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

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 intire restoration of the Commonwealth: but we lost Pomponius, Censorinus, and Murena, from the roll of Orators. "I now began, for the first time, to undertake 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 Rome, while Sylla was Dictator, to sollicit the payment of what was due to his countrymen, for their services in the Mithridatic war. My defence of Sext. 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 pre-composed with all the care and accuracy I was master of. "But as you seem desirous not so much to be acquainted 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 exceedingly 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 pleading: 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 opportunity to correct my manner of speaking. So that after I had been two years at the Bar, and acquired some reputation 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 Exercises under Demetrius the Syrian, an experienced and reputable master of the Art of Speaking. "After leaving Athens, I traversed every part of Asia, where I was voluntarily attended by the principal Orators of the country with whom I renewed 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 of an Attic Orator, he may be justly ranked in that class. Dionysius also of Magnesia, Aeschilus of Cnidos, and Xenocles of Adramyttus, 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 experienced 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. "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 M. Canuleius, and Cn. 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, animated, 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 Quaestorship, Cotta for the Consulate, and Hortensius for the Aedileship. 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, was left of course the undisputed sovereign of the Forum. In the succeeding year, when I returned from Sicily, my oratorial 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 was 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 Aedile, and undertook the patronage of the Sicilians against Hortensius, who was then one of the Consuls elect. 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 Aedileship, I was declared the first Praetor, by the unanimous suffrages 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 attention, and secured the good wishes of the public. But I will say nothing of myself: I will confine my discourse to our other Speakers, among whom there is not one who has gained more than a common acquaintance with those parts of literature, 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 humourous manner, as to relax the severity of the Judges into a smile or an open laugh:—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. "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 Consulship, which at first had given a short alarm to his jealousy, afterward cemented our friendship, by the generous candor 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 a 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 regulation) in a number of causes which, in fact, were become perfectly the same, or very nearly so; most of which, my Brutus, you was 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 judgment of them. But if we mean to inquire, why Hortensius was more admired for his Eloquence in the younger part