Marcus Tullius Cicero

“ For my own part, so far as I can form a judgment, founded on the capacities which I discern amongst my countrymen, I doubt not but some time or other a person will appear, who, by a keener application to study than ours is, or ever was, with greater leisure, with more pregnant parts, and superior in toil and industry, shall devote himself to hearing, reading, writing, and answer all the ideas we now form of a complete orator. A man who shall be guilty of no arrogance if he claims a title not only to elegance but eloquence. ”

“ Not to mention Greece, which has ever claimed the palm of oratory, or Athens, that nursery of all learning, where eloquence had its rise and perfection, I will venture to say, that in this very city, no study has ever been cultivated with more intenseness than has that of eloquence. For, after we had acquired and settled the government of the world, and begun from the continuance of tranquillity to relish repose, there was scarcely a young man who had a passion for glory, who did not think it his duty to apply himself to eloquence with all the faculties he possessed. ”

“ This appears still more surprising, because the knowledge of other arts is commonly acquired from dark and abstruse fountains, but eloquence consists in the most obvious principles, the knowledge of common life, and in the habits and conversation of mankind. In other arts, he who excels is the man who strikes deepest into a road the most distant from the knowledge, the more impervious to the capacity of the ignorant: whereas in eloquence, the most dreadful blunder that can be committed is to deviate into abstruse expressions, and out of the beaten tract of common sense. ”

“ CHAP. XLIII HAVE you never taken notice that C. Aculeo, the Roman knight, who now lives, and ever has lived with me, a man whose genius is formed to excel in every art, but who has very little studied any other than this, is now so much master of the civil law, that when you leave this company you shall find none of those who are at the head of the profession beyond him. For every thing in it is plain to your eyes, to be found in daily practice, the conversation of mankind, and the forum, rather than in a multitude of volumes, and extent of reading. ”

“ But come—do not let us ever dwell upon the forum, the benches, the rostra, and the senate; can any thing in retirement from business be more entertaining, more endearingly social, than a language agreeable and polished on every subject? For this is the characteristic of our nature, to distinguish us from brutes, that we have a social intercourse with one another, and are able to convey our ideas by language. Must not every man then be struck with this, and own that to excel mankind themselves in that quality which gives them the preference to brutes, ought to be his favourite study? ”

“ Even the best speakers, they who speak with the greatest ease and grace, appear to me almost with an air of impudence, unless they compose themselves to speak with a certain bashfulness, and are under some confusion when they set out; yet they can never appear otherwise; for the more a man excels in speaking, he is the more sensible of its difficulty, he is under the greater concern for the event of his speech, and to answer the expectation of the public. But the man who can compass nothing worthy the profession, worthy the name, of an orator, or worthy of the attention of mankind ”

“ If a man is intent upon the study of civil polity, a study which Scævola says belongs not to an orator, but to a different branch of knowledge, he sees all of it comprehended in the twelve tables, where the whole system of civil duties and dependencies is described. Or, if a man is enchanted with the resistless power of specious philosophy, I will boldly venture to say, that the source of all his disputations is contained in the civil law. ”

“ Or can any thing impart so exquisite pleasure to the ears and understanding, as a speech to which sentiments give dignity, and expression embellishment? Is there any thing so commanding, so grand, as that the eloquence of one man should direct the inclinations of the people, the consciences of judges, and the majesty of senates? Nay further, can ought be esteemed so noble, so generous, so public-spirited, as to relieve the suppliant, to rear the prostrate, to communicate happiness, to avert danger, and to save a [18] fellow-citizen from exile? ”

“ I mention this, because you said that no man could either inflame, or, when inflamed, allay the passions of an audience, effects by which the chief power and importance of an orator is discerned, but a man who has a clear insight into the nature of things, the manners, and views of mankind; in which case, philosophy becomes the necessary study of an orator; a study in which we have known men even of the most consummate genius, and the greatest leisure, waste their whole lives; men, whose variety and extent of knowledge and learning I am so far from despising, that I admire them ”

“ In short, he appeared to convince me that there neither was, nor possibly could be, any art of eloquence, and that no man could speak, either skilfully or copiously, without being acquainted with the precepts of the most learned philosophers. Charmades used to add to all this, in the highest raptures, Crassus, at your eloquence, that I appeared to be his gentle hearer, but you his tough opponent. ”

“ But with regard to myself, whom you make an exception to, as if I were the only man who can acquit myself in causes without the least knowledge of the law, my answer, Crassus, is, that I never either studied the civil law, nor was I even sensible of my loss for not knowing it, in those causes which I was capable of managing in our courts. For it is one thing to be an artist in a certain way and craft, and another to be neither a dunce nor a novice in common life, and the general practice of the world. ”

“ To an orator what is so necessary as a good voice? Yet nobody who wishes to speak well, shall ever have my advice to be a slave to his voice, like the Greeks and the tragedians, who for many years together declaim in their seats, and every day before they pronounce a word, in their beds gradually raise their voice, and when they have done pleading sit down and shift, and, as it were, make it go through a scale, from the sharpest to the fullest accent. ”

“ In short, there is one thing which the masters of the art of speaking bring as peculiar to themselves; a style graceful, ornamented, and distinguished by certain masterly touches, and an artful polish. Yet all this beauty of language, if the subject itself is not thoroughly understood and comprehended by the speaker, must be either empty or ridiculous: for what can look liker a madman than to pour out an empty jingle of words, let them be ever so beautiful or well chosen, if they are connected by no method or meaning. ”

“ Do not even the bees extract that fragrant taste which honey alone can impart to human sense, from very different flowers and juices? Is there any wonder that eloquence (which is the greatest gift heaven has given to men) requires many arts to perfect it? and though they do not all appear in an oration, or seem to be of any use, they nevertheless afford an inward supply of strength, and are silently felt in the mind; without these a man many be eloquent, but I want to form an orator ”

“ Hermodorus; after he had made himself master of his subject, can we imagine that he would not be able to talk of it with perspicuity and elegance, though a profession foreign to his own? Or that Asclepiades, who was both my friend and physician, and is more eloquent than any other of that faculty, was indebted for his graceful way of speaking to the study, not of eloquence, but of physic? Therefore, that which Socrates used to say, was rather plausible than true; that every man is sufficiently eloquent in subjects of which he is quite master. ”

“ For to whatever point of science you direct your view and reflection, you shall find many excelling in every kind, not only of the middling arts, but of those which require almost the greatest compass of genius. For is there that man alive, who, were he to form his idea of public merit by great actions and useful consequences, would not prefer the character of a general to that of an orator? ”

“ At the same time, he amplifies and embellishes, by his eloquence, those objects, which to the generality of mankind are inviting and lovely: nor does he want to be thought so very wise among fools, as that his hearers should take him either for a coxcomb or a Greekling; for while they approve of the genius, and admire the good sense of the orator, they will take it very ill that they are treated like a pack of fools. But he roves through the passions of mankind ”

“ For, granting the knowledge of the civil law to be an extensive, thorny study, yet its vast utility ought to spur mankind to undertake the fatigue of studying it. Yet, in the mean time, immortal gods! (I should not say this in the hearing of Scævola, had not he himself used to own it) there is not an art in the world more easily attained to. I own, that the general opinion for certain reasons is otherwise; first because your ancient practitioners, who are the head of this profession, that they may retain and increase their influence, do not care to have their made common. ”

“ For every topic, whether it regards art, genius, or learning, if it has any relation to the subject we write upon, immediately presents itself and occurs to the all-observing eye of strict inquiry and critical observation; and at the same time, it is a necessary consequence, that the periods and expressions, all of them the choice of their kind, should undergo the polish of the pen; hence arises perfection as to the propriety and disposition of expressions, and style in writing, not in the cadence and manner that suits the poet, but the orator. ”

“ But in an orator, there is required the subtility of logicians, the learning of philosophers, the diction almost of poets, the memory of lawyers, the voice of tragedians, and the action of the best players. Therefore in mankind there is nothing harder to find than a perfect orator. Among the professors of particular branches in other arts, if each in his own arrived at mediocrity, he passes with approbation; but if an orator is not completely master of every branch of his art he cannot pass. ”

“ For in learning other crafts, it is enough, if you have the resemblance of a man, and if the learner, be he ever so great a dunce, has just as much apprehension as to conceive, and as much memory as to retain what is taught, and perhaps hammered into him. He has no occasion for the smoothness of language, or the command of expression, nor for those qualifications which we must owe to nature, such as the face, the look, the accent. ”

“ Is there a man here, answered the other, that has the impudence to pretend to know and do, what you do not know and cannot do? Well, replies Crassus, saving to myself the plea of inability, where I am really unable, I am at your service in answering all the questions you shall think fit to put. Then, said Sulpicius, to begin, we require that you give your opinion with regard to those points that Antonius opened some time ago; do you think that eloquence can properly be called an art? ”

“ For did ever any great or grave orator, when he wanted to render the judge angry with his antagonist, boggle at this, because he did not know whether anger was a heat of the mind, or the desire of punishing resentment? Was there ever a man, who, when he wanted to raise a whirl and agitation in the other affections of the soul, either in judges or people, expressed himself in the same terms which philosophers use, some of whom say that the mind ought not to be susceptible of any emotions, and that they who in pleading touch the passions of the judges are guilty of detestable practices. ”

“ But if it is improper for us to be at much pains about our gesture, which is of great service to an orator, and our voice, which of itself is the greatest recommendation and support of eloquence; and if, in improving both, we are to consult our conveniency, we are to consult the leisure which we have from our daily practice; of how much less importance is it for us to demean ourselves to making ourselves masters of the study of the civil law? ”

“ Let me add, that I knew Servius Galba who spoke like a god, Marcus Æmilius Porcina, and Cn. Carbo himself, whom you, when but a very young man, vanquished; each of whom was ignorant of our constitution, a blunderer in the practice of our ancestors, and but a novice in the civil law; and even the present age is ignorant of the laws of the twelve tables, excepting you, Crassus, who, led by curiosity rather than any province annexed to eloquence, studied the civil law under me, though I may sometimes be ashamed to say so. ”

“ Can a more honourable shelter be found, under which we can pass an old age with dignity and lustre, than the study of the law? For my own part, I own that this is a relief which I have provided even from my youth, not only with a view to my practice at the bar, but even to grace and embellish my old age ”

“ For what we are now in search of is not, an ordinary pleader, nor a bawler, nor a pettifogger, but such a man as may be the high priest of this art, a man who, notwithstanding the lavish endowments nature has bestowed upon mankind, shall appear to be a god; one whose qualifications, as a man, shall not seem to have been formed upon earth, but the peculiar gift of heaven: one, who dignified by the name of an orator, and not the ensigns of an herald, can walk unhurt through the array of his enemies: one whose tongue can expose to the hatred of his countrymen, and to punishment, fraud, and guilt ”

“ However, if you will insist upon subjecting all arts to eloquence, you had much better say, that as eloquence ought not to be hungry and naked, but bespangled and diversified by, as it were, a pleasing medley of different subjects, he is a good orator who has taken in many objects with his ears, many with his eyes, and run over a vast number in thinking, reflecting, and reading. That he does not possess them as indispensable, but as auxiliaries to his own profession ”

“ For this reason, they title and call their other books under the denomination of the several arts they treat of, but they range these under the head of rhetoric. Therefore when, as it very often happens in the course of a work, they come to speak of the immortal gods, of piety, of concord, of equity, of friendship, of the laws of state, of nature, of nations, of temperance, of magnanimity; in short, of all other virtues, the academies and the schools of philosophers bawl out, all to a man, that all these subjects belong to them, and no way to the orator. ”

“ We all know how dark, how perplexed, how complicated, and how subtle the study is of, what we call, the mathematics; yet so many great men have appeared in this art, that it seems as if no man had ever set about to attain it in good earnest, and did not carry his point. Was there ever [11] a musician, was there ever a professor of what we term the study of grammar, who by intense application did not master the almost boundless power and subject of their several arts? ”

“ What philosopher is so effeminate, so spiritless, so absolutely dependent upon bodily pleasure and pain for happiness or misery, as to admit of this doctrine? That the senate should be the slaves of the people, they to whom the people have entrusted, as it were, the reins and checks of government over themselves? ”