De Optimo Genere Oratorum

1. The kinds of orators are said to be like those of poets; but it is otherwise, for the one is manifold. For of poetry—tragic, comic, epic, lyric, and also dithyrambic—each has its own kind, the more so as it has been cultivated, distinct from the rest. And so in tragedy the comic is a fault, and in comedy the tragic is unseemly; and in the others each has its own fixed tone and a certain note recognized by those who understand.

2. But if anyone reckons that there are several kinds of orators in this way—that he should think some grand or weighty or copious, others slender or subtle or brief, and others set between these and, as it were, in the middle—he says something about the men, but too little about the matter. For in the matter the question is what is best; in the man, what he is. And so one may say that Ennius is the foremost epic poet, if anyone so thinks, and Pacuvius the foremost tragic, and Caecilius perhaps the foremost comic.

3. The orator I do not divide by kind; for I am seeking the perfect one. And there is but one kind of the perfect, from which those who fall short do not differ in kind, as Terence from Accius, but, being in the same kind, are not equal. For the best orator is he who by his speaking both instructs the minds of his hearers, and delights them, and stirs them deeply. To instruct is a debt, to delight a free gift, to stir deeply a necessity.

4. That one man does these things better than another must be granted; but this comes about not in kind, but in degree. There is, indeed, one thing that is best, and nearest to it is that which is most like it. From which it is plain that what is most unlike the best is the worst. For since eloquence consists of words and of thoughts, we must bring it about that, speaking purely and faultlessly—which is to speak good Latin—we further pursue elegance both of proper and of transferred words: in proper words, that we choose the most polished; in transferred ones, that, following the likeness, we use what is borrowed with restraint.

5. Of thoughts, however, there are just as many kinds as I said there are of merits. For there are thoughts that are pointed, for instructing; thoughts that are, as it were, witty, for delighting; and thoughts that are weighty, for moving. But there is also a certain structure of words, producing two things, rhythm and smoothness; and the thoughts have their own arrangement, and an order suited to proving the case. But the foundation, as it were, of all these things is memory, and delivery their light.

6. He, then, in whom all these things shall be at their height will be the most perfect orator; he in whom they are middling, a middling one; he in whom they are least, the worst. And all will be called orators, just as painters are called painters, even bad ones; and they will differ from one another not in kind, but in faculty. And so there is no orator who would not wish to be like Demosthenes; but Menander did not wish to be like Homer, for it was a different kind. This is not so among orators; or, even if it is so—that one man, pursuing weight, flees subtlety, while another, on the contrary, wishes to be more pointed than ornate—even if he is within a tolerable kind, he is certainly not within the best, if indeed that which has all the merits is the best.

7. These things, however, I have said more briefly than the matter demanded; but for what we are about it was not necessary to say more; for since there is one kind, we are asking of what sort it is. And it is of such a sort as flourished at Athens; from which the very power of the Attic orators is unknown, their glory known. For the one thing many have seen, that there is nothing faulty among them; the other, few have seen, that there is much in them worthy of praise. For there is fault in the thought, if there is anything absurd, or alien, or not pointed, or somewhat insipid; in the words, if anything is sullied, or mean, or unfitting, or harsh, or far-fetched.

8. These faults nearly all have avoided who are either reckoned Attic or speak in the Attic manner. But those who have been strong only thus far, let them be held sound and dry—but only as wrestlers are; so that it be permitted to them to walk in the colonnade, not that they should seek the crown at the Olympic games. These men, since they are free from every fault, are not content, as it were, with good health, but seek muscles, sinews, blood, and even a certain charm of complexion. Let us imitate these, if we can; if not, then rather those who are of uncorrupted soundness—which is proper to the Attic writers—than those whose abundance is faulty, of which sort Asia has borne many. And when we do this—

9. if only we shall attain this very thing; for it is a very great matter—let us imitate, if we are able, Lysias, and most of all that very slenderness of his; for in many places he is grander, but because he wrote chiefly private cases, and those for others, and small pleadings about petty matters, he seems to be more meagre, since of set purpose he filed himself down to the kinds of minor cases. And one who does this in such a way that, even if he should wish to be richer, he could not, may indeed be held an orator, but of the lesser sort; whereas the great orator must often speak even in that manner in such a kind of cases.

10. So it comes about that Demosthenes certainly can speak in a low key, while Lysias perhaps cannot speak in a lofty one. But if men think that the speech for Milo ought to have been delivered—with the army stationed in the forum and in all the temples that are around the forum—just as if we were speaking on a private matter before a single judge, they measure the power of eloquence by their own capacity, not by the nature of the case.

11. Wherefore, since the talk of certain men has now grown common—that some of them speak in the Attic manner, and that not one of us speaks so—let us pass over the first sort; for the matter itself answers them sufficiently, since they are either not engaged for cases, or, when engaged, are laughed at; for if they were laughed at, that very thing would be a mark of the Attic men. But those who wish us to speak in the Attic manner, while they themselves profess not to be orators—if they have well-rounded ears and a discerning judgment, they are employed, as it were, to approve a painting even though they are ignorant of how to make one, yet judge with some skill;

12. but if they place their understanding in a fastidiousness of hearing, and nothing lofty and magnificent delights them, let them say that they want something subtle and polished, and despise what is grand and ornate; but let them cease to say this—that those who speak subtly are the only ones who speak in the Attic manner, that is, as it were, dryly and soundly. To speak amply and ornately and copiously, with the same soundness, is also the mark of the Attic men. What? Is it in doubt whether we wish our speech to be merely tolerable, or even admirable? For we are no longer asking what it is to speak in the Attic manner, but what it is to speak best.

13. From which it is understood that, since the most excellent of the Greek orators are those who lived at Athens, and the foremost of these is easily Demosthenes, whoever imitates him will speak both in the Attic manner and in the best manner; so that, since the Attic writers have been set before us for imitation, to speak well is the same as to speak in the Attic manner.

But since there was great error on this point—of what sort that kind of speaking was—I thought I ought to undertake a labour useful to students, though to me indeed not necessary.

14. For I have translated from the Attic writers the most celebrated and mutually opposed speeches of the two most eloquent men, Aeschines and Demosthenes; and I have translated them not as an interpreter, but as an orator, with the same thoughts and the same forms, or, as it were, figures, of them, but with words fitted to our usage. In these I have not thought it necessary to render word for word, but I have preserved the whole character and force of the words. For I did not think I ought to count them out to the reader, but, as it were, to weigh them out.

15. This labour of mine will accomplish this: that our countrymen may understand what they should demand of those who wish to be Attic, and to what formula, as it were, of speaking they should recall them. "But Thucydides will arise; for some admire his eloquence." That, indeed, is right; but it has nothing to do with the orator whom we are seeking. For it is one thing to set forth events by narrating, another to bring a charge by arguing, or to dissolve a charge; one thing to hold a hearer while narrating, another to rouse him. "But he speaks beautifully."

16. Surely no better than Plato? Yet the orator whom we seek must necessarily unfold forensic controversies in a kind of speaking fitted to instructing, to delighting, to stirring deeply. Wherefore, if there be anyone who professes that he will plead cases in the forum in the manner of Thucydides, he will be far even from the suspicion of that which is engaged in civil and forensic matters; but if he praises Thucydides, let him add our opinion to his own.

17. Indeed Isocrates himself, whom the divine author Plato, his near contemporary, made to be admirably praised by Socrates in the Phaedrus, and whom all the learned have called the supreme orator—even him I do not place in this number. For he is not engaged in the battle-line, nor with the sword, but his speech fences, as it were, with foils. By me, however—to compare the least with the greatest—a most famous pair of gladiators is brought on, Aeschines, like an Aeserninus, who, as Lucilius says, was

no filthy fellow, but keen and skilled—

who is here matched with a Pacideianus—by far the best

since men were born—.

For I think nothing more divine can be conceived than that orator.

18. Against this labour of mine two kinds of objections are set. One is this: "But the Greeks are better." From whom it may be asked whether they themselves can do anything better in Latin. The other: "Why should I read these rather than the Greek?" Yet the same men receive the Andria and the Synephebi, and no less the Latin Andromache, or Antiope, or the Epigoni. What disdain, then, is there for these in speeches translated from the Greek, when there is none in verses?

19. But let us now approach what we have undertaken, if we have first set forth what case was brought to trial. There being a law at Athens, that no one should propose a decree of the people that anyone be presented with a crown while in office before he had rendered his accounts; and another law, that those who were presented by the people ought to be presented in the assembly, and those by the senate, in the senate; Demosthenes was commissioner for the repairing of the walls, and repaired them at his own expense. Concerning this, then, Ctesiphon made a decree, with no accounts rendered by Demosthenes, that he be presented with a golden crown, and that this presentation be made in the theatre, with the people called together—a place which is not that of a lawful assembly—and that it be so proclaimed: that he was being presented on account of the virtue and good will which he bore toward the Athenian people.

20. This Ctesiphon, then, Aeschines brought to trial, on the ground that he had proposed, contrary to the laws, both that the crown be presented with the accounts not rendered, and that it be presented in the theatre, and because he had written what was false concerning his virtue and good will, since Demosthenes was neither a good man nor well deserving of the state. The case itself, indeed, is far from the formula of our usage, but it is a great one. For it contains both an interpretation of the laws, sharp enough on either side, and a contest concerning services to the state, truly weighty.

21. And so Aeschines had reason—since he himself had been accused on a capital charge by Demosthenes, for having falsely conducted an embassy—that, for the sake of taking vengeance on his enemy, a trial concerning the deeds and reputation of Demosthenes should be held under the name of Ctesiphon. For he said not so much about the accounts not rendered as about this, that a wicked citizen had been praised as the best.

22. This penalty Aeschines demanded of Ctesiphon four years before the death of Philip of Macedon; but the trial was held some years afterward, Alexander now holding Asia; to which trial there is said to have been a gathering from the whole of Greece. For what was so worth seeing or hearing as the contest of the greatest orators, in a most weighty case, carefully prepared and kindled by enmities?

23. If I shall have so rendered their speeches—as I hope—using all their virtues, that is, their thoughts and the figures of these and the order of matters, following the words only so far that they do not depart from our manner—and though they shall not all have been translated from the Greek, yet I have laboured that they may be of the same kind—there will be a rule, to which the speeches of those who wish to speak in the Attic manner may be directed. But enough about us. Let us now at last hear Aeschines himself speaking in Latin.