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

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 T. Tineas, of Placentia, who was a very facetious man, once engaged in a repartee skirmish with my old friend Q. Granius, the public crier."—"Do you mean that Granius," said Brutus, "of whom Lucilius has related such a number of stories?"—"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 enquired 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 language very correctly, should be taken at last for a foreigner. In 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. Next, therefore, to the two capital Speakers above-mentioned, (that is Crassus and Antonius) came L. Philippus,—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 starting-post, 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 freedom 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 gash, as well as ridicule his opponents. Almost cotemporary with these was L. 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 time 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 cotemporary with a variety of Orators of different dates, and had an extensive series of practice in judicial causes. Nearly at the same time lived D. Brutus, who was fellow-consul with Mamercus;— and was equally skilled both in the Grecian and Roman literature. L. Scipio likewise was not an unskilful Speaker; and Cnaeus 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, M. Brutus, and very soon after him, C. 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 Marius, and some other collateral embarrassments which attended his suit. But the eloquence of Cn. Octavius, which was wholly unknown before his elevation to the Consulship, was effectually displayed, after his preferment to that office, in a great variety of speeches. It is, 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."—"C. Julius then," said I, (the son of Lucius) was certainly superior, not only to his predecessors, but to all his cotemporaries, in wit and humour: he was not, indeed, a nervous and striking Orator, but, in the elegance, the pleasantry, 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. P. Cethegus, his cotemporary, had always enough to say on matters of civil regulation; for he had studied and comprehended 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. Q. Lucretius Vispillo 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. T. Annius Velina was likewise a man of sense, and a tolerable pleader; and T. Juventius had a great deal of practice in the same way:—the latter indeed was rather too heavy and unanimated, but at the same time he 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, and had an extensive knowledge of the Civil Law. His scholar, P. Orbius, who was almost cotemporary with me, had no great practice as a pleader; but his skill in the Civil Law was nothing 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 seldom spoke at the bar. His brother, M. Virgilius, who when he was a tribune of the people, commenced a prosecution against L. Sylla, then advanced to the rank of General, had as little practice as Aufidius. Virgilius's colleague, P. Magius, was more copious and diffusive. But of all the Orators, or rather Ranters, I ever knew, who were totally illiterate and unpolished, and (I might have added) absolutely coarse and rustic, the readiest and keenest, were Q. Sertorius, and C. Gorgonius, the one of consular, and the other of equestrian rank. T. Junius (the son of L.) who had served the office of tribune, and prosecuted and convicted P. Sextius of bribery, when he was praetor elect, was a prompt and an easy speaker: he lived in great splendor, and had a very promising genius; and, if he had not been of a weak, and indeed a sickly constitution, he would have advanced much farther than he did in the road to preferment. 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 talk, and but very few have succeeded. But I shall give my opinion of every one in such explicit terms, that it may be easily understood 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 cotemporary with each other, were C. Cotta, P. Sulpicius, Q. Varius, Cn. Pomponius, C. Curio, L. Fufius, M. Drusus, and P. Antistius; for no age whatsoever has been distingushed 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, while another of a quite opposite character is preferred by those who are better qualified to give their judgment?"—"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?"— "Very true," said I; "for I had rather my sentiments on the qualifications of an Orator would 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 enquiry which none but an artist can resolve: but whether an audience is really so affected by an Orator as shall best answer his purpose, 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. 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 enquired 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 mentioned the one, and that the other. But would any one have given the preference to Philippus, though otherwise a