Cicero's Brutus, or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker

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 Africanus and Laelius, than whose language (you tell us) nothing in the world can be sweeter: nay, you have mentioned it with a kind of veneration, and endeavoured to dazzle our judgment by the great character they bore, and the uncommon elegance of their manners. Divest it of these adventitious 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 particulars, 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 [Footnote: Doryphorus. A Spear- man.] statue of Polycletus. What you have said on this occasion I consider as an 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 Caelius. 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 insert their names among the rest."—"You have opened a wide field of enquiry," 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 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 shew 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 an Ironist; though we are informed by C. Fannius, in his History, that Africanus was a very excellent one."—"As you please about that," cried Atticus: "though, by the bye, I 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," interrupted 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?"—"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. 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 Philip 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 every thing that had been said by his opponents, without the help of a prompter. He was likewise inflamed with such 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 expression 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 speak to; and a neat and easy manner of collecting the substance of what had been said by his antagonist, and by himself. He had likewise an elegant choice of words, an agreeable flow in his periods, and a copious Elocution, which he was partly indebted for to a fine natural capacity, and partly acquired by the most laborious rhetorical exercises. In short, he had a most retentive view of his subject, and always divided and parcelled it out with the greatest exactness; and he very seldom overlooked any thing 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; and his gesture had rather more art in it, and was more exactly managed, than is requisite to 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. 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 Antonius was absent on a similar account. The only trial we had, was that upon the Varian Law; the rest, as I have just observed, having been intermitted by the war. We had scarcely any body left at the bar but L. Memmius, and Q. Pompeius, who spoke mostly on their own affairs; 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 an 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. C. Curio was chosen a Tribune of the people; though he left off speaking after being once deserted by his whole audience. To him I may add Q. Metellus Celer, who, though certainly no Orator, was far from being destitute of utterance: but Q. Varius, C. Carbo, and Cn. Pomponius, were men of real Elocution, and might almost be said to have lived upon the Rostra. C. Julius too, who was then a Curule Aedile, 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 remainder of my time in reading, writing, and private declamation, I cannot say that I much relished my confinement to these preparatory exercises. The next year Q. Varius 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 Q. 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, he answered every purpose of instruction to such as took the trouble to apply to him. In the succeeding 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 an opportunity 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 Rome, 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 attention to that study; because there was reason to apprehend that our laws and judicial proceedings would be wholly overturned by the continuance of the public disorders. In the same year Sulpicius lost his life; and Q. Catulus, M. Antonius, and C. Julius, three Orators, who were partly cotemporary with each other, were most inhumanly put to death. Then also I attended the lectures of Molo the Rhodian, who was newly come to Rome, and was both an excellent Pleader, and an able Teacher of the Art. I have mentioned these particulars, which, perhaps, 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 M. 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 mean while 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 considered 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 attention 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 oratorial kind. I constantly declaimed in private with M. Piso, Q. Pompeius, or some other of my acquaintance; pretty often