The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 · Marcus Tullius Cicero

BOOK I.

He ought also to aim at other virtues, if I may so call them, in speaking; at brevity, if the subject requires it. He will often, also, by his speech, bring the matter before people's eyes; and often extol it beyond what appears possible; his meaning will be often more comprehensive than his speech; he will often assume a cheerful language, and often give an imitation of life and nature. XLI. In this kind of speaking, for you may look upon oratory as a vast wood, all the importance of eloquence ought to shine forth. But these qualities, unless they are well arranged and as it were built up together and connected by suitable language, can never attain that praise which we wish that it should.

And as I was aware that it would be necessary for me to speak on this point next, although I was influenced by the considerations which I had mentioned before, still I was more disturbed by those which follow. For it occurred to me, that it was possible that men should be found, I do not mean envious men, with whom all places are full, but even favourers of my glory, who did not think that it became a man with reference to whose services the senate had passed such favourable votes with the approbation of the whole Roman people, as they never did in the case of any one else, to write so many books about the method of speaking. And if I were to give them no other answer than that I was unwilling to refuse the request of Marcus Brutus, it would be a reasonable excuse, as T might well wish to satisfy a man who was my greatest friend and a most excellent man, and who only asked what was right and honourable. But if I were to profess (what I wish that I could) that I was about to give rules, and paths, as it were, to lead to eloquence those who are inclined to study oratory, what man who set a proper value on things would find fault with me? For who has ever doubted that eloquence has at all times been of the very highest estimation in our republic, among all the accomplishments of peace, and of our domestic life in the city; and that next to it is the knowledge of the law? and that the one had in it the greatest amount of influence, and credit, and protection; and the other contains rules for prosecutions and defence; and this latter would often of its own accord beg for assistance from eloquence; but if it were refused, would scarcely be able to maintain its own rights and territories.

Why then has it been at all times an honourable thing to teach civil law, and why have the houses of the most eminent professors of this science been at all times crowded with pupils? And yet if any one attempts to excite people to the study of oratory, or to assist the youth of the city in that pursuit, should he be blamed? For, if it be a vicious thing to speak in an elegant manner, then let eloquence be expelled altogether from the state. But if it not only is an ornament to those who possess it, but the whole republic also, then why is it discreditable to learn what it is honourable to know; of, why should it be anything but glorious to teach what it is most excellent to be acquainted with? XLII. But the one is a, common study, and the other a novel one. I admit that; but there is a reason for both these facts. For it was sufficient to listen to the lawyers giving their answers, so that they who acted as instructors set aside no particular time for that purpose, but were at one and the same time satisfying the wants both of their pupils and their clients. But the other men, as they devoted all their time, when at home, to acquiring a correct understanding of the causes entrusted to them, and arranging the arguments which they were to employ; all their time when in the forum to pleading the cause, and all the rest of their time in recruiting their own strength; what time had they for giving rules or lessons? and I do not know whether most of our orators have not excelled more in genius than in learning; therefore, they have been able to speak better than they could teach, while our ability is perhaps just the contrary.

But there is no dignity in teaching.--Certainly not, if it is done as if one kept a school; but if a man teaches by warning, by exhorting, by asking questions, by giving information, sometimes by reading with his pupils and hearing them read, then I do not know, if by teaching anything you can sometimes make men better, why you should be unwilling to do it. Is it honourable to teach a man what are the proper words to alienate consecrated property with, and not honourable to teach him those by which consecrated property may be maintained and defended? "But," men say, "many people profess law who know nothing about it; but even the very men who have acquired eloquence conceal their attainment of it, because wisdom is a thing agreeable to men, but eloquence is suspected by them." Is it possible then for eloquence to escape notice, or does that which a man conceals cease to exist? Or is there any danger of any one thinking with respect to an important and glorious art that it is a discreditable thing to teach others that which it was very honourable to himself to learn? But perhaps others may be better hands at concealment; I have always openly avowed that I have learnt the art. For what could I have done, having left my home when very young, and crossed the sea for the sake of those studies; and having had my house full of the most learned men, and when there were perhaps some indications of learning in my conversation; and when my writings were a good deal read; could I then have concealed the fact of my having learnt it? How could I justify myself except by showing that I had made some progress in those studies?

XLIII. And as this is the case still, the things which have been already mentioned, have had more dignity in the discussion of them than those which have got to be discussed. For we are now to speak about the arrangement of words, and almost about the counting and measuring of syllables. And, although these things are, as it appears to me, necessary, yet there is more show in the execution than in the teaching of them. Now that is true of everything, but it has a peculiar force with respect to this pursuit. For in the case of all great arts, as in that of trees, it is the height which delights us, but we take no pleasure in the roots or trunks; though the one cannot exist without the other. But as for me, whether it is that that well-known verse which forbids a man "To fear to own the art he practises," does not allow me to conceal that I take delight in it; or whether it is your eagerness which has extorted this volume from me; still it was worth while to make a reply to those whom I suspected of being likely to find fault with me.

"How neatly all your phrases are arranged; Like tesselated pavement, or a box Inlaid with deftly wrought mosaic." The care taken in the construction must not be too visible. But still a practised pen will easily perfect this manner of arranging its phrases. For as the eye does in reading, so in speaking, the eye will see beforehand what follows, so that the combination of the last words of a sentence with the first may not leave the whole sentence either gaping or harsh. For sentiments ever so agreeable or dignified offend the ears if they are set down in ill-arranged sentences; for the judgment of the ears is very fastidious. And the Latin language is so particular on this point, that no one can be so ignorant as to leave quantities of open vowels. Though this is a point on which men blame Theopompus, because he was so ostentatious in his avoidance of such letters, although his master Isocrates did the same; but Thucydides did not; nor did that other far superior writer, Plato. And he did this not only in those conversations which are called Dialogues, when it ought to have been done designedly; but even in that oration[61] addressed to the people, in which it is customary at Athens for those men to be extolled who have been slain in fighting for their country. And that oration was so greatly approved of that it was, as you know, appointed to be recited every year; and in that there is a constant succession of open vowels, which Demosthenes avoided in a great degree as vicious.

XLV. However, the Greeks must judge of that matter for themselves. We are not allowed to use our words in that manner, not even if we wish to; and this is shown even by those unpolished speeches of Cato. It is shown by all the poets except those who sometimes had recourse to a hiatus in order to finish their verse; as Naevius-- "Vos, qui accolitis Istrum fluvium, atque Algidam." And again-- "Quam nunquam vobis Graii atque Barbari." But Ennius does so only once-- "Scipio invicte." And we too have written,-- "Hinc motu radiantis Etesiae in vada ponti." For our countrymen would not have endured the frequent use of such a liberty, though the Greeks even praise it. But why should I talk about vowels? even without counting vowels, they often used contractions for the sake of brevity, so as to say-- Multi' modis for imdtis modis. Vas' argenteis for vasis argenteis. Palmi et crinibus for palmis et crinibus. Tecti' fractis for tectis fractis. And what would be a greater liberty than to contract even men's names, so as to make them more suitable to verse? For as they contracted _duellum_ into _bellum_, and _duis_ into _bis_, so they called _Duellius_ (the man I mean who defeated the Carthaginians in a naval action) _Bellius_, though his ancestors were always called _Duellii_. Moreover, they often contract words, not in obedience to any particular usage, but only to please the ear. For how was it that Axilla was made Ala, except by the flight of the larger letter? and so the elegant usage of Latin conversation takes this letter _x_ out of _maxilla_, and _taxilla_, and _vexillum_, and _paxillum_.

XLVII. What am I to say is the reason why they forbid us to say _nôsse, judicâsse_, and enjoin us to use _novisse_ and _judicavisse_? as if we did not know that in words of this kind it is quite correct to use the word at full length, and quite in accordance with usage to use it in its contracted form. And so Terence does use both forms, and says,-- "Eho, tu cognatum tuum non nôras?" And afterwards he has,-- "Stilphonem, inquam, noveras?" _Siet_ is the word at full length; _sit_ is the contracted form. One may use either; and so we find in the same passage,-- "Quam cara sint, quae post carendo intelligunt, Quamque attinendi magni dominatus sient." Nor should I find fault with "Scripsere alii rem." I am aware that _scripserunt_ is the more correct form; but I willingly comply with a fashion which is agreeable to the ears. "Idem campus habet," says Eunius; and in another place he has given us,-- "In templis îsdem;" but _eisdem_ would be more regular; but yet it would not have been so musical: and _iisdem_ would have sounded ill. But custom has sanctioned our departing from strict rules for the sake of euphony; and I should prefer saying _pomeridianas quadrigas_ to _postmeridianas_, and _mehercule_ to _mehercules. Non scire_ already appears a barbarism; _nescire_ is sweeter. The word _meridiem_ itself, why is it not _medidiem_?

I suppose because it sounded worse. There is one preposition, _abs_, which has now only an existence in account books; but in all other conversation of every sort is changed: for we say _amovit_, and _abegit_, and _abstulit_, so that you cannot now tell whether _ab_ is the correct form or _abs_. What shall we say if even _abfugit_ has seemed inadmissible, and if men have discarded _abfer_ and preferred _aufer_? and that preposition is found in no word whatever except these two verbs. There were the words _noti_, and _navi_, and _nari_, and when _in_ was forced to be prefixed to them, it seemed more musical to say _ignoti, ignavi, ignari_, than to adhere to the strict rules. Men say _ex usu_ and _republicâ_, because in the one phrase a vowel followed the preposition, and in the other there would have been great harshness if you had not removed the consonant, as in _exegit, edixit, effecit, extulit, edidit_. And sometimes the preposition has sustained an alteration, regulated by the first letter of the verb to which it is added, as _suffugit, summutavit, sustulit_.

XLVIII. What are we to say of compound words? How neat is it to say _insipientem_, not _insapientem_; _iniquum_, not _incequum_; _tricipitem_, not _tricapitem_; _concisum_, not concoesum! and, because of this last instance, some people wish also to say _pertisum_; but the same fashion which regulates the other changes, has not sanctioned this one. But what can be more elegant than this, which is not caused by nature, but by some regular usage?--we say _inclytus_, with the first letter short; _insanus_, with the first letter long; _inkumanus_, with a short letter; _infelix_, with a long one: and, not to detain you with many examples, in those words in which the first letters are those which occur in _sapiente_ and _felice_, it is used long; in all others it is short. And so, too, we have _composuit, consuevit, concrvpuit, confecit_. Consult the truth, it will reprove you; refer the matter to your ears, they will sanction the usage. Why so? Because they will say that that sound is the most agreeable one to them; and an oration ought to consult that which gives pleasure to the ears. Moreover, I myself, as I knew that our ancestors spoke so as never to use an aspirate except before a vowel, used to speak in this way: _pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, Cartaginem_; when at last, and after a long time, the truth was forced upon me by the admonition of my own ears, I yielded to the people the right of settling the rule of speaking; and was contented to reserve to myself the knowledge of the proper rules and reasons for them. Still we say _Orcivii_, and _Matones_ and _Otones, Coepiones, sepulchra, coronas, lacrymas_, because that pronunciation is always sanctioned by the judgment of our ears.

Ennius always used _Burrum_, never _Pyrrhum_: he says,-- "Vi patefecerunt Bruges;" not _Phryges_; and so the old copies of his poems prove, for they had no Greek letters in them. But now those words have two; and though when they wanted to say _Phrygum_ and _Phrygibus_, it was absurd either to use a Greek character in the barbarous cases only, or else in the nominative case alone to speak Greek, still we say _Phrygum_ and _Phrygibus_ for the sake of harmonizing our ears. Moreover (at present it would seem like the language of a ploughman, though formerly it was a mark of politeness) our ancestors took away the last letter of those words in which the two last letters were the same, as they are in _optumus_, unless the next word began with a vowel. And so they avoided offending the ear in their verse; as the modern poets avoid it now in a different manner. For we used to say,-- "Qui est omnibu' princeps," not "omnibus princeps;" and-- "Vitâ illâ, dignu' locoquc," not "dignus." But if unlettered custom is such an artist of euphony, what must we think is required by scientific art and systematic learning? I have put all this more briefly than if I were discussing this matter by itself; (for this topic is a very extensive one, concerning the use and nature of words;) but still I have been more prolix than the plan I originally proposed to myself required.

"Quâ tempestate Paris Helenam," and the rest of that sentence. Let us, I say, pursue that plan and avoid harshness of sound. "Habeo istam ego perterricrepam.... Versutiloquas malitias." Nor is it enough to have one's words arranged in a regular system, but the terminations of the sentences must be carefully studied, since we have said that that is a second sort of judgment of the ears. But the harmonious end of a sentence depends on the arrangement itself, which is so of its own accord, if I may so express myself, or on some particular class of words in which there is a certain neatness; and whether such words have cases the terminations of which are similar, or whether one word is matched with another which resembles it, or whether contrary words are opposed to one another, they are harmonious of their own nature, even if nothing has been done on purpose. In the pursuit of this sort of neatness Gorgias is reported to have been the leader; and of this style there is an example in our speech in defence of Milo: "For this law, O judges, is not a written one, but a natural one, one which we have not learnt, or received from others, or gathered from books; but which we have extracted, and pressed out, and imbibed from nature itself; it is one in which we have not been educated, but born; we have not been brought up in it, but imbued with it. For these sentences are such that, because they are referred to the principles to which they ought to be referred, we see plainly that harmony was not the thing that was sought in them, but that which followed of its own accord. And this is also the case when contraries are opposed to one another; as those phrases are by which not only a harmonious sentence, but even a verse is made.

"Eam, quam nihil accusas, damnas." A man would say _condemnas_ if he wished to avoid making a verse. "Bene quam meritam esse autumas, dicis male mereri. Id, quod scis, prodest nihil; id, quod nescis, obest." The very relation of the contrary effects makes a verse that would be harmonious in a narration. "Quod scis, nihil prodest; quod nescis, multum obest." These things, which the Greeks call [Greek: antitheta], as in them contraries are opposed to contraries, of sheer necessity produce oratorical rhythm; and that too without any intention on the part of the orator that they should do so. This was a kind of speaking in which the ancients used to take delight, even before the time of Isocrates; and especially Gorgias; in whose orations his very neatness generally produces an harmonious rhythm. We too frequently employ this style; as in the fourth book of our impeachment of Verres:--"Compare this peace with that war; the arrival of this praetor with the victory of that general; the debauched retinue of this man, with the unconquerable army of the other; the lust of this man with the continence of that one; and you will say that Syracuse was founded by the man who in reality took it; and was stormed by this one, who in reality received it in an admirable and settled condition."

This sort of rhythm then must be well understood. L. We must now explain that third kind of an harmonious and well-arranged speech, and say of what character it is; and what sort of ears those people have who do not understand its character, or indeed what there is in them that is like men at all, I do not know. My ears delight in a well-turned and properly finished period of words, and they like conciseness, and disapprove of redundancy. Why do I say my ears? I have often seen a whole assembly raise a shout of approval at hearing a musical sentence. For men's ears expect that sentences shall be strung together of well-arranged words. This was not the case in the time of the ancients. And indeed it was nearly the only thing in which they were deficient: for they selected their words carefully, and they gave utterance to dignified and sweet sounding ideas; but they paid little attention to arranging them or filling them up. "This is what delights me," one of them would say. What are we to say if an old primitive picture of few colours delights some men more than this highly finished one? Why, I suppose, the style which succeeds must be studied again; and this latter style repudiated.

People boast of the names of the ancients. But antiquity carries authority with it in precedents, as old age does in the lives of individuals; and it has indeed very great weight with me myself. Nor am I more inclined to demand from antiquity that which it has not, than to praise that which it has; especially as I consider what it has as of more importance than what it has not. For there is more good in well chosen words and ideas in which they excel, than in the rounding off of phrases in which they fail. It is after their time that the working up of the termination of a sentence has been introduced; which I think that those ancients would have employed, if it had been known and employed in their day; as since it has been introduced we see that all great orators have employed it.

Who then can endure those men who do not agree with such authorities as these? Unless indeed they are ignorant that they ever gave any such rules. And if that is the case, (and I really believe it is,) what then? Have they no senses of their own to be guided by? Have they no natural idea of what is useless? None of what is harsh, cramped, lame, or superfluous? When verses are being repeated, the whole theatre raises an outcry if there is one syllable too few or too many. Not that the mob knows anything about feet or metre; nor do they understand what it is that offends them, or know why or in what it offends them. But nevertheless nature herself has placed in our ears a power of judging of all superfluous length and all undue shortness in sounds, as much as of grave and acute syllables. LII. Do you wish then, O Brutus, that we should give a more accurate explanation of this whole topic, than those men themselves have done who have delivered these and other rules to us? Or may we be content with those which have been delivered by them? But why do I ask whether you wish this? when I know from your letters, written in a most scholar-like spirit, that you wish for it above all things. First of all, then, the origin of a well-adapted and rhythmical oration shall be explained, then the cause of it, then its nature, and last of all its use.

For they who admire Isocrates above all things, place this among his very highest panegyrics, that he was the first person who added rhythm to prose writing. For they say that, as he perceived that orators were listened to with seriousness, but poets with pleasure, he then aimed at rhythm so as to use it in his orations both for the sake of giving pleasure, and also that variety of sound might prevent weariness. And this is said by them in some degree correctly, but not wholly so. For we must confess that no one was ever more thoroughly skilled in that sort of learning than Isocrates; but still the original inventor of rhythm was Thrasymachus; all whose writings are even too carefully rhythmical. For, as I said a little while ago, the principle of things like one another being placed side by side, sentence after sentence being ended in a similar manner, and contraries being compared with contraries, so that, even if one took no pains about it, most sentences would end musically, was first discovered by Gorgias; but he used it without any moderation. And that is, as I have said before one of the three divisions of arrangement.

Ideas discussed in this chapter

Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.

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