The Orator, A Dialogue Concerning Oratorical Partitions, and Treatise on the Best Style of Orators

THE ORATOR,

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING

ORATORICAL PARTITIONS,

AND

TREATISE ON THE BEST STYLE OF ORATORS

BY MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE

A Digireads.com Book

Digireads.com Publishing

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3433-5

Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3721-3

This edition copyright © 2012

Please visit www.digireads.com

CONTENTS

THE ORATOR

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING ORATORICAL PARTITIONS

THE TREATISE OF M. T. CICERO ON THE BEST STYLE OF ORATORS

THE ORATOR

OF M. T. CICERO.

ADDRESSED TO MARCUS BRUTUS.

This work was composed by Cicero soon after the battle of Pharsalia, and it was intended by him to contain the plan of what he himself considered to be the most perfect style of eloquence. In his Epistles to his Friends (vi. 18.) he tells Lepta that he firmly believed that he had condensed all his knowledge of the art of oratory in what he had set forth in this book.

I. I have, O Brutus, hesitated a long time and often as to whether it was a more difficult and arduous business to refuse you, when constantly requesting the same favour, or to do what you desired me to do. For to refuse a man to whom I was attached above all men, and whom I knew also to be most entirely devoted to me, especially when he was only asking what was reasonable, and desiring what was honourable to me, appeared to me to be very harsh conduct; and to undertake a matter of such importance as was not only difficult for any man to have the ability to execute in an adequate manner, but hard even to think of in a way suited to its importance, appeared to me to be scarcely consistent with the character of a man who stood in awe of the reproof of wise and learned men. For what is there more important than, when the dissimilarity between good orators is so great, to decide which is the best sort and as it were the best form of eloquence?

However, since you repeat your entreaties, I will attempt the task, not so much from any hope that I entertain of accomplishing it, as from my willingness to attempt it. For I had rather that you should find fault with my prudence in thus complying with your eager desire, than with my friendship in refusing to attempt it.

You ask me then, and indeed you are constantly asking me, what kind of eloquence I approve of in the highest degree, and which sort of oratory I consider that to which nothing can be added, and which I therefore think the highest and most perfect kind. And in answering this question I am afraid lest, if I do what you wish, and give you an idea of the orator whom you are asking for, I may check the zeal of many, who, being discouraged by despair, will not make an attempt at what they have no hope of succeeding in. But it is good for all men to try everything, who have ever desired to attain any objects which are of importance and greatly to be desired. But if there be any one who feels that he is deficient either in natural power, or in any eminent force of natural genius, or that he is but inadequately instructed in the knowledge of important sciences, still let him hold on his course as far as he can. For if a man aims at the highest place, it is very honourable to arrive at the second or even the third rank. For in the poets there is room not only for Homer (to confine myself to the Greeks), or for Archilochus, or Sophocles, or Pindar, but there is room also for those who are second to them, or even below the second. Nor, indeed, did the nobleness of Plato in philosophical studies deter Aristotle from writing; nor did Aristotle himself, by his admirable knowledge and eloquence, extinguish the zeal in those pursuits of all other men.

II. And it is not only the case that eminent men have not been deterred by such circumstances from the highest class of studies, but even those artists have not renounced their art who have been unable to equal the beauty of the Talysus{1} which we have seen at Rhodes, or of the Coan Venus. Nor have subsequent sculptors been so far alarmed at the statue of the Olympian Jove, or of the Shield-bearer, as to give up trying what they could accomplish, or how far they could advance; and, indeed, there has been so vast a multitude of those men, and each of them has obtained so much credit in his own particular walk, that, while we admire the most perfect models, we have also approbation to spare for those who come short of them.

But in the case of orators—I mean Greek orators—it is a marvellous thing how far one is superior to all the rest. And yet when Demosthenes flourished there were many illustrious orators, and so there were before his time, and the supply has not failed since. So that there is no reason why the hopes of those men, who have devoted themselves to the study of eloquence, should be broken, or why their industry should languish. For even the very highest pitch of excellency ought not to be despaired of; and in perfect things those things are very good which are next to the most perfect.

And I, in depicting a consummate orator, will draw a picture of such an one as perhaps never existed. For I am not asking who he was, but what that is than which nothing can be more excellent. And perhaps the perfection which I am looking for does not often shine forth, (indeed I do not know whether it ever has been seen,) but still in some degree it may at times be discoverable, among some nations more frequently, and among others more sparingly. But I lay down this position, that there is nothing of any kind so beautiful which has not something more beautiful still from which it is copied,—as a portrait is from a person's face,—though it can neither be perceived by the eyes or ears, or by any other of the senses; it is in the mind only, and by our thoughts, that we embrace it. Therefore, though we have never seen anything of any kind more beautiful than the statues of Phidias and than those pictures which I have named, still we can imagine something more beautiful. Nor did that great artist, when he was making the statue of Jupiter or of Minerva, keep in his mind any particular person of whom he was making a likeness; but there dwelt in his mind a certain perfect idea of beauty, which he looked upon, and fixed his eyes upon, and guided his art and his hand with reference to the likeness of that model.

III. As therefore there is in forms and figures something perfect and superexcellent, the appearance of which is stamped in our minds so that we imitate it, and refer to it everything which falls under our eyes; so we keep in our mind an idea of perfect eloquence, and seek for its resemblance with our ears.

Now Plato, that greatest of all authors and teachers, not only of understanding, but also of speaking, calls those forms of things ideas; and he affirms that they are not created, but that they exist from everlasting, and are kept in their places by reason and intelligence: that all other things have their rising and setting, their ebb and flow, and cannot continue long in the same condition. Whatever there is, therefore, which can become a subject of discussion as to its principle and method, is to be reduced to the ultimate form and species of its class.

And I see that this first beginning of mine is derived not from the discussions of orators, but from the very heart of philosophy, and that it is old-fashioned and somewhat obscure, and likely to incur some blame, or at all events to provoke some surprise. For men will either wonder what all this has to do with that which is the subject of our inquiry, and they will be satisfied with understanding the nature of the facts, so that it may not seem to be without reason that we have traced their origin so far back; or else they will blame us for hunting out for unaccustomed paths, and abandoning those in ordinary use.

But I am aware that I often appear to say things which are novel, when I am in reality saying what is very old, only not generally known. And I confess that I have been made an orator, (if indeed I am one at all,) or such as I am, not by the workshops of the rhetoricians, but by the walks of the Academy. For that is the school of manifold and various discourses, in which first of all there are imprinted the footsteps of Plato. But the orator is to a great extent trained and assisted by his discussions and those of other philosophers. For all that copiousness, and forest, as it were, of eloquence, is derived from those men, and yet is not sufficient for forensic business; which, as these men themselves used to say, they left to more rustic muses. Accordingly this forensic eloquence, being despised and repudiated by philosophy, has lost many great and substantial helps; but still, as it is embellished with flowery language and well-turned periods, it has had some popularity among the people, and has had no reason to fear the judgment or prejudice of a few. And so popular eloquence has been lost to learned men, and elegant learning to eloquent ones.

IV. Let this then be laid down among the first principles, (and it will be better understood presently,)—that the eloquent man whom we are looking for cannot be rendered such without philosophy. Not indeed that there is everything necessary in philosophy, but that it is of assistance to an orator as the wrestling-school is to an actor; for small things are often compared with great ones. For no one can express wide views, or speak fluently on many and various subjects, without philosophy. Since also, in the Phædrus of Plato, Socrates says that this is what Pericles was superior to all other orators in, that he had been a pupil of Anaxagoras the natural philosopher. And it was owing to him, in his opinion, (though he had learnt also many other splendid and admirable accomplishments,) that he was so copious and imaginative, and so thoroughly aware—which is the main thing in eloquence—by what kinds of speeches the different parts of men's minds are moved.

And we may draw the same conclusion from the case of Demosthenes; from whose letters it may be gathered what a constant pupil of Plato's he was. Nor, indeed, without having studied in the schools of philosophers, can we discern the genus and species of everything; nor explain them by proper definitions; nor distribute them into their proper divisions; nor decide what is true and what is false; nor discern consequences, perceive inconsistencies, and distinguish what is doubtful. Why should I speak of the nature of things, the knowledge of which supplies such abundance of topics to oratory? or of life, and duty, and virtue, and manners? for what of all these things can be either spoken of or understood without a long study of those matters?

V. To these numerous and important things there are to be added innumerable ornaments, which at that time were only to be derived from those men who were accounted teachers of oratory. The consequence is, that no one applies himself to that genuine and perfect eloquence, because the study requisite for understanding those matters is different from that which enables me to speak of them; and because it is necessary to go to one class of teachers to understand the things, and to another to learn the proper language for them. Therefore Marcus Antonius, who in the time of our fathers was considered to be the most eminent of all men alive for eloquence, a manly nature very acute and eloquent, in that one treatise which he has left behind him, says that he has seen many fluent speakers, but not one eloquent orator, in truth, he had in his mind a model of eloquence which in his mind he saw, though he could not behold it with his eyes. But he, being a man of the most acute genius, (as indeed he was,) and feeling the want of many things both in himself and other men, saw absolutely no one who had fairly a right to be called eloquent. But if he did not think either himself or Lucius Crassus eloquent, then he certainly must have had in his mind some perfect model of eloquence; and as that had nothing wanting, he felt himself unable to include those who had anything or many things wanting in that class.

Let us then, O Brutus, if we can, investigate the nature of this man whom Antonius never beheld, or who perhaps has never even existed; and if we cannot imitate and copy him exactly, (which indeed Antonius said was scarcely possible for a god to do,) still we may perhaps be able to explain what he ought to be like.

VI. There are altogether three different kinds of speaking, in each of which there have been some eminent men; but very few (though that is what we are now looking for) who have been equally eminent in all. For some have been grandiloquent men, (if I may use such an expression,) with an abundant dignity of sentiments and majesty of language,—vehement, various, copious, authoritative; well adapted and prepared to make an impression on and effect a change in men's feelings: an effect which some have endeavoured to produce by a rough, morose, uncivilized sort of speaking, not elaborated or wrought up with any care; and others employ a smooth, carefully prepared, and well rounded off style.

On the other hand, there are men neat, acute, explaining everything, and making matters clearer, not nobler, polished up with a certain subtle and compressed style of oratory; and in the same class there are others, shrewd, but unpolished, and designedly resembling rough and unskilful speakers; and some who, with the same barrenness and simplicity, are still more elegant, that is to say, are facetious, flowery, and even slightly embellished.

But there is another class, half-way between these two, and as it were compounded of both of them, endowed neither with the acuteness of the last-mentioned orators, nor with the thunder of the former; as a sort of mixture of both, excelling in neither style; partaking of both, or rather indeed (if we would adhere to the exact truth) destitute of all the qualifications of either. Those men go on, as they say, in one uniform tenor of speaking, bringing nothing except their facility and equalness of language; or else they add something, like reliefs on a pedestal, and so they embellish their whole oration, with trifling ornaments of words and ideas.

VII. Now, whoever have by themselves arrived at any power in each of these styles of oratory, have gained a great name among orators; but we must inquire whether they have sufficiently effected what we want. For we see that there have been some men who have been ornate and dignified speakers, being at the same time shrewd and subtle arguers. And I wish that we were able to find a model of such an orator among the Latins. It would be a fine thing not to be forced to have recourse to foreign instances, but to be content