approach it full of inflammation and ardour. 
 
 XLVI. " And that it may not appear to you extraordinary 
 and astonishing, that a man should so often be angry, so 
 often grieve, and be so often excited by every passion of the 
 mind, especially in other men's concerns, there is such force, 
 let me assure you, in those thoughts and sentiments which 
 you apply, handle, and discuss in speaking, that there is no 
 occasion for simulation or deceit ; for the very nature of the 
 language which is adopted to move the passions of others, 
 moves the orator himself in a greater degree than any one of 
 those who listen to him. That we may not be surprised, too, 
 that this happens in causes, in criminal trials, in the danger 
 of our friends, and before a multitude in the city and in 
 the forum, where not only our reputation for ability is 
 at stake, (for that might be a slight consideration ; al- 
 though, when you have professed to accomplish what few 
 can do, it is not wholly to be neglected;) but where other 
 things of greater importance are concerned, fidelity, dutj. 
 to our clients, and earnestness in discharging that duty ; we J 
 are so much moved by such considerations, that even while^ 
 we defend the merest strangers, we cannot regard them as 
 strangers, if we wish to be thought honest men ourselves. 
 But, as I said, that this may not appear surprising in us, 
 what can be more fictitious than poetry, than theatrical 
 representations, than the argument of a play ? Yet on the 
 stage I myself have often observed the eyes of the actor 
 
C. XLVII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 275 
 
 through his mask appear inflamed with fury, while he was 
 repeating these verses/ 
 
 Have you, then, dared to separate him from you, 
 Or enter Salamis without your brother ? 
 And dreaded not your father's countenance ? 
 
 He never uttered the word 'countenance' but Telamon seemed 
 to me to be distracted with rage and grief for his son. And 
 how, lowering his voice to a tone of sorrow, did he appear to 
 weep and bewail, as he exclaimed, 
 
 Whom childless now in the decline of life 
 You have afflicted, and bereaved, and killed ; 
 Regardless of your brother's death, regardless 
 Of his young son entrusted to your keeping ! 
 
 And if even the player who pronounced these verses every 
 day, could not yet pronounce them efficiently without a feel- 
 ing of real grief, can you suppose that Pacuvius, when he 
 wrote them, was in a cool and tranquil state of mind? Such 
 could not be the case ; for I have often heard that no man 
 can be a good poet (as they say is left recorded in the writings 
 of both Democritus and Plato) without ardour of imagina- 
 tion, and the excitement of something similar to frenzy. 
 
 XLYII. '- Do not therefore imagine . that I, who had no 
 desire to imitate or represent the calamities or fictitious sor- 
 rows of the heroes of antiquity in my speech, and was no 
 actor of a foreign and personated part, but a supporter of my 
 own, when Manius Aquilius, by my efforts, was to be main- 
 tained in his rights as a citizen, did that which I did in the 
 peroration of that cause, without a strong feeling. For when 
 I saw him whom I remembered to have been consul, and, as 
 a general honoured by the senate, to have marched up to the 
 Capitol with the pomp of an ovation, af^icted, dejected, sor- 
 rowful, reduced to the last extremity of danger, I no sooner 
 attempted to excite compassion in others, than I was myself 
 moved with compassion. I observed, indeed, that the judges 
 were wonderfully moved, when I brought forward the sor- 
 rowful old man habited in mourning, and did what you, 
 
 ^ Spondalia. For this word I have given " verses." " That it is 
 corrupt," says Ellendt, " all the commentators agree." Hermann, Opusc. 
 i. p. 304, conjectures e spondd ilia, ^' from that couch," on which he 
 supposes Telamon may have been reclining. 
 
 t2 
 
276 DE ORATOREj OR, [b.II. 
 
 Crassus, commend, not with art (of which I know not what 
 to say), but with great concern and emotion of mind, so that 
 I tore open his garment and showed his scars; when Cains 
 Marius, who was present and sat by, heightened the sorrow 
 expressed in my speech by his tears ; and when I, frequently 
 calhng upon him, recommended his colleague to his pro- 
 tection, and invoked him as an advocate to defend the 
 common fortune of commanders. This excitement of com- 
 passion, this adjuration of all gods and men, of citizens and 
 allies, was not unaccompanied by my tears and extreme com- 
 miseration on my part; and if, from all the expressions 
 which I then used, real concern of my own had been 
 absent, my speech would not only have failed to excite com- 
 miseration, but would have even deserved ridicule. I, there- 
 fore, instruct you in these particulars, Sulpicius, I that 
 am, forsooth, so skilful and so learned a master, showing you 
 how, in speaking, you may be angry, and sorrowful, and 
 weep. 
 
 '' Though why, indeed, should I teach you this, who, in 
 accusing my quaestor and companion in office,^ raised so fierce 
 a flame, not only by your speech, but much more by your 
 vehemence, passion, and fiery spirit, that I could scarce ven- 
 ture to approach to extinguish it? For you had in that 
 cause everything in your favour; you brought before the 
 judges violence, flight, pelting with stones, the cruel exercise 
 of the tribunitian power in the grievous and miserable 
 calamity of Ceepio; it also appeared that Marcus iEmilius, 
 the first man, not only in the senate, but in the city, had 
 been struck with one of the stones ; and nobody could deny 
 that Lucius Cotta and Titiis Didius, when they would have 
 
 ^ Quintus Servilius Csepio, in iiis consulship, says Henrichsen, had 
 embezzled a large portion of the gold taken at the capture of Toulouse, 
 A.u.c. 648. In the following year, when, through the disagreement be- 
 t^veen him and the consul Manlius, the Komans were defeated in two 
 battles by the Cimbri, his property was confiscated, and his command 
 taken from him. Some years afterwards, a.u.c. 659, when Crassus and 
 Sceevola were consuls, Caius ISTorbanus, then tribune of the people, 
 brought Csepio to trial, as it appears, for the embezzlement of the gold 
 at Toulouse, and for exciting sedition in the city. The senate, to whom 
 Caepio, in his consulship, had tried to restore the judicial power, exerted 
 themselves strongly in his behalf; but Norbanus, after exciting a great 
 tumult, carried hirs point by force, and Csepio went into banishment a^ 
 Smyrna. 
 
C. XL VIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR, 277 
 
 interposed their negative upon the passing of the law, had 
 been driven in a tumultuous manner from the temple. 
 
 XLYIII. There was also this circumstance in jour favour, 
 that you, being merely a youth, were thought to make these 
 complaints on behalf of the commonwealth with the utmost 
 propriety ; I, a man of censorian rank, was thought hardly in 
 a condition to appear with any honour in defence of a sedi- 
 tious citizen, a man who had been unrelenting at the calamity 
 of a consular person. The judges were citizens of the highest 
 character; the forum was crowded with respectable people^ 
 so that scarcely even a slight excuse was allowed me, although 
 I was to speak in defence of one who had been my quaestor. 
 In these circumstances why need I say that I had recourse 
 to some degree of art? I will state how I acted, and, if you 
 please, you may place my defence under some head of art. 
 I noticed, in connexion, the natures, ill effects, and dangers 
 of every kind of sedition. I brought down my discourse on 
 that subject through all the changes of circumstances in our 
 commonwealth; and I concluded by observing, that though, 
 all seditions had ever been attended with troubles, yet that^ 
 some had been supported by justice, and almost by necessity. 
 I then dwelt on those topics which Crassus just now men- 
 tioned, that neither could kings have been expelled from this 
 city, nor tribunes of the people have been created, nor the 
 consular power have been so ofteu diminished by votes of 
 the commonalty, nor the right of appeal, that patroness of 
 the state and guardian of our liberty, have been granted to the 
 Roman people, without disagreement with the nobility ; and 
 if those seditions had been of advantage to the republic, it 
 should not immediately, if any commotion had been raised 
 among the people, be laid to the charge of Caius Norbanus 
 as a heinous crime or capital misdemeanour ; but that, if it had 
 ever been allowed to the people of Rome to appear justly 
 provoked (and I showed that it had been often allowed), no 
 occasion was ever more just than that of which I was speaking. 
 I then gave another turn to my speech, and directed it to 
 the condemnation of Caepio's flight, and lamentation for the 
 loss of the army. By this diversion I made the grief of those to 
 flow afresh who were mourning for their friends, and re-excited 
 the minds of the Roman knights before whom, as judges, 
 the cause was being pleaded, to hatred towards Quintus 
 
278 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. IL 
 
 Csepio, from whom they were alienated on account of the 
 right of judicature.^ 
 
 XLIX, " But as soon as I perceived that I was in posses- 
 sion of the favour of the court, and that I had secured 
 ground for defence, because I had both concihated the good 
 feeling of the people, whose rights I had maintained even in 
 conjunction with sedition, and had brought over the whole 
 feeling of the judges to our side of the question, either from 
 their concern for the calamity of the public, or from grief or 
 regret for their relations, or from their own individual aver- 
 sion to Caepio, I then began to intermix with this vehement 
 and ardent style of oratory that other species of which I 
 discoursed before, full of lenity and mildness; saying that 
 I was contending for my companion in ofi&ce, who, according 
 to the custom of our ancestors, ought to stand in relation to 
 me as one of my children, and for almost my whole reputa- 
 tion and fortunes ; that nothing could possibly happen more 
 dishonourable to my character, or more bitterly adapted to 
 give pain to me, than if I, who was reputed to have been 
 oftentimes the preservation of those who were entire 
 strangers to me, but yet my fellow-citizens, should not be 
 able to assist an officer of my own. 1 requested of the 
 judges to make this concession to my age, to the honours 
 which I had attained, to the actions which I had performed, 
 if they saw that I was affected with a just and tender sorrow, 
 and especially if they were sensible that in other causes I 
 had asked everything for my friends in peril, but never any- 
 thing for myself. Thus, in the whole ot that defence and 
 cause, the part which seemed to depend on art, the speaking 
 on the Apuleian law, and explaining what ifc^was to commit 
 treason, I skimmed and touched upon as briefly as possible. 
 But by the aid of these two parts of eloquence, to one of 
 which belongs the excitement of the passions, to the other 
 recommendation to favour, (parts not at all fully treated in 
 the rules in books on the art,) was the whole of that cause 
 conducted by me ; so that, in reviving the popular displea- 
 sure against Ceepio, I appeared to be a person of the keenest 
 acrimony; and, in speaking of my behaviour towards my 
 friends, to be of the most humane disposition. In this 
 
 * As Csepio had tried to take it out of the hands of the knights, and 
 to restore it to the senate. 
 
C. LI.] ON THE CHARACTER OP THE ORA.TOR. 279 
 
 manner, rather by exciting the passions of the judges than 
 by informing their understandings, was your accusation, 
 Sulpicius, at that time overthrown by me." 
 
 L. ^' In good truth, Antonius," interposed Sulpicius, " you 
 recall these circumstances to my memory with justice; since 
 I never saw anything slip out of any person's hands, as that 
 cause then slipped out of mine. For whereas, as you ob- 
 served, I had given you not a cause to plead, but a flame to 
 extinguish ; what a commencement was it (immortal gods !) 
 that you made ! What timidity was there ! What distrust ! 
 What a degree of hesitation and slowness of speech 1 But as 
 soon as you had gained that by your exordium, which was 
 the only thing that the assembly allowed you as an excuse, 
 namely, that you were pleading for a man intimately con- 
 nected with you, and your own quaestor, how quickly did you 
 secure your way to a fair audience ! But lo ! when I thought 
 that you had reaped no other benefit than that the hearers 
 would think they ought to excuse you for defending a 
 pernicious citizen, on account of the ties of union betwixt 
 you, you began to proceed gradually and tacitly, while others 
 had as yet no suspicion of your designs, though I myself felt 
 some apprehension, to maintain in your defence that what 
 had happened was not sedition in Norbanus, but resentment 
 on the part of the Roman people, resentment not excited 
 unjustly, but deservedly, and in conformity with their duty. 
 In the next place, what argument did you omit against 
 Cgepio? How did you confound all the circumstances of 
 the case by allusions to hatred, ill-will, and compassion ? 
 Nor was this the case only in your defence, but even in 
 regard to Scaur us and my other witnesses, whose evidence 
 you did not confute by disproving it, but by having recourse 
 to the same impetuosity of the people. When those circum- 
 stances were mentioned by you just now, I felt no desire for 
 any rules of instruction ; for the very demonstration of your 
 methods of defence, as stated by yourself, I regard as no 
 ordinary instruction." " But if you are so disposed," said 
 Antonius, " I will tell you what maxims I adopt in speaking, 
 and what I keep principally in view; for a long life and 
 experience in important affairs have taught me to discern by 
 what means the minds of men are to be moved. 
 
 LI. *' The first thing I generally consider is, whether the 
 
2S0 DE ORATORE j OR, [B. II. 
 
 cause requires that the minds of the audience should be 
 excited; for such fiery oratory is not to be exerted on trivial 
 subjects, nor when the minds of men are so affected that we 
 can do nothing by eloquence to influence their opinions, lest 
 "rve be thought to deserve ridicule or dislike, if we either act '\ 
 tragedies about trifles or endeavour to pluck up what canno^/ 
 be moved. For as the feelings on which we have to work in 
 the minds of the judges, or whoever they may be before 
 whom we may plead, are love, hatred, anger, envy, pity, hope, 
 PVj /^<^^j anxiety, we are sensible that love may be gained if 
 you seem to advocate what is advantageous to the persons 
 before whom you are speaking; or if you appear to exert 
 yourself in behalf of good men, or at least for such as are 
 good and serviceable to them ; for the latter case more en- 
 gages favour, the former, the defence of virtue, esteem; and 
 if a hope of future advantage is proposed, it has a greater 
 effect than the mention of past benefits. You must endea- 
 vour to show that in the cause which you defend, either 
 their dignity or advantage is concerned; and you should 
 signify that he for whom you solicit their love has referred 
 nothing to his own private benefit, and done nothing at all 
 for his own sake; for dislike is felt for the selfish gains of 
 individuals, while favour isr shown to their desires to serve 
 others. But we must take care, while we are on this topic, 
 not to appear to extol the merit and glory of those whom we 
 would wish to be esteemed for their good deeds, too highly, 
 as these qualities are usually the greatest objects of envy. 
 From these considerations, too, we shall learn how to draw 
 hatred on our adversaries, and to avert it from ourselves and our 
 friends. The same means are to be used, also, either to excite 
 or allay anger; for if you exaggerate every fact that is hurtful 
 or disadvantageous to the audience, their hatred is excited; 
 but if anything of the kind is thrown out against men of 
 worth, or against characters on whom no one ought to cast any 
 reflection, or against the public, there is then produced, if not 
 so violent a degree of hatred, at least an unfavourable feeling, 
 ,Qr displeasure near akin to hatred. Fear is also inculcated 
 either from people's own dangers or those of the public. Per- 
 sonal fear affects men more deeply ; but that which is common 
 to all is to be treated by the orator as having similar influence.^ 
 ^ Since public or common fear must aiffect individuals. 
 
C. LII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 281 
 
 LI I. '^ Similar, or rather the same, is the case with regard 
 to hope, joy, and anxiety; but I know not whether the feeling 
 of envy is not by far the most violent of all emotions ; nor does 
 it require less power to suppress than to excite it. Men envy 
 chiefly their equals or inferiors w^hen they perceive them- 
 selves left behind, and are mortified that the others have 
 outstripped them; but there is often a strong unfavourable 
 feeling towards superiors, which is the stronger if they are 
 intolerably arrogant, and transgress the fair bounds of com- 
 mon justice through super-eminence in dignity or fortune. Ii 
 such advantages are to be made instruments to kindle dislike,-'- 
 the chief thing to be said is, ' that they are not the acquisitions 
 of virtue, that they have even been gained perhaps by vice 
 and crime ; and that, however honourable or imposing they 
 may appear, no merit was ever carried so high as the insolence 
 of mankind and their contumelious disdain.' To allay envy, it 
 may be observed, ^ that such advantages have been gained by 
 extreme toil and imminent perils j that they have not been 
 applied to the individual's own private benefit, but that of 
 others ; that he himself, if he appear to have gained any glory, 
 although it might not be an undue reward for danger, was not 
 elated with it, but wholly set it aside and undervalued it ;' and 
 such an effect must by all means be produced (since most men 
 are envious, and it is a most common and prevalent vice, and 
 envy is felt towards all super- eminent and flourishing fortune), 
 that the opinion entertained of such characters be lowered, 
 and that their fortunes, so excellent in people's imaginations, 
 may appear mingled with labour and trouble. 
 
 " Pity is excited, if he who hears can be induced to apply 
 to his own circumstances those unhappy particulars .which 
 are lamented in the case of others, particulars which they 
 have either suffered or fear to suffer ; and while he looks at 
 another, to glance frequently at himself. Thus, as all the 
 circumstances incident to human suffering are heard with 
 concern, if they are pathetically represented, so virtue in 
 affliction and humiliation is the most sorrowful of all objects 
 of contemplation ; and as that other department of eloquence 
 which, by its recommendation of goodness, ought to give the 
 
 ^ QucB si inflammanda sunt. An elegant mode of expression, for 
 " si ad animos invidi^ inflammandos adhibenda sunt tanquam faces." 
 EmestL 
 
282 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. II. 
 
 picture of a virtuous man, should be in a gentle and (as 
 1 have often observed) a submissive strain, so this, which is 
 adopted by the orator to effect a change in the minds of the 
 audience, and to work upon them in every way, should be 
 vehement and energetic. 
 
 LIII. " But there is a certain resemblance in these two 
 kinds (one of which we would have to be gentle, the other 
 vehement), that makes it difficult to distinguish them. For 
 something of that lenity with which we conciliate the affec- 
 tions of an audience, ought to mingle with the ardour with 
 which we awaken their passions ; and something of this ardour 
 should occasionally communicate a warmth to our gentleness 
 of language; nor is there any species of eloquence better 
 tempered than that in which the asperity of contention in 
 the orator is mitigated by his humanity, or in which the 
 relaxed tone of lenity is sustained by a becoming gravity and 
 energy. But in both modes of speaking, as well that in which 
 spirit and force are required as that which is brought down to 
 ordinary life and manners, the beginning should be slow, but 
 the sequel full and diffuse.^ For you must not spring at\ 
 once into the pathetic portion of your speech, as it forms no 
 part of the question, and men are first desirous to learn the 
 very point that is to come under their judgment ; nor, when 
 you have entered upon that track, are you suddenly to di- 
 verge from it ; for you are not to suppose that as an argument 
 is understood as soon as it is stated, and a second and a third 
 are then desired, so you can with the same ease move com- 
 passion, or envy, or anger, as soon as you make the attempt.^ 
 Eeason itself confirms an argument which fixes itself in the 
 mind • as soon as it is delivered ; but that sort of eloquence 
 does not aim at instructing the judge, but rather at agitating 
 his mind by excessive emotion, which no one can produce 
 unless by fulness and variety and even copiousness of lan- 
 guage, and a proportionate energy of delivery. Those, there- 
 fore, who speak either with brevity, or in a low submissive 
 strain, may indeed inform the judge, but can never move 
 him, an effect on which success altogether depends. 
 
 ^ Exitus spissi et prodiccti esse dehent. " Non abrupti, sed lenti." 
 Bllendt. "Yehementes et longiores." Proust, 
 
 2 Simul atqice intultris. Rem sc. "As soon as you have introduced 
 the subject." 
 
^. LI v.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 283 
 
 '• It is clear, that the ability of arguing on every subject on 
 both sides of the question is drawn from the same considera- 
 tions. But we must resist the force of an argument, either 
 by refuting those things which are assumed in support of it, 
 or by showing that the conclusion which our opponents 
 would draw cannot be deduced from the premises, or possibly 
 follow from them; or, if you cannot refute an argument in 
 this manner, you must bring something against it of greater 
 or equal weight. But whatever is delivered with gentleness 
 to conciliate favour, or with vehemence to excite emotion, is 
 to be obviated ^ by moving contrary feelings, so that benevo- 
 lence may be eradicated by hatred, and compassion be 
 dispelled by jealousy. 
 
 Liy. " A jocose manner, too, and strokes of wit, give 
 pleasure to an audience, and are often of great advantage 
 to the speaker; qualities which, even if everything else 
 can be taught by art, are certainly peculiar gifts of nature, 
 and require no aid from instruction. In that department 
 you, Csesar, in my opinion, far excel all other men ; on 
 which account you can better bear me testimony, either 
 that there is no art in wdt, or, if there be any, you will 
 best instruct us in it." "I indeed," says Caesar, ^^ think 
 that a man who is not destitute of polite learning can dis- 
 course upon any subject more wittily than upon wit itsel£ 
 Accordingly, when I met with some Graek books entitled 
 ^On Jests,' I conceived some hope that I might learn something 
 from them. I found, it is true, many laughable and witty 
 sayings of the Greeks ; for those of Sicily excel in that way, 
 as well as the Bhodians and Byzantines, but, above all, the 
 people of Attica. But they who have attempted to deliver 
 rules and principles on that subject, have shown themselves 
 so extremely foolish, that nothing else in them has excited 
 laughter but their folly. This talent, therefore, appears to me 
 incapable of being communicated by teaching. As there are 
 two kinds of wit, one running regularly through a whole 
 speech, the other pointed and concise; the ancients denomi- 
 nated the former humour,^ the latter jesting. Each sort 
 
 ^ Orellius's text has inferenda; many others, efferenda. There have 
 been various conjectures offered, as infirmanda, evertendaj ehvanda, 
 infringenda. The reader may take his choice. 
 
 2 Cavillatio. Ironical or satirical humour seems to be meant. 
 
284 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 has but a light name, and justly;^ for it is altogether but 
 a light thing to raise a laugh. However, as you observe, 
 Antonius, I have seen advantageous effects produced in plead- 
 ings by the aid of wit and humour ; but, as in the former 
 kind, I mean humour that runs through a speech, no aid from 
 art is required, (for Nature forms and produces men to be 
 facetious mimics or story-tellers ; their look, and voice, and 
 mode of expression assisting their conceptions ;) so likewise 
 in the other, that of occasional facetiousness, what room 
 is there for art, when the joke ought to be uttered, and 
 fixed in the mind of the hearer, before it appears possible to 
 have been conceived ? For what assistance could my brother 
 here receive from art, when, being asked by Phihppus why he 
 barked so, he replied. Because he saw a thief 1 Or what aid 
 could Crassus have received in that whole speech which he 
 delivered before the Centumviri, in opposition to Scsevola, or 
 when he pleaded for Cneius Plancus against the accusation of 
 Brutus % For that talent which you, Antonius, attribute to 
 me, must be allowed to Crassus by the confession of all man- 
 kind; since hardly any person can be found besides him 
 eminent in both these kinds of wit, that which runs through 
 a continued discourse, and that which consists in smartness and 
 occasional jokes. His whole defence in the cause of Curius, in 
 opposition to Scsevola, was redundant with a certain pleasantry 
 and humour ; but of those sharp short jests it had none; for 
 he was tender of the dignity of his opponent, and in that 
 respect maintained his own; though it is extremely difi&cult for 
 men of wit and facetiousness to preserve a regard to persons 
 and times, and to suppress what occurs to them when it may 
 be expressed with most pungent effect. Accordingly, some 
 jesters put a humorous interpretation upon the well-known 
 words of Ennius; for he said, as they observe, That a wise 
 man can more easily keep in flame while his mouth is on fire, 
 than withhold ' bona dicta^ good words ; and they say that 
 good words mean witty sayings ; for sayings are called dicta 
 by an appropriate term. 
 
 LV. ^' But as Crassus forbore from such jests in his speech 
 against Scaevola, and sported throughout that cause and dis- 
 cussion with that other species of humour in which there are 
 
 ^ Quippe; leve enim, &c. Quippe is equivalent to the Greek ^Ikotms. 
 Ellendt. 
 
C. LV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 285 
 
 no stings of sarcasm; so in that against Brutus, Trhom he 
 hated, and thought deserving of insult, he fought with both 
 kinds of wit. How many severe things did he say about the 
 baths which Brutus had lately sold ? how many on the loss of 
 his paternal estate 1 And they were concise ; as when Brutus, 
 speaking of himself, said that he sweated without cause. 'No 
 wonder that you sweat,' said Crassus, 'for you are just turned 
 out of the baths' There were innumerable things of this kind 
 in the speech, but his continuous vein of pleasantry was not 
 less amusing ; for when Brutus had called up two readers, 
 and had given to one the speech of Crassus upon the colony of 
 Narbonne, to the other that on the Servilian law, to read, and 
 had compared together the contradictory sections on public 
 affairs contained in each, our friend very facetiously gave the 
 three books of Brutus's father, written on the civil law, to 
 three different persons to read. Out of the first book was 
 read this sentence, ' It happened by chance that we were on 
 my estate at Privernum.' On which clause Crassus made 
 this observation, 'Brutus, your father testifies that he left you 
 an estate at Frivernum.' Again, out of the second book, ' My 
 son Marcus and I were at my Alban villa;' when Crassus 
 remarked, ' This wise man, who was justly ranked among 
 the wisest in our city, had evidently some foreknowledge of this 
 spendthrift's character, amd was afraid, that when he came to 
 have nothing, it might he imagined that nothing was left him^ 
 Afterwards out of the third book, with which the author con- 
 cluded his work, (for that number of books, as I have heard 
 Scaevola say, are the genuine compositions of Brutus,) ' It 
 chanced that my son Marcus and myself were sitting in my 
 villa near Tibur ;' when Crassus exclaimed, ' Where are those 
 estates now, Brutus, that your father left you, as recorded in his 
 public commentaries ? But if he had not seen you arrived at the 
 age of puberty, he would have composed a fourth book, and left 
 it in writing that he talked with his son in his own baths' 
 Who does not acknowledge, now, that Brutus was not less con- 
 futed by this humour, these comic jests, than by that tragic 
 tone which the same orator adopted, when by accident, 
 during the hearing of the same cause, the funeral procession 
 of the old lady Junia passed by % Ye immortal gods ! what 
 force and energy w^as that with which he spoke ! how unex- 
 pected! how sudden! when, casting his eyes that way, with 
 
286 DE oratore; or, [b. ii. 
 
 his whole gesture directed towards Brutus, with the utmost 
 gravity and rapidity of expression, he exclaimed, 'Brutus, why 
 do you sit still 1 What would you have that old lady communi- 
 cate to your father ? What to all those whose statues you see carried 
 by ? What to your other ancestors 1 What to Lucius Brutus, who 
 freed this people from regal tyranny ? What shall she say that 
 you are doing ? What business, what glory ^ what virtue shall she 
 say that you are pursuing ? That you are engaged in increasing 
 your patrimony ? But that is no characteristic of nobility. Yet 
 suppose it were; you have none left to increase ; your extrava- 
 gance has squandered the whole of it. That you are studying the 
 civil law ? That was your father's pursuit; but she ivill relate 
 that when you sold your house, you did not even among the 
 7noveables^ reserve the chair fi^om which your father answered his 
 clients. That you are applying to the military art ? You who 
 have never seen a camp. Or to eloquence 1 But no portion of 
 eloquence dwells in you ; and such power of voice and tongue 
 as you have, you have devoted to the infamous trade of a com- 
 mon informer. Bare you even behold the light ? Or looh this 
 assembly in the face '^ Dare you present yourself in the forum, 
 in the city, in the joublic assembly of the citizens ? Do you not 
 fear even that dead corpse, and those very images of your an- 
 cestors, you who have 7iot only left yourself no room for the 
 imitation of their virtues, but none in which you can place their 
 statues ? ' 
 
 LYI. " This is in a tragic and sublime strain of language ; 
 but you all recollect instances without number of facetious- 
 ness and polite humour in one speech; for never was there 
 a more vehement dispute on any occasion, or an oration of 
 greater power delivered before the people, than that of 
 Crassus lately in his censorship, in opposition to his col- 
 league, nor one better seasoned with wit and humour. I 
 agree with you, therefore, Antonius, in both points, that 
 jesting is often of great advantage in speaking, and that it 
 cannot be taught by any rules of art. But I am astonished 
 that you should attribute so much power to me in that way, 
 and not assign to Crassus the palm of pre-eminence in this as 
 
 ^ Ne in rutis quidem et ccesis. Ruta were such things as could be 
 removed from houses and other premises without pulling down or 
 damaging any portion of them ; ccBsa, as Proust remarks, refers to the 
 catting down of trees. 
 
C. LVII.] OX THE CHAEACTER OF THE ORATOR. 287 
 
 in other departments of eloquence." " I should have done 
 so/' said Antonius, ^^ if I had not sometimes envied Crassus 
 a little in this respect ; for to be ever so facetious and witty 
 is not of itself an extraordinary subject of envy ; but, 
 when you are the most graceful and polite of speakers, to be, 
 and to be thought, at the same time, the most grave and 
 dignified of men, a distinction which has been granted to 
 Crassus alone, seems to me almost unendurable." Crassus 
 having smiled at this, Antonius said, ^' But, Julius, while you 
 denied that art had anything to do with facetiousness, you 
 brought to our notice something that seemed worthy of pre- 
 cept ; for you said that regard ought to be paid to persons, 
 times, and circumstances, that jesting might not detract from 
 dignity ; a rule which is particularly observed by Crassus. 
 But this rule only directs that jokes should be suppressed 
 when there is no fair occasion for themj what we desire to 
 know is, how we may use them when there is occasion; as 
 against an adversary, especially if his folly be open to attack, 
 or against a foolish, covetous, trifling witness, if the audience 
 seem disposed to listen patiently. Those sayings are more 
 likely to be approved which we utter on provocation, than 
 those which we utter when we begin an attack; for the 
 quickness of wit, which is shown in answering, is more re- 
 markable, and to reply is thought allowable, as being natural 
 to the human temper; since it is presumed that we should 
 have remained quiet if we had not been attacked; as in that 
 very speech to which you alluded scarcely anything was said 
 by our friend Crassus here, anything at least that was at all 
 humorous, which he did not utter in reply, and on provocation. 
 For there was so much gravity and authority in Domitius,^ 
 that the objections which came from him seemed more likely 
 to be enfeebled by jests than broken by arguments." 
 
 LVII. Sulpicius soon after said, ^' Shall we, then, suffer 
 Caesar, who, though he allows wit to Crassus, is yet himself 
 far more intent on acquiring a character for it, to exempt 
 
 ^ Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus, in Lis tribuneship, A.U.C. 651, was 
 hostile to the pontifices, because they had not chosen him in the place 
 of his father, and proposed a law that those who were chosen by the 
 pontifices into their body should not be appointed till their choice was 
 sanctioned by the people. Yell. Pat. ii. 12 ; Suet. Iser. 2 ; Cic. Rull. 
 ii. 7. He had some ability in speaking, but was not numbered among 
 eminent orators. Cic. Brut. 45. Henrichsen. 
 
288 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 himself from explaining to ns the whole subject of humour, 
 what is the nature of it, and from whence derived; espe- 
 cially as he owns that there is so much efficacy and advantage 
 in wit and jesting^" "What if I agree with Antonius," re- 
 joined Caesar, " in thinking that art has no concern with wit ?" 
 As Sulpicius made no remark, " As if," said Crassus, " art 
 could at all assist in acquiring those talents of which An- 
 tonius has been so long speaking. There is a certain obser- 
 vation to be paid, as he remarked, to those particulars which 
 are most effective in oratory; but if such observation could 
 make men eloquent, who would not be so? For who could 
 not learn these particulars, if not with ease, at least in some 
 way ? But I think that of such precepts, the use and advan- 
 tage is, not that we may be directed by art to find out what 
 we are to say, but that we may either feel certain as to what 
 we attain by natural parts, by study, or by exercise, that 
 it is right, or understand that it is wrong, having been in- 
 structed to what rule the several particulars are to be referred. 
 I, therefore, also join in the petition to you, Caesar, that you 
 would, if it is agreeable to you, tell us what you think on 
 jocoseness in general, lest, by accident, any part of eloquence, 
 since that is your object, should appear to have been passed 
 over in so learned an assembly, and such a studied con- 
 versation." " Well, then, Crassus," replied Csesar, " since 
 you require payment from a guest, I will, by refusing it, 
 furnish you with a pretext for refusing to entertain us again ; 
 though I am often astonished at the impudence of those who 
 act upon the stage while Roscius is a spectator of their 
 attitudes ; for who can make the least motion without Roscius 
 seeing his imperfections'? So I shall now have to speak first 
 on wit in the hearing of Crassus, and to teach like a swine,^ 
 as they say, that orator of whom Catulus said, when he 
 heard him lately. That other speakers ought to he fed upon 
 hay.'' ^ " Ah !" said Crassus, " Catulus was joking, especially 
 as he speaks himself in such a manner that he seems to 
 deserve to be fed on ambrosia. But let us hear you, Caesar, 
 that we may afterwards return to the remainder of the 
 discourse of Antonius." " There is little remaining for me 
 
 * An allusion to the proverb Sus Minervam. 
 
 2 He signified that other pleaders were mere brute animals in com- 
 parison with Crassus, and therefore to be fed upon hay. Turnebus, 
 
C. LVIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 289 
 
 to say," replied Antonius; "but as I am wearied with the 
 labour and the length of what I have said, I shall repose 
 during the discourse of Caesar as in some opportune place of 
 entertainment." LYIII. " But/' said Caesar, '' you will not 
 pronounce my entertainment very liberal ; for as soon as you 
 have tasted a little I shall thrust you out, and turn you into 
 the road again. However, not to detain you any longer, I 
 will deliver my sentiments very briefly on this department 
 of eloquence in general. 
 
 " Concerning laughter, there are five things which are sub- 
 jects of consideration: one, 'What it is;' another, 'Whence 
 it originates;' a third, 'Whether it becomes the orator to 
 wish to excite laughter;' a fourth, 'To what degree;' a fifth, 
 ' What are the several kinds of the ridiculous ? ' As to the 
 first, ' What laughter itself is,' by what means it is excited, 
 where it lies, how it arises, and bursts forth so suddenly that 
 we are unable, though we desire, to restrain it, and how it 
 affects at once the sides, the face, the veins, the countenance, 
 the eyes, let Democritus consider; for all this has nothing to 
 do with my remarks, and if it had to do with them, I should 
 not be ashamed to say that I am ignorant of that which not 
 even they understand who profess to explain it. But the seat 
 and as it were province of what is laughed at, (for that is 
 the next point of inquiry,) lies in a certain ofiensiveness 
 and deformity; for those sayings are laughed at solely or 
 chiefly which point out and designate something ofiensive in 
 an inofiensive manner. But, to come to the third point, it 
 certainly becomes the orator to excite laughter; either because 
 mirth itself attracts favour to him by whom it is raised ; or 
 because all admire wit, which is often comprised in a single 
 word, especially in him who replies, and sometimes in him 
 who attacks; or because it overthrows the adversary, or 
 hampers him, or makes light of him, or discourages, or refutes 
 him ; or because it proves the orator himself to be a man of 
 taste, or learning, or polish; but chiefly because it mitigates 
 and relaxes gravity and severity, and often, by a joke or a 
 laugh, breaks the force of offensive remarks, which cannot 
 easily be overthrown by arguments. But to what degree the 
 laughable should be carried by the orator requires very dili- 
 gent consideration; a point which we placed as the fourth 
 subject of inquiry; for neither great vice, such as is united 
 
 u 
 
290 DE oratoee; or, [b. h, 
 
 with crime, nor great misery, is a subject for ridicule and 
 laughter ; since people will have those guilty of enormous 
 crimes attacked with more forcible weapons than ridicule ; . 
 and do not like the miserable to be derided, unless perhaps 
 when they are insolent ; and you must be considerate, too, 
 of the feelings of mankind, lest you rashly speak against 
 those who are. personally beloved. 
 
 LIX. "Such is the caution that must be principally observed 
 in joking. Those subjects accordingly are most readily jested 
 upon which are neither provocative of violent aversion, nor of 
 extreme compassion. All matter for ridicule is therefore 
 found to lie in such defects as are to be observed in the 
 characters of men not in universal esteem, nor in calamitous 
 circumstances, and who do not appear deserving to be dragged 
 to punishment for their crimes ; such topics nicely managed 
 create laughter. In deformity, also, and bodily defects, is 
 found fair enough matter for ridicule ; but we have to ask 
 the same question here as is asked on other points, ' How far 
 the ridicule maybe carried]* In this respect it is not only 
 directed that the orator should say nothing impertinently, 
 but also that, even if he can say anything very ridiculously, 
 he should avoid both errors, lest his jokes become either buf- 
 foonery or mimicry ; qualities of which we shall better under- 
 stand the nature when we come to consider the different 
 species of the ridiculous. 
 
 ^^ There are two sorts of jokes, one of which is excited by 
 things, the other by words. By things, whenever any matter 
 is told in the way of a story; as you, Crassus, formerly 
 stated in a speech against Memmius,^ That he had eaten 
 a piece of Largius^s arrrij because he had had a quarrel with , 
 him at Tarracina about a courtezan ; it was a witty story, but 
 wholly of your own invention. You added this particular, 
 that throughout Tarracina these letters were inscribed on 
 every wall, MM, LLL; and that when you inquired what they 
 meant, an old man of the town replied, Mordacious Memmius 
 Lacerates Largiuis Limh.'^ You perceive clearly how face- 
 
 ^ The same that is mentioned by Sallust, as having accused Calpumius 
 Bestia. 
 
 2 Lacerat Lacertum Largt. Mordax Memmius. The writer of the 
 article " Memmius " in Dr. Smith's Biog. Diet, thinks that Memmius had 
 from some cause the nickname of Mordax. The story of his having 
 
C. LX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 291 
 
 tious this mode of joking may be, how elegant, how suitable 
 to an orator ; whether you have any true story to tell, (which 
 however must be interspersed with fictitious circumstances,) 
 or whether you merely invent. The excellence of such jesting 
 is, that you can describe things as occurring in such a way, 
 that the manners, the language, and every look of the person 
 of whom you speak, may be represented, so that the occur- 
 rence may seem to the audience to pass and take place at the 
 very time when you address them. Another kind of jest 
 taken from things, is that which is derived from a depraved 
 sort of imitation, or mimicry ; as when Crassus also exclaimed, 
 Bi/ your nobility^ hy your family, what else was there at which 
 the assembly could laugh but that mimicry of look and tone ? 
 But when he said, hy your statues, and added something of 
 gesture by extending his arm, we all laughed immoderately.-^ 
 Of this species is Roscius's imitation of an old man ; when 
 he says, 
 
 For you, my Antiplio, I plant these trees, ^ 
 
 it is, old age itself that seems to speak while I listen to him. 
 But all this department of ridicule is of such a nature that it 
 must be attempted with the greatest caution. For if the 
 imitation is too extravagant, it becomes, like indecency, the 
 part of players in pantomime and farce ; the orator should be 
 moderate in imitation, that the audience may conceive more 
 than they can see represented by him ; he ought also to give 
 proof of ingenuousness and modesty, by avoiding everything 
 offensive or unbecoming in word or act. 
 
 LX. " These, therefore, are the two kinds of the ridiculous 
 which is drawn from things ; and they suit well with con- 
 tinuous pieces of humour, in which the manners of mankind 
 are so described and expressed^ that, either by meajis of some 
 narrative, their character is exactly understood, or, by throw- 
 ing in a little mimicry, they may be convicted of some 
 impropriety remarkable enough for ridicule. But in ujords, 
 the ridiculous is that which is excited by the point of a par- 
 eaten or bitten Largius's arm, appears, from what Cicero says, to have 
 been a mere invention of Ci^ssus. We do not half understand the joke. 
 
 ^ This jest is from a speech of Crassus against Domitius. The ^e«^ 
 Bomitia, a family of great nobility, had produced many patriciiOift 
 remarkable, as well for other vices, as for vanity. ElkiidL 
 
 * These words are from some plav now lost>. 
 
 u2 
 
292 DE oratore; or, [b. ii. 
 
 ticular expression or thought : but as, in the former kind, 
 both in narration and imitation, all resemblance to the 
 players of pantomime should be avoided, so, in this, all 
 scurrilous buffoonery is to be studiously shunned by the 
 orator. How, then, shall we distinguish from Crassus, from 
 Catulus, and from others, your acquaintance Granius, or my 
 friend Yargula ? No proper distinction really occurs to me ; 
 for they are both witty ; no man has more of verbal wit- 
 ticism than Granius. The first point to be observed, how- 
 ever, is, I think, that we should not fancy ourselves obliged 
 to utter a jest whenever one may be uttered. A very little 
 witness was produced. May I question Mm? says Philippus. 
 The judge who presided,^ being in a hurry, replied. Yes, 
 if he is short. You shall have no fault to find, said Philippus, 
 for I shall question him very short. This was ridiculous 
 enough; but Lucius Aurifex was sitting as judge in the 
 cause, who was shorter than the witness himself; so that all 
 the laughter was turned upon the judge, and hence the joke 
 appeared scurrilous. Those good things, therefore, which hit 
 those whom you do not mean to hit, however witty they are, 
 are yet in their nature scurrilous; as when Appius, who 
 would be thought witty, — and indeed is so, but sometimes 
 slides into this fault of scurrility, — said to Caius Sextius, an 
 acquaintance of mine, who is blind of an eye, / will sup with 
 you to-night, for I see that there is a vacancy for one. This 
 -was a scurrilous joke, both because he attacked Sextius 
 without provocation, and said what was equally applicable 
 to all one-eyed persons. Such jokes, as they are thought 
 premeditated, excite less laughter; but the reply of Sextius 
 was excellent and extempore: Wash your hands^ said he, 
 and come to supper. A regard, therefore, to proper times, 
 moderation and forbearance in jesting, and a limitation in 
 the number of jokes, will distinguish the orator from the 
 buffoon; and the circumstance, besides, that we joke with an | 
 object, not that we may appear to be jesters, but that we may : 
 gain some advantage, while they joke all day without any :!! 
 
 ^ QiicBsitor. The magistrate who presided at a qucestio capitalist 
 whether the praetor or any other. See Cic. Verr. i. 10 ; Vatin. 14 ; Sail 
 Jug. 40. Henrichsen. 
 
 2 Whether the joke was directed against him as being unclean, or as 
 being dishonest, is uncertain. Ellendt, 
 
C. LXI.] OX THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 293 
 
 purpose whatever. For what did YargTila gain by saying, 
 when Aulus Sempronius, then a candidate for office, and his 
 brother Marcus, saluted him, Boy^ drive away the flies .? His 
 aim was to raise a laugh, which is, in my opinion, a very poor 
 effect of wit. The proper season, then, for jesting, we must 
 determine by our own prudence and judgment ; in the exer- 
 cise of which I wish that we had some body of rules to direct 
 us ; but nature is the sovereign guide. 
 
 LXI. ^' Let us- now consider briefly the sorts of jests that 
 chiefly excite laughter. Let this, then, be our first division, 
 that whatever is expressed wittily, consists sometimes in 
 a thought, sometimes in the mere language, but that men 
 are most delighted with a joke when the laugh is raised by 
 the thought and the language in conjunction. But remember 
 this, that whatever topics I shall touch upon, from which 
 ridicule may be drawn, from almost the same topics serious 
 thoughts may be derived : there is only this difference, that 
 seriousness is used on dignified subjects with gravity, joking 
 on such as are in some degree unbecoming, and as it were 
 grotesque; for instance, we may with the very same words 
 commend a thrifty servant, and jest upon one that is ex- 
 travagant. That old saying of Nero ^ about a thieving servant 
 is humorous enough. That he ivas the only one from whom 
 nothing in the house was sealed or locked up; a thing which 
 is not only said of a good servant, but in the very same 
 words. From the same sources spring all kinds of sayings. 
 What his mother said to Spurius Carvilius, who halted griev- 
 ously from a wound received in the public service, and was 
 on that account ashamed to go out of doors, Go, my Spurius, 
 that as often as you take a step you may he reminded of your 
 merits, was a noble and serious thought; but what Glaucia 
 said to Calvinus, when he limped. Where is the old proverb — 
 Does he claudicate 1 no ; hut he clodicates^' is ridiculous; and 
 
 ^ Probably taken from the apopbtbegms of Cato, and probably, also, 
 a saying of Cains Claudius Nero, who wa^ consul with Marcus Livius, 
 A.U.C. 547, and defeated Hannibal at Sena. Liv. xxvii. 34. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ The original is, Num claudicat ? at hie dodicat. " What,- is he 
 lame ? iSTo ; but he favours Clodius." The reader easily sees that the 
 force of the pun, which is bad enough at the first hand, is entirely lost 
 by a literal translation. I have been forced to coin two English words 
 from the Latin to convey some idea of it. Had Clodius lived in this 
 country, and his name be^n Greville, I had been as happy as Glaucia ; 
 
294 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. H. 
 
 yet both are derived from what may be observed with regard 
 to lameness. What is more ignave than this JVcevius ? ^ said 
 Scipio with severity; but Philippus, with some humour, to 
 one who had a strong smell, / perceive that I am circumvented 
 hy you;'^ yet it is the resemblance of words, with the change 
 only of a letter, that constitutes both jokes. 
 
 -' Those smart sayings which spring from some ambiguity 
 are thought extremely ingenious; but they are not always 
 employed to express jests, but often even grave thoughts. 
 What Publius Licinus Varus said to Africanus the elder, 
 when he was endeavouring to fit a chaplet to his head at an 
 entertainment, and it broke several times, Do not wonder if 
 it does not fit you, for you have a great head, w^as a fine and 
 noble thought ; but He is hold enough, for he says hut little^^ 
 is of the same sort. Not to be tedious, there is no subject for 
 jest from which serious and grave reflections may not be 
 drawn. It is also to be observed that everything which is 
 ridiculous is not witty; for what can be so ridiculous as a 
 buffoon ? ^ But it is by his face, his appearance, his look, his 
 mimicry, his voice, and, in fine'', by his whole figure, that he 
 
 for then I could have said, " Where is the old proverb, What, is he 
 gravelled ? No ; but he is Grevilled. B. Num claudicat is thought 
 bv Strebseus to have been a common question with regard to a man 
 suspected of want of judgment or honesty. 
 
 ^ Quid hoc Ncevio ignavius ? It is thought to have been a joke of 
 Publius Africanus Major, who, according to some, was accused by the 
 Petilii, tribunes of the people, or, according to others, by a certain 
 Marcus Nsevius. See Liv. xxxviii. 50, 56; Val. Max. iii. 7; A. Gell. 
 iv. 18. But it might have been said by Africanus the younger in 
 reference to some other man. Ellendt. 
 
 2 Video me a te circumveniri. Toup, in his Appendix to Theocritus, 
 suggests that we should read Video me a te non circum, sed hircum- 
 veniri, referring to a similar joke of Aristophanes, Acharn. 850. 
 
 ^ Calvus satis est, quod dicit parum. The meaning is by no means 
 clear, and no change in the punctuation elucidates it Pearce sup- 
 poses that it is said of a bad orator : " If he were to say more, he would 
 giye less satisfaction ; what he has said is so far satisfactory, as it is 
 brief." .... Henrichsen thinks that calvus might be used metaphori- 
 cally, as calva oratio for jejicna ; and that the joke is on the ambiguity 
 of the word. To me the passage seems inexplicable. Ellendt. Whether 
 calvus in the text be a proper name or not, is a matter of uncertainty ; 
 Turnebus thinks it is not. 
 
 * Sannio. The sanniones were so called from sanna, a grimace, and 
 personated ridiculous characters, like the Arlecchini or Pulcinelli of the 
 Italians. Ellendt. 
 
C. LXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OP THE ORATOR. 295 
 
 excites laughter. I might, indeed, call him witty, but not in 
 such a way that I would have an orator, but an actor in 
 pantomime, to be witty. 
 
 LXII. " This kind of jesting, above all, then, though it 
 powerfully excites laughter, is not suited to us ; it represents 
 the morose, the superstitious, the suspicious, the vainglorious, 
 the foolish; — habits of mind which are in themselves ridi- 
 culous; and such kind of characters we are to expose, not to 
 assume. There is another kind of jesting which is extremely 
 ludicrous, namely mimicry ; but it is allowable only in us to 
 attempt it cautiously, if ever we do attempt it, and but for a 
 moment, otherwise it is far from becoming to a man of edu- 
 cation. A third is distortion of features, utterly unworthy 
 of us. A fourth is indecency in language, a disgrace not only 
 to the forum, but to any company of well-bred people. So 
 many things, then, being deducted from this part of oratory, 
 the kinds of jesting which remain are (as I distinguished 
 them before) such as consist in thought or in expression. 
 That which, in whatever terms you express it, is still wit, 
 consists in the thought; that which by a change of words 
 loses its spirit, has no wit but what depends on expression. 
 
 " Plays on ambiguous words are extremely ingenious, but 
 depend wholly on the expression, not on the matter. They 
 seldom, however, excite much laughter, but are rather com- 
 mended as jests of elegance and scholarship; as that about 
 Titius, whom, being a great tennis-player, and at the same 
 time suspected of having broken the sacred images by night, 
 Terentius Vespa excused, when his companions inquired for 
 him, as he did not come to the Campus Martins, by saying 
 that he had hroken an arm. Or as that of Africanus, which 
 is in Lucilius, 
 
 Q^Ujid ? Decius, nuculam an confixum vis facer e ? inquit.^ 
 
 ^ This verse of Lucilius would be unintelligible to us,, even if we 
 f^ere certain that the reading of it is sound. Heusinger thinks that 
 Lucilius referred to the game played with nuts, which the author of 
 the elegy entitled " Nux " mentions : Quas puer aut rectus certo dila- 
 ninat ictu. Others think that confixum facer e signifies merely confi- 
 jere. Ernesti supposes that a sort of dish, made of pieces of flesh, 
 fricasee, is meant. Schutz suggests that, if this be the meaning of 
 confixum, some kind of eatable must be intended by nucula. But this 
 profits us nothing. Ellendt. 
 
296 DE ORATOEE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 Or, as your friend Granius, Crassus, said of somebody, That 
 he was not worth the sixth part of an as} And if you were 
 to ask me, I should say that he who is called a jester, excels 
 chiefly in jokes of this kind; but that other jests excite 
 laughter in a greater degree. The ambiguous gains great 
 admiration, as I observed before, from its nature, for it ap- 
 pears the part of a wit to be able to turn the force of a word 
 to quite another sense than that in which other people take 
 it ; but it excites surprise rather than laughter, unless when 
 it happens to be joined with some other sorts of jesting. 
 LXIII. '^ Some of these sorts of jesting I will now run over : 
 /but you are aware that that is the most common kind of joke, 
 when we expect one thing and another is said ; in which case 
 our own disappointed expectation makes us laugh. But if 
 something of the ambiguous is thrown in with it, the wit is 
 heightened; as in JSTaevius, a man seems to be moved with 
 compassion who, seeing another, that was sentenced for debt, 
 being led away, inquires, For how much is he adjudged ? 
 He is answered, A thousand sestertii. If he had then added 
 only, You may tahe him away, it would have been a species 
 of joke that takes you by surprise; but as he said, I add 
 no more; you may taTce him away, (thus introducing the 
 ambiguous, another kind of jest,) the repartee, as it seems 
 to me, is rendered witty in the highest degree. Such equi- 
 vocation is most happy, when, in any dispute, a word is 
 caught from your adversary, and thence something severe is 
 turned upon the very person who gave the provocation, as by 
 Catulus upon Philippus.^ But as there are several sorts of 
 ambiguity, with regard to which accurate study is necessary, 
 we should be attentive and on the watch for words ; and thus, 
 though we may avoid frigid witticisms, (for we must be cau- 
 tious that a jest be not thought far-fetched,) we shall hit upon 
 many acute sayings. Another kind is that wl lich consists in 
 a slight change in a word, which, when produced by the alte- 
 ration of a letter, the Greeks call irapovofxaaia, as Cato called 
 Nobilior^ Mohilior ; or as, when he had said to a certain 
 
 ^ Non esse sextardis. A phrase applied either to anything worth more 
 than a sextans, and therefore perhaps of great value, or to anything 
 worth less than a sextans, or of no value at all. Turnebus. 
 
 ^ See c. 54. 
 
 2 Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. Cat© had accused him of having taken 
 
0. LXIV.J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 297 
 
 person, Eamus deamhulatum, and the other asked, Quid opus 
 fuit veI Cato rejoined, /mo verd, quid opus fuit te?^ Or 
 that repartee of the same Cato, If you are both adverse 
 and averse in your shameless practices. The interpretation 
 of a name also has wit in it^ when you assign a ridiculous 
 reason why a person is so called ; as I lately said of 
 Nummius, who distributed money ^ at elections, that he had 
 found a name in the Campus Martins as Neoptolemus found 
 one at Troy. 
 
 LXIY. "All such jokes lie in a single word. Often too 
 a verse is humorously introduced, either just as it is, or with 
 some little alteration; or some part of a verse, as Statins 
 said to Scaur us when in a violent passion : (whence some 
 say, Crassus, that your law ^ on citizenship had its rise :) 
 
 Hush ! Silence ! what is all this noise ? Have you, 
 Who neither have a father nor a mother, 
 Such confidence ? Away with all that pride. 
 
 In the case of Cselius, that joke of yours, Antonius, was 
 assuredly of advantage to your cause; when, appearing as a 
 witness, he had admitted that a great deal of money had 
 gone from him, and as he had a son who was a man of plea- 
 sure, you, as he was going away, said. 
 
 See you the old man, touch'd for thirty minse ? 
 
 To the same purpose proverbs may be applied; as in the 
 joke of Scipio, when Asellus was boasting that while he had 
 served in the army, he had marched through all the pro- 
 vinces, Drive an ass, <&c^ Such jokes, as they cannot, if any 
 
 poets with him into his province, and called him Mohilior, to denote his 
 levity, which, among the Romans, who were fond of gravity and steadi- 
 ness, was a great crime. Turnebus. See Cic. Tusc. Qusest. i. 2. He 
 had also built a temple to the Muses. Cic. ib. et Arch. c. 11 ; Brut. 
 c. 20 ; Plin. H. N. xxxv. 36. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ This appears to us moderns a very poor joke. No translation can 
 make it intelligible to those who do not understand the original. 
 
 2 Divisorem. Bivisores were those who distributed money among the 
 tribes, in the name of the candidates, as bribes for their votes. See 
 Cic. Yerr. i. 8 ; Plane. 19. Bllendt. 
 
 ^ The Lex Licinia Mucia de civibus regendis, A.u.c. 659, by which it 
 was provided that no one should be accounted a citizen who was not 
 really a citizen. Cic. Off. iii. 11. Ellendt. 
 
 * Turnebus thinks that the reference is to the Greek proverb, Et /xr) 
 
298 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II, 
 
 change is made in the words of them, retain the same grace, 
 are necessarily considered as turning, not on the matter, but 
 on the mere expression. 
 
 '' There is also a kind of joke, not at all absurd, which lies 
 in expression, when you seem to understand a thing literally, 
 and not in its obvious meaning; in which kind it was that 
 Tutor,^ the old mimic, an exceedingly laughable actor, ex- 
 clusively distinguished himself. But I have nothing to do 
 with actors; I only wished this kind of jesting to be illus- 
 trated by some notable example. Of this kind was your 
 answer lately, Crassus, to one who asked you whether he 
 should he troublesome if he came to you some time before it was 
 light : and you said, You will not be troublesome : when he 
 rejoined. You will order yourself to he waked then ? to which 
 you replied, Surely I said that you would not he troublesome. 
 Of the same sort was that old joke which they say that Mar- 
 cus Scipio Maluginensis made, when he had to report from 
 his century that Acidinus was voted consul, and the officer 
 cried out. Declare as to Lucius Mardius, he said, / declare 
 him to he a worthy man, and an excellent member of the com- 
 monwealth. The answer of Lucius [Porcius] ^ Nasica to Cato 
 the censor was humorous enough, when Cato said to him, Are 
 you truly satisfied that you have taken a wife ? No, indeed, 
 replied Nasica, / am not truly satisfied? ■ Such jests are in- 
 sipid, or witty only when another answer is expected ; for 
 our surprise (as I before^ observed) naturally amuses us; 
 and thus, when we are deceived, as it were, in our expectation, 
 we laugh. 
 
 LXY. ^^ Those jests also lie in words, which spring from 
 
 hvvoLLo ^ovv, ihavve ouov, *' If you cannot drive an ox, drive an ass," (see 
 Apostol. Prov. vii. 53 ; Zenob. iii. 54 ; ) but that proverb seems inap- 
 plicable to this passage. Talseus and Lambinus suppose, with more 
 probability, that something like this must be understood : A gas asellum, 
 cv/rs2cm non docebitur. Asellus is again mentioned in c. 6Q. Elleredt, 
 ^ Nothing is recorded of that actor in pantomime. Ellendt. 
 
 2 This passage is corrupt, but as no emendation of it can be trusted, 
 it will be sufficient to enclose Porcius in brackets. Orellius. 
 
 3 Ex tui animi sententid tu uxorem habes ? The words ex animi sen- 
 tentid had two significations : they were used by the censors in putting 
 questions in the sense of " truly, sincerely ; " but they were used in 
 common conversation in the sense of " to a person's satisfaction.'* From 
 the ambiguity of the phrase proceeds the joke. 
 
 * C. 63. 
 
G. LXVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 299 
 
 some allegorical phraseology, or from a metaphorical use of 
 some one word, or from, using words ironically. From alle- 
 gorical phraseology : as when Rusca, in old times, proposed 
 the law to fix the ages of candidates for offices, and Marcus 
 Servilius, who opposed the law, said to him ; Tell me, Marcus 
 Pinarius Eusca, if I s^eah against you, will you speah ill of 
 me as you have spohen of others ? As you shall sow, replieoS 
 he, so you shall reap. From the use of a single word in a^' 
 metaphorical sense : as when the elder Scipio said to the 
 Corinthians, who offered to put up a statue of him in the 
 place where those of other commanders were, That he did not 
 like such comrades. From the ironical use of words : as 
 when Crassus spoke for Aculeo before Marcus Perperna as 
 judge, and Lucius ^Elius Lama appeared for Gratidianus 
 against Aculeo, and Lama, who was deformed, as you know, 
 offered impertinent interruptions, Crassus said, Let us hear 
 this heautiful youth. When a laugh followed, / could not form 
 my own shape, said Lamia, hut I could form my understand^ 
 ing. Then, said Crassus, let us hear this able orator; when 
 a greater laugh than before ensued. Such jests are agreeable 
 as well in grave as in humorous speeches. For I observed, 
 a little while ago,^ that the subjects for jest and for gravity 
 are distinct ; but that the same form of expression will serve for 
 grave remarks, as for jokes. Words antithetically used^ are 
 a great ornament to language; and the same mode of using 
 them is often also humorous; thus, when the well-known 
 Servius Galba carried to Lucius Scribonius the tribune a 
 list of his own intimates to be appointed as judges, and Libo 
 said. What, Galba, will you never go out of your own dining- 
 room ? Yes, replied Galba, when you go out of other men's bed- 
 chambers. To this kind of joke the saying of Glaucia to 
 Metellus is not very dissimilar : Tou have your villa at Tihur, 
 but your court on mount Palatine.^ 
 
 LXVI. " Such kinds of jokes as lie in words I think that 
 I have now sufficiently discussed ; but such as relate to things 
 
 1 C. 61. 
 
 2 Yerha relata contrari^. Which the Greeks call dpriOera, when con- 
 trariis opponuntur contraria. Cic. Or. 50. 
 
 ^ Villam in Tiburte habes, cortem in Palatio. Cors or cliors meant 
 a coop, pen, or moveable sheep-fold. Schutz and Strebseus, therefore, 
 suppose that Glaucia intended to designate the companions of Metellus 
 as cattle, for which he had a pen on the Palatine. 
 
300 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 are more numerous, and excite more laughter, as I observed 
 before.^ Among them is narrative, a matter of exceeding 
 difficulty ; for such things are to be described and set before 
 the eyes, as may seem to be probable, which is the excellence 
 of narration, and such also as are grotesque, which is the 
 peculiar province of the ridiculous; for an example, as the 
 shortest that I recollect, let that serve which I mentioned 
 before, the story of Crassus about Memmius.^ To this head 
 we may assign the narratives given in fables. Allusions are 
 also drawn from history ; as when Sextus Titius^ said he was 
 a Cassandra, / can name, said Antonius, many of your Ajaces 
 Oilei} Such jests are also derived from similitudes, which 
 include either comparison or something of bodily representa- 
 tion. A comparison, as when Gallus, that was once a witness 
 against Piso, said that a countless sum of money had been 
 given to Magius^ the governor, and Scaurus tried to confute 
 him, by alleging the poverty of Magius, You mistake me, 
 Scaurus, said he, for I do not say that Magius has saved it, 
 hut that, like a man gathering nuts without his clothes, he has 
 put it into his helly. Or, as when Marcus Cicero ^ the elder, 
 the father of that excellent man our friend, said. That the men 
 of our times were like the Syrian slaves ; the more Greek they 
 knew, the greater knaves they were. Representations also create 
 much laughter, and these commonly bear upon some defor- 
 mity, or bodily defect, with a comparison to something still 
 more deformed : as my own saying on Helvius Mancia, / will 
 now show, said I, what sort of man you are; when he ex- 
 claimed. Show us, I pray you; and I pointed with my finger 
 to a Gaul represented upon the Cimbrian shield of Marius 
 under the new shops ^ in the forum, with his body distorted, 
 his tongue lolling out, and his cheeks flabby. A general 
 laugh ensued ; for nothing was ever seen to resemble Mancic* 
 so much. Or as I said to the witness Titus Pinarius, who 
 twisted his chin about while he was speaking. That he might 
 
 1 C. 61. 2 c. 59. 3 c. 11. 
 
 * Antonius impudicos hominis mores insectatur, cum Cassandree ab 
 Ajace post expugnatani Trojam vim illatam fuisse constet. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ Of Magius nothing is known. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ The grandfather of the orator, as is clearly shown by Corradus in 
 Qusest. Ernesti. 
 
 ^ Sub Novis. Understand Tabernis argentariis. See P. Fabr. ad Quaest. 
 Acad. iv. 22; Drakenborch ad Liv. xxvi. 27; xliv. 17. Ernesti, 
 
X. LXVII. I ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 301 
 
 speak, if Tie pleased, if he had done cracking his nut. There 
 are jokes, too, from things being extenuated or exaggerated 
 hyperbolically, and to astonish ; as you, Crassus, said in 
 a speech to the people, that Memmius fancied himself so great 
 a man, that as he came into the forum he stooped his head 
 at the arch of Fahius. Of which kind is the saying also, that 
 Scipio is reported to have uttered at JSTumantia when he was 
 angry with Metellus, that If his mother were to produce a fifth, 
 she would hring forth an ass} There is also frequently acute- 
 ness shown, when something obscure and not commonly 
 known is illustrated by a slight circumstance, and often by 
 a single word; as when Publius Cornelius, a man, as was 
 suspected, of a covetous and rapacious disposition, but of great 
 courage and an able commander, thanked Caius Fabricius 
 for having, though he was his enemy, made him consul, 
 especially during a difficult and important war. You have no 
 reason to thank me, returned Fabricius, if I had rather he 
 pillaged than sold for a slave. Or, as Africanus said to 
 Asellus, who objected to him that unfortunate lustration in 
 his censorship, I)o not wonder; for he who restored you to the 
 rights of a citizen, completed the lustration and sacrificed the 
 hulL There was a tacit suspicion, that Mummius seemed to 
 have laid the state under the necessity of expiation by remov- 
 ing the mark of ignominy from Asellus. 
 
 LXVII. " Ironical dissimulation has also an agreeable 
 effect, when you say something different from what you 
 think; not after the manner to which I alluded before, when 
 you say the exact reverse of what you mean, as Crassus said 
 to Lamia, but when through the whole course of a speech 
 you are seriously jocose, your thoughts being different 
 from your words; as our friend Scaevola said to that Septu- 
 muleius of Anagnia, (to whom its weight in gold was paid for 
 the head of Caius Gracchus,) when he petitioned that he would 
 take him as his lieutenant-general into Asia, What would you 
 have, foolish man ? there is such a midtitude of had citizens 
 that, I warrant you, if you stay at Rome, you will in a few 
 years make a vast fortune. Fannius, in his Annals, says that 
 Africanus the younger, he that was named ^milianus, was 
 
 ^ Quintus Metellus Macedonicus, as Plutarch relates in his treatise 
 De Fortund Eomanorum, had four sons, whose abilities were in propor- 
 tion to their ages, the youngest being the least gifted. Proust. 
 
C02 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 remarkable for this kind of jests ; and calls him by a Greek 
 term elpwr, an ironical jester; but, according to what those 
 say who know these matters better than myself, I conceive 
 that Socrates, for irony and dissimulation, far excelled all 
 other men in the wit and genius which he displayed. It is 
 an elegant kind of humour, satirical with a mixture of gravity, 
 and adapted to oratory as well as to polite conversation. 
 Indeed all the kinds of humour of which I have spoken, are 
 seasonings not more appropriate to law-pleadings in the 
 forum, than to any other kind of discourse. For that which 
 is mentioned by Cato, (who has reported many apophthegms, 
 several of which have been produced by me as examples,) 
 seems to me a very happy saying, that Cains Puhlius used to 
 observe that Pitblius Mummius was a man for all occasions; 
 so it certainly is with regard to our present subject, that there 
 is no time of life in which wit and polite humour may not 
 very properly be exercised. 
 
 "But I will pursue the remainder of my subject. It is a 
 kind of joking similar to a sort of dissimulation, when any- 
 thing disgraceful is designated by an honourable term ; as 
 when Africanus the censor removed from his tribe that cen- 
 turion who absented himself from the battle in which Paulus 
 commanded, alleging that he had remained in the camp to 
 guard it, and inquiring why he had such a mark of ignominy 
 set upon him, / do not like, replied Africanus, over vigilant 
 people. It is an excellent joke, too, when you take any part 
 of another person's words in a different sense from that which 
 he intended; as Fabius Maximus did with Livius Salinator,^ 
 when, on Tarentum being lost, Livius had still preserved the 
 citadel, and had made many successful sallies from it, and 
 Fabius, some years afterwards, having retaken the town, 
 Livius begged him to remember that it was owing to him 
 that Tarentum was retaken* How can I do otherwise than 
 remember, said Fabius, for I shouM never have retaken it if 
 you had not lost it. Such jokes as the following, too, are, 
 though rather absurd, often on that very account extremely 
 
 ^ The same anecdote is noticed by Ciceix>/De Senecfc. e. 4 ; and Livy 
 speaks of the occurrence at some length, xxvi. 25. But that the Marcus 
 Livius there mentioned had not the cognomen of Salinator, but of 
 Macatus, is shown by P. Wesseling, Obss. ii. 5 ; and there seems little 
 doubt that Cicero made a mistake here, as in some other places* 
 EllendL 
 
C. LXVIII.j ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 303 
 
 amusing, and very apposite, not only to characters in plays, 
 but also to us orators : 
 
 The foolish man ! 
 As soon as he had come to wealth, he died. 
 
 That woman, what is she to yon ? 
 My wife. Like you, by Hercules ! ^ 
 
 As long as he was living at the waters 
 He never ^ died. 
 
 LXYIII. "This kind of jokes is rather trifling, and, as I 
 said, fit for actors in farces; but sometimes it finds a proper 
 place with us, as even one who is not a fool may express 
 himself like a fool in a humorous way, as Mancia con- 
 gratulated you, Antonius, when he heard that you were 
 accused by Marcus Duronius of bribery in your censorship : 
 At length, said he, 2/ou will have an opportunity of attending 
 to your own business. Such jests excite great laughter, and 
 in truth all sayings that are uttered by men of sense with 
 a degree of absurdity and sarcasm, under the pretence of not 
 understanding what is said to them. A joke of this kind is 
 not to seem to comprehend what you comprehend very well ; 
 as when Pontidius, being asked, WTiat do you tliink of him 
 who is taken in adultery ? replied, That he is slow. Or such 
 as was my reply to Metellus, when, at a time of levying 
 troops, he would not excuse me from serving for the weakness 
 of my eyes, and said to me. What I can you see nothing ? Yes 
 truly, answered I, / can see your villa from the Esquiline- 
 Gate? Or as the repartee of Nasica, who, having called at 
 the house of the poet Ennius, and the maid-servant having 
 told him, on his inquiring at the door, that Ennius was not 
 at home, saw that she had said so by her master's order, and 
 that he was really within : and when, a few days afterwards, 
 Ennius called at Nasica's house, and inquired for him at the 
 
 ' We may suppose, says Strebaeus, the woman to have been deformed, 
 and some one to have asked the man, " AATiat relation is that woman to 
 you ? your sister ? " When the man answered, " My wife," the ques- 
 tioner would exclaim, *' And yet, how like you she is ! I should have 
 taken her for your sister ; " wittily indicating the deformity of the 
 man. 
 
 2 The joke, says Schutz, is in the word never, as if it were possible 
 that a man might die several times. 
 
 2 A reflection, says Tumebus, on the extraordinary size and magnifV- 
 cence of the building. 
 
304 DE ORATORE j OR, [b, II. 
 
 gate, Nasica cried out, That he vms not at home. What ? says 
 Ennius, do I not hnow your voice ? You are an impudent 
 fellow, rejoined Nasica; when I inqui7'ed for you, I believed 
 your servant when she told me that you were not at home, 
 and will not you believe me when I tell you that I am not at 
 home? It is a very happy stroke, too, when he who has 
 uttered a sarcasm is jested upon in the same strain in which 
 he has attacked another : as when Quintus Opimius, a man 
 of consular dignity, who had the report of ha.ving been 
 licentious in his youth, said to Egilius, a man of wit, who 
 seemed to be an effeminate person, but was in reality not 
 so, How do you do, my Egilia? when will you pay me a 
 visit with your distaff and sjnndle? and Egilius replied, 
 / certainly dare not; for my mother forbad me to visit women 
 of bad character. 
 
 LXIX. " There are witty sayings also which carry a con- 
 cealed suspicion of ridicule; of which sort is that of the 
 Sicilian, who, when a friend of his made lamentation to him, 
 saying, that his wife had hanged herself upon a fig-tree, 
 said, / beseech you give me some shoots of that tree, that I may 
 plant them. Of the same sort is what Catulus said to a cer- 
 tain bad orator, who, when he imagined that he had excited 
 compassion at the close of a speech, asked our friend here, 
 after he had sat down, whether he appeared to have raised 
 /pity in the audience : Very great pity, replied Crassus, for I 
 believe there is no one here so hard-hearted but that your speech 
 seemed pitiable to him. Those jests amuse me extremely, 
 which are expressed in passion and as it were with morose- 
 ness ; not when they are uttered by a person really morose, 
 for in that case it is not the wit, but the natural temper that 
 is laughed at. Of this kind of jest there is a very humorous 
 example, as it appears to me, in Nsavius : 
 
 — Why mourn you, father ? 
 
 Strange that I do not sing ! I am condemned. 
 
 Contrasted with this there is a patient and cool species of the 
 humorous : as when Cato received a stroke from a man 
 carrying a trunk, who afterwards called to him to take care, 
 he asked him, whether he carried anything else besides the 
 trunk 1 There is also a witty mode of exposing folly; as 
 when the Sicilian to whom Scipio, when praetor, assigned 
 his host for an advocate in some cause, a man of rank but 
 
C. LXX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 30^ 
 
 extremely stupid, said, Iheseech you, prcetor, give this advocate \\\ 
 ^^0 my adversary, and give me none. Explanations of things, 
 too, are amusing, which are given from conjecture in a sense 
 far different from that which they are intended to convey, but 
 with ingenuity and aptness. As when Scaurus accused Eutilius 
 of bribery, (at the time when he himself was made consul, and 
 Eutilius suffered a disappointment,) and showed these letters 
 in Rutilius's books,^ A. F. P. R., and said that they signified, 
 Actum Fide Puhlii Rutilii, ^transacted on the faith of Publius 
 Eutilius;' while Eutilius declared that they meant, Ante 
 Factum, Post Relatum, ^done before, entered after;' but 
 Caius Canius, being on the side of Eiifus, observed that 
 neither of those senses was intended by the letters : What 
 then is the meaning? inquired Scaurus. JEmilius fecit, plec- 
 titur Rutilius, replied Canius ; ' -^milius is guilty, Eutilius is 
 punished.' 
 
 LXX. "A union of discordant particulars is laughable: 
 as, What is wanting to him, except fortune and virtue? A 
 familiar reproof of a person, as if he were in error, is also 
 amusing; as when Albucius taunted Granius, because, when 
 something appeared to be proved by Albucius from Granius's 
 writing, Granius rejoiced extremely that Scsevola^ was ac- 
 I quitted, and did not understand that judgment was given 
 i against the credit of his own writing. Similar to this is 
 ' friendly admonition by way of giving advice : as when Granius ■ 
 persuaded a bad pleader, who had made himself hoarse with / 
 speaking, to drink a cold mixture of honey and wine as soon ' 
 as he got home : / shall ruin my voice, said he, if I do so. It 
 will be better, said Granius, than to ruin your clients. It is 
 a happy hit, too, when something is said that is peculiarly 
 applicable to the character of some particular person; as 
 when Scaurus had incurred some unpopularity for having 
 taken possession of the effects of Phrygio Pompeius, a rich 
 man who died without a will, and was sitting as counsel for 
 
 ^ Which Scaurus. required to be produced on the trial. 
 2 Texts vary greatly in this passage. I adhere strictly to that of 
 Orellius. *'It appears," says Pearce, "that Scaevola was accused of ex- 
 tortion, as Cicero says in his Brutus, and in the first book De Finibus, 
 ' and that Albucius, to prove the accusation, brought forward some 
 writing of Granius, who, when judgment was given in favour of Scaevola, 
 lid not understand that it was at the same time given against his own 
 writing." 
 
 X 
 
306 BE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 : Bestia, then under impeachment, Caius Memmius the accuser, 
 I as a funeral procession passed by, said. Look, Scaurus, a dead 
 body is going 6y, if you can hut get possession ! But of all jokes 
 none create greater laughter than something said contrary to 
 expectation; of which there are examples without number. 
 Such was the saying of Appius the elder,^ who, when the 
 matter about the public lands, and the law of Thorius, was 
 in agitation in the senate, and Lucilius was hard pressed by 
 those who asserted that the public pastures were grazed by 
 his cattle, said, They are not the cattle of Lucilius; you mistake; 
 (he seemed to be going to defend Lucilius j) / look upon them 
 asfreCy for they feed where they please. That saying also of the 
 Scipio who slew Tiberius Gracchus amuses me. When, after 
 many charges were made against him, Marcus Flaccus pro- 
 posed Publius Mucins as one of his judges, / except against 
 him J said he, he is unjust; and when this occasioned a general 
 murmur, Ah! said he, / do not except against him, Conscript 
 Fathers, as unjust to me, hut to everybody. But nothing could 
 be more witty than the joke of our friend Crassus. When 
 Silus, a witness, was injuring the cause of Piso, by something 
 that he said he had heard against him, It is possible, said he, 
 Silus, that the person from whom you heard this said it in 
 anger. Silus assented. It is possible, too, that you did not 
 rightly understand him. To this also he assented with the 
 lowest of bows, expressing entire agreement with Crassus. 
 It is also possible, continued Crassus, that what you say you 
 have heard you never heard at all. This was so different 
 from what was expected, that the witness was overwhelmed 
 by a general laugh. Nsevius is full of this kind of humour, 
 and it is a familiar joke. Wise man, if you are cold you will 
 shake; and there are many other such sayings. 
 
 LXXI. ^^ You may often also humorously grant to your 
 adversary what he wishes to detract from you; as Caius 
 Laelius, when a man of disreputable family told him that he 
 was unworthy of his ancestors, replied. But, by Hercules, you 
 are vmrthy of yours. Jokes, too, are frequently uttered in 
 u sententious manner; as Marcus Cincius, on the day when 
 he proposed his law about gifts and presents, and Caius 
 Cento stood forth and asked him with some scorn, What are 
 
 ^ He is called the elder, because he had a brother of the same name, 
 the father of Publius Clodivis, the enemy of Cicero. Prow&t 
 
C. LXXI.l ON THE HCARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 307 
 
 you proposing, little Cincius? replied^ That you, Caius, may 
 pay f 07' what you wish to use} Things also which are impos- 
 sible are often wished for with much wit ; as Marcus Lepidus, 
 when he lay down upon the grass, while others were taking 
 their exercise in the Campus Martins, exclaimed, I wish this 
 were labour. "^ It is an excellent joke also to give inquisi- 
 tive people who teaze you as it were, a calm answer, of such 
 a nature as they do not expect; as Lepidus the censor, when 
 he deprived Antistius of Pyrgi of his horse ; ^ and his friends 
 
 ^ A species of ridicule expressed in a pithy sentence. The example 
 produced requires that we should explain the Cincian law. This cannot 
 be done better than in the words of Dr. Middleton. The business of 
 pleading, says he, though a profession of all others the most laborious, yet 
 was not among the Romans mercenary, or undertaken for any pay ; for 
 it was illegal to take money, or to accept even a present for it ; but the 
 richest, the greatest, and the noblest of Rome freely offered their 
 talents to the service of their citizens, as the common guardians and 
 protectors of the innocent and distressed. This was an institution as 
 old as Romulus, who assigned the patronage of the people to the patri- 
 cians or senators, without fee or reward ; but in succeeding ages, when, 
 through the avarice of the nobles, it had become a custom for all clients 
 to make annual presents to their patrons, by which the body of the 
 citizens was made tributary as it were to the senate, M. Cincius, a tri- 
 bune, published a law prohibiting all senators to take money or gifts on 
 any account, and especially for pleading causes. This Cincian law was 
 made in the year of Rome 549 ; and recommended to the people, as 
 Cicero tells us, (De Senect. 4,) by Quintus Fabius Maximus, in the ex- 
 tremity of his age. Caius Cento was one of the orators who opposed 
 it. Livy, xxxiv. 4, gives us the reason for passing this law, " Quid 
 legem Cinciam de donis et muneribus, nisi quia vectigalis jam et sti- 
 pendiaria plebs esse seuatui cseperat ? " It is also mentioned by Tacitus, 
 Annal. xi. 5 : *' Consurgunt patres legemque Cinciam flagitant, qua 
 eavetur antiquitus ne quis ob causam orandam pecuniam donumve 
 accipiat.'* We also find from the same author, (xi. 7,) that this law was 
 not well observed in Cicero's time: "prompta sibi exempla quantis 
 mercedibus P. Clodius aut C. Curio concionari soliti sint;" so the 
 emperor Claudius confined the fees to be allowed not to exceed a 
 certain sum, which amounted to 80^. 14s. 7c?. of our money, *' Capiendis 
 pecuniis posuit modum usque ad dena sestertia, quem egressi repetun- 
 darum tenerentur.*' The Cincian law, sa-ys Dr. Taylor, has been well 
 
 , commented upon by several of the moderns, as Ranchinus ii. ; Var. vii. ; 
 
 ' Burgius i. ; Elect, xviii. ; and Brummerus. B. Turnebus understands 
 the sense of the repartee to be, that patrons were not to expect thence- 
 forward to live upon gifts from their clients, but must buy whatever 
 
 '- they wished to have. 
 
 1 2 He wishes that labour were as easy as ease. 
 
 \ ^ Kxcludinir him from the number of the knights, to whom a hoi-^€ 
 
 * was given at the public expense. 
 
 x2 
 
308 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 called out to him, and inquired what reason Antistius could 
 give his father why his horse was taken from him, when 
 he was^ an excellent, industrious, modest, frugal member 
 of the colony, rejoined. That I believe not a word of it. 
 Some other sorts of jests are enumerated by the Greeks, 
 as execrations, expressions of admiration, threats. But I 
 think that I have divided these matters into too many 
 heads already ; for such as lie in the force and meaning of 
 a word, are commonly easy to settle and define; but in 
 general, as I observed before, they are heard rather with 
 approbation than laughter. Jokes, however, which lie in the 
 subject and thought, are, though infinite in their varieties, 
 reducible under a very few general heads ; for it is by deceiving 
 expectation, by satirising the tempers of others, by playing 
 humorously on our own, by comparing a thing with some- 
 thing worse, by dissembling, by uttering apparent absurdities, 
 and by reproving folly, that laughter is excited; and he who 
 would be a facetious speaker, must be endowed with a natural 
 genius for such kinds of wit, as well as with personal qualifi- 
 cations, so that his very look may adapt itself to every species 
 of the ridiculous; and the graver and more serious such a 
 person is, as is the case with you, Crassus, so much more 
 humorous do thQ sayings which fall from him generally 
 appear. 
 
 '' But now I think that you, Antonius, who said ^ that you 
 would repose during my discourse, as in some place of refresh- 
 ment, will, as if you had stopped in the Pomp tine Marsh, 
 neither a pleasant nor a wholesome region, consider that you 
 have rested long enough, and will proceed to complete the 
 remainder of your journey." " I will," said Antonius, 
 '' having been very pleasantly entertained by you, and 
 having also acquired instruction, as well as encouragement, 
 to indulge in jesting; for I am no longer afraid lest any one 
 should charge me with levity in that respect, since you have 
 produced such authorities as the Fabricii, the Africani, 
 the Maximi, the Catos, and the Lepidi, in its favour. But 
 you have heard what you desired from me, at least such 
 points as it was necessary to consider and detail with par- 
 
 1 That is, says Proust, was so reported by those who wished to 
 favour him. 
 » C. 57. 
 
C. LXXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 309 
 
 ticular accuracy; the rest are more easy, and arise wholly 
 from what has been already said. 
 
 LXXII. ^ "For when I have entered upon a cause, and 
 traced out all its bearings in my mind, as far as I could 
 possibly do so ; when I have ascertained and contemplated 
 the proper arguments for the case, and those particulars by 
 which the feelings of the judges may be conciliated or excited, 
 I then consider what strong or weak points the cause con- 
 tains ; for hardly any subject can be called into question and 
 controversy in pleading, which has not both ; but to what 
 degree is the chief concern. In pleading, my usual method is, 
 to fix on whatever strong points a cause has, and to illus- 
 trate and make the most of them, dwelling on them, insisting 
 on them, clinging to them ; but to hold back from the weak 
 and defective points, in such a way that I may not appear to 
 shun them, but that their whole force may be dissembled and 
 overwhelmed^ by the ornament and amplification of the strong 
 parts. If the cause turn upon arguments, I maintain chiefly 
 such as are the strongest, whether they are several or whether 
 there be but one ; but if the cause depend on the conciliation 
 or excitement of the feelings of the judges, I apply myself 
 chiefly to that part which is best adapted to move men's 
 minds. Finally, the principal point for consideration on this 
 head is, that if my speech can be made more effective by 
 refuting my adversary, than by supporting my own side of the 
 question, I employ all my weapons against him ; but if my own 
 case can be more easily supported, than that on the other side 
 can be confuted, I endeavour to withdraw the attention of the 
 judges from the opposite party's defence, and to fix it on my 
 own. In conclusion, I adopt, on my own responsibility, two 
 courses which appear to me most easy (since I cannot attempt 
 what is more difficult) : one, that I make, sometimes, no reply 
 at all to a troublesome or difficult argument or point ; (and at 
 such forbearance perhaps somebody may reasonably laugh ; for 
 who is there that cannot practise it 1 but I am now speaking 
 of my own abilities, not those of others ; and I confess that, 
 if any particular press very hard upon me, I usually retreat 
 
 ^ Antonius returns to the point from which he had digressed at 
 c. 57. 
 \ ^ Dissimulatum . . . ohruafur. The word ante, which is retained by 
 Orellius, but is wanting in several manuscripts, I leave untranslated. 
 
310 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. IL 
 
 from it, but in such a manner as not only not to appear to flee 
 with my shield thrown away, but even with it thrown over 
 my shoulders ; adopting, at the same time, a certain pomp 
 and parade of language, and a mode of flight that resembles 
 fighting ; and keeping upon my guard in such a way, that I 
 seem to have retired, not to avoid my enemy, but to choose 
 more advantageous ground;) the other is one which I think 
 most of all worthy of the orator's precaution and foresight, 
 and which generally occasions me very great anxiety : I am 
 accustomed to study not so much to benefit the causes which 
 I undertake, as not to injure them ; not but that an orator 
 must aim at both objects; but it is however a much greater 
 disgrace to him to be thought to have damaged a cause, than 
 not to have profited it. 
 
 LXXIII. " But what are you saying among yourselves on- 
 this subject, Catulus? Do you slight what 1 say, as indeed it 
 deserves to be slighted?" '' By no means," rejoined Catulus; 
 '' but Csesar seemed desirous to say something on the point." 
 ^^ Let him say it, then, with all my heart," continued An- 
 tonius, " whether he wish to confute, or to question me." ' 
 ^^ Indeed, Antonius," said Csesar, " I have always been the 
 man to say of you as an orator, that you appeared to me in 
 your speeches the most guarded of all men, and that it was 
 your peculiar merit, that nothing was ever spoken by you 
 that could injure him for whom you spoke. And I well 
 remember, that, on entering into a conversation with Crassus 
 here concerning you, in the hearing of a large company, and 
 Crassus having largely extolled your eloquence, I said, that 
 /"amongst your other merits , this was even the principal, that, 
 you not only said all that ought to be said, but also never 
 ^^-said anything that ought not to be said ; and I recollect that 
 he then observed to me, that your other qualities deserved 
 the highest degree of praise, but that to speak what was not 
 to the purpose, and to injure one's own client, was the conduct 
 of an unprincipled and perfidious person ; and, consequently, 
 that he did not appear to him to be a good pleader, who 
 avoided doing so, though he who did so was certainly dis- 
 honest. Now, if you please, Antonius, I would wish you to 
 show why you think it a matter of such importance, to do no 
 harm to a cause; so much so, that nothing in an orator 
 appears to you of greater consequence." . 
 
C. LXXIV.] ON THE CHAEACTER OF THE ORATOR. 311 
 
 LXXI V. " I will readily tell you, Caesar," replied Antonius, 
 " what I mean ; but do you, and all who are here, remember 
 this, that I am not speaking of the divine power of the com- 
 plete orator, but of my own humble efforts and practice. The 
 remark of Crassus is indeed that of an excellent and singular 
 genius; to whom it appeared something like a prodigy, that 
 any orator could possibly be found, who could do any mischief 
 in speaking, and injure him whom he had to defend. For he 
 judges from himself; as his force of intellect is such, that he 
 thinks no man speaks what makes against himself, unless on 
 purpose; but I am not alluding to any supereminent and 
 illustrious power, but to common and almost universal sense. 
 Amongst the Greeks, Themistocles the Athenian is reported 
 to have possessed an incredible compass of understanding and 
 genius ; and a certain person of learning and singular accom- 
 plishments is said to have gone to him, and offered to teach 
 him the art of memory, an art then first made public. When he 
 inquired what that art could do for him, the professor replied, 
 that it would enable him to remember everything; when 
 Themistocles rejoined, that he would oblige him much more 
 if he could instruct him how to forget, rather than to remem- 
 ber, what he chose. Do you conceive what force and vigour 
 of genius, how powerful and extensive a capacity, there was in 
 that great man ? who answered in such a manner that we may 
 understand that nothing, which had once entered his mind, 
 could ever slip out of it ; and to whom it was much more 
 desirable to be enabled to forget what he did not wish to 
 remember, than to remember whatever he had once heard or 
 seen. But neither on account of this answer of Themistocles 
 are we to forbear to cultivate our memory ; nor is my pre- 
 caution and timidity in pleading causes to be slighted on 
 account of the excellent understanding of Crassus ; for neither 
 the one nor the other of them has given me any additional 
 ability, but has merely signified his own. There are numbers 
 of points^ in causes that call for circumspection in every part 
 
 ^ Antonius mentions seven ways by which the indiscretion of the 
 orator may be of prejudice to the cause, to illustrate his last observa- 
 tion : — 1. By irritating a witness, who would not have injured his client 
 without provocation. 2. By not giving way when the arguments press 
 too hard upon him, he may lose his cause. 3. By extolling those qua- 
 lities in his client which ought to be extenuated, he may do mischief. 
 4. By throwing invectives upon those who are entitled to the esteem 
 
312 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. 11. 
 
 of your speech, that you may not stumble, that you may not 
 fall over anything. Oftentimes some witness either does no 
 mischief, or does less, if he be not provoked; my client 
 entreats me, the advocates press me, to inveigh against him, 
 to abuse him, or, finally, to plague him with questions ; I am 
 not moved, I do not comply, I will not gratify them ; yet 
 y I gain no commendations ; for ignorant people can more easily 
 T blame what you say injudiciously, than praise you for what you 
 Ndiscreetly leave unnoticed. In such a case how much harm 
 may be done if you offend a witness who is passionate, or one 
 who is a man of sense, or of influential character 1 for he has 
 the will to do you mischief from his passion, the power in his 
 understanding, and the means in his reputation; nor, if 
 Crassus never commits this offence, is that a reason that 
 many are not guilty of it, and often ; on which account nothing 
 ever appears to me more ignominious, than when from any 
 observation, or reply, or question, of a pleader, such remarks 
 as this follow: He has ruined — Whom? his adversary? iVb 
 trul]/, hut himself and his client. 
 
 LXXY. " This Crassus thinks can never happen but 
 through perfidiousness; but I very frequently observe that 
 persons by no means dishonest do mischief in causes. In 
 regard to that particular which I mentioned before, that I am 
 used to retreat, or, to speak more plainly, to flee from those 
 points which would press hard on my side of the question, 
 how much harm do others do when they neglect this, saunter 
 in the enemy's camp, and dismiss their own guards 1 Do they 
 occasion but slight detriment to their causes, when they either 
 strengthen the supports of their adversaries or inflame the 
 w^ounds which they cannot heal 1 What harm do they 
 cause when they pay no regard to the characters of those 
 whom they defend ] If they do not mitigate by extenuation 
 
 and favour of the judges. 5. By upbraiding his adversary with the same 
 defects that are in some of the judges ; of which Philip's derision of a 
 dwarfish evidence, before Lucius Aurifex, who was still lower in stature, 
 was an instance mencioned before. 6. He may plead his own cause 
 rather than that of his client ; which blame Cicero seems to have in- 
 curred in his oration for Publius Sextius, a cause in which he was warmly 
 and specially interested. Whoever has any inclination to read the 
 , history of that trial, may find it in Dr. Middleton's Life of -Cicero, 
 vol. ii. p. 45, &c. 7. By the use of false or repugnant arguments, or such 
 as are foreign to the usage of the bar and judicial proceedings. B, 
 
C. LXXVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 313 
 
 those qualities in them that excite ill-will, but make them 
 more obnoxous to it by commending and extolling them, how 
 much mischief is caused by such management ? Or what if, 
 without any precautionary language, you throw bitter and 
 contumelious invectives upon popular persons, in favour with 
 the judges, do you not alienate their feelings from you? 
 Or what if there be vices or bad qualities in one or more of the 
 judges, and you, in upbraiding your adversaries with such 
 demerits, are not aware that you are attacking the judges, is 
 it a small error which you then commit ? Or what if, while 
 you are speaking for another, you make his cause your own, or, 
 taking affront, are carried away from the question by passion, 
 and start aside from the subject, do you occasion no harm? 
 In this respect I am esteemed too patient and forbearing, not 
 because I willingly hear myself abused, but because I am un- 
 willing to lose sight of the cause ; as, for instance, when I 
 reproved you yourself, Sulpicius, for attacking an agent, not 
 me your adversary.^ From such conduct, however, I acquire 
 this advantage, that if any one does abuse me, he is thought 
 to be either ill-tempered or out of his wits. Or if in your 
 arguments you shall state anything either manifestly false, or 
 contradictory to what you have said or are going to say, or 
 foreign in its nature to the practice of trials and of the forum, 
 do you occasion no damage to your cause? Why need I say 
 more on this head? My whole care is constantly devoted to 
 this object, (for I will repeat it frequently,) to effect, if I can, 
 some good by speaking ; but if not, to do at least no harm. 
 
 LXXVI. " I now return therefore to that point, Catulus, 
 on which you a little while ago accorded me praise ; the order 
 and arrangement of facts and topics of argument. On this 
 head, two methods may be observed; one, which the nature 
 of causes dictates; the other, which is suggested by the 
 orator's judgment and prudence. For, to premise something 
 before we come to the main point ; then to explain the 
 matter in question; then to support it by strengthening our 
 own arguments, and refuting those on the other side ; next, to 
 
 ^ Quod ministratorem peteres, non adversarium. The ministrator was 
 a witness, from whose evidence Antonius had drawn arguments. 
 Ellendt. Whether by adversariiis is meant Antonius or not, is, as 
 Henrichsen says, uncertain. Ellendt thinks that Antonius is nut 
 meant. I have however differed from him, as the context seems to 
 indicate that Antonius is meant. 
 
314 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. II. 
 
 8um up, and come to the peroration ; is a mode of speaking 
 that nature herself prescribes. But to determine how we 
 should arrange the particulars that are to be advanced in 
 order to prove, to inform, to persuade, more peculiarly belongs 
 to the orator's discretion. For many arguments occur to 
 him ; many, that seem likely to be of service to his pleading ; 
 but some of them are so trifling as to be utterly contemptible ; 
 some, if they are of any assistance at all, are sometimes of 
 such a nature, that there is some defect inherent in them; 
 while that which appears to be advantageous, is not of such 
 import that it need be advanced in conjunction with anything 
 prejudicial. And as to those arguments which are to the 
 purpose, and deserving of trust, if they are (as it often 
 happens) very numerous, I think that such of them as are of 
 least weight, or as are of the same tendency with others 
 of greater force, ought to be set aside, and excluded altogether 
 from our pleading. I myself, indeed, in collecting proofs, 
 make it a practice rather to weigh than to count them. 
 
 LXXYII. " Since, too, as I have often observed, we bring 
 over people in general to our opinions by three methods, 
 by instructing their understandings, conciliating their bene^ 
 volence, or exciting their passions, one only of these three 
 methods is to be professed by us, so that we may appear to 
 desire nothing else but to instruct ; the other two, like blood 
 throughout the body, ought to be diffused through the whole 
 of our pleading ; for both the beginning, and the other parts 
 of a speech, on which we will by-and-by say a few words, 
 ought to have this power in a great degree, so that they may 
 penetrate the minds of those before w^hom we plead, in order to 
 excite them. But in those parts of the speech which, though 
 they do not convince by argument, yet by solicitation and 
 excitement produce great effect, though their proper place is 
 chiefly in the exordium and the peroration, still, to make a 
 digression from, what you have proposed and are discussing, 
 for the sake of exciting the passions, is often advantageous. 
 Since, after the statement of the case has been made, an oppor- 
 tunity often presents itself of making a digression to rouse 
 the feelings of the audience ; or this may be properly done 
 after the confirmation of our own arguments, or the refutation 
 of those on the other side, or in either place, or in all, if the 
 cause has sufficient copiousness and importance ; and those 
 
C. LXXVni.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 315 
 
 causes are the most considerable, and most pregnant with 
 matter for amplification and embellishment, which afford the 
 most frequent opportunities for that kind of digression in which 
 you may descant on those points by which the passions of the 
 audience are either excited or calmed. In touching on this 
 matter, I cannot but blame those who place the arguments 
 to which they trust least in the jBront; and, in like manner, 
 I think that they commit an error, who, if ever they employ 
 several advocates, (a practice which never had my approba- 
 tion,) will have him to speak first in whom they confide least, 
 and rank the others also according to their abilities.^ For 
 a cause requires that the expectations of the audience should 
 be met with all possible expedition ; and if nothing to satisfy 
 thetn be offered in the commencement, much more labour is 
 necessary in the sequel ; for that case is in a bad condition 
 which does not at the commencement of the pleading at once 
 appear to be the better. For this reason, as, in regard to 
 pleaders,^ he who is the most able should speak first, so in 
 regard to a speech, let the arguments of most weight be put 
 foremost ; yet so that this rule be observed with respect to 
 both, that some of superior efficiency be reserved for the 
 peroration ; if any are but of moderate strength, (for to the 
 weak no place should be given at all,) they may be thrown 
 into the main body and into the midst of the group. All 
 these things being duly considered, it is then my custom 
 to think last of that which is to be spoken first, namely, 
 what exordium I shall adopt. For whenever I have felt 
 inclined to think of that first, nothing occurs to me but what 
 is jejune, or nugatory, or vulgar and ordinary. 
 
 LXXVIII. '' The beginnings of speeches ought always to 
 be accurate and judicious, well furnished with thoughts, and 
 happy in expression, as well as peculiarly suited to their 
 respective causes. For our earliest acquaintance with a 
 speech as it were, and the first recommendation of it to our 
 notice, is at the commencement; which ought at once to 
 propitiate and attract the audience. In regard to this point, 
 
 ^ Ut in quoque eorum minimum putant esse, ita eum primum volv/nt 
 dicere. " As in each of them they think that there is least, so they 
 wish him to speak first." 
 
 2 Ut in orator e. Schutz conjectures in orator thus, but he had better, 
 as Ell-endt observes, have conjectured ex oratoribus. But the text may 
 be correct. 
 
316 DE oratoke; or, [b. ii. 
 
 I cannot but feel astonished, not indeed at such as have 
 paid no attention to the art, but at a man of singular elo- 
 quence and erudition, I mean Philippus, who generally rises 
 to speak with so little preparation, that he knows not what 
 word he shall utter first; and he says, that when he has 
 warmed his arm, then it is his custom to begin to fight ; but 
 he does not consider that those from whom he takes this simile 
 hurl their first lances gently, so as to preserve the utmost 
 grace in their action, and at the same time to husband their 
 strength. Nor is there any doubt, but that the beginning 
 of a speech ought very seldom to be vehement and pug- 
 nacious; but if even in the combat of gladiators for life, 
 which is decided by the sword, many passes are made previous 
 to the actual encounter, which appear to be intended, not for 
 mischief, but for display, how much more naturally is such 
 prelude to be expected in a speech, in which an exhibition 
 of force is not more required than gratification'? Besides, 
 there is nothing in the whole nature of things that is all 
 produced at once, and that springs entire into being in an 
 instant ; and nature herself has introduced everything that is 
 done and accomplished most energetically with a moderate 
 beginning. Nor is the exordium of a speech to be sought 
 from without, or from anything unconnected with the sub- 
 ject, but to be derived from the very essence of the cause. 
 It is, therefore, after the whole cause has been considered 
 and examined, and after every argument has been excogitated 
 and prepared, that you must determine what sort of exordium 
 to adopt; for thus it will easily be settled,^ as it will be 
 drawn from those points which are most fertile in arguments, 
 or in those matters on which I said^ you ought often to 
 make digressions. Thus our exordia will give additional 
 weight, when they are drawn from the most intimate parts 
 of our defence ; and it will be shown that they are not only 
 not common, and cannot be transferred to other causes, but 
 that they have wholly grown out of the cause under con- 
 sideration. 
 
 LXXIX. " But every exordium ought either to convey an 
 intimation. of the whole matter in hand, or some introduction 
 
 ^ Reperientur . . . sumentur. These words are plural in Orellius's text, 
 but Ellendt and others seem rightly to determine that they should be 
 singular. ^ c. 77. 
 
C. LXXIX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 317 
 
 knd support to the cause, or something of ornament and 
 |dignity. But, like vestibules and approaches to houses and 
 temples, so the introductions that we prefix to causes should 
 be suited to the importance of the subjects. In small and 
 unimportant^ causes, therefore, it is often more advisable to 
 commence with the subject-matter itself without any preface. 
 But, when we are to use an exordium, (as will generally be 
 the case,) our matter for it may be derived either from the 
 suitor, from the adversary, from the subject, or from those 
 before whom we plead. From the suitor (I call all those 
 suitors whom a suit concerns) we may deduce such par- 
 ticulars as characterise a worthy, generous, or unfortunate 
 man, or one deserving of compassion ; or such particulars as 
 avail against a false accusation. From the adversary we may 
 deduce almost the contrary particulars from the same points. 
 From the subject, if the matter under consideration be cruel, 
 or heinous, or beyond expectation, or undeserved, or pitiable, 
 or savouring of ingratitude or indignity, or unprecedented, 
 or not admitting restitution or satisfaction. Fi^om those 
 before whom we plead we may draw such considerations, as 
 to procure their benevolence and good opinion; an object 
 better attained in the course of pleading than by direct 
 entreaty. This object indeed is to be kept in view throughout 
 the whole oration, and especially in the conclusion; but 
 many exordia, however, are wholly based upon it; for the 
 Greeks recommend us to make the judge, at the very com- 
 mencement, attentive and desirous of information ; and such 
 hints are useful, but not more proper for the exordium than 
 for other parts; but they are indeed easier^ to be observed in 
 the beginning, because the audience are then most attentive, 
 when they are in expectation of the whole affair, and they 
 may also, in the commencement, be more easily informed, as 
 the particulars stated in the outset are generally of greater 
 perspicuity than those which are spoken by way of argument, 
 or refutation, in the body of the pleading. But we shall 
 derive the greatest abundance and variety of matter for 
 exordia, either to conciliate or to arouse the judge, from those 
 
 ^ Infrequentibus causis. Infrequens causa is a cause at the pleading 
 of which few auditors are likely to attend. Ernesti. 
 
 ^ Faciliora etiam in principiis. Ellendt justly observes that ettam 
 must be corrupt, and that autem should probably be substituted for it. 
 
318 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 points in the cause which are adapted to create emotion in 
 the mind ; yet the whole of these ought not to be brought for- 
 ward in the exordium; the judge should only receive a slight 
 impulse at the outset, so that the rest of our speech may 
 come with full force upon him when he is already impressed 
 in our favour. 
 
 LXXX. ^' Let the exordium, also, be so connected with the 
 sequel of the speech, that it may not appear, like a musi- 
 cian's prelude, to be something attached merely from imagina- 
 tion, but a coherent member of the whole body; for some 
 speakers, when they have delivered their premeditated exor- 
 dium, make such a transition to what is to follow, that they 
 seem positively unwilling to have an audience. But a pro- 
 lusion of that kind ought not to be like that of gladiators,^ 
 who brandish spears before the fight, of which they make no 
 use in the encounter; but should be such, that speakers may 
 even use as weapons the thoughts which they advanced in 
 the prelude. 
 
 ^''But as to the directions which they give to consult 
 brevity in the narration, if that is to be called brevity where 
 there is no word redundant, the. language of Lucius Crassus 
 is distinguished by brevity; but if that kind of brevity is 
 intended, when only just so many words are used as are 
 absolutely necessary, such conciseness is indeed sometimes 
 proper; but it is often prejudicial, especially in narration; 
 not only as it produces obscurity, but also because it destroys 
 that which is the chief excellence of narration, that it be 
 pleasing and adapted to persuade. For instance, the nar- 
 rative. 
 
 For he, as soon as he became of age, &c.^ 
 
 how long is it ! The manners of the youth himself, the in- 
 quiries of the servant, the death of Chrysis, the look, figure, 
 and affliction of the sister, and the other circumstances, are 
 told with the utmost variety and agreeableness. But if he 
 had been studious of such brevity as this. 
 
 She's carried forth ; we go ; we reach the place 
 Of sepulture ; she's laid upon the pile, 
 
 he might have comprised the whole in ten lines : although 
 
 ^ Samnitium. A kind of gladiators so called, that fought with San> 
 nite arms. They had their origin among the Campanians. Liv. ix. 40. 
 3 Terence, Andr. Act I. Sc. 1. 
 
C. LXXXI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 319 
 
 ^ She's carried forth, we go/ is only so far concise, as to con- 
 sult, not absolute brevity, but elegance; for if there had 
 been nothing expressed but ' she's laid upon the pile,' the 
 whole matter would have been easily comprehended. But 
 a narration referring to various characters, and intersected by 
 dialogue, affords much gratification ; and that becomes more 
 probable which you report to have been done, when you 
 describe the manner in which it was done; and it is much 
 more clearly understood if you sometimes pause for that 
 purpose, and do not hurry over it with affected brevity. 
 For the narrative parts of a speech, as well as the other parts, 
 ought to be perspicuous, and we ought to take the more 
 pains with that part, because it is more difficult not to be 
 obscure in stating a case, than either in an exordium, in argu- 
 mentation, in refuting of an accusation, or in a peroration: 
 and obscurity in this part of a speech is attended with greater 
 danger than in other parts; both because, if anything be 
 obscurely expressed in any other part, only that is lost which 
 is so expressed; but obscurity in the narrative part spreads 
 darkness over the whole speech ; and because, as to other 
 parts, if you have expressed anything obscurely in one place, 
 you may explain it more clearly in another ; while for the 
 narrative part of a speech there is but one place. But your 
 narrative will be clear, if it be given in ordinary language, 
 with adherence to the order of time and without interruption. 
 
 LXXXI. " But when we ought to introduce a statement of 
 facts, and when we ought not, requires judicious consideration. 
 For we ought to make no such statement, either if the matter 
 is notorious, or if the circumstances are free from doubt, or 
 if the adversary has related them, unless indeed we wish to 
 confute his statement; and whenever we do make a statement 
 of facts, let us not insist too eagerly upon points which may 
 create suspicion and ill-feeling, and make against us, but let 
 us extenuate such points as much as possible ; lest that should 
 happen, which, whenever it occurs, Crassus thinks is done 
 through treachery, not through folly, namely, that we damage 
 our own cause; for it concerns the fortune of the whole 
 cause, whether the case is stated with caution, or otherwise, 
 because the statement of the case is the foundation of all the 
 rest of the speech. 
 
 " What follows is, that the matter in question be laid 
 
S50 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. II. 
 
 down, when we must settle what is the point that comes under 
 dispute ; then the chief grounds of the cause are to be laid 
 down conjunctively, so as to weaken your adversary's sup- 
 ports, and to strengthen your own ; for there is in causes but 
 one method for that part of your speech, which is of efficacy 
 to prove your arguments; and that needs both confirmation 
 and refutation ; but because what is alleged on the other side 
 cannot be refuted unless you confirm your own statements, 
 and your own statements cannot be confirmed unless you 
 refute the allegations on the opposite side, these matters are 
 in consequence united both by their nature, by their object, 
 and by their mode of treatment. The whole speech is then 
 generally brought to a conclusion by some amplification on 
 the different points, or by exciting or mollifying the judge; 
 and every particular, not only in the former parts of the 
 speech, but more especially towards the conclusion, is to be 
 adapted to excite as much as possible the feelings of the 
 judges, and to incline them in our favour. 
 
 " Nor does there now appear to be any reason, indeed, why 
 we should make a distinct head of those precepts which are 
 given concerning suasory or panegyrical speeches; for most 
 of them are common to all kinds of oratory ; yet, to speak in 
 favour of any important matter, or against it, seems to me to 
 belong only to the most dignified character; for it is the part 
 of a wise man to deliver his opinion on momentous afiPairs, 
 and that of a man of integrity and eloquence, to be* able to 
 provide for others by his prudence, to confirm by his autho- 
 rity, and to persuade by his language. 
 
 LXXXII. '^ Speeches are to be made in the senate with less 
 display ; for it is an assembly of wise men ; ^ and opportunity 
 is to be left for many others to speak. All suspicion, too, of 
 ostentation of ability is to be avoided. A speech to the 
 people, on the other hand, requires all the force, weight, and 
 various colouring of eloquence. For persuading, then, nothing 
 is more desirable than worth; for he who thinks that expe- 
 diency is more desirable, does not consider what the counsellor 
 chiefly wishes, but what he prefers upon occasion to follow; 
 and there is no man, especially in so noble a state as this, 
 who does not think that worth ought chiefly to be regarded; 
 
 ^ Samens enim est consilium. These words I regard as a scholium 
 that has crept into the text. Ernesti, 
 
C. LXXXIII.] ON THE CHAEACTER OF THE ORATOR. 321 
 
 but expediency commonly prevails, there being a concealed 
 fear, that even worth cannot be supported if expediency be dis- 
 regarded. But the difference between the opinions of men lies 
 either in this question, ' which of two things is of the greater 
 utility?' or, if that point is agreed, it is disputed * whether 
 honour or expediency ought rather to be consulted.' As 
 these seem often to oppose each other, he who is an advocate 
 for expediency, will enumerate the benefits of peace, of plenty, 
 of power, of riches, of settled revenues, of troops in garrison, 
 and of other things, the enjoyment of which we estimate by 
 • their utility ; and he will specify the disadvantages of a con- 
 trary state of things. He who exhorts his audience to regard 
 honour, will collect examples from our ancestors, which may 
 be imitated with glory, though attended with danger ; he will 
 expatiate on immortal fame among posterity; he will main- 
 tain that advantage arises from the observance of honour, 
 and that it is always united with worth. But what is pos- 
 sible, or impossible ; and what is necessary or unnecessary, 
 are questions of the greatest moment in regard to both; for 
 all debate is at an end, if it is understood that a thing is 
 impossible, or if any necessity for it appears; and he who 
 shows what the case is, when others have overlooked it, 
 sees furthest of all. But for giviug counsel in civil affairs 
 the chief qualification is a knowledge of the constitution; 
 and, to speak on such matters so as to be approved, an ac- 
 j quaintance with the manners of the people is required ; and, 
 j as these frequently vary, the fashion of speaking must often 
 ' be varied ; and, although the power of eloquence is mostly 
 the same, yet, as the highest dignity is in the people, as 
 the concerns of the republic are of the utmost importance, 
 { and as the commotions of the multitude are of extraordinary 
 violence, a more grand and imposing manner of addressing 
 them seems necessary to be adopted; and the greatest part 
 of a speech is to be devoted to the excitement of the feelings, 
 ' either by exhortation, or the commemoration of some illus- 
 I trious action, or by moving the people to hope, or to fear, or 
 I to ambition, or desire of glory; and often also to dissuade 
 them from temerity, from rage, from ardent expectation, 
 from injustice, from envy, from cruelty. 
 
 LXXXIII. " But it happens that, because a popular as- 
 sembly appears to the orator to be his most enlarged scene of 
 
 Y 
 
322 DE ORATOEBj OR, [b. II. 
 
 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. 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. 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. 
 
 LXXXI V. " 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. Nor is 
 that third kind, panegyric, which I in the commencement 
 excluded, as it were, from my rules, attended with any dijBB.- 
 culty ; but it was because there are many departments of ora- 
 tory 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, 
 
 ^ Quia maxima quasi oratoH scena videiur concionis. " Because the 
 Sfreatesfc stage, as it were, for an orator, appears [tp be that] of a public 
 
 2 Celeritas. The same word is used in c. 6-k : hoc quod in celeritatt 
 atque dicto est. Schutz conjectured hilaritas. 
 
C. LXXXIV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 323 
 
 that I set this topic entirely apart. For the Greek authors 
 themselves, who are the most worthy of being read, wrote their 
 I panegyrics either for amusement, or to compliment some par- 
 ticular person, rather than with any desire to promote forensic 
 eloquence; and books of their composition are extant, in 
 which ThemistocleSj Aristides, Agesilaus, Epaminondas, Philip, 
 Alexander, and others, are the subjects of praise. Our lauda- 
 tory 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 de- 
 partment, and must occasionally write panegyrics, as Caius 
 Lselius 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 
 al&o form part of our discourse. 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 be- 
 comes chiefly conspicuous in the use and management of 
 : such things, these endowments of nature and of fortune are 
 I 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 pre- 
 I eminence over others from the abundance of the blessings of 
 I 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. Virtue, too, which is of itself praiseworthy, 
 and without which nothing can be deserving of praise, is dis- 
 tinguished, 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 m 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, ai-e subjects 
 agreef»ble to the audience in panegvric ; (for all such virtues 
 
 y2 
 
324 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 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 elo- 
 quence itself, excite indeed no less admiration, but not equal 
 dehght; 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. 
 
 LXXXY. '^ Since, also, there are certain offices and duties 
 belonging to every kind of virtue, and since to each virtue its 
 peculfar 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. 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 them- 
 selves 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 satis- 
 faction; 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 van- 
 quished by fortune, and to have maintained dignity in the 
 worst of circumstances. 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 attri- 
 bute 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 unprece- 
 dented novelty, or singular in their kind; for such as are 
 trivial, or common, or ordinary, generally appear to deserve 
 
C. LXXXVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 325 
 
 no admiration or even commendation. 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. As to the rules for censuring, it is clear that 
 they are to be deduced from the vices contrary to these vir- 
 tues; 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 stigma- 
 tized 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. 
 
 " 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 embellish- 
 ing 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 con- 
 venience, and confer a favour upon me." " 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 under- 
 taking, you must consider how you can give this company 
 satisfaction. But to return to the point ; I am not," he con- 
 tinued, '^ 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. 
 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 com- 
 posed in his praise, in which, for the sake of embellishment. 
 
S26 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. IT. 
 
 after the manner of the poets, there were many particulai s 
 introduced concerning Castor and Pollux, Scopas told Si- 
 monides, 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. 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 re- 
 ported to have discovered, that it is chiefly order that gives 
 distinctness to memory; 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. 
 
 LXXXYII. " 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 ex- 
 cellent 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 informa- 
 tion, or to him to whom you have to reply, with such power 
 of retention, that they seem not to have poured their dis- 
 course 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 
 
C. LXXXVII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 327 
 
 unanswered ; and they also remember many courses that they 
 have formerly adopted in other cases, and many which they 
 have heard from others. 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;) 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. By these 
 imaginary forms and objects, as by all those that come under 
 OUT 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 them- 
 selves to the mind, and act upon it with the greatest quickness. 
 This faculty of artificial memory practice will affurd, (from 
 which proceeds habit,) as well as the derivation of similar 
 vords 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 
 
328 DE OKATORE ; OR, [b. II. 
 
 any skilful painter, who distinguishes spaces by the variety of 
 what he depicts. 
 
 LXXXYIII. " 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. Nor is that true which is said by people un- 
 skilled 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 Scepsius Metrodorus 
 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 prac- 
 tice, if there is none given by nature ; yet certainly, if there 
 is latent natural faculty, it may be called forth. 
 
 " You have now had a very long dissertation from a person 
 whom I wish you may not esteem impudent, but who is cer- 
 tainly 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 impres- 
 sion 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. ^' 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 pcliteness and good-nature, so we 
 admire your learning and copious store of matter. Indeed I 
 
 ^ Because words are at the command of the practised orator, and, 
 when matter is supplied, easily occur. Ernesti, 
 
C. LXXXIX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 329 
 
 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 coiTCcted and 
 partly approved. 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 confinned, 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 discoui'se'? 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 ? " 
 
 " 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 1 That he is a person of consular and 
 censorial dignity 1 I might have made the same excuse. 
 Will he plead his age 1 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, cur- 
 sorily, 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 1 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." 
 
330 DE OKATORE j OR, [b. II 
 
 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 yester- 
 day, both while I was at Athens, men of the greatest learning, 
 and in Asia that famous rhetorician Scepsius Metrodorus, 
 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 unpolite, nay so almost churlish, as to think that a 
 trouble which I perceived to be your desire." ^^ 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." " Well," remarked Csesar, 
 " 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 
 
C. J.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 331 
 
 dignity^ to render himself obnoxious to such censure." " Do 
 as you please, then," rephed 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 to-morrow." 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. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 Cicero, in the introduction to this book, laments the sad deaths of 
 Crassus and Antonius. He then proceeds to relate Crassus's further 
 remarks on eloquence, and especially on style and delivery, in which 
 he was thought to excel all other speakers. See Cic. de Clar. Orat. 
 G. 38. He shows that an orator should speak correctly, perspicuously, 
 elegantly, and to the purpose. Style is to be ornamented by a taste- 
 ful choice of words, and by tropes and figures ; and it must have a 
 certain rhythm or harmony. Some observations are added on action 
 and delivery in general. In c. 14 a digression is made on the praises 
 of eloquence, and the combination of a knowledge of philosophy, 
 especially the Academic and Peripatetic, with the study of it. 
 
 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 An- 
 tonius, 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. When he 
 returned to Rome on the last day of the theatrical enter- 
 tainments,^ 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 
 
 ^ A man who has been censor, as you have been. Proust, 
 ^ Which accompanied the pubhc games. Compare i. 7^ 
 
332 DE ORATOKE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 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. 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 heredi- 
 tary 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 com- 
 monwealth by his own counsels, he should divorce the coun- 
 sels of the senate from the commonwealth. When he had 
 applied these expressions, which were like firebrands, to Phi- 
 lippus, 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 anmdled it 
 in the view of the Roman people, imagine that I can he terrified 
 hy such petty forfeitures as those ? It is not such pledges that 
 are to he forfeited, if you would bind Lucius Crassus to silence; 
 for that purpose you must cut out this tongue; and even if it 
 
 ^ Pignorihus ablatis. The senators and otliers were obliged to attend 
 
 the senate when they were summoned, and to be submissive to the 
 
 - superior magistrates, or they might be punished by fine and distraint 
 
 of their property. See Livy, iii. 38 ; xliii. 16; Plin. Ep. iv. 29; Cic 
 
 Phil. i. 5; Suet. Jul. c. 17; Adams Koman Antiquities, p. 2. 
 
C II.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 333 
 
 he torn out, the freedom in my very breath will confound your 
 audacity. 
 
 II. 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 v)anting 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. 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 folloAved; after 
 which he was struck with a chillness, and, returning home in a 
 fever, died the seventh day after of pleurisy. 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 over- 
 whelmed 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 dis- 
 charge 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. 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 after- 
 wards 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 
 
334 DE ORATORE ; OR [b. III. 
 
 the most heinous crhnes, or the affliction of his daughter, 
 or the banishment of his son-at-law/ or tiie most calami- 
 tous flight of Caius Marius, or that most atrocious of all 
 slaughters after his return, or, finally, that republic in every 
 way disgraced, in which, while it continued most flourishing, 
 he had by far the pre-eminence over all other men in glory. 
 
 Ill, 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 dis- 
 course with him? For we ourselves remember, that Quintus 
 Catulus, a man distinguished for almost every species ot 
 merit, when he entreated, not the security of his fortunes, 
 but retreat into exile, was reduced to deprive himself of life. 
 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 consti- 
 tution, 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. 
 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 
 
 ^ His daughter Licinia was married to Publius Scipio, the grandson 
 of Serap ion, who was instrumental in the death of Tiberius Gracchus 
 Cic. Brut. 58. FAlendU 
 
C. IV.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 335 
 
 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 fami- 
 liarity; but w^hen 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. 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, w^ould, on account of the civil massacres intermingled 
 with it, have been an affliction to you. 
 
 IV. Indeed, when I reflect, brother Quintus, upon the 
 calamities of these great men, (whose fates I have just men- 
 tioned,) and those which we ourselves have felt and experienced 
 from our extraordinary and eminent love for our country, 
 year 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. But, because we cannot put 
 aflairs into the same state as if nothing had occurred, 
 and because our extreme toils are compensated and miti- 
 gated by great glory, let us apply ourselves to those con- 
 solations, which are not only pleasant to us when troubles 
 have subsided, but may also be salutary while they con- 
 tinue ; let us deliver as a memorial to posterity the remain- 
 ing 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; 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 
 
336 DE ORATOEE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 does not, though what is written of him is written in a diving 
 spirit, conceive something still greater of him about whom ii 
 is written : and it is also my request, not indeed to jou, 
 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. For I, who was not 
 present at this dialogue, and to whom Caius Cotta communi- 
 cated only the topics and heads of the dissertation, have en- 
 deavoured 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 appli- 
 cation, 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. 
 
 Y. 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 coimte- 
 nance which he assumed whenever he was going to speak in 
 public, and the nature of his looks when he was fixed in con- 
 templation, 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 new 
 verging to the afternoon, waited upon Crassus, Caesar said, 
 " Well, Crassus, shall we go and take our seats? though we 
 only come to put you in mind of your promise, and not to 
 demand the performance of it." 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 
 
 -4 5.- 
 
C. VI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 337 
 
 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. 
 
 Crassus then said, " Not only the influence of your autho- 
 rity 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 lan- 
 guage. Indeed, the great men of antiquity, embracing some- 
 thing 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. 
 
 YI. " 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 leai'uing of these liberal and polite de- 
 .partments 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 cer- 
 tain wonderful gtgreement and harmony, as it were, in all the 
 sciences is discovered.' 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 
 
338 DS ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. ! 
 
 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 dis- 
 course this morning, is one and the same, into whatever tracts 
 or regions of debate it may be carried : for whether it dis- 
 courses 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 i 
 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. 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. 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 elo- 
 quence in general. 
 
 yil. " There is no one of the natural senses, in my 
 opinion, which does not include under its general compre- 
 hension 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 them- 
 selves, 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 of resemblance to each other charm the 
 rest of the senses in such a manner that it is difficult to ^ 
 
C. VIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 339 
 
 determine which affords the most exquisite enjoyment. But 
 the same observation which is to be made in regard to nature 
 may be appUed also to the different kinds of art. Sculpture 
 is a single art, in which Myro, 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 ? w^hich, though employed about the 
 same thoughts and words, yet admits of the greatest varia- 
 tions; 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. This is fully exem- 
 plified in poets, who have the nearest affinity to orators : how 
 distinct from each other are Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius; 
 how distinct, among the Greeks, ^^schylus, Sophocles, and 
 Euripides; though almost equal praise may be attributed 
 to them all in different kinds of writing. Then, behold and 
 contemplate those whose art is the subject of our present 
 
 ; inquiry ; what a wide distinction there is between the ac- 
 complishments and natural abilities of orators ! Isocrates 
 
 j possessed sweetness, Lysias delicacy, Hyperides pointedness, 
 
 ! iEschines sound, and Demosthenes energy ; and which of 
 them was not excellent ? yet which of them resembled any 
 one but himself? Africanus had w^eight, 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 1 and yet every one attained that rank by a style 
 
 \ of oratory peculiar to himself 
 
 ' VIIL " But why should I search into antiquity for exam- 
 
 I pies, when I can point to present and living characters 1 
 
 : What was ever more pleasing to the ear than the language of 
 
 I our friend Catulus ? language of such purity, that he appears 
 to be almost the only orator that speaks pure Latin; and of 
 
 1 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 / 
 
 I *way, his languaire would be impaired and deteriorated. Has/ 
 
 ' ' z2 
 
340 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 not our friend Csesar 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 s^^bjects suited to the forum with a 
 grace peculiar to the stage i in such a way ^^.at neither is the 
 jocular style excluded by i-i 3 importance ot the subject, nor 
 is the weight of the matter lessened by the humour with 
 which it is treated. 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 pro- 
 priety and aptitude of expression; he always adheres to his 
 cause, and, when he has discovered, with his keen discern- 
 ment, 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 j 
 appears of all men the best qualified by nature for eloquence. 
 IX. '^ 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 conv orsation of mankind;) what two things can 
 be more dissimilar than Antonius's manner of speaking and 
 my own *? 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 com- 
 parison with him. Do you notice what the manner of Anto- 
 nius is 1 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 difi'er very greatly from his style. What my talents 
 are it becomes not me to say, because every one is least 
 known to himself, and it is extremely difficult for any person 
 
ex.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 341 
 
 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 expecta- 
 tion and silent attention of the audience. 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 praise- 
 w^orthy that is perfect in its nature, what do you imagine 
 must be the case if w^e should take into consideration all the 
 orators that anywhere exist, or ever existed 1 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. This is not the case ; and 
 it is to be attentively considered by those who have the con- 
 duct 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 instruc- 
 tion of the teacher has been adapted to each person's natural 
 genius; 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, 1 
 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 addi- 
 tion, 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. ^^ I thought it necessary to premise these ^particulars. 
 
342 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 that if every remark of mine did not exactly adapt itself to 
 the inclinations of you all, and to that peculiar style of speak- 
 ing 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 elocu- 
 tion can be better (for I will consider action by-and-by) than ^ 
 that of speaking in pure Latin, with perspicuity, with grace- • 
 fulness, and with aptitude and congruity to the subject in 
 question ? 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 ^vhat 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 qualifica- 
 tion which we perceive indeed to be necessary, yet that none 
 can be held in less estimation.^ But all elegance of lan- 
 guage, though it receive a polish fi'om 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 ex- 
 plain; 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. ^' In order to speak pure Latin, we must take care not 
 only to use words with which nobody can justly find fault, 
 
 ^ Perspicuity. 
 
 2 This seems to be speaking rather too lightly of the merit of 
 perspicuity, which Quintilian pronounces the chief virtue of language. 
 
C. XI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 343 
 
 and preserve the construction by proper cases, and tenses, 
 and genders, and numbers, so that there may be nothing con- 
 fused, or incongruous, or preposterous; but also that the 
 tongue, and the breath, and the tone of the voice come under 
 proper regulation. I would not have letters sounded with 
 too much affectation, or uttered imperfectly through negli- 
 gence; 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. There is also a fault which some industriously 
 strive to attain; a rustic and rough pronunciation is agree- 
 able to some, that their language, if it has that tone, may 
 seem to partake more of antiquity; as Lucius Cotta, an ac- 
 quaintance 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 in- 
 troduces, 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. At 
 I Athens, learning among the Athenians themselves has long 
 I 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 speak- 
 ing 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 
 
 ^ The Asiatic Greeks. 
 
 2 Those who are bom at Rome apply themselves to the liberal 
 f sciences less than the rest of the people of Latium. Proust. 
 
344 DE ORATOREj OR, [e III. 
 
 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. " 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. Indeed when I 
 listen to my wife's mother, Lselia,^ (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 Plant us or 
 Nsevius ; 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. Our friend Gotta, there- 
 fore, whose broad manner of speaking you, Sulpicius, some- 
 times 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." " But," said 
 Crassus, " I cannot censure you, Sulpicius, without being in 
 danger of censure myself; since Antonius has declared that 
 he thinks you very similar to me."^ " But," rejoined Sulpicius, 
 ^^ as Antonius also recommended us to imitate those things 
 which were most conspicuous in any one,^ I am afraid in con- 
 sequence that I may have copied nothing from you but the 
 stamping of your foot, and a few particular expressions, and 
 
 * See Brut. c. 46. 
 
 2 The daughter of Caius Laelius Sapiens, who was married to Quintus 
 Mucins Scaevola, the augur. See Brut. c. 58 ; Quint, i. 1, 6. Ellendt, 
 
 3 See ii. 21; Brut. c. 5^. * See ii. 22. 
 
C. XIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 345 
 
 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 j) 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. '' 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 ; 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 w^ould be, if 
 he were to speak on his own business ; for the persons them- 
 selves who bring cases to us, give us in general such instruc- 
 tions, 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 pvud 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 obscmity and 
 darkness; and the speakers, in what they say, seem in a 
 manner to contradict themselves. 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 
 ^ See i. 39 ; Brut. c. 57, 62, 90. EllendU ^ Antonius and Catulus. 
 
346 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 proceed to other matters which may prove still more unsatis- 
 factory, "i 
 
 XIV. " You see," said Antonius, " how inattentive we are, 
 and how unwillingly we listen to you,^ when we might be in- 
 duced (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." 
 
 " 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? 
 What speaker do they behold with astonishment 1 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, grace- 
 fully. 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. 
 Antonius said that he had never seen any who. spoke in such 
 a manner, and observed that to such only was to be attri- 
 buted 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 ex- 
 
 ' Odiosiora. Auditoribus odiosiora, Schutz. ^ Ironicallv 
 
C. XV.] ox THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 347 
 
 amined, heard, read, discussed, handled, and considered ; 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. *^ This faculty, I say, of thinking and speaking, this 
 power of eloquence, the ancient Greeks denominated wisdom. 
 Hence the Lycurgi, the Pittaci, the Solonsj 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. 
 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 fer- 
 tility 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, 
 appears 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. But as men accustomed to 
 constant and daily employment, when they are hindered from 
 their occupation by the weather, betake themselves to play at 
 
348 DE OEATOEE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 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 them- 
 selves up wholly, some to the poets, some to the geometers, 
 some to music ; others 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. 
 
 XYI. " But, because there were some, and those not a few, 
 who either were eminent in public affairs, through their two- 
 fold 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 thai 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; 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 elo- 
 quence, 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 grace- 
 \ fully, 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. Hence arose that divorce as it 
 were of the tongue from the heart, a division certainly 
 absurd, useless, and reprehensible, that one class of persons 
 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, froni 
 his disputations, which were various, diversifi.ed, and difi"usive 
 ^i-^on all subjects, many sects as it were became propagated. 
 
C. XVI [.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 349 
 
 dissentiilg one from another, and much divided and very dis- 
 similar in opinions, though all the philosophers wished to be 
 called, and thought that thev were, Socratics. 
 
 XVII. " 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 recom- 
 mended 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 j 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 phi- 
 losophers, 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. 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 admi- 
 nistration 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 phi- 
 losophy 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. 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 
 
350 DE ORATORE ; (^U, [b. HI. 
 
 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. J 
 
 XVIII. " 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 philoso- 
 phers, have declared eloquence to be virtue and wisdom. 
 But there are two peculiarities in their doctrine, which are 
 quite unsuitable to that orator whom w^e 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;) 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 popu- 
 lace, 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, rew-^*vis and punishments, is entirely different; 
 w^hether justly or otherwise, is nothing to the present occa- 
 sion ; but if we should adopt their notions, we should never 
 be able to expedite any business by speaking. 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, w^ho had been a hearer of Plato, 
 and Polemo, who had been a hearer of Xenocrates, and 
 Grantor, 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. Arce- 
 silas, 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 
 
C. XIX. J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 351 
 
 of the mind and the senses, and to have established first the 
 practice (though it was indeed greatly ado])ted by Socrates) 
 of not declaring what he himself thought, but of disputing 
 against whatever any other person said that he thought. 
 Hence the New Academy derived its origin, in which Car- 
 neades 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 philo- 
 sopher, but I can refer for his character to two persons of 
 undoubted authority, my father-in-law Sceevola, who heard 
 him when a youth at Eome, 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 phi- 
 losopher, then almost broken with age.^ 
 
 XIX. ^' 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, abound- 
 ing 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. 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 th.e 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 fulneso than they are treated by them ; if, I say, you are 
 
 ^ Qui illv/n a se adolescente Athenis jam affectiLm senectute multos dies 
 auditum esse dicehat. " Who said that he had been heard by him when 
 a young man for many days at Athens (where he was) now affected 
 with old age." 
 
 2 Ex communi sapientium jugo. I read sapienfice with Ellendt. It is 
 a comparison, as he observes, of Socrates to a hill. 
 
352 DE oratore; or, [b.iii. 
 
 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: 
 but if you are desirous to emulate Pericles, or Demo- 
 sthenes, who is more familiar to us from his numerous 
 writings; and if you are captivated with this noble and 
 illustrious idea and excellence of a perfect orator, you must 
 include in your minds all the powers of Carneades, or those 
 of Aristotle. For, as I observed before, the ancients, till the 
 time of Socrates, united all knowledge and science in all 
 things, whether they appertained to morality, to the duties 
 of life, to virtue, or to civil government, with the faculty of 
 speaking; but afterwards, the eloquent being separated by 
 Socrates from the learned, (as I have already explained,) and 
 this distinction being continued by all the follow^ers of 
 Socrates, the philosophers disregarded eloquence, and the 
 orators philosophy; nor did they at all encroach upon each 
 other's provinces, except that the orators borrowed from the 
 philosophers, and the philosophers from the orators, such 
 things as they would have taken from the common stock if 
 they had been inclined to remain in their pristine union. 
 But as the old pontiffs, on account of the multitude of reli- 
 gious ceremonies, appointed three officers called Epulones,^ 
 though they themselves were instituted by Numa to perform 
 the epulare sacrificium at the games; so the followers of 
 Socrates excluded the pleaders of causes from their own 
 body, and from the common title of philosophers, though 
 the ancients were of opinion that there was a miraculous 
 harmony between speaking and understanding. 
 
 XX. " Such being the case, I shall crave some little indul- 
 gence for myself, and beg you to consider that whatever 
 I say, I say not of myself, but of the complete orator. For I 
 am a person, who, having been educated in my boyhood, with 
 great care on the part of my father, and having brought into 
 the forum such a portion of talent as I am conscious of possess- 
 ing, and not so much as I may perhaps appear to you to have, 
 cannot aver that I learned what I now comprehend, exactly 
 as I shall say that it ought to be learned ; since I engaged iii 
 public business most early of all men, and at one-an d- twenty [ I 
 years of age brought to trial a man of the highest rank, and \ 
 ^ See Liv. xxxiii. 42. 
 
C. XXI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 353 
 
 the greatest eloqaence;^ and the forum has been my school, 
 and practice, with the laws and institutions of the Eoman 
 people, and the customs of our ancestors, my instructors. I 
 got a small taste of those sciences of which I am speaking, 
 feeling some thirst for them, while I was quaestor in Asia, 
 having procured a rhetorician about my own age from the 
 Academy, that Metrodorus, of whose memory Antonius has 
 made honourable mention; and, on my departure from Asia, 
 at Athens, where I should have stayed longer, had I not been 
 displeased with the Athenians, who would not repeat their 
 mysteries, for which I came two days too late. The fact, 
 therefore, that I comprise within my scheme so much science, 
 and attribute so much influence to learning, makes not only 
 not in my favour, but rather against me, (for I am not con- 
 sidering what I, but what a perfect orator can do,) and against 
 all those who put forth treatises on the art of rhetoric, and 
 who are indeed obnoxious to extreme ridicule ; for they write 
 merely about the several kinds of suits, about exordia, and 
 statements of facts; but the real power of eloquence is such,^i 
 that it embraces the origin, the influence, the changes of 
 all things in the world, all virtues, duties, and all nature, so 
 far as it afiects the manners, minds, and lives of mankind. ^ 
 It can give an account of customs, laws, and rights, can ■ 
 govern a state, and speak on everything relating to any sub- 
 ject whatsoever with elegance and force. In this pursuit I 
 employ my talents as well as I can, as far as I am enabled by 
 natural capacity, moderate learning, and constant practice; 
 nor do I conceive myself much inferior in disputation to 
 those who have as it were pitched their tent for life in phi- 
 losophy alone. 
 
 XXI. " For what can my friend Caius Yelleius ^ allege, to 
 show why pleasure is the chief good, which I cannot either 
 maintain more fully, if I were so inclined, or refute, with the 
 aid of those common-places which Antonius has set forth, and 
 that habit of speaking in which Yelleius himself is unexercised, 
 but every one of us experienced 1 What is there that either 
 Sextus Pompeius, or the two Balbi,^ or my acquaintance 
 
 ^ Carbo. See note on i. 10. 
 
 2 The same that speaks, in the dialogue De Naturd Dew^umf on Xzlq 
 tenets of the Epicureans. 
 
 ^ One Balbus is a speaker in the De Nat. Deorum^ on the doctrines 
 
 A A 
 
354 DE oratore; or, [b. hi. 
 
 Marcus Yigellius, who lived with Panaetius, all men of the 
 Stoic sect, can maintain concerning virtue, in such a manner 
 that either I, or any one of you, should give place to them in 
 debate ? For philosophy is not like other arts or sciences ; 
 since what can he do in geometry, or in music, who has never 
 learned? He must be silent, or be thought a madman; but 
 the principles of philosophy are discovered by such minds as 
 have acuteness and penetration enough to extract what is 
 most probable concerning any subject, and are elegantly 
 expressed with the aid of exercise in speaking. On such 
 topics, a speaker of ordinary abilities, if he has no great 
 learning, but has had practice in declaiming, will, by virtue 
 of such practice, common to others as well as to him, beat 
 our friends the philosophers, and not suffer himself to be 
 despised and held in contempt; but if ever a person shall 
 arise who shall have abilities to deliver opinions on both 
 sides of a question on all subjects, after the manner of 
 Aristotle, and, from a knowledge of the precepts of that phi- 
 losopher, to deliver two contradictory orations on every con- 
 ceivable topic, or shall be able, after the manner of Arcesilas 
 or Carneades, to dispute against every proposition that can 
 be laid down, and shall unite with those powers rhetorical 
 skill, and practice and exercise in speaking, he will be the true, 
 the perfect, the only orator. For neither without the nervous 
 eloquence of the forum, can an orator have sufficient weight, 
 dignity, and force ; nor, without variety of learning, sufficient 
 elegance and judgment. Let us suffer that old Corax of yours,^ 
 therefore, to hatch his young birds in the nest, that they 
 may fly out disagreeable and troublesome bawlers ; and let us 
 allow Pamphilus, whoever he was,^ to depict a science of such 
 
 of the Stoics. The other, says Ellendt, is supposed to be the lawyer 
 who is mentioned by Cicero, Brut. c. 42, and who was the master of 
 Servius Sulpicius. Of Vigellius nothing is known. 
 
 ^ See i. 20. He jokes on the name of Corax, which signifies a crow. 
 
 2 Pamphilum nescio quern. Some suppose him to be the painter that 
 is mentioned as the instructor of Apelles by Pliny, H. N. xxxv. 36. 8. 
 He seems, whoever he was, to have given some fanciful map-like view 
 of the rules of rhetoric. But it is not intimated by Pliny that the 
 Pamphilus of whom he speaks was, though a learned painter, anything 
 more than a painter. A Pamphilus is mentioned by Quintilian, iii. 6. 
 34; xii. 10. 6; and by Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 23. By infulce in the text, 
 which I have rendered " flags," Ellendt supposes that something similar 
 to our printed cotton handkerchiefs, or flags hung out at booths at 
 
C. XXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 355 
 
 consequence upon flags, as if for an amusement for children ; 
 while we ourselves describe the whole business of an orator, 
 in so short a disputation as that of yesterday and to- 
 day; admitting, however, that it is of such extent as to be 
 spread through all the books of the philosophers, into which 
 none of those rhetoricians ^ has ever dipped." 
 
 XXII. Catulus then said, " It is, indeed, by no means 
 astonishing, Crassus, that there should appear in you either 
 such energy, or such agreeableness, or such copiousness of lan- 
 guage ; though I previously supposed that it was merely from 
 the force of natural genius that you spoke in such a way as 
 to seem to me not only the greatest of orators, but the 
 wisest of men ; but I now understand that you have always 
 given precedence to matters relating to philosophy, and your 
 copious stream of eloquence has flowed from that source ; and 
 yet, when I recollect the diflerent stages of your life, and 
 when I consider your manner of living and pursuits, I can 
 neither conceive at what time you acquired that learning, nor 
 can I imagine you to be strongly addicted to those studies, 
 or men, or writings ; nor can I determine at which of these 
 two things I ought most to feel surprised, that you could 
 obtain a thorough knowledge of those matters which you 
 persuade me are of the utmost assistance to oratory, amid 
 such important occupations as yours, or that, if you could 
 not do so, you can speak with such effect." Here Crassus 
 rejoined, " I would have you first of all, Catulus, persuade 
 yourself of this, that, when I speak of an orator, I speak not 
 much otherwise than I should do if I had to speak of an 
 actor; for I should say that he could not possibly give satis- 
 faction in his gesture unless he had learned the exercises of 
 the palaestra, and dancing ; nor would it be necessary that, 
 ,when I said this, I should be myself a player, though it per- 
 haps would be necessary that I should be a not unskilful 
 critic in another man's profession. In like manner I am now, 
 at your request, speaking of the orator, that is, the perfect 
 orator ; for, about whatever art or faculty inquiry is made, it 
 always relates to it in its state of absolute perfection ; and if, 
 
 i fairs, is meant. Talseus thinks that the tables of rules might have 
 been called infulce in ridicule, from their shape. 
 
 ^ Such " disagreeable and troublesome bawlers," as those from the 
 nest of Corax just mentioned. Ernesti, 
 
 aa2 
 
356 DE oeatore; or, [b. hi. 
 
 therefore, you now allow me to be a speaker, if even a pretty 
 good one, or a positively good one, I will not contradict yon ; 
 (for why should I, at my time of life, be so foolish? I know 
 that I am esteemed such;) but, if it be so, I am certainly not 
 perfect. For there is not among mankind any pursuit of 
 greater difficulty or effort, or that requires more aids from 
 learning ; but, since I have to speak of the orator, I must 
 of necessity speak of the perfect orator; for unless the 
 powers and nature of a thing be set before the eyes in their 
 utmost perfection, its character and magnitude cannot be 
 understood. Yet I confess, Catulus, that I do not at present 
 live in any great familiarity with the writings or the pro- 
 fessors of philosophy, and that, as you have rightly observed, 
 I never had much leisure to set apart for the acquisition 
 of such learning, and that I have only given to study such 
 portions of time as my leisure when I was a youth, and vaca- 
 tions from the business of the forum, have allowed me. 
 
 XXIII. '^ But if, Catulus, you inquire my sentiments on 
 that learning, I am of opinion that so much time need not be 
 spent on it by a man of ability, and one who studies with a 
 view to the forum, to the senate, to causes, to civil administra- 
 tion, as those have chosen to give to it whom life has fe,iled 
 while they were learning. For all arts are handled in one 
 manner by those who apply them to practice ; in another by 
 those who, taking delight in treating of the arts themselves, 
 never intend to do anything else during the whole course of 
 their lives. The master of the gladiators ^ is now in the ex- 
 tremity of age, yet daily meditates upon the improvement of 
 his science, for he has no other care; but Quintus Yelocius^ 
 had learned that exercise in his youth, and, as he was na- 
 turally formed for it, and had thoroughly acquired it, he was, 
 as it is said in Lucilius, 
 
 Though as a gladiator in the school 
 
 Well skill' d, and bold enough to match with any, 
 
 yet resolved to devote more attention to the duties of the forum, 
 and of friendship, and to his domestic concerns. Valerius^ 
 sung every day ; for he was on the stage ; what else was he 
 
 ^ See note on ii. 80. 
 
 2 This name was introduced on the conjecture of Victorius. Pre- 
 viously the passage was unintelligible. 
 
 ^ Of Valerius and Furius nothing is known. Ellendt. 
 
C. XXIV.J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 357 
 
 to do 1 But our friend Numerius Furius sings only when it 
 is agreeable to him ; for he is the head of a family, and of 
 equestrian dignity ; he learned when a boy as much as it was 
 necessary for him to learn. The case is similar with regard 
 to sciences of the greatest importance ; we have seen Quintus 
 Tubero,^ a man of eminent virtue and prudence, engaged in 
 the study of philosophy night and day, but his uncle Africa- 
 nus ^ you could scarcely ever perceive paying any attention 
 to it, though he paid a great deal. Such knowledge is easily 
 gained, if you only get as much of it as is necessary, and 
 have a faithful and able instructor, and know how to learn 
 yourself But if you are inclined to do nothing else all your 
 life, your very studies and inquiries daily give rise to some- 
 thing for you to investigate as an amusement at your leisure ; 
 thus it happens, that the investigation of particular points is 
 endless, though general knowledge is easy, if practice establish 
 learning once acquired, moderate exercise be devoted to it, 
 and memory and inclination continue. But it is pleasant to 
 be constantly learning, if we wish to be thoroughly masters 
 of anything ; as if I, for instance, had a desire to play excel- 
 lently at backgammon, or had a strong attachment to tennis, 
 though perhaps I should not attain perfection in those games ; 
 but others, because they excel in any performance, take a 
 more vehement delight in it than the object requires, as 
 Titius ^ in tennis, BruUa in backgammon. There is no reason, 
 therefore, why any one should dread the extent of the sciences 
 because he perceives old men still learning them ; for either 
 they were old men when they first applied to them, or have 
 been detained in the study of them till they became old ; or 
 are of more than ordinary stupidity. And the truth in my 
 opinion is, that a man can never learn thoroughly that which 
 he has not been able to learn quickly." 
 
 XXI y. " Now, now," exclaimed Catulus, " I understand, 
 Crassus, what you say, and readily assent to it ; I see that there 
 has been time enough for you, a man of vigour and ability to 
 learn, to acquire a knowledge of what you mention." " Do you 
 still persist," rejoined Crassus, " to think that I say what I say 
 of myself, and not of nay subject ? But, if it be agreeable to 
 
 * Cic. Tusc. Qusest. iv. 2 ; Fin. iv. 9. 
 2 «ee ii. 37. 
 
 * Titius is mentioned ii. 62. Of Brulla nothing is known. EllendU 
 
358 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 yoa, let us now return to our stated business." " To me," 
 said Catulus, " it is very agreeable.'^ 
 
 " To what end, then," continued Crassus, " does this dis- 
 course, drawn out to so great a length, and brought from 
 such deep sources, tend '1 The two parts which remain for 
 me, that of adorning language, and contemplating eloquence 
 in general in its highest perfection, — one of which requires 
 that we should speak gracefully, the other aptly, — have this 
 influence, that eloquence is rendered by their means pro- 
 ductive of the utmost delight, made to penetrate effectually 
 into the inmost hearts of the audience, and furnished with 
 all possible variety of matter. But the speech which we use 
 in the forum, adapted for contest, full of acrimony, formed 
 to suit the taste of the vulgar, is poor indeed and beggarly ; 
 and, on the other hand, even that which they teach who pro- 
 fess themselves masters of the art of speaking, is not of much 
 more dignity than the common style of the forum. We have 
 need of greater pomp,^ of choice matter collected, imported, 
 and brought together from all parts; such a provision as 
 must be made by you, Caesar, for the next year,^ with such 
 pains as I took in my sedileship, because I did not suppose 
 that I could satisfy such a people as ours with ordinary mat- 
 ters, or those of their own country. 
 
 " As for choosing and arranging words, and forming them 
 into proper periods, the art is easy, or, I may say, the mere 
 practice without any art at all. Of matter, the quantity and 
 variety are infinite; and as the Greeks^ were not properly 
 furnished with it, and our youth in consequence almost 
 grew ignorant while they were learning, even Latin teachers 
 of rhetoric, please the gods, have arisen within the last two 
 years; a class of persons whom I had suppressed by my 
 edict,^ when I was censor, not because I was unwilling (as 
 
 ^ Apjpai^atu. In allusion, says Petavius, to the shows given by the 
 sediles. 
 
 ^ Ad annum. That of his sedileship. Ernesti. 
 
 ^ The Greek rhetoricians. Pearce. 
 
 * Quintilian refers to this passage, ii. 4. 42 The edict of the 
 
 censors Crassus and Ahenobarbus, which was marked by all the 
 ancient severity, is preserved in Aul. Gell. xv. 11 ; and Suetonius, De 
 Clar. Ehet. prooem. Crassus intimates that that class of men sprung up 
 again after his edict ; for the censors had not such power that their 
 mere prohibitions could continue in force after their term of office was 
 expired. Ellendt, 
 
C. XXV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 359 
 
 some, I know not who, asserted,) that the abilities of our 
 youth should be improved, but because I did not wish that 
 their understandings should be weakened and their impudence 
 strengthened. For among the Greeks, whatever was their 
 ( character, I perceived that there was, besides exercise of the 
 I tongue, some degree of learning, as well as politeness suited 
 to liberal knowledge; but I knew that these new masters 
 could teach youth nothing but effrontery, which, even when 
 joined with good qualities, is to be avoided, and, in itself, 
 especially so ; and as this, therefore, was the only thing that 
 was taught by the Latins, their school being indeed a school 
 of impudence, I thought it became the censor to take care 
 that the evil should not spread further. I do not, however, 
 determine and decree on the point, as if I despa.ired that the 
 subjects which we are discussing can be delivered, and treated 
 with elegance, in Latin ; for both our language and the nature 
 of things allows the ancient and excellent science of Greece to 
 be adapted to our customs and manners; but for such a work 
 are required men of learning, such as none of our country- 
 men have been in this department; but if ever such arise, 
 they will be preferable to the Greeks themselves. 
 
 XXV. "A speech, then, is to be made becoming in its 
 kind, with a sort of complexion and substance of its own ; for 
 that it be weighty, agreeable, savouring of erudition and 
 liberal knowledge, worthy of admiration, polished, having 
 feeling and passion in it, as far as is required, are qualities 
 not confined to particular members, but are apparent in the 
 whole body; but that it be, as it were, strewed with flowers 
 of language and thought, is a property which ought not to be 
 equally diffused throughout the whole speech, but at such, 
 intervals, that, as in the arrangement of ornaments,^ there '^ 
 may be certain remarkable and luminous objects disposed/ 
 here and there. Such a kind of eloquence, therefore, is to be 
 chosen, as is most adapted to interest the audience, such as 
 may not only delight, but delight without satiety; (for I do 
 not imagine it to be expected of me, that I should admonish 
 you to beware that your language be not poor, or rude, or 
 vulgar, or obsolete; both your age and your geniuses en- 
 ( courage me to something of a higher nature ;) for it is difficult 
 
 * In ornatu. The arrangement of such ornaments as were displayed 
 at games and festivals. 
 
360 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. III. 
 
 to tell what the cause is why, from those objects which 
 most strongly strike our senses with pleasure, and occasion 
 the most violent emotions at their first appearance, we should 
 soonest turn away with a certain loathing and satiety. How 
 much more florid, in the gaiety and variety of the colouring, 
 are most objects in modern pictures than in ancient ones; 
 which, however, though they captivate us at first sight, do 
 not afford any lasting pleasure; whereas we are strongly 
 attracted by rough and faded colouring in the paintings of 
 antiquity. How much softer and more delicate are fanciful ^ 
 modulations and notes in music, than those which are strict 
 and grave ; and yet if the former are often repeated, not only 
 persons of an austere character, but even the multitude, raise 
 an outcry against them. We may perceive, too, in regard to 
 the other senses, that we take a less permanent delight in 
 perfumes composed of the sweetest and most powerful odours, 
 than in those of a more moderate scent ; that that is more 
 commended which appears to smell like wax, than that which 
 is as strong as saffron ; and that, in the sense of feeling itself, 
 there is a limit required both to softness and smoothness. 
 How soon does even the taste, which of all our senses is the 
 \ most desirous of gratification, and is delighted with sweetness 
 ^ 1 beyond the others, nauseate and reject that which is too 
 j luscious ! Who can take sweet drinks and meats long 
 1 together ? while, in both kinds of nutriment, such things as 
 I affect the sense with but a slight pleasure are the furthest 
 \ removed from that satiating quality; and so, in all other 
 ^ \ things, loathing still borders upon the most exquisite delights ; 
 ^ \ and therefore we should the less wonder at this effect in lan- 
 guage, in which we may form a judgment, either from the 
 poets or the orators, that a style elegant, ornate, embellished, 
 and sparkling, without intermission, without restraint, with- 
 , out variety, whether it be prose or poetry, though painted 
 I with the brightest colours, cannot possibly give lasting 
 ' pleasure. And we the sooner take offence at the false locks 
 and paint of the orator or poet, for this cause, that the senses, 
 when affected with too much pleasure, are satiated, not from 
 reason, but constitutionally; in writings and in speeches 
 these disguised blemishes are even more readily noticed, not 
 
 ^ Falsce. Fractse et molliores. Ernesti, 
 
C. XXVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 361 
 
 only from the judgment of the ear, but from that of the 
 understanding. 
 
 XXYI. '^ Though such expressions of applause, therefore, as 
 * very well,' ^ excellent,' may be often repeated to me, I would 
 not have ^ beautifully,' ' pleasantly,' come too often ; yet 1 
 would, have the exclamation, ' Nothing can be better,' verj^ 
 frequent. But this high excellence and merit in speaking 
 should be attended with some portions of shade and obscurity, 
 that the part on which a stronger light is thrown may seem 
 to stand out, and become more prominent. Roscius never 
 delivers this passage with all the spirit that he can, 
 
 The wise man seeks for honour, not for spoil, 
 As the reward of virtue ; 
 
 but rather in an abject manner, that into the next speech, 
 
 What do I see ? the steel-girt soldier holds 
 The sacred seats, 
 
 he may throw his whole powers, may gaze, may express wonder 
 and astonishment. How does the other great actor ^ utter 
 What aid shall I solicit ? 
 
 How gently, how sedately, how calmly ! For he proceeds 
 with 
 
 father ! my country ! House of Priam ! 
 
 in which so much action could not be exerted if it had been 
 consumed and exhausted by any preceding emotion. Nor 
 did the actors discover this before the poets themselves, or, 
 indeed, before even those who composed the music, by both of 
 whom their tone is sometimes lowered, sometimes heightened, 
 sometimes made slender, sometimes full, with variation and 
 distinction. Let our orator, then, be thus graceful and de- 
 lightful (nor can he indeed be so otherwise) ; let him have a 
 severe and solid grace, not a luscious and delicious sweetness j 
 for the precepts relative to the ornament of eloquence, which 
 ai*e commonly given, are of such a nature that even the worst 
 speaker can observe them. It is first of all necessary, there- 
 fore, as I said before, that a stock of matter and thoughts be 
 got together ; a point on which Antonius has already spoken ; 
 these are to be interwoven into the very thread and essence 
 of the oration, embellished by words, and diversified by 
 illustrations. 
 
 ^ ^sopus, as I suppose. Ellendt ; who observes that the verses are 
 from the Andromache of Ennius. See c. 47, 58 ; Tusc. Disp. iii. 19. 
 
362 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. III. 
 
 " But the greatest glory of eloquence is to exaggerate a 
 subject by embellishment; which has effect not only in am- 
 plifying and extolling anything in a speech to an extra- 
 ordinary degree, but also in extenuating it, and making it 
 appear contemptible. XXVII. This is required on all those 
 points which Antonius said must be observed in order to 
 gain credit to our statements, when we explain anything, or 
 when we conciliate the feelings, or when we excite the pas- 
 sions of our audience ; but in the particular which I men- 
 tioned last, amplification is of the greatest effect ; and excel- 
 lence in it the pecuhar and appropriate praise of the orator. 
 Even that exercise is of more than ordinary importance 
 which Antonius illustrated ^ in the latter part of his disser- 
 tation, (in the beginning ^ he set it aside,) I mean that of 
 panegyric and satire ; for nothing is a better preparative for 
 exaggeration and amplification in a speech than the talent of 
 performing both these parts in a most effective manner. 
 Consequently, even those topics are of use which, though 
 they ought to be proper to causes, and to be inherent in 
 their very vitals, yet, as they are commonly applied to ge- 
 neral subjects, have been by the ancients denominated com- 
 mon places; of which some consist in bitter accusations and 
 complaints against vices and crimes, with a certain amplifica- 
 tion, (in opposition to which nothing is usually said, or can 
 be said,) as against an embezzler of the public money, or 
 a traitor, or a parricide ; remarks which we ought to intro- 
 duce when the charges have been proved, for otherwise they 
 are jejune and trifling; others consist in entreaty or com- 
 miseration; others relate to contested points of argument, 
 whence you may be enabled to speak fully on either side of 
 any general question, an exercise which is now imagined to 
 be peculiar to those two sects of philosophy^ of which I spoke 
 before ; among those of remote antiquity it belonged to those 
 from whom all the art and power of speaking in forensic 
 pleadings was derived;^ for concerning virtue, duty, justice 
 and equity, dignity, utility, honour, ignominy, rewards and 
 punishments, and similar subjects, we ought to possess the 
 spirit, and talent, and address, to speak on either side of the 
 
 1 B. ii. c. 84. 2 B. ii. c. 10. ' 
 
 ^ The Academic and Peripatetic ; see iii. 17, 18. Promt, 
 
 * Those who taught forensic eloquence. Proust. 
 
C. XX VII I.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 363 
 
 question. Bat since, being driven from our own possessions, 
 we are left in a poor little farm, and even that the subject of 
 litigation, and since, though the patrons of others, we have 
 not been able to preserve and protect our own property, let 
 us borrow what is requisite for us (which is a notable dis- 
 grace) from those ^ who have made this irruption into our 
 patrimony. 
 
 XXYIII. " Those, then, who take their name from a very 
 small portion ^ of Athens and its neighbourhood, and are 
 denominated Peripatetic or Academic philosophers, but who 
 formerly, on account of their eminent knowledge in important 
 affairs, were by the Greeks called political philosophers, being 
 distinguished by a name relating to all public administration, 
 say that every speech on civil affairs is employed on one or 
 other of these two kinds of questions, either that of a de- 
 finite controversy limited to certain times and parties; as, 
 ' Whether is it proper that our captives be recovered from 
 the Carthaginians by the restitution of theirs ? ' or on an 
 indefinite question, inquiring about a subject generally; as, 
 'What should be determined or considered concerning captives 
 in general?' Of these, they term the former kind a cause or\ 
 controversy, and limit it to three things, law-suits, delibera-/ 
 tions, and panegyric ; but the other kind of question, or pro- 
 position as it were, the indefinite, is denominated a consulta- 
 tion.^ So far they instruct us. The rhetoricians, however, 
 use this division in their instructions, but not so that they 
 seem to recover a lost possession by right, by a decision in 
 their favour, or by force, but appear, according to the prac- 
 tice of the civil law, to assert their claim to the premises by 
 breaking off a branch;^ for they keep possession of that 
 former kind which is restricted to certain times, places, and 
 parties, and that as it were by the hem of the garment ; ^ for 
 at this present time, under Philo,^ who flourishes, I hear, as 
 
 ^ The philosophers. 
 
 ^ From the Academy, and the gymnasia in the suburbs of Athens. 
 Ellendt. 
 
 3 Consultatio. See Cic. Part. Orat. i. 18, 20. 
 
 ^ A ceremony by which a claim to a possession was made. See Gaius, 
 iv. 17. 
 
 ^ Lacinia. Like persons who scarcely keep their hold of a thing. 
 Elltndt. 
 
 ^ Philo of Larissa, called by some the founder of a fourth Academy, 
 was a hearer of Chtomachus, Acad. ii. 6. He fled to Rome, with many 
 
364 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. III. 
 
 chief of the Academy, the knowledge and practice of even 
 these causes is much observed; as to the latter kind, they 
 only mention it in delivering the first principles of the art, 
 and say that it belongs to the orator; but neither explain its 
 powers, nor its nature, nor its parts, nor general heads, so 
 that it had better have been passed over entirely, than left 
 when it was once attempted ; for they are now understood to 
 say nothing about it for want of something to say; in the 
 other case, they would have appeared to be silent from 
 judgment. 
 
 XXIX. " Every subject, then, has the same susceptibleness 
 of ambiguity, concerning which it may be inquired and dis- 
 puted ; whether the discussion relate to consultations on inde- 
 finite points, or to those causes which are concerned with 
 civil afikirs and contests in the forum ; nor is there any that 
 may not be referred either to the nature and principles of 
 knowledge or of action. For either the knowledge itself and 
 acquaintance with any affair is the object of inquiry; as, 
 ' Whether virtue be desirable on account of its own intrinsic 
 worth, or for the sake of some emolument attending if?' or 
 counsel with regard to an act is sought ; as, ' Whether a wise 
 man ought to concern himself in the administration of go- 
 vernment ? ' And of knowledge there are three kinds, — that 
 which is formed by conjecture, that which admits of certain 
 definition, and that which is (if I may so term it) conse- 
 quential. For whether there be anything in any other thing, 
 is inquired by conjecture; as, 'Whether there is wisdom in 
 mankind *? ' But what nature anything has, a definition ex- 
 plains ; as if the inquiry be, ' What is wisdom ? ' And con- 
 sequential knowledge is the subject treated of, when the 
 question is, 'What peculiarity attends on anything?' as, 
 * Whether it be the part of a good man to tell a falsehood on 
 any occasion ?' But to conjecture they return again, and divide 
 it into four kinds ; for the question is either, ' What a thing 
 is,' as, ' Whether law among mankind is from nature or fi:om 
 opinions?' or, 'What the origin of a thing is,' as, 'What is 
 the foundation of civil laws and governments ? ' or the cause 
 
 of the chief men of Athens, in the Mithridatic war, when Cicero, then 
 a young man, attended diligently to his instructions. Brut. 89 ; Plut. 
 Cic. c. 3. He sometimes gave instructions in rhetoric, sometimes in 
 philosophy, as appears from Tusc. Disp. ii. 3. Henrichsen, 
 
C. XXX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 36o 
 
 and reason of it; as if it is asked, ^ Why do the most learned 
 men differ upon points of the greatest importance V or as to 
 the possible changes in anything ; as if it is disputed, ' Whe- 
 ther virtue can die in men, or whether it be convertible into 
 vice?' With regard to definition, disputes arise, either when 
 the question is, '' What is impressed, as it were, on the com- 
 mon understanding f as if it be considered, ' Whether that be 
 right which is advantageous to the greater number"?' or 
 when it is inquired, ' What is the peculiar property of any 
 character?' as, 'Whether to speak elegantly be peculiar to 
 the orator, or whether any one else can do so ? ' or when 
 a thing is distributed into parts ; as if the question be, ' How 
 many kinds of desirable things there are?' and, ^Whether 
 there be three, those of the body, those of the mind, and 
 external things V or when it is described what is the form or, 
 as it were, natural characteristic of any person; as if it be 
 inquired, ' What is the exact representation of an avaricious, 
 a seditious, or a vain-glorious man?' Of the consequential, 
 two principal kinds of questions are proposed; for the ques- 
 tion is either simple, as if it be disputed, ' Whether glory be 
 desirable ? ' or comparative, ' Whether praise or wealth is 
 more to be coveted ? ' But of such simple questions there are 
 three sorts, as to things that are to be desired or avoided; 
 as, ^ Whether honours are desirable V ' Whether poverty is to 
 be avoided V as to right and wrong; as, 'Whether it be right 
 to revenge injuries, even those of relations?' as to honour 
 and ignominy ; as, ' Whether it be honourable to suffer death 
 for the sake of glory ?' Of the comparative also there are two 
 sorts : one, when the question is whether things are the same, 
 or there be any difference betwixt them; as betwixt /ear and 
 reverence, a king and a tyrant, a flatterer and a friend; the 
 other, when the inquiry is, ' Which of two things is pre- 
 ferable?' as, ' Whether wise men are led by the approbation 
 of the most worthy, or by popular applause V Thus are the 
 controversies which relate to knowledge described, for the 
 most part, by men of the greatest learning. 
 
 XXX. " But those which relate to action, either concern 
 controverted points of moral duty, under which head it may 
 be inquired, ' What is right and to be practised ; ' of which 
 head the whole train of virtues and of vices is the subject- 
 matter ; or refer to the excitement, or alleviation, or removal 
 
3G6 DE oratorb; or, [b. hi. 
 
 of some emotion of the mind. Under this head are included 
 exhortation, reproof, consolation, compassion, and all that 
 either gives impulse to any emotion of the mind, or, if it so 
 happen, mitigates it. These kinds, then, and modes of all 
 questions being explained, it is of no consequence if the 
 partition of Antonius in any particular disagrees with my 
 division ; for there are the same parts in both our disserta- 
 tions, though divided and distributed by me a little otherwise 
 than by him. Now I will proceed to the sequel, and recall ■ 
 myself to my appointed task and business. For the argu- 
 ments for every kind of question are to be drawn from 
 those common places which Antonius enumerated ; but some 
 common places will be more adapted to some kinds than to 
 others; concerning which there is no necessity for me to 
 speak, not because it is a matter of any great length, but of 
 sufficient perspicuity. 
 
 '' Those speeches, then, are the most ornate which spread 
 over the widest field, and, from some private and single 
 question, apply and direct themselves to show the nature of 
 such questioDs in general, so that the audience, from under- 
 standing its nature, and kind, and whole bearing, may deter- 
 mine as to particular individuals, and as to all suits criminal 
 and civil. Antonius has encouraged you, young men, to per- 
 severance in this exercise, and intimated that you were to be 
 conducted by degrees from small and confined questions to 
 all the power and varieties of argument. Such qualifications 
 are not to be gained from a few small treatises, as they have 
 imagined who have written on the art of speaking; nor are 
 they work merely for a Tusculan villa, or for a morning 
 walk and afternoon sitting, such as these of ours; for we 
 have not only to point and fashion the tongue, but have to 
 store the mind with the sweetness, abundance, and variety of 
 most important and numerous subjects. 
 
 XXXI. ^' For ours is the possession (if we are indeed 
 orators, if we are to be consulted as persons of authority and 
 leaders in the civil contests and perils of the citizens and in 
 public councils), ours, I say, is the entire possession of all that 
 wisdom and learning, upon which, as if it were vacant and 
 had fallen in to them, men abounding in leisure have seized, 
 taking advantage of us, and either speak of the orator with 
 ridicule and sarcasm, as Socrates in the Gorgias, or write 
 
C. XXXII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 367 
 
 something on the art of oratory in a few little treatises, and 
 call them books on rhetoric ; as if all those things did not 
 equally concern the orator, which are taught by the same 
 philosophers on justice, on the duties of life, on the establish- 
 ment and administration of civil government, and on the 
 whole systems of moral and even natural philosophy. These 
 matters, since we cannot get them elsewhere, we must now 
 borrow from those very persons by whom we have been pil- 
 laged; so that we apply them to the knowledge of civil 
 affairs, to which they belong, and have a regard ; nor let us 
 (as I observed before) consume all our lives in this kind 
 of learning, but, when we have discovered the fountains, 
 (which he who does not find out immediately will never find 
 at all,) let us draw from them as much as occasion may re- 
 quire, as often as we need. For neither is there so sharp 
 a discernment in the nature and understanding of man, that 
 any one can descry things of such importance, unless they 
 are pointed out ; nor yet is there so much obscurity in the 
 things, that a man of penetrating genius cannot obtain an 
 insight into them, if he only direct his view towards them. 
 As the orator therefore has liberty to expatiate in so large 
 and immense a field, and, wherever he stops, can stand upon 
 • his own territory, all the furniture and embellishments of 
 eloquence readily offer themselves to him. For copiousness 
 of matter produces copiousness of language; and, if there 
 be an inherent dignity in the subjects on which he speaks, 
 there must be, from the nature of the thing, a certain 
 splendour in his expression. If the speaker or writer has but 
 been liberally instructed in the learning proper for youth, 
 and has an ardent attachment to study, and is assisted By 
 natural endowments, and exercised in those indefinite ques- 
 tions on general subjects, and has chosen, at the same time, 
 the most elegant writers and speakers to study and imitate, 
 he will never, be assured, need instruction from such pre- 
 ceptors how to compose or embellish his language ; so readily, 
 in an abundance of matter, will nature herself, if she be but 
 stimulated, fall without any guide into all the art of adorning 
 eloquence.*' 
 
 XXXII. Catulus here observed, '^ Ye immortal gods, what 
 an infinite variety, force, and extent of matter have you, 
 Crassus, embraced, and from how narrow a circle have you 
 
3C8 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. III. 
 
 ventured to lead forth the orator, and to place him in the 
 domains of his ancestors! For we have understood that 
 those ancient masters and authors of the art of speaking 
 considered no kind of disputation to be foreign to their pro- 
 fession, but were always exercising themselves in every branch 
 of oratory. Of which number was Hippias of Elis, who, 
 when he came to Olympia, at the time of the vast concourse 
 at the games celebrated every fifth year, boasted, in the 
 hearing of almost all Greece, that there w^as no subject in 
 any art or science of which he was ignorant; as he under- 
 stood not only those arts in which all liberal and polite 
 learning is comprised, geometry, music, grammar, and poetry, 
 and whatever is said on the natures of things, the moral 
 duties of men, and the science of government, but that he 
 had himself made, with his own hand, the ring which he 
 wore, and the cloak and shoes which he had on.^ He indeed 
 went a little too far; but, even from his example, we may 
 easily conjecture how much knowledge those very orators 
 desired to gain in the most noble arts, when they did not 
 shrink from learning even the more humble. Why need I 
 allude to Prodicus of Chios, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, or 
 Protagoras of Abdera ? every one of whom in those days dis- 
 puted and wrote much even on the nature of things. Even 
 Gorgias the Leontine himself, under whose advocacy (as 
 Plato represented) the orator yielded to the philosopher;^ who 
 was either never defeated in argument by Socrates, (and then 
 the Dialogue of Plato is wholly fictitious,) or, if he was so de- 
 feated, it was because Socrates was the more eloquent and 
 convincing, or, as you term it, the more powerful and better 
 orator; — but this Gorgias, in that very book of Plato, ofiers 
 to speak most copiously on any subject whatever, that could 
 be brought under discussion or inquiry; and he was the first 
 of all men that ventured to demand, in a large assembly, on 
 what subject any one desired to hear him speak; and to 
 whom such honours were paid in Greece, that to him alone, 
 of all great men, a statue was erected at Delphi, not gilded, 
 but of solid gold. Those whom I have named, and many 
 
 1 See Plato, Hipp. Min. p. 231 G. 
 
 ^ Gorgias, in the Dialogue of Plato, undertakes the defence of 
 oratory against Socrates, whom Plato represents as maintaining the 
 dignity of philosophy. Gorgias is vanquished by Socrates. Proust. 
 
C. XXXIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 369 
 
 other most consummate masters in the art of speaking, 
 flourished at the same time; from whose examples it may 
 be understood, that the truth is really such as you, Crassus, 
 have stated, and that the name of the orator was distin- 
 guished among the ancients in Greece in a more extensive 
 sense, and with greater honour than among ourselves. I am 
 therefore the more in doubt whether I should attribute 
 a greater degree of praise to you, or of blame to the Greeks ; 
 since you, born under a different language and manners, in 
 the busiest of cities, occupied either with almost all the private 
 causes of the people, or with the government of the world 
 and the direction of the mightiest of empires, have mastered 
 such numbers of subjects, and acquired so extensive a know- 
 ledge, and have united all this with the science and practice 
 of one who is of authority in the republic by his counsels 
 and eloquence ; whilst they, born in an atmosphere of learning, 
 ardently attached to such studies, but dissolved in idleness, 
 have not only made no acquisitions, but have not even 
 preserved as their own that which was left and consigned to 
 them." 
 
 XXXIII. Crassus then said, " Not only in this particular, 
 Catulus, but in many others, the grandeur of the sciences 
 has been diminished by the distribution and separation of 
 their parts. Do you imagine, that when the famous Hippo- ^ 
 crates of Cos flourished, there were then some of the medical 
 faculty who cured diseases, others wounds, and a third class 
 the eyes? Do you suppose that geometry under Euclid and 
 ! Archimedes, that music under Damon and Aristoxenus, that 
 1 grammar itself when Aristophanes and Callimachus treated 
 of it, were so divided into parts, that no one comprehended 
 j the universal system of any of those sciences, but different 
 ! persons selected different parts on which they meant to 
 bestow their labour? I have, indeed, often heard from my 
 father and father-in-law, that even our own countrymen, who 
 were ambitious to excel in renown for wisdom, were wont to 
 comprehend all the objects of knowledge which this city had 
 then learned. They mentioned, as an instance of this, Sextus 
 iElius; and we ourselves have seen Manius Manilius walking 
 across the forum ; a signal that he who did so, gave all the 
 citizens liberty to consult him upon any subject; and to such 
 persons, when thus walking or sitting at home upon their seats 
 
 B B 
 
370 DB ORATOKB ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 of ceremony, all people had free access, not only to consult 
 them upon points of civil law, but even upon the settlement 
 of a daughter in marriage, the purchase of an estate, or the 
 cultivation of a farm, and indeed upon any employment or 
 business whatsoever. Such was the wisdom of the well- 
 known elder Publius Crassus, such that of Titus Coruncanius, 
 such that of the great-grandfather of Scipio, my son-in-law, a 
 person of great judgment; all of whom were supreme pon- 
 tiffs, so that they were consulted upon all affairs, divine 
 and human ; and* the same men gave their counsel and dis- 
 charged their duty in the senate, before the people, and in 
 the private causes of their friends, in civil and military 
 service, both at home and abroad. What was deficient in 
 Marcus Cato, except the modern polish of foreign and ad- 
 ventitious learning? Did he, because he was versed in the 
 civil law, forbear from pleading causes'? or, because he could 
 speak, neglect the study of jurisprudence? He laboured in 
 both these kinds of learning, and succeeded in both. Was 
 he, by the popularity which he acquired by attending to the 
 business of private persons, rendered more tardy in the 
 public service of the state? No man spoke with more 
 courage before the people, none was ever a better senator; 
 he was at the same time a most excellent commander-in- 
 chief; and indeed nothing in those days could possibly be 
 known or learned in this city which he did not investigate 
 and thoroughly understand, and on which he did not also 
 write. Now, on the contrary, men generally come to assume 
 offices and the duties of public administration unarmed and 
 defenceless; prepared with no science, nor any knowledge of 
 business. But if any one happen to excel the multitude, he 
 is elevated with pride by the possession of any single talent, 
 as military courage, or a little experience in war, (which 
 indeed has now fallen into decay,^) or a knowledge of the 
 law, (not of the whole law, for nobody studies the pontifical 
 law, which is annexed to civil jurisprudence,^) or eloquence, 
 
 ^ For, except Metellus Numidicus and Marius, no one in those days 
 had gained any great reputation by his conduct in the field. 
 
 2 Quod est conjunctum. That is, "conjunctum cum jure civili.** 
 Proust. What Cicero says here is somewhat at variance with what he 
 says, De Legg. ii. 19, where he shows, at some length, that only a small 
 part of the civil law is necessary to be combined with the knowledge of 
 the pontifical law. EUendt. 
 
C. XXXIV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 371 
 
 ■ (which they imagine to consist in declamation and a torrent 
 ^ of words.) while none have any notion of the alhance and 
 ' affinity that connects all the liberal arts and sciences, and 
 even the virtues themselves. 
 
 "I XXX iV. " But to direct my remarks to the Greeks, (whom 
 iwe cannot omit in a dissertation of this nature; for as exam- 
 ples of virtue are to be sought among our own countrymen, 
 so examples of learning are to be derived from them;) seven 
 are said to have lived at one time, who were esteemed and 
 denominated wise men. All these, except Thales of Miletus, 
 ' had the government of their respective cities. Whose learning 
 is reported, at the same period, to have been greater, or 
 whose eloquence to have received more ornament from 
 literature, than that of Pisislratus ? who is said to have been 
 the first that arranged the books of Homer as we now have 
 them, when they were previously confused. He was not 
 indeed of any great service to the community, but was 
 eminent for eloquence, at the same time that he excelled in 
 erudition and liberal knowledge. What was the character of 
 Pericles 1 — of whose power in speaking we have heard, that 
 when he spoke for the good of his countiy against the incli- 
 nations of the Athenians, that very severity with which he 
 contradicted the favourites of the people, became popular 
 and agreeable to all men ; and on whose lips the old 
 comic poets declared, (even when they satirized him, as was 
 then lawful to be done at Athens,) that the graces of per- 
 suasion dwelt, and that there was such mighty energy in him 
 that he left, as it were, certain stings in the minds of those 
 !who listened to him. Yet no declaimer had taught him 
 to bawl for hours by the water-clock, but, as we have it from 
 tradition, the famous Anaxagoras of Clazomense, a man emi- 
 nent in all the most valuable sciences, had instructed him. 
 He, accordingly, excelling as he did in learning, judgment, 
 md eloquence, presided at Athens forty years together over 
 3ivil and military affairs. What was the character of Critias, 
 >r of Alcibiades ? They were not indeed useful members of 
 lie state in which they lived, but were certainly men of 
 earning and eloquence ; and were they not improved by con- 
 versation with Socrates'? Who instructed Dion of Syracuse 
 n every branch of learning 1 Was it not Plato ? The same 
 llustrious philosopher, too, who formed him not to oratory 
 
 bb2 
 
372 DE ORATORE j OR, [b. Ill, 
 
 only, but to courage and virtue, impelled, equipped, and 
 armed him to deliver his country. Did Plato, then, instruct 
 Dion in sciences different from those in which Tsocrates 
 formed the renowned Timotheus the son of Conon the 
 eminent general, and himself a most excellent commander, 
 and a man of extensive learning? Or from those in which 
 Lysis the Pythagorean trained Epaminondas of Thebes, who 
 perhaps was the most remarkable man of all Gieece? Or 
 from those which Xenophon taught Agesilaus, or Archytas 
 of Tarentum Philolaus, or Pythagoras himself all that old 
 province of Italy which was formerly called Great Greece? 
 XXXY. I do not imagine that they were different ; for I see 
 that one and the same course of study comprised all those 
 branches of knowledge which were esteemed necessary for 
 a man of learning, and one who wished to become eminent 
 in civil administration ; and that they who had received this 
 knowledge, if they had sufficient powers for speaking in 
 public, and devoted themselves, without any impediment 
 from nature, to oratory, became distinguished for eloquence. 
 Aristotle himself, accordingly, when he saw Isocrates grow 
 remarkable for the number and quality of his scholars, [be- 
 cause he himself had diverted his lectures from forensic and 
 civil causes to mere elegance of language,^] changed on a 
 sudden almost his whole system of teaching, and quoted a 
 verse from the tragedy of Philoctetes^ with a little alteration; 
 for the hero said, that It was disgraceful for him to he silent 
 while he allowed barbarians to speah; but Aristotle said that 
 it was disgraceful for him to be silent while he allowed Isocrates 
 to speah He therefore adorned and illustrated all philoso- 
 phical learning, and associated the knowledge of things with 
 practice in speaking. Nor did this escape the knowledge of 
 that very sagacious monarch Philip, who sent for him as 
 a tutor for his son Alexander, that he might acquire from the 
 same teacher instructions at once in conduct and in language. 
 Now, if any one desires either to call that philosopher, who 
 instructs us fully in things and words, an orator, he may do 
 
 1 The words in brackets, says EUendt, are certainly spurious, for they 
 could not possibly have been written by Cicero. In the original, quod 
 ipse, &c., ipse necessarily refers to Aristotle, of whom what is here said 
 could never have been true. 
 
 2 The Philoctetes of Euripides, as is generally supposed. 
 
C. XXXVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 373 
 
 SO without opposition from me ; or if he prefer to call that 
 orator, of whom I speak as having wisdom lanited with 
 eloquence, sl philosopher, I shall make no objection, provided 
 it be allowed that neither his inability to speak, who under- 
 stands his subject but cannot set it forth in words, nor his 
 ignorance, to whom matter is wanting though words abound, 
 can merit commendation ; and if I had to choose one of the 
 two, I should prefer uneloquent good sense to loquacious folly. 
 But if it be inquired which is the more eminent excellence, 
 the palm is to be given to the learned orator ; and if they 
 allow the same person to be a philosopher, there is an end of 
 controversy ; but if they distinguish them, they will acknow- 
 ledge their inferiority in this respect, that all their knowledge 
 is inherent in the complete orator; but in the knowledge of 
 the philosophers eloquence is not necessarily inherent ; which, 
 though it may be undervalued by them, must of necessity be 
 thought to give a finishing grace to their sciences." When 
 Crassus had spoken thus, he made a pause for a while, and 
 the rest kept silence. 
 
 XXX YI. Cotta then observed, '^ I cannot indeed complain, 
 Crassus, that you seem to me to have given a dissertation 
 upon a different subject from that on which you had under- 
 taken to speak ; for you have contributed to our conversation 
 more than was either laid upon you by us, or given notice 
 of by yourself But certainly it was the part that belonged 
 to you, to speak upon the embellishments of language, and 
 you had already entered upon it, and distributed the whole 
 excellence of eloquence into four parts; and, when you had 
 spoken upon the first two, as we indeed thought suffi- 
 ciently, but, as you said yourself, cursorily and slightly, you 
 had two others left : how we should speak, first, elegantly, 
 and next, aptly. But when you were proceeding to these 
 particulars, the tide, as it were, of your genius suddenly 
 hurried you to a distance from land, and carried you out 
 into the deep, almost beyond the view of us all ; for, em- 
 bracing all knowledge of everything, you did not indeed 
 teach it us, (for that was impossible in so short a space of 
 time,) but,— I know not what improvement you may have 
 made in the rest of the company, — as for myself, you 
 have carried me altogether into the heart of the academy, 
 in regard to which I could wish that that were true which 
 
374 DE OEATORE j OR, [B. III. 
 
 you have often asserted, that it is not necessary to consume 
 our lives in it, but that he may see everything in it who only 
 turns his eyes towards it : but even if the view be somewhat 
 obscure, or I should be extraordinarily dull, I shall assuredly 
 never rest, or yield to fatigue, until I understand their 
 doubtful ways and arts of disputing for and against every 
 question." Csesar then said, " One thing in your remarks, 
 Crassus, struck me very much, that you said that he who did 
 not learn anything soon, could never thoroughly learn it at 
 all ; so that I can have no difficulty in making the trial, and 
 either immediately understanding what you extolled to the 
 skies in your observations, or, if I cannot do so, losing no 
 time, as I may remain content with what I have already 
 acquired." Here Sulpicius observed, ^^ I, indeed, Crassus, 
 neither desire any acquaintance with your Aristotle, nor 
 Carneades, nor any of the philosophers ; you may either 
 imagine that I despair of being able to acquire their know- 
 ledge, or that, as is really the case, I despise it. The ordinary 
 knowledge of common affairs, and such as are litigated in the 
 forum, is great enough for me, for attaining that degree of 
 eloquence which is my object; and even in that narrow circle 
 of science I am ignorant of a multitude of things, which I 
 begin to study, whenever any cause in which I am to speak 
 requires them. If, therefore, you are not now fatigued, and 
 if we are not troublesome to you, revert to those particulars 
 which contribute to the merit and splendour of language; 
 particulars which I desired to hear from you, not to make 
 me despair that I can ever possibly attain eloquence, but to 
 make some addition to my stock of learning." 
 
 XXXVII. " You require- of me," said Crassus, " to speak 
 on matters which are very well known, and with which you, 
 Sulpicius, are not unacquainted ; for what rhetorician has not 
 treated of this subject, has not given instructions on it, has 
 not even left something about it in writing 1 But I will com- 
 ply with your request, and briefly explain to you at least such 
 points as are known to me ; but I shall still think that you 
 ought to refer to those who are the authors and inventors of 
 these minute precepts. All speech, then, is formed of words, 
 which we must first consider singly, then in composition; for 
 there is one merit of language which lies in single words, 
 another which is produced by words joined and compounded. 
 
C. XXXVIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 375 
 
 We shall therefore either use such words as are the proper and 
 fixed names as it were of things, and apparently almost born 
 at the same time with the things themselves ; or such as are 
 metaphorical, and placed as it were in a situation foreign to 
 i them ; or such as we invent and make ourselves. In regard 
 then to words taken in their own proper sense, it is a merit 
 in the orator to avoid mean and obsolete ones, and to use 
 Buch as are choice and ornamental; such as have in them 
 some fulness and force of sound. But in this kind oi 'proper 
 words, selection is necessary, which must be decided in some 
 measure by the judgment of the ear; in which point the 
 mere habit of speaking well is of great effect. Even what 
 is vulgarly said of orators by the illiterate multitude, He 
 uses proper words, or Such a one uses improper words, is not 
 the result of any acquired skill, but is a judgment arising 
 from a natural sense of what is right ; in which respect it is 
 ( no great merit to avoid a fault, (though it is of great im- 
 portance to do so,) yet this is the ground- work, as it were, 
 and foundation of the whole, namely, the use and command 
 of proper words. But the superstructure which the orator 
 himself is to raise upon this, and in which he is to display 
 his art, appears to be a matter for us to examine and 
 * illustrate. 
 
 I XXXYIII. " There are three qualities, then, in a simple 
 
 j word, which the orator may employ to illustrate and adorn 
 
 [ his language ; he may choose either an unusual word, or one 
 
 I that is new or metaphorical. Unusual words are generally 
 
 of ancient date and fashion, and such as have been long out 
 
 \ of use in daily conversation; these are allowed more freely 
 
 i to poetical licence than to ours; yet a poetical word gives 
 
 occasionally dignity also to oratory; nor would I shrink from 
 
 I saying, with Ccelius, Qua tempestate Poenus in Italiam venit, 
 
 ' At the season when the Carthaginian came into Italy :' nor 
 
 \ proles, 'progeny;' nor suholes, 'offspring;' nor effari, 'to 
 
 utter;' nor nuncupari, 'to declare;' nor, as you are in the 
 
 habit of saying, Catulus, non rehar, 'I did not deem;' nor 
 
 non opinabar, 'I did not opine;' nor many others, from 
 
 which, if properly introduced, a speech assumes an air of 
 
 greater grandeur. JVew words are such as are produced and 
 
 ; formed by the speaker; either by joining words together, as 
 
 these. 
 
376 DE ORATORE • OR, [b. HI. 
 
 Turn pavor sapientiam omnem mi exanimato expectorai, 
 Then fear expels all wisdom from tlie breast 
 Of me astonished ; 
 or, 
 
 Num non vis hujus me versutiloquas malitias ? 
 Would you not have me dread his cunning malice ? 
 
 for you see that versutiloquas and expectorai are words not 
 newly produced, but merely formed by composition. But 
 words are often invented, without composition, as the ex- 
 pression of Ennius,^ Bii genitales, ' the genial gods ; ' or hac- 
 carum uhertate incurviscere, ' to bend down with the fertile 
 crop of berries.' 
 
 " The third mode, that of using words in a metaphorical 
 sense, is widely prevalent, a mode of which necessity was the 
 parent, compelled by the sterility and narrowness of language ; 
 but afterwards delight and pleasure made it frequent ; for as 
 a dress was first adopted for the sake of keeping off the cold, 
 but in process of time began to be made an ornament of the 
 body, and an emblem of dignity, so the metaphorical use of 
 words was originally invented on account of their paucity, but 
 became common from the delight which it afforded. For 
 even the countrymen say, gemmare vites, that ' the vines are 
 budding;' luxuriem esse in kerhis, that ^ there is a luxuriancy 
 in the grass ;' and loetas segetes, that ' there is a bountiful 
 crop;' for when that which can scarcely be signified by its 
 proper word is expressed by one used in a metaphorical sense, 
 the similitude taken from that which we indicate by a foreign 
 term gives clearness to that which we wish to be understood. 
 These metaphors, therefore, are a species of borrowing, as you 
 take from something else that which you have not of your own. 
 Those have a greater degree of boldness which do not show 
 poverty, but bring some accession of splendour to our lan- 
 guage. But why should I specify to you either the modes of 
 their production or their various kinds ? 
 
 XXXIX. '^ A metaphor is a brief similitude contracted into 
 a single word ; which word being put in the place of another, 
 
 ^ All the editions retain ille senius, though universally acknowledged 
 to be corrupt. The conjecture of Turnebus, ille Bnnius, has found mr)st 
 favour ; that of Orellius, illud Ennii, is approved by EUendt. That the 
 words dt genitales were used by Ennius appears from Servius on Virg. 
 ^n. vi. 764. 
 
C. XL.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 377 
 
 as if it were in its own place, conveys, if the resemblance be 
 acknowledged, delight; if there is no resemblance, it is con- 
 demned. But such words should be metaphorically used as 
 may make the subject clearer; as all these :^ 
 
 Inhorrescit mare, 
 Tenehrce conduplicantur, noctisque et nirabum occcBcat nigror, 
 Flamma inter nuhes coruscat, coslum tonitru contremit, 
 Grando mixta imhri largifluo subita prcecipitans cadit ; 
 Undique omnes venti erumpunt, scevi existunt turbines ; 
 Fervit cestu pelagus. 
 
 The sea begins to shudder, 
 Darkness is doubled ; and the black of night 
 And of the tempest thickens ; fire gleams vivid 
 ' Amid the clouds ; the heavens with thunder shake ; 
 Hail mixed with copious rain sudden descends 
 Precipitate ; from all sides every blast 
 Breaks forth : fierce whirlwinds gather, and the flood 
 Boils with fresh tumult. 
 
 Here almost everything is expressed in words metaphori- 
 cally adapted from something similar, that the description 
 may be heightened. Or metaphors are employed that the 
 whole nature of any action or design may be more signi- 
 ficantly expressed; as in the case of him who indicates, by 
 two metaphorical words, that another person was designedly 
 obscure, in order that what he intended might not be under- 
 stood, 
 
 Quandoquidem is se circumvestit dictis, scepit seduld, 
 Since thus he clothes himself around with words, 
 And hedges constantly. 
 
 " Sometimes, also, brevity is the object attained by meta- 
 phor; as, Si telum manu fugit, ^If from his hand the javelin 
 fled.' The throwing of a missile weapon unawares could not be 
 described with more brevity in the proper words than it is 
 signified by one used metaphorically. On this head, it often 
 appears to me wonderful why all men are more delighted 
 with words used in a metaphorical or foreign sense than in 
 their own proper and natural signification. XL. For if a 
 thing has not a name of its own, and a term peculiar to it, — 
 as the pes, or ^ hawser,' in a ship ; nexum, a ' bond,' which is 
 a ceremony performed with scales f divortium, a ^ divorce,' with 
 
 ^ From Pacuvius. See Cic. Divin. i. 14. 
 
 2 See Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Ant., art. Nexwm, 
 
378 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 reference to a wife/ — necessity compels you to borrow from 
 another what you have not yourself; but, even in the greatest 
 abundance of proper words, men are much more charmed 
 with such as are uncommon, if they are used metaphori- 
 cally with judgment. This happens, I imagine, either because 
 it is some manifestation of wit to jump over such expres- 
 sions as lie before you, and catch at others from a greater 
 distance; or because he who listens is led another way in 
 thought, and yet does not wander from the subject, which is 
 a very great pleasure ; or because a subject, and entire com- 
 parison, is despatched in a single word ; or because every 
 metaphor that is adopted with judgment, is directed imme- 
 diately to our senses, and principally to the sense of sight, 
 which is the keenest of them all. For such expressions as 
 the odour of urbanity, the softness of humanity, the murmur 
 of the sea, and sweetness of language, are derived from the 
 other senses ; but those which relate to the sight are much 
 more striking, for they place almost in the eye of the mind 
 such objects as we cannot see and discern by the natural eyes. 
 There is, indeed, nothing in universal nature, the proper name 
 and term of which we may not use with regard to other 
 matters; for whencesoever a simile may be drawn (and it 
 may be drawn from anything), from thence a single word, 
 which contains the resemblance, metaphorically applied, may 
 give illustration to our language. In such metaphorical ex- 
 pressions, dissimilitude is principally to be avoided ; as, 
 
 Coeli ingentes fornices, 
 
 The arch immense of heaven ; 
 
 for though Ennius ^ is said to have brought a globe upon the 
 stage, yet the semblance of an arch can never be inherent in 
 the form of a globe. 
 
 Vive, Ulixes, dum licet: 
 
 Oculis jpostremum lumen radiatum rape :^ 
 
 Live, live, Ulysses, while you may, and snatch, 
 Snatch with thine eyes the last light shining on them. 
 
 ^ Bivortium, in its proper sense, denoted the separation of roads or 
 waters. 
 
 2 In his tragedy of Hecuba, ae is supposed by Hermann, ad Eurip 
 Hec. p. 167. See Varro, L. L. v. p. 8. 
 
 ^ Supposed by Bothe, Trag. Lat. Fragm. p. 278, to be from the Niptri* 
 of Pacuvius. See Cic. Qusest. Acad. ii. 28. 
 
C. XL!.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 379 
 
 He did not say, cape, ' take,' nor pete, ^ seek.' for such ex- 
 pressions might have implied delay, as of one hoping to live 
 longer ; but rape, '• snatch,' a word which was peculiarly suit- 
 able to what he had said before, dum licet, ^ while you may.' 
 
 XLI. ^^ Care is next to be taken that the simile be not too 
 far-fetched ; as, for ^ the Syrtis of his patrimony,' I should 
 rather have said, ^ the rock ;' for ' the Charybdis of his posses- 
 sions,' rather ' the gulf :' for the eyes of the mind are more 
 easily directed to those objects which we have seen, than to 
 those of which we have only heard. And since it is the 
 greatest merit in a metaphorical word, that what is meta- 
 phorical should strike the senses, all offensiveness is to be 
 avoided in those objects to which the comparison must 
 naturally draw the minds of the audience. T would not have 
 it said that the republic was ' castrated ' by the death of 
 Africanus ; I would not have Glaucia called ' the excrement 
 of the senate ; ' for though there may be a resemblance, yet it 
 is a depraved imagination in both cases that gives rise to 
 such a comparison. I would not have the metaphor grander 
 than the subject requires, as ^ a tempest of revelling;' nor 
 meaner, as ' the revelling of the tempest.' I would not have 
 the metaphorical be of a more confined sense than the proper 
 and peculiar term would have been; as, 
 
 Quidnam est, ohsecro, quid te adiri ahnutas ? ^ 
 Why is it, prythee. that thou nodd'st us back 
 From coming to thee ? 
 
 Vetas, prohihes, ahsterres, ' forbid,' ^ hinder/ ' terrify/ had been 
 better, because he had before said, 
 
 Fly quickly hence, ^ 
 Lest my contagion or my shadow fall 
 On men of worth. 
 
 Also, if you apprehend that the metaphor may appear too 
 harsh, it may frequently be softened by prefixing a word or 
 words to it ; as if, in old times, on the death of Marcus Cato, 
 any one had said that the senate was left ' an orphan,' the ex- 
 pression had been rather bold; but, ' so to speak, an orphan,' 
 is somewhat milder; for a metaphor ought not to be too daring, 
 
 1 From the Thyestes of Ennius. Cic. Tusc. iii. 12. 
 ^ Orellius's text has istim, which is considered to be the same aa 
 istinc. See Victorius ad Cic. Ep. ad Div. vi 6. 
 
380 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 but of such a nature that it may appear to have been introduced 
 into the place of another expression, not to have sprung into 
 it ; to have come in by entreaty, and not by violence. And 
 there is no mode of embellishment more effective as regards 
 single words, nor any that throws a greater lustre upon lan- 
 guage; for the ornament that flows from this figure does not 
 consist merely in a single metaphorical word, but may be 
 connected by a continuation of many, so that one thing may 
 be expressed and another understood; as, 
 
 Nor will I allow 
 Myself again to strike the Grecian fleet 
 On the same rock and instrument of ruin.* 
 And this, 
 
 You err, you err, for the strong reins of law 
 Shall hold you back, exulting and confiding 
 Too much in your own self, and make you bow 
 Beneath the yoke of empire. 
 
 Something being assumed as similar, the words which are 
 proper to it are metaphorically transferred (as I termed it 
 before) to another subject. 
 
 XLII. '' This is a great ornament to language, but obscurity 
 is to be avoided in it; for from this figure arise what are 
 called eenigmas. Nor is this rule to be observed in single 
 words only, but in phrases, that is, in a continuation of words. 
 Nor have metonymy and hypallage^ their form from a single 
 word, but from a phrase or sentence ; as, 
 
 Grim Afric trembles with an awful tumult f 
 
 where for the Africans is used Afric; not a word newly 
 compounded, as in Mare saxifragis undis, ' The sea with its 
 rock-breaking waves;' nor a metaphorical one, as, Mollitur 
 mare, ' The sea is softened ;' but one proper name exchanged 
 for another, for the sake of embellishment. Thus, ' Cease, Rome, 
 thy foes to cherish,' and, * The spacious plains are witnesses.' 
 This figure contributes exceedingly to the ornament of style, 
 and is frequently to be used ; of which kind of expression these 
 are examples : that the Mars, or fortune, of war is common ; 
 and to say Ceres, for corn ; Bacchus, for wine ; Neptune, for 
 
 * Whence this and the following quotation are taken is uncertain. 
 
 2 Traductio atque immutatio. See Cic. Orat. 27 ; Quint, viii. 6 ; 
 ix. 3 ; infra, c. 43, 54. 
 
 3 From the Annals of Ennius. See Cic. Ep. ad Div. ix. 7 ; Orat. 27; 
 Festus V. metonymia. 
 
aXLIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 381 
 
 the sea; the curia, or house, for the senate; the campus, for 
 the comitia or elections ; the gown, for peace ; arms or weapons, 
 for war. Under this figure, the virtues and vices are used for 
 the persons in whom they are inherent : ' Luxury has broken 
 into that house;' or, * whither avarice has penetrated;' or, 
 ^honesty has prevailed;' or, ^justice has triumphed.' You per- 
 ceive the whole force of this kind of figure, when, dy the 
 variation or change of a word, a thing is expressed more 
 elegantly; and to this figure is closely allied another,^ which, 
 though less ornamental, ought not to be unknown ; as when 
 we would have the whole of a thing understood from a part ; 
 as we say walls or roof for a whole building; or a part 
 from the whole, as when we call one troop the cavalry of the 
 Roman people; or when we signify the plural by the sin- 
 gular, as, 
 
 But still the Roman, though the affair has been 
 
 Conducted well, is anxious in his heart f 
 
 or when the singular is understood from the plural, 
 
 We that were Rudians once are Romaris now ; 
 
 or in whatever way, by this figure, the sense is to be under- 
 stood, not as it is expressed, but as it is meant. 
 
 XLIIL " We often also put one word catachrestically for 
 another, not with that elegance, indeed, which there is in a 
 metaphor; but, though this is done licentiously, if is some- 
 times done inoffensively ; as when we say a great speech for a 
 long one, a minute soul for a little one. 
 
 " But have you perceived that those elegances which arise 
 from the connexion of several metaphors, do not, as I ob- 
 served,^ lie in one word, but in a series of words ? But all 
 those modes of expression which, I said, lay in the change of 
 a word, or are to be understood differently from what is 
 expressed, are in some measure metaphorical. Hence it hap- 
 pens, that all the virtue and merit of single words consists in 
 three particulars : if a word be antique, but such, however, as 
 usage will tolerate ; if it be formed hy composition, or newly 
 invented, where regard is to be paid to the judgment of the 
 ear and to custom; or if it be used metaphorically, peou- 
 
 ^ Synecdoche. 
 
 ^ This quotation and the following are from the Annals of Ennius. 
 
 3 C. 41 
 
332 DB oratore; or, [b. hi. 
 
 liar i ties which eminently distinguish and brighten language, 
 as with so many stars. 
 
 " The composition of words follows next, which principally 
 requires attention to two things; first, collocation, and, next, 
 a certain modulation and /orm. To collocation it belongs to 
 compose and arrange the words in such a way that their 
 junction may not be rough or gaping, but compact, as it were, 
 and smooth; .in reference to which qualities of style, the poet 
 Lucilius, who could do so most elegantly, has expressed him- 
 self wittily and sportively in the character of my father- 
 in-law '} 
 
 How elegantly are his words arranged ! 
 All like square stones inserted skilfully 
 In pavements, with vermiculated emblems ! 
 
 And after saying this in ridicule of Albucius, he does not 
 refrain from touching on me : 
 
 I've Crassus for a son-in-law, nor think 
 Yourself more of an orator. 
 
 What then ? this Crassus, of whose name you, Lucilius, make 
 such free use, what does he attempt? The very same thing 
 indeed as Scsevola wished, and as I would wish, but with some- 
 what better effect than Albucius. But Lucilius spoke jestingly 
 with regard to me, according to his custom. However, such 
 an arrangement of words is to be observed, as that of which 
 I w^as speaking ; such a one as may give a compactness and 
 coherence to the language, and a smooth and equal flow ; this 
 you will attain if you join the extremities of the antecedent 
 words to the commencements of those that follow in such a 
 manner that there be no rough clashing in the consonants, 
 nor wide hiatus in the vowels. 
 
 XLIY. '^ Next to diligent attention to this particular, follows 
 modulation and harmonious structure of the words; a point, 
 I fear^ that may seem puerile to our friend Catulus here. The 
 ancients, however, imagined in prose a harmony almost like 
 that of poetry ; that is, they thought that we ought to adopt 
 a sort of numbers; for they wished that there should be 
 short phrases in speeches, to allow us to recover, and not 
 lose our breath ; and that they should be distinguished, not 
 by the marks of transcribers, but according to the modulation 
 ^ Mucins Scsevola. He accused Albucius of extortion. 
 
C. XLV.J ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 383 
 
 of the words and sentences;^ and this practice Isocrates is 
 said to have been the first to introduce, that he might (as 
 his scholar Naucrates writes) 'confine the rude manner of 
 speaking among those of antiquity within certain numbers, 
 to give pleasure and captivate the ear.' For musicians, who 
 were also the poets of former ages, contrived these two things 
 as the ministers of pleasure, verse, and song; that they 
 might banish satiety from the sense of hearing by gratifica- 
 tion, arising from the numbers of language and the modulation 
 of notes. These two things, therefore, (I mean the musical 
 management of the voice, and the harmonious structure of 
 words,) should be transferred, they thought, as far as the 
 strictness of prose will admit, from poetry to oratory. On 
 this head it is remarkable, that if a verse is formed by the 
 composition of words in prose, it is a fault ; and yet we wish 
 such composition to have a harmonious cadence, roundness, 
 and finish, like verse; nor is there any single quality, out 
 of many, that more distinguishes a true orator from an un- 
 skilful and ignorant speaker, than that he who is unpractised 
 pours forth all he can without discrimination, and measures 
 out the periods of his speech, not with art, but by the power 
 of his breath; but the orator clothes his thoughts in such 
 a manner as to comprise them in a flow of numbers, at once 
 confined to measure, yet free from restraint ; for, after restrict- 
 ing it to proper modulation and structure, he gives it an ease 
 and freedom by a variety in the flow, so that the words are 
 neither bound by strict laws, as those of verse, nor yet have 
 such a degree of liberty as to wander without control. 
 
 XLV. " In what manner, then, shall we pursue so important 
 an object, so as to entertain hopes of being able to acquire 
 this talent of speaking in harmonious numbers'? It is not 
 a matter of so much difficulty as it is of necessity ; for there 
 is nothing so pliant, nothing so flexible, nothing which will 
 so easily follow w^hithersoever you incline to lead it, as lan- 
 guage; out of which verses are composed; out of which all 
 the variety of poetical numbers; out of which also prose oi 
 various modulation and of many difierent kinds ; for there is 
 not one set of words for common discourse, and another for 
 oratorical debate; nor are they taken from one class for daily 
 conversation, and from another for the stage and for display; 
 
 ^ Ellendt aptly refers to Cic. Orat. c. 68 ; Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 8. 6. 
 
384 DE ORATORE ; OR, [B. III. 
 
 but, when we have made our selection from those that lie 
 before us, we form and fashion them at our pleasure like the 
 softest wax. According, therefore, as we ourselves are grave, 
 or subtle, or hold a middle course between both, so the form 
 of our language follows the nature of our thoughts, and is 
 changed and varied to suit every method by which we delight 
 the ear or move the passions of mankind. But as in most 
 things, so in language, Nature herself has wonderfully con- 
 trived, that what carries in it the greatest utility, should 
 have at the same time either the most dignity, or, as 
 it often happens, the most beauty. We perceive the very 
 system of the universe and of nature to be constituted with 
 a view to the safety and preservation of the whole; so that 
 the firmament should be round, and the earth in the middle, 
 and that it should be held in its place by its own nature and 
 tendency;^ that the sun should go round, that it should 
 approach to the winter sign,^ and thence gradually ascend to 
 the opposite region; that the moon, by her advance and 
 retreat, should receive the light of the sun ; and that the 
 five planets should perform the same revolutions by different 
 motions and courses. This order of things has such force, 
 that, if there were the least alteration in it, they could not 
 possibly subsist together; and such beauty, that no fairer 
 appearance of nature could even be imagined. Turn your 
 thoughts now to the shape and figure of man, or even that 
 of other animals ; you will find no part of the body fashioned 
 without some necessary use, and the whole frame perfected 
 as it were by art, not by chance. XLYI. How is it with 
 regard to trees, of which neither the trunk, nor the boughs, 
 nor even the leaves, are formed otherwise than to maintain 
 and preserve their own nature, yet in which there is no part 
 that is not beautiful? Or let us turn from natural objects, 
 and cast our eyes on those of art ; what is so necessary in 
 a ship as the sides, the hold,^ the prow, the stern, the yards, 
 
 ^ Nutu. Compare Cic. De ITat. Deor. ii. 39. Ellendt thinks that 
 by nutus is meant something similar to our centripetal force, 
 
 2 Brumale signum. The tropic of Capricorn. De Nat. Deor. iii. 14. 
 
 ^ Cavernce. Some editions have carince, and Lambinus reads carina. 
 If we retain caverncE, it is not easy to say exactly in what sense it should 
 be taken. Servius, on Virgil, ^n. ii. 19, observes that the fustes curvi - 
 navium, quibus extrinsecus fabulce affiguntur, were called cavernce ; but 
 in this sense, as Ellendt observes, it is much the same with latera, 
 
I 
 
 XLVir.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 385 
 
 the sails, the masts? which yet have so much beauty in their 
 appearance, that they seem to have been invented not for 
 safety only, but also for the delight afforded by the spectacle. 
 Pillars support temples and porticoes, and yet have not more 
 of utility than of dignity. It was not regard to beauty, but 
 necessity, that contrived the cupola of the Capitol, and other 
 buildings ; for when a plan was contemplated by which the 
 water might run off from each side of the roof, the dignity of 
 the cupola was added to the utility of the temple ; but in 
 such a manner, that should the Capitol be built in heaven, 
 where no rain can fall, it would appear to have no dignity 
 without the cupola. It happens likewise in all parts of lan- 
 guage, that a certain agreeableness and grace are attendant 
 on utility, and, I may say, on necessity ; for the stoppage of 
 the breath, and the confined play of the lungs, introduced 
 periods and the pointing of words. This invention gives such 
 gratification, that, if unlimited powers of breath were granted 
 to a person, yet we could not wish him to speak without 
 stopping ; for the invention of stops is pleasing to the ears of 
 mankind, and not only tolerable, but easy, to the lungs. 
 
 XLYII. ^' The largest compass of a period, then, is that 
 which can be rounded forth in one breath. This is the 
 bound set by nature ; art has other limits ; for as there is 
 a great variety of numbers, your favourite Aristotle, Catulus, 
 inclines to banish from oratorical language the frequent use 
 of the iambus and the trochee ; which, however, fall of them- 
 selves naturally into our common discourse and conversation ; 
 but the strokes of time^ in those numbers are remarkable, 
 and the feet short. He therefore principally invites us to 
 tlie heroic measure, [of the dactyl, the anapaest, and the 
 spondee ;] ^ in which we may proceed with impunity two 
 
 which precedes. Ellendt himself, therefore, inclines to take it in the 
 sense of cavitas alvei, " hold " or " keel," which, as it is divided into 
 parts, may, he thinks, be expressed in the plural number. 
 
 ^ Percussiones. The ictus metrici ; so called, because the musician, 
 in beating time, struck the ground with his foot. In a senarius he 
 struck the ground three times, once for every two feet ; whence there 
 were said to be in such a verse three ictus or percussiones. But on pro- 
 nouncing those syllables, at which the musician struck the ground, the 
 actor raised his voice ; and hence ptrcussio was in Greek 6.pais, and the 
 raised or accented syllables were said to be eu ^pcrei, the others being 
 said to be in Q=(T€i. See Bentley de Metr. Terentian. init. Ernesti. 
 
 2 Madvig and Ellendt justly regard the words in brackets as spu- 
 
 C C 
 
^86 DE ORATORE ; OR, [b. III. 
 
 feet only, or a little more, lest we plainly fall into verse, or 
 the resemblance of verse ; 
 
 Altos I smit gemi\nce quibus 
 
 These three heroic feet fall in gracefully enough with the be- 
 ginnings of continuations of words. But the pseon is most of 
 all approved by Aristotle; it is of two kinds ;^ for it either , 
 begins with a long syllable which three short syllables follow, 
 as in these words, desmite, incipUe, comprlmite; or with a suc- 
 cession of three short syllables, the last being produced and 
 made long, as in these words, ddmiterdnt, sonipedes; and it 
 is agreeable to the notions of that philosopher to commence 
 w^ith the former pseon, and to conclude with the latter ; and 
 this latter pseon is almost equal, not indeed in the number 
 of the syllables, but by the measure of the ear, which is 
 a more acute and certain method of judgment, to the cretic, 
 which consists of a long, a short, and a long syllable ; as in 
 this verse. 
 
 Quid petdm prcesidi, aut exsequdr ? Quove nunc ? ^ 
 
 With which kind of foot Fannius ^ began, Si, Qulrltes, Minds 
 illius. This Aristotle thinks better adapted to conclusions 
 of periods, which he wishes to be terminated generally by a 
 syllable that is long. 
 
 XLYIII. ^' But these numbers in oratory do not require 
 such sharp-sighted care and diligence as that which must 
 be used by poets, whom necessity compels, as do the very 
 numbers and measures, so to include the words in versi- 
 fication, as that no part may be, even by the least breath,^ 
 shorter or longer than the metre absolutely demands. Prose 
 has a more free scope, and is plainly, as it is called, soluta, 
 unconfined, yet not so that it may fly off or wander without 
 
 rious. I follow those critics also in reading Altce sunt gcmince quibusy 
 though, as EUendt observes, Altce ought very likely to be Arce. Alices 
 which is in most editions, made the passage utterly inexplicable, 
 though Ernesti, Strebseus, and others did what they could to put some 
 meaning into it. 
 
 ^ The first and fourth only are meant. 
 
 2 C. 26 ; where Pearce observes that they are the words of Andro- 
 mache in Ennius, according to Bentley on Tusc. Disp. iii. 19. 
 
 ^ Caius Fannius Strabo, who was consul a.u.c. 632. He left one 
 speech against Caius Gracchus : Cic. Brut. c. 26. 
 
 * Ne sjpiritu quidem minimo. 
 
a XLIX.] ON THE CHAjRACTER OF THE ORATOR. 387 
 
 control, but may regulate itself without being absolutely in 
 fetters ; for I agi'ee in this particular with Theophrastus, 
 who thinks that style, at least such as is to a certain degree 
 polished and well constructed,^ ought to be numerous, yet not: 
 as in confinement, but at ease. For, as he suspects, from 
 those feet of which the common hexameter verse is formed, 
 grew forth afterwards the anapaestic, a longer kind of measure ; 
 thence flowed the still more free and rich dithyramb, the 
 members and feet of which, as the same writer observes, are 
 diffused through all style, that is enriched with the distin- 
 guishing ornaments of eloquence. And if that is numerous in 
 all sounds and words, which gives certain strokes as it were, 
 and which we can measure by equal intervals, this harmony 
 of numbers, if it be free from sameness, will be justly con- 
 sidered a merit in the oratorical style. Sinec if perpetual 
 and ever-flowing loquacity, without any pauses, is to be 
 thought rude and unpolished, what other reason is there 
 why it should be disliked, except that Nature herself modu- 
 lates the voice for the human ear? and this could not be the 
 case unless numbers were inherent in the human voice. But 
 in an uninterrupted continuation of sound there are no 
 numbers ; distinction, and strokes at equal or often varied 
 intervals, constitute numbers; which we may remark in 
 the falling of drops of water, because they are distin- 
 guished by intervals, but which we cannot observe in the 
 rolling stream of a river. But as this unrestrained com- 
 position of words ^ is more eligible and harmonious, if it be 
 distinguished into parts and members, than if it be carried 
 on without intermission, those members ought to be mea- 
 sured by a certain rule of proportion; for if those at the 
 end are shorter, the compass as it were of the words is made 
 irregular; the compass,^ I say, for so the Greeks denominate 
 these rounded divisions of style ; the subsequent clauses in 
 a sentence, therefore, ought to be equal to the antecedent, the 
 last to the first; or, which has a better and more pleasing 
 effect, of a greater length. 
 
 XLIX. '^ These precepts are given by those philosophers 
 
 ^ Facta. That is, carefully laboured. See Brut. c. 8. Ellendt 
 ^ Continuatio verhorum soluta. See above, near the beginning of thir 
 chapter, oratio — vere soluta. 
 
 ^ Ambitus. The Greek word is irepjodos. See Orat. c. 61, 
 c c 2 
 
388 DE oratore; or, [b.jii. 
 
 to whom you, Catulus, have the greatest attachment; a re- 
 mark which I the oftener make, that by referring to my 
 authors, I may avoid the charge of impertinence." " Of 
 what sort of impertinence T' said Catulus; "or what could 
 be brought before us more elegant than this discussion of 
 yours, or expressed more judiciously?" "But still I am 
 afraid," said Crassus, " lest these matters should either 
 appear to these youths^ too difficult for study, or lest, as 
 they are not given in the common rules of instruction, I 
 should appear to have an inclination that they should seem 
 of more importance and difficulty than they really are." 
 Catulus replied, " You are mistaken, Crassus, if you imagine 
 that either I or any of the company expected from you 
 those ordinary or vulgar precepts ; what you say is what we 
 wished to be said ; and not so much indeed to be said, as to 
 be 'said in the very manner m which you have said it; nor 
 do I answer for myself only, but for all the rest, without the 
 least hesitation." " And I," said Antonius, " have at length 
 discovered such a one as, in the book which I wrote, I said 
 that I had never found, a person of eloquence; but I never 
 interrupted you, not even to pay you a compliment, for this 
 reason, that no part of the short time allotted for your dis- 
 course might be diminished by a single word of mine." 
 
 "To this standard, then," proceeded Crassus, "is your 
 style to be formed, as well by the practice of speaking, as 
 by writing, which contributes a grace and refinement to other 
 excellences, but to this in a more peculiar manner. Nor is 
 this a matter of so much labour as it appears to be ; nor are 
 our phrases to be governed by the rigid laws of the cul- 
 tivators of numbers and music; and the only object for our 
 endeavours is, that our sentences may not be loose or ram- 
 bling, that they neither stop within too narrow a compass, 
 nor run out too far ; that they be distinguished into clauses, 
 and have well-rounded periods. Nor are you to use per- 
 petually this fulness and as it were roundness of language, 
 but a sentence is often to be interrupted by minuter clauses, 
 which very clauses are still to be modulated by numbers. 
 Nor let the pseon or heroic foot give you any alarm ; they 
 will naturally come into your phrases ; they will, I say, offer 
 themselves, and will answer without being called; only let it 
 ^ Cotta and Sulpicius. 
 
t 
 
 ] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 389 
 
 be your care and practice, both in writing and speaking, that 
 your sentences be concluded with verbs, and that the junction 
 of those verbs with other words proceed with numbers that are 
 long and free, especially the heroic feet, the first pseon, or 
 the creticj but let the cadence be varied and diversified; 
 for it is in the conclusion that sameness is chiefly remarked. 
 And if these measures are observed at the beginning and at 
 the conclusion of sentences, the intermediate numbers may be 
 disregarded; only let the compass of your sentence not be 
 shorter than the ear expects, nor longer than your strength 
 and breath will allow. 
 
 L. " But I think that the conclusions of periods ought to 
 be studied more carefully than the former parts; because it 
 is chiefly from these that the finish of style is judged; for in 
 a verse, the commencement of it, the middle, and the ex- 
 tremity are equally regarded ; and in whatever part it fails, it 
 loses its force; but in a speech, few notice the beginnings, 
 but almost all the closes, of the periods, which, as they are 
 observable and best understood, should be varied, lest they be 
 disapproved, either by the judgment of the understanding or 
 by the satiety of the ear. For the two or three feet towards 
 the conclusion are to be marked and noted, if the preceding 
 members of the sentence were not extremely short and 
 concise; and these last feet ought either to be trochees, or 
 heroic feet, or those feet used alternately, or to consist of the 
 latter pseon, of which Aristotle approves, or, what is equal to 
 it, the cretic. An interchange of such feet will have these 
 good effects, that the audience will not be tired by an offen- 
 sive sameness, and that we shall not appear to make similar 
 endings on purpose. But if the famous Antipater of Sidon,^ 
 whom you, Catulus, very well remember, used to pour forth 
 extempore hexameter and other verses, in various numbers 
 and measures, and if practice had so much power in a man 
 of great ability and memory, that whenever he turned his 
 thoughts and inclinations upon verse, the words followed of 
 course, how much more easily shall we attain this facility in 
 oratory, when application and exercise are used ! 
 
 ^^ Nor let any one wonder how the illiterate part of an 
 audience observe these things when they listen to a speech ; 
 
 ^ Some of whose epigrams are to be seen in the Greek Anthology. 
 He flourished about 100 B.C. 
 
390 DE oratore; or, [b. hi. 
 
 since, in all other things, as well as in this, the force of nature is 
 great and extraordinary ; for all men, by a kind of tacit sense, 
 without any art or reasoning, can form a j adgment of what is 
 right and wrong in art and reasoning; and as they do this 
 with regard to pictures, statues, and other works, for under- 
 standing which they have less assistance from nature, so 
 they display this faculty much more in criticising words, 
 numbers, and sounds of language, because these powers are 
 inherent in our common senses, nor has nature intended that 
 any person should be utterly destitute of judgment in these 
 particulars. All people are accordingly moved, not only by 
 words artfully arranged, but also by numbers and the sounds 
 of the voice. How few are those that understand the science 
 of numbers and measures ! yet if in these the smallest offence 
 be given by an actor, so that any sound is made too short by 
 contraction, or too long by extension, whole theatres burst 
 into exclamations. Does not the same thing also happen with 
 regard to musical notes, that not only whole sets and bands 
 of musicians are turned out by the multitude and the populace 
 for varying one from another, but even single performers for 
 playing out of tune ? 
 
 LI. " It is wonderful, when there is a wide interval of dis- 
 tinction betwixt the learned and illiterate in acting, how little 
 difference there is in judging ;^ for art, being derived from 
 nature, appears to have effected nothing at all if it does not 
 move and delight nature. And there is nothing which so 
 naturally affects our minds as numbers and the harmony of 
 sounds, by which we are excited, and inflamed, and soothed, 
 and thrown into a state of languor, and often moved to cheer- 
 fulness or sorrow; the most exquisite power of which is best 
 suited to poetry and music, and was not, as it seems to me, 
 undervalued by our most learned monarch Numa and our 
 ancestors, (as the stringed and wind instruments at the sacred 
 banquets and the verses of the Salii sufficiently indicate,) but 
 was most cultivated in ancient Greece; [concerning which 
 subjects, and similar ones, I could wish that you had chosen 
 to discourse, rather than about these puerile verbal meta- 
 phors !] ^ But as the common people notice where there is 
 
 ^ See Cic. Brut. c. 49. 
 
 2 The words in brackets are condemned as spurious by aU the recent 
 editors. 
 
c. lil] on the character of the orator. 391 
 
 anything faulty in a verse, so thqy are sensible of any lame- 
 ness in our language; but they grant the poet no pardon; to 
 us they show some indulgence; but all tacitly discern that 
 what we have uttered has not its peculiar propriety and finish. 
 The speakers of old, therefore, as we see some do at the present 
 day, when they were unable to complete a circuit and, as it 
 were, roundness of period, (for that is what we have recently 
 begun, indeed, either to effect or attempt,) spoke in clauses 
 consisting of three, or two words, or sometimes uttered only a 
 single word at a time ; and yet in that infancy of our tongue 
 they understood the natural gratification which the human 
 ears required, and even studied that what they spoke should 
 be expressed in correspondent phrases, and that they should 
 take breath at equal intervals. 
 
 LII. " I have now shown, as far as I could, what I deemed 
 most conducive to the embellishment of language; for I have 
 spoken of the merits of single words ; I have spoken of them 
 in composition; I have spoken of the harmony of numbers 
 and structure. But if you wish me to speak also of the form 
 and, as it were, complexion of eloquence, there is one sort 
 which has a fulness, but is free from tumour; one which is 
 plain, but not without nerve and vigour ; and one which, par- 
 ticipating of both these kinds, is commended for a certain 
 middle quality. In each of these three forms there ought to 
 be a peculiar complexion of beauty, not produced by the 
 daubing of paint, but diffused throughout the system by the 
 blood. Then, finally,^ this orator of ours is so to be finished 
 as to his style and thoughts in general, that, as those who 
 study fencing and poHte exercises, not only think it necessary 
 to acquire a skill in parrying and striking, but also grace 
 and elegance of motion, so he may use such words as are 
 suited to elegant and graceful composition, and such thoughts 
 as contribute to the impressiveness of language. Words and 
 thoughts are formed in almost innumerable ways ; as is, I am 
 sure, well known to you ; but betwixt the formation of words 
 and that of thoughts there is this difference, that that of the 
 
 ' Turn denique. Ellendt incloses turn in brackets, and thinks that 
 much of the language of the rest of the chapter is confused and in- 
 correct. The words lU ii, qui in armorum tractatione versantur, which 
 occur a Uttle below, and which are generally condemned, are not 
 translated. 
 
392 DE oratore; or, [b. hi. 
 
 words is destroyed if vou change them, that of the thoughts 
 remains, whatever words you think proper to use. But I 
 think that you ought to be reminded (although, indeed, you 
 act agreeably to what I say) that you should not imagine 
 there is anything else to be done by the orator, at least any- 
 thing else to produce a striking and admirable effect, than 
 to observe these three rules with regard to single words; to 
 use frequently metaphorical ones, sometimes new ones, and 
 rarely very old ones. 
 
 " But with regard to continuous composition, when we 
 have acquired that smoothness of junction and harmony of 
 numbers which I have explained, our whole style of oratory 
 is to be distinguished and frequently interspersed with bril- 
 liant lights, as it were, of thoughts and of words. LIII. For 
 the dwelling on a single circumstance has often a considerable 
 effect; and a clear illustration and exhibition of matters to 
 the eye of the audience, almost as if they were transacted 
 before them. This has wonderful influence in giving a re- 
 presentation of any affair, both to illustrate what is repre- 
 sented, and to amplify it, so that the point which we amplify 
 may appear to the audience to be really as great as the powers 
 of our language can represent it. Opposed to this is rapid * 
 transition over a thing, which may often be practised. There 
 is also signification that more is to be understood than you 
 have expressed ; distinct and concise brevity ; and extenuation^ 
 and, what borders upon this, ridicule, not very different from 
 that which was the object of Caesar's instructions ; and di- 
 gression from the subject, and when gratification has thus 
 been afforded, the return to the subject ought to be happy 
 and elegant ; proposition of what you are about to say, transi- 
 tion from what has been said, and retrogression; there is 
 repetition; apt conclusion of reasoning; exaggeration, or sur- 
 passing of the truth, for the sake of amplification or diminu- 
 tion; interrogation^ and, akin to this, as it were, consultation 
 or seeming inquiry^ followed by the delivery of your own 
 opinion; and dissimulation, the humour of saying one thing 
 and signifying another, which steals into the minds of men in 
 a peculiar manner, and which is extremely pleasing when it is 
 well managed, not in a vehement strain of language, but in 
 a conversational style; also doubt; and distribution; and 
 correction of yourself, either before or after j^ou have said 
 
C. LIV.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 393 
 
 a thing, or when you repel anything from your self; there 
 is also premunition, with regard to what you are going to 
 prove ; there is the transference of hlame to another person ; 
 there is communication, or consultation, as it were, with the 
 audience before whom you are speaking ; imitation of manners 
 and character, either with names of persons or without, which 
 is a great ornament to a speech, and adapted to conciliate the 
 feelings even in the utmost degree, and often also to rouse 
 them j the introduction of fictitious characters, the most height- 
 ened figure of exaggeration; there is description; falling into 
 a wilful mistake; excitement of the audience to cheerfulness; 
 anticipation; comparison and example, two figures which 
 have a very great effect; division; interruption; contention;^ 
 suppression; commendation; a certain freedom and even un- 
 controlledness of language, for the purpose of exaggeration; 
 anger; reproach; promise; deprecation; beseeching; slight devia- 
 tion from your intended course, but not like digression, which 
 I mentioned before ; expurgation; conciliation; attach; wishing; 
 execration. Such are the figures with which thoughts give 
 lustre to a speech. 
 
 LIY. "■ Of words themselves, as of arms, there is a sort of 
 threatening and attack for use, and also a management for 
 grace. For the reiteration of words has sometimes a peculiar 
 force, and sometimes elegance; as well as the variation or 
 deflexion of a word from its common signification ; and the 
 frequent repetition of the same word in the beginning, and 
 recurrence to it at the end, of a period ; forcible emphasis on 
 the same words; conjunction;"^ adjunction;^ progression ;^ a sort 
 of distinction as to some word often used ; the recal of a word ; 
 the use of words, also, which end similarly, or have similar 
 cadences, or which balance one another, or which correspond 
 
 ^ Contentio. This is doubtless some species of comparison ; there is 
 no allusion to it in the Orator. See ad Herenn. iv. 45. Ellendt. 
 
 2 Concursio. The writer ad Herenn. iv. 14, calls this figure traductio ; 
 the Greeks (rvfiTrXoKT]. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ Adjunctio. It appears to be that which Quintilian (ix. 3) calls 
 (Tvj/€^€vyijL€uou, whcre several words are connected with the same verb. 
 Ellendt. 
 
 * Wh.s,t progressio is, no critic has been able to inform us, nor is there 
 any notice of it in any other writer on rhetoric. I see no mode of 
 explaining the passage, unless we take adjtmctio and progressio together, 
 and suppose them to signify that the speech proceeds with several 
 words in conjunction. Ellendt. 
 
394 DE ORATOREj OR, [b. III. 
 
 to one another. There is also a certain gradation, a conver- 
 sion,^ an elegant exaggeration of the sense of words; there is 
 antithesis, asyndeton, declination,^ reprehension,^ exclamation, 
 diminution; the use of the same word in different cases ; the 
 referring of what is derived from many particulars to each 
 particular singly ; reasoning subservient to your proposition, 
 and reasoning suited to the order of distribution; concession; 
 and again another kind of doubt ;^ the introduction of some- 
 thing unexpected; enumeration; another correction;^ division; 
 continuation; interruption; imagery; answering your own ques- 
 tions; immutation;^ disjunction; order; relation; digression;'^ 
 and circumscription. These are the figures, and others like 
 these, or there may even be more, which adorn language by 
 peculiarities in thought or structure of style." 
 
 LY. " These remarks, Crassus," said Cotta, " I perceive 
 that you have poured forth to us without any definitions or 
 examples, because you imagined us acquainted with them." 
 " I did not, indeed," said Crassus, " suppose that any of the 
 things which I previously mentioned were new to you, but 
 acted merely in obedience to the inclinations of the whole 
 company. But in these particulars the sun yonder admo- 
 nished me to use brevity, which, hastening to set, compelled 
 me also to throw out these observations almost too hastily. 
 But explanations, and even rules on this head, are common, 
 though the application of them is most important, and the 
 most difficult of anything in the whole study of eloquence. 
 
 ^ An antithetic position of words, as esse ut vivas, non vivere ut edas, 
 Ellendt. 
 
 2 Declinatio, Called avTiiiera^oK^ by Quintilian, ix. 3. 85. 
 
 2 Eeprehensio. ^AfpopicrfJids or diopio-fids. Jul. Bufin. p. 207. Compare 
 Quintil. ix. 2. 18 ; Em. p. 332. Ellendt. 
 
 * How this kind of doubt differs from that which is mentioned in the 
 preceding chapter, among the figures of thought, it is not easy to say. 
 Ellendt. 
 
 ^ Correctio verbi. Different from that which is mentioned above, in 
 the middle of c. 53. Ellendt. 
 
 ^ Called dXXotcaaLS by Quintilian, ix. 3. 92. Ellendt. 
 
 7 Digression has been twice mentioned before. Strebseus supposes it 
 to be similar to {x^rd^affis or dTroffrporpij. I have no doubt that the 
 word ought to be ejected. Circumscription Quintilian himself could 
 not understand, and has excluded it from his catalogue of figures 
 (ix. 3. 91). Ellendt. Most of the figures enumerated in this chapter 
 are illustrated by the writer ad Herennium, b. iv., and by Quintilian, 
 b. ix. 
 
0. LVI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 395 
 
 " Since, then, all the points which relate to all the orna- 
 mental parts of oratory are, if not illustrated, at least pointed 
 out, let us now consider what is meant by propriety, that is, 
 what is most becoming, in oratory. It is, however, clear that 
 no single kind of style can be adapted to every cause, or every 
 audience, or every person, or every occasion. For capital 
 causes require one style of speaking, private and inferior 
 causes another; deliberations require one kind of oratory, 
 panegyric another, judicial proceedings another, common con- 
 versation another, consolation another, reproof another, dis- 
 putation another, historical narrative another. It is of conse- 
 quence also to consider who form the audience, whether the 
 senate, or the people, or the judges; whether it is a large or a 
 small assembly, or a single person, and of what character; it 
 ought to be taken into account, too, who the speakers them- 
 selves are, of what age, rank, and authority; and the time 
 also, whether it be one of peace or war, of hurry or leisure. 
 On this head, therefore, no direction seems possible to be 
 given but this, that we adopt a character of style, fuller, 
 plainer, or middling,^ suited to the subject on which we are to 
 speak ; the same ornaments we may use almost constantly, but 
 sometimes in a higher, sometimes in a lower strain; and it is 
 the part of art and nature to be able to do what is becoming 
 on every occasion ; to Tcnow what is becoming, and when, is an 
 aifair of judgment. 
 
 LYI. '^ But all these parts of oratory succeed according as 
 they are delivered. Delivery, I say, has the sole and supreme 
 power in oratory ; without it, a speaker of the highest mental 
 capacity can be held in no esteem; while one of moderate 
 abilities, with this qualification, may surpass even those of 
 the highest talent. To this Demosthenes is said to have 
 assigned the first place, when he was asked what was the chief 
 requisite in eloquence; to this the second, and to this the 
 third. For this reason, I am wont the more to admire what 
 was said by ^schines, who, when he had retired from Athens, 
 on account of the disgrace of having lost his cause, and 
 betaken himself to Rhodes, is reported to have read, at the 
 entreaty of the Rhodians, that excellent oration which he had 
 spoken against Ctesiphon, in opposition to Demosthenes; and 
 when he had concluded it, he was asked to read, next day, 
 ^ Compare c. 52 iniU 
 
396 DE oratore; or, [b.iii. 
 
 that also which had been published by Demosthenes on the 
 other side in favour of Ctesiphon ; and when he had read this 
 too in a most pleasing and powerful tone of voice, and all 
 expressed their admiration. How much more would you have 
 admired it, said he, if you had heard him deliver it himself/ 
 By this remark, he sufficiently indicated how much depends 
 on delivery, as he thought the same speech would appear 
 different if the speaker were changed. What was it in Grac- 
 chus, — whom you, Catulus, remember better, — that was so 
 highly extolled when I was a boy ^ Whither shall I, unhappy 
 wretch, betake myself ? Whither shall I turn ? To the Capitol ? 
 But that is drenched with the blood of my brother ! Or to my 
 home, that I may see my distressed and afflicted mother in all 
 the agony of lamentation ? These words, it was allowed, were 
 uttered by him with such delivery, as to countenance, voice, 
 and gesture, that his very enemies could not restrain their 
 tears. I dwell the longer on these particulars, because the 
 orators, who are the deliverers of truth itself, have neglected 
 this whole department, and the players, who are only the 
 imitators of truth, have taken possession of it. 
 
 LYII. " In everything, without doubt, truth has the ad- 
 vantage over imitation ; and if truth were efficient enough in 
 delivery of itself, we should certainly have no need for the aid 
 of art. But as that emotion of mind, which ought to be 
 chiefly expressed or imitated in delivery, is often so confused 
 as to be obscured and almost overwhelmed, the peculiarities 
 which throw that veil over it are to be set aside, and such as 
 are eminent and conspicuous to be selected. For every emo- 
 tion of the mind has from nature its own peculiar look, tone, 
 and gesture; and the whole frame of a man, and his whole 
 countenance, and the variations of his voice, sound^ like strings 
 in a musical instrument, just as they are moved by the affec- 
 tions of the mind. For the tones of the voice, like musical 
 chords, are so wound up as to be responsive to every touch, 
 sharp, flat, quick, slow, loud, gentle; and yet, among all these, 
 each in its kind has its own middle tone. From these tones, 
 too, are derived many other sorts, as the rough, the smooth, 
 the contracted, the broad, the protracted, and interrupted; 
 
 ^ Sonant, As this word does not properly apply to vultus, the coun- 
 tenance, Schutz would make some alteration in the text. But Miiller 
 and others observe that such a zeugma is not uncommon. 
 
Bhi 
 
 LVIII.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 397 
 
 e broken and divided, the attenuated and inflated, with 
 varieties of modulation ; for there is none of these, or those 
 that resemble them, which may not be influenced by art and 
 management ; and they are presented to the orator, as colours 
 to the painter, to produce variety. 
 
 LYIII. " Anger, for instance, assumes a particular tone of 
 voice, acute, vehement, and with frequent breaks : 
 
 My impious brother drives me on, ah wretched ! 
 To tear my children with my teeth ! ^ 
 
 and in those lines which you, Antonius, cited awhile ago :^ 
 
 Have you, then, dared to separate him from you ? 
 
 and, 
 
 Does any one perceive this ? Bind him 
 
 and almost the whole tragedy of Atreus. But lamentation 
 and bewailing assumes another tone, flexible, full, interrupted, 
 in a voice of sorrow : as, 
 
 Whither shall I now turn myself ? what road 
 Shall I attempt to tread ? Home to my father, 
 
 Or go to Pelias' daughters ? ^ • 
 
 and this, 
 
 father, my country, House of Priam ! 
 
 and that which follows, 
 
 All these did I behold en wrapt in flames, 
 And life from Priam torn by violence.^ 
 
 Fear has another tone, desponding, hesitating, abject: 
 
 In many ways am I encompass'd round ! 
 By sickness, exile, want. And terror drives 
 All judgment from my breast, deprived of sense ! 
 One threats my life with torture and destruction, 
 And no man has so firm a soul, such boldness, 
 But that his blood shrinks backward, and his look 
 Grows pale with timid fear.^ 
 
 Violence has another tone, strained, vehement, impetuous, 
 with a kind of forcible excitement : 
 
 ^ From the Atreus of Accius, whence also the next quotation but 
 one is taken. See Tusc. Quaest. iv. 36. 
 - See ii. 46. 
 
 ^ From the Medea of Ennius. 
 
 * From the Andromache of Ennius. See Tusc. Qusest. i. 35 ; iii. 19. 
 ^ From the Alcmaeon of Ennius. 
 
398 DE oratore; or, [b. hi. 
 
 Again Thyestes comes to drag on Atreus : 
 Again attacks me, and disturbs my quiet : 
 Some greater storm, some greater ill by me 
 Must be excited, that I may confound 
 And crush his cruel heart. ^ 
 
 Pleasure another, unconstrained, mild, tender, cheeiful, 
 languid : 
 
 But when she brought for me the crown design'd 
 
 To celebrate the nuptials, 'twas to thee 
 
 She ofPer'd it, pretending that she gave it 
 
 To grace another ; then on thee she" placed it 
 
 Sportive, and graceful, and with delicacy.^ 
 
 Trouble has another tone ; a sort of gravity without lamenta- 
 tion ; oppressed, as it were, with one heavy uniform sound : 
 
 'Twas at the time when Paris wedded Helen 
 In lawless nuptials, and when I was pregnant, 
 My months being nearly ended for delivery, 
 Then, at that very time, did Hecuba 
 Bring forth her latest offspring, Polydore. 
 
 LIX. '^ On all these emotions a proper gesture ought to 
 attend; not the gesture of the stage, expressive of mere 
 w^ords, but one showing the whole force and meaning of 
 a passage, not by gesticulation, but by emphatic delivery, by 
 a strong and manly exertion of the lungs, not imitated from 
 the theatre and the players, but rather from the camp and 
 the palaestra. The action of the hand should not be too 
 affected,^ but following the words rather than, as it were, 
 expressing them by mimicry ; the arm should be considerably 
 extended, as one of the weapons of oratory; the stamping 
 of the foot should be used only in the most vehement efforts, 
 at their commencement or conclusion. But all depends on 
 the countenance; and even in that the eyes bear sovereign 
 sway; and therefore the oldest of our countrymen showed 
 the more judgment in not applauding even Roscius himself 
 to any great degree when he performed in a mask ; for all the 
 powers of action proceed from the mind, and the countenance 
 is the image of the mind, and the eyes are its interpreters. 
 This, indeed, is the only part of the body that can effectually 
 
 ^ From the Atreus of Accius. See Tusc. Quaest. iii. 36; De Nat. 
 Deor. iii. 20. 
 
 2 Whence this and the next quotation are taken is unknown. 
 
 ^ Arguta. Argutice digitorvmi. Orat. c. 18. Manus inter agendmn 
 argutce admodum et gestuosce. Aul. Gell. i 5. 
 
(J. LX.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR, 399 
 
 display as infinite a number of significations and changes, as 
 there is of emotions in the soul ; nor can any speaker pro- 
 duce the same effect with his eyes shut/ as with them open. 
 Theophrastus indeed has told us, that a certain Tauriscus 
 used to say, that a player who pronounced his part gazing 
 on any particular object was like one who turned his back 
 on the audience. 2 Great care in managing the eyes is there- 
 fore necessary; for the appearance of the features is not to 
 be too much varied, lest we fall into some absurdity or dis- 
 tortion. It is the eyes, by whose intense or languid gaze, as 
 well as by their quick glances and gaiety, we indicate 
 the workings of our mind with a peculiar aptitude to the 
 tenor of our discourse; for action is, as it were, the speech 
 of the body, and ought therefore the more to accord with 
 that of the soul. And Nature has given eyes to us, to declare 
 our internal emotions, as she has bestowed a mane, tail, and 
 ears on the horse and the lion. For these reasons, in our 
 oratorical action, the countenance is next in power to the 
 voice, and is influenced by the motion of the eyes. But in 
 everything appertaining to action there is a certain force 
 bestowed by Nature herself; and it is by action accordingly 
 that the illiterate, the vulgar, and even barbarians themselves, 
 are principally moved. For words move none but those who 
 are associated in a participation of the same language ; and 
 sensible thoughts often escape the understandings of senseless 
 men; but action, which by its own powers displays the 
 movements of the soul, affects all mankind ; for the minds 
 of all men are excited by the same emotions, which they 
 recognise in others, and indicate in themselves, by the same 
 tokens. 
 
 LX. " To effectiveness and excellence in delivery the voice 
 doubtless contributes most; the voice, I say, which, in its 
 full strength, must be the chief object of our wishes ; and 
 next, whatever strength of voice we have, to cherish it. On 
 this point, how we are to assist the voice has nothing to do 
 with precepts of this kind, though, for my part, I think that 
 we should assist it to the utmost. But it seems not un- 
 
 ^ I follow EUendt in reading co7inivens, instead of contuens, the com- 
 mon reading, which OreUius retains. 
 
 2 Aver sum. " Qui stet aversus k theatro, et spectatoribus tergum 
 obvertat," Schutz. Of Tauriscus nothing is known. 
 
400 DE ORATORE j OR, \ [b. III. 
 
 suitable to the purport of my present remarks; to observe, as 
 I observed a little while ago, ' that in most things what is 
 most useful is, I know not how, the most becoming;' for^ 
 nothing is more useful for securing power of voice,^^fehanr-tfie 
 frequent variation of it; nothing more pernicious than an 
 immoderate straining of it without intermission. And what 
 is more adapted to delight the ear, and produce agreeableness 
 of delivery, than change, variety, and alteration of tone? 
 Caius Gracchus, accordingly, (as you may hear, Catulus, 
 from your client Licinius, a man of letters, whom Gracchus 
 formerly had for his amanuensis,) used to have a skilful 
 person with an ivory pitch-pipe, to stand concealed behind 
 him when he made a speech, and who was in an instant to 
 sound such a note as might either excite him from too 
 languid a tone, or recal him from one too elevated." " I 
 have heard this before," said Catulus, " and have often 
 admired the diligence of that great man, as well as his 
 learning and knowledge." "And I, too," said Crassus; "and 
 am grieved that men of such talents should fall into such 
 miscarriages with regard to the commonwealth; although 
 the same web is still being woven ;i and such a state of 
 manners is advancing in the country, and held out to pos- 
 terity, that we now desire to have citizens such as our fathers 
 would not tolerate." " Forbear, Crassus, I entreat you," in- 
 terposed Caesar, '' from this sort of conversation, and go back 
 to Gracchus's pitch-pipe, of which I do not yet clearly \mder- 
 stand the object." 
 
 LXI. " There is in every voice," continued Crassus, " a 
 certain middle key; but in each particular voice that key is 
 peculiar. For the voice to ascend gradually from this key 
 is advantageous and pleasing ; since to bawl at the beginning 
 of a speech is boorish, and gradation is salutary in strength- 
 ening the voice. There is also a certain extreme in the 
 highest pitch, (which, however, is low^er than the shrillest cry,) 
 to which the pipe will not allow you to ascend, but will recal 
 you from too strained an effort of voice. There is also, on 
 the other hand, an extreme in the lowest notes, to which, as 
 being of a full sound, we by degrees descend. This variety 
 and this gradual progression of the voice throughout all the 
 notes, will preserve its powers, and add agreeableness to deli- 
 * As to the state of the republic at that time, see i. 7. Ellendt, 
 
C. LXI.] ON THE CHARACTER OF THE ORATOR. 401 
 
 very. But you will leave the piper at home, and carry with 
 you into the forum merely the intention of the custom. 
 
 " I have said what I could, though not as I wished, but as \ 
 the shortness of the time obliged me; for it is wise to lay thy 
 blame upon the time, when you cannot add more even if you 
 desired." ^' But," said Catulus, ''you have, as far as I can 
 judge, brought together everything upon the subject, and 
 that in so excellent a manner, that you seem not to have 
 received instructions in the art from the Greeks, but to be 
 able to instruct the Greeks themselves. I rejoice that I have 
 been present at your conversation; and could wish that my 
 son-in-law, your friend Hortensius,^ had also been present; 
 who, I trust, will excel in all those good qualities of which you 
 have treated in this dissertation." " Will excel!" exclaimed 
 Crassus ; " I consider that he already excels. I had that 
 opinion of him when he pleaded, in my consulship, the cause 
 of Africa^ in the senate ; and I found myself still more con- 
 firmed in it lately, when he spoke for the king of Bithynia.^ 
 You judge rightly, therefore, Catulus; for I am convinced 
 that nothing is wanting to that young man, on the part 
 either of nature or of learning. You, therefore, Cotta, and 
 you, Sulpicius, must exert the greater vigilance and industry ; 
 for he is no ordinary orator, who is springing up to rival 
 those of your age ; but one of a penetrating genius, and an 
 ardent attachment to study, of eminent learning, and of 
 singular powers of memory; but, though he is a favourite of 
 mine, I only wish him to excel those of his own standing; 
 for to desire that he, who is so much younger,^ should outstrip 
 you, is hardly fair. But let us now arise, aad refresh our- 
 selves, and at length relieve our minds and attention from 
 this fatiguing discussion." 
 
 ^ The orator afterwards so famous. 
 
 2 He pleaded this cause, observes Ellendt, at the age of nineteen; 
 but the nature of it, as -well as that of the king of Bithjnia, is un- 
 known. 
 
 ^ He was ten years younger than Cotta and Sulpicius. Brut. c. 88. 
 Ellendt. 
 
 END OF "DE ORATORE." 
 
 D D 
 
BEUTUS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This treatise was the fruit of Cicero's retirement, during the remains 
 of the civil war in Africa, and was composed in the form of a 
 dialogue. It contains a few short, but very masterly sketches of all 
 the speakers who had flourished either in Greece or Rome, with any 
 reputation of eloquence, down to his own time ; and 8.s he generally 
 touches the principal incidents of their lives, it will be considered, 
 by. an attentive reader, as a concealed epitome of the Roman history. 
 The conference is supposed to have been held with Atticus, and their 
 common friend Brutus, in Cicero's garden at Rome, under the statue 
 of Plato, whom he always admired, and usually imitated in his 
 Dialogues. 
 
 I. When I had left Cilicia, and arrived at Rhodes, word was 
 brought me of the death of Hortensius. I was more affected 
 with it than, I believe, was generally expected; for, by the 
 loss of my friend, I saw myself for ever deprived of the 
 pleasure of his acquaintance, and of our mutual intercourse 
 of good offices. I likewise reflected, with concern, that the 
 dignity of our college must suffer greatly by the decease of 
 such an eminent augur. This reminded me that he was the 
 person who first introduced me to the college, where he 
 attested my qualification upon oath, and that it was he also 
 who installed me as a member; so that I was bound by the 
 constitution of the order to respect and honour him as a 
 parent. My affliction was increased, that, in such a deplorable 
 dearth of wise and virtuous citizens, this excellent man, my 
 faithful associav':e in the service of the public, expired at the 
 very time when the commonwealth could least spare him, and 
 when we had the greatest reason to regret the want of his 
 prudence and authority. I can add, very sincerely, that in 
 him I lamented the loss, not (as most people imagined) of a 
 dangerous rival who opposed my reputation, but of a generous 
 associate who engaged with me in the pursuit of fame. For 
 if we have instances in history, though in studies of less 
 
BRUTQS ; OR^ REMARKS ON EMmENT ORATORS. 408 
 
 importance, that some distinguished poets have been greatly 
 alllicted at the death of their contemporary bards, with what 
 tender concern should I honour the memory of a man with 
 whom it is more glorious to have disputed the prize of 
 eloquence, than never to have combated as an antagonist, 
 especially as he was always so far from obstructing my endea- 
 vours, or I Ais, that, on the contrary, we mutually assisted 
 each other with our credit and advice 1 But as he, who had a 
 perpetual run of felicity,^ left the world at a happy moment 
 for himself, though a most unfortunate one for his fellow- 
 citizens, — and died when it would have been much easier for 
 him to lament the miseries of his country than to assist it, 
 after living in it as long as he could have lived with honour 
 and reputation, — we may, indeed, deplore his death as a 
 heavy loss to U8 who survive him. If, however, we consider 
 it merely as a personal event, we ought rather to congra- 
 tulate his fate than to pity it; that, as often as we revive the 
 memory of this illustrious and truly happy man, we may 
 appear at least to have as much affection for him as for our- 
 selves. For if we only lament that we are no longer pjermitted 
 to enjoy him, it must, indeed, be acknowledged that this is a 
 heavy misfortune to u^; which it however becomes us to 
 support with moderation, lest our sorrow should be suspected 
 to arise from motives of interest, and not from friendship. 
 But if we afflict ourselves, on the supposition that he was the 
 sufferer, we misconstrue an event, which to him was certainly 
 a very happy one. 
 
 II. If Hortensius were now living, he would probably regTet 
 
 I many other advantages in common with his worthy fellow- 
 
 i citizens. But when he beheld the forum, the great theatre in 
 
 which he used to exercise his genius, no longer accessible to 
 
 ; that accomplished eloquence which could charm the ears of a 
 
 Roman or a Grecian audience, he must have felt a pang of 
 
 which none, or at least but few, besides himself could be 
 
 ' susceptible. Even / indulge heartfelt anguish, when I behold 
 
 I .my country no longer supported by the talents, the wisdom, 
 
 and the authority of law, — the only weapons which I have 
 
 ^ Quoniam perpetud quddam felicitate usus ille, cessit e vitd, suo magis 
 quam suorum cimum tempore. This fine sentiment, conveyed in such 
 elegant language, carries an allusion to the conversation of Solon 
 svith Croesus, in which the former maintained the seeming paradox, 
 that he alone can be deemed happy who meets a happy death. See 
 Herod. Clio, 32. 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 learned to wield, and to which I have long been accustomed, 
 and which are most suitable to the character of an illustrious 
 citizen, and of a virtuous and well-regulated state. But if 
 there ever was a time when the authority and eloquence of an 
 honest individual could have wrested their arms from the 
 hands of his distracted fellow-citizens, it was then when the 
 proposal of a compromise of our mutual differences w^as 
 rejected, by the hasty imprudence of some and the timorou? 
 mistrust of others. Thus it happened, among other mis- 
 fortunes of a more deplorable nature, that when my declining 
 age, after a life spent in the service of the public, should have 
 reposed in the peaceful harbour, not of an indolent and 
 total inactivity, but of a moderate and honourable retirement, 
 and when my eloquence was properly mellowed and had 
 acquired its full maturity; — thus it happened, I say, that 
 recourse was then had to those fatal arms, which the persons 
 who had learned the use of them in honourable conquest 
 could no longer employ to any salutary purpose. Those, 
 therefore, appear to me to have enjoyed a fortunate and 
 happy life, (of whatever state they were members, but 
 especially in ours,) who, together with their authority and 
 reputation, either for their military or political services, are 
 allowed to enjoy the advantages of philosophy; and the sole 
 remembrance of them, in our present melancholy situation, 
 was a pleasing relief to me, when we lately happened to 
 mention them in the course of conversation. 
 
 III. For, not long ago, when I was walking for my amuse- 
 ment in a private avenue at home, I was agreeably interrupted 
 by my friend Brutus and Titus Pomponius, who came, as indeed 
 they frequently did, to visit me, — two worthy citizens, who 
 were united to each other in the closest friendship, and were 
 so dear and so agreeable to me, that on the first sight of them, 
 all my anxiety for the commonwealth subsided. After the 
 usual salutations, "Well, gentlemen," said I, "how go the 
 times? What news have you brought f " None," replied 
 Brutus, " that you would wish to hear, or that I can venture 
 to tell you for truth." " No," said Atticus ; " we are come 
 with an intention that all matters of state should be dropped, 
 and rather to hear something from you, than to say anything 
 which might serve to distress you." " Indeed," said I, " your 
 company is a present remedy for my sorrow ; and your letters, 
 when absent, were so encouraging, that they first revived 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 405 
 
 my attention to my studies." " I remember," replied Atticus, 
 " that Brutus sent you a letter from Asia, which I read with 
 infinite pleasure ; for he advised you in it like a man of sense, 
 and gave you every consolation which the warmest friendship 
 could suggest." " True," said I ; ^^ for it was the receipt of 
 that letter which recovered me from a growing indisposition, 
 to behold once more the cheerful face of day; and as the 
 Roman state, after the dreadful defeat near Cannse, first raised 
 its drooping head by the victory of Marcellus at Nola, which 
 was succeeded by many other victories, so, after the dismal 
 wreck of our affairs, both public and private, nothing occurred 
 to me, before the letter of my friend Brutus, which I thought 
 to be worth my attention, or which contributed, in any 
 degree, to ease the anxiety of my heart." " That was certainly 
 my intention," answered Brutus; " and if I had the happiness 
 to succeed, I was sufficiently rewarded for my trouble. But 
 I could wish to be informed what you received from Atticus, 
 which gave you such uncommon pleasure." " That," said I, 
 " which not only entertained mOj but I hope has restored me 
 entirely to myself" " Indeed ! " replied he ; *^ and what mi- 
 raculous composition could that be ? " " Nothing," answered 
 I, " could have been a more acceptable or a more seasonable 
 present than that excellent treatise of his, which roused me 
 from a state of languor and despondency." "You mean,' 
 said he, "his short and, I think, very accurate abridgement 
 of universal history." " The very same," said I ; " for that 
 little treatise has absolutely saved me." 
 
 TV. " I am heartily glad of it," said Atticus ; " but what 
 could you discover in it which was either new to you or so won- 
 derfully beneficial as you pretend 1 " " It certainly furnished 
 many hints," said I, " which were entirely new to me ; and 
 the exact order of time which you observed through the 
 whole, gave me the opportunity I had long wished for, of 
 beholding the history of all nations in one regular and com- 
 prehensive view. The attentive perusal of it proved an excel- 
 lent remedy for my sorrows, and led me to think of attempt- 
 ing something on your own plan, partly to amuse myself, and 
 partly to return your favour by a grateful, though not an 
 equal, acknowledgment. We are commanded, it is true, in 
 that precept of Hesiod, so much admired by the learned, to 
 return with the same measure we have received, or, if possible, 
 with a larger. As to a friendly inclination, I shall certainly 
 
406 
 
 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 return you a full proportion of it; but as to a recompense in 
 kind, I confess it to be out of my power, and therefore hope 
 you will excuse me; for I have not, as husbandmen are 
 accustomed to have, gathered a fresh harvest out of which to 
 repay the kindness^ I have received; my whole harvest having 
 sickened and died, for want of the usual manure; and as 
 little am I able to present you with anything from those 
 hidden stores which are now consigned to perpetual darkness, 
 and to which I am denied all access, though formerly I was 
 almost the only person who was able to command them at 
 pleasure. I must, therefore, try my skill in a long-neglected 
 and uncultivated soil; which I will endeavour to improve 
 with so mach care, that I may be able to repay your liberality 
 with interest; provided my genius should be so happy as to 
 resemble a fertile field, which, after being suffered to lie fallow 
 a considerable time, produces a heavier crop than usual." 
 
 " Very w^ell," replied Atticus, " I shall expect the fulfilment 
 of your promise ; but I shall not insist upon it till it suits 
 your convenience, though, after all, I shall certainly be better 
 pleased if you discharge the obligation." *' And I also," said 
 Brutus, " shall expect that you perform your promise to my 
 friend Atticus ; nay, though I am only his voluntary solicitor, 
 I shall, perhaps, be very pressing for the discharge of a debt 
 which the creditor himself is willing to submit to your own 
 choice." Y. " But I shall refuse to pay you," said I, '^unless 
 the original creditor takes no further part in the suit." " This 
 is more than I can promise," replied he ; '^ for I can easily fore- 
 see that this easy man, who disclaims all severity, will urge 
 his demand upon you, not indeed to distress you, but yet 
 with earnestness and importunity." ^' To speak ingenuously," 
 said Atticus, ^' my friend Brutus, I believe, is not much mis- 
 taken ; for as I now find you in good spirits for the first time, 
 after a tedious interval of despondency, I shall soon make 
 bold to apply to you ; and as this gentleman has promised his 
 assistance to recover what you owe me, the least I can do is 
 to solicit, in my turn, for what is due to him." '' Explain 
 your meanii:ig," said I. " I mean," replied he, *^ that you 
 must write something to amuse us; for your pen has been 
 
 ^ Non enim ex nOvis, ut agricolce solent, fructihus est, unde tibi reddam 
 quod accepi. The allusion is to a farmer, who, in time of necessity, 
 borrows corn or fruit of his more opulent neighbour, which he repays 
 in kind as soon as his harvest is gathered home. Cicero was not, he 
 .says, in a situation to make a similar return. 
 
REMARKS OX EMINENT ORATORS. 407 
 
 totally silent this long time; and since your treatise on 
 politics, we have had nothing from you of any kind, though 
 it was the perusal of that which fired me with the ambition 
 to write an abridgement of univei-sal history. But we shall, 
 however, leave you to answer this demand when and in what 
 manner you shall think most convenient. At present, if you 
 are not otherwise engaged, you must give us your sentiments 
 on a subject on which we both desire to be better informed." 
 "And what is that V said I. " A work which you had just 
 begun," replied he, " when I saw you last at Tusculanum, — 
 the History of Eminent Orators, — when they made their ap- 
 pearance, and who and what they were ; w^hich furnished such 
 an agreeable train of conversation, that when I related the 
 substance of it to your, or I ought rather to have said owr 
 common, friend Brutus, he expressed an ardent desire to hear 
 the whole of it from your own mouth. Knowing you, there- 
 fore, to be at leisure, we have taken the present opportunity 
 to wait upon you ; so that, if it is really convenient, you will 
 oblige us both by resuming the subject." '' Well, gentlemen," 
 said I, " as you are so pressing, I will endeavour to satisfy you 
 in the best manner I am able." '• You are able enough," 
 replied he ; '^ only unbend, or rather, if possible, set at full 
 liberty your mind." " If I remember right," said I, '' Atticus. 
 what gave rise to the conversation was my observing that the 
 cause of Deiotarus, a most excellent sovereign and a faithful 
 ally, was pleaded by our friend Brutus, in my hearing, with 
 the greatest elegance and dignity." 
 
 VI. '' True," replied he; '^and you took occasion, from the 
 ill-success of Brutus, to lament the loss of a fair administration 
 of justice in the forum." " I did so," answered I, " as indeed 
 I frequently do; and whenever I see you, my Brutus, I am 
 concerned to think where your wonderful genius, your finished 
 erudition, and unparalleled industry will find a theatre to 
 display themselves. For after you had thoroughly improved 
 your abilities, by pleading a variety of important causes, and 
 when my declining vigour was just giving way and lowering 
 the ensigns of dignity to your more active talents, the liberty 
 of the state received a fatal overthrow, and that eloquence, of 
 which we are now to give the history, was condemned to per- 
 petual silence." '• Our other misfortunes," replied Brutus, '^ I 
 lament sincerely, and I think I ought to lament them; but as 
 to eloquence, I am not so fond of the influence and the glory 
 
408 BRUTUS; OR, 
 
 it bestowSj as of the study and the practice of it, whicli 
 nothing can deprive me of, while you are so well disposed to 
 assist me; for no man can be an eloquent speaker who has 
 not a clear and ready conception. Whoever, therefore, applies 
 himself to the study of eloquence, is at the same time im- 
 proving his judgment, which is a talent equally necessary in 
 all military operations." " Your remark," said I, " is very 
 just; and I have a higher opinion of the merit of eloquence, 
 because, though there is scarcely any person so diffident as 
 not to persuade himself that he either has or may acquire 
 every other accomplishment which formerly could have given 
 him consequence in the state, I can find no person who has 
 been made an orator by the success of his military prowess. 
 But that we may carry on the conversation with greater ease, 
 let us seat ourselves." As my visitors had no objection to 
 this, we accordingly took our seats in a private lawn, near 
 a statue of Plato. Then resuming the conversation, — " To 
 recommend the study of* eloquence," said I, " and describe its 
 force, and the great dignity it confers upon those who have 
 acquired it, is neither our present design, nor has any neces- 
 sary connexion with it. But I will not hesitate to affirm, that 
 vvhether it is acquired by art or practice, or the mere powers 
 of nature, it is the most difficult of all attainments ; for each 
 of the five branches of which it is said to consist, is of itself a 
 very important art; from whence it may easily be conjectured 
 how great and arduous must be the profession which unites 
 and comprehends them all. 
 
 VII. '^ Greece alone is a sufficient witness of this ; for though 
 she was fired with a wonderful love of eloquence, and has long 
 since excelled every other nation in the practice of it, yet she 
 had all the rest of the arts much earlier; and had not only 
 invented, but even completed them, a considerable time before 
 she was mistress of the full powers of elocution. But when I 
 direct my eyes to Greece, your beloved Athens, my Atticus, 
 first strikes my sight, and is the brightest object in my view; 
 for in that illustrious city the orator first made his appearance, 
 and it is there we shall find the earhest records of eloquence, 
 and the first specimens of a discourse conducted by rules of 
 art. But even in Athens there is not a single production 
 now extant which discovers any taste for ornament, or seems 
 to have been the effort of a real orator, before the time of 
 Pericles (whose name is prefixed to some orations which still 
 
I 
 
 REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 409 
 
 remain) and his contemporary Thucydides ; who flourished, 
 not in the infancy of the state, but when it had arrived at 
 its full maturity of power. It is, however, supposed, that 
 Pisistratus, (who lived many years before.) together with Solon, 
 who was something older, and Clisthenes, who survived them 
 both, were very able speakers for the age they lived in. But 
 some years after these, as may be collected from the Attic 
 annals, came Themistocles, who is said to have been as 
 much distinguished by his eloquence as by his political abili- 
 ties ] and after him the celebrated Pericles, who, though 
 adorned with every kind of excellence, was most admired 
 for his talents as a speaker. Cleon also, their contem- 
 porary, though a turbulent citizen, w^as allowed to be a 
 tolerable orator. These were immediately succeeded by 
 Alcibiades, Critias, and Theramenes ; the character of their 
 eloquence may be easily inferred from the writings of Thucy- 
 dides, who lived at the same time ; their discourses were 
 nervous and stately, full of sententious remarks, and so exces- 
 sively concise as to be sometimes obscure. 
 
 VIII. '' But as soon as the force of a reg-ular and well- 
 adjusted style was understood, a crowd of rhetoricians immedi- 
 ately appeared, — such as Gorgias the Leontine, Thrasymachus 
 the Chalcedonian, Protagoras the Abderite, and Hippias the 
 Elean, who w^ere all held in great esteem, — with many others 
 of the same age, who professed (it must be owned rather too 
 arrogantly) to teach their scholars how the worse might 
 he made, by the force of eloquence, to appear the better cause. 
 But these were openly opposed by Socrates, who, by a subtle 
 method of arguing peculiar to himself, took every opportunity 
 to refute the principles of their art. His instructive confer- 
 ences produced a number of intelligent men, and Philosophy 
 is said to have derived her birth from him; not the doctrine 
 of Physics, which was of an earlier date, but that Philosophy 
 which treats of men and manners, and of the nature of good 
 and evil. But as this is foreign to our present subject, 
 Ave must defer the philosophers to another opportunity, and 
 return t® the orators, from whom I have ventured to make 
 a short digression. When the professors, therefore, above- 
 mentioned, were in the decline of life, Isocrates made his 
 appearance, whose house stood open to all Greece as the 
 school of eloquence. He was an accomplished orator, and an 
 excellent teacher ; though he did not display his talents in the 
 
410 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 splendour of the forum, but cherished and improved within ' 
 the walls of an obscure academy, that glory which, in my 
 opinion, no orator has since acquired. He composed many 
 valuable specimens of his art, and taught the principles of it 
 to others ; and not only excelled his predecessors in every part 
 of it, but first discovered that a certainr hythm and modu- 
 lation should be observed in prose, care being taken, however, 
 to avoid making verses. Before him, the artificial structure 
 and harmony of language was unknown ; — or, if there are any 
 traces of it to be discovered, they appear to have been made 
 without design ; which, perhaps, will be thought a beauty ; 
 but whatever it may be deemed, it was, in the present case, 
 the effect rather of native genius, or of accident, than of art 
 and observation. For Nature herself teaches us to close our 
 sentences within certain limits ; and when they are thus con- 
 fined to a moderate flow of expression, they will frequently 
 have an harmonious cadence ; for the ear alone can decide 
 what is full and complete, and what is deficient; and the 
 course of our language will necessarily be regulated by our 
 breath, in which it is excessively disagreeable, not only to fail, 
 but even to labour. 
 
 IX. " After Isocrates came Lysias, who, though not personally 
 engaged in forensic causes, was a very accurate and elegant 
 composer, and such a one as you might almost venture to 
 pronounce a complete orator; for Demosthenes is the man 
 who approaches the character so nearly, that you may apply 
 it to him without hesitation. No keen, no artful turns could 
 have been contrived for the pleadings he has left behind him, 
 which he did not readily discover; nothing could have been 
 expressed with greater nicety, or more clearly and poignantly, 
 than it has been already expressed by him; and nothing 
 greater, nothing more rapid and forcible, nothing adorned 
 with a nobler elevation, either of language or sentiment, can 
 be conceived, than what is to be found in his orations. He 
 was soon rivalled by his contemporaries Hyperides, ^schines, 
 Lycurgus, Dinarchus, and Demades, (none of whose writings 
 are extant,) with many others that might be mentioned ; for 
 this age was adorned with a profusion of good orators ; and 
 to the end of this period appears to me to have flourished 
 that vigorous and blooming eloquence, w^hich is distinguished 
 by a natural beauty of composition, without disguise or affec- 
 tation. When these orators were in the decline of life, they 
 
REMARKS OX EMINENT ORATORS. 411 
 
 were succeeded by Phalereus, then in the prime of youth. He 
 indeed surpassed them all in learning, but was fitter to 
 appear on the parade, than in the field ; and, accordingly, he 
 rather pleased and entertained the Athenians, than inflamed 
 their passions ; and marched forth into the dust and heat of 
 the forum, not from a weather-beaten tent, but from the shady 
 recesses of Theophrastus, a man of consummate erudition. 
 He was the first who relaxed the force of Eloquence, and gave 
 her a soft and tender air ; and he rather chose to be agree- 
 able, as indeed he was, than great and striking ; but agreeable 
 in such a manner as rather charmed, than warmed the mind of 
 the hearer. His greatest ambition was to impress his audience 
 with a high opinion of his elegance, and not, as Eupolis 
 relates of Pericles, to animate as well as to please, 
 
 X. '• You see, then, in the very city in which Eloquence 
 was born and nurtured, how late it was before she grew to 
 maturity; for before the time of Solon and Pisistratus, we 
 meet with no one who is so much as mentioned as an able 
 speaker. These, indeed, if we compute by the Roman date, 
 may be reckoned very ancient : but if by that of the Athe- 
 nians, we shall find them to be moderns. For though they 
 flourished in the reign of Servius Tullius, Athens had then 
 subsisted much longer than Rome has at present. I have not, 
 however, the least doubt that the power of eloquence has 
 been always more or less conspicuous. For Homer, we may 
 suppose, would not have ascribed such superior talents of 
 elocution to Ulysses and Nestor, (one of whom he celebrates 
 for his force, and the other for his sweetness,) unless the art 
 of speaking had then been held in some esteem ; nor could the 
 poet himself have attained a style so finished, nor exhibited such 
 fine specimens of oratory, as we actually find in him. The 
 time, indeed, in which he lived is undetermined ; but we are 
 certain that he flourished many years before Romulus, and a? 
 early at least as the elder^ Lycurgus, the legislator of the 
 Spartans. But a more particular attention to the art, ana a 
 greater ability in the practice of it, may be observed in Pisis- 
 tratus. He was succeeded in the following century by The- 
 mistocles, who, according to the Roman date, was a person of 
 the remotest antiquity ; but according to that of the Athe- 
 nians, he was almost a modern. For he lived when Greece 
 
 ^ SupeHorem. So called, as Orellius observes, to distinguish him 
 from Lycurgus the Athenian orator, mentioned in the preceding chapter. 
 
412 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 was in the height of her power, and when the city of Rome 
 had but lately been emancipated from the shackles of regal 
 tyranny; for the dangerous war with the Yolsci, who were 
 headed by Coriolanus (then a voluntary exile), happened nearly 
 at the same time as the Persian war; and we may add, that 
 the fate of both commanders was remarkably similar. Each 
 of them, after distinguishing himself as an excellent citizen, 
 being driven from his country by the insults of an ungrateful 
 people, went over to the enemy; and each of them repressed 
 the efforts of his resentment by a voluntary death. For 
 though you, my Atticus, have represented the death of Corio- 
 lanus in a dififerent manner, you must pardon me if I do not 
 subscribe to the justness of your representation." 
 
 XL " You may use your pleasure," replied Atticus, with a 
 smile; '^ for it is the privilege of rhetoricians to exceed the 
 truth of history, that they may have an opportunity of em- 
 bellishing the fate of their heroes : and accordingly, Clitarchus 
 and Stratocles have entertained us with the same pretty 
 fiction about the death of Themistocles, which you have in- 
 vented for Coriolanus. Thucydides, indeed, who was himself 
 an Athenian of the highest rank and merit, and lived nearly 
 at the same time, has only informed us that he died, and was 
 privately buried in Attica, adding, that it was suspected by 
 some that he had poisoned himself. But these ingenious 
 writers have assured us, that, having slain a bull at the altar, 
 he caught the blood in a large bowl, and, drinking it off, fell 
 suddenly dead upon the ground. For this species of death 
 had a tragical air, and might be described with all the pomp 
 of rhetoric ; whereas the ordinary way of dying afforded no 
 opportunity for ornament. As it will, therefore, suit your 
 purpose, that Coriolanus should resemble Themistocles in 
 everything. I give you leave to introduce the fatal bowl ; and 
 you may still farther heighten the catastrophe by a solemn 
 sacrifice, that Coriolanus may appear in all respects to have 
 been a second Themistocles." ^^I am much obliged to you," said 
 I, ^^ for your courtesy ; but, for the future, I shall be more 
 cautious in meddling with history when* you are present ; 
 whom I may justly commend as a most exact and scrupulous 
 relator of the Roman history ; but nearly at the time we are 
 speaking of (though somewhat later) lived the above-men- 
 tioned Pericles, the illustrious son of Xantippus, who first 
 improved his eloquence by the friendly aids of literature ; — 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 413 
 
 not that kind of literature which treats professedly of the art 
 of speaking, of which there was then no regular system ; but 
 after he had studied under Anaxagoras, the naturalist, he 
 directed with alacrity his attention from abstruse and intricate 
 speculations to forensic and popular debates. All Athens was 
 charmed with the sweetness of his language, and not only 
 admired him for his fluency, but was awed by the superior 
 force and terrors of his eloquence. 
 
 XII. *' This age, therefore, which may be considered as the 
 infancy of the art, furnished Athens with an orator who almost 
 reached the summit of his profession ; for an emulation 
 to shine in the forum is not usually found among a people 
 who are either employed in settling the form of their govern- 
 ment, or engaged in war, or struggling with difficulties, or 
 subjected to the arbitrary power of kings. Eloquence is the 
 attendant of peace, the companion of ease and prosperity, and 
 the tender offspring of a free and well-established constitu- 
 tion. Aristotle, therefore, informs us, that when the tyrants 
 were expelled from Sicily, and private property, after a long 
 interval of servitude, was secured by the administration of 
 justice, the Sicilians, Corax and Tisias, (for this people, in 
 general, were very quick and acute, and had a natural turn 
 for disquisition,) first attempted to write precepts on the art of 
 speaking. Before them, he says, no one spoke by prescribed 
 method, conformably to rules of art, though many discoursed 
 very sensibly, and generally from written notes ; but Prota- 
 goras took the pains to compose a number of dissertations, on 
 such leading and genej-al topics as are now called common 
 places. Gorgias, he adds, did the same, and wrote panegyrics 
 and invectives on every subject ; for he thought it was the 
 province of an orator to be able either to exaggerate, or 
 extenuate, as occasion might require. Antiphon the Rham- 
 nusian composed several essays of the same species ; and 
 (according to Thucydides, a very respectable writer, who was 
 present to hear him) pleaded a capital cause in his own 
 defence, with as much eloquence as had ever yet been dis- 
 played by any man. But Lysias was the first who openly 
 professed the ai^t ; and, after him, Theodorus, being better 
 versed in the theory than the practice of it, began to compose 
 orations for others to pronounce ; but confined to himself the 
 art of composing them. In the same manner, Isocrates at 
 first declined to teach the art, but wrote speeches for other 
 
414 BRUTUS; OR, 
 
 people to deliver ; on which account, being often prosecuted 
 for assisting, contrary to law, to circumvent one or another of 
 the parties in judgment, he left off composing orations for 
 other people, and wholly applied himself to prescribe rules, 
 and reduce them into a system. 
 
 XIII. " Thus, then, we have traced the birth and origin of 
 the orators of Greece, who were, indeed, very ancient, as I have 
 before observed, if we compute by the Roman annals ; but of 
 a much later date, if we reckon by their own ; for the Athe- 
 nian state had signalized itself by a variety of great exploits, 
 both at home and abroad, a considerable time before she 
 became enamoured of the charms of eloquence. But this 
 noble art was not common to Greece in general, but almost 
 peculiar to Athens. For who has ever heard of an Argive, a 
 Corinthian, or a Theban orator, at the times we are speaking 
 of ? unless, perhaps, some merit of the kind may be allowed 
 to Epaminondas, who was a man of uncommon erudition. But 
 I have never read of a Lacedemonian orator, from the earliest 
 period of time to the present. For Menelaus himself, though 
 said by Homer to have possessed a sweet elocution, is like- 
 wise described as a man of few words. Brevity, indeed, upon 
 some occasions, is a real excellence ; but it is very far from 
 being compatible with the general character of eloquence. 
 The art of speaking was likewise studied, and admired, beyond 
 the limits of Greece; and the extraordinary honours which 
 were paid to oratory have perpetuated the names of many 
 foreigners who had the happiness to excel in it. For no 
 sooner had eloquence ventured to sail from the Pirseeus, but 
 L<he traversed all the isles, and visited every part of x^sia ; till 
 ixt last, infected with their manners, she lost all the purity and 
 the healthy complexion of the Attic style, and indeed almost 
 forgot her native language. The Asiatic orators, therefore, 
 though not to be undervalued for the rapidity and the copious 
 variety of their elocution, were certainly too loose and luxu- 
 riant. But the Rhodians were of a sounder constitution, and 
 more resembled the Athenians. So much, then, for the 
 Greeks; for, perhaps, what I have already said of them is 
 more than was necessary." " Respecting the necessity of it," 
 answered Brutus, " there is no occasion to speak; but what you 
 have said of them has entertained me so agreeably, that 
 instead of being longer, it has been much shorter than I could 
 have wished." " A very handsome compliment," said I ; " but 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 415 
 
 it is time to begin with our couutrjmen, of whom it is difficult 
 to give any further account than what we are able to conjec- 
 ture from our annals. 
 
 XI y. '' For who can question the address and the capacity 
 of Brutus, the illustrious founder of your family ; — that 
 Brutus, who so readily discovered the meaning of the oracle, 
 which promised the supremacy to him who should first salute 
 his mother;^ — that Brutus, w4io, under the appearance of 
 stupidity, concealed the most exalted understandiug ; — who 
 dethroned and banished a powerful monarch, the son of an 
 illustrious sovereign ; — who settled the state, which he had 
 rescued from arbitrary powder, by the appointment of an 
 annual magistracy, a regular system of laws, and a free and 
 open course of justice ; — and who abrogated the authority of 
 his colleague, that he might banish from the city the smallest 
 
 Vestioje of the reo^al name ^ — events which could never have 
 been produced without exerting the powers of persuasion ! 
 We are likewise informed that a few years after the expulsion 
 of the kings, when the Plebeians retired to the banks of the 
 Anio, about three miles from the city, and had possessed 
 themselves of what is called the Sacred Mount, Marcus Vale- 
 rius the dictator appeased their fury by a public harangue; 
 for which he was afterwards rewarded with the highest posts 
 
 1 of honour, and was the first Roman who w^as distinguished by 
 the surname of Maximus. Nor can Lucius Valerius Potitus 
 be supposed to have been destitute of the powers of utterance, 
 who, after the odium which had been excited against the 
 Patricians by the tyrannical government of the Decemviri, 
 reconciled the people to the senate by his prudent laws and 
 conciliatory speeches. We may likewise suppose, that Appius 
 Claudius was a man of some eloquence ; since he dissuaded 
 the senate from consenting to a peace with king Pyrrhus, 
 though they were much inclined to it. The same might be 
 said of Caius Fabricius, who was despatched to Pyrrhus to 
 treat for the ransom of his captive fellow-citizens ; and of 
 Tiberius Coruncanius, who appears, by the memoirs of the pon- 
 tifical college, to have been a person of the greatest genius ; 
 
 ^ The words here alluded to occur in Livy : *• Imperium summum 
 Romae habebit, qui vestrum primus, juvenes, osculum matri tulerit." 
 This at first was interpreted of Tarquin, who kissed his mother. But 
 Brutus gave the words a different and more ingenious turn ; he illus- 
 trated their meaning by faUing down and kissing the earth, the common 
 mother of all mankind. 
 
41 G BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 and likewise of Manius Curius (then a tribune of the people^, 
 who, when the Interrex Appius the Blind, an able speaker, 
 held the Comitia contrary to law, refusing to admit any 
 consul of plebeian rank, prevailed upon the senate to protest 
 against the conduct of his antagonist ; which, if we consider 
 that the Msenian law was not then in being, was a very bold 
 attempt. We may also conclude that Marcus Pompilius was 
 a man of abilities, who, in the time of his consulship, when he 
 was solemnizing a public sacrifice in the proper habit of his 
 office, (for he was also a Flamen Carmentalis,) hearing of the 
 mutiny and insurrection of the people against the senate, 
 rushed immediately into the midst of the assembly, covered 
 as he was with his sacerdotal robes, and quelled the sedition 
 by his authority and the force of his elocution. I do not 
 pretend to have historical evidence that the persons here 
 mentioned were then reckoned orators, or that any sort of 
 reward or encouragement was given to eloquence ; I only infer 
 what appears very probable. It is also recorded that Caius 
 Flaminius, who, when tribune of the people, proposed the law 
 for dividing the conquered territories of the Gauls and Piceni 
 among the citizens, and who, after his promotion to the 
 consulship, was slain near the lake Thrasimenus, became very 
 popular by historical talents. Quintus Maximus Verrucosus 
 w^as likewise reckoned a good speaker by his contemporaries ; 
 as was also Quintus Metellus, who, in the second Punic war, 
 was joint-consul with Lucius Yeturius Philo. 
 
 XY. " But the first person we have any certain account of, 
 who was publicly distinguished as an orator, and who really 
 appears to have been such, was Marcus Cornelius Cethegus ; 
 whose eloquence is attested by Quintus Ennius, a voucher of 
 the highest credibility ; since he actually heard him speak, 
 and gave him this character after his death; so that there is 
 no reason to suspect that he was prompted by the warmth of 
 his friendship to exceed the bounds of truth. In the ninth 
 book of his Annals, he has mentioned him in the following 
 terms : 
 
 Additur orator Corneliu' snaviloquenti 
 
 Ore Cethegus Marcu', Tuditano collega, 
 
 Marci filius. 
 
 ^Add the orator Marcus Cornelius Cethegus, so much admired 
 for his mellifluent tongue ; who was the colleague of Tuditanus, 
 and the son of Marcus.' He expressly calls him an orator, you 
 
I 
 
 REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 417 
 
 see, and attributes to him a remarkable sweetness of elocution ; 
 which, even in the present times, is an excellence of which few 
 are possessed : for some of our modern orators are so insuffer- 
 ably harsh, that they may be said rather to bark than to 
 speak. But what the poet so much admires in his friend, 
 may certainly be considered as one of the principal ornaments 
 of eloquence. He adds : 
 
 is dictus, ollis popularibus olim, 
 
 Qui turn vivebant homines, atque sevum agitabant, 
 Flos delibatus populi. 
 
 ' He was called by his contemporaries, the choicest flower of the 
 state.' A very elegant compliment ! for as the glory of a man 
 is the strength of his mental capacity, so the brightest orna- 
 ment of genius is eloquence; in which, whoever had the 
 happiness to excel, was beautifully styled, by the ancients, the 
 flower of the state ; and, as the poet immediately subjoins, 
 
 suadseque medulla : 
 
 ' the very marrow and quintessence of persuasion.' That which 
 the Greeks call iruOia (i. e. persuasion), and which it is the 
 chief business of an orator to effect, is here called suada by 
 Ennius; and of this he commends Cethegus as the quint- 
 essence; so that he makes the Eoman orator to be himself the 
 very substance of that amiable goddess, who is said by Eupolis 
 to have dwelt on the lips of Pericles. This Cethegus was 
 joint-consul with Publius Tuditanus in the second Punic war 
 at which time also Marcus Cato was quaestor, about one hun - 
 dred and forty years before I myself was promoted to the 
 consulship ; which circumstance would have been absolutely 
 lost, if it had not been recorded by Ennius ; and the memory 
 of that illustrious citizen, as has probably been the case of 
 many others, would have been buried in the ruins of anti- 
 quity. The manner of speaking which was then in vogue, 
 may easily be collected from the writings of Nsevius; for 
 Nsevius died, as we learn from the memoirs of the times, 
 when the persons above-mentioned were consuls ; though 
 Varro, a most accurate investigator of historical truth, thinks 
 there is a mistake in this, and fixes the death of Neevius 
 something later. For Plautus died in the consulship of Pub- 
 lius Claudius and Lucius Porcius, twenty years after the 
 ooTisulship of the persons we have been speaking of, and when 
 
 E E 
 
418 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 Cato was censor. Cato, therefore, must have been younger 
 than Cethegus, for he was consul nine years after him; but 
 we always consider him as a person of the remotest antiquity, 
 though he died in the consulship of Lucius Marcius and 
 Manius ManiHus, and but eighty-three years before my own 
 promotion to the same office. 
 
 XYL " He is certainly, however, the most ancient orator we 
 have, whose writings may claim our attention; unless any 
 one is pleased, on account of the above-mentioned speech re- 
 specting the peace with Pyrrhus, or a series of panegyrics on 
 the dead, which, I own, are still extant, to compliment Appius 
 with that character. For it was customary, in most families 
 of note, to preserve their images, their trophies of honour, 
 and their memoirs, either to adorn a funeral when any of the 
 family deceased, or to perpetuate the fame of their ancestors, 
 or prove their own nobility. But the truth of history has 
 been much corrupted by these encomiastic essays; for many 
 circumstances were recorded in them which never existed, 
 such as false triumphs, a pretended succession of consulships, 
 and false alliances and elevations, when men of inferior rank 
 were confounded with a noble family of the same name ; as if I 
 myself should pretend that I am descended from Manius 
 Tullius, who was a Patrician, and shared the consulship with : 
 Servius Sulpicius, about ten years after the expulsion of the 
 kings. But the real speeches of Cato are almost as numerous , 
 as those of Lysias the Athenian ; under whose name a great 
 number are still extant. For Lysias was certainly an Athe- 
 nian; because he not only died, but received his birth at 
 Athens, and served all the offices of the city; though Timseus, 
 as if he acted by the Licinian or the Mucian law, orders his 
 return to Syracuse. There is, however, a manifest resem- 
 blance between his character and that of Cato ; for they are 
 both of them distinguished by their acuteness, their elegance, 
 their agreeable humour, and their brevity. But the Greek 
 has the happiness to be most admired ; for there are some 
 who are so extravagantly fond of him, as to prefer a graceful 
 air to a vigorous constitution, and who are perfectly satisfied 
 with a slender and an easy shape, if it is only attended with \ 
 a moderate share of health. It must, however, be acknow- 
 ledged, that even Lysias often displays a vigour of mind, 
 which no human power can excel ; though his mental frame 
 is certainly more delicately wrought than that of Cato. Not- 
 
REMARKS OX EMINENT ORATORS. 419 
 
 withstanding, he has many admirers, who are charmed with 
 him, merely on account of his delicacy. 
 
 XVII. '^ But as to Cato, where will you find a modern 
 orator who condescends to read him? — nay, I might have 
 said, who has the least knowledge of himi And yet, good 
 gods ! what a wonderful man ! I say nothing of his merit as 
 a citizen, a senator, and a general ; we must confine our 
 attention to the orator. Who, then, has displayed more 
 dignity as a panegyrist? — more severity as an accuser? — 
 greater acuteness of sentiments? — or greater address in re- 
 lating and informing ? Though he composed above a hun- 
 dred and fifty orations, (which I have seen and read,) they are 
 crowded with all the beauties of language and sentiment. 
 Let us select from these what deserves our notice and ap- 
 plause ; they will supply us with all the graces of oratory. 
 Not to omit his Antiquities, who will deny that these also 
 are adorned with every flower, and with all the lustre of elo- 
 quence ? and yet he has scarcely any admirers ; which some 
 ages ago was the case of Philistus the Syracusan, and even of 
 Thucydides himself. For as the lofty and elevated style of 
 Theopompus soon diminished the reputation of their pithy 
 and laconic harangues, which were sometimes scarcely intel- 
 ligible from excessive brevity and quaintness ; and as De- 
 mosthenes eclipsed the glory of Lysias ; so the pompous and 
 stately elocution of the moderns has obscured the lustre of 
 Cato. But many of us are deficient in taste and discernment, 
 for we admire the Greeks for their antiquity, and what is 
 called their Attic neatness, and yet have never noticed the 
 same quality in Cato. This was the distinguishing character, 
 say they, of Lysias and Hyperides. I own it, and I admire 
 them for it ; but why not allow a share of it to Cato ? They 
 are fond, they tell us, of the Attic style of eloquence ; and 
 their choice is certainly judicious, provided they not only 
 copy the dry bones, but imbibe the animal spirits of those 
 models. What they recommend, however, is, to do it justice, 
 an agreeable quality. But why must Lysias and Hyperides 
 be so fondly admired, while Cato is entirely overlooked ? 
 His language indeed has an antiquated air, and some of his 
 expressions are rather too harsh and inelegant. But let us 
 remember that this was the language of the time ; only 
 change and modernise it, which it was not in his power to 
 do ; add the improvements of number and cadence, give an 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 BRUTUS; OR, 
 
 easier turn to his sentences, and regulate the structure and 
 connexion of his words, (which was as httle practised even by 
 the older Greeks as by him,) and you will find no one who can 
 claim the preference to Cato. The Greeks themselves acknow- 
 ledge that the chief beauty of composition results from the 
 frequent use of those tralatitious forms of expression which 
 they call tropes, and of those various attitudes of language 
 and sentiment which they call figures; but it is almost in- 
 credible in what copiousness, and with what amazing variety, 
 they are all employed by Cato. 
 
 XYIII. " I know, indeed, that he is not sufficiently polished, 
 and that recourse must be had to a more perfect model for 
 imitation ; for he is an author of such antiquity, that he is the 
 oldest now extant whose writings can be read with patience; 
 and the ancients, in general, acquired a much greater reputa- 
 tion in every other art, than in that of speaking. But who 
 that has seen the statues of the moderns, will not perceive in 
 a moment that the figures of Canachus are too stiff and 
 formal to resemble life? Those of Calamis, though evidently 
 harsh, are somewhat softer. Even the statues of Myron are 
 not sufficiently alive ; and yet you would not hesitate to pro- 
 nounce them beautiful. But those of Polycletes are much 
 finer, and, in my mind, completely finished. The case is the 
 same in painting ; for in the works of Zeuxis, Polygnotus, 
 Timanthes, and several other masters, who confined themselves 
 to the use of four colours, we commend the air and the sym- 
 metry of their figures ; but in Echion, Nicomachus, Proto- 
 genes, and Apelles, everything is finished to perfection. This^ 
 I believe, will hold equally true in all the other arts ; for there 
 is not one of them w^hich was invented and carried to perfec- 
 tion at the same time. I cannot doubt, for instance, that 
 there were many poets before Homer ; we may infer it from 
 those very songs which he himself informs us were sung at 
 the feasts of the Phseacians, and of the profligate suitors of 
 Penelope. Nay, to go no farther, what is become of the 
 ancient poems of our own countrymen ? 
 
 Such as the fauns and rustic bards composed, 
 When none the rocks of poetry had cross' d, 
 Nor wish'd to form his style by rules of art, 
 Before this vent'rous man, &c. 
 
 " Old Ennius here speaks of himself; nor does he carry his 
 boast beyond the bounds of truth ; the case being really as 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 421 
 
 he describes it. For we had only an Odyssey in Latin, which 
 resembled one of the rough and unfinished statues of Daedalus ; 
 and some dramatic pieces of Livius, which will scarcely bear 
 a second reading. This Livius exhibited his first performance 
 at Rome in the consulship of Marcus Tuditanus, and Caius 
 I Clodius the son of Csecus, the year before Ennius w^as born, 
 and, according to the account of my friend Atticus, (whom 
 I choose to follow,) the five hundred and fourteenth from the 
 building of the city. But historians are not agreed about the 
 date of the year. Attius informs us that Livius was taken 
 prisoner at Tarentum by Quintus Maximus in his fifth con- 
 sulship, about thirty years after he is said by Atticus, and 
 our ancient annals, to have introduced the drama. He adds, 
 that he exhibited his first dramatic piece about eleven years 
 after, in the consulship of Caius Cornelius and Quintus 
 Minucius, at the public games which Salinator had vowed to 
 the Goddess of Youth for his victory over the Senones. But 
 in this, Attius w^as so far mistaken, that Ennius, when the 
 persons above-mentioned were consuls, was forty years old ; 
 so that if Livius was of the same age, as in this case he would 
 have been, the first dramatic author we had must have been 
 younger than Plautus and Nsevius, who had exhibited a great 
 number of plays before the time he specifies. 
 
 XIX. " If these remarks, my Brutus, appear unsuitable to 
 the subject before us, you must throw the whole blame upon 
 Atticus, who has inspired me with a strange curiosity to 
 inquire into the age of illustrious men, and the respective 
 times of their appearance." " On the contrary," said Brutus, 
 " I am highly pleased that you have carried your attention so 
 far; and I think your remarks well adapted to the curious 
 task you have undertaken, the giving us a history of the dif- 
 ferent classes of orators in their proper order." " You under- 
 stand me rightly," said I; " and I heartily wish those venerable 
 Odes were still extant, which Cato informs us, in his Anti- 
 quities, used to be sung by every guest in his turn at the 
 homely feasts of our ancestors, many ages before, to comme- 
 morate the feats of their heroes. But the Punic War of that 
 antiquated poet, whom Ennius so proudly ranks among the 
 fauns and rustic hards, affords me as exquisite a pleasure as 
 the finest statue that was ever formed by Myron. Ennius, 
 I allow, was a more finished writer ; but if he had really 
 undervalued the other, as he pretends to do, he would scarcely 
 
422 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 have omitted such a bloody war as the first Punic^ when he 
 attempted professedly to describe all the wars of the Republic. 
 Nay, he himself assigns the reason : 
 
 Others (said he) that cruel war have sung. 
 
 Very true, and they have sung it with great order and pre- 
 cision, though not, indeed, in such elegant strains as yourself. 
 This you ought to have acknowledged, as you must certainly 
 be conscious that you have borrowed many ornaments from 
 Nsevius ] or if you refuse to own it, I shall tell you plainly 
 that you have pilfered them. 
 
 " Contemporary with the Cato above-mentioned (though 
 somewhat older) were Caius Flaminius, Caius Varro, Quintus 
 Maximus, Quintus Metellus, Publius Lentulus, and Publius 
 Crassus, who was joint consul with the elder Africanus. This 
 Scipio, we are told, was not destitute of the powers of elocu- 
 tion ; but his son, who adopted the younger Scipio (the son 
 of Paulus ^milius), would have stood foremost in the list of 
 orators, if he had possessed a firmer constitution. This is 
 evident from a few speeches, and a Greek History of his, 
 which are very agreeably written. 
 
 XX. " In the same class we may place Sextus ^lius, who 
 was the best lawyer of his time, and a ready speaker. A little 
 after these, flourished Caius Sulpicius Callus, who was better 
 acquainted with the Grecian li'te-rature than all the rest of 
 the nobility, and to his reputation as a graceful orator, he 
 added the highest accomplishments in every other respect; 
 for a more copious and splendid way of speaking began now 
 to prevail. When this Sulpicius, in quality of praetor, was 
 celebrating the public shows in honour of Apollo, died the 
 poet Ennius, in the consulship of Quintus Marcius and 
 Cneius Servilius, after exhibiting his traged}^ of Thyestes. At 
 the same time lived Tiberius Gracchus, the son of Publius, 
 who was twice consul and censor ; a Greek oration of his to 
 the Rhodians is still extant, and he bore the character of a 
 worthy citizen and an eloquent speaker. We are likewise 
 told that Publius Scipio Nasica, surnamed Gorculum} as a 
 favourite of the people, and who also had the honour to be 
 
 ^ His name was Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica. From Cornelius ^ 
 as being a favourite of the people, he was called Corculum, the " little 
 heart " of the people. In our language, with nearer affinity to his real 
 name, he might have been styled " kernel " of the people. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 423 
 
 twice chosen consul and censor, was esteemed an able orator. 
 To him we may add Lucius Lentulus, who was joint consul 
 with Caius Figulus ; Quintus Nobilior, the son of Marcus, 
 who was inclined to the study of literature by his father's 
 example, and presented Ennius (who had served under his 
 feither in ^tolia) with the freedom of the city, when he 
 founded a colony in quality of triumvir ; and his colleague 
 Titus Annius Luscus, who is said to have been tolerably elo- 
 quent. We are likewise informed that Lucius Paulus, the 
 father of Africanus, defended the charactor of an eminent 
 citizen in a public speech ; and that Cato, who died in the 
 eighty-third year of his age, was then living, and actually 
 pleaded that very year against the defendant Servius Galba, 
 in the open forum, with great energy and spirit ; he has left 
 a copy of this oration behind him. 
 
 XXL ^' But when Cato was in the decline of life, a crowd 
 of orators, all younger than himself, made their appearance 
 at the same time ; for Aulus Albinus, who wrote a history in 
 Greek, and shared the consulship with Lucius Lucullus, was 
 greatly admired for his learning and elocution ; and nearly 
 ranked with him were Servius Fulvius and Servius Fabius 
 Pictor, the latter of whom was well acquainted with the laws 
 of his country, the belles lettres, and the history of antiquity. 
 Quintus Fabius Labeo likewise excelled in the same accom- 
 plishments. But Quintus Metellus, whose four sons attained 
 the consular dignity, was admired for his eloquence beyond 
 the rest ; he undertook the defence of Lucius Cotta, when 
 accused by Africanus, and composed many other speeches, 
 particularly that against Tiberius Gracchus, of which we have 
 a full account in the annals of Caius Fannius. Lucius Cotta 
 himself was likewise reckoned a skilful speaker;^ but Caius 
 Lselius and Publius Africanus were allowed by all to be more 
 finished orators ; their orations are still extant, and may serve 
 as specimens of their respective abilities. But Servius Galba, 
 who somewhat preceded either of them in years, was indis- 
 putably the best speaker of the age. He was the first among 
 the Eomans who displayed the proper and distinguishing 
 talents of an orator ; such as, digressing fi:-om his subject to 
 
 ^ The original is veterator habitus. He was deemed " a veteran," ^. e. 
 he possessed all the skill of long-continued practice. Sextus Pom- 
 peius interprets vetercUoreSf " callidi dicti a mult^ rerum gerendanim 
 vetustate." 
 
4:24 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 embellish and diversify it, — soothing or alarming the passions, 
 exhibiting every circumstance in the strongest light, — im- 
 ploring the compassion of his audience, — and artfully en- 
 larging on those topics, or general principles of prudence or 
 morality, on which the stress of his argument depended : and 
 yet, I know not how, though he is allowed to have been the 
 greatest orator of his time, the orations he has left are more 
 inanimate, and have more the air of antiquity, than those of 
 Leelius, or Scipio, or even of Cato himself. Their beauties 
 have so decayed with age, that scarcely anything remains of 
 them but the bare skeleton. In the same manner, though 
 both Lselius and Scipio are greatly extolled for their abilities, 
 the preference was given to Lselius as a speaker; and yet his 
 oration, in defence of the privileges of the Sacerdotal college, 
 has no greater merit than any one that might be named of 
 the numerous speeches of Scipio. Nothing, indeed, can be 
 sweeter and milder than that of Lselius, nor could anything 
 have been urged with greater dignity to support the honour 
 of religion ; but, of the two, Lselius appears to me to be 
 less polished, and to speak more of the mould of time than 
 Scipio ; and, as different speakers have different tastes, he 
 had, in my mind, too strong a relish for antiquity, and was 
 too fond of using obsolete expressions. But such is the jea- 
 lousy of mankind, that they will not allow the same person to 
 be possessed of too many perfections. For, as in military 
 prowess they thought it impossible that any man could vie 
 with Scipio, though Laelius had not a little distinguished 
 himself in the war with Viriathus ; so for learning, eloquence, 
 and wisdom, though each was allowed to be above the reach 
 of any other competitor, they adjudged the preference to 
 Leelius. Nor was this the opinion of the public only, but it 
 seems to have been allowed by mutual consent between 
 themselves ; for it was then a general custom, as candid in 
 this respect as it was fair and just in every other, to give his 
 due to each. 
 
 XXII. " I accordingly remember that Publius Rutilius Rufus 
 once told mejat Smyrna, that when he was a young man, the 
 two consuls Publius Scipio and Decimus Brutus, by order of 
 the Senate, tried a capital cause of great consequence. For 
 several persons of note having been murdered in the Silaii 
 Forest, and the domestics and some of the sons of a company 
 of gentlemen who farmed the taxes of the pitch- manufactory, 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 425 
 
 being charged with the fact, the consuls were ordered to try 
 the cause in person. Lselius, he said, spoke very sensibly and 
 elegantly, as indeed he always did, on the side of the farmers 
 of the customs. But the consuls, after hearing both sides, 
 judging it necessary to refer the matter to a second trial, the 
 same Laelius, a few days after, pleaded their cause again 
 with more accuracy, and much better than at first. The 
 aflFair, however, was once more put off for a further hearing. 
 Upon this, when his clients attended Lselius to his own house, 
 and, after thanking him for what he had already done, earn- 
 estly begged him not to be disheartened by the fatigue he 
 had suffered, he assured them he had exerted his utmost to 
 defend their reputation; but frankly added, that he thought 
 their cause would be more effectually supported by Servius 
 Galba, who possessed talents more powerful and penetrating 
 than his own. They, accordingly, by the advice of Laelius, 
 requested Galba to undertake it. To this he consented, but 
 with the greatest modesty and reluctance, out of respect to 
 the illustrious advocate he ^vas going to succeed ; and as he 
 had only the next day to prepare himself, he spent the whole 
 of it in considering and digesting his cause. When the day 
 of trial was come, Rutilius himself, at the request of the 
 defendants, went early in the morning to Galba, to give him 
 notice of it, and conduct him to the court in proper time. 
 But till word was brought that the consuls were going to the 
 bench, he confined himself in his study, where he suffered 
 no one to be admitted ; and continued very busy in dictating 
 to his amanuenses, several of whom (as indeed he often used 
 to do) he kept fully employed at the same time. While he 
 was thus engaged, being informed that it was high time for 
 him to appear in court, he left his house with that animation 
 and glow of countenance, that you would have thought he had 
 not only j^r^joarec^ his cause, but actually carried it. Rutilius 
 added, as another circumstance worth noticing, that his 
 scribes, who attended him to the bar, appeared excessively 
 fatigued ; from whence he thought it probable that he was 
 equally warm and vigorous in the composition, as in the de- 
 livery of his speeches. But to conclude the story, Galba 
 pleaded his cause before Lselius himself, and a very numerous 
 and attentive audience, with such uncommon force and dig- 
 nity, that every part of his oration received the applause of 
 \iis hearers ; and so powerfully did he move the feelings and 
 
4:26 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 ensure the sympathy of the judges, that his clients were im- 
 mediately acquitted of the charge, to the satisfaction of the 
 whole court. • 
 
 XXIII. " As, therefore, the two principal qualities required 
 in an orator, are perspicuity in stating the subject, and dig- 
 nified ardour in moving the passions ; and as he who fires 
 and inflames his audience, will always effect more than he who 
 can barely inform and amuse them; we may conjecture from 
 the above narrative, with which I was favoured by Eutilius, 
 that Lselius was most admired for his elegance, and Galba for 
 his pathetic force. But the energy peculiar to him was most 
 remarkably exerted, when, having in his prsetorship put to 
 death some Lusitanians, contrary, it was believed, to his pre- 
 vious and express engagement, Titus Libo, the tribune, exas- 
 perated the people against him, and preferred a bill which 
 was to operate against his conduct as a subsequent law. 
 Marcus Cato, as I have before mentioned, though extremely 
 old, spoke in support of the bill with great vehemence ; which 
 speech he inserted in his book of Antiquities, a few days, or 
 at most only a month or two, before his death. On this occa- 
 sion, Galba not refusing to plead to the charge, and submitting 
 his fate to the generosity of the people, recommended his 
 children to their protection, with tears in his eyes; and par- 
 ticularly his young ward, the son of Caius Gallus Sulpicius, 
 his deceased friend, whose orphan state and piercing cries, 
 which were the more regarded for the sake of his illustrious 
 father, excited their pity in a wonderful manner; and thus, as 
 Cato informs us in his History, he escaped the flames which 
 would otherwise have consumed him, by employing the children 
 to move the compassion of the people. I likewise find (what 
 may be easily judged from his orations still extant) that his 
 prosecutor, Libo, was a man of some eloquence." As I con- 
 cluded these remarks with a short pause, " What can be the 
 reason," said Brutus, "if there was so much merit in the 
 oratory of Galba, that there is no trace of it to be seen in his 
 orations ? a circumstance which I have no opportunity to be 
 surprised at in others, who have left nothing behind them in 
 writing." 
 
 XXIY. " The reasons," said I, "why some have not written 
 anything, and others not so well as they spoke, are very 
 different. Some of our orators, as being indolent, and un- 
 willing to add the fatigue of private to public business, do 
 
BEMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 427 
 
 not practise composition ; for most of the orations we are now 
 possessed of were written, not before they were spoken, but 
 some time afterwards. Others did not choose the trouble of 
 improving themselves, to which nothing more contributes 
 than frequent writing ; and as to perpetuating the fame of 
 their eloquence, they thought it unnecessary; supposing that 
 their eminence in that respect was sufficiently established 
 already, and that it would be rather diminished than in- 
 creased by submitting any written specimen of it to the arbi- 
 trary test of criticism. Some also were sensible that they 
 spoke much better than they were able to write ; which is 
 generally the case of those who have a great genius, but little 
 learning, such as Servius Galba. When he spoke, he was 
 perhaps so much animated by the force of his abilities, and 
 the natural warmth and impetuosity of his temper, that his 
 language was rapid, bold, and striking ; but afterwards, when 
 he took up the pen in his leisure hours, and his passion had 
 sunk into a calm, his elocution became dull and languid. 
 This indeed can never happen to those whose only aim 
 is to be neat and polished ; because an orator may always be 
 master of that discretion which will enable him both to 
 speak and write in the same agreeable manner ; but no man 
 can revive at pleasure the ardour of his passions ; and when 
 that has once subsided, the fire and pathos of his language 
 will be extinguished. This is the reason why the calm and 
 easy spirit of Lselius seems still to breathe in his writings; 
 whereas the vigour of Galba is entirely withered away. 
 
 XXV. " We may also reckon in the number of middling 
 orators, the two brothers Lucius and Spurius Mummius, 
 both whose orations are still in being ; the style of Lucius is 
 plain and antiquated; but that of Spurius, though equally 
 unembellished, is more close and compact ; for he was well 
 versed in the doctrine of the Stoics. The orations of Spurius 
 Alpinus, their contemporary, are very numerous; and we 
 have several by Lucius and Gains Aurelius Oresta, who were 
 esteemed indifferent speakers. Publius Popilius also was 
 a worthy citizen, and had a moderate share of elocution ; but 
 his son Caius was really eloquent. To these we may add 
 Cains Tuditanus, who was not only very polished and grace- 
 ful in his manners and appearance, but had an elegant turn 
 of expression ; and of the same class was Marcus Octavius, a 
 man of inflexible constancy in every just and laudable 
 
4:28 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 measure ; and who, after being insulted and disgraced in the 
 most public manner, defeated his rival Tiberius Gracchus by 
 the mere dint of his perseverance. But Marcus ^milius 
 Lepidus, who was surnamed Porcina, and flourished at the 
 same time as Galba, though he was indeed something 
 younger, was esteemed an orator of the first eminence ; 
 and really appears, from his orations which are still extant, to 
 have been a masterly writer. For he was the first speaker 
 among the Romans who gave us a specimen of the easy 
 gracefulness of the Greeks ; and who was distinguished by 
 the measured flow of his language, and a style regularly 
 polished and improved by art. His manner was carefully 
 studied by Cains Carbo and Tiberius Gracchus, two accom- 
 plished youths, who were nearly of an age : but we must 
 defer their character as public speakers, till we have finished 
 our account of their elders. For Quintus Pompeius, consider- 
 ing the time in which he lived, was no contemptible orator, 
 and actually raised himself to the highest honours of the 
 state by his own personal merit, and without being recom- 
 mended, as usual, by the quality of his ancestors. Lucius 
 Cassius too derived his influence, which was very considerable, 
 not indeed from the highest powers, yet from a tolerable • 
 share of eloquence ; for it is remarkable that he made himself 
 popular, not as others did, by his complaisance and liberality, 
 but by the gloomy rigour and severity of his manners. His 
 law for collecting the votes of the people by way of ballot, 
 was strongly opposed by the tribune Marcus Antius Briso, 
 who was supported by Marcus Lepidus, one of the consuls : 
 and it was afterwards objected to Africanus, that Briso 
 dropped the opposition by his advice. At this time the two 
 Csepios were very serviceable to a number of clients by their . 
 superior judgment and eloquence j but still more so by their 
 extensive interest and popularity. But the written speeches 
 of Pompeius (though it must be owned they have rather 
 an antiquated air) discover an amazing sagacity, and are very 
 far from being dry and spiritless. 
 
 XXVI. " To these we must add Publius Crassus, an orator 
 of uncommon merit, who was qualified for the profession by 
 the united efforts of art and nature, and enjoyed some other 
 advantages which were almost peculiar to his family. For he 
 had contracted an affinity with that accomplished speaker 
 Servius Galba above-mentioned, by giving his daughter in 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 429 
 
 marriage to Galba's son ; and being likewise hinciself the son 
 of Mucins, and the brother of Publius Scsevola, he had a fine 
 opportunity at home (which he made the best use of) to gain 
 a thorough knowledge of the civil law. He was a man of 
 unusual application, and was much beloved by his fellow- 
 citizens; being constantly employed either in giving his 
 advice, or pleading causes in the forum. Contemporary with 
 the speakers I have mentioned were the two Caii Fannii, 
 the sons of Caius and Marcus, one of whom, (the son of 
 Caius,) who was joint consul with Domitius, has left us an ex- 
 cellent speech against Gracchus, who proposed the admission 
 of the Latin and Italian allies to the freedom of Eome." " Do 
 you really think, then," said Atticus, " that Fannius was the 
 author of that oration ? For when we were young, there were 
 different opinions about it. Some asserted it was written by 
 Caius Persius, a man of letters, and much extolled for his 
 learning by Lucilius ; and others believed it the joint pro- 
 duction of a number of noblemen, each of whom contributed 
 his best to complete it." " This I remember," said I ; '^ but I 
 could never persuade myself to coincide with either of them. 
 Their suspicion, I believe, was entirely founded on the cha- 
 racter of Fannius, who was only reckoned among the middling 
 orators j whereas the speech in question is esteemed the best 
 which the time afforded. But, on the other hand, it is too 
 much of a piece to have been the mingled composition 
 of many; for the flow of the periods, and the turn of the 
 language, are perfectly similar, throughout the whole of it. 
 And as to Persius, if he had composed it for Fannius to pro- 
 nounce, Gracchus would certainly have taken some notice of 
 it in his reply; because Fannius rallies Gracchus pretty 
 severely, in one part of it, for employing Menelaus of Maratho, 
 and several others, to compose his speeches. We may add, 
 that Fannius himself was no contemptible orator; for he 
 pleaded a number of causes, and his tribuneship, which was 
 chiefly conducted under the management and direction of 
 Publius Africanus, exhibited much oratory. But the other 
 Caius Fannius (the son of Marcus and son-in-law of Caius 
 Lsehus) was of a rougher cast, both in his temper and manner 
 of speaking. By the advice of his father-in-law, (of whom, 
 by the by, he was not remarkably fond, because he had not 
 voted for his admission into the college of augurs, but gave 
 the preference to his yoimger son-in-law, Quintus Scsevola ; 
 
430 
 
 though Lselius politely excused himself, by saying that the 
 preference was not given to the youngest son, but to his wife 
 the eldest daughter,) by his advice, I say, he attended the 
 lectures of Panaetius. His abilities as a speaker may be 
 easily inferred from his history, which is neither destitute of 
 elegance, nor a perfect model of composition. As to his 
 brother Mucins, the augur, whenever he was called upon to 
 defend himself, he always pleaded his own cause ; as, for in- 
 stance, in the action which was brought against him for 
 bribery by Titus Albucius. But he was never ranked among 
 the orators; his chief merit being a critical knowledge 
 of the civil law, and an uncommon accuracy of judgment. 
 Lucius Cselius Antipater, likewise, (as you may see by his 
 works,) was an elegant and a perspicuous writer for the time 
 he lived in ; he was also an excellent lawyer, and taught the 
 principles of jurisprudence to many others, particularly to 
 Lucius Crassus. 
 
 XXVII. " As to Cains Carbo and Tiberius Gracchus, I 
 wish they had been as well inclined to maintain peace and 
 good order in the state, as they were qualified to support it 
 by their eloquence ; their gioiy would then have never been 
 excelled. But the latter, for his turbulent tribuneship, which 
 he entered upon with a heart full of resentment against the 
 great and good, on account of the odium he had brought upon 
 himself by the treaty of Numantia, was slain by the hands of 
 the republic ; and the other, being impeached of a seditious 
 affectation of popularity, rescued himself from the severity of 
 the judges by a voluntary death. That both of them were 
 excellent speakers, is very plain from the general testimony of 
 their contemporaries; for, as to their speeches now extant, 
 though I allow them to be very skilful and judicious, they are 
 certainly defective in elocution. Gracchus had the advantage 
 of being carefully instructed by his mother Cornelia from his 
 very childhood, and his mind was enriched with all the stores 
 of Grecian literature ; for he was constantly attended by the 
 ablest masters from Greece, and particularly, in his youth, by 
 Diophanes of Mitylene, who was the most eloquent Grecian of 
 his age ; but though he was a man of uncommon genius, he 
 had but a short time to improve and display it. As to 
 Carbo, his whole life was spent in trials, and forensic debates. 
 He is said, by very sensible men who heard him, and among 
 others by our friend Lucius Gellius^ who lived in his family 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 431 
 
 in the time of his consulshipj to have been a sonorous, a 
 fluent, and a spirited speaker, and hkewise, upon occasion, 
 very pathetic, very engaging, and excessively humorous : 
 Gellius used to add, that he applied himself very closely 
 to his studies, and bestowed much of his time in writing and 
 private declamation. He was, therefore, esteemed the best 
 pleader of his time ; for no sooner had he begun to distin- 
 guish himself in the forum, but the depravity of the age gave 
 birth to a number of law-suits ; and it was first found neces- 
 sary, in the time of his youth, to settle the form of public 
 trials, which had never been done before. We accordingly 
 find that Lucius Piso, then a tribune of the people, was the 
 first who proposed a law against bribery ; which he did when 
 Censorinus and Manilius were consuls. This Piso too was 
 a professed pleader, who moved and opposed a great number 
 of laws j he left some orations behind him, which are now 
 lost, and a book of annals very indifferently written. But in 
 the public trials, in which Carbo was concerned, the assistance 
 of an able advocate had become more necessary than ever, in 
 consequence of the law for voting by ballots, which was pro- 
 posed and carried by Lucius Cassius, in the consulship of 
 Lepidus and Mancinus. 
 
 XXYIII. '^' I have likewise been often assured by the poet 
 Attius, (an intimate friend of his,) that your ancestor Decimus 
 Brutus, the son of Marcus, was no inelegant speaker ; and 
 that, for the time he lived in, he was well versed both in the 
 Greek and Roman literature. He ascribed the same accom- 
 plishments to Quintus Maximus, the graadson of Lucius 
 Paulus ; and added that, a little prior to Maximus, the Scipio, 
 by whose instigation (though only in a private capacity) 
 Tiberius Gracchus was assassinated, was not only a man of 
 great ardour in all other respects, but very warm and spirited 
 in his manner of speaking. Publius Lentulus too, the father 
 of the senate, had a sufficient share of eloquence for an honest 
 and useful magistrate. About the same time Lucius Furius 
 Philus was thought to speak our language as elegantly and 
 more correctly than any other man ; Publius Scsevola to 
 be very acute and 'judicious, and rather more fluent than 
 Philus ; Manius Manilius to possess almost an equal share of 
 judgment with the latter ; and Appius Claudius to be equally 
 fluent, but more warm and pathetic. Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, 
 and Caius Ca.to the nephew of Africanus, werehkewise tolerable 
 
432 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 orators; some of the writings of Fiaccus are still in being, 
 in which nothing, however, is to be seen but the mere scholar. 
 Publius Decius was a professed rival of Fiaccus ; he too was 
 not destitute of eloquence ; but his style was too bold, as his 
 temper was too violent. Marcus Drusus, the son of Claudius, 
 who, in his tribuneship, baffled^ his colleague Gracchus (then 
 raised to the same office a second time), was a nervous 
 speaker, and a man of great popularity : and next to him was 
 his brother Caius Drusus. Your kinsman also, my Brutus, 
 (Marcus Pennus,) successfully opposed the tribune Gracchus, 
 who was something younger than himself. For Gracchus 
 was quaestor, and Pennus (the son of that Marcus, who was 
 joint consul with Quintus ^lius) was tribune, in the consul- 
 ship of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Orestes ; but after enjoy- 
 ing the sedileship, and a prospect of succeeding to the highest 
 honours, he was snatched off by an untimely death. As to 
 Titus Flamininus, whom I myself have seen, I can learn 
 nothing but that he spoke our language with great accuracy. 
 XXIX. '^ To these we may join Caius Curio, Marcus 
 Scaurus, Publius Eutilius, and Caius Gracchus. It will not 
 be amiss to give a short account of Scaurus and Rutilius ; 
 neither of whom, indeed, had the reputation of being a first- 
 rate orator, though each of them pleaded a number of causes. 
 But some deserving men, who were not remarkable for their 
 genius, may be justly commended for their industry ; not 
 that the persons I am speaking of were really destitute of 
 genius, but only of that particular kind of it which distin- 
 guishes the orator. For it is of little consequence to discover 
 what is proper to be said, unless you are able to express it in 
 a free and agreeable manner ; and even that will be insuffi- 
 cient, if not recommended by the voice, the look, and the 
 gesture. It is needless to add, that much depends upon art ; 
 for though, even without this, it is possible, by the mere force 
 of nature, to say many striking things ; yet, as they will after 
 all be nothing more than so many lucky hits, we shall not be 
 able to repeat them at our pleasure. The style of Scaurus, 
 who was a very sensible and an honest man, was remarkably 
 
 * Baffled, In the original it runs, Caiuw. Gracchum collegarriy iterum 
 Trihunum, fecit : but this was undoubtedly a mistake of the tran- 
 scriber, as being contrary not only to the truth of history, but to Cicero's 
 own account of the matter in lib. iv. De Finibus. Pighius therefore 
 has very properly recommended the word f regit instead oi fecit. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 433 
 
 grave, and commanded the respect of the hearer ; so that, 
 when he was speaking for his client, you would rather have 
 thought he was giving evidence in his favour, than pleading 
 his cause. This manner of speaking, however, though but 
 indifferently adapted to the bar, was very much so to a calm 
 ' debate in the senate, of which Scaurus was then esteemed the 
 father ; for it not only bespoke his prudence, but, what was 
 still a more important recommendation, his credibility. This 
 advantage, which it is not easy to acquire by art, he derived 
 entirely from nature ; though you know that even here we 
 have some precepts to assist us. We have several of his 
 orations still extant, and three books inscribed to Lucius 
 Fufidius, containing the history of his own life, which, though 
 a very useful work, is scarcely read by anybody. But the 
 Institution of Cyrus, by Xenophon, is read by every one ; 
 which, though an excellent performance of the kind, is much 
 less adapted to our manners and form of government, and 
 not superior in merit to the honest simplicity of Scaurus. 
 
 XXX. '•' Fufidius himself was likewise a tolerable pleader ; 
 but Eutilius was distinguished by his solemn and austere 
 way of speakiijg ; and both of them were naturally warm 
 and spirited. Accordingly, after they had rivalled eacli 
 other for the consulship, he who had lost his election, imme- 
 diately sued his competitor for bribery ; and Scaurus, the 
 defendant, being honourably acquitted of the charge, re- 
 turned the compliment to Rutilius, by commencing a similar 
 prosecution against him. Rutilius was a man of great indus- 
 try and application ; for w^hich he was the more respected, 
 because, besides his pleadings, he undertook the office (which 
 was a very troublesome one) of giving advice to all who 
 applied to him, in matters of law. His orations are very dry. 
 but his juridical remarks are excellent ; for he was a learned 
 man, and well versed in the Greek literature, and w^as likewise 
 an attentive and constant hearer of Pansetius, and a thorough 
 proficient in the doctrine of the Stoics ; whose method of dis- 
 coursing, though very close and artful, is too precise, and net 
 at all adapted to engage the attention of common people. 
 That self-confidence, therefore, which is so peculiar to the 
 sect, was displayed by him with amazing firmness and resolu- 
 tion ] for though he was perfectly innocent of the charge, a 
 prosecution was commenced against him for bribery (a trial 
 which raised a violent commotion in the city), and yet, 
 
 F F 
 
434 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 though Lucius Crassus and Marcus Antonius, both of consu- 
 lar dignity, were at that time in very high repute for their 
 eloquence, he refused the assistance of either ; being deter- 
 mined to plead his cause himself, which he accordingly did. 
 Caius Cotta, indeed, who was his nephew, made a short 
 speech in his vindication, which he spoke in the true style of 
 an orator, though he was then but a youth. Quintus Mucins 
 too said much in his defence, with his usual accuracy and 
 elegance ; but not with that force and extension which the 
 mode of trial and the importance of the cause demanded. 
 E/Utilius, therefore, was an orator of the Stoical, and Scaurus 
 of the Antique cast ; but they are both entitled to our com- 
 mendation ; because, in them, even this formal and unpromising 
 species of elocution has appeared among us with some degree 
 of merit. For as in the theatre, so in the forum, I would not 
 have our applause confined to those alone who act the busy 
 and more important characters ; but reserve a share of it for 
 the quiet and unambitious performer, w-ho is distinguished 
 by a simple truth of gesture, without any violence. 
 
 XXXI. " As I have mentioned the Stoics, I must take 
 some notice of Quintus ^lius Tubero, the grandson of Lucius 
 Paullus, who made his appearance at the time we are speaking 
 of He was never esteemed an orator, but was a man of the 
 most rigid virtue, and strictly conformable to the doctrine 
 he professed ; but, in truth, he had not sufficient ease and 
 polish. In his Triumvirate, he declared, contrary to the 
 opinion of Publius Africanus his uncle, that the augurs had 
 no right of exemption from sitting in the courts of justice ; and 
 as in his temper, so in his manner of speaking, he was harsh, 
 unpolished, and austere ; on which account, he could never 
 raise himself to the honourable posts which were enjoyed by 
 his ancestors. But he was a brave and steady citizen, and 
 a warm opposer of Gracchus, as appears from Gracchus's 
 oration against him ; we have likewise some of Tubero's 
 speeches against Gracchus. He was not indeed a shining 
 orator : but he was a learned and very skilful disputant." 
 *' I find," said Brutus, " that the case is much the same among 
 us, as with the Greeks ; and that the Stoics, in general, are 
 very judicious at an argument, which they conduct by cer- 
 tain rules of art, and are likewise very neat and exact in their 
 langTiage ; but if we take them from this, to speak in public, 
 they make a poor appearance. Cato, however, must be ex 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 435 
 
 cepted ; in whom, though as rigid a Stoic as ever existed, I 
 could not wish for a more consummate degree of eloquence. 
 I can likewise discover a moderate share of it in Fannius, — 
 not so much in Rutilius ; but none at all in Tubero." 
 " Trae," said I ; " and we may easily account for it ; their 
 whole attention was so closely confined to the study of logic, 
 that they never troubled themselves to acquire the free, dif- 
 fusive, and variegated style which is so necessary for a public 
 speaker. But your uncle, you doubtless know, was wise 
 enough to borrow only that from the Stoics which they were 
 able to furnish for his purpose (the art of reasoning) ; but for 
 the art of speaking, he had recourse to the masters of rhetoric, 
 and exercised himself in the manner they directed. If, how- 
 ever, we must be indebted for everything to the philosophers, 
 the Peripatetic discipline is, in my mind, much the most proper 
 to form our language. For which reason, my Brutus, I the 
 more approve your choice, in attaching yourself to a sect, 
 (I mean the philosophers of the old Academy,) in whose 
 system a just and accurate way of reasoning is enlivened by 
 a perpetual sweetness and fluency of expression; but even the 
 delicate and flowmg style of the Peripatetics and Academics 
 is not sufficient to complete an orator; nor yet can he be 
 complete without it. For as the language of the Stoics is too 
 close and contracted to suit the ears of common people, so 
 that of the latter is too diffusive and luxuriant for a spirited 
 contest in the forum, or a pleading at the bar. Who had 
 a richer style than Plato ? The philosophers tell us, that if 
 Jupiter himself was to converse in Greek, he would speak like 
 him. Who also was more nervous than Aristotle ? Who 
 sweeter than Theophrastus ? We are told that even Demo- 
 sthenes attended the lectures of Plato, and was fond of reading 
 what he published ; which, indeed, is sufficiently evident 
 from the turn and majesty of his language; and he himself 
 has expressly mentioned it in one of his letters. But the style 
 of this excellent orator is, notwithstanding, much too violent 
 for the academy ; as that of the philosophers is too mild and 
 placid for the forum. 
 
 XXXII. ^- I shall now, with your leave, proceed to the age 
 and merits of the rest of the Roman orators." '' Nothing," said 
 Atticus — ■" for I can safely answer for my friend Brutus — 
 would please us better.'* •' Curio, then," said I, " was nearly of 
 the age I have just mentioned ; a celebrated speaker, whose 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 genius may be easily ascertained from his orations. For, 
 among several others, we have a noble speech of his for Ser- 
 vius Fulvius, in a prosecution for incest. When we were 
 children, it was esteemed the best then extant ; but now it is 
 almost overlooked among the numerous performances of the 
 same kind which have been lately published." " I am very 
 sensible," repHed Brutus, " to whom we are obliged for the 
 numerous performances you speak of." '^ And I am equally 
 sensible," said I, " who is the person you intend ; for I have 
 at least done a service to my young countrymen, by intro- 
 ducing a loftier and more embellished way of speaking than 
 was used before ; and, perhaps, I have also done some 
 harm, because after mine appeared, the speeches of our pre- 
 decessors began to be neglected by most people ; though 
 never by me, for I can assure you, I always prefer them to 
 my own." ''- But you must reckon me," said Brutus, " among 
 the most people; though I now see, from your recommenda- 
 tion, that I have a great many books to read, of which before 
 I had very little opinion." " But this celebrated oration," 
 said I, '^ in the prosecution for incest, is in some places exces- 
 sively puerile ; and what is said in it of the passion of love, 
 the inefficacy of questioning by tortures, and the danger of 
 trusting to common hearsay, is indeed pretty enough, but 
 would be insufferable to the chastened ears of the moderns, 
 and to a people who are justly distinguished for the solidity 
 of their knowledge. He likewise wrote several other pieces, 
 spoke a number of good orations, and was certainly an emi- 
 nent pleader ; so that I much wonder, considering how long 
 he lived and the character he bore, that he was never preferred 
 to the consulship. 
 
 XXXIII. *' But I have a man here,^ (Caius Gracchus,) who 
 had an amazing genius, and the most ardent application ; 
 and was a scholar from his very childhood ; for you must not 
 imagine, my Brutus, that we have ever yet had a speaker 
 whose language was richer and more copious than his." '•' I 
 really think so," answered Brutus ; " and he is almost the 
 only author we have, among the ancients, that I take the 
 trouble to read." " And he well deserves it," said I ; " for the 
 Roman name and literature were great losers by his untimely 
 
 ^ He refers, perhaps, to the works of Gracchus, which he might then 
 have in his hand ; or, more probably, to a statue of him, which stood 
 near the place where he and his friends were sitting. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 437 
 
 fate. I wish lie had transferred his affection for his brother 
 to his country ! How easily, if he had thns prolonged his 
 life, would he have rivalled the glory of his father and grand- 
 father ! In eloquence, I scarcely know whether we should 
 yet have had his equal. His language was noble ; his senti- 
 ments manly and judicious ; and his whole manner great 
 and striking. He wanted nothing but the finishing touch : 
 for though his first attempts were as excellent as they were 
 numerous, he did not live to complete them. In short, my 
 Brutus, he, if any one, should be carefully studied by the 
 Roman youth ; for he is able, not only to sharpen, but to 
 enrich and ripen their talents. After him appeared Caius 
 Galba, the son of the eloquent Servius, and the son-in-law of 
 Publius Crassus, who was both an eminent speaker and 
 a skilful civilian. He was much commended by our fathers, 
 who respected him for the sake of his; but he had the mis- 
 fortune to be stopped in his career. For being tried by the 
 Mamilian law, as a party concerned in the conspiracy to sup- 
 port Jugurtha, though he exerted all his abilities to defend 
 himself, he was unhappily condemned. His peroration, or, 
 as it is often called, his epilogue, is still extant ; and was so 
 much in repute ; when we were schoolboys, that we used to 
 learn it by heart ; he was the first member of the Sacerdotal 
 College, since the building of Rome, who was publicly tried 
 and condemned. 
 
 XXXIY. " As to Publius Scipio, who died in his consul- 
 ship, he neither spoke much, nor often ; but he was inferior 
 to no one in pm'ity of language, and superior to all in wit 
 and pleasantry. His colleague, Lucius Bestia, who began his 
 tribuneship very successfully, (for, by a law which he preferred 
 for the purpose, he procured the recal of Popillius, who 
 had been exiled by the influence of Caius Gracchus,) was a 
 man of spirit, and a tolerable speaker; but he did not finish 
 his consulship equally happily. For, in consequence of the 
 invidious law of Mamilius above-mentioned, Caius Galba, one 
 of the priests, and the four consular gentlemen, Lucius 
 Bestia, Caius Cato, Spurius Albinus, and that excellent citizen 
 Lucius Opimius, who killed Gracchus, of which he was ac- 
 quitted by the people, though he had constantly sided against 
 them, were all condemned by their judges, who were of the 
 Gracchan party. Yery unlike him in his tribuneship, and 
 indeed in every other part of his life, was that infamous 
 
438 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 citizen Caius Licinius Nerva ; but he was not destitute of 
 eloquence. Nearly at the same time (though, indeed, he was 
 somewhat older) flourished Caius Fimbria, who was rathei 
 rough and abusive, and much too warm and hasty; but hhi 
 application, and his great integrity and firmness, made him a 
 serviceable speaker in the senate. He was likewise a tolerable 
 pleader and civilian, and distinguished by the same rigid 
 freedom in the turn of his language, as in that of his vir- 
 tues. When we were boys, we used to think his orations worth 
 reading ; though they are now scarcely to be met with. But 
 Caius Sextius Calvinus was equally elegant, both in his 
 taste and his language, though, unhappily, of a very infirm 
 constitution; when the pain in his feet intermitted, he did 
 not decline the trouble of pleading, but he did not attempt it 
 very often. His fellow-citizens, therefore, made, use of his 
 advice, whenever they had occasion for it ; but of his patron- 
 age, only when his health permitted. Contemporary with 
 these, my good friend, was your namesake Marcus Brutus, 
 the disgrace of your noble family ; who, though he bore that 
 honourable name, and had the best of men and an eminent 
 civilian for his father, confined his practice to accusations, as 
 Lycurgus is said to have done at Athens. He never sued for 
 any of our magistracies; but was a severe and a troublesome 
 prosecutor; so that we easily see that, in him, the natural 
 goodness of the stock was corrupted by the vicious inclina- 
 tions of the man. At the same time lived Lucius Csesulenus, 
 a man of plebeian rank, and a professed accuser, like the 
 former; I myself heard him in his old age, when he endea- 
 voured, by the Aquilian law, to subject Lucius Sabellius to a 
 fine, for a breach of justice. But I should not have taken 
 any notice of such a low-born wretch, if I had not thought 
 that no person I ever heard, could give a more suspicious 
 turn to the cause of the defendant, or exaggerate it to a 
 higher degree of criminality. 
 
 XXXy. '' Titus Albucius, who lived in the same age, 
 was well versed in the Grecian literature, or, rather, was 
 almost a Greek himself I speak of him as I think ; but 
 any person who pleases may judge what he was by his 
 orations. In his youth, he studied at Athens, and returned 
 from thence a thorough proficient in the doctrine of Epicurus ; 
 which, of all others, is the least adapted to form an orator. 
 His contemporary, Quintus Catulus, was an accomplished 
 
REMARKS OX EMINENT OKATGiiS. 439 
 
 speaker, not in the ancient taste, but (unless anything more 
 perfect can be exhibited) in the finished style of the moderns. 
 He had copious stores of learning; an easy, winning elegance, 
 not only in his manners and disposition, but in his very lan- 
 guage; and an unblemished purity and correctness of style. 
 This may be easily seen by his orations; and particularly by 
 the History of his Consulship, and of his subsequent trans- 
 actions, which he composed in the soft and agreeable manner 
 of Xenophon, and made a present of to the poet Aulus Furius, 
 an intimate acquaintance of his. But this performance is as 
 little known as the three books of Scaurus before-mentioned." 
 " Indeed, I must confess," said Brutus, " that both the one and 
 the other are perfectly unknown to me; but that is entirely 
 my own fault. I shall now, therefore, reque^it a sight of them 
 from you; and am resolved, in future, to be more careful in 
 collecting such valuable curiosities." '' This Catulus," said 1, 
 "as I have just observed, was distinguished by the purity of 
 his language; w^hich, though a material accomplishment, 
 is too much neglected by most of the Roman orators ; for as 
 to the elegant tone of his voice, and the sweetness of his 
 accent, as you knew his son, it will be needless to take 
 any notice of them. His son, indeed, was not in the list 
 of orators ; but whenever he had occasion to deliver his sen- 
 timents in public, he neither wanted judgment, nor a neat 
 and liberal turn of expression. Nay, even the father himself 
 was not reckoned the foremost in the rank of orators; but 
 still he had that kind of merit, that notwithstanding after 
 you had heard two or three speakers who were particularly 
 eminent in their profession, you might judge him inferior; 
 yet, whenever you hear him alone, and without an immediate 
 opportunity of making a comparison, you would not only be 
 satisfied with him, but scarcely wish for a better advocate. 
 As to Quintus Metellus Numidicus, and his colleague Marcus 
 Silanus, they spoke, on matters of government, with as much 
 eloquence as was really necessary for men of their illustrious 
 character, and of consular dignity. But Marcus Aurelius 
 Scaurus, though he spoke in public but seldom, always spoke 
 very neatly, and he had a 'more elegant command of the 
 Roman language than most men. Aulus Albinus was a 
 speaker of the same kind; but Albinus the fiamen was 
 esteemed an orator, Quintus Oaepio, too, had a great deal of 
 spirit, and was a brave citizen; but the unlucky chance of 
 
4 10 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 war was imputed to him as a crime, and the general odium 
 of the people proved his ruin. 
 
 XXXYI. " Caius and Lucius Memmius were likewise in- 
 different orators, and distinguished by the bitterness and 
 asperity of their accusations ; for they prosecuted many, but 
 seldom spoke for the defendant. Spurius Thorius, on the 
 other hand, was distinguished by his popular way of speak- 
 ing ; the very same man who, by his corrupt and frivolous 
 law, diminished ^ the taxes which were levied on the public 
 lands. Marcus Marcellus, the father of ^serninus, though 
 not reckoned a professed pleader, was a prompt, and, in some 
 degree, a practised speaker ; as was also his son Publius Len- 
 tulus. Lucius Cotta likewise, a man of praetorian rank, was 
 esteemed a tolerable orator ; but he never made any great 
 progress ; on the contrary, he purposely endeavoured, both in 
 the choice of his words and the rusticity of his pronunciation, 
 to imitate the manner of the ancients. I am indeed sensible 
 that in this instance of Cotta, and in many others, I have and 
 shall again insert in the list of orators those who, in reality, 
 had but little claim to the character. For it was, professedly, 
 my design to collect an account of all the Romans, without 
 exception, who made it their business to excel in the profes- 
 sion of eloquence ; and it may be easily seen from this account 
 by what slow gradations they advanced, and how excessively 
 difficult it is in everything to rise to the summit of perfec- 
 tion. As a proof of this, how many orators have been already 
 recounted, and how much time have we bestowed upon them, 
 before we could ascend, after infinite fatigue and drudgery, 
 as, among the Greeks, to Demosthenes and Hyperides, so 
 now, among our own countrymen, to Antonius and Crassus! 
 For, in my mind, these were consummate orators, and the 
 first among the Romans whose diffusive eloquence rivalled the 
 glory of the Greeks. 
 
 XXX VII. '^Antonius comprehended everything which could 
 be of service to his cause, and he arranged his materials in 
 the most advantageous order; and as a skilful general posts 
 the cavalry, the infantry, and the light troops, where each of 
 them can act to most advantage, so Antonius drew up his 
 arguments in those parts of his discourse, where they were 
 likely to have the best effect. He had a quick and retentive 
 memory, and a frankness of manner which precluded any 
 ^ By dividing great part of them among the people. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 441 
 
 suspicion of artifice. All his speeches were, in appearance, 
 the unpremeditated effusions of an honest heart ; and yet, in 
 reality, they were preconcerted with so much skill, that the 
 judges were sometimes not so well prepared as they should 
 have been, to withstand the force of them. His language, 
 indeed, was not so refined as to pass for the standard of ele- 
 gance ; for which reason he was thought to be rather a care- 
 less speaker; and yet, on the other hand, it was neither 
 vulgar nor incorrect, but of that solid and judicious turn 
 which constitutes the real merit of an orator, as to the choice 
 of his words. For, though a purity of style is certainly, as 
 has been observed, a very commendable quality, it is not so 
 much so for its intrinsic consequence, as because it is too gene- 
 rally neglected. In short, it is not so meritorious to speak our 
 native tongue correctly, as it is disgraceful to speak it other- 
 wise ; nor is it so much the characteristic of a good orator as 
 of a well-bred citizen. But in the choice of his words (in 
 which he had more regard to their weight than their bril- 
 liance), and likewise in the structure of his language and the 
 compass of his periods, Antonius conformed himself to the 
 dictates of reason, and, in a great measure, to the nicer rules 
 of art; though his chief excellence was a judicious manage- 
 ment of the figures and decorations of sentiment. This was 
 likewise the distinguishing excellence of Demosthenes; in 
 which he was so far superior to all others, as to be allowed, 
 in the opinion of the best judges, to be the prince of orators. 
 For the figures (as they are called by the Greeks) are the 
 principal ornaments of an able speaker ; — I mean those which 
 contribute not so much to paint and embellish our language, 
 as to give a lustre to our sentiments. 
 
 XXXYIII. "But besides these, of which Antonius had a 
 great command, he had a peculiar excellence in his manner of 
 delivery, both as to his voice and gesture ; for the latter was 
 such as to correspond to the meaning of every sentence, 
 without beating time to the words. His hands, his shoulders, 
 the turn of his body, the stamp of his foot, his posture, his 
 air, and, in short, all his motions, were adapted to his language 
 and sentiments; and his voice was strong and firm, though 
 naturally hoarse, — a defect which he alone was capable of 
 improving to his advantage ; for in capital causes, it had 
 a mournful dignity of accent, which was exceedingly proper^ 
 both to win the assent of the judges, and excite their com- 
 
442 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 passion for a suffering client ; so that in him the observation 
 of Demosthenes v^as eminently verified; who, being asked 
 what was the first quality of a good orator, what the second, 
 and what the third, constantly replied, ' K good enunciation.' 
 But many thought that he was equalled, and others that he 
 was even excelled, by Lucius Crassus. All, however, were 
 agreed in this, that whoever had either of them for his advo- 
 cate, had no cause to wish for a better. For my own part, 
 notwithstanding the uncommon merit I have ascribed to 
 Antonius, I must also acknowledge, that there cannot be 
 a more finished character than that of Crassus. He pos- 
 sessed a wonderful dignity of elocution, with an agreeable 
 mixture of wit and pleasantry, which was perfectly polished, 
 and without the smallest tincture of scurrility. His style 
 was correct and elegant, without stiffness or affectation; his 
 method of reasoning was remarkably clear and distinct ; and 
 when his cause turned upon any point of law or equity, he 
 had an inexhaustible fund of arguments and comparative 
 illustrations. 
 
 XXXIX. " For as Antonius had an admirable turn for sug- 
 gesting apposite hints, and either suppressing or exciting the 
 suspicions of the hearer, so no man could explain and define, 
 or discuss a point of equity, with a more copious facility 
 than Crassus ; as sufficiently appeared upon many other 
 occasions, but particularly in the cause of Manius Carius, 
 which was tried before the Centumviri. For he urged a great 
 variety of arguments in the defence of right and equity, 
 against the liiQVdljuhet of the law; and supported them by 
 such a numerous series of precedents, that he overpowered 
 Quintus Scaevola (a man of uncommon penetration, and the 
 ablest civilian of his time), though the case before them was 
 only a matter of legal right. But the cause was so ably 
 managed by the two advocates, who were nearly of an age, 
 and both of consular rank, that while each endeavoured to 
 interpret the law in favour of his client, Crassus was univer- 
 sally allowed to be the best lawyer among the orators, and 
 Scsevola to be the most eloquent civilian of the age ; for the 
 latter could not only discover with the nicest precision what 
 was agreeable to law and equity, but had likewise a concise- 
 ness and propriety of expression, which was admirably adapted 
 to his purpose. In short, he had such a wonderful vein of 
 oratory in commenting, explaining, and discussing, that I 
 
I 
 
 REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 443 
 
 never beheld his equal ; though in amplifying, embellishing, 
 and refuting, he was rather to be dreaded as a formidable 
 critic, than admired as an eloquent speaker." 
 
 XL. " Indeed," said Brutus, " though I always thought I 
 sufficiently understood the character of Scsevola, by the 
 account I had heard of him from Caius Rutilius, whose 
 company I frequented for the sake of his acquaintance with 
 him, I had not the least idea of his merit as an orator. I 
 am now, therefore, not a little pleased to be informed, that 
 our republic has had the honour of producing so accom- 
 plished a man, and such an excellent genius." " Really, my 
 Brutus," said I, '* you may take it from me, that the Roman 
 state had never been adorned w^ith two finer characters than 
 these. For, as I have before observed that the one was the 
 best lawyer among the orators, and the other the best speaker 
 among the civilians of his time; so the difference between 
 them, in all other respects, was of such a nature, that it 
 would almost be impossible for you to determine which of 
 the two you would rather choose to resemble. For, as 
 Crassus was the closest of all our elegant speakers, so Scsevola 
 was the most elegant among those who w^ere distinguished 
 by the concise accuracy of their language ; and as Crassus 
 tempered his affability with a proper share of severity, so 
 the rigid air of Scsevola was not destitute of the milder 
 graces of an affable condescension. Though this was really 
 their character, it is very possible that I may be thought to 
 have embellished it beyond the bounds of truth, to give an 
 agreeable air to my narrative; but as your favourite sect, 
 my Brutus, the old Academy, has defined all virtue to be 
 a just mediocrity, it was the constant endeavour of these two 
 eminent men to pursue this golden mean ; and yet it so hap- 
 pened, that while each of them shared a part of the other's 
 excellence, he preserved his own entire." ^' To speak what 
 I think," replied Brutus, " I have not only acquired a proper 
 acquaintance with their characters from your account of 
 them, but I can likewise discover, that the same comparison 
 might be drawn between you and Servius Sulpicius, which 
 you have just been making between Crassus and Scsevola." 
 "In what manner?" said I. " Because you'' replied Brutus, 
 " have taken the pains to acquire as extensive a knowledge of 
 the law as is necessary for an orator; and Sulpicius, on the 
 other hand, took care to furnish himself with sufficient 
 
444 BRUTUS ; on, 
 
 eloquence to support the character of an able civilian. 
 Besides, your age corresponded as nearly to his, as the age of 
 Crassus did to that of Scaevola." 
 
 XLT. ^^ As to my own abilities," said I, " the rules of 
 decency forbid me to speak of them ; but your character of 
 Servius is a very just one, and I may freely tell you what I 
 think of him. There are few, I believe, who have applied 
 themselves more assiduously to the art of speaking than he 
 did, or indeed to the study of every useful science. In our 
 youth, we both of us followed the same liberal exercises ; and 
 he afterwards accompanied me to Rhodes, to pursue those 
 studies which might equally improve him as a man and a 
 scholar; biit when he returned from thence, he appears to 
 me to have been rather ambitious of being the foremost 
 man in a secondary profession, than the second in that which 
 claims the highest dignity. I will not pretend to say, that 
 he could not have ranked himself among the first in the 
 latter profession; but he rather chose to be, what he actually 
 made himself, the first lawyer of his time." " Indeed ! " 
 said Brutus : " and do you really prefer Servius to Quintus 
 ScaevolaT' "My opinion," said I, "Brutus, is, that Quintus 
 Scaevola and many others had a thorough practical know- 
 ledge of the law ; but that Servius alone understood it as 
 a science; which he could never have done by the mere study 
 of the law, and without a previous acquaintance with the 
 art, which teaches us to divide a whole into its subordinate 
 parts, to explain an indeterminate idea by an accurate defini- 
 tion; to illustrate what is obscure by a clear interpretation; 
 and first to discover what things are of a doubtful nature, 
 then to distinguish them by their different degrees of proba- 
 bihty; and, lastly, to be provided with a certain rule or 
 measure by which we may judge what is true, and what 
 false, and what inferences fairly may or may not be deduced 
 from any given premises. This important art he applied to 
 those subjects which, for want of it, were necessarily managed 
 by others without due order and precision." 
 
 XLIL "You mean, I suppose," said Brutus, "the art of 
 logic." " You suppose very rightly," answered I ; " but he 
 added to it an extensive acquaintance with polite literature, 
 and an elegant manner of expressing himself; as is suffi- 
 ciently evident from the incomparable writings he has left 
 behind him. And as he attached himself, for the improve- 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 445 
 
 ment of his eloquence, to Lucius Lucilius Balbus and Caius 
 Aquilius Gallus, two very able speakers, he effectually thwarted 
 the prompt celerity of the latter (though a keen, experienced 
 man) both in supporting and refuting a charge, by his ac- 
 curacy and precision, and overpowered the deliberate formality 
 of Balbus (a man of great learning and erudition) by his 
 adroit and dexterous method of arguing ; so that he equally 
 possessed the good qualities of both, without their defects. 
 As Crassus, therefore, in my mind, acted more prudently 
 than Scsevola; (for the latter was very fond of pleading 
 causes, in which he was certainly inferior to Crassus; whereas 
 the former never engaged himself in an unequal competition 
 with Scsevola, by assuming the character of a civilian;) so 
 Servius pursued a plan which sufficiently discovered his 
 wisdom ; for as the profession of a pleader and a lawyer are 
 both of them held in great esteem, and give those w^ho are 
 masters of them the most extensive influence among their 
 fellow- citizens, he acquired an undisputed superiority in the 
 one, and improved himself as much in the other as was 
 necessary to support the authority of the civil law, and 
 promote him to the dignity of consul." " This is precisely 
 the opinion I had formed of him," said Brutus. '' For a few 
 years ago I heard him often, and very attentively, at Samos, 
 when I wanted to be instructed by him in the pontifical 
 law, as far as it is connected with the civil; and I am now 
 greatly confirmed in my opinion of him, by finding that it 
 coincides so exactly with yours. I am likewise not a little 
 pleased to observe, that the equality of your ages, your 
 sharing the same honours and preferments, and the affinity 
 of your respective studies and professions, has been so far 
 from precipitating either of you into that envious detraction 
 of the other's merit, which most people are tormented with, 
 that, instead of interrupting your mutual friendship, it has 
 only served to increase and strengthen it; for, to my own 
 knowledge, he had the same affection for, and the same 
 favourable sentiments of you, which I now discover in you 
 towards him. I cannot, therefore, help regretting very sin- 
 cerely, that the Roman state has so long been deprived of 
 the benefit of his advice and of your eloquence ; a circum- 
 stance which is indeed calamitous enough in itself, but must 
 appear much more so to him who considers into what hands 
 that once respectable authority has been of late, I will not 
 
446 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 say transferred, but forcibly wrested." " You certainly 
 forget," said Atticus, ^^that I proposed, when we began the 
 conversation, to drop all matters of state ; by all means, 
 therefore, let us keep to our plan; for if we once begin to 
 repeat our grievances, there will be no end, I need not say 
 to our inquiries, but to our sighs and lamentations." 
 
 XLIII. ''Let us proceed, then," said I, "without any 
 i^lrther digression, and pursue the plan we set out upon. 
 Crassus (for he is the orator we were just speaking of) always 
 came into the forum ready prepared for the combat. He 
 was expected with impatience, and heard with pleasure. 
 When he first began his oration (which he always did in 
 a very accurate style), he seemed worthy of the great ex- 
 pectations he had raised. He was very moderate in the 
 movements of his body, had no remarkable variation of 
 voice, never advanced from the ground he stood upon, and 
 seldom stamped his foot ; his language was forcible, and 
 sometimes warm and pathetic; he had many strokes of 
 humour, which were always tempered with a becoming 
 dignity ; and, what is difficult to attain, he was at once very 
 florid and very concise. In a close contest, he never met 
 with his equal ; and there was scarcely any kind of causes in 
 which he had not signalised his abilities; so that he enrolled 
 himself very early among the first orators of the time. He 
 accused Caius Carbo, though a man of great eloquence, when 
 he was but a youth; and displayed his talents in such a 
 manner, that they were not only applauded, but admired by . 
 everybody. He afterwards defended the virgin Licinia, 
 when he was only twenty-seven years of age; on which 
 occasion he discovered an uncommon share of eloquence, as 
 is evident from those parts of his oration which he left 
 behind him in writing. As he was then desirous to have the 
 honour of settling the colony of Narbonne (as he afterwards 
 did), he thought it advisable to recommend himself by under- 
 taking the management of some popular cause. His oration 
 in support of the act which was proposed for that purpose, is 
 still extant ; and discovers a greater maturity of genius than 
 might have been expected at that time of life. He afterwards 
 pleaded many other causes; but his tribuneship was so re- 
 markably silent, that if he had not supped with Granius the 
 beadle when he enjoyed that office (a circumstance which 
 has been twice mentioned by Lwcilius), we should scarcely 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 447 
 
 have kno^'n that a tribune of that name had existed.'* " I 
 believe so," replied Brutus; ''but. I have heard as little of 
 the tribuneship of Sc£evola, though I must naturally suppose 
 that he was the colleague of Crassus." " He was so," said I, 
 '' in all his other preferments ; but he was not tribune till 
 the year after him ; and when he sat in the rostrum in that 
 capacity, Crassus spoke in support of the Servilian law. I 
 must observe, however, that Crassus had not Scsevola for his 
 colleague in the censorship; for none of the Scaevolas ever 
 solicited that office. But when the last-mentioned oration of 
 Crassus was published (which I dare say you have frequently 
 read), he was thirty-four years of age, which was exactly the 
 difference between his age and mine. For he supported the 
 law I have just been speaking of, in the very consulship 
 under which I was born; whereas he himself was born in 
 the consulship of Quintus Csepio and Caius Laelius, about 
 three years later than Antonius. I have particularly noticed 
 this circumstance, to specify the time when the Roman 
 eloquence attained its first maturity; and was actually car- 
 ried to such a degree of perfection, as to leave no room for 
 any one to carry it higher, unless by the assistance of a more 
 complete and extensive knowledge of philosophy, jurispru- 
 dence, and history." 
 
 XLIV. "But does there," said Brutus, " or will there ever 
 exist a man, who is furnished with all the united accomplish- 
 ments you required' ''I really do not know," said I; "but 
 we have a speech made by Crassus in his consulship, in praise 
 of Quintus Csepio, intermingled with a defence of his conduct, 
 which, though a short one if we consider it as an oration, is 
 not so as a panegyric; and another, which was his last, 
 and which he spoke in the forty-eighth year of his age, at 
 the time he was censor. In these we have the genuine com- 
 plexion of eloquence, without any painting or disguise ; but 
 his periods (I mean those of Crassus) were generally short 
 and concise; and he was fond of expressing himself in those 
 minuter sentences, or members, which the Greeks call colons" 
 " As you have spoken so largely," said Brutus, " in praise of 
 the two last-mentioned orators, I heartily wish that Antonius 
 had left us some other specimen of his abilities than his 
 trifling essay on the art of speaking, and Crassus more than 
 he has; by so doing, they would have transmitted their fame 
 to posterity, and to us a valuable system of eloquence. For as 
 
448 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 to the elegant language of Scaevola, we have sufficient proofs 
 of it in the orations he has left behind him." '^ For my 
 part," said I, "the oration I was speaking of, on Csepio's 
 case, has been a model which served to instruct me from my 
 very childhood. It supports the dignity of the senate, which 
 was deeply interested in the debate; and excites the jealousy 
 of the audience against the party of the judges and accusers, 
 whose powers it was necessary to expose in the most popular 
 . terms. Many parts of it are very strong and nervous ; maoy 
 others very cool and composed; and some are distinguished 
 by the asperity of their language, and not a few by their wit 
 and pleasantry : but much more was said than was committed 
 to writing, as is sufficiently evident from several heads of 
 the oration, which are merely proposed without any enlarge- 
 ment or explanation. But the oration in his censorship 
 aga^inst his colleague Cneius Domitius, is not so much an 
 oration as an analysis of the subject, or a general sketch of 
 what he had said, with here and there a few ornamental 
 touches, by way of specimen; for no contest was ever con- 
 ducted with greater spirit than this. Crassus, however, was 
 eminently distinguished by the popular turn of his language ; 
 but that of Antonius was better adapted to judicial trials 
 than to a public debate. 
 
 XLY. " As we have had occasion to mention him, Domitius 
 himself must not be left unnoticed; for though he is not 
 enrolled in the list of orators, he had a sufficient share, both 
 of utterance and genius, to support his character as a magis- 
 trate, and his dignity as a consul. I might likewise observe 
 of Caius Cselius, that he was a man of great application and 
 many eminent qualities, and had eloquence enough to support 
 the private interests of his friends, and his own dignity in 
 the state. At the same time lived Marcus Herennius, who 
 was reckoned among the middling orators, whose principal 
 merit was the purity and correctness of their language ; and 
 yet, in a suit for the consulship, he got the better of Lucius 
 Philippus, a man of the first rank and family, and of the 
 most extensive connexions, and who was likewise a member 
 of the college, and a very eloquent speaker. Then also lived 
 Caius Clodius, who, besides his consequence as a nobleman of 
 the first distinction and a man of the most powerful influence, 
 was likewise possessed of a moderate share of eloquence. 
 Nearly of the same age was Caius Titius. a Roman knight, 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 44& 
 
 who, in mj judgment, arrived at as high a degree of per- 
 fection as a Roman orator was able to do, without the assist- 
 ance of the Grecian literature, and a good share of practice. 
 His orations have so many delicate turns, such a number of 
 well-chosen examples, and such an agreeable vein of polite- 
 ness, that they almost seem to have been composed in the 
 true Attic style. He likewise transferred his delicacies into 
 his tragedies, with ingenuity enough, I confess, but not in 
 the tragic taste. But the poet Lucius Afranius, whom he 
 studiously imitated, was a very lively writer, and, as you 
 well know, possessed great dramatic eloquence. Quintus 
 Rubrius Yarro, who with Caius Marius was declared an 
 enemy by the senate, was likewise a warm and very spirited 
 prosecutor. My relation, Marcus Gratidius, was a plausible 
 speaker of the same kind, well versed in Grecian literature, 
 formed by nature for the profession of eloquence, and an 
 intimate acquaintance of Marcus Antonius; he commanded 
 under him in Cilicia, where he lost his life; and he once 
 commenced a prosecution against Caius Fimbria, the father 
 of Marcus Marius Gratidianus. 
 
 XLYI. " There have likewise been several among the 
 allies, and the Latins, who were esteemed good orators; as, 
 for instance, Quintus Yettius of Yettium, one of the Marsi, 
 whom I myself was acquainted with, a man of sense, and 
 a concise speaker ; the Yalerii, Quintus and Decimus, of Sora, 
 my neighbours and acquaintances, who were not so remark- 
 able for their talent in speaking, as for their skill both in 
 Greek and Roman literature ; and Caius Rusticellus of 
 Bononia, an experienced orator, and a man of great natural 
 volubility. But the most eloquent of all those w^ho were not 
 citizens of Rome, was Tiberius Betucius Barrus of Asculum, 
 some of whose orations, which were spoken in that city, are 
 still extant ; that which he made at Rome against Csepio, is 
 really excellent ; the speech which Csepio delivered in answer 
 to it, was made by ^lius, who composed a number of orations, 
 but pronounced none himself. But among those of a re- 
 moter date, Lucius Papirius of Fregellse in Latium, who was 
 almost contemporary with Tiberius Gracchus, w^as universally 
 esteemed the most eloquent ; w^e have a speech of his in vin- 
 dication of the Fregellans, and the Latin colonies, which was 
 delivered before the senate." '^ And what then is the merit," 
 said Brutus, " which you mean to ascribe to these provincial 
 
450 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 orators ?" "What else/' replied I, " but the very same which 
 I have ascribed to the city orators ; excepting that their lan- 
 guage is not tinctured with the same fashionable delicacy." 
 "What fashionable delicacy do you mean?" said he. "I 
 cannot/' said I, " pretend to define it; I only know that 
 there is such a quality existing. When you go to your pro- 
 vince in Gaul, you will be convinced of it. You will there 
 find many expressions which are not current in Rome ; but 
 these may be easily changed, and corrected. But what is of 
 greater importance, our orators have a particular accent in 
 their manner of pronouncing, which is more elegant, and has 
 a more agreeable effect than any other. This, however, is 
 not peculiar to the orators, but is equally common to every 
 well-bred citizen. I myself remember that Titus Tineas, of 
 Placentia, who was a very facetious man, once engaged in 
 raillery with my old friend Quintus Granius, the public 
 crier." '^ Do you mean that Granius," said Brutus, *^ of whom 
 Lucilius has related such a number of stories 1: " " The very 
 same," said I ; " but though Tineas said as many smart 
 things as the other, Granius at last overpowered him by a 
 certain vernacular gout, which gave an additional relish to his 
 humour ; so that I am no longer surprised at what is said to 
 have happened to Theophrastus, when he inquired of an old 
 woman who kept a stall, what was the price of something 
 which he wanted to purchase. After telling him the value of 
 it, * Honest stranger,' said she, ' I cannot afford it for less;' an 
 answer which nettled him not a little, to think that he who 
 had resided almost all his life at Athens, and spoke the lan- 
 guage very correctly, should be taken at last for a foreigner. 
 Ill the same manner, there is, in my opinion, a certain accent 
 as peculiar to the native citizens of Rome, as the other was to 
 those of Athens. But it is time for us to return home ; I 
 mean, to the orators of our own growth. 
 
 XL VII. " Next, therefore, to the two capital speakers 
 above-mentioned, (that is, Crassus andAntonius,) came Lucius 
 Pliilippus, — not indeed till a considerable time afterwards; 
 but still he must be reckoned the next. I do not mean, 
 however, though nobody appeared in the interim who could 
 dispute the prize with him, that he was entitled to the 
 second, or even the third post of honour. For as in a chariot- 
 race I cannot properly consider him as either the second or 
 third winner, who has scarcely got clear of the stai'ting-post. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 4ol 
 
 before the first has reached the goal; so. among orators^, I 
 can scarcely honour him with the name of a competitor, who 
 has been so far distanced by the foremost as hardly to appear 
 on the same ground with him. But yet there were certainly 
 some talents to be observed in Philippus, which any person 
 who considers them, without subjecting them to a comparison 
 with the superior merits of the two before-mentioned, must 
 allow to have been respectable. He had an uncommon free- 
 dom of address, a large fund of humour, great facility in the 
 invention of his sentiments, and a ready and easy manner of 
 expressing them. He was likewise, for the time he lived in, 
 a great adept in the literature of the Greeks ; and, in the heat 
 of a debate, he could sting, and lash, as well as ridicule his 
 opponents. Almost contemporary with these was Lucius 
 Gellius, who was not so much to be valued for his positive, 
 as for his negative merits ; for he was neither destitute of 
 learning, nor invention, nor unacquainted with the history 
 and the laws of his country ; besides which, he had a tolerable 
 freedom of expression. But he happened to live at a tinae 
 when many excellent orators made their appearance ; and yet 
 he served his friends upon many occasions to good purpose ;, 
 in short, his life was so long, that he was successively con- 
 temporary with a variety of orators of different periods, anc? 
 had an extensive series of practice in judicial causes. JS^early 
 at the same time lived Decimus Brutus, who was fellow- 
 consul with Mamercus ; and was equally skilled both in the 
 Grecian and Eoman literature. Lucius Scipio likewise was 
 not an unskilful speaker ; and Cnseus Pompeius, the son of 
 Sextus, had some reputation as an orator ; for his brother 
 Sextus applied the excellent genius he was possessed of, to 
 acquire a thorough knowledge of the civil law, and a complete 
 acquaintance with geometry and the doctrine of the Stoics. 
 A little before these, Marcus Brutus, and very soon after 
 him Caius Bilienus, who was a man of great natural capacity, 
 made themselves, by nearly the same application, equally 
 eminent in the profession of the law ; the latter would have 
 been chosen consul, if he had not been thwarted by the 
 repeated promotion of ^larius, and some other collateral em- 
 barrassments which attended his suit. But the eloquence of 
 Cneeus Octavius, which was wholly unknown before his 
 elevation to the consulship, was effectually displayed, after his 
 preferment to tha.t office, in a great variety of speecLec. It is. 
 
 G G 2 
 
4:52 BRUTUS; oRj 
 
 however, time for us to drop those who were only classed in 
 the number of good speakers, and turn our attention to such 
 as were really orators.'''' 
 
 " I think so too," replied Atticus ; " for I understood that 
 you meant to give us an account, not of those who took great 
 pains to be eloquent, but of those who were so in reality." 
 
 XIjYIII. '^ Caius Julius then," said I, " (the son of Lucius,) 
 was certainly superior, not only to his predecessors, but to all 
 his contemporaries, in wit and humour; he was not, indeed, 
 a nervous and striking orator, but, in the elegance, the plea- 
 santry, and the agreeableness of his manner, he has not been 
 excelled by any man. There are some orations of his still 
 extant, in which, as well as in his tragedies, we may discover 
 a pleasing tranquillity of expression with very little energy. 
 Publius Cethegus, his equal in age, had always enough to say 
 on matters of civil regulation ; for he had studied and com- 
 prehended them with the minutest accuracy ; by which 
 means he acquired an equal authority in the senate with those 
 who had served the office of consul, and though he made no 
 figure in a public debate, he was a serviceable veteran in any 
 suit of a private nature. Quintus Lucretius Yispillo was an 
 acute speaker, and a good civilian in the same kind of 
 causes ; but Osella was better qualified for a public harangue 
 than to conduct a judicial process. Titus Annius Velina 
 was likewise a man of sense, and a tolerable pleader ; and 
 Titus Juventius had a gTeat deal of practice in the same 
 way : the latter mdeed was rather too heavy and inani- 
 mate, but at the same time was keen and artful, and 
 knew how to seize every advantage which was offered by his 
 antagonist; to which we may add, that he was far from 
 being a man of no literature, but had an extensive knowledge 
 of the civil law. His scholar, Publius Orbius, who was almost 
 contemporary with me, had no great practice as a pleader ; 
 but his skill in the civil law was in no respect inferior to his 
 master's. As to Titus Aufidius, who lived to a great age, he 
 was a professed imitator of both ; and was indeed a worthy 
 inoffensive man; but he seldom spoke at the bar. His 
 brother, Marcus Yirgilius, who, when he was a tribune of the 
 people, commenced a prosecution against Lucius Sjdla, then 
 advanced to the rank of general, had as little practice as Aufi- 
 dius. Yirgilius's colleague, Publius Magius, was more copious 
 and diffusive. But of all the orators, or rather ranters, I ever 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 453 
 
 knew, who were totally illiterate and unpolished, and (I roight 
 have added) absolutely coarse and rustic, the readiest and 
 keenest were Quintus Sertorius, and Cains Gorgonius, the 
 one of consular, and the other of equestrian rank. Titus 
 Junius (the son of Lucius), who had served the office of tri- 
 bune, and prosecuted and convicted Publius Sextius of bribery, 
 when he was praetor elect, was a prompt and an easy speaker ; 
 he lived in great splendour, and had a very promising genius ; 
 and, if he had not been of a weak, and indeed a sickly con- 
 stitution, he would have advanced much further than he did 
 in the road to preferment. 
 
 XLIX. " I am sensible, however, that in the account I 
 have been giving, I have included many who were neither 
 real, nor reputed orators ; and that I have omitted others, 
 among those of a remoter date, who well deserved not only to 
 have been mentioned, but to be recorded with honour. But 
 this I was forced to do, for want of better information; for 
 what could I say concerning men of a distant age, none of 
 whose productions are now remaining, and of whom no 
 mention is made in the writings of other people ? But I have 
 omitted none of those who have fallen within the compass of 
 my own knowledge, or that I myself remember to have 
 heard. For I wish to make it appear, that in such a powerful 
 and ancient republic as ours, in which the greatest rewards 
 have been proposed to eloquence, though all have desired to 
 be good speakers, not many have attempted the task, and but 
 very few have succeeded. But I shall give my opinion of 
 every one in such explicit terms, that it may be easily under- 
 stood whom I consider as a mere declaimer, and whom as an 
 orator. About the same time, or rather something later than 
 the above-mentioned Julius, but almost contemporary with 
 each other, were Caius Cotta, Publius Sulpicius, Quintus 
 Varius, Cnseus Pomponius, Caius Curio, Lucius Fufius, Mar- 
 cus Drusus, and Publius Antistius ; for no age whatsoever 
 has been distinguished by a more numerous progeny of 
 orators. Of these, Cotta and Sulpicius, both in my opinion 
 and in that of the public at large, had an evident claim to the 
 preference." '' But wherefore," interrupted Atticus, " do you 
 say, in your own opinion^ and in that of the public at -large] 
 In deciding the merits of an orator, does the opinion of the 
 vulgar, think you, always coincide with that of the learned ? 
 Or rather, does not one receive the approbation of the populace, 
 
454: BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 while another of a quite opposite character is preferred by 
 those who are better quahfied to give their j udgment 1 " " You 
 have started a very pertinent question," said I ; ^^but, perhaps, 
 the public at large will not approve my answer to it." '- And 
 what concern need that give you," replied Atticus, " if it meets 
 the approbation of Brutus f " Very true," said I ; " for I had 
 rather my sentiments on the qualifications of an orator should 
 please you and Brutus, than all the world besides ; but as to 
 my eloquence, I should wish this to please every one. For he 
 who speaks in such a manner as to please the people, must 
 inevitably receive the approbation of the learned. As to the 
 truth and propriety of what I hear, I am indeed to judge of 
 this for myself, as well as I am able ; but the general merit 
 of an orator must and will be decided by the effects which his 
 eloquence produces. For (in my opinion at least) there are 
 three things which an orator should be able to effect ; viz. 
 to inform his hearers, to please them, and to move their 
 passions. By what qualities in the speaker each of these 
 effects may be produced, or by what deficiencies they are 
 either lost, or but imperfectly performed, is an inquiry which 
 none but an artist can resolve ; but whether an audience is 
 really so affected by an orator as shall best answer his pur- 
 pose, must be left to their own feelings, and the decision 
 of the public. The learned therefore, and the people at large, 
 have never disagreed about who was a good orator, and who 
 was otherwise. 
 
 L. " For do you suppose, that while the speakers above- 
 mentioned were in being, they had not the same degree of 
 reputation among the learned as among the populace ? If you 
 had inquired of one of the latter, who was the most eloquent 
 man in the city, he might have hesitated whether to say 
 Antonius or Crassus; or this man, perhaps, would have men- 
 tioned the one, and that the other. But would any one have 
 given the preference to Fhilippus, though otherwise a smooth, 
 a sensible, and a facetious speaker? — that Fhilippus whom 
 we, who form our judgment upon these matters by rules of 
 art, have decided to have been the next in merit ? Nobody 
 would, I am certain. For it is the invariable prerogative of 
 an accomplished orator, to be reckoned such in the opinion 
 of the people. Though Antigenidas, therefore, the musician, 
 might say to his scholar, who was but coldly received by th« 
 public. Flay on, to please me and the Muses; I shall say t4 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT OEATORS. 455 
 
 my friend Brutus, when he mounts the rostra, as he frequently 
 does, Play to me and the people; that those who hear him 
 may be sensible of the effect of his eloquence, while I can 
 likewise amuse myself with remarkiug the causes which pro- 
 duce it. When a citizen hears an able orator, he readily 
 credits what is said ; he imagines everything to be true, he 
 believes and relishes the force of it ; and, in short, the per- 
 suasive language of the speaker wins his absolute, his hearty 
 assent. You, who are possessed of a critical knowledge of the 
 art, what more will you require ? The listening multitude is 
 charmed and captivated by the force of his eloquence, and 
 feels a pleasure which is not to be resisted. What here can 
 you find to censure '? The whole audience is either flushed 
 with joy, or overwhelmed with grief; it smiles or weeps, 
 it loves or hates, it scorns or envies, and, in short, is 
 alternately seized with the various emotions of pity, shame, 
 remorse, resentment, wonder, hope, and fear, according as it 
 is influenced by the language, the sentiments, and the action 
 of the speaker. In this case, what necessity is there to await 
 the sanction of a critic ? For here, whatever is approved by 
 the feelings of the people, must be equally so by men of 
 taste and erudition ; and, in this instance of public decision, 
 there can be no disagreem'ent between the opinion of the 
 vulgar, and that of the learned. For though many good 
 speakers have appeared in every species of oratory, which of 
 them who was thought to excel the rest in the judgment 
 of the populace, was not approved as such by every m.an of 
 learning'? or which of our ancestors, when the choice of 
 a pleader was left to his own option, did not immediately fix 
 it either upon Crassus or Antonius ? There were certainly 
 many others to be had; but though any person might have 
 hesitated to which of the above two he should give the pre- 
 ference, there was nobody, I believe, who would have made 
 choice of a third. And in the time of my youth, w^hen Cotta 
 and Hortensius w^ere in such high reputation, who, that had 
 liberty to choose for himself, would have employed any other?" 
 LI. '^ But what occasion is there," said Brutus, " to quote 
 the example of other speakers to support your assertion 1 
 have we not seen what has always been the wish of the de- 
 fendant, and what the judgment of Hortensius, concerning 
 yourself ? for whenever the latter shared a cause with you, 
 (and I w^as often present on those occasions,) the peroration, 
 
456 
 
 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 which requires the greatest exertion of the powers of elo- 
 quence, was constantly left to yoiiP " It was/' said I ; " and 
 Hortensius (induced, I suppose, by the warmth of his friend- 
 ship) always resigned the post of honour to me. But, as to 
 myself, what rank I hold in the opinion of the people I am 
 unable to determine ; as to others, however, I may safely 
 assert, that such of them as were reckoned most eloquent in 
 the judgment of the vulgar, were equally high in the esti- 
 mation of the learned. For even Demosthenes himself could 
 not have said what is related of Antimachus, a poet of Claros, 
 who, when he was rehearsing to an audience, assembled for 
 the purpose, that voluminous piece of his which you are well 
 acquainted with, and was deserted by all his hearers except 
 Plato, in the midst of his performance, cried out, / shall 'pro- 
 ceed notwithstanding ; for Plato alone is of more consequence 
 to me than many thousands. The remark was very just. For 
 an abstruse poem, such as his, only requires the approbation 
 of the judicious few ; but a discourse intended for the people 
 should be perfectly suited to their taste. If Demosthenes, 
 therefore, after being deserted by the rest of his audience, 
 had even Plato left to hear him, and no one else, I will 
 answer for it, he could not have uttered another syllable. Nor 
 could you yourself, my Brutus, if the whole assembly were to 
 leave you, as it once did Curio ?" " To open my whole mind 
 to you," replied he, " I must confess that even in such causes 
 as fall under the cognisance of a few select judges, and not of 
 the people at large, if I were to be deserted by the casual 
 crowd who came to hear the trial, I should not be able to 
 proceed." " The case, then, is plainly this," said I : "as a 
 flute, which will not return its proper sound when it is applied 
 to the lips, would be laid aside by the musician as useless ; 
 so, the ears of the people are the instrument upon which an 
 orator is to play ; and if these refuse to admit the breath he 
 bestows upon them, or if the hearer, like a restive horse, will 
 not obey the spur, the speaker must cease to exert himself 
 any further. 
 
 LII. " There is, however, this exception to be made ; the 
 people sometimes give their approbation to an orator who 
 does not deserve it. But even here they approve what they 
 have had no opportunity of comparing with something better ; 
 as, for instance, when they are pleased with an indifferent, or, 
 perhaps, a bad speaker. His abilities satisfy their expectation j 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 457 
 
 the J have seen nothing preferable ; and, therefore, the merit 
 of the day, whatever it may happen to be, meets their full 
 applause. For even a middling orator, if he is possessed of 
 any degree of eloquence, will always captivate the ear ; and 
 the order and beauty of a good discourse has an astonishing 
 effect upon the human mind. Accordingly, what common 
 hearer who was present when Quintus Scsevola pleaded for 
 Mucins Coponius, in the cause above-mentioned, would 
 have wished for, or indeed thought it possible to find any- 
 tliing which was more correct, more elegant, or more com- 
 plete ? When he attempted to prove, that, as Mucins Curius 
 was left heir to the estate only in case of the death of his 
 future ward before he came of age, he could not possibly be 
 a legal heir, when the expected ward was never born ; what 
 did he leave unsaid of the scrupulous regard which should be 
 paid to the literal meaning of every testament ? what of the 
 accuracy and preciseness of the old and established forms of 
 law 1 and how carefully did he specify the manner in which 
 the will would have been expressed, if it had intended that 
 Curius should be the heir in case of a total default of issue ? 
 in what a masterly manner did he represent the ill conse- 
 quences to the public, if the letter of a will should be dis- 
 regarded, its intention decided by arbitrary conjectures, and 
 the written bequests of plain illiterate men left to the artful 
 interpretation of a pleader ? how often did he urge the autho- 
 rity of his father, who had always been an advocate for a 
 strict adherence to the letter of a testament ? and with what 
 emphasis did he enlarge upon the necessity of supporting the 
 common forms of law 1 All which particulars he discussed 
 not only with great art and ingenuity ; but in such a neat, 
 such a close, and, I may add, in so florid and so elegant 
 a style, that there was not a single person among the common 
 part of the audience, who could expect anything more com- 
 plete, or even think it possible to exist. 
 
 LIII. ^^ But when Crassus, who spoke on the opposite side, 
 began with the story of a notable youth, who, having found 
 an oar-niche of a boat as he was rambling along the shore, 
 took it into his head that he would build a boat to it ; and 
 when he applied the tale to Scsevola, who, from the oar-niche 
 of an argument [which he had deduced from certain imagi- 
 nary ill consequences to the public], represented the decision 
 of a private will to be a matter of such importance as to 
 
458 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 deserve the attention of the Centumviri ; T7hen Crassus, I say, 
 in the beginning of his discourse, had thus taken off the edge 
 of the strongest plea of his antagonist, he entertained his 
 hearers with many other turns of a similar kind ; and, in a 
 short time, changed the serious apprehensions of all who were 
 present into open mirth and good-humour ; which is one of 
 those three effects which I have just observed an orator should 
 be able to produce. He then proceeded to remark that it was 
 evidently the intention and the will of the testator, that in 
 case, either by death, or default of issue, there should happen 
 to be no son to fall to his charge, the inheritance should 
 devolve to Curius ; that- most people in a similar case would 
 express themselves in the same manner, and that it would 
 certainly stand good in law, and always had. By these, and 
 many other observations of the same kind, he gained the 
 assent of his hearers ; which is another of the three duties of 
 an orator. Lastly, he supported, at all events, the true mean- 
 ing and spirit of a will, against the literal construction; justly 
 observing, that there would be an endless cavilling about 
 words, not only in wills, but in all other legal deeds, if the 
 real intention of the party were to be disregarded ; and hint- 
 ing very smartly, that his friend Sceevola had assumed a most 
 unwarrantable degree of importance, if no person must after- 
 wards presume to indite a legacy, but in the musty form 
 which he himself might please to prescribe. As he enlarged 
 on each of these arguments with great force and propriety, 
 supported them by a number of precedents, exhibited them 
 in a variety of views, and enlivened them with many occa- 
 sional turns of wit and pleasantry, he gained so much applause, 
 and gave such general satisfaction, that it was scarcely remem- 
 bered that anything had been said on the contrary side of the 
 question. This was the third, and the most important duty 
 we assigned to an orator. Here, if one of the people were to 
 be judge, the same person who had heard the first speaker 
 with a degree of admiration, would, on hearing the second, 
 despise himself for his former want of judgment ; whereas 
 a man of taste and erudition, on hearing Scsevola, would have 
 observed that he was really master of a rich and ornamental 
 style ; but if, on comparing the manner in which each ot 
 them concluded his cause, it was to be inquired which of the 
 two was the best orator, the decision of the man of learning 
 would not have differed from that of the vulgar. 
 
I 
 
 REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 459 
 
 ilY. " What advantage, then, it will be said, has the 
 skilful critic over the illiterate hearer? A great and very 
 important advantage ; if it is indeed a matter of any conse- 
 quence, to be able to discover by what means that which is 
 the true and real end of speaking, is either obtained or lost. 
 He has likewise this additional superiority, that when two or 
 more orators, as has frequently happened, have shared the 
 applauses of the public, he can judge, on a careful observation 
 of the principal merits of each, w^hat is the most perfect cha- 
 racter of eloquence ; since whatever does not meet the appro- 
 bation of the people, must be equally condemned by a more 
 intelligent hearer. For as it is easily understood by the 
 sound of a harp, whether the strings are skilfully touched ; 
 so it may likewise be discovered from the manner in which 
 the passions of an audience are affected, how far the speaker 
 is able to command them. A man, therefore, who is a real 
 connoisseur in the art, can sometimes by a single glance, as 
 he passes through the forum, and without stopping to listen 
 attentively to what is said, form a tolerable judgment of the 
 ability of the speaker. When he observes any of the bench 
 either yawning, or speaking to the person who is next to him, 
 or looking carelessly about him, or sending to inquire the 
 time of day, or teazing the quaesitor to dismiss the court ; he 
 concludes very naturally that the cause upon trial is not 
 pleaded by an orator who understands how to apply the 
 powers of language to the passions of the judges, as a skilful 
 musician applies his fingers to the harp. On the other hand, 
 ,if, as he passes by, he beholds the judges looking attentively 
 I before them, as if they were either receiving some material 
 ' information, or visibly approved what they had already heard ; 
 if he sees them listening to the voice of the pleader with 
 a kind of ecstasy, like a fond bird to some melodious tune ; 
 and, above all, if he discovers in their looks any strong indi- 
 cations of pity, abhorrence, or any other emotion of the 
 mind ; though he should not be near enough to hear a single 
 word, he immediately discovers that the cause is managed 
 by a real orator, who is either performing, or. has already 
 played his part to good purpose." 
 
 LV. After I had concluded these digressive remarks, my 
 two friends were kind enough to signify their approbation, 
 and I resumed my subject. '^ As this digTCssion," said I, " took 
 its rise from Gotta and Sulpicius, whom I mentioned as the 
 
460 
 
 BBUTUS ; OR, 
 
 two most approved orators of the age they lived in, I shall 
 first return to them, and afterwards notice the rest in their | 
 proper order, according to the plan we began upon. I have i 
 already observed that there are two classes of good orators | 
 (for we have no concern with any others), of which the former , 
 are distinguished by the simple neatness and brevity of their 
 language, and the latter by their copious dignity and eleva- 
 tion ; but although the preference must always be given to 
 that which is great and striking ; yet, in speakers of real 
 merit, whatever is most perfect of the kind, is justly entitled 
 to our commendation. It must, however, be observed, that 
 the close and simple orator should be careful not to sink into 
 a dryness and poverty of expression ; while, on the other 
 hand, the copious and more stately speaker should be equally 
 on his guard against a swelling and empty parade of words. 
 To begin with Cotta, he had a ready, quick invention, and 
 spoke correctly and freely ; and as he very prudently avoided 
 every forcible exertion of his voice, on account of the weak- 
 ness of his lungs, so his language was equally adapted to the 
 delicacy of his constitution. There was nothing in his style 
 but what was neat, compact, and healthy ; and (what may 
 justly be considered as his greatest excellence) though he was 
 scarcely able, and therefore never attempted to force the 
 passions of the judges by a strong and spirited elocution, yet 
 he managed them so artfully, that the gentle emotions he 
 raised in them, answered exactly the same purpose, and pro- 
 duced the same effect, as the violent ones which were excited 
 by Sulpicius. For Sulpicius was really the most striking, and, 
 if I may be allowed the expression, the most tragical orator 
 I ever heard : his voice was strong and sonorous, and yet sweet 
 and flowing ; his gesture and his deportment were graceful 
 and ornamental, but in such a style as to appear to have been 
 formed for the forum, and not for the stage ; and his language, 
 though rapid and voluble, was neither loose nor exuberant. 
 He was a professed imitator of Crassus, while Cotta chose 
 Antonius for his model ; but the latter wanted the force of 
 Antonius, and the former the agreeable humour of Crassus." 
 
 " How extremely difficult, then," said Brutus, " must be 
 the art of speaking, when such consummate orators as these 
 were each of them destitute of one of its principal beauties !" 
 LYI. "We may likewise observe," said I, "in the present 
 instance, that two orators may have the highest degree of 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 461 
 
 aerit^ who are totally unlike each other ; for none could be 
 aore so than Cotta and Sulpicius, and yet both of them were 
 ar superior to any of their contemporaries. It is therefore 
 he business of every intelligent master to notice what is the 
 latural bent of his pupil's capacity ; and taking that for his 
 ^uide, to imitate the conduct of Isocrates with his two scho- 
 ars Theopompus and Ephorus, who, after remarking the lively 
 genius of the former, and the mild and timid bashfulness of 
 :he latter, is reported to have said, that he applied a spur to 
 :he one, and a curb to the other. The orations now extant, 
 v^hich bear the name of Snlpicius, are supposed to have been 
 written after his decease by my contemporary Publius Ca- 
 Qutius, a man indeed of inferior rank, but who, in my mind, 
 had a great command of language. But we have not a single 
 speech of Sulpicius that was really his own ; for I have often 
 I heard him say, that he neither had, nor ever could commit 
 ' anything of the kind to writing. And as to Cotta's speech 
 [in defence of himself, called a vindication of the Yarian law, 
 '^it wa.s composed, at his own request, by Lucius ^lius. This 
 ■ iElius w^as a man of merit, and a very worthy Roman knight, 
 who was thoroughly versed in Greek and Koman literature. 
 ' He had likewise a critical knowledge of the antiquities 
 ; of his country, both as to the date and particulars of every 
 . new improvement, and every memorable transaction, and 
 ' was perfectly well read in the ancient writers ; a branch of 
 learning in which he was succeeded by our friend Yarro, a 
 man of genius, and of the most extensive erudition, who after- 
 wards enlarged the plan by many valuable collections of his 
 own, and gave a much fuller and more elegant system of it to 
 the public. For ^lius himself chose to assume the character 
 of a Stoic, and neither aimed to be^ nor ever was an orator ; 
 but he composed several orations for other people to pro- 
 nounce ; as, for Quintus Metellus, Fabius Quintus Caepio, and 
 Quintus Pompeius Rufus ; though the latter composed those 
 speeches himself which he spoke in his own defence, but not 
 wdthout the assistance of ^lius. For I myself was present 
 at the writing of them, in the younger part of my life, when I 
 used to attend ^lius for the benefit of his instructions. But 
 I am surprised that Cotta, who w^as really an excellent orator, 
 and a man of good learning, should be willing that the trifling 
 speeches of JElius should be published to the world as his, 
 LYII. ^^ To the two above-mentioned, no third person of 
 
462 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 the same age was esteemed an equal ; Pomponius, however, 
 was a speaker much to my taste ; or, at least, I have very 
 little fault to find with him. But there was no employment 
 for any in capital causes, excepting for those I have already 
 mentioned; because Antonius, who was always courted on 
 these occasions, was very ready to give his service ; and 
 Crassus, though not so compliable, generally consented, on 
 any pressing solicitation, to give Ms. Those who had not 
 interest enough to engage either of these, commonly applied 
 to Philippus or Caesar ; but when Cotta and Sulpicius were at 
 liberty, they generally had the preference ; so that all the 
 causes in which any honour was to be acquired, were pleaded 
 by these six orators. We may add, that trials were not so 
 frequent then as they are at present ; neither did people 
 employ, as they do now, several pleaders on the same side of 
 the question ; a practice which is attended with many dis- 
 advantages. For hereby we are often obliged to speak in 
 reply to those whom we had not an opportunity of hearing ; 
 in which case, what has been alleged on the opposite side, is 
 often represented to us either falsely or imperfectly; and 
 besides, it is a very material circumstance, that I myself 
 should be present to see with what countenance my antago- 
 nist supports his allegations, and, still more so, to observe 
 the effect of every part of his discourse upon the audience. 
 And as every defence should be conducted upon one uniform 
 plan, nothing can be more improperly contrived, than to 
 recommence it by assigning the peroration, or pathetical part 
 of it, to a second advocate. For every cause can have but 
 one natural introduction and conclusion ; and all the other 
 parts of it, like the members of an animal body, will best 
 retain their proper strength and beauty, when they are regu- 
 larly disposed and connected. We may add, that, as it' is 
 very difficult in a single oration of any length, to avoid saying 
 something which does not comport with the rest of it so well 
 as it ought to do, how much more difficult must it be to con- 
 trive that nothing shall be said, which does not tally exactly 
 with the speech of another person who has spoken before you'^? 
 But as it certainly requires more labour to plead a whole 
 cause, than only a part of it, and as many advantageous con- 
 nexions are formed by assisting in a suit in which several 
 persons are interested, the custom, however preposterous in 
 itself, has been readily adopted. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 463 
 
 LYIII. *• There were some, however, who esteemed Curio 
 the thh'd best orator of the age ; perhaps, because his lan- 
 guage was brilhant and pompous, and because he had a habit 
 (for which I suppose he was indebted to his domestic educa- 
 tion) of expressing himself with tolerable correctness ; for he 
 was a man of very little learning. But it is a circumstance 
 of great importance, what sort of people we are used to con- 
 verse with at home, especially in the more early part of life; 
 and what sort of language we have been accustomed to hear 
 from our tutors and parents, not excepting the mother. We 
 have all read the letters of Cornelia, the mother of the 
 Gracchi ; and are satisfied, that her sons were not so much 
 nurtured in their mother's lap, as in the elegance and 
 purity of her language. I have often too enjoyed the agree- 
 able conversation of Laelia, the daughter of Caius, and ob- 
 served in her a strong tincture of her father's elegance. I 
 have likewise conversed with his two daughters, the Mucias, 
 and his grand-daughters, the two Liciniee, with one of whom 
 (the wife of Scipio) you, my Brutus, I believe, have some- 
 times been in company." ^' I have," replied he, '- and was 
 much pleased with her conversation ; and the more so, 
 because she was the daughter of Crassus." '^ And what think 
 you," said I, " of Crassus the son of that Licinia, who was 
 adopted by Crassus in his will V '•' He is said," replied he, 
 '• to have been a man of great genius ; and the Scipio you 
 have mentioned, who was my colleague, likewise appears to 
 me to have been a good speaker, and an elegant companion." 
 " Your opinion, my Brutus," said I, " is very just. For this 
 family, if I may be allowed the expression, seems to have 
 been the offspring of wisdom. As to their two grandfathers, 
 Scipio and Crassus, we have taken notice of them already j as 
 we also have of their great grandfathers, Quintus Metellus, who 
 had four sons ; Publius Scipio, who, when a private citizen, 
 rescued the republic from the arbitrary influence of Tiberius 
 Gracchus ; and Quintus Scsevola, the augur, who was the 
 ablest and most affable civilian of his time. And lastly, how 
 illustrious are the names of their next immediate progenitors, 
 Publius Scipio, who was twice consul, and was called the 
 darling of the people; and Caius Lselius, who was esteemed 
 the wisest of men." '-A generous stock indeed!" cried 
 Brutus, " into which the wisdom of many has been succes- 
 sively ingrafted, like a number of scions on the same tree!" 
 
464 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 LIX. " I have likewise a suspicion," replied I, " (if we 
 may compare small things with great,) that Curio's family, 
 though he himself was left an orphan, was indebted to his 
 fathers instruction, and good example, for the habitual, 
 purity of their language ; and so much the more, because, 
 of all those who were held in any estimation for their elo- 
 quence, I never knew one who was so totally uninformed and 
 unskilled in every branch of liberal science. He had not 
 read a single poet, or studied a single orator ; and he knew 
 little or nothing either of public, civil, or common law. We 
 might say almost the same, indeed, of several others, and 
 some of them very able orators, who (we know) were but 
 little acquainted with these useful parts of knowledge ; as, 
 for instance, of Sulpicius and Antonius. But this deficiency 
 was supplied in them by an elaborate knowledge of the 
 art of speaking ; and there was not one of them who w^as 
 totally unqualified in any of the five^ principal parts of 
 which it is composed ; for whenever this is the case, (and it 
 matters not in which of those parts it happens,) it entirely 
 incapacitates a man to shine as an orator. Some, however, 
 excelled in one part, and some in another. Thus Antonius 
 could readily invent such arguments as were most in point, 
 and afterwards digest and methodize them to the best advan- 
 tage; and he could likewise retain the plan he had formed 
 with great exactness ; but his chief merit was the goodness 
 of his delivery, in which he was justly allowed to excel. In 
 some of these qualifications he was upon an equal footing with 
 Crassus, and in others he was superior; but then the lan- 
 guage of Crassus was indisputably preferable to his. In the 
 same manner, it cannot be said that either Sulpicius or Cotta, 
 or any other speaker of repute, was absolutely deficient in 
 any one of the five parts of oratory. But we may justly infer 
 from the example of Curio, that nothing will more recommend 
 an orator, than a brilliant and ready flow of expression ; for 
 he was remarkably dull in the invention, and very loose and 
 unconnected in the disposition, of his arguments. 
 
 LX. "The two remaining parts are, pronunciation and 
 memory ; in each of which he was so miserably defective, as 
 to excite the laughter and the ridicule of his hearers. His 
 gesture was really such as Caius Julius represented it, in 
 a severe sarcasm, that will never be forgotten ; for as he was 
 
 ^ Invention, disposition, elocution, memory, and pronunciation. 
 
EEMARKS ON EMINENT OEaTORS. 465 
 
 swaying and reeling his whole body from side to side, Julius 
 facetiously inquired who it was that was speaking from a 
 boat? To the same purpose was the jest of Cnaeus Sicinius, a 
 man very vulgar, but exceedingly humorous, which was the 
 only qualification he had to recommend him as an orator. 
 When this man, as tribune of the people, had summoned 
 Curio and Octavius, who were then consuls, into the forum, 
 and Curio had delivered a tedious harangue, while Octavius 
 sat silently by him, wrapt up in flannels, and besmeared with 
 ointments, to ease the pain of the gout ; Octavius, said he, 
 you are infinitely obliged to your colleague; for if he had 
 not tossed and flung himself about to-day, in the manner he 
 did, you would certainly have been devoured by the flies. As 
 to his memory, it was so extremely treacherous, that after 
 he had divided his subject into three general heads, he would 
 sometimes, in the course of speaking, either add a fourth, or 
 omit the third. In a capital trial, in which I had pleaded for 
 Titinia, the daughter of Cotta, when he attempted to reply to 
 me in defence of Servius Nsevius, he suddenly forgot every- 
 thing he intended to say, and attributed it to the pretended 
 witchcraft and magic artifices of Titinia. These were un- 
 doubted proofs of the weakness of his memory. But, what is 
 still more inexcusable, he sometimes forgot, even in his 
 written treatises, what he had mentioned but a little before. 
 Thus, in a book of his, in which he introduces himself as en- 
 tering into conversation with our friend Pansa, and his son 
 Curio, when he was walking home from the senate-house ; 
 the senate is supposed to have been summoned by Caesar in 
 his first consulship; and the whole conversation arises from 
 the son's inquiry, what the house had resolved upon. Curio 
 launches out into a long invective against the conduct of 
 Caesar, and as is generally the custom in dialogues, the parties 
 are engaged in a close dispute on the subject; but very un- 
 happily, though the conversation commences at the breaking 
 up of the senate which Caesar held when he was first consul, 
 the author censures those very actions of the same Caesar, 
 which did not happen till the next, and several other suc- 
 ceeding years of his government in Gaul." 
 
 LXI. " Is it possible then," said Brutus, with an air of 
 surprise, " that any man (and especially in a written per- 
 formance) could be so forgetful as not to discover, upon a 
 subsequent perusal of his own work, what an egregious 
 
 H H 
 
466 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 blunder he had committed?" " Yery true," said I ; ^^ for if 
 he wrote with a design to discredit the measures which he 
 represents in such an odious light, nothing could be more 
 stupid than not to commence his dialogue at a period which 
 was subsequent to those measures. But he so entirely forgets 
 himself, as to tell us, that he did not choose to attend a 
 senate which was held in one of Csesar's future consulships, 
 in the very same dialogue in which he introduces himself as 
 returning home from a senate which was held in his first 
 consulship. It cannot, therefore, be wondered at, that he 
 who was so remarkably defective in a faculty which is the 
 handmaid of our other intellectual powers, as to forget, even 
 in a written treatise, a material circumstance which he had 
 mentioned but a little before, should find his memory fail him, 
 as it generally did, in a sudden and unpremeditated harangue. 
 It accordingly happened, though he had many connexions, 
 and was fond of speaking in public, that few causes were 
 intrusted to his management. But, among his contem- 
 poraries, he was esteemed next in merit to the first orators of 
 the age; and that merely, as I said before, for his good 
 choice of words, and his uncommon readiness, and great 
 fluency of expression. His orations, therefore, may deserve a 
 cursory perusal. It is true, indeed, they are much too lan- 
 guid and spiritless ; but they may yet be of service to enlarge 
 and improve an accomplishment, of which he certainly had 
 a moderate share ; and which has so much force and efficacy, 
 that it gave Curio the appearance and reputation of an orator 
 without the assistance of any other good quality. 
 
 LXII. " But to return to our subject ; Caius Carbo, of 
 the same age, was likewise reckoned an orator of the second 
 class ; he was the son, indeed, of the truly eloquent man 
 before mentioned, but was far from being an acute speaker 
 himself; he was, however, esteemed an orator. His lan- 
 guage was tolerably nervous, he spoke with ease; and there 
 was an air of authority in his address that was perfectly 
 natural. But Quintus Yarius was a man of quicker inven- 
 tion, and, at the same time, had an equal freedom of expres- 
 sion ; besides which, he had a bold and spirited delivery, and a 
 vein of elocution which was neither poor, nor coarse and 
 vulgar; in short, you need not hesitate to pronounce him an 
 orator. Cnseus Pomponius was a vehement, a rousing, and 
 a fierce and eager speaker, and more inclined to act the part of 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 467 
 
 a prosecutor, than of an advocate. But far inferior to these was 
 Lucius Fufius ; though his apphcation was, in some measure, 
 rewarded by the success of his prosecution against Manius 
 Aquilius. For as to Marcus Drusus, your great uncle, who 
 spoke like an orator only upon matters of gOYernment ; Lucius 
 Lucullus, who was indeed an artful speaker, and your father, 
 my Brutus, who was well acquainted with the common and civil 
 lawj Marcus Lucullus, and Marcus Octavius, the son of Cnseus, 
 who was a man of so much authority and address, as to pro- 
 cure the repeal of Sempronius's corn-act, by the suffrages of 
 a full assembly of the people ; Cnseus Octavius, the son of 
 Marcus j and Marcus Cato, the father, and Quintus Catulus, 
 the son ; we must excuse these (if I may so express myself) 
 from the fatigues and dangers of the field, — that is, from the 
 management of judicial causes, and place them in garrison 
 over the general interests of the republic, a duty to which 
 they seem to have been sufficiently adequate. I should have 
 assigned the same post to Quintus Csepio, if he had not been 
 so violently attached to the equestrian order, as to set him- 
 self at variance with the senate. I have also remarked, that 
 Cnseus Carbo, Marcus Marius, and several others of the same 
 stamp, who would not have merited the attention of an 
 audience that had any taste for elegance, were extremely well 
 suited to address a tumultuous crowd. In the same class 
 (if I may be allowed to interrupt the series of my narrative) 
 Lucius Quintius lately made his appearance; though Pali- 
 canus, it must be owned, was still better adapted to please 
 the ears of the populace. But, as I have mentioned this in- 
 ferior kind of speakers, I must be so just to Lucius Apuleius 
 Saturninus, as to observe that, of all the factious declaimers 
 since the time of the Gracchi, he was generally esteemed the 
 ablest; and yet he caught the attention of the public more 
 by his appearance, his gesture, and his dress, than by any 
 real fluency of expression, or ^ven a tolerable share of good 
 sense. But Caius Servilius Glaucia, though the most aban- 
 doned wretch that ever existed, w^as very keen and artful, 
 and excessively humorous; and notwithstanding the mean- 
 ness of his birth, and the depravity of his life, he would have 
 been advanced to the dignity of a consul in his prsetorship, if 
 it had been judged lawful to admit his suit; for the populace 
 were entirely at his devotion, and he had secured the interest 
 of the knights by an act he had procured in their favour. 
 
 H H 2 
 
^QS BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 He was slain in the open forum, while he was praetor, on the 
 same day as the tribune Saturninus, in the consulship of 
 Marius and Flaccus : and bore a near resemblance to Hyper- 
 bolus, the Athenian, whose profligacy was so severely stigma- 
 tized in the old Attic comedies. These were succeeded by 
 Sextus Titius, who was indeed a voluble speaker, and pos- 
 sessed a ready comprehension ; but he was so loose and effe- 
 minate in his gesture, as to furnish room for the invention of 
 a dance, which was called the Titian jig; so careful should 
 we be to avoid every peculiarity in our manner of speaking, 
 which may afterwards be exposed to ridicule by a ludicrous 
 imitation. 
 
 LXIII. ^^ But we have rambled back insensibly to a period 
 which has been already examined: let us, therefore, return 
 to that which we were reviewing a little before. Contemporary 
 with Sulpicius was Publius Antistius, a plausible declaimer, 
 who, after being silent for several years, and exposed (as he 
 often was) not only to the contempt, but the derision of his 
 hearers, first spoke with applause in his tribuneship, in a real 
 and very interesting protest against the illegal application of 
 Caius Julius for the consulship ; and that so much the more, 
 because, though Sulpicius himself, who then happened to be 
 his colleague, spoke on the same side of the debate, Antistius 
 argued more copiously, and to better purpose. This raised 
 his reputation so high, that many, and (soon afterwards) 
 every cause of importance, was eagerly recommended to his 
 patronage. To speak the truth, he had a quick conception, 
 a methodical judgment, and a retentive memory ; and though 
 his language was not much embellished, it was very far from - 
 being low. In short, his style was easy and flowing, and his 
 appearance rather gentlemanly than otherwise ; but his action 
 Avas a little defective, partly through the disagreeable tone oi 
 his voice, and partly by a few ridiculous gestures, of which 
 he could not entirely break himself He flourished in the 
 time between the flight and the return of Sylla, when the 
 republic was deprived of a regular administration of justice, 
 and of its former dignity and splendour. But the reception 
 which he met with was the more favourable, as the forum 
 was in a measure destitute of good orators. For Sulpicius 
 was dead; Cotta and Curio were abroad; and no pleaders 
 of eminence were left but Carbo and Pomponius, from each 
 of whom he easily carried off" the palm. 
 
REMARKS OX EMINENT ORATORS. 469 
 
 LXIV. " His nearest successor in the following age was 
 Lucius Siseniui, who was a man of learning, had a taste foi 
 the liberal sciences, spoke the Roman language with accuracy; 
 was well acquainted with the laws and constitution of his 
 eoiiutry, and had a tolerable share of w^it; but he was not a 
 speaker of any great apphcation, or extensive practice ; and 
 as he happened to live in the intermediate time between the 
 appearance of Siilpicius and Hortensius, he was unable to equal 
 the former, and forced to yield to the superior talents of the 
 latter. We may easily form a judgment of his abilities from 
 the historical works he has left behind him ; which, though 
 evidently preferable to anything of the kind which had 
 appeared before, may serve as a proof that he was far below 
 the standard of perfection, and that this species of composi- 
 tion had not then been improved to any^ great degree of 
 excellence among the Romans. But the genius of Quintus 
 Hortensius, even in his early youth, like one of Phidias's sta- 
 tues, was no sooner beheld than it was universally admired ! 
 He spoke his first oration in the forum in the consulship of Lu- 
 cius Crassus and Quintus Scaevola, to w^hom it was personally 
 addressed; and though he was then only nineteen years old, 
 he descended from the rostra with the hearty approbation 
 not only of the audience in general, but of the two consuls 
 themselves, who were the most intelligent judges in the 
 whole city. He died in the consulship of Lucius Paulus and 
 Gains Marcellus; from which it appears that he was four- 
 and-forty years a pleader. We shall review his character 
 more at large in the sequel ; but in this part of my history, 
 I chose to include him in the number of orators who were 
 rather of an earlier date. This indeed must necessarily 
 happen to all whose lives are of any considerable length ; for 
 they are equally liable to a comparison with their elders and 
 their juniors; as in the case of the poet Attius, who says 
 that both he and Pacuvius applied themselves to the cultiva- 
 tion of the drama under the same sediles; though, at the 
 time, the one was eighty, and the other only thirty years old. 
 Thus Hortensius may be compared not only with those who 
 were properly his contemporaries, but with me, and you, my 
 Brutus, and with others of a prior date. For he began to speak 
 in public while Crassus was living ; but his fame increased 
 when he appeared as a joint advocate with Antonius and 
 Philippus (at that time in the decline of life) in defence of 
 
470 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 Cnaeus Pompeius, — a cause in which (though a mere youth) 
 he distinguished himself above the rest. He may therefore be 
 included in the list of those whom I have placed in the time 
 of Sulpicius ; but among his proper coevals, such as Marcus 
 Piso, Marcus Crassus, Cnaeus Lentulus^ and Publius Lentulus 
 Sura, he excelled beyond the reach of competition ; and after 
 these he happened upon me, in the early part of my life (for 
 I was eight years younger than himself), and spent a number 
 of years with me in pursuit of the same forensic glory ; and 
 at last, (a little before his death,) he once pleaded with you, 
 in defence of Appius Claudius, as I have frequently done for 
 others. 
 
 LXy. " Thus you see, my Brutus, I am come insensibly to 
 yourself, though there was undoubtedly a great variety of 
 orators between my first appearance in the forum, and yours. 
 But as I determined, when we began the conversation, to 
 make no mention of those among them who are still living, 
 to prevent your inquiring too minutely what is my opinion 
 concerning each; I shall confine myself to such as are now no 
 more." *' That is not the true reason," said Brutus, " why 
 you choose to be silent about the living." " What then do 
 you suppose it to be V said I. " You are only fearful," 
 replied he, " that your remarks should afterwards be men- 
 tioned by us in other company, and that, by this means, you 
 should expose yourself to the resentment of those whom you 
 may not think it worth your while to notice." ^^ Indeed," 
 answered I, '' I have not the least doubt of your secrecy." 
 " Neither have you any reason," said he ; ^' but after all, I 
 suppose, you had rather be silent yourself, than rely upon 
 our taciturnity." " To confess the truth," replied I, " when I 
 first entered upon the subject, I never imagined that I should 
 have extended it to the age now before us ; whereas I have 
 been drawn by a continued series of history among the 
 moderns of latest date." '' Introduce, then," said he, " those 
 intermediate orators you may think worthy of our notice ; 
 and afterwards let us return to yourself, and Hortensius." 
 ^' To Hortensius," replied I, " with all my heart ; but as to 
 my own character, I shall leave it to other people to examine, 
 if they choose to take the trouble." '^ I can by no means 
 agree to that^'' said he ; " for though every part of the 
 account you have favoured us with, has entertained me very 
 agreeably, it now begins to seem tedious, because I am 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 471 
 
 impatient to hear something of yourself ; I do not mean the 
 wonderful qualities, but the 2:>Togressive steps, and the advances 
 of your eloquence ; for the former are sufficiently known 
 already both to me, and the whole world." '' As you do not 
 require me," said I, "to sound the praises of my own genius, 
 but only to describe my labour and application to improve it, 
 your request shall be complied with. But to preserve the 
 order of my narrative, I shall first introduce such other 
 speakers as I think ought to be previously noticed. 
 
 " And I shall begin with Marcus Crassus, who was con- 
 temporary with Hortensius. LXVI. With a tolerable share 
 of learning, and a very moderate capacity, his application, 
 assiduity, and interest, procured him a place among the 
 ablest pleaders of the time for several years. His language 
 was pure, his expression neither low nor vulgar, and his ideas 
 well digested; but he had nothing in him that was florid 
 and ornamental ; and the real ardour of his mind was not 
 supported by any vigorous exertion oi his voice, so that he 
 pronounced almost everything in the same uniform tone. 
 His equal, and professed antagonist, Cains Fimbria, was not 
 able to maintain his character so long ; and though he always 
 spoke with a strong and elevated voice, and poured forth 
 a rapid torrent of well-chosen expressions, he was so im- 
 moderately vehement that you might justly be surprised that 
 the people should have been so absent and inattentive as 
 to adm.it a madman, like him, into the list of orators. As to 
 Cneeus Lentulus, his action acquired him a reputation for his 
 eloquence very far beyond his real abilities; for though he 
 was not a man of any great penetration (notwithstanding he 
 carried the appearance of it in his countenance), nor possessed 
 any real fluency of expression (though he was equally specious 
 in this respect as in the former), yet by his sudden breaks, 
 and exclamations, he affected such an ironical air of surprise, 
 with a sweet and sonorous tone of voice, and his whole 
 action was so warm and lively, that his defects were scarcely 
 noticed. For as Curio acquired the reputation of an orator 
 with no other quality than a tolerable freedom of elocution, 
 go Cnseus Lentulus concealed the mediocrity of his other 
 accomplishments by his action, which was really excellent. 
 Much the same might be said of Publius Lentulus, whose 
 poverty of invention and expression was secured from notice 
 by the mere dignity of his presence, his correct and graceful 
 
472 BRUTUS; or, 
 
 gesture, and the strength and sweetness of his voice; and his 
 merit depended so entirely upon his action, that he was more 
 deficient in every other quality than his namesake. 
 
 LXVII. " But Marcus Piso derived all his talents from 
 his erudition ; for he was much better versed in Grecian 
 literature than any of his predecessors. He had, however, a 
 natural keenness of discernment, which he greatly improved 
 by art, and exerted with great address and dexterity, though 
 in very indifferent language; but he was frequently warm 
 and choleric, sometimes cold and insipid, and now and then 
 rather smart and humorous. He did not long support the 
 fatigue and emulous contention of the forum ; partly on 
 account of the weakness of his constitution; and partly, 
 because he could not submit to the follies and impertinences 
 of the common people (which we orators are forced to 
 swallow), either, as it was generally supposed, from a peculiar 
 moroseness of temper, or from a liberal and ingenuous pride 
 of heart. After acquiring, therefore, in his youth, a tolerable 
 degree of reputation, his character began to sink ; but in the 
 trial of the Vestals, he again recovered it with some additional 
 lustre, and being thus recalled to the theatre of eloquence, he 
 kept his rank, as long as he was able to support the fatigue 
 of it ; after which his credit declined, in proportion as he 
 remitted his application. Publius Murena had a moderate 
 genius, but was passionately fond of the study of antiquity ; 
 he applied himself with equal diligence to the belles lettres, 
 in which he was tolerably versed ; in short, he was a man of 
 great industry, and took the utmost pains to distinguish 
 himself. Cains Censorinus had a good stock of Grecian 
 literature, explained whatever he advanced with great neat- 
 ness and perspicuity, and had a graceful action, but was too 
 cold and inanimate for the forum. Lucius Turius, with 
 a very indifferent genius, but the most indefatigable applica- 
 tion, spoke in public very often, in the best manner he was 
 able ; and, accordingly, he only wanted the votes of a few 
 centuries to promote him to the consulship. Cains Macer 
 was never a man of much interest or authority, but was one 
 of the most active pleaders of his time ; and if his life, his 
 manners, and his very looks, had not ruined the credit of his 
 genius, he would have ranked higher in the list of orators. 
 He was neither copious, nor dry and barren ; neither neat 
 and embellished, nor wholly inelegant; and his voice, his 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 473 
 
 gesture, and every part of his action, was without any grace ; 
 but in inventing and digesting his ideas, he had a won- 
 derful accuracy, such as no man I ever saw either possessed 
 or exerted in a more eminent degree ; and yet, somehow, he 
 displayed it rather with the air of a quibbler, than of an 
 orator. Though he had acquired some reputation in public 
 causes, he appeared to most advantage and was most courted 
 and employed in private ones. 
 
 LXYIII. " Caius Piso, who comes next in order, had 
 scarcely any exertion, but he was a speaker who adopted 
 a very familiar style ; and though, in fact, he was far from 
 being slow of invention, he had more penetration in his look 
 and appearance than he really possessed. His contemporary, 
 Marcus Glabrio, though carefully instructed by his grandfather 
 Scsevola, was prevented from distinguishing himself by his 
 natural indolence and want of attention. Lucius Torquatus, 
 on the contrary, had an elegant turn of expression, and a clear 
 comprehension, and was perfectly polite and well-bred in his 
 whole manner. But Cnseus Pompeius, my coeval, a man who 
 was born to excel in everything, would have acquired a more 
 distinguished reputation for his eloquence, if he had not 
 been diverted from the pursuit of it by the more dazzling 
 charms of military fame. His language was naturally bold 
 and elevated, and he was always master of his subject ; and 
 as to his powers of enunciation, his voice was sonorous and 
 manly, and his gesture noble and full of dignity. Decimus 
 Silanus, another of my contemporaries, and your father-in- 
 law, was not a man of much application, but he had a very 
 competent share of discernment and elocution. Quintus 
 Pompeius, the son of Aulus, who had the title of Bithynicus, 
 and was about two years older than myself, was, to my own 
 knowledge, remarkably fond of the study of eloquence, had an 
 uncommon stock of learning, and was a man of indefatigable 
 industry and perseverance ; for he was connected with Marcus 
 Piso and me, not only as an intimate acquaintance, but 
 as an associate in our studies and private exercises. His 
 elocution was but ill recommended by his action ; for though 
 the former was sufficiently copious and diffusive, there was 
 nothing graceful in the latter. His contemporary, Publius 
 Autronius, had a very clear and strong voice ; but he was 
 distinguished by no other accomplishment. Lucius Octavius 
 Reatinus died in his youth, while he was in full practice ; but 
 
4:74 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 he ascended the rostra with more assurance than abihty. 
 Caius Staienus, who changed his name into ^hns by a kind 
 of self-adoption, was a warm, an abusive, and indeed a furious 
 speaker; which was so agreeable to the taste of many, that 
 he would have risen to some rank in the state, if it had not 
 been for a crime of which he was clearly convicted, and for 
 which he afterwards suffered. 
 
 LXIX. " At the same time were the two brothers Caius 
 and Lucius Ceepasius, who, though men of an obscure family 
 and little previous consequence, were yet, by mere dint of 
 application, suddenly promoted to the qusestorship, with no 
 other recommendation than a provincial and unpolished kind 
 of oratory. That I may not seem wilfully to omit any de- 
 claimer, I must also notice Caius Cosconius Calidianus, who, 
 without any discernment, amused the people with a rapidity 
 of language (if such it might be called) which he attended 
 with a perpetual hurry of action, and a most violent exertion 
 of his voice. Of much the same cast was Quintus Arrius, 
 who may be considered as a second-hand Marcus Crassus. 
 He is a striking proof of what consequence it is in such a 
 city as ours to devote oneself to the interests of the many, 
 and to be as active as possible in promoting their safety, or 
 their honour. For by these means, though of the lowest 
 parentage, having raised himself to offices of rank, and to 
 considerable wealth and influence, he likewise acquired the 
 reputation of a tolerable patron, without either learning or 
 abilities. But as inexperienced champions, who, from a pas- 
 sionate desire to distinguish themselves in the circus, can bear 
 the blows of their opponents without shrinking, are often 
 overpowered by the heat of the sun, when it is increased by 
 the reflection of the sand ; m he, who had hitherto supported 
 even the sharpest encounters with good success, could not 
 stand the severity of that year of judicial contest, which 
 blazed upon him like a summer's sun." 
 
 " Upon my word," cried Atticus, " you are now treating us 
 with the very dregs of oratory, and you have entertained us 
 in this manner for some time ; but I did not offer to inter- 
 rupt you, because I never dreamed you would have descended 
 so low as to mention the Staieni and Autronii f " As I have 
 been speaking of the dead, you will not imagine, I suppose," 
 said I, " that I have done it to court their favour ; but in 
 pursuing the order of history, I was necessarily led by degrees 
 
EEMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 475 
 
 to a period of time which falls within the compass of our owd 
 knowledge. But I wish it to be noticed, that after recount- 
 ing all who ever ventured to speak in public, we find but 
 few (very few indeed !) whose names are worth recording ; 
 and not many who had even the repute of being orators. Let 
 us, however, return to our subject. 
 
 LXX. '' Titus Torquatus, then, the son of Titus, was a 
 man of learning, (which he first acquired in the school of 
 Molo in Rhodes,) and of a free and easy elocution which he 
 received from nature. If he had lived to a proper age, he 
 would have been chosen consul, without any solicitation ; 
 but he had more ability for speaking, than inclination ; so 
 that, in fact, he did not do justice to the art he professed ; 
 and yet he was never wanting to his duty, either in the pri- 
 vate causes of his friends and dependents, or in his senatorial 
 capacity. My townsman, too, Marcus Pontidius, pleaded a 
 number of private causes. He had a rapidity of expression, 
 and a tolerable quickness of comprehension ; but he was very 
 warm, and indeed rather too choleric and irascible ; so that 
 he often wrangled, not only with his antagonist, but (what 
 appears very strange) with the judge himself, whom it was 
 rather his business to sooth and gratify. Marcus Messala, 
 who was something younger than myself, was far from being 
 a poor and abject pleader, and yet he was not a very ele- 
 gant one. He was judicious, penetrating, and wary, very 
 exact in digesting and methodizing his subject, and a man of 
 uncommon diligence and application, and of very extensive 
 practice. As to the two Metelli, (Celer and Nepos,) these also 
 had a moderate share of employment at the bar ; but being 
 destitute neither of learning nor abilities, they chiefly applied 
 themselves (and with some success) to debates of a more 
 popular kind. But Cnaeus Lentulus Marcellinus, who was 
 never reckoned a bad speaker, was esteemed a very eloquent 
 one in his consulship. He wanted neither sentiment nor 
 expression ; his voice was sweet and sonorous ; and he had a 
 sufficient stock of humour. Caius Memmius, the son of Lucius, 
 was a perfect adept in the learning of the Greeks ; for he had 
 an insuperable disgust to the literature of the Eomans. He 
 was a neat and polished speaker, and had a sweet and harmo- 
 nious turn of expression ; but as he was equally averse to 
 every laborious effort either of the mind or the tongue, his 
 eloquence declined in proportion as he lessened his application." 
 
476 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 LXXI. " But I heartily wish," said Brutus, " that you 
 would give us your opiniou of those orators who are still 
 living ; or, if you are deterrained to say nothing of the rest, 
 there are two at least, (that is, Caesar and Marcellus, whom 
 I have often heard you speak of with the highest approba- 
 tion,) whose characters would give me as much entertainment 
 as any of those you have already specified." '' But why," 
 answered I, " should you expect that I should give you my 
 opinion of men who are as well known to yourself as to me f 
 " Marcellus, indeed," replied he, " I am very well acquainted 
 with ; but as to Caesar, I know little of him. For I have 
 heard the former very often ; but by the time I was able to 
 judge for myself, the latter had set out for his province." 
 " But what," said I, " think you of him whom you have heard 
 so often? " "What else can I think," replied he, "but that you 
 will soon have an orator, who will very nearly resemble your- 
 self? " "If that is the case," answered I, " pray think of him as 
 favourably as you can." ^' I do," said he ; " for he pleases 
 me very highly ; and not without reason. He is absolutely 
 master of his profession, and, neglecting every other, has 
 applied himself solely to this ; and, for that purpose, has 
 persevered in the rigorous task of composing a daily essay in 
 writing. His words are well chosen ; his language is full 
 and copious ; and everything he says receives an additional 
 ornament from the graceful tone of his voice, and the dignity 
 of his action. Tn short, he is so complete an orator, that 
 there is no quality I know of, in which I can think him defi- 
 cient. But he is still more to be admired, for being able, in 
 these unhappy times, (which are marked with a distress that, 
 by some cruel fatality, has overwhelmed us all,) to console 
 himself, as opportunity offers, with the consciousness of his 
 own integrity, and by the frequent renewal of his literary 
 pursuits. I saw him lately at Mitylene ; and then (as I have 
 already hinted) I saw him a thorough man. For though I 
 had before discovered in him a strong resemblance of your- 
 self, the likeness was much improved after he was enriched 
 by the instructions of your learned and very intimate friend 
 Cratippus." " Though I acknowledge," said I, " that T have 
 listened with pleasure to your eulogies on a very worthy 
 man, for whom I have the warmest esteem, they have led 
 me insensibly to the recollection of our common miseries, 
 which our present conversation was intended to suspend. 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 477 
 
 But I would willingly hear what is Atticus's opinion of 
 Caesar." 
 
 LXXII. " Upon my word," replied Atticus, '• you are 
 wonderfully consistent with your plan, to say nothing your- 
 self of the living ; and indeed, if you were to deal with them, 
 as you already have with the dead, and say something of 
 every paltry fellow that occurs to your memory, you would 
 plague us with Aidron.ii and Staieni without end. But though 
 you might possibly have it in view not to encumber yourself 
 with such a numerous crowd of insignificant wretches; or 
 perhaps, to avoid giving any one room to complain that he 
 was either unnoticed, or not extolled according to his ima- 
 ginary merit ; yet, certainly, you might have said something 
 of Caesar ; especially, as your opinion of his abilities is well 
 known to everybody, and his concerning yours is very far 
 from being a secret. But, however," said he, (addressing 
 himself to Brutus.) '^ T really think of Caesar, and everybody 
 else says the same of this accurate master in the art of speak- 
 ing, that he has the purest and the most elegant command of 
 the Eoman language of all the orators that have yet appeared ; 
 and that not merely by domestic habit, as we have lately heard 
 it observed of the families of the Laelii and the Mucii, (though 
 even here, I believe, this might partly have been the case.) but 
 he chiefly acquired and brought it to its present perfection, by a 
 studious application to the most intricate and refined branches 
 of literature, and by a careful and constant attention to the 
 purity of his style. But that he, who, involved as he was in 
 a perpetual hurry of business, could dedicate to you, my 
 Cicero, a laboured treatise on the art of speaking correctly ; 
 that he, who, in the first book of it, laid it down as an axiom, 
 that an accurate choice of words is the foundation of elo- 
 quence ; and who has bestowed," said he, (addressing himself 
 again to Brutus,) " the highest encomiums on this friend of 
 ours, who yet chooses to leave Caesar's character to me; — that 
 he should be a perfect master of the language of polite con- 
 versation, is a circumstance which is almost too obvious to be 
 mentioned. I said, the highest encomiums,'' pursued Atticus, 
 ^* because he says in so many words, when he addresses himself 
 to Cicero, ' If others have bestowed all their time and atten- 
 tion to acquire a habit of expressing themselves with ease and 
 correctness, how much is the name and digTiity of the Roman 
 people indebted to you, who are the highest pattern, and 
 
4:78 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 indeed the first inventor of that rich fertility of language 
 which distinguishes your performances.'" 
 
 LXXIII. " Indeed/' said Bratus, " I think he has extolled 
 your merit in a very friendly and a very magnificent style ; 
 for you are not only the highest pattern^ and even the first 
 inventor of all our fertility of language, which alone is praise 
 enough to content any reasonable man, but you have added 
 fresh honours to the name and dignity of the Roman people ; 
 for the very excellence in which we had hitherto been con- 
 quered by the vanquished Greeks, has now been either wrested 
 from their hands, or equally shared, at least, between us and 
 them. So that I prefer this honourable testimony of Caesar, I 
 wnll not say to the public thanksgiving which was decreed 
 for your own military services, but to the triumphs of many 
 heroes." " Very true," replied I, ^^ provided this honourable 
 testimony was really the voice of Caesar's judgment, and 
 not of his friendship ; for he certainly has added more to the 
 dignity of the Roman people, whoever he may be, (if indeed 
 any such man has yet existed,) who has not only exemplified 
 and enlarged, but first produced this rich fertility of expres- 
 sion, than the doughty warriors who have stormed a few paltry 
 castles of the Ligurians, which have furnished us, you know, 
 wdth many repeated triumphs. In reality, if we can submit 
 to hear the truth, it may be asserted (to say nothing of those 
 godlike plans, which, supported by the wisdom of our generals, 
 have frequently saved the sinking state both abroad and at 
 home) that an orator is justly entitled to the preference 
 to any commander in a petty war. But the general, you 
 will say, is the more serviceable man to the public. Nobody 
 denies it : and yet (for I am not afraid of provoking your 
 censure, in a conversation which leaves each of us at liberty 
 to say what he thinks) I had rather be the author of the 
 single oration of Crassus, in defence of Curius, than be 
 honoured with two Ligurian triumphs. You wdll, perhaps, 
 reply, that the storming a castle of the Ligurians was a thing 
 of more consequence to the state, than that the claim of 
 Curius should be ably supported. This I own to be true. 
 But it was also of more consequence to the Athenians, that 
 their houses should be securely roofed, than to have their 
 city graced with a most beautiful statue of Minerva : and yet, 
 notwithstanding this, I would much rather have been a 
 Phidias, than the most skilful joiner in Athens. In the 
 
KEMAKKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 479 
 
 present case, therefore, we are not to consider a man's useful- 
 ness, but the strength of his abihties; especially as the 
 number of painters and statuaries who have excelled in their 
 profession, is very small; whereas there can never be any 
 want of joiners and mechanical labourers. LXXIY. But 
 proceed, my Atticus, with Caesar ; and oblige us with the 
 remainder of his character." " We see then," said he, " from 
 what has just been mentioned, that a pure and correct style 
 is the groundwork, and the very basis and foundation, upon 
 which an orator must build his other accomplishments ; 
 though it is true, that those who had hitherto possessed it, 
 derived it more from early habit, than from any principles of 
 art. It is needless to refer you to the instances of Lselius 
 and Scipio ; for a purity of language, as well as of manners, 
 was the characteristic of the age they lived in. It could not, 
 indeed, be applied to every one ; for their two contemporaries, 
 Csecilius and Pacuvius, spoke very incorrectly j but yet people 
 in general who had not resided out of the city nor been cor- 
 rupted by any domestic barbarisms, spoke the' Roman lan- 
 guage with purity. Time, how^ever, as well at Eome as in 
 Greece, soon altered matters for the worse ; for this city (as 
 had formerly been the case at Athens) was resorted to by a 
 crowd of adventurers from different parts, w^ho spoke very 
 corruptly; which shows the necessity of reforming our lan- 
 guage, and reducing it "to a certain standard, which shall not 
 be liable to vary like the capricious laws of custom. Though 
 we were then very young, we can easily remember Titus 
 Flamininus, who was joint-consul with Quintus Metellus ; he 
 was supposed to speak his native language with correctness, 
 but was a man of no literature. As to Catulus, he was far 
 indeed from being destitute cl learning, as you have already 
 observed; but his reputed purity of diction was chiefly 
 owing to the sweetness of his voice and the delicacy of his 
 accent. Cotta, who, by his bioad pronunciation, lost all 
 resemblance of the elegant tone of the Greeks, and affected a 
 harsh and rustic utterance, quite opposite to that of Catulus, 
 acquired the same reputation of correctness, by pursuing a 
 wild and unfrequented path. But Sisenna, who had the am- 
 bition to think of reforming our phraseology, could not be 
 lashed out of his whimsical and new-fangled turns of expres- 
 sion, by all the raillery of Caius Eusius." " What do you refer 
 to ?" said Brutus \ " and who was the Caius Riisius you are 
 
480 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 speaking of?" "He was a noted prosecutor," replied he, 
 " some years ago. When this man had supported an indict- 
 ment against one Caius E-utihus, Sisenna, who was counsel 
 for the defendant, told him, that several parts of his accu- 
 sation were spitatical} LXXY. My lords, cried Eusius 
 to the judges, / shall he cruelly over-reached, unless you 
 give me your assistance. His charge overpowers my com- 
 prehension; and I am afraid he has some unfair design 
 upon me. What, in the name of heaven, can he intend by 
 SPITATICAL ? / hnow the meaning of spit, or spittle ; hut this 
 horrid atical, at the end of it, absolutely puzzles me. The 
 whole bench laughed very heartily at the singular oddity of 
 the expression; my old friend, however, was still of opinion, 
 that to speak correctly, was to speak differently from other 
 people. 
 
 " But Caesar, who was guided by the principles of art, has 
 corrected the imperfections of a vicious custom, by adopting 
 the rules and improvements of a good one, as he found them 
 occasionally displayed in the course of polite conversation. 
 Accordingly, to the purest elegance of expression, (which is 
 equally necessary to every well-bred citizen, as to an orator,) 
 he has added all the various ornaments of elocution ; so that 
 he seems to exhibit the finest painting in the most advan- 
 tageous point of view. As he has such extraordinary merit 
 even in the tenor of his language, I must confess that there 
 is no person I know of, to whom he should yield the prefer- 
 ence. Besides, his manner of speaking, both as to his voice 
 and gesture, is splendid and noble, without the least appear- 
 ance of artifice or affectation ; and there is a dignity in his 
 very presence, which bespeaks a great and elevated mind." 
 " Indeed," said Brutus, " his orations please me highly ; for 
 I have had the satisfaction to read several of them. He has 
 likewise written some commentaries, or short memoirs, of 
 his own transactions." " And such," said I, " as merit the 
 highest approbation ; for they are plain, correct, and graceful, 
 and divested of all the ornaments of language, so as to appear 
 (if I may be allowed the expression) in a kind of undress. 
 But while he pretended only to furnish the loose materials, 
 for such as might be inclined to compose a regular history, 
 
 * In the origin al sputatilica, worthy to be spit upon. It appears, 
 from the connexion, to have been a word whimsically derived by the 
 author of it from sputa, spittle. . 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 481 
 
 lie may, perhaps, have gratified the vanity of a few literary 
 frisseurs; but he has certainly prevented all sensible men 
 from attempting any improvement on his plan. For, in his- 
 tory, nothing is more pleasing than a correct and elegant 
 brevity of expression. With your leave, however, it is high 
 time to return to those orators who have quitted the stage 
 of life. 
 
 LXXYI. " Caius Sicinius, then, who was a grandson of the 
 censor Quintus Pompey, by one of his daughters, died after 
 his advancement to the queestorship. He was a speaker of 
 some merit and reputation, which he derived from the system 
 of Hermagoras ; who, though he furnished but little assist- 
 ance for acquiring an ornamental style, gave many useful 
 precepts to expedite and improve the invention of an orator. 
 For in this system we have a collection of fixed and determi- 
 nate rules for public speaking ; which are delivered indeed 
 without any show or parade, (and I might have added, in 
 a trivial and homely form,) but yet are so plain and me- 
 thodical, that it is almost impossible to mistake the road. 
 By keeping close to these, and always digesting his subject 
 before he ventured to speak upon it, (to which we may add, 
 that he had a tolerable fluency of expression,) he so far suc- 
 ceeded, without any other assistance, as to be ranked among 
 the pleaders of the day. As to Caius Yisellius Yarro, who 
 was my cousin, and a contemporary of Sicinius, he was a man 
 of great learning. He died while he was a member of the 
 court of inquests, into which he had been admitted after the 
 expiration of his aedileship. The public, T confess, had not the 
 same opinion of his abilities that I have : for he never passed 
 as a man of sterling eloquence among the people. His speech 
 was excessively quick and rapid, and consequently indistinct ; 
 for, in fact, it was embarrassed and obscured by the celerity 
 of its course ; and yet, after all, you w^ill scarcely find a man 
 w^ho had a better choice of words, or a richer vein of sen- 
 timent. He had besides, a complete fund of polite literature, 
 and a thorough knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence, 
 which he learned from his father Aculeo. To proceed in 
 our account of the dead, the next that presents himself is 
 Lucius Torquatus, whom you will not so readily pronounce 
 a proficient in the art of speaking (though he was by no 
 means destitute of elocution), as what is called by the 
 Greeks, a political adept. He had a plentiful stock of 
 
 I T 
 
482 BRUTU3J OR. 
 
 learning, not indeed of the common sort, but of a more 
 abstruse and curious nature ; he had likewise an admirable 
 memory, and a very sensible and elegant turn of expression ; 
 all which qualities derived an additional grace from the 
 dignity of his deportment, and the integrity of his manners. 
 I was also highly pleased with the style of his contemporary 
 Triarius, which expressed to perfection the character of a 
 worthy old gentleman, who had been thoroughly polished by 
 the refinements of literature. What a venerable severity 
 was there in his look ! what forcible solemnity in his lan- 
 guage ! and how thoughtful and deliberate every word he 
 spoke !'* At the mention of Torquatus and Triarius, for each 
 of whom he had the most affectionate veneration, " It fills 
 my heart with anguish," said Brutus, " (to omit a thousand 
 other circumstances,) when I reflect, as I cannot help doing, 
 on your mentioning the names of these worthy men, that 
 your long-respected authority was insufficient to procure 
 an accommodation of our differences. The republic would 
 not otherwise have been deprived of these, and many other 
 excellent citizens." " Not a word more," said I, '^ on this 
 melancholy subject, which can only aggravate our sorrow ; 
 for as the remembrance of what is already past is painful 
 enough, the prospect of what is yet to come is still more 
 afflicting. Let us, therefore, drop our unavailing complaints, 
 and (agreeably to our plan) confine our attention to the 
 forensic merits of our deceased friends. 
 
 LXXVII. " Among those, then, who lost their lives in this 
 unhappy war, was Marcus Bibulus, who, though not a pro- 
 fessed orator, was a very accurate writer, and a solid and 
 experienced advocate ; and Appius Claudius, your father-in- 
 law, and my colleague and intimate acquaintance, who was 
 not only a hard student, and a man of learning, but a prac- 
 tised orator, a skilful augurist and civilian, and a thorough 
 adept in the Eoman history. As to Lucius Domitius, he 
 was totally unacquainted with any rules of art ; but he spoke 
 his native language with purity, and had a great freedom of 
 address. We had likewise the two Lentuli, men of consular 
 dignity ; one of whom, (I mean Publius,) the avenger of my 
 wrongs, and the author of my restoration, derived all his 
 powers and accomplishments from the assistance of art, and 
 not from the bounty of nature ; but he had such a great and 
 noble disposition, that he claimed all the honours of the most 
 
REMARKS OX EMINENT ORATORS. 483 
 
 illustrious citizens, and supported them with the utmost 
 dignity of character. The other (Lucius Lentulus) was an 
 animated speaker, for it would be saying too much, perhaps, 
 to call him an orator ; but, unhappily, he had an utter aver- 
 sion to the trouble of thinking. His voice was sonorous ; and 
 his language, though not absolutely harsh and forbidding, 
 was warm and vigorous, and carried in it a kind of terror. 
 In a judicial trial, you would probably have wished for a 
 more agreeable and a keener advocate ; but in a debate on 
 matters of government, you would have thought his abilities 
 sufficient. Even Titus Postumius had such powei^ of utter- 
 ance as were not to be despised ; but in political matters, he 
 spoke with the same unbridled ardour he fought with ; in 
 short, he was much too warm ; though it must be owned he 
 possessed an extensive knowledge of the laws and constitution 
 of his country." 
 
 ^' Upon my word," cried Atticus, " if the persons you have 
 mentioned were still living, I should be apt to imagine that 
 you were endeavouring to solicit their favour. For you intro- 
 duce everybody who had the courage to stand up and speak 
 his mind ; so that I almost begin to wonder how Marcus 
 Servilius has escaped your notice." LXXVIII. " I am, 
 indeed, very sensible," replied I, "that there have been 
 many who never spoke in public, that were much better 
 qualified for the task, than those orators I have taken the 
 pains to enumerate;^ but I have, at least, answered one pur- 
 pose by it, which is to show you, that in this populous city we 
 have not had very many who had the resolution to speak at 
 all j and that even among these, there have been few who were 
 entitled to our applause. I cannot, therefore, neglect to take 
 some notice of those worthy knights, and my intimate friends, 
 very lately deceased, Publius Cominius Spoletinus, against 
 whom I pleaded in defence of Caius Cornelius, and who was 
 a methodical, spirited, and ready speaker; and Tiberius 
 Accius, of Pisaurum, to whom I replied in behalf of Aulus 
 Cluentius, and who was an accurate, and a tolerably copious 
 advocate : he was also well instructed in the precepts of Her- 
 magoras, which, though of little service to embellish and 
 enrich our elocution, furnish a variety of arguments, which, 
 like the weapons of the light infantry, may be readily 
 managed, and are adapted to every subject of debate. I must 
 
 ^ This was probably intended as an indirect compliment to Atticus. 
 
 ii2 
 
484 Brutus; or, 
 
 add, that I never knew a man of greater industry and appli- 
 cation. As to Cains Piso, my son-in-law, it is scarcely possible 
 to mention any one who was blessed with a finer capacity. 
 He was constantly employed either in public speaking, and 
 private declamatory exercises, or, at least, in writing and 
 thinking : and, consequently, he made such a rapid progress, ' 
 that he rather seemed to fly than to run. He had an elegant 
 choice of expression, and the structure of his periods was 
 perfectly neat and harmonious ; he had an astonishing variety 
 and strength of argument, and a lively and agreeable turn of 
 thought; and his gesture was naturally so graceful, that it 
 appeared to have been formed (which it really was not) by 
 the nicest rules of art. I am rather fearful, indeed, that 
 I should be thought to have been prompted by my affection 
 for him to have given him a greater character than he 
 deserved ; but this is so far from being the case, that I might 
 justly have ascribed to him many qualities of a different and 
 more valuable nature ; for in continence, social ardour, and 
 every other kind of virtue, there was scarcely any of his 
 contemporaries who was worthy to be compared with him. 
 
 LXXIX. " Marcus Caelius too must not pass unnoticed, 
 notwithstanding the unhappy change, either of his fortune or 
 disposition, which marked the latter part of his life. As long 
 as he was directed by my influence, he behaved himself so 
 well as a tribune of the people, that no man supported the 
 interests of the senate, and of all the good and virtuous, in 
 opposition to the factious and unruly madness of a set of 
 abandoned citizens, with more firmness than he did ; a part 
 in which he was enabled to exert himself to great advantage, 
 by the force and dignity of his language, and his lively 
 humour and polite address. He spoke several harangues in 
 a very sensible style, and three spirited invectives, which 
 originated from our political disputes; and his defensive 
 speeches, though not equal to the former, were yet tolerably 
 good, and had a degree of merit which was far from being 
 contemptible. After he had been advanced to the sedileship, 
 by the hearty approbation of all the better sort of citizens, as 
 he had lost my company (for I was then abroad in Cilicia) he 
 likewise lost himself ; and entirely sunk his credit, by imitat- 
 ing the conduct of those very men, whom he had before sa 
 successfully opposed. But Marcus Calidius has a more parti- 
 cular claim to our notice for the singularity of his character 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 485 
 
 which cannot so properly be said to have entitled him 
 to a place among our other orators, as to distinguish him 
 from the whole fraternity; for in him we beheld the most 
 uncommon and the most delicate sentiments, arrayed in the 
 softest and finest language imaginable. Nothing could be 
 so easy as the turn and compass of his periods ; nothing so 
 ductile ; nothing more pliable and obsequious to his will ; so 
 that he had a greater command of words than any orator what- 
 ever. In short, the flow of his language was so pure and 
 limpid, that nothing could be clearer; and so free, that it 
 was never clogged or obstructed. Every word was exactly 
 in the place where it should be, and disposed (as Lucilius 
 expresses it) with as much nicety as in a curious piece of 
 mosaic work. We may add, that he had not a single expres- 
 sion which was either harsh, unnatural, abject, or far-fetched ; 
 and yet he was so far from confining himself to the plain and 
 ordinary mode of speaking, that he abounded greatly in the 
 metaphor, — but such metaphors as did not appear to usurp a 
 post that belonged to another, but only to occupy their own. 
 These delicacies were displayed, not in a loose and effeminate 
 style, but in such a one as was strictly numerous, without 
 either appearing to be so, or running on with a dull uni- 
 formity of sound. He was likewise master of the various 
 ornaments of language and thought which the Greeks call 
 ilgures, whereby he enlivened and embellished his style as 
 with so many forensic decorations. We may add that he 
 readily discovered, upon all occasions, what was the real 
 point of debate, and where the stress of the argument lay ; 
 and that his method of ranging his ideas w^as extremely artful, 
 his action gentlemanly, and his whole manner very engaging 
 and very sensible. LXXX. In short, if to speak agreeably is 
 the chief merit of an orator, you will find no one who was 
 better qualified than Calidius. 
 
 ^' But as we have observed a little before, that it is the 
 business of an orator to instruct, to please, and to move the 
 'passions; he was, indeed, perfectly master of the first two; for 
 no one could better elucidate his subject, or charm the atten- 
 tion of his audience. But as to the third qualification, the 
 moving and alarming the passions, which is of much greater 
 efficacy than the former, he was wholly destitute of it. He 
 had no force, no exertion ; either by his own choice, and 
 from an opinion that those who had a loftier turn of expres- 
 
486 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 sion, and a more warm and spirited action, were little better 
 than madmen; or because it was contrary to his natural 
 temper and habitual practice; or, lastly, because it was 
 beyond the strength of his abilities. If, indeed, it is a useless 
 quality, his want of it was a real excellence; but if otherwise, 
 it was certainly a defect. I particularly remember, that 
 when he prosecuted Quintus Gallius for an attempt to poison 
 him, and pretended that he had the plainest proofs of it, and 
 could produce many letters, witnesses, informations, and 
 other evidences to put the truth of his charge beyond a 
 doubt, interspersing many sensible and ingenious remarks on 
 the nature of the crime ; — I remember, I say, that when it 
 «ame to my turn to reply to him, after urging every argu- 
 ment which the case itself suggested, I insisted upon it as a 
 material circumstance in favour of my client, that the prose- 
 cutor, while he charged him with a design against his life, and 
 assured us that he had the most indubitable proofs of it then 
 in his hands, related his story with as much ease, and as 
 much calmness and indifference, as if nothing had happened. 
 ' Would it have been possible,' said I, (addressing myself to 
 Calidius,) * that you should speak with this air of unconcern, 
 unless the charge was purely an invention of your own ? And, 
 above all, that you, whose eloquence has often vindicated the 
 wrongs of other people with so much spirit, should speak so 
 coolly of a crime which threatened your lifel Where was 
 that expression of resentment which is so natural to the in- 
 jured 1 Where that ardour, that eagerness, which extorts the 
 most pathetic language even from men of the dullest capa- 
 cities ? There was no visible disorder in your mind, no 
 emotion in your looks and gesture, no smiting of the thigh or 
 the forehead, nor even a single stamp of the foot. You were, 
 therefore, so far from interesting our feelings in your favour, 
 that we could scarcely keep our eyes open, while you were 
 relating the dangers you had so narrowly escaped.' Thus we 
 employed the natural defect, or, if you please, the sensible 
 calmness of an excellent orator, as an argument to invalidate 
 :ais charge." " But is it possible to doubt," cried Brutus, 
 *' whether this was a sensible quality, or a defect *? For as the 
 greatest merit of an orator is to be able to inflame the 
 passions, and give them such a bias as shall best answer his 
 purpose; he who is destitute of this must certainly be de- 
 ficient in the most capital part of his profession." 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 48/ 
 
 LXXXI. " I am of the same opinion," said I ; "but let nf 
 Qow proceed to him (Hortensius) who is the only remainir^ 
 orator worth noticing; after which, as you seem to insi&r 
 upon it, I shall say something of myself I must first, how 
 ever, do justice to the memory of two promising youths, 
 who, if they had lived to a riper age, would have acquired the 
 highest reputation for their eloquence." " You mean, I 
 suppose," said Brutus, '^ Caius Curio, and Gains Licinius 
 Calvus." '' The very same." replied I. " One of them, besides 
 his plausible manner, had such an easy and voluble flow 
 of expression, and such an inexhaustible variety, and some- 
 times accuracy of sentiment, that he was one of the most 
 ready and ornamental speakers of his time. Though he had 
 received but little instruction from the professed masters 
 of the art, nature had furnished him with an admirable capa- 
 city for the practice of it. I never, indeed, discovered in him 
 any great degree of application ; but he was certainly very 
 ambitious to distinguish himself; and if he had continued to 
 listen to my advice, as he had iDCgun to do, he would have 
 preferred the acquisition of real honour to that of untimely 
 grandeur." " What do you mean ?" said Brutus ; ^' or in what 
 manner are these two objects to be distinguished?" " I dis- 
 tinguish them thus," replied I ; "as honour is the reward of 
 virtue, conferred upon a man by the choice and affection of 
 his fellow-citizens, he who obtains it by their free votes and 
 suffrages is to be considered, in my opinion, as an honourable 
 member of the community. But he who acquires his power 
 and authority by taking advantage of every unhappy incident, 
 and without the consent of his fellow-citizens, as Curio aimed 
 to do, acquires only the name of honour, without the sub- 
 stance. Whereas, if he had hearkened to me, he would have 
 risen to the highest dignity, in an honourable manner, and 
 with the hearty approbation of all men, by a gradual advance- 
 ment to public offices, as his father and many other eminent 
 citizens had done before. I often gave the same advice to 
 Publius Crassus, the son of Marcus, who courted my friend- 
 ship in the early part of his life ; and recommended it to him 
 very warmly, to consider that as the truest path to honour 
 which had been already marked out to him by the example 
 of his ancestors. For he had been extremely well educated, 
 and was perfectly versed in every branch of polite literature ; 
 he had likewise a penetrating genius, and an elegant variety 
 
488 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 of expression; and appeared grave and sententious without 
 arrogance, and modest and diffident without dejection. But, 
 like many other young men, he was carried away by the tide 
 of ambition ; and after serving a short time with reputation 
 as a volunteer, nothing could satisfy him but to try his for- 
 tune as a general, an employment which was confined by the 
 wisdom of our ancestors to men who had arrived at a certain 
 age, and who, even then, were obliged to submit their pre- 
 tensions to the uncertain issue of a public decision. Thus, by 
 exposing himself to a fatal catastrophe, while he was endea- 
 vouring to rival the fame of Cyrus and Alexander, who lived to 
 finish their desperate career, he lost all resemblance of Lucius 
 Crassus, and his other worthy progenitors. LXXXII. But 
 let us return to Calvus, whom we have just mentioned, an 
 orator who had received more literary improvements than 
 Curio, and had a more accurate and delicate manner of speak- 
 ing, which he conducted with great taste and elegance ; but, 
 (by being too minute and nice a critic upon himself.) while 
 he was labouring to correct and refine his language, he suf- 
 fered all the force and spirit of it to evaporate. In short, it 
 was so exquisitely polished, as to charm the eye of every skilful 
 observer; but it was little noticed by the common people in 
 a crowded forum, which is the proper theatre of eloquence." 
 " His aim," said Brutus, " was to be admired as an Attic 
 orator ; and to this we must attribute that accurate exility of 
 style, which he constantly affected." " This, indeed, was his 
 professed character," replied I ; " but he was deceived him- 
 self, and led others into the same mistake. It is true, who- 
 ever supposes that to speak in the Attic taste, is to avoid every 
 awkward, every harsh, every vicious expression, has, in this 
 sense, an undoubted right to refuse his approbation to every- 
 thing which is not strictly Attic, For he must naturally 
 detest whatever is insipid, disgusting, or incorrect ; while 
 he considers correctness and propriety of language as the 
 rehgion and good-manners of an orator ; and every one who 
 pretends to speak in public should adopt the same opinion. 
 But if he bestows the name of Atticism on a meagre, a dry, 
 and a niggardly turn of expression, provided it is neat, correct, 
 and polished, I cannot say, indeed, that he bestows it im- 
 properly ; as the Attic orators, however, had many qualities 
 of a more important nature, I would advise him to be careful 
 that he does not overlook their different kinds and deorrees of 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 489 
 
 merit, and their great extent and variety of character. The 
 Attic speakers, he will tell me, are the models upon which he 
 wishes to form his eloquence. But which of them does he 
 mean to fix upon ? for they are not all of the same cast. 
 Who, for instance, could be more unlike each other than 
 Demosthenes and Lysias? or than Demosthenes and Hy- 
 perides 1 Or who more different from either of them, than 
 ^schines 1 Which of them, then, do you propose to imitate ? 
 If only onej this will be a tacit implication, that none of the 
 rest were true masters of Atticism ; if all, how can you 
 possibl}^ succeed, when their characters are so opposite 1 Let 
 me further ask you, whether Demetrius Phalereus spoke in 
 the Attic style ? In my opinion, his orations have the very 
 taste of Athens. But he is certainly more florid than either 
 Hyperides or Lysias ; partly from the natural turn of his 
 genius, and partly by choice. 
 
 LXXXIII. '* There were likewise two others at the time 
 we are speaking of, whose characters were equally dissimilar ; 
 and yet both of them were truly Attic, The first (Charisius) 
 was the author of a number of speeches, which he composed 
 for his friends, professedly in imitation of Lysias ; and the 
 other (Demochares, the nephew of Demosthenes) wrote several 
 orations, and a regular history of what was transacted in 
 Athens under his own observation ; not so much, indeed, in 
 the style of an historian, as of an orator. Hegesias took the 
 former for his model, and was so vain of his own taste for 
 Atticism, that he considered his predecessors, who were really 
 masters of it, as mere rustics in comparison of himself. But 
 what can be more insipid, more frivolous, or more puerile, 
 than that very concinnity of expression which he actually 
 acquired ? ^ But still we wish to resemble the Attic speakers.' 
 Do so by all means. But were not those, then, true Attic 
 speakers, we have just been mentioning ? ^ Nobody denies 
 it ; and these are the men we imitate.' But how ? when 
 they are so very different, not only from each other, but from 
 all the rest of their contemporaries 1 * True ; but Thucydides 
 is our leading pattern.' This, too, I can allow, if you design 
 to compose histories, instead of pleading causes. For Thu- 
 cydides was both an exact and a stately historian ; but he 
 never intended to write models for conducting a judicial pro- 
 cess. I will even go so far as to add, that I have often com- 
 mended the speeches which he has inserted in his history 
 
490 
 
 35BUTUS ; OR, 
 
 in great numbers ; though I must frankly own, that I neither 
 could imitate them, if I would, nor indeed would, if I could ; 
 like a man who would neither choose his wine so new as to 
 have been tunned off in the preceding vintage, nor so exces- 
 sively old as to date its age from the consulship of Opimius 
 or Anicius. ^ The latter,' you will say, ^ bears the highest price.' 
 Very probably ; but when it has too much age, it has lost 
 that delicious flavour which pleases the palate, and, in my 
 opinion, is scarcely tolerable. ^ Would you choose, then, 
 when you have a mind to regale yourself, to apply to a fresh, 
 unripened cask V By no means ; but still there is a certain 
 age, when good wine arrives at its utmost perfection. In the 
 same manner, I would recommend neither a raw, unmellowed 
 style, which (if I may so express myself) has been newly 
 drawn off from the vat \ nor the rough and antiquated lan- 
 guage of the grave and manly Thucydides. For even he, if 
 he had lived a few years later, would have acquired a much 
 softer and mellower turn of expression. 
 
 '^ * Let us, then, imitate Demosthenes.' LXXXTY. Good 
 Gods ! to what else do 1 direct all my endeavours, and my 
 wishes ! But it is, perhaps, my misfortune not to succeed. 
 These Atticisers, however, acquire with ease the paltry cha- 
 racter they aim at ; not once recollecting that it is not only 
 recorded in history, but must have been the natural con- 
 sequence of his superior fame, that when Demosthenes was to 
 speak in public, all Greece flocked in crowds to hear him. 
 But when our Attic orators venture to speak, they are pre- 
 sently deserted, not only by the little throng around them 
 who have no interest in the dispute, (which alone is a morti- 
 fying proof of their insignificance,) but even by their associates 
 and fellow-advocates. If to speak, therefore, in a dry and 
 lifeless manner, is the true criterion of Atticism, they are 
 heartily welcome to enjoy the credit of it ; but if they wish 
 to put their abilities to the trial, let them attend the Comitia, 
 or a judicial process of real importance. The open forum 
 demands a fuller and more elevated tone ; and he is the 
 orator for me, who is so universally admired, that when he 
 is to plead an interesting cause, all the benches are filled 
 beforehand, the tribunal crowded, the clerks and notaries 
 busy in adjusting their seats, the populace thronging about 
 the rostra, and the judge brisk and vigilant ; he, who has 
 such a commanding air, that when he rises up to speak, the 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 491 
 
 whole audience is hushed into a profound silence, which is 
 soon interrupted by their repeated plaudits and acclamations, 
 or by those successive bursts of laughter, or violent transports 
 of passion, which he knows how to excite at his pleasure ; so 
 that even a distant observer, though unacquainted with the 
 subject he is speaking upon, can easily discover that his 
 hearers are pleased with him, and that a Roscius is perform- 
 ing his part on the stage. Whoever has the happiness to be 
 thus followed and applauded, is, beyond dispute, an Attic 
 speaker; for such was Pericles, such was Hyperides, and 
 -^schines, and such, in the most eminent degree, was the 
 great Demosthenes ! If, indeed, these connoisseurs, who have 
 so much dislike to everything bold and ornamental, only 
 mean to say that an accurate, a judicious, and a neat and 
 compact, but unembellished style, is really an Attic one, they 
 are not mistaken. For in an art of such wonderful extent 
 and variety as that of speaking, even this subtile and coniBned 
 character may claim a place ; so that the conclusion will be, 
 thiat it is very possible to speak in the Attic taste without 
 deserving the name of an orator ; but that all, in general, 
 who are truly eloquent, are likewise Attic speakers. 
 
 " It is time, however, to return to Hortensius." LXXXY 
 "Indeed, I think so," cried Brutus; "though I must acknow- 
 ledge that this long digression of yours has entertained me 
 very agreeably." " But I made some remarks," said Atticus, 
 ^' which I was several times inclined to mention ; only I was 
 loth to interrupt you. As your discourse, however, seems 
 to be drawing towards an end, I think I may venture to state 
 them." " By all means," replied I. '^ I readily grant, then," 
 said he, " that there is something very humorous and elegant 
 in that continued irony, which Socrates employs to so much 
 advantage in the dialogues of Plato, Xenophon, and iEschines. 
 For when a dispute commences on the nature of wisdom, he 
 professes, with a gTcat deal of humour and ingenuity, to have 
 no pretensions to it himself ; while, with a kind of concealed 
 raillery, he ascribes the highest degree of it to those who had 
 the arrogance to lay an open claim to it. Thus, in Plato, he 
 extols Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, Gorgias and several 
 others, to the skies ; but represents himself as quite ignorant. 
 This in him was peculiarly becoming ; nor can 1 agree with 
 Epicurus, who thinks it censurable. But in a professed 
 history, (for such, in fact, is the account you have been giving 
 
492 
 
 BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 US of the Roman orators,) I shall leave you to judge, whether 
 an application of the irony is not equally reprehensible, as 
 it would be in giving judicial evidence." " Pray, what are 
 you driving at?" said I ; "for I cannot comprehend you." 
 " I mean," replied he, " in the first place, that the commen- 
 dations which you have bestowed upon some of our orators, 
 have a tendency to mislead the opinion of those who are 
 unacquainted with their true characters. There were like- 
 wise several parts of your account, at which I could scarcely 
 forbear laughing ; as, for instance, when you compared old 
 Cato to Lysias. He was, indeed, a great, and a very extra- 
 ordinary man. Nobody, I believe, will say to the contrary. 
 But shall we call him an orator ? Shall we pronounce him 
 the rival of Lysias, who was the most finished character of the 
 kind? If we mean to jest, this comparison of yours would 
 form a pretty irony ; but if we are talking in real earnest, 
 we should pay the same scrupulous regard to truth, as if we 
 were giving evidence upon oath. As a citizen, a senator, 
 a general, and, in short, a man who was distinguished by his 
 prudence, his activity, and every other virtue, your favourite 
 Cato has my highest approbation. I can likewise applaud 
 his speeches, considering the time he lived in. They exhibit 
 the outlines of a great genius ; but such, however, as are 
 evidently rude and imperfect. In the same manner, when 
 you represented his Antiquities as replete with all the graces 
 of oratory, and compared Cato with Philistus and Thucydides, 
 did you really imagine, that you could persuade Brutus 
 and me to believe you ? or would you seriously degrade those, 
 whom none of the Greeks themselves have been able to equal, 
 into a comparison with a stiff country gentleman, who scarcely 
 suspected that there was any such thing in being as a copious 
 and ornamental style ? 
 
 LXXXVI. " You have likewise said much in commenda- 
 tion of Galba ; — if as the best speaker of his age, I can so far 
 agree with you, for such was the character he bore ; — but 
 if you meant to recommend him as an orator, produce his 
 orations (for they are still extant), and then tell me honestly, 
 whether you would wish your friend Brutus here to speak as 
 he did ? Lepidus, too, was the author of several speeches, 
 which have received your approbation ; in which I can 
 partly join with you, if you consider them only as specimens 
 of our ancient eloquence. The same might be said of Afri- 
 
EEMABKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 493 
 
 canus and Laelius, than whose language (you tell us) nothing 
 in the world can be sweeter j nay, you have mentioned it 
 with a kind of veneration, and endeavoured to dazzle our 
 judgment by the great character they bore, and the uncom- 
 mon elegance of their manners. Divest it of these adven- 
 titious graces, and this sweet language of theirs will appear 
 so homely, as to be scarcely worth noticing. Carbo, too, 
 was mentioned as one of our capital orators ; and for this 
 only reason, — that in speaking, as in all other professions, 
 whatever is the best of its kind, for the time being, how 
 deficient soever in reality, is always admired and applauded. 
 What I have said of Carbo, is equally true of the Gracchi ; 
 though, in some jjarticulars, the character you have given 
 them was no more than they deserved. But to say nothing 
 of the rest of your orators, let us proceed to Antonius and 
 Crassus, your two paragons of eloquence, whom I have heard 
 myself, and who were certainly very able speakers. To the 
 extraordinary commendation you have bestowed upon them, 
 I can readily give my assent ; but not, however, in such an 
 unlimited manner as to persuade myself that you have 
 received as much improvement from the speech in support of 
 the Servilian law, as Lysippus said he had done by studying 
 the famous statue^ of Polycletus. What you have said on 
 this occasion I consider as absolute irony ; but I shall not 
 inform you why I think so, lest you should imagine I design 
 to flatter you. I shall therefore pass over the many fine 
 encomiums you have bestowed upon these ; and what you 
 have said of Cotta and Sulpicius, and but very lately of your 
 pupil Ceelius. I acknowledge, however, that we may call 
 them orators ; but as to the nature and extent of their merit, 
 let your own judgment decide. It is scarcely worth observing, 
 that you have had the additional good-nature to crowd so 
 many daubers into your list, that there are some, I believe, 
 who will be ready to wish they had died long ago, that you 
 might have had an opportunity to insein: their names among 
 the rest." LXXXYII. " You have opened a wide field of in- 
 quiry," said I, ^' and started a subject which deserves a separate 
 discussion ; but we must defer it to a more convenient time. 
 For, to settle it, a great variety of authors must be examined, 
 and especially Cato ; which could not fail to convince you, that 
 nothing was wanting to complete his pieces, but those rich 
 ^ Doryphorus. A spearman. 
 
494 BRUTUS ; or, 
 
 and glowing colours which had not then been invented. As 
 to the above oration of Crassus, he himself, perhaps, could 
 have written better, if he had been willing to take the 
 trouble ; but nobody else, I believe, could have mended it. 
 You have no reason, therefore, to think I spoke ironically, 
 when I mentioned it as the guide and tutoress of my eloquence ; 
 for though you seem to have a higher opinion of my capacity, 
 in its present state, you must remember that, in our youth, 
 we could find nothing better to imitate among the Romans. 
 And as to my admitting so many into my list of orators, 
 I only did it (as I have already observed) to show how few 
 have succeeded in a profession, in which all were desirous to 
 excel. I therefore insist upon it that you do not consider me 
 in the present case as sl practiser of irony; though we are in- 
 formed by Caius Fannius, in his history, that Africanus was a 
 very excellent one." *^As you please about that,'' cried Atticus j 
 *' though, by the bye, T did not imagine it would have been 
 any disgrace to you, to be what Africanus and Socrates have 
 been before you." '' We may settle this another time," in- 
 terrupted Brutus ; " but will you be so obliging," said he, 
 (addressing himself to me,) " as to give us a critical analysis 
 of some of the old speeches you have mentioned V " Very 
 willingly," replied I ; " but it must be at Cuma, or Tusculum, 
 when opportunity offers : for we are near neighbours, you 
 know, in both places. LXXXVIIT. At present, let us 
 return to Hortensius, from whom we have digressed a second 
 time. 
 
 " Hortensius, then, who began to speak in public when he 
 was very young, was soon employed even in causes of the 
 greatest moment ; and though he first appeared in the time of 
 Cotta and Sulpicius, (who were only ten years older,) and when 
 Crassus and Antonius, and afterwards Philippus and Julius, 
 were in the height of their reputation, he was thought worthy 
 to be compared with either of them in point of eloquence. 
 He had such an excellent memory as I never knew in any 
 person ; so that what he had composed in private, he was 
 able to repeat, without notes, in the very same words he had 
 made use of at first. He employed this natural advantage 
 with so much readiness, that he not only recollected whatever 
 he had written or premeditated himself, but remembered 
 everything that had been said by his opponents, without the 
 help of a prompter. He was likewise inflamed with such 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 495 
 
 a passionate fondness for the profession, that I never saw any 
 one who took more pains to improve himself; for he would 
 not suffer a day to elapse without either speaking in the 
 forum, or composing something at home ; and very often he 
 did both in the same day. He had, besides, a turn of expres- 
 sion which was very far from being low and unelevated ; and 
 possessed two other accomplishments, in which no one could 
 equal him, — an uncommon clearness and accuracy in stating 
 the points he was to discuss ; and a neat and easy manner of 
 collecting the substance of what had been said by his anta- 
 gonist, and by himself. He had likewise an elegant choice 
 of words, an agreeable flow in his periods, and a copious 
 elocution, for which he was partly indebted to a fine natural 
 capacity, and which was partly acquired by the most laborious 
 rhetorical exercises. In short, he had a most retentive view of 
 his subject, and always divided and distributed it into distinct 
 parts with the greatest exactness ; and he very seldom over- 
 looked anything which the case could suggest, that was proper 
 either to support his own allegations, or to refute those of his 
 opponent. Lastly, he had a sweet and sonorous voice ; but 
 his gesture had rather more art in it. and was managed with 
 more precision than is requisite in an orator. 
 
 " While he was in the height of his glory, Crassus died, 
 Cotta was banished, our public trials were intermitted by the 
 Marsic war, and I myself made my first appearance in the 
 forum. LXXXIX. Hortensius joined the army, and served 
 the first campaign as a volunteer, and the second as a military 
 tribune; Sulpicius was made a lieutenant-general; and An- 
 tonius was absent on a similar account. The only trial w^e 
 had, was that upon the Yarian law ; the rest, as I have just 
 observed, having been intermitted by the war. We had 
 scarcely anybody left at the bar but Lucius Memmius and 
 Quintus Pompeius, who spoke mostly on their own affiiirs ; 
 and, though far from being orators of the first distinction, 
 were yet tolerable ones, (if we may credit Philippus, who was 
 himself a man of some eloquence,) and, in supporting 
 evidence, displayed all the poignancy of a prosecutor, with a 
 moderate freedom of elocution. The rest, who were esteemed 
 our capital speakers, were then in the magistracy, and I had 
 the benefit of hearing their harangues almost every day. 
 Caius Curio was chosen a tribune of the people, though he 
 left off speaking after beino; once deserted by his whole 
 
^yC) BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 audience. To him I may add Quintus Metellus Celer, who, 
 though certainly no orator, was far from being destitute of 
 utterance ; but Quintus Yarius, Caius Carbo, and Cnseus 
 Pomponius, were men of real elocution, and might almost be 
 said to have lived upon the rostra. Caius Julius too, who was 
 then a curule eedile, was daily employed in making speeches 
 to the people, which were composed with great neatness and 
 accuracy. But while I attended the forum with this eager 
 curiosity, my first disappointment was the banishment of 
 Cotta ; after which I continued to hear the rest with the 
 same assiduity as before ; and though I daily spent the re- 
 mainder of my time in reading, writing, and private decla- 
 mation, I cannot say that I much relished my confinement to 
 these preparatory exercises. The next year Quintus Yarius 
 was condemned, and banished by his own law ; and I, that I 
 might acquire a competent knowledge of the principles of 
 jurisprudence, then attached myself to Quintus Scaevola, the 
 son of Publius, who, though he did not choose to undertake 
 the charge of a pupil, yet, by freely giving his advice to those 
 who consulted him, answered every purpose of instruction 
 to such as took the trouble to apply to him. In the suc- 
 ceeding year, in which Sylla and Pompey were consuls, as 
 Sulpicius, who was elected a tribune of the people, had 
 occasion to speak in public almost every day, I had oppor- 
 tunity to acquaint myself thoroughly with his manner of 
 speaking. At this time Philo, a philosopher of the first 
 name in the Academy, with many of the principal Athenians, 
 having deserted their native home, and fled to Eome, from 
 the fury of Mithridates, I immediately became his scholar, 
 and was exceedingly taken with his philosophy; and, besides 
 the pleasure I received from the great variety and sublimity 
 of his matter, I was still more inclined to confine my atten- 
 tion to that study ; because there was reason to apprehend 
 that our laws and judicial proceedings would be wholly over- 
 turned by the continuance of the public disorders. In the 
 same year Sulpicius lost his life; and Quintus Catulus, 
 Marcus Antonius, and Caius Julius, three orators who were 
 partly contemporary with each other, were most inhumanly 
 put to death. Then also I attended the lectures of Molo the 
 Rhodian, who was newly come to Eome, and was both an 
 excellent pleader, and an able teacher of the art. 
 
 XC. '^ I have mentioned these particulars, which, perhaps, 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 497 
 
 may appear foreign to our purpose, that you, my Brutus, (for 
 Atticus is already acquainted with them,) may be able to 
 mark my progress, and observe how closely I trod upon the 
 heels of Hortensius. The three following years the city was 
 free from the tumult of arms; but either by the death, the 
 voluntary retirement, or the flight of our ablest orators, (for 
 even Marcus Crassus, and the two Lentuli, who were then in 
 the bloom of youth, had all left us,) Hortensius, of course, 
 was the first speaker in the forum. Antistius, too, was daily 
 rising into reputation ; Piso pleaded pretty often ; Pomponius, 
 not so frequently; Carbo, very seldom; and Philippus, only 
 once or twice. In the meanwhile I pursued my studies of every 
 kind, day and night, with unremitting application. I lodged 
 and boarded at my own house (where he lately died) Diodotus 
 the Stoic; whom I employed as my preceptor in various other 
 parts of learning, but particularly in logic, which may be con- 
 sidered as a close and contracted species of eloquence ; and 
 without which, you yourself have declared it impossible to 
 acquire that full and perfect eloquence, which they suppose 
 to be an open and dilated kind of logic. Yet with all my atten- 
 tion to Diodotus, and the various arts he was master of, I 
 never suffered even a single day to escape me, without some 
 exercise of the oratorical kind. I constantly declaimed in 
 private with Marcus Piso, Quintus Pompeius, or some other 
 of my acquaintance ; pretty often in Latin, but much oftener 
 in Greek; because the Greek furnishes a greater variety of 
 ornaments, and an opportunity of imitating and introducing 
 them into the Latin ; and because the Greek masters, who 
 were far the best, could not correct and improve us, unless we 
 declaimed in that language. This time was distinguished by 
 a violent struggle to restore the liberty of the republic ; the 
 barbarous slaughter of the three orators, Scaevola, Carbo, and 
 Antistius; the return of Cotta, Curio, Crassus, Pompey, and 
 the Lentuli ; the re-establishment of the laws and courts of 
 judicature, and the entire restoration of the commonwealth; 
 but we lost Pomponius, Censorinus, and Murena, from the 
 roll of orators. I now began, for the first time, to under- 
 take the management of causes, both private and public; not, 
 as most did, with a view to learn my profession, but to make 
 a trial of the abilities which I had taken so much pains to 
 acquire. I had then a second opportunity of attending the 
 instructions of Molo, who came to Eome while Sylla was 
 
 E E 
 
498 . BRUTUS j OR, 
 
 dictator, to solicit the payment of what was due to hia 
 countrymen for their services in the Mithridatic war. My 
 defence of Sextus Roscius, which was the first cause I pleaded, 
 met with such a favourable reception, that, from that moment, 
 I was looked upon as an advocate of the first class, and equal 
 to the greatest and most important causes ; and after this I 
 pleaded many others, which I precomposed with all the care 
 and accuracy I was master of. 
 
 XCI. " But as you seem desirous not so much to be ac- 
 quainted with any incidental marks of my character, or 
 the first sallies of my youth, as to know me thoroughly, 
 I shall mention some particulars, which otherwise might 
 have seemed unnecessary. At this time my body was ex- 
 ceedingly weak and emaciated; my neck long and slender; 
 a shape and habit which I thought to be liable to great risk 
 of life, if engaged in any violent fatigue, or labour of the 
 lungs. And it gave the greater alarm to those who had 
 a regard for me, that I used to speak without any remission 
 or variation, with the utmost stretch of my voice, and a 
 total agitation of my body. When my friends, therefore, and 
 physicians, advised me to meddle no more with forensic 
 causes, I resolved to run any hazard rather than quit the 
 hopes of glory which I had proposed to myself from plead- 
 ing; but when I considered, that by managing my voice, 
 and changing my way of speaking, I might both avoid all 
 future danger of that kind and speak with greater ease, 
 I took a resolution of travelling into Asia, merely for an op- 
 portunity to correct my manner of speaking ; so that after 
 I had been two years at the bar, and acquired some reputa- 
 tion in the forum, I left Rome. When I came to Athens, I 
 spent six months with Antiochus, the principal and most 
 judicious philosopher of the old Academy; and under this able 
 master, I renewed those philosophical studies which I had 
 laboriously cultivated and improved from my earliest youth. 
 At the same time, however, I continued my rhetorical exer- 
 cises under Demetrius the Syrian, an experienced and re- 
 putable master of the art of speaking. After leaving Athens, 
 I traversed every part of Asia, where I was voluntarily at- 
 tended by the principal orators of the country, with whom I re- 
 newed my rhetorical exercises. The chief of them was Menippus 
 of Stratonica, the most eloquent of all the Asiatics; and 
 if to be neither tedious nor impertinent is the characteristic 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 499 
 
 of an Attic orator, he may be justly ranked in that class. 
 Dionysius also of Magnesia, JEschylus of Cnidos, and Xenocles 
 of Adramyttium, who were esteemed the first rhetoricians 
 of Asia, were continually with me. Not contented with these, 
 I went to Rhodes, and applied myself again to Molo, whom 
 I had heard before at Rome ; and who was both an expe- 
 rienced pleader and a fine writer, and particularly judicious in 
 remarking the faults of his scholars, as well as in his method 
 of teaching and improving them. His principal trouble with 
 me was to restrain the luxuriancy of a juvenile imagination, 
 always ready to overflow its banks, within its due and proper 
 channel. Thus, after an excursion of two years, I returned to 
 Italy, not only much improved, but almost changed into 
 a new man. The vehemence of my voice and action was 
 considerably abated; the excessive ardour of my language 
 was corrected ; my lungs were strengthened ; and my whole 
 constitution confirmed and settled. 
 
 XCII. " Two orators then reigned in the forum (I mean 
 Cotta and Hortensius), whose glory fired my emulation. 
 Cotta's way of speaking was calm and easy, and distinguished 
 by the flowing elegance and propriety of his language. The 
 other was splendid, warm, and animated ; not such as you, 
 my Brutus, have seen him, when he had shed the blossom of 
 his eloquence, but far more lively and pathetic both in 
 his style and action. As Hortensius, therefore, was nearer to 
 me in age, and his manner more agreeable to the natural 
 ardour of my temper, I considered him as the proper object 
 of my competition. For I observed that when they were 
 both engaged in the same cause, (as, for instance, when they 
 defended Marcus Canuleius, and Cneius Dolabella, a man of 
 consular dignity,) though Cotta was generally employed to 
 open the defence, the most important parts of it were left to 
 the management of Hortensius. For a crowded audience 
 and a clamorous forum require an orator who is lively, ani- 
 mated, full of action, and able to exert his voice to the 
 highest pitch. The first year, therefore, after my return 
 from Asia, I undertook several capital causes ; and in the 
 interim I put up as a candidate for the queestorship, Cotta 
 for the consulate, and Hortensius for the sedileship. After 
 I was chosen quaestor, I passed a year in Sicily, the province 
 assigned to me by lot ; Cotta went as consul into Gaul ; and 
 Hortensius, whose new office required his presence at Rome, 
 
 kk2 
 
500 
 
 was left of course the undisputed sovereign of the forum. In 
 the succeeding year, when I returned from Sicily, my ora- 
 torical talents, such as they were, displayed themselves in 
 their full perfection and maturity. 
 
 " I have been saying too much, perhaps, concerning myself ; 
 but my design in it wa^s not to make a parade of my 
 eloquence and ability, which I have no temptation to do, but 
 only to specify the pains and labour which I have taken 
 to improve it. After spending the five succeeding years in 
 pleading a variety of causes, and with the ablest advocates of 
 the time, I was declared an sedile, and undertook the patronage 
 of the Sicilians against Hortensius, who was then one of the 
 consuls elect. XCIII. But as the subject of our conversation 
 not only requires an historical detail of orators, but such 
 preceptive remarks as may be necessary to elucidate their 
 characters ; it will not be improper to make some observations 
 of this kind upon that of Hortensius. After his appointment 
 to the consulship (very probably, because he saw none of 
 consular dignity who were able to rival him, and despised the 
 competition of others of inferior rank) he began to remit that 
 intense application which he had hitherto persevered in from 
 his childhood ; and having settled himself in very affluent 
 circumstances, he chose to live for the future what he thought 
 an easy life, but which, in truth, was rather an indolent one. 
 In the three succeeding years, the beauty of his colouring 
 was so much impaired as to be very perceptible to a skilful 
 connoisseur, though not to a common observer. After that, 
 he grew every day more unlike himself than before, not only 
 in other parts of eloquence, but by a gradual decay of the 
 former celerity and elegant texture of his language. I, at the 
 same time, spared no pains to improve and enlarge my 
 talents, such as they were, by every exercise that was proper 
 for the purpose, but particularly by that of writing. Not to 
 mention several other advantages I derived from it, I shall 
 only observe, that about this time, and but a very few years 
 after my sedileship, I was declared the first praetor, by the 
 unanimous sufirages of my fellow-citizens. For, by my 
 diligence and assiduity as a pleader, and my accurate way of 
 speaking, which was rather superior to the ordinary style of 
 the bar, the novelty of my eloquence had engaged the atten- 
 tion and secured the good wishes of the public. But I will 
 say nothing of myself; I wiU confine my discourse to our 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 501 
 
 other speakers, among whom there is not one who has gained 
 more than a common acquaintance with those parts of Htera- 
 ture which feed the springs of eloquence ; not one who has 
 been thoroughly nurtured at the breast of Philosophy, which 
 is the mother of every excellence either in deed or speech ; 
 not one who has acquired an accurate knowledge of the civil 
 law, which is so necessary for the management even of 
 private causes, and to direct the judgment of an orator ; not 
 one who is a complete master of the Roman history, which 
 would enable us, on many occasions, to appeal to the venerable 
 evidence of the dead ; not one who can entangle his opponent 
 in such a neat and humorous manner, as to relax the severity 
 of the judges into a smile or an open laugh j not one who 
 knows how to dilate and expand his subject, by reducing 
 it from the limited considerations of time and person, to 
 some general and indefinite topic ; not one who knows how to 
 enliven it by an agreeable digression ; not one who can rouse 
 the indignation of the judge, or extort from him the tear of 
 compassion ; or who can influence and bend his soul (which 
 is confessedly the capital perfection of an orator), in such a 
 manner as shall best suit his purpose. 
 
 XCIV. ^- When Hortensius, therefore, the once eloquent 
 and admired Hortensius, had almost vanished from the forum, 
 my appointment to the consulship, which happened about six 
 years after his own promotion to that office, revived his dying 
 emulation ; for he was unwilling that, after I had equalled 
 him in rank and dignity, I should become his superior in 
 any other respect. But in the twelve succeeding years, by 
 a mutual deference to each other's abilities, we united our 
 efforts at the bar in the most amicable manner ; and my con- 
 sulship, which had at first given a short alarm to his jealousy, 
 afterwards cemented our friendship, by the generous candour 
 with which he applauded my conduct. But our emulous 
 efforts were exerted in the most conspicuous manner, just 
 before the commencement of that unhappy period, when 
 Eloquence herself was confounded and terrified by the din of 
 arms into a sudden and total silence ; for after Pompey had 
 proposed and carried a law, which allowed even the party 
 accused but three hours to make his defence, I appeared 
 (though comparatively as a mere noviciate by this new regu- 
 lation) in a number of causes which, in fact, were become per- 
 fectly the same, or very nearly so ; most of which, my Brutus, 
 
502 BRUTUS; OR, 
 
 you were present to hear, as having been my partner and 
 fellow-advocate in many of them, though you pleaded several 
 by yourself ; and Hortensius, though he died a short time 
 afterwards, bore his share in these limited efforts. He began 
 to plead about ten years before the time of your birth ; and 
 in his sixty-fourth year, but a very few days before his death, 
 he was engaged with you in the defence of Appius, your 
 father-in-law. As to our respective talents, the orations we 
 have published will enable posterity to form a proper judg- 
 ment of them. 
 
 XCY. " But if we mean to inquire, why Hortensius was 
 more admired for his eloquence in the younger part of his 
 life than in hi?, latter years, we shall find it owing to the fol- 
 lowing causes. The first was, that an Asiatic style is more 
 allowable in a young man than in an old one. Of this there 
 are two different kinds. The former is sententious and 
 sprightly, and abounds in those turns of thought which are 
 not so much distinguished by their weight and solidity as 
 by their neatness and elegance ; of this cast was Timseus 
 the historian, and the two orators so much talked of in 
 our younger days, Hierocles of Alabanda, and his brother 
 Menecles, but particularly the latter ; both whose orations 
 may be reckoned master-pieces of this kind. The other sort 
 is not so remarkable for the plenitude and richness of its 
 thoughts, as for its rapid volubility of expression, which at 
 present is the ruling taste in Asia ; but, besides its uncom- 
 mon fluency, it is recommended by a choice of words which 
 are peculiarly delicate and ornamental ; of this kind were 
 ^'Schylus the Cnidian, and my contemporary ^schines the 
 Milesian ; for they had an admirable command of language, 
 with very little elegance of sentiment. These showy kinds 
 of eloquence are agreeable enough in young people; but they 
 are entirely destitute of that gravity and composure which 
 befits a riper age. As Hortensius therefore excelled in both, 
 he was heard with applause in the earlier part of his life. For 
 he had all that fertility and graceful variety of sentiment 
 which distinguished the character of Menecles : but, as in 
 Menecles, so in him, there were many turns of thought which 
 were more delicate and entertaining than really useful, 
 or indeed sometimes convenient. His language also was 
 brilliant and rapid, and yet perfectly neat and accurate ; 
 but by no means agreeable to men of riper years. I have 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORaTORS. 503 
 
 often seen it received by Philippus with the utmost derision, 
 and, upon some occasions, with a contemptuous indignation ; 
 but the younger part of the audience admired it, and the 
 populace were highly pleased with it. In his youth, there- 
 fore, he met the warmest approbation of the public, and 
 maintained his post with ease as the first orator in the forum. 
 For the style he chose to speak in, though it has little weight 
 or authority, appeared very suitable to his age ; and as it 
 discovered in him the most visible marks of genius and appli- 
 cation, and was recommended by the numerous cadence of 
 his periods, he was heard with universal applause. But 
 when the honours he afterwards rose to, and the dignity of 
 his years, required something more serious and composed, he 
 still continued to appear in the same character, though it no 
 longer became him ; and as he had, for some considerable 
 time, intermitted those exercises, and relaxed that laborious 
 attention which had once distinguished him, though his 
 former neatness of expression and luxuriancy of conception 
 still remained, they were stripped of those brilliant ornaments 
 they had been used to wear. For this reason, perhaps, my 
 Brutus, he appeared less pleasing to you than he would have 
 done, if you had been old enough to hear him, when he was 
 fired with emulation, and flourished in the full bloom of his 
 eloquence." 
 
 XCYI. " I am perfectly sensible," said Brutus, ^' of the 
 J Listice of your remarks ; and yet I have always looked upon 
 Hortensius as a great orator, but especially when he pleaded 
 for Messala, in the time of your absence." " I have often heard 
 of it," replied I ; " and his oration, which was afterwards pub- 
 lished, they say, in the very same words in which he delivered 
 it, is no way inferior to the character you give it. Upon the 
 whole, then, his reputation flourished from the time of Crassus 
 and Scaevola (reckoning from the consulship of the former), 
 to the consulship of Paullus and Marcellus ; and I held out 
 in the same career of glory from the dictatorship of Sylla, to 
 the period I have last mentioned. Thus the eloquence of 
 Hortensius was extinguished by his own death, and mine by 
 that of the commonwealth." " Presage more favourably, 
 I beg of you," cried Brutus. " As favourably as you please," 
 said I, ^' and that, not so much upon my own account as 
 yours. But Jus death was truly fortunate, who did not live 
 to behold the miseries which he had long foreseen ; for we 
 
504 BRUTUS ; OR, 
 
 often lamented, between ourselves, the misfortunes which 
 hung over the state, when we discovered the seeds of a civil 
 war in the insatiable ambition of a few private citizens, and 
 saw every hope of an accommodation excluded by the rash- 
 ness and precipitancy of our public counsels. But the 
 felicity which always marked his life seems to have exempted 
 him, by a seasonable death, from the calamities that followed. 
 But as, after the decease of Hortensius, we seem to have been 
 left, my Brutus, as the sole guardians of an orphan eloquence, 
 let us cherish her, within our own walls at least, with a gene- 
 rous fidelity; let us discourage the addresses of her worthless 
 and impertinent suitors ; let us preserve her pure and un- 
 blemished in all her virgin charms, and secure her, to the 
 utmost of our ability, from the lawless violence of every armed 
 ruffian. I must own, however, though I am heartily grieved 
 that I entered so late upon the road of life as to be over- 
 taken by a gloomy night of public distress, before I had 
 finished my journey, that I am not a little relieved by the 
 tender consolation which you administered to me in your 
 very agreeable letters; in which you tell me I ought to 
 recollect my courage, since my past transactions are such as 
 will speak for me when I am silent, and survive my death ; 
 and such as, if the Gods permit, will bear an ample testimony 
 to the prudence and integrity of my public counsels, by the 
 final restoration of the republic ; or, if otherwise, by burying 
 me in the ruins of my country. 
 
 XCVII. " But when I look upon you, my Brutus, it fills 
 me with anguish to reflect that, in the vigour of your youth, 
 and when you were making the most rapid progress in the 
 road to fame, your career was suddenly stopped by the fatal 
 overthrow of the commonw^ealth. This unhappy circum- 
 stance has stung me to the heart ; and not me only, but my 
 worthy friend here, who has the same affection for you. and 
 the same esteem for your merit which I have. We have the 
 warmest wishes for your happiness, and heartily pray that you 
 may reap the rewards of your excellent virtues, and live to 
 find a republic in which you will be able, not only to revive, 
 but even to add to the fame of your illustrious ancestors. 
 For the forum was your birthright, your native theatre of 
 action ; and you were the only person that entered it, who had 
 not only formed his elocution by a rigorous course of private 
 practice, but enriched his oratory with the furniture of philo- 
 
REMARKS ON EMINENT ORATORS. 505 
 
 sophical science, and thus united the highest virtue to the 
 most consummate eloquence. Your situation, therefore, 
 wounds us with the double anxiety that you are deprived of 
 the republic, and the republic of you. But still continue, my 
 Brutus, (notwithstanding the career of your genius has beeij 
 checked by the rude shock of our public distresses,) continue 
 to pursue your favourite studies, and endeavour (what you 
 have almost, or rather entirely effected already) to distinguish 
 yourself from the promiscuous crowd of pleaders with which 
 I have loaded the little history I have been giving you. For 
 it would ill befit you (richly furnished as you are with 
 those liberal arts which, unable to acquire at home, you 
 imported from that celebrated city which has always been 
 revered as the seat of learning) to pass after all as an 
 ordinary pleader. For to what purposes have you studied 
 under Pammenes, the most eloquent man in Greece ? or what 
 advantage have you derived from the discipline of the old 
 Academy, and its hereditary master Aristus, (my guest and 
 very intimate acquaintance,) if you still rank yourself in the 
 common class of orators ? Have we not seen that a whole age 
 could scarcely furnish two speakers who really excelled in 
 their profession? Among a crowd of contemporaries, Galba, 
 for instance, was the only orator of distinction ; for old Cato 
 (we are informed^ was obliged to yield to his superior merit, 
 as were likewise his two juniors, Lepidus and Carbo. But, in 
 a public harangue, the style of his successors, the Gracchi, was 
 far more easy and lively; and yet, even in their time, the 
 Roman eloquence had not reached its perfection. Afterwards 
 came Antoniusand Crassus; and then Gotta, Sulpicius, Hor- 
 tensius, and — but I say no more ; I can only add, that if I 
 had been so fortunate [The conclusion is lost] 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Academics, discipline of the, 435 ; their 
 doctrines, 350. 
 
 Academy, the, 154, 155; orators of the, 
 155 ; manner of disputing in the, 164, 
 et seq. ; founded by Xenocrates, 349; 
 New, founded by Arcesilas, 351. 
 
 Accent, peculiarities of, 450. 
 
 Accius, T. remarks on, 483. 
 
 Achilles, the friend of Brutus, 109. 
 
 Acting, points to be observed in, 361. 
 
 Action, nature and principles of, 364 ; 
 various questions relating to, 365 ; on 
 the proper use of, 398 ; the speech of 
 the body, 399 ; displays the movements 
 of the soul, 399. 
 
 Actor, not condemned for being once 
 mistaken in an attitude, 174; emo- 
 tions of the, 274, 275. 
 
 Acts of a play, 21, et n. 
 
 Aculeo, 221; his great knowledge of 
 law, 194. 
 
 Acusilas, the historian, 234. 
 
 Admonition, how to be applied, 322. 
 
 ^lius, Sextus, the Roman lawyer, 196, 
 201, 422: commentaries of, 211; his 
 universal knowledge, 369; orations of, 
 449; remarks on, 461. 
 
 .ffimilianus, Africanus, an ironical jester, 
 302. 
 
 .ffimilius, M. 276; an eminent orator, 
 428. 
 
 .Enigmas of metaphor, 380. 
 
 iEschines, the orator, 155, 410; anecdote 
 of, 395, 396. 
 
 iEsop, the tragedian, 28. 
 
 ^sopus, 218. 
 
 Afius, C. 74. 
 
 Afranius, the senator, 53. 
 
 Afranius, M. the poet, 449. 
 
 Agesilaus, acquirements of, 372. 
 
 Agitation, on commencing a speech, na- 
 tural, 176. 
 
 Agnation, law of, 187, et n. 
 
 Agrarian law, brought in by Julius 
 Caesar, 21. 
 
 Ahenobarbus, Cn. D. the orator, 287. etn. 
 
 Albinus, A. the historian and orator, 
 423; notices of, 439. 
 
 Albucius, T. remarks on, 438. 
 
 Alcibiades. works of, 246, et n. ; his 
 learning and eloquence, 371, 409. 
 
 Alfius, the judge, 78. 
 
 Alienus, the lieutenant of Q. Cicero, 6. 
 
 Allegorical phraseology, use of, in ora- 
 tory, 299. 
 
 Allies, rights of, should be known to the 
 orator, 182. 
 
 Alpinus, S. orations of, 427. 
 
 Ambiguity, every subject possesses the 
 same susceptibleness of, 364. 
 
 Ambiguous words, plays on, 295, 296. 
 
 'A^0tAa0ia, abundance, 48. 
 
 Anaxagoras, 371, 413 ; his ridiculous 
 doctrine of black snow, 58. 
 
 Anger, proneness to, 17, 18; disposition 
 of Q. Cicero to, 25 ; feelings of, 280 ; 
 assumes a particular tone of voice, 
 397. 
 
 Anicius, 54 ; Cicero's opinion of, 74. 
 
 Animal body, harmony and perfection of 
 the, 384. 
 
 Annalis, 73. 
 
 Annius, T. an orator, 423. 
 
 Antigenidas, the musician, 454. 
 
 Antimachus, the poet, 456. 
 
 Antipater, of Sidon, the poet, 389. 
 
 Antipater, L. C. the historian, 235. 
 
 Antiphon, the essayist, 413. 
 
 Antiquity must be known by the orator, 
 182 ; study of, 194 e^ w., 195. 
 
 Antisthenes, founder of the Cynic sand 
 the Stoics, 349. 
 
 Antistius of Pyrgi, 307. 
 
 Antistius, P. remarks on, 468. 
 
 Antonius, C. 97. 
 
 Antonius, Marcus, the friend of Cicero, 
 27 ; one of the orators of Cicero's 
 Dialogues, 142, 149, 150, etseq.; prae- 
 tor at Rhodes, 162 ; his visit to Athens, 
 164 ; his merits as an orator, 310, 440, 
 441 ; death of, 334. 
 
 Antony, Caius, 107, et n. 
 
 Antony, Mark, his political struggles on 
 the death of Caesar, 90, 91 ; letter oi 
 Brutus respecting, 92 ; the enemy of 
 Cicero, 98, 112; named " the pro- 
 consul," 99 ; his partisans declared to 
 be public enemies, 104 ; his defeat. 
 
508 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 107, 119 ; flight of, 110 ; polluted with 
 vice, 123 ; his dangerous power in 
 Rome, 129 — 133; his tyranny and 
 oppressions, 137 ; pronounced a public 
 enemy, 139. 
 
 Anxiety, feelings of, 280, 281. 
 Arra^ 6ai€7v, a Greek proverb, 27. 
 
 Apollonius, the orator of Alabanda, 174. 
 
 Apollonius, the orator of Rhodes, 162;'] 
 
 Appelles, the Greek painter, 420. — ^ 
 
 Appian road. 9, et n. 
 
 Appius, a friend of Cicero, 57, 81 ; his 
 address, 58 ; wit of, 292. 
 
 Appius, the elder, saying of, 306. 
 
 Appius, the blind, an able speaker, 416. 
 
 Appius Pulcher, consulship of, 55. 
 
 Appollonia, people of, 26. 27. 
 
 Aptitude and congruity of language, 346. 
 
 Apuieian law, 251, et fi.; 278. 
 
 Apuleius commended by Brutus, 109. 
 
 Apuleius, L. the orator, 467. 
 
 Aquilius, M. his trial and acquittal, 255, 
 et n. ; defence of, 273, 275 ; remarks 
 on, 467. 
 
 Aratus, the astronomical poet, 161. 
 
 Arcanum, a village belonging to Q. 
 Cicero, 51, QQ. 
 
 Arcesilas, founder of the New Academy, 
 351. 
 
 Argument, three things requisite for 
 finding, 263 ; different modes of con- 
 ducting, 267, et seq. ; the force of, to 
 be resisted, 283; mode of arranging 
 facts and topics of, 313, et seq. 
 
 Arguments, the strongest to be main- 
 tained, 309. 
 
 Aristippus, founder of the Cyrenaic phi- 
 losophy, 349. 
 
 Aristotle, 154, 157; his divine genius, 
 263; his acuteness of intellect, 266; 
 founder of the Peripatetics, 349; his 
 manner of discussing questions, 354; 
 his system of teaching, 372 ; the tutor 
 of Alexander, 372 ; his remarks on 
 metrical quantities, 385, 386 ; nervous 
 style of, 435. 
 
 Arpinum, the birth-place of Cicero, 51, 
 66,69. 
 
 Arrius, notices of, 34, 474. 
 
 Arsis, explanation of, 385, n. 
 
 Art, how far necessary in oratory, &c. 
 176 ; not necessary to understand 
 every art, 203 ; has no concern with 
 wit, 288 ; harmony in the works of, 
 384, 385. 
 
 Arts, attainments in the, 357. 
 
 Arts and sciences, writers on the, must 
 be read by the orator, 1S2; a know- 
 ledge of, essential to oratory, 193. 
 
 Ascanio, 80. 
 
 Asclepiades, the physician, 159. 
 
 Asellus, jests on, 297, et w., 301. 
 
 Asia Minor, Quintus Cicero's govern- 
 ment in, 1, et seq. ; Greeks of, 5, et n. ; 
 temptations to peculation in, 5, 6 ; 
 beneficial effects of good government 
 
 in, 12: relieved from the taxation of 
 the ^diles, 13. 
 
 Ateius, 53. 
 
 Athenians, learning among the, neg- 
 lected, 343. 
 
 Athens, laws of, 208; the earliest re- 
 cords of eloquence there found, 408, 
 409; the early orators of, 409; rheto- 
 ricians of, 409. 
 
 Attachment, law'of, 189. 
 
 Attains, the Iphemian, 28. 
 
 Attic, remarks on the word, 488, 489. 
 
 Attic orators, 489, 490. 
 
 Attica, the daughter of Atticus, 1 14, ef n. 
 
 Atticus, T. Pomponius, Cicero's letter 
 to, respecting his brother, 30, 31 ; let- 
 ter of Brutus to, 111 ; conference held 
 with eminent orators, 404, el seq. ; his 
 abridgment of "Universal History," 
 405. 
 
 Attius, the poet, 431, 469. 
 
 Aufidius, T. remarks on, 452. 
 
 Aulus, Gabinius, the consul, 22. 
 
 Aurelian law, 34, ei n. 
 
 Autronius, P. remarks on, 473. 
 
 Balbi, the two, 353. 
 
 Balbus, 71; correspondence of, noticed, 
 bl. 
 
 Balbus, L. L. an able speaker, 445. 
 
 Barrus, T. B. orations of, 449. 
 
 Bequests, law of, 188, eb n. 
 
 Bestia, the tribune, 112; Cicero makes 
 a speech in defence of, 45 ; notices of, 
 437. 
 
 Bibulus, the consul, 2, 43, 44; resists 
 the Agrarian law, 21. 
 
 Bibulus, L. commended by Brutus, 109. 
 
 Bibulus, M. notices of, 482. 
 
 Bilienus, C. remarks on, 451. 
 
 Bills of exchange, Cicero's questions 
 respecting, 34. 
 
 Blandus, in Phrygia, 23, et n. 
 
 Books, Cicero's suggestions respecting 
 the collecting of, 80. 
 
 Bovillae, %1. 
 
 Breath, exercise of the, 181. 
 
 Brevity, in a speech, 318; sometimes 
 obtained by metaphor, 377, 378 ; some- 
 times a real excellence, 414. 
 
 Bribery, provisions against, noticed, 34, 
 et n. ; candidates for the consulship 
 impeached for, 7Q ; charges of, 250. 
 
 Briso, M. A. the tribune, 428. 
 
 Britain, Q,. Cicero's letters on, noticed, 
 65 ; Q. Cicero a resident of, 65, 71 ; 
 Caesar's letter from, 75. 
 
 Brutus, D. son of Marcus Brutus, 125, 
 431; honours proposed to, 126; re- 
 marks on, 451. 
 
 Brutus, Lucius Junius, powers of his 
 mind, 152 ; his great capacities, 415. 
 
 Brutus, Marcus Junius, Cicero's letters 
 to, 90, et seq. ; his letters to Cicero, 
 92, 100, 106, 108, 109, 117, 128; his 
 
INDEX. 
 
 509 
 
 Struggles on the death of Caesar, 90 ; 
 his letters differently arranged in dif- 
 ferent editions, 93, 94 n. ; requires 
 money and reinforcements, 93, 95 ; his 
 military position, 98; his successes, 
 104, 106 ; military forces of, 110, 119 ; 
 his letter to Atticus, 111 ; Cicero's ad- 
 vice to, 1 1 1 , his high opinion of Cicero, 
 113, 114 ; his opinions of Octavius, 
 113; his retreat from Velia, 124; re- 
 fuses to solicit the clemency of Octa- 
 vius, and denies his regal authority, 
 128 — 133 ; Cicero's high encomium of, 
 133; his return to Rome advised by 
 Cicero, 133, 134; his nephews, 135; 
 witticisms of Crassus against, 285, 
 286 ; Cicero's conference with, on emi- 
 nent orators, 402, et seq. ; remarks on, 
 438, 451, 490; lamentations of Cicero 
 at his political difficulties, 504; his di- 
 versified talents, 504, 505. 
 Buffoon, what so ridiculous as a, 294. 
 
 CiEciLius, the writer of comedies, 231, 
 et n. 
 
 Caecilius, L. his character, 24. 
 
 Caelius, C. remarks on, 448. 
 
 CcElius, L. an elegant writer, 430. 
 
 Cselius, M. high character of, 484. 
 
 Caepio, Q, the orator, 467 ; his trial and 
 banishment, 276, etn.; remarks on, 439. 
 
 Caepios, the two, judgment and eloquence 
 of, 428. 
 
 Caesa, meaning of, 286 n. 
 
 Caesar, C. the senator, 39. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, his political ohjects, 2; 
 his contests, 21; brings in the Agrarian 
 law, 21; the province of Cisalpine Gaul 
 and lUyricum assigned to him, 22 ; Ci- 
 cero's praises of, 57, 58 ; Cicero receives 
 a flattering letter from, 60, 61 ; his Bri- 
 tish expedition, 65 ; his comments on 
 Cicero's verses noticed, 65 ; his regard 
 for the Ciceros, 69 ; losses sustained 
 by, 72; death of his daughter Julia, 
 72 n. ; writes from Britain to Cicero, 
 75 ; his good^vill towards Cicero, 82 ; 
 state of parties on his death, 90 ; re- 
 marks on, 224, 225, 476, 478; his elo- 
 quence, 477 ; added all the various 
 ornaments of elocution, 480. 
 
 Caesius, an officer of Q.Cicero, 8, 23, &7, 
 
 Caespasius, C. and L. remarks on, 474. 
 
 Caesulanus, remarks on, 438. 
 
 Caius, a common praenomen among the 
 Romans ; see passim. 
 
 Calamis, the Greek sculptor, 420. 
 
 Calidianus, C. C. remarks on, 474. 
 
 Calidius, the advocate of Gabinius, 75 , 
 high character of, 484 485. 
 
 Callisthenes, the Olynthian writer, 59, 
 ef n. ; the historian, 2.36. 
 
 Calpumius, Piso, tlie consul, 22. 
 
 Calventius, M. his speech noticed, 70. 
 
 Calvinus, punning anecdote of, 293, et n.; 
 notices of, 438. 
 
 Calvus, punning on the word, 294. 
 
 Calvus, C. L. high character of, 487, 488. 
 
 Campania, lands in, 47. 
 
 Canachus, the Greek sculptor, 420. 
 
 Candavia, near Macedonia, 110. 
 
 Caninius, 42. 
 
 Canius, C. witty ingenuit}^ of, 305. 
 
 Canutius, remarks on, 461. 
 
 Caunians, prefer paying taxes to the Ro- 
 mans instead of the Rhodians, 16. 
 
 Capitation tax, difficulty of collecting at 
 Rome, 135. 
 
 Capito, L. 72. 
 
 Capitol, design and beauty of the, 385. 
 
 Capitolihe College expels Marcus Furius 
 Flaccus, 47, et n. 
 
 Carbo, Caius, the orator, 44, 181, 428: re- 
 marks on, 430, 466, 493 ; death of, 334. 
 
 Carbo, Cn. the consul, 153, et n. ; an 
 orator, 467. 
 
 Cameades, the orator and philosopher, 
 155, 264, 266. 
 
 Carvilius, S. punning anecdote of, 293. 
 
 Casca, the conspirator, 112. 
 
 Cascellius, M. 24. 
 
 Cassius, the friend of Q. Cicero, 27, 40; 
 his difficulties on the death of Caesar, 
 90 ; holds Syria, 93 ; his military suc- 
 cess, 96, 97. 
 
 Cassius, Lucius, eloquence of, 428. 
 
 Catienus, Titus, his character, 24, 25. 
 
 Catiline, conspiracy of, 112, et n. 
 
 Cato, C. the senator, 39, 4*2, 44; speech 
 of, 50 ; nephew of Africanus, 431. 
 
 Cato, Marcus, opposes the Agrarian law, 
 21; his life endangered, 29; inveighs 
 against Pompey, 43, 44; sale of his 
 gladiators and matadors, 49; repu- 
 diated by the consuls, 53 ; his influen- 
 tial position, 64 ; notices of, 206, 235, 
 420, 467 ; his definition of an orator, 
 244 n.; saying of, 302; his wit, 304; 
 his great acquirements, 370; speeches 
 of, 418, 426; a great orator, 419; his 
 contemporary orators, 422. 
 
 Catulus, Q. 71, 224, 467 ; his jest on Phi- 
 lippus, 296; his death, 334; remarks 
 on, 438, 479. 
 
 Causes in law, on the management and 
 conducting of, 248 — 254 ; inquiry into 
 the nature of, 257 ; two species of 
 ignorantly stated, 258; arguments to 
 he drawn from, 268 ; the points of to be 
 pleaded, 309, 311; mode of conduct- 
 ing, 462. 
 
 Cavillatio, meaning of the word, 283, n. 
 
 Censorian laws, 17, etn. 
 
 Censorinus, the friend of Q.Cicero, 27; 
 remarks on, 472. 
 
 Censuring, rules for, 325. 
 
 Centumviri, a body of inferior judices, 
 187; their decisions. 188, 189, 190. 
 
 Cethegus, M. C, eloquence of, 416; 
 notices of, 417, 418. 
 
 Cethegus, P. remarks on, 452. 
 
 Chaerippus, an officer of Q. Cicero's, 8. 
 
510 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Character, foundations for dignity of, 
 10. 
 
 Charges, various kinds of, 250, et seg. 
 
 Charisius, notice of, 4b9, 
 
 Charmadas, of Athens, 155, 156, 328; 
 his speeches, 164 — 166. 
 
 Chersonese, Roman armies in the, 110. 
 
 Children, on disinheriting, 188, et n. 
 
 Chiio, notice of, 67. 
 
 Chors, meaning of, 299, n. 
 
 Chrysippus, the philosopher, 80, 83, 156. 
 
 CiCEKo, Marcus Tully, letters of, to 
 his brother Quintus, 1 — 89; the occa- 
 sions on which they were written, 1, 
 21, 30, 38, 52, 55, 66] his political 
 position, 29; his numerous friends, 
 29 ; his impeachment threatened by 
 Clodius, 29, 30; letter of, written 
 while in exile at Thessalonica, 30 ; his 
 lamentations while in exile, 30, et seq., 
 35 ; his letter to Atticus, 30, 31, et n.; 
 his aifection for his brother, 31, «. ; 
 commends his children to the care of 
 his brother, 35 ; causes of his self- 
 excitement, 36; the friends who are 
 desirous of saving him, 3() ; had not 
 been formally banished, thouj,^h his 
 house and villa had been seized, 38; 
 recalled from exile, and recompense 
 made for his losses, 38 ; his account 
 of the proceedings in the senate-house, 
 39; his speech in the senate, 40; 
 mentions the two yoimger Ciceros, 60; 
 attacks Gabinius, 76 ; his numerous 
 engagements, 71; defends Gabinius, 
 78, 79; his opinion of his own versi 
 fication, 80 ; his works on the best 
 form of government, 81 ; his ideas on 
 writing poetry, 82, 85; vexations to 
 which he is exposed, 82, 83 ; his letters 
 Vo Brutus, 90 — 135; with introductory 
 remarks, 90; his difficulties after the 
 death of Caesar, 90, 91; his son com- 
 mended by Brutus., 93; his philippics, 
 93; his son, in military command un- 
 der Brutus, 108, 109; opposes Antony, 
 124; the advice of Brutus to, as to the 
 power of Octavius and Antony, 129 — 
 133; his epistle to Octavius, 136; his 
 portraiture of the times, addressed to 
 Octavius, 136 — 111; his Dialogues on 
 the " Character of the Ora or," 142, 
 et seg. ; course of municipal honours 
 through which he passed, 143, et n. ; 
 the troubles in which he was at times 
 engaged, 143; jest of, 300; his arrival 
 at Rhodes, 402; his conference with 
 Brutus and Pomponius on eminent 
 orators, 404, et seq. ; his literary and 
 political career, 497, et seq. ; the suc- 
 cessor of Hortensius, 501. 
 
 Cicero, Quintus, letters of his brother 
 Marcus addressed to, 1, et seq. ; occa- 
 sions on which they were written, see 
 ante; his command in Asia extended 
 to a third year, 1; advantages of his 
 
 position, 4; invested with high mni- 
 tary authority, 5; his integrity, 6; 
 everywhere admired for his virtues, 6; 
 his lieutenants in Asia, 6; advice as 
 to his duties, 7, 8; beneficial results of 
 his wise government, 12, 13; advised to 
 persevere in his good government, 15 ; 
 his political virtues, 17; advised to 
 regulate his temper, 18, 19; general 
 advice to, 20; character of his asso- 
 ciates, 23 — 25; hints on the selection 
 of letters written to him, 26 ; reproved 
 respecting his letters on the disposition 
 of property, 26; his brother's com- 
 plaints against his government of 
 Asia Minor, 30 ; quits his government, 
 and hastens to Rome, where his 
 enemies were preparing to impeach 
 him, 30, etn.; his 'brother's lamenta- 
 tions, 30, 31 ; appointed one of Pom- 
 pey's commissioners in Sardinia, 41, 
 et n. ; goes to Gaul as one of Caesar's 
 lieutenants, 55 ; a resident of Britain, 
 6b, 71; his houses and villas, 66, 67, 
 69, 71 ; his letters praised by his 
 brother, 73; his rural matters, 77; 
 education of his son, 78, 89; the Dia- 
 logues on Oratory, written at the 
 request of, 142. 
 
 Cincian law, notices of the, 307, n. 
 
 Cincius, 47, 68; repartee of, 306. 
 
 Circumluvions, law of, 187, et n. 
 
 Circumstances, arguments to be drawn 
 from, 268. 
 
 Circumveniri, punning on the word, 294, 
 et n. 
 
 Citae, the legal meaning, 210, n. 
 
 Cities, restoration of, in Asia Minor, 12. 
 
 Civil affairs, chief qualification for giving 
 counsel in, 321. 
 
 Civil law, on the proper understanding 
 of the, 195, et seq.; must be thoroughly 
 studied by the orator, 182, 184; con- 
 fusion arising from the ignorance 
 of, 185, 186; delight in acquiring the 
 knowledge of it, 194, 195, et seq. ; 
 changes in the, 196, et n. ; the know- 
 ledge of, not always necessary in ora- 
 tory, 212, 214, etseq. 
 
 Civili, explanation of, 158 n. 
 
 Claudicat, punning on the word, 293. 
 
 Claudius, A. eloquence of, 415, 431.; 
 notices of, 482. 
 
 Claudii, 189. 
 
 Cleon, the orator, 409. 
 
 Clisthenes, oratory of, 409. 
 
 Clitomachus, 155. 
 
 Clodius, C. notices of, 448. 
 
 Clodius, L. tribune of the people, 2 ; the 
 friend of Cicero, 91. 
 
 Clodius, Publius, threatens the impeach- 
 ment of Cicero, 29, 30; his acts of 
 despotism and cruelty, 39, 40 ; his 
 speech in the senate, 40; obtains the 
 tribuneship through the interest of 
 Caesar< &{> '- his various measures, 30 ; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 511 
 
 his bitterness, 86 ; his contests in the 
 senate, 43, 44; his wish to obtain an 
 embassy, 52, et n. ; his letter to Caesar 
 noticed, 70. 
 
 Coelius, S. impeachment and trial of, 
 50, 58. 
 
 Co-heirs, Roman law of, 210. 
 
 Collocation of words, 382. 
 
 Colons, minute sentences, 447. 
 
 Comitia, holding of the, 64, 58; brought 
 to an interregnum, 86. 
 
 Commagene, king of, 56. 
 
 Common-places to be fixed in the me- 
 mory, 269. 
 
 Common things, eloquence of, 234. 
 
 Comparative, two sorts of questions re- 
 garding the, 365. 
 
 Comparison, a jest may be derived from, 
 300. 
 
 Composition of words, 382. 
 
 Confidence, in whom it should be placed, 
 8. 
 
 Consequential, questions connected with 
 the, 365. 
 
 Consolation must be treated with elo- 
 quence, 234. 
 
 Consuls, alienated from the cause of 
 Cicero, 36; their absolute power, 53. 
 
 Consulship, contests for the, 63, et n. ; 
 candidates for the, impeached for 
 bribery, IQt, 77; Messala elected to 
 the, 88. 
 
 Contested causes, difficulties of, 240. 
 
 Contraries, arguments to be drawn from, 
 268. 
 
 Copiousness of matter produces copious- 
 ness of language, 367. 
 
 Coponius, M. 190, 260. 
 
 Corax, 166; jests on the name, 354. 
 
 Corculum, a surname of Scipio Xasica, 
 422, et n. 
 
 Coriolanus, exile and death of, 412. 
 
 Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, 
 463. 
 
 Cornelius, C. the informer, 44. 
 
 Cornelius, P. anecdote of, 301. 
 
 Corruption, decree of the senate on the 
 subject of, 48 ; prevalence of, at Rome, 
 63, 64. 
 
 Coruncanius, T. wisdom of, 370 ; his 
 eloquence, 415. 
 
 Costume of speech, 178. 
 
 Cotta, C. A. one of the personages of 
 Cicero's Dialogues, 142, 149, 150, et 
 seq.; expelled from office, 334; his 
 faults of pronunciation, 344. 
 
 Cotta, L. a skilful speaker, 423 ; re- 
 marks on, 440, 460, 479. 
 
 Countenance, its importance in oratory, 
 398, 399. 
 
 Country, love of, 195. 
 
 Crassipes^ the son-in-law of Cicero, 46, 
 47. 
 
 Crassus, Justinianus, the friend of Cicero, 
 86. 
 
 Crassus, Lucius L. one of the orators of 
 
 Cicero's Dialogues, 142, 149, et seq. , 
 his praises of oratory, 150 ; quaestor 
 in Asia, 155, et n. ; his oratorical 
 accomplishments, 254 ; his witticisms 
 against Brutus, 285, 286 ; jesting of, 
 299 ; witty sarcasm of, 304 ; his inge- 
 nious mode of examination, 306 ; his 
 varied talents, 329, 330, 446 ; anecdote 
 of, 336 ; his general views of eloquence, 
 337, et seq. ; his great skill as an orator, 
 442 ; his skDful pleading, 457 ; his 
 oration in defence of Curius, 478. 
 
 Crassus, Marcus, the praetor, 184; his 
 great acquirements, 471 ; his political 
 power, 2 ; consulship of, 52, 
 
 Crassus, P. 186, etn.; 211 ; wisdom of, 
 370; an orator of great merit, 428; 
 notices of, 429; his high character, 
 487. 
 
 Crebrius, notices of, 83. 
 
 Criminal matters, modes of conducting, 
 250. 
 
 Critias, writings of, 246, etn.] his learning 
 and eloquence, 371, 409. 
 
 Critolaus, the philosopher, 264, 265. 
 
 Ctesiphon, 395, 396. 
 
 Culleo, auction of his property, 41. 
 
 Curio, C. the orator, 43, 44, 248, 432 ; his 
 genius, 435, 436 ; the third best orator 
 of his age, 463 ; his want of memory, 
 465 ; family of, 464 ; remarks on, 464, 
 465 ; his high character, 487. 
 
 Curius, M. the friend of Cicero, 36, 190, 
 210, 284; eloquence of,416. 
 
 Curtius, a candidate for the tribuneship, 
 70. 
 
 Cychereus, letter of, noticed, 110. 
 
 Cynics, Antisthenes the founder of, 349. 
 
 Cyrenaic philosophy, Aristippus the 
 founder of, 349. 
 
 Cyrus, the architect, 41. 
 
 " Cyrus," of Xenophon, its objects, 12. 
 
 Decius, p. style of, 432. 
 
 Definition, meaning of the term, 193; 
 how far useful, 251 ; the various dis- 
 putes on, 365. 
 
 Deliberations in cases of law, 250. 
 
 Delivery, one of the essentials of an 
 oration, 178 n.; manner of, the sole 
 power in oratory, 395 ; Demosthenes' 
 opinion of, 395 ; the voice materially 
 contributes to its effectiveness, 3L-9. 
 
 Demades, the orator, 410. 
 
 Demochares, the Greek writer, 247 ; 
 notices of, 489. 
 
 Democritus, the philosopher, 156 ; his 
 followers, 153. 
 
 Demosthenes, possessed of the utmost 
 energy of eloquence, 165 ; his ef- 
 forts to acquire perfection, 218; his 
 opinion of the chief requisite of elo- 
 quence, 395 ; a complete orator, 410 ; 
 style of, 435. 
 
 ^^laXeKTiKt], the art taught by Diogenes, 
 265. 
 
c 
 
 512 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Diligence, requisite for finding argu- 
 ment, 262 ; to be particularly culti- 
 vated, 262. 
 
 Dinarchus, the orator, 410. 
 
 Diogenes, the philosopher, 264, 265. 
 
 Dion of Syracuse, learning of, 371. 
 
 Dionysius, 236 ; a great intriguer, 59. 
 
 Dionysopolis, the people of, 24. 
 
 Diophanes, the eloquent Grecian, 430. 
 
 Diphilus, 66, 67. 
 
 Disposition, one of the parts of an 
 oration, 178 w. 
 
 Disputation, manner of, among the 
 Greeks, 164, et seq., 169; no kinds of, 
 should be foreign to the orator, 368. 
 
 Dissimilarity, arguments to be drawn 
 from, 268. 
 
 Dissimulation, joking slm.ilar to a sort 
 of, 302. 
 
 Distortion of features, unworthy of an 
 orator, 295. 
 
 Di visores, explanation of the term, 297 n. 
 
 Dolabella, kills Trebonius, 92; his career 
 in Asia, 93 ; his oppressions, 97 ; de- 
 feated and slain, 110 ; reports respect- 
 ing, 1)0. 
 
 Domitius Calvinus, 79. 
 
 Domitius, Cnaeus, the praetor, 29, 58 ; 
 consulship of, 55, 58, 63 ; his coalition 
 with Memmius, 63 w. ; befriended by 
 Cicero, 72 ; impeached for bribery, 76, 
 77; commended by Brutus, 109; jest 
 of Crassus against, 291 w. ; remarks 
 on, 448. 
 
 Domitius, L. notices of, 482. 
 
 Doubt, matters admitting of, how to be 
 decided, 261. 
 
 Drusus, 142, 149 ; acquitted of prevari- 
 cation, 64 ; his complaints against 
 Philippus, 332. 
 
 Drusus, M. and C. the orators, 432, 467. 
 
 Duodecim Scriptis, the game so called, 
 203 n. 
 
 Dyrrhachium, 93, 96. 
 
 Ea Trao-a?, quoted by Cicero. 54. 
 
 Echion, the Greek painter, 420. 
 
 Egilius, witty repartee of, 304. 
 
 El 6' ev aia eCncra?,'quoted by Cicero, 54. 
 
 Elocution necessary in oratory, 342. 
 
 Eloquence, diflaculty of acquiring the 
 art of, .147 ; the piaises of Crassus in 
 favour of, 150, 151 ; Scsevola's opinions 
 on, opposed to those of Crassus, 152 ; 
 the early Romans destitute of, 152; 
 ancient laws, customs, &c. not esta- 
 blished by, 153; saying of Socrates 
 on, 159 : connected with oratory, 
 163; consists in the art of speak- 
 ing well, 164; of the Academicians, 
 164, et seq. ; different from good 
 speaking, 167 ; every branch of know- 
 ledge necessary to, 222 ; advantage 
 of, 229 ; whether it is desirable ? 
 232; of common things, 234; power of, 
 
 mostly the same, 321 ; one and the 
 same, in whatever regions of debate 
 engaged, 338, 339; the different kinds 
 of, 339, et seq. ; the distinguishing 
 title of, 346; power of, denominated 
 wisdom, 347; the real power of, 353; 
 various requisites for, 359, 391, etseq.; 
 the greatest glory of, to exaggerate by 
 embellishment, 362 ; wonderful love 
 of, in Greece, 408; the house of .Iso- 
 crates the school of, 409 ; the age when 
 it flourished, 410, etseq. ; the attendant 
 of peace, &c. 413 ; what is the perfect 
 character of, 459. See Oratory and 
 Speaking. 
 
 Embassies, nature of, explained, 52. 
 
 Embellishment, one of the parts of an 
 oration, 178 w. 
 
 Emotions of the mind, 272, et seq. ; ex- 
 pressed on the countenance, 396 ; and 
 by gestures, 398. 
 
 Empedoclea of Sallust, 56. 
 
 Empedocles, 203. 
 
 Ennius, 181; an axiom of, 284; his "An- 
 nals," 416; remarks on, 417; notices 
 of, 420, 421 ; death of, 422. 
 
 Entreaty, sometimes very advantageous, 
 322. 
 
 Epaminondas, talents of, 372 ; erudition 
 of, 414. 
 
 Ephorus, the historian, 236. 
 
 Equity, sometimes the object of oratory, 
 178; on questions of, 260. 
 
 Eretrians, sect of, 349. 
 
 Evidence, to be given with great exact- 
 ness, 233. 
 
 Exhortation must be treated with elo- 
 quence, 234, 
 
 Exile, letter written by Cicero in, 30; 
 miseries of enumerated, 32 ; causes 
 of, 36. 
 
 Exordium of a speech, 316 — 318. 
 
 Expectation, jokes contrary to, 206. 
 
 Expediency, how to be treated in ora- 
 tory, 311. 
 
 Eyes, management of the, in oratory , 399. 
 
 Fabius, C. 25. 
 
 Fabius Maximus, jest on, 302. 
 
 Fabius, S. the orator, 423. 
 
 Fabricius, the friend of Cicero, 36. 
 
 Fabricius, C. witticism of, 301; eloquence 
 of, 415. 
 
 Facetiousness, good effect of, 322. 
 
 Facts, questions on the nature of, in- 
 numerable and intricate, 259 ; from the 
 facts themselves, very few and clear, 
 259 ; statement of, in a speech, 319. 
 
 Fadius, the friend of Cicero, 36. 
 
 Fannii, Caii, the orators, 429. 
 
 Fannius, the annalist, 301. 
 
 Farmers of the revenue, 4; disputes 
 among the, 5 ; on the just manage- 
 ment of, 15, 16; wrongs committed by 
 the, 16; released from some of the 
 
INDEX. 
 
 '513 
 
 conditions of their contract, 22 ; their 
 extortions in Syria, 50, et n. 
 
 Favonius, 43. 
 
 Fear, feelings of, 280 ; assumes a parti- 
 cular tone of voice, 397. 
 
 Feelings to be worked on, 280. 
 
 Felix, will of, left unsigned, 89. 
 
 Festivals of Rome in December, 39, et n. 
 
 Fimbria, C. notices of, 245, 438, 471. 
 
 Flaccus, M. F. a tolerable orator, 431, 432. 
 
 Flaminius, T. an accurate speaker, 432; 
 remarks on, 479. 
 
 Flavins, his disputed estate referred to 
 Cicero, 110. 
 
 Flavins, Cn. 192. 
 
 Flavins, L. his interview with Cicero, 
 2Q, 27. 
 
 Flood of waters at Rome, 84. 
 
 Folly, witty, mode of exposing, 304. 
 
 Formiae in Campania, 9. 
 
 Fortune not to be relied on so much as 
 virtue and moderation, 4. 
 
 Forum, affairs of the, T6. 
 
 Friendship, professions of, to be guard- 
 ed against, 8; especially among the 
 Greeks, 9. 
 
 Fufidius, 67 ; a tolerable pleader, 433. 
 
 Fufius, L. 190, 345; remarks on, 467. 
 
 Fulvius, the orator, 423. 
 
 Fundanus, C. 26. 
 
 Furius, L. 264. 
 
 Furius, M. expelled from the Capitoline 
 College, 47. 
 
 Fusius, 245. 
 
 Gabinian law, 58. 
 
 Gabinius, 29; proconsul of Syria, 51, et 
 n.; gojt^emor of Syria, 58; prosecuted 
 by different parties, 71, 75, 76 ; his un- 
 popularity, 74; his conduct, 75; im- 
 peached for bribery, 77, 78 ; detested 
 by all, 78; his acquittal, 78; Cicero 
 not an advocate, but simply a witness 
 respecting him, 87. 
 
 Galba, C. notices of, 437. 
 
 Galba, S. 153, 21 1; his tragic speech, 206 ; 
 repartee of, 299 ; the best speaker of 
 his age, 423 ; his successful pleadings, 
 425; his energetic defence against 
 Libo, 426; inferiority of his written 
 compositions, 427; remarks on, 492. 
 
 Gallus, C. A. an able speaker, 445. 
 
 Games, excessive taxation for support- 
 ing the, 13, etn. 
 
 Gaul, commotions in, 2. 
 
 Gauls, auxiliary forces from the, 119. 
 
 Gellius, 39, 430; remarks on, 421. 
 
 General, what he is, 200, 201. 
 
 Genius, the great end of speaking, 171 ; 
 ■requisite for finding argument, 262. 
 
 Gesture, appropriate, ought to attend the 
 emotions of the mind, 398. 
 
 Glabrio, notices of, 39, 473. 
 
 Glaucia, repartee of, 299: remarks on, 
 467. 
 
 Glory of a great name, 20. 
 
 Glycon, the physician of Pansa, 109. . 
 
 Good breeding essential to the orator, 161. 
 
 Gorgias, the Leontine, 169 ; his universal 
 knowledge, 368 ; a rhetorician, 409 ; an 
 essayist, 413. 
 
 Gorgonius, C. remarks on, 453. 
 
 Government, precepts on the just admi- 
 nistration of, 11, 12; beneficial results 
 of, under Q. Cicero, 12; the sort of wis- 
 dom applied to, 164; nature of, should 
 be known to the orator, 182. 
 
 Gracchus, the augur, 41. 
 
 Gracchus, Caius, his pitchpipe for regu- 
 lating the voice, 400 ; genius of, 436. 
 
 Gracchus, T. the Roman orator, 201, 422, 
 428; his effective delivery, 396; his 
 death, 430. 
 
 Grammarians, number of, who have ex- 
 celled, 145. 
 
 Granius, witticisms of, 292, 296, 305; 
 anecdote of, 450. 
 
 Gratidianus, M. 189, 449. 
 
 Gratidius, the lieutenant of Q. Cicero, 6. 
 
 Gratidius, M. notices of, 449. 
 
 *' Great Annals," the early records of 
 Rome, 234. 
 
 Greece, the studies and arts of, advan- 
 tageous, 14; the seven wise men of, 
 371 ; her wonderful love of eloquence, 
 408 ; orators of, very ancient, 414. 
 
 Greek, on the reading and study of, 236, 
 237. 
 
 Greek orators, translations of, 18. 
 
 Greek writers have produced their dif- 
 ferent styles in different ages, 246, 247 ; 
 their varied abilities, 263. 
 
 Greeks, their friendship to be guarded 
 against, 9 ; their right to pay taxes, 
 16 ; complaints of the, 23 ; oratory 
 of the, 148, 155; their manner of dis- 
 putation, 164 et seq., 169; character 
 of the, 226; their powers as writers 
 of history, 234 ; their manner of teach- 
 ing oratory, 242 ; objections to it, 243 ; 
 some degree of learning and politeness 
 among the, 359. 
 
 Greeks of Asia Minor, 5, et n. 
 
 Greville, punning on the name, 293, 
 294 w. 
 
 Gutta, supported by Po'mpey, 86. 
 
 Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor, 12. 
 
 Hand, action of the, in oratory, 398. 
 
 Hannibal, his opinion of Phormio's ora- 
 tion on the military art, 241. 
 
 Harmony of words, 382, 383 ; of natural 
 things, 384; of sounds, 390. 
 
 Hatred, feelings of, 280. 
 
 Hearers influenced by the different qua- 
 lities of a speaker, 271. 
 
 Hegesias, remarks on, 489. 
 
 Hellanicus, the historian, 234. 
 
 Helvetii, frequent inroads of the, 2. 
 
 Hephaestus of Apamea, 24. 
 
 Herctum, the legal meaning, 210, ct n. 
 
 Hercules of Polyctetus, 239. 
 
 L L 
 
514 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Herennius, M. remarks on, 448. 
 
 Herillians, sect of, 349. 
 
 Hermias, Cicero's letter respecting, 27. 
 
 Hermippus of Dion5Sopolis, 24. 
 
 Hermodorus the dock-builder, 159. 
 
 Herodotus, eloquence of, 235. 
 
 Herus, the bailiff of Cicero, 66. 
 
 Hierocles, 247. 
 
 Hippias of Elis, his universal knowledge, 
 368, 409. 
 
 Hirrus, Cicero sneers at, 86, 88. 
 
 Hirtius the consul, 91 ; slain in battle, 
 104. 
 
 History must be studied by the orator, 
 182 ; a knowledge of, essential to 
 oratory, 217; what are the talents 
 requisite for, 234 ; Greek and Latin 
 writers of, 234, 235, 236; how far is 
 it the business of the orator? 237; the 
 general rules of, obvious to common 
 sense, 237 ; humorous allusions may 
 be drawn from, 300 ; truth of, much 
 corrupted, 418. 
 
 Homer, eloquence appreciated by, 411; 
 poets existed before his time, 420. 
 
 Honour, how to be treated in oratory, 321 . 
 
 Honours, on the conferring of, 126, 127; 
 course of, through which the Romans 
 had to pass, 143, et n. ; whether they 
 should be sought ? 232. 
 
 Hope, feelings of, 280, 281. 
 
 Hortensius the orator, 401 ; his death, 
 402 ; his character, 402, et seq. ; his 
 genius, 469; his coevals, 470 ; biogra- 
 phical notices of, 494 ; his distin- 
 guished qualities, 495, 502, et seq.; 
 succeeded by Cicero, 501. 
 
 Hostilius, C. 210; " Cases of," 213. 
 
 House, contest respecting the sale of a, 
 189, 190. 
 
 Humanity, to be exhibited to those from 
 whom we received it, 14. 
 
 Humour, strokes of, necessary in oratory, 
 283, et seq. 
 
 Hypallage, form of, 380. 
 
 Hyperides, the orator, 410. 
 
 Hyps82us, his contest with C. Octavius, 
 184, 185, et n. 
 
 Ictus metrici, explained, 385 w. 
 Ill-temper, proneness to, 18. 
 Imitation, advice respecting, 245 ; the 
 
 orator should be moderate in, 291. 
 Impertinent, definition of the word, 225. 
 Impossible, on treating the, 321. 
 Incidi, explanation of the word, 70. 
 Indecency of language to be avoided in 
 
 oratory, 295. 
 Indiscretion, various ways in which it 
 
 may be prejudicial to the orator, 311, 
 
 et n. 
 Inheritances, formulae for entering on, 
 
 169, p.tn. 
 Inquiry, various subjects of, 364. 
 Instances, parallel, arguments to be 
 
 drawn from, 263. 
 
 Intestacy, law of, 189. 
 
 Intimacies, caution to be observed in the 
 formation of, 10. 
 
 Invention, one of the parts of an oration, 
 178 w. 
 
 Invention and arrangement essential to 
 oratory, 220. 
 
 Ionia, in Asia Minor, 12. 
 
 Ironical dissimulation sometimes pro- 
 duces an agreeable effect, 301. 
 
 Ironical use of words, 299. 
 
 Irony of Socrates, 491. 
 
 Isocrates, the father of eloquence, 223, 
 392 ; his house the school of elo- 
 quence, 246, 409 ; his mode of teach- 
 ing, 383, 410, 461 ; a writer of orations, 
 414. 
 
 Italy, formerly called '* Magna Graecia," 
 264. 
 
 Jesting, mimicry a species of, 295; the 
 various kinds of, 295, et seq. 
 
 Jests, Greek books on, 283 ; the kind that 
 excite laughter, 289, 293 ; various sorts 
 of, 295, et seq. ; infinite in variety, but 
 reducible to a few general heads, 308. 
 
 Jocosity, useful in oratory, 283. 
 
 Jokes, 289; sometimes border on scur- 
 rility, 292 ; often lie,in a single word, 
 297. See Jests. 
 
 Joking, caution to be observed in, 290. 
 
 Jov, feelings of, 280, 281. 
 
 Julius, C. 224; death of, 324; varied 
 talents of, 452. 
 
 Julius, L. death of, 334. 
 
 Junius, T. remarks on, 453. 
 
 Jupiter, a work so called, 52, 53 n. 
 
 Jurisprudence, a knowledge of essential 
 to oratory, 217. 
 
 Jus applicationis, 189. 
 
 Jus civile, 196. See Civil Law. 
 
 Jus publicum, the various heads of, 
 197 w. 
 
 Juventius, T. remarks on, 452, 
 
 Kindred, law of, 187, et n. 
 
 Knowledge, the liberal departments of, 
 linked together in one bond, 337 ; three 
 kinds of, 364 ; all the objects of, com- 
 prehended by certain distinguished 
 individuals, 369, 370. 
 
 Labeo, anoflBcerof Q.Cicero's, 8, 73, 99. 
 
 Laelia, the daughter of C. Laelius, 463 ; 
 her sweetness of voice, 344. 
 
 Laelius, C. 201, 264; his light amuse- 
 ments, 226; repartee of, 306; a finished 
 orator, 423, 424 ; his pleadings, 425 ; 
 esteemed the wisest of men, 463. 
 
 Laelius, Decimus, 227. 
 
 Lama, L. M. repartee of, 299. 
 
 Lamia, C. his boldness of speech, 58. 
 
 Lamiae, the, 45. 
 
 Language, purity of, necessary, 342; 
 faults of noticed, 343; on the ambi- 
 guity of, 345 ; form of, follows the 
 nature of our thoughts, 384; agreeable- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 515 
 
 ness and grace of, 385 ; metrical struc- 
 ture of, 385 ; the various figures which 
 tend to adorn, 391, et seq. ; fashionable 
 delicacy of, 450. 
 
 Larentia, the nurse of Romulus, 125. 
 
 Largius's limb, joke on Memmius re- 
 specting, 290, et n. 
 
 Laterium, a country house of Cicero's, 
 50; Cicero's description of, 68, 69. 
 
 Latiar, error in the name of, 46. 
 
 Latin, to he spoken with purity, 342. 
 
 Laughter, five things connected with, 
 which are subjects of consideration, 
 289; sort of jests calculated to excite, 
 293, 306. 
 
 Law, severity in its administration ne- 
 cessary, 10 ; qualities necessary for, 
 11; instances of ignorance of, 185, 
 18(5 ; various disputed cases of, 188 — 
 192; a knowledge of, necessary to the 
 orator, 209 ; case of, discussed be- 
 tween Crassus and Galba,210; cases 
 in which there can be no dispute, 211 ; 
 cases in which the civil law is not 
 absolutely necessary, 212, 214, et seq. 
 (see Civil Law.) 
 
 Laws must be understood by the orator, 
 182 ; difierent kinds of, specified, 187 ; 
 of Athens, 208. 
 
 Lawyer, who truly deserves the name ? 
 201. 
 
 Learning, advantages of, 356, 357 ; its 
 progress in Rome, 358 ; of the Greeks, 
 359. 
 
 Legatio libera, meaning of the term, 52. 
 
 Lentulus, Cn. 44, 471, 475. 
 
 Lentulus, L. the orator, his contests in 
 the senate, 41, 42; consulship of, 48; 
 engages to supply Rome with corn, 
 49 TO.; accuses Gahinius, 78; remarks 
 on, 423. 
 
 Lentulus, Lucius, son of the flamen, 
 71. 
 
 Lentulus, Marcellinus, consulship of, 
 38. 
 
 Lentulus, P. the preetor, 29, 201 ; elo- 
 quence of, 431 ; remarks on, 440. 
 
 Lentulus, P. and L. notices of, 482. 
 
 Lentulus, Spinther, consulship of, 38. 
 
 Lepidus, M. levity and inconsistency of, 
 94, 25 ; folly of, 1 16 ; his children suf- 
 ferers by it, 117 ; the fear in which he 
 was held, 117 ; his wickedness, 121 ; a 
 vacillating man, 123 ; his statue over- 
 thrown, 126 ; saying of, 307; witticism 
 of, 307 ; remarks on, 492. 
 
 Lepidus and Antony, kingly power trans- 
 ferred to, 123, 124, 
 
 Letters, of Cicerto to his brother 
 Quintus, 1 — 89 ; to Junius Brutus, 90 
 — 135 ; to Octavius, 1 36 (see Cicero) ; 
 Cicero complains of their non-arrival, 
 84, 85 ; cautions respecting the con- 
 veyance of, 85 ; of Junius Brutus to 
 Cicero, 92, 100, 106, 108, 109, 117, 128; 
 to Atticus, 111; those of Brutus dif- 
 
 ferently arranged in difiererrt editions. 
 
 93, 94 n. 
 Lex ^lia Fulvia, 30. 
 Lex Licinia Mucia de civibus regendis, 
 
 297. 
 Libo, T. the tribune, 426. 
 Liciniae, the, 463. 
 Licinius, the kidnapper, 25. 
 Licinius, the slave of ^Esop, 28. 
 Licinius, M. 45, 46. 
 Lictor, duties of his office, 8. 
 Literature and study the great pleasure 
 
 of Cicero, 87. 
 Livius, biographical notices of, 421. 
 Locusta, 6b. 
 
 Longilius, the contractor, 48. 
 Longinus; 217. 
 Love, feelings of, 280. 
 Lucilius, C. the satirist, 161, et n. ; a 
 
 man of great learning, 227 ; obscurity 
 
 of a passage in, 295, et n. 
 Lucius, a common Latin prsenomen ; 
 
 seep(Z55m. 
 Lucretius, poems of, 56. 
 Luculli, L. and M. the orators, 467. 
 Lucullus, M. the prsetor, 39. 
 Lupus, the senator, his speech, 39. 
 Lycurgus, 410, 411. 
 Lysias, a complete orator, 410, 411; 
 
 notices of, 418. 
 
 Macedonia, 155. 
 
 Macer, C. remarks on, 472. 
 
 Magius, jest respecting, 300; remarks 
 
 on, 452. 
 Magnesians, make honourable mention 
 
 of Q. Cicero, 55. 
 Mago, the Carthaginian, 214, et n. 
 Majesty, crime against, equivalent to 
 
 treason, 74, et n. 
 Mains, C. 160. 
 
 Maluginensis, M. S. joke of, 298. 
 Mancia, M. satirical jest on, 300. 
 Mancinus, C. case of, 191. 
 Manilian laws, 213. 
 
 Manilius, M. 201; his universal know- 
 ledge, 369; his judgment, 431. 
 Manlius, Cn. 255, et n. 
 Manucius, 73. 
 Manutius, Paul, 100, n.- 
 Marcelli, 189. 
 Marcellinus, the senator, his speech, 39; 
 
 Cicero's complaint against, 49. 
 Marcellus, M. 42, 159; remarks on, 440. 
 Marcus, a common prasnomen among 
 
 the Romans ; see passim, 
 Marcus, Q. a Roman orator, 423. 
 Marius, the friend of Cicero, 54, 55. 
 Marius, C. 276. 
 Marius, M. the orator, 467. 
 Matadors of Cato, 49. 
 Mathematics, the numbers who have 
 
 excelled in, 145. 
 Maximus, Q. the orator, 431. 
 Megarians, sect of, 349. 
 Megaristus of Antandros, 24. 
 
 ll2 
 
516 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Memmius, 29, 71; his coalition with 
 Domitius, 63, et n. ; exposes the coali- 
 tion, 72; impeached for bribery, 76^ 
 77; his reliance on Caesar, 86; jests 
 respecting, 290, 300, 301; his witty 
 reproof, 306; remarks on, 475. 
 
 Memmius, C. andL. remarks on, 440. 
 
 Memory, the repository of all things, 
 147 ; one of the requisites of an ora- 
 tor, 178, «.; to be exercised, 181, 182; 
 ait of, 311. 327, 328; Simonides the 
 inventor, 325. 326; a great benefit to 
 the orator, 326. 
 
 Menecles, of Alabanda, 247. 
 
 Menedemus. of Athens, 164. 
 
 Messala, 34; Cicero's opinion oi, 72, 
 86; impeached for bribery, 76, 77; 
 made consul, 88; his high character, 
 122; remarks on, 475. 
 
 Messala, V. elected consul, 63, et n. 
 
 Messidius, Qfi, 67. 
 
 Metaphor, a brief similitude, 376 ; on the 
 use of, 377; brevity sometimes ob- 
 tained by, 377, 378; not to be too far- 
 fetched, 379; on the connexion of 
 several metaphors, 381. 
 
 Metaphorical use of words, 299. 
 
 Metelli, C. and N. remarks on the, 475. 
 
 Metellus, notices of, 201, 301, et w., 439; 
 eloquence of, 416, 423. 
 
 Metellus Nepos, consulship of, 38. 
 
 Method, requisite for finding argument, 
 262. 
 
 Metonymy, form of, 380. 
 
 Metrical quantities of words or sen- 
 tences, 385, 386. 
 
 Metrodorus, 328, 353. 
 
 Military art, Phormio's lecture on the, 
 241. 
 
 Milo, the friend of Cicero, 36, 42, 43; 
 Cicero complains of his imprudence, 50 ; 
 applause awarded to, 71; opposed by 
 Pompey, 86; prepares to exhibit games, 
 86, 88; censured by Cicero, 88. 
 
 Mimicry, a kind of ludicrous jesting, 
 295. 
 
 Misenum, of Campania, 236. 
 
 Mnesarchus, 155, 164. 
 
 Modulation of words, 382, 383. 
 
 Mole, the rhetorician, 496, 
 
 Money, charges of extortion, 250; em- 
 bezzlement of, 250. 
 
 "Motus," meaning of, 171. 
 
 Mucia, sister of Metellus, 1. 
 
 Muciae, the, 463. 
 
 Mucius, P. 201, 211, 234. 
 
 Mucins, Q. 149, 197. 
 
 Mummius, L. and S. the PbOman orators, 
 427. 
 
 Murena, P. remarks on, 472. 
 
 Music, the numbers who have excelled 
 in, 145. 
 
 Myron, the Greek sculptor, 420. 
 
 Mysia, in Asia Minor, 12. 
 
 Mysians, mode of punishing two of 
 them, 24. 
 
 NiEvius, punning on the name, 294 
 
 %\Titings of, 417. 
 Narration, contained in a speech, 318; 
 
 difficulties of, 300. 
 Nasica, witty repartees of, 298, 303, 304. 
 Naso, L. O. 26. 
 Nassenius, C. recommended by Cicero, 
 
 101. 
 Nature, harmony and beauty of, 384. 
 Nature and genius, the great end of 
 
 speaking, 171. 
 Naucrates, writings of, 247, et n. 
 Nerius, Cn. the informer, 44. 
 Nero,' C. C. old saying of, 293. 
 Nerva, C. L. 438. 
 Nervii, of Gaul, 85. 
 Nicander, of Colophon, 161, et n. 
 Nicephorus, the bailiff of Q. Cicero, 68. 
 Nicias of Smyrna, 24. 
 Nicomaclius, the Greek painter, 420. 
 Nigidius, the praetor, 29. 
 Nobilior, punning alteration of the word, 
 
 296, et n. 
 Norbanus, C. the tribune, 255, et w., 273, 
 
 276, n., 277. 
 Numa Pompilius, 152, 264. 
 Numerius Furius, notices of, 357. 
 Nummius, punning on his name, 297. 
 Nuncupative wills, 206, et n. 
 Nymphon of Colophon, 24. 
 
 Obscurity, to be avoided in metaphor, 
 380. 
 
 Octavianus, or Octavius, his difficulties 
 on the death of Caesar, 90, 91 ; lauded 
 by Cicero, 98, 124; Brutus's opinion 
 of, 113, 114; the friend of Cicero, 120; 
 honours proposed to, 125 ; Brutus 
 refuses to solicit clemency from, or to 
 allow him regal authority, 128—133; 
 his obligations to Cicero, 134; Cicero's 
 epistle to, on his character and con- 
 duct, 136 — 141 ; this epistle considered 
 spurious, 136 w. ; his tyranny and op- 
 pression, 139, 140. 
 
 Octavius, Caius, the associate of Q. 
 Cicero, 25. 
 
 Octavius Cn. his wise administration, 
 11 ; his contest with Hypsaeus, 184, 
 185, ct n. ; eloquence of, 451. 
 
 Octavius, M. and Cn. the orators, 427, 
 467. 
 
 Oppius, the confidential friend of Caesar, 
 69, 70, 12, 73. 
 
 Oration, its eflfects when adorned and 
 polished, 151 ; the different methods 
 of dividing it, 242; difficulties attend- 
 ing it, 243. 
 
 Orations, written ones often inferior to 
 those spoken, 427. 
 
 Orator, The, Cicero's Dialogues on his 
 character, 142, et seq. ; when and why 
 composed, 142; the different persons 
 introduced, 142 ; must obtain the 
 knowledge of everything important, 
 148 ; to be accomplished in every sub- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 617 
 
 ject of conversation and learning, 152 ; 
 can speak well on every subject, 156 ; 
 his power consists in exciting the 
 feelings, 157 ; he is an orator who can 
 define his power, 159; ethical philo- 
 sophy may be mastered by, 161 ; good 
 breeding essential to him. 161 j nature 
 and genius his great aids, 171 ; defini- 
 tions of the complete orator, 172, 173, 
 et seq. ; condemned for the' least imper- 
 fection, 174, 175; writing his best 
 modeller and teacher, IbO; his general 
 studies, 181, 182; the various depart- 
 ments of knowledge with which he 
 should be familiar, 182 ; a knowledge 
 of civil law absolutely necessary, 184, 
 et seq. ; an acquaintance with the 
 arts and sciences essential, 193; one 
 who can use appropriate words and 
 thoughts, 202 ; must study philosophy, 
 204 ; the various objects he ought to 
 embrace, 204, 205 ; one who can use 
 the art of persuasion, 218; invention 
 and arrangement essential, 220, etseq.; 
 no excellence superior to that of a con- 
 summate orator, 229, 230 ; how far 
 history is his business, 237 ; the kinds 
 of subjects on which he may speak, 
 238, 239; Cato defines him as " vir 
 bonus dicendi peritus," 244 n. ; his 
 excitement of the passions, 280, 281 ; 
 his jocosity and wit, 283; should be 
 moderate in imitation, 291 ; distortion 
 of features unworthy of the, 295 ; his 
 various kinds of indiscretion, 311, ein.; 
 his proper mode of arranging facts and 
 arguments, 313, et seq.; a popular 
 assembly his most enlarged scene, 
 321, 322; his use of panegyric, 323— 
 325 ; memory greatly beneficial to, 326 ; 
 should speak with perspicuity and 
 gracefulness, 342 ; compared with the 
 philosopher, 371, 372 ; first made his 
 appearance in Athens, 408; the prin- 
 cipal qualities required, 426 ; three 
 things which he should be able to 
 effect, 454. 
 
 Orator and poet nearly allied, 161. 
 
 Orators, opinions of the Academicians 
 on, 164, et seq. ; a wide distinction 
 between the accomplishments and 
 natural abilities of, 339 ; enumeration 
 of, 339 ; of antiquity, 347, 348 ; Cicero's 
 remarks on, 402, et seq. ; the early 
 ones of Athens, 409 ; the Rhodian and 
 Asiatic, 414 ; different styles of, 435 ; 
 two classes of good ones, 460; of the 
 Attic style, 488—490. 
 
 Orators of Greece, very ancient, 414. 
 
 Orators of Rome, the early ones, 415, et 
 seq.; their age and merits, 435, et seq ; 
 contemporary ones, 453 ; the leading 
 ones, 462 ; their treatment, 496, 497. 
 
 Oratory, on the general study of, 150; 
 business and art of, to be divided into 
 five parts, 178 ; writing the best mo- 
 
 deller and teacher of, 180; may exist 
 without philosophy, 208 ; legal know- 
 ledge necessary to, 209 ; a perfect 
 mastery over all the arts not necessary 
 in, 215, 216; strokes of wit and hu- 
 mour useful in, 283, et seq. ; joking in 
 to be cautiously practised, 290 ; on the 
 use of the ridiculous in, 292, 294; 
 sorts of jests calculated to excite 
 laughter, 293, 294 ; punning in, 292— 
 294 ; peculiar habits to be avoided, 
 295 ; various kinds of jesting used in, 
 295, et seq. ; talents applicable to, 310, 
 311; ancient professors of, 368; me- 
 trical harmony to be observed in, 385, 
 386 ; the most illiterate are capable of 
 judging of, 390 ; the various requisites 
 of, 391, et seq. ; considerations of what 
 is the most becoming, 395 ; importance 
 of delivery, 395 ; almost peculiar to 
 Athens, 414; on the effects of, 455, 
 456. See Eloquence and Speaking. 
 
 Orbius, P. remarks on, 452. 
 
 Oresta, L. and C. A. the Roman orators, 
 427. 
 
 Orfius, M. a Roman knight, commended 
 by Cicero, 60. 
 
 "Origines," a work written by Marcus 
 Cato, 206. 
 
 *OpOav rav vavv, a Greek proverb, 27. 
 
 Osella, remarks on, 452. 
 
 Paconius, the Mysian, 10. 
 
 Pacuvius, passage from the play of, 264. 
 
 Pcean axid. Munio, explanation of, 216 n. 
 
 Paeonius, the rhetorician, 78. 
 
 Painters of Greece, 420. 
 
 I'ainting, a single art, though possessing 
 different styles, 339. 
 
 Palicanus, the orator, 467. 
 
 Pamphilus, notices of, 354, et n. 
 
 Panegyric, the ornaments and delivery 
 of, 232, 233 ; use of, in oratory, 322— 
 325. 
 
 Pansa, the consul, 91 ; his military posi- 
 tion, 96; death of, 104; remarks on 
 his death, 109 ; his energy in the 
 senate, 119. 
 
 Papirius, L. eloquence of, 449. 
 
 Parallel cases, arguments to be drawn 
 from, 269. 
 
 Particulars, arguments to be drawn fri m, 
 267. 
 
 Parties, political, of Rome, 90, 92. 
 
 Passion, to be restrained, 18, 19. 
 
 Passions, the power of the orator con- 
 sists in exciting them, 157; the art of 
 influencing the. 204 ; moving of the, 
 272, et seq.; to be called into action, 
 280, et seq. ; excitement of the, an 
 essential part of oratory, 280, 281. 
 
 Patro, the Epicurean, 28. 
 
 Patroni causarum, 196 n. 
 
 Paulus, L. the orator, 423. 
 
 Pennus, M. the orator, 432. 
 
518 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Percussions, mettlcal, 385, et n. 
 Pericles, the best orator in Athens, 202; 
 his compositions 246, et n. ; his elo- 
 quence, 371, 408, 409 ; how it was 
 acquired, 412, 413. 
 Period, the largest compass of a, 385. 
 Periods, conclusions of, to be carefully- 
 studied, 389. 
 
 Peripatetics, the, 154; founded by Aris- 
 totle, 349; discipline of the, 435 
 
 Persius, 227; a man of letters, 429. 
 
 Persuasion, the business of an orator, 
 177; most useful to him, 218; the 
 chief object to be effected, 417. 
 
 Phaethon, 36. 
 
 Phalereus, the orator, 411. 
 Phericydes, the historian, 234. 
 
 Philippics of Cicero, 93. 
 
 Philippus, the consul, 40, 149; the step- 
 father of Octavius, 114. 
 
 Philippus, L. orations of, 331, 332; notices 
 of, 448, 454 ; his varied talents, 450, 
 451. 
 
 Philippus, M. consulship of, 38. 
 
 Philistus, the Sicilian writer, 59, et n. 
 
 Philistus, the historian, 236 ; writings of, 
 247, et n. 
 
 Philo, the architect, 159 ; the philosopher 
 of Athens, 363, 49G. 
 
 Philc^onus, the freedman, 32. 
 
 Philolaus, acquirements of, 372. 
 
 Philosopher, who deserves the appella- 
 tion, 201; compared with the orator, 
 372, 373. 
 
 Philosophers, various sorts of, 349 ; of 
 Athens, 363; their teaching, 435. 
 
 Philosophy, the parent of all the arts, 
 145 ; ethical philosophy may be mas- 
 tered by the orator, 161 ; the wisdom 
 derived from, 164, 165 ; must be studied 
 by the orator, 204, 205 ; never despised 
 by the Romans, 264; knowledge in 
 the arts and sciences so denominated, 
 348; principles of, 354; moral philo- 
 sophy derived its birth from Socrates, 
 409. 
 
 Philotimus, 68. 
 
 Philoxenus, ^(j. 
 
 Philus, L. F. a correct speaker, 431. 
 
 Phormio, the peripatetic, Hannibal's 
 opinion of, 241. 
 
 3>i'(7tKot, natural philosophers, 203. 
 
 P;ctor, the historian, 235. 
 
 Pilus, the courier, 98. 99. 
 
 Pinarius, T. Cicero's respect for, 74; 
 jest on. 300. 
 
 Pisistratus, learning of, 371 ; oratory of, 
 409, 411. 
 
 Piso, the historian, 235. 
 
 Piso, C. high character of, 484. 
 
 Piso, L. the tribune, 431 ; a professed 
 pleader, 431. 
 
 Piso., M. the peripatetic Staseas, 169; 
 his great erudition, 472 ; notices of, 
 472, 473. 
 
 Pity, feelings of, 280, 281. 
 
 Plancius, the senator, a friend of Cicero's, 
 40 ; Cicero's speech prepared for, 70. 
 
 Plancus, L. his military arrangements, 
 94,95; his forces of, 119; honours 
 proposed to, 126. 
 
 Plato, the chief of all genius and learn- 
 ing, 14; a citizen of Sardis, 28; the 
 Gorgias of, 155; saying of, 337; the 
 ancient school of, 349 ; the instructor 
 of Dion, 371; statue of, 408; richness 
 of his style, 435 ; anecdote of, 456. 
 
 Plautus, death of, 417. 
 
 Plays on ambiguous words extremely 
 ingenious, 295. 
 
 Pleading, impassioned manner of, 279; the 
 strong ,'points of a cause to be taken, 
 309 ; manner of, to be adopted, 310. 
 
 Pleasure assumes a particular tone of 
 the voice, 398. 
 
 Poem, epic, written by Cicero, 89. 
 
 Poet, must possess ardour of imagina- 
 tion, 275. 
 
 Poetry, Cicero's ideas on writing, 82, 85. 
 
 Poets, the small number who have risen 
 to eminence, 14(i ; must be studied 
 by the orator, 182; have the nearest 
 affinity to orators, 161, 339. 
 
 Poisoning, charges of, 250. 
 
 Political treatises, preparing by Cicero, 
 59. 
 
 Pollio, his history of the civil wars, 1. 
 
 Polycletus, the Greek sculptor, 239, 
 420. 
 
 Polygnotus, the Greek painter, 420. 
 
 Ponipeius, C. remarks on, 473. 
 
 Pompeius, C. and S. remarks on, 451. 
 
 Pompeius, Q. the orator, 428 ; remarks 
 on, 473. 
 
 Pompeius, S. the philosopher, 160, 353. 
 
 Pompey, the great, 1, 2; his defection 
 from Cicero, 36 ; his contests in the 
 senate, 42, et neq. ; large amount of 
 money voted to, 47 ; his uni.opularity, 
 50 ; consulship of, 52 ; Cicero's inter- 
 views with, 52, 55 ; defends Gabinius, 
 78, 79 ; patronage of, 86. 
 
 Pompey and Crassus, second consulship 
 of, 142. 
 
 Pompilius, M. a man of abilities, 416. 
 
 Pomponia, 48, 69. 
 
 Pomponius the orator. 34, 345 ; marriage 
 of, 45 ; his conference with Cicero on 
 eminent orators, 404. See Atticus. 
 
 Pomptiiiius, triumph of, 81. 
 
 Pontidius, P. notices of. 475. 
 
 Popilia, 232. 
 
 Popilius, P. and C. the Roman orators, 
 427. 
 
 Popular Assembly, the most enlarged 
 scene of action for an orator, 321, 322. 
 
 Porcia, the mother ^f young Cicero, 89. 
 
 Porcina, M. 153. 
 
 Portia, 115. 
 
 Postumius, T. remarks on, 482. 
 
 Power and wisdom, on the union of, ir 
 political government, 14. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 519 
 
 ** Praeco actionum," an instructor of 
 forms, 209, et n. 
 
 Praetexta, Cicero's ridicule of the, 56. 
 
 Praetors, ineffectiveness of tlie, 3 ; at- 
 tendants on the, 7; the friends of 
 Cicero, 29 ; list of in the senate, 39. 
 
 Pragmatici, pleaders' assistants, 196, et 
 n., 216. 
 
 Praises of all men to be secured, 19. 
 
 Precepts addressed to Q. Cicero, 10. 
 
 Prevarication, the legal meaning of, 64, 
 et n. 
 
 Promises of adherence made to M. Ci- 
 cero, 29. 
 
 Proof, two kinds of matter for the pur- 
 pose of, 253. 
 
 Property, reproof of Q. Cicero respecting 
 the disposition of, 26. 
 
 Protan^oras, the rhetorician, 409 ; an es- 
 sayist. 413. I 
 
 Protogenes, the Greek painter, 4^0. 
 
 Proverbs may be applied in oratory, 297. 
 
 Ptolemy Auletes, king of Alexandria, 
 41, et n. 
 
 Publius, a common praenomen among 
 the Romans ; see passim. 
 
 Publius Afdcanus, 201, 264, 423. 
 
 Publius, C. saying of, 302. 
 
 Punishments necessary to inflict on the 
 guilty, 126, 127. 
 
 Punnmg, anecdotes of, 292—294. 
 
 Pupian law, 58. 
 
 Pyrrhonians, sect of, 349. 
 
 Pythagoras, 372. 
 
 Pythagoreans, the, 153; Italy formerly 
 full of, 264. 
 
 QujESTOR, duties of the, 6. 
 
 " Quasi dedita opera," remark on, 166 n. 
 
 Questions to be employed in controversy, 
 
 363, et seq. 
 Quintius, L. the orator, 467. 
 Quintus, the son of Quintus Cicero, 46, 
 
 47. 
 Quintus Curtius lauded by Cicero, 76. 
 Quintus Marcius Rex, 255, et n. 
 Quintus Publicenus, statue of, 28. 
 Quirinalia, the, 44. 
 
 Racilius the senator, his speech, 39, 40. 
 
 Ranters of Rome, 452, 453. 
 
 'PaOvixoTepa, definition of, 65. 
 
 Reatinus, L. O. remarks on, 473 
 
 Rebuke, severity of, 322. 
 
 Repartees, 299. 
 
 Reproof must be treated -with eloquence, 
 
 234; familiar reproof often amusing, 
 
 305. 
 Republic, dangerous state of the, 29; 
 
 Cicero's account of the situation of the, 
 
 77; Cicero's anxieties respecting its 
 
 difficulties, 88. See Rome, 
 Republics may be happy, if governed by 
 
 wisdom, 14. 
 Reputation, to be cultivated, 4; necessity 
 
 of maintaining it when earned, 20. 
 
 Respondendi de jure, the custom, 197 n. 
 
 Rhetoric, masters of, 157; books of, 157; 
 on the study of, 265, 266 ; Latin teach- 
 ers of, 358. 
 
 Rhetoricians, 164, 165 ; their mode of 
 reasoning, 363; of Athens, 409; their 
 mode of teaching, 409 ; opposed by 
 Socrates, 409. 
 
 Rhythm and harmony essential in ora- 
 tory, 331, 346. 
 
 Ridicule, 304. 
 
 Ridiculous, what are the several kinds 
 of the, 289; in things, 291; in words, 
 291 ; sometimes slides into scurrility, 
 292 ; not always wit, 294. 
 
 Roman language, its purity corrupted by 
 strangers, 479. 
 
 Rome, political struggles in, 2, 29, 62, 88, 
 90, 119, 120 ; general licentiousness in, 
 11; excessive taxation for the games 
 at, 13, et n. ; great flood at, 84; civU 
 commotions in, 99, 102, 103, et seq., 110, 
 111, 116; under the power of Lepidus 
 and Antony, 123, 124; her pecuniary 
 difficulties, 135; the capitation tax re- 
 sisted, 135, et n. ; Cicero's portraiture 
 of her subjugation, 136 — 141 ; early 
 orators of, 415, et seq.: orators con- 
 temporary with Cato, 422 ; on the age 
 and merits of the orators of, 435, et 
 seq.; contemporary orators of, 453; 
 their treatment, 496, 497 ; overthrow of 
 the commonwealth of, 504. 
 
 Romulus, 152, 
 
 Roscius, the Roman actor, 174, 215, 216 ; 
 his perfection in acting, 175, 361; his 
 judgment of action, 288. 
 
 Rufius, C. remarks on, 479 ; his speech, 
 480. 
 
 Rufus, his discourse on the passions, 
 &c. 279, et seq. ; on strokes of wit and 
 humour, 283—286. 
 
 Rules of art not necessary in the elo- 
 quence of common things, 234. 
 
 Rullus, the law of, 1, 21. 
 
 Rusca, M. P. jesting of, 299. 
 
 Rusticellus, C. remarks on, 449. 
 
 Ruta, meaning of, 286 n. 
 
 Rutilius, 191; his high character, 206, 
 2U7 ; sent into exile, 207 n. ; anecdote 
 of, 305 ; his qualities as an orator, 424, 
 425, 432, 433. 
 
 Sacramento, explained, 154 n. 
 
 Salinator, L. jest on, 302. 
 
 Sallust, 79 ; his opinion of Cicero's work 
 
 on the best form of government, 81. 
 Salvidienus, 113. 
 Salvius, 73, 75. 
 Samos, in Asia Minor, 12. 
 Sannio, why so called, 294 n. 
 Sardinia, an unhealthy island, 45, et n. 
 Satrius, the lieutenant of Trebonius. 
 
 110. 
 Sayings, called Dicta, 284. 
 Scaevola, the pontiff; 184 w. 
 
520 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Scaevola, M. M. a candidate for the con- 
 sulship, G3, et n. 
 Scaevola, P. 186, et n.\ his acuteness, 
 
 431. 
 Scaevola, Q. the tribune, 27, 184, 185, 
 463 ; one of the orators of Cicero's 
 Dialogues, 142, 150, etseg.; his great 
 learning, 190; accusation against, 3(J5, 
 et n. ; an able civilian, 442: his merits 
 as an orator, 443 ; pleadings of, 457. 
 Scaurus, Cicero's speech prepared for, 
 70 ; impeached for bribery, 7Q, 77 ; 
 cast off by Pompey, 86 ; defended by 
 Cicero, 72; witty reproof of, 305; his 
 oratory, 432, 433, 439. 
 Science necessary to the orator, 353. 
 Sciences, a knowledge of, essential to 
 oratory, 193 ; extent of the, not to be 
 dreaded, 357 ; their grandeur dimi- 
 nished by the distribution of their 
 parts, 3G9 ; comprehended by certain 
 distinguished individuals, 369, 370. 
 Scipio the elder, jesting of, 299. 
 Scipio, Lucius, remarks on, 451. 
 Scipio, P. the Roman orator, 422 ; notices 
 of, 437; called the darling of the peo- 
 ple, 463. 
 Scopas, anecdote of, 325, 326. 
 Scribonius, L. 206. 
 Sculptors of Greece, 420. 
 Sculpture, a single art, though possess- 
 ing different styles, 339. 
 Self-respect, to be supported, 10. ♦ 
 
 Sempronii, T. and C. 152. 
 Sempronius, A. 293. 
 
 Senate of Rome, Cicero's account of its 
 proceedings, 39 ; violent contests in 
 the, 43, 47, 64 ; proceedings in the, 49 ; 
 its usages should be known to the 
 orator, 183. 
 Septumuleius, jest on, 301. 
 Sergius aurata, 189. 
 Serjeant, duties of his office, 7, et n. 
 Serranus, Domesticus, funeral of, 86. 
 Sertorius, Q,. remarks on, 453. 
 Service, right of, explained, e>7 n. ; law 
 
 of, 189, 190, etn. 
 Servilia, the mother of Brutus, Cicero's 
 
 visit to, 133, et n. 
 Ser villus, 39, 73, 81, 99; Cicero's ani- 
 madversions on, 95 ; jesting of, 299 ; • 
 notices of, 483. 
 Servilius the younger, 43. 
 Servius narrowly escapes conviction, 50. 
 Servius Pola, brutal character of, 58. 
 Servius Tullius, 162. 
 Sestius, the friend of Cicero, 36; im- 
 peached, 44, 45; his acquittal, 45, 
 46. 
 Severus Antistius, the senator, 40. 
 Sextantis, non esse, a punning expres- 
 sion, 296, etn. 
 Sextilius, Q. the senator, 40. 
 Sexti'us, C. joke on, 292. 
 Ship, arrangement and art of a, 384, 
 S85. 
 
 Sicilians, their first attempts to write 
 precepts on the art of speaking, 413. 
 
 Sicinius, Cn. jest of, 465 ; a speaker of 
 some reputation, 481. 
 
 Signet-ring, importance of its proper 
 use, 7. 
 
 Silanus, D. remarks on, 473. 
 
 Silanus, M. remarks on, 439. 
 
 Similarity, arguments to be drawn from, 
 268. 
 
 Similes, not to be too far-tetched, 379. 
 
 Similitudes, jests derived from, 300. 
 
 Simonides, of Ceos, inventor of the art 
 of memory, 325, 326. 
 
 Sisenna, his qualifications as an orator, 
 469, 479. 
 
 Slaves, how far they are to be trusted, 9. 
 
 Smart sayings, 294. 
 
 Snow, black, 58. 
 
 Socrates, his Phaedrus of Plato, 150; 
 sayings of, 159, 199; his defence before 
 his judges, 208 ; condemned through 
 want of skill in speaking, 208; his 
 ironical wit, 302, 491 ; his great genius 
 and varied conversation, 348 ; various 
 sects of philosophers who followed 
 him, 349 ; opposed to the rhetoricians, 
 409. 
 
 Solon, oratory of, 409. 
 
 Sounds, harmony of, 390. 
 
 Speaking, many persons admirable in 
 everything but this, 144, 145; the 
 general study of, 146 ; it is noble to 
 affect assemblies of men by, 150, 151 ; 
 who may be considered a good speaker, 
 167; what is the art of, 170; a mere 
 difference about the word, 170, 171; 
 nature and genius the great ends of, 
 171 ; men by speaking badly become 
 bad speakers, 180; the correct order 
 of, 200 ; the whole success of, depends 
 on three things, 253 ; three things re- 
 quisite for finding argument, 262 ; 
 on receiving instructions in the art of, 
 266 ; the hearer should be favourable 
 to the speaker, 270; morals and prin- 
 ciples of the speaker to merit esteem, 
 271 ; fashion of, to be varied, 321 ; 
 different peculiarities of, 340 ; ancient 
 masters in the art of, 368; various 
 requisites in the art of, 391, et seg.; 
 first attempts of the Sicilians to write 
 precepts on the art of, 413; art of, 
 studied beyond the limits of Greece, 
 414. See Eloquence and Oratory. 
 Speech, costume of, 178; requisites for 
 
 a, 359. 
 Speeches, mode of arranging, 314, et 
 seq. ; exordium of, 316 ; narration, 
 318; statement of facts, 319; less dis- 
 play required before the senate than 
 the people, 320 ; on the treatment of 
 different subjects, 321, et seq. ; use of 
 panegyric in, 322, 323 ; the most 
 ornate which spread over the widest 
 field, 366. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 521 
 
 Spirit, not to be lowered, 4. 
 
 Spoletinus, P. C. notices of, 483. 
 
 Spondalia, remarks on the word. 275. 
 
 Sputatilica, observations on tbe word, 
 480, et n. 
 
 Stabbing, charges of, 250. 
 
 Stajenus, C. remarks on, 474. 
 
 State, interests of the, should be learnt 
 by the orator, 182. 
 
 Statins, the freedman, his visit to Cicero, 
 22 ; his undue influence, 23. 
 
 Stellicidia, law of, 188. 
 
 Stirps and gens, legal difference, 189. 
 
 Stoics, the, 154 ; Antisthenes their 
 founder, 349; their doctrine, 350; lan- 
 guage of the, 435. 
 
 Style in speaking, every age has pro- 
 duced a peculiar one, 246, 247-; metri- 
 cal harmony of, 331, 387, 388; to be 
 ornamented with a tasteful choice of 
 words, 331, 346, etseq. ; a well-adjusted 
 one established in Athens, 409. 
 
 Styles of the Greek orators, 435. 
 
 *' Suavitate'prope aequal em, "meaning of 
 the phrase, 31 n. 
 
 Subjects of inquiry, the various modes of 
 treating, 364. 
 
 Sulpicius, C. the Roman orator, 422. 
 
 Sulpicius, P. one of the personages of 
 Cicero's Dialogues, 142, et seq. ; his 
 first appearance in the forum, 244; his 
 great improvement in oratory, 245 ; 
 death of, 335 ; his faults of pronuncia- 
 tion, 344; remarks on, 444, 445, 460, 
 461. 
 
 Sylla, taxes levied by, 16. 
 
 Symbols, use of, in artificial memory, 
 
 Tatjriscus, saving of, 399. 
 
 Taurus, M. 68. 
 
 Taxation, Asia Minor relieved from, 13. 
 
 Taxes, on the collection of, by farmers, 
 16; necessity of, 16. 
 
 Tellus, temple of, 71. 
 
 Temper, to be preserved, 18. 
 
 *' Tempora," explanation of, 187. 
 
 ♦* Tenedian axe," origin of the phrase, 
 55. 
 
 Tenedians, curtailment of their liberty, 
 55. 
 
 Tennis, playing at, 162. 
 
 Tertia, the sister of Brutus, 93, 9Q. 
 
 Thales, wisdom of, 371. 
 
 Themistocles, his memory-, 311 ; elo- 
 quence of, 409; an orator, 411; death 
 of, 412. 
 
 Theodorus, a writer of orations, 413. 
 
 Theophrastus, 154, 156, 157 ; his thought 
 on style, 387; erudition of, 411; his 
 sweetness of style, 435 ; anecdote of, 
 450. 
 
 Theopompus, 26, 57; the historian, 236. 
 
 Iheramenes, writings of, 246, et n.; elo- 
 quence of, 409. 
 
 Thesis, explanation of, 385 n. 
 
 Thessalonica, exile of Cicero to, 30, 31. 
 Thorius, S. remarks on, 440. 
 Thrasymachus, the rhetorician, 409. 
 Thucydides, his excellence as an his* 
 
 torian, 235. 
 Tiberius Nero, 71. 
 Timasus, the historian, 236. 
 Timanthes, the Greek painter, 420. 
 Time-servers, their odious qualities, 213. 
 Timidity, natural to the orator, 173, 174. 
 Timotheus, talents of, 372. 
 Tineas, T. anecdote of, 4o0. 
 Tiro, 70; Cicero's freedman, 73. 
 Tisias, 166. 
 
 Titius, C. remarks on, 448, 449. 
 Titius, S. 233, 295; remarks on, 468. 
 Titius, T. 50. 
 
 Tones of the voice, 396, 397. 
 Tongue, exercise of the, 181. 
 Torquatus, L. 78; remarks on, 473; 
 
 notices of, 481. 
 Torquatus, T. notices of, 475. 
 "Tragoediis suis," explanation of, 203, 
 Trail es, in Lydia, 9. 
 Treason, the law of, 251. 
 Treaties and conventions should be 
 
 familiar to the orator, 182. 
 Trebatius, afrier'^ of r^ot-m fio. 61, 69. 
 Trebonius, 70; ^ ,.^ ■-■"' ,: .» 
 Trees, harmony 
 
 Trials, on the c . . • 
 
 Triarius, notice 
 Tribune ship, ' 
 
 Curtius a car . 
 Tribute, diffici, . 
 
 135. 
 Trifling jests, : 
 Trinummus, t 
 Triumvii-ate o 
 Trouble gives 
 
 voice, 398. 
 Truth has the advantage over imitation, 
 
 396. 
 Tubero, the lieutenant of Q. Cicero, 6. 
 Tubero. Q. M. the orator, 434. 
 Tuditanus, C. the orator, 427. 
 Tullia, daughter of Cicero, betrothed to 
 
 Crassipes, 46, 47 ; Cicero's sorrow for, 
 
 115, 
 Tullius, M. the inform-er, 44. 
 Turius. L. remarks on, 472. 
 Tuscenius, complained- of by Cicero, 10, 
 
 24. 
 Tutor, the old mimic, 298. 
 Twelve Tables, laws of the, 1 85, 195. 
 Tyrannio, 46, 80, 83. 
 Tyranny, remarks of Brutus on, 123—' 
 
 133. 
 Tyrians, embassy from the, 58. 
 
 Universe, harmony and beauty ot the, 
 
 384. 
 Urania, a work so called, 52. 
 
 Valerius, L. orator}^ of, 415. 
 Valerius, M. the Dictator, 415. 
 
 y 
 
522 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Valerius, Q. the most learned of all the 
 
 Latins, 344. 
 Valerii, Q,. and D. remarks on, 449. 
 Vargula, witticism of, 292, 293. 
 Varian law, the, 461. 
 Varius, Q. remarks on, 466. 
 Varro, the historian, 417; remarks on, 
 
 449 ; erudition of, 461, 481. 
 Varrus, P. L. witty saying of. 294. 
 Vatinius, his motioiL in the senate, 22 ; 
 
 defended by Cicero, 65 ; letter of, 89. 
 Velia, Cicero meets Brutus at, 124. 
 Vclina, remarks on, 452. 
 Velleius, C. the philosopher, 353. 
 Velocius, Q. master of the gladiators, 
 
 356. 
 Venafrum, 67, 68. 
 
 Vergilius, the associate of Q. Cicero, 25. 
 Verres, his rapacity, 5 n. 
 Verrucosus, Q. M. a good speaker, 416. 
 Verses often harmoniously introduced, 
 
 297. 
 Vespa, T. 295. 
 **Veste," meaning of, 183 n. 
 Vettius, Q. remarks on, 449. 
 Vetus, Antistius, the friend of Brutus, 
 93 ; a friend to the commonwealth, 100. 
 "^- "ius, 52, 72, 73. 
 
 us, M. the stoic, 354. 
 
 :e assumes a particular tone of 
 
 , 397. 
 
 IS, M. remarks on, 452. 
 
 md moderation more to be relied 
 
 an fortune, 4. 
 
 public, of Quintus Cicero, 6 ; 
 
 ) is eloquent possesses all the, 1 64; 
 
 nt kinds of, 323, 324; a know- 
 
 :)f, necessary to the orator, 325. 
 
 *^ Q. L. remarks on, 452. 
 
 Voice, exercise of the, 181; a certai 
 tone of, to be cultivated, 344 ; tones i' 
 the, like musical chords, 396, 397 
 contributes most to effectiveness jy 
 delivery, 399; a pitchpipe used fr- 
 regulating the, 400. 
 
 Volcatius, the praetor, 39. 
 
 Will, a disputed case of, 190, 191; plea' 
 ings in the case of a, 457, 458. 
 
 Wisdom, derived from philosophy, 16' 
 165 ; the power of eloquence so denom 
 nated, 347. 
 
 Wise men of Greece, the seven, 371. 
 
 Wit, strokes of, 283 ; art has no conce: 
 with, 288; consists in the though 
 295. 
 
 Wit and humour, strokes of, useful 
 oratory, 283, et seq. 
 
 Witticisms. See Jests. 
 
 Words without sense valueless, 256; c 
 the choice and arrangement of, 35: 
 proper and improper, on the use c 
 375, 370 ; metaphorically used, 376, 3/ "■ 
 composition, collocation, and mod 
 lation of, 382, et seq. 
 
 Writing, controversies respecting f' 
 interpretation of, 178; the best m 
 deller and teacher of oratory, 180 ; co 
 tests respecting the interpretation < 
 251, 252. 
 
 Xenocrates, the founder of the Ac 
 
 demy, 349. 
 Xenophon, the historian, 236. 
 
 Zeuxis of Blandus, 23; his reputati 
 
 and character, 24. 
 Zeuxis, the Greek painter, 420. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWKS AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
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