Book 2

When we were boys, brother Quintus—if you remember—there was a strong belief that Lucius Crassus had attained no more learning than that first boyish instruction could give him, and that Marcus Antonius was altogether without and ignorant of all culture; and there were many who, although they did not think the matter stood thus, yet, that they might the more easily deter us, fired as we were with the zeal of learning, from study, gladly proclaimed what I have said about those orators—so that, if men without education had attained the highest prudence and an incredible eloquence, all our labour might seem vain, and the zeal of our father, an excellent and most prudent man, in educating us, might seem foolish.

These men we then, as boys, used to refute by domestic witnesses—our father, and our kinsman Gaius Aculeo, and our uncle Lucius Cicero; for about Crassus our father, and Aculeo (with whom our maternal aunt was married, and whom Crassus loved most of all men), and our uncle, who had gone out with Antonius into Cilicia and had returned together with him, often told us many things about his zeal and learning; and since we were learning, together with our cousins, the sons of Aculeo, both those things which were approved by Crassus, and were being instructed by those teachers whom he employed, we also often perceived, when we were at his house—a thing which even as boys we could feel—that he both spoke Greek so well that he seemed to know no other language, and set before our teachers, in his questioning, and himself handled in all his conversation, such matters that nothing seemed new to him, nothing unheard of.

But about Antonius, although we had often heard from our most cultivated uncle in what manner he had given himself, whether at Athens or at Rhodes, to the conversations of the most learned men, yet I myself, as a youth, so far as the modesty of my entering years allowed, often inquired many things of him. What I write will assuredly not be new to you; for even then you used to hear from me that he had seemed to me, from many and various conversations, to be in no matter—at least in those arts of which I could form some judgement—unskilled or ignorant.

But this was the case with each of them: that Crassus did not so much wish to be thought not to have learned, as to despise those things, and to set the prudence of our own countrymen, in every kind, above the Greeks; while Antonius thought his speech would be more acceptable to this people if he were thought never to have learned at all; and so each thought he would be the weightier, if the one seemed to despise the Greeks, the other not even to know them.

What their purpose was is nothing at all to the present time; but this belongs to the design of the present writing and occasion—that no one has ever been able to flourish and excel in eloquence, not only without the doctrine of speaking, but not even without all wisdom. For the other arts, generally, each maintains itself by itself; but to speak well, which is to speak knowingly and skilfully and elegantly, has no defined region within whose boundaries it is confined: all things whatsoever that can fall into the discussion of men must be spoken of well by him who professes that he can do this, or the name of eloquence must be abandoned.

Wherefore for my part I confess that, both in our own state and in Greece itself, which always reckoned these things highest, there have been many of excellent talents and of great glory in speaking without the highest knowledge of all things; but that such an eloquence should arise as was in Crassus and Antonius, without a knowledge of all the things that pertained to so great a prudence, and to so great an abundance of speaking as was in them—this, I affirm, could not have been.

For this reason I did the more gladly commit to writing that conversation which they once held among themselves about these matters; both that that opinion which had always existed might be removed—that the one was not very learned, the other plainly unlearned; and that I might preserve in writing those things which I judged to have been said divinely by the greatest orators about eloquence, if in any way I could attain and embrace them; and, by Hercules, also that I might rescue their praise, now nearly fading, so far as I could, from the oblivion and the silence of men.

For if they could have been known from their own writings, perhaps I should have thought this less to be laboured at by me; but since the one had left not much that survived, and that itself written as a young man, and the other almost nothing written, I thought this was owed by me to the great talents of these men—that, while we still hold a living memory of them, I should, if I could, render it immortal.

And I approach this with the greater hope of carrying it through, because I am not writing something about the eloquence of Servius Galba or Gaius Carbo, in which I might invent, if I wished anything, with no one's memory now refuting me; but I publish these things to be known by those who often heard the very men of whom I speak; so that we may commend two supreme men to those who have seen neither of them, with the memory of living and present men—men to whom both those orators were known—as witness.

Nor indeed, dearest and best of brothers, do I now pursue you with certain rhetorical books, which you think rustic, in order to instruct you; for what can be either more subtle or more ornate than your own speech? But whether by judgement, as you are wont to say, or whether—as that father of eloquence Isocrates himself wrote of himself—from a certain modesty and a kind of inborn timidity you have shrunk from speaking; or whether, as I myself am wont to jest, you thought one rhetorician enough, not only in one family, but well-nigh in the whole state, yet I do not think that these books will be to you of that kind which could deservedly be mocked because of the meagreness, in the good arts, of those who have disputed about the method of speaking; for nothing, at least to my mind, seems to have been omitted in the conversation of Crassus and Antonius that anyone of the highest talents, the keenest studies, the best learning, the greatest practice might think could have been known and grasped—a thing which you will most easily be able to judge, who wished to gain the prudence and method of speaking through yourself, but the practice through us.

But that we may the more quickly complete this no slight task which we have undertaken, let us, leaving aside our own exhortation, come to the conversation and disputation of those whom we have set before us.

On the next day, then, after those things had been done, at about the second hour, when Crassus was even then in bed, and Sulpicius was sitting by him, and Antonius was walking up and down with Cotta in the portico, suddenly thither came the old Quintus Catulus with his brother Gaius Julius. When Crassus heard this, he rose in some agitation, and all, wondering, suspected that there was some greater cause of their coming.

When they had greeted one another in the friendliest way, as their intimacy bore, "What of you, pray?" said Crassus; "is there any news?" "Nothing at all," said Catulus; "for you see that it is the games; but—you may think us either silly," he said, "or troublesome—when Caesar came to me yesterday evening at my Tusculan villa from his own Tusculum, he told me that he had met Scaevola going from here, from whom he said he had heard certain wonderful things: that you, whom I have so often, by every means, in attempting to draw out to disputation, could not, had discoursed very much about eloquence with Antonius, and had disputed almost in the manner of the Greeks, as in a school:

so my brother prevailed upon me—not myself too much averse from the desire of hearing, but, by Hercules, fearing lest we should intrude troublesomely upon you—to come hither with him; for he said Scaevola told him that a good part of the conversation had been put off to this day. If you think this too eager, you will attribute it to Caesar; if too familiar, to us both; we, at any rate, unless perchance we intrude troublesomely, are delighted to have come."

Then Crassus said: "For my part, whatever cause had brought you hither, I should rejoice, since I see at my house men most dear and most friendly to me; but yet, to speak truly, I would rather any other had been the cause than that which you mention. For I, to speak as I feel, never pleased myself less than yesterday; and this happened to me more from good-nature than from any other fault of mine, who, while I humour these young men, forgot that I was an old man, and did what I had not done even as a young man—disputed about matters which are contained in some learning. But yet this fell out very opportunely for me, that, my part being now done, you have come to hear Antonius."

Then Caesar said: "For my part, Crassus, I am so desirous of hearing you in that longer and continuous disputation, that, if that be less granted me, I should be content even with this daily conversation of yours; and so I shall try this—that my friend Sulpicius and Cotta may not seem to prevail more with you than I—and I shall assuredly entreat you to impart some of your sweetness to me too, and to Catulus; but if that be less pleasing to you, I shall not press you, nor allow it to happen that, while you fear lest you be silly, you should judge me to be so."

Then he said: "By Hercules, Caesar, of all Latin words I have always thought the force of this word the greatest; for he whom we call inept (ineptum) seems to me to have his name derived from this—that he is not fitted (aptus); and this, in the usage of our speech, has a very wide application; for he who either does not see what the occasion demands, or talks too much, or shows himself off, or has no regard for the dignity or convenience of those with whom he is, or, in short, is in any kind either uncouth or excessive, he is said to be inept.

With this fault that most learned nation of the Greeks is overflowing; and so, because the Greeks do not see the force of this evil, they have not even imposed a name upon the fault; for though you search through everything, you will not find how the Greeks call a man inept. But of all the kinds of ineptitude, which are countless, I scarcely know whether any is greater than this—as those men are wont, in whatever place, among whatever men it has seemed good, to dispute most subtly about matters either most difficult or not necessary. This we, against our will and protesting, were yesterday compelled by these young men to do."

Then Catulus said: "Not even the Greeks, Crassus, who in their own states were famous and great, just as you are, and as we all wish to be in our commonwealth, were like these Greeks who thrust themselves upon our ears; nor in their leisure did they shun conversations and disputations of this kind.

And if those seem to you inept who have no regard for time, place, and men—as they ought to seem—does, pray, either this place seem unsuitable, in which this very portico, where we now walk, and the wrestling-ground, and the seats in so many places of the gymnasia, in some way recall the memory of the Greeks' gymnasia and disputations? Or is the time importunate, in such great leisure, which is both rarely given and now given to us at the very moment of our wish? Or are the men averse from this kind of disputation, who are all such that we count life nothing without these studies?"

"All those things," said Crassus, "I interpret in another way: for first I think that the Greeks themselves, Catulus, invented the wrestling-ground and the seats and the porticoes for the sake of exercise and delight, not of disputation; for the gymnasia were invented many ages before the philosophers began to chatter in them; and at this very time, when the philosophers hold all the gymnasia, yet their hearers would rather hear the discus than the philosopher; and as soon as it sounds, they all leave the philosopher, in the midst of his discourse, disputing about the greatest and weightiest matters, for the sake of the rubbing-down: thus they set the lightest delight before the weightiest usefulness, as they themselves declare.

As for the leisure which you mention, I agree; but the fruit of leisure is not the straining of the mind, but its relaxation. Often I heard from my father-in-law, when he said that his father-in-law Laelius was almost always wont to take his country holidays with Scipio, and that they were wont to grow boys again incredibly, when they had flown out from the city into the country as from chains. I do not dare to say it of such men, but yet Scaevola is wont to relate that they used to gather shells and pebbles at Caieta and at Laurentum, and to descend to every relaxation and play of the mind.

For the matter so stands that, just as we see birds fashion and build nests for the sake of their procreation and their advantage, but, when they have accomplished something, fly about freely, loosed from their work, here and there to ease their labour, so our minds, wearied with forensic business and city work, are eager and long to fly about free from care and toil.

And so what I said in the cause of Curius, against Scaevola, I said not otherwise than I felt: for, 'If,' I said, 'Scaevola, no will shall be rightly made except such as you have written, we citizens shall all come to you with our tablets, you alone shall write all our wills. What then?' I said; 'when will you do public business? When the business of friends? When your own? When, in short, will you do nothing?' Then I added this: 'For to me he does not seem to be free, who does not sometimes do nothing.' In which opinion, Catulus, I remain; and it delights me, when I have come hither, to do this very thing—nothing—and plainly to be idle.

For as to your third addition—that you are those who would think life unpleasant without these studies—that not only does not exhort me to disputation, but even deters me. For as Gaius Lucilius, a learned and most urbane man, used to say of what he wrote, that he wished it to be read neither by the most unlearned nor by the most learned, because the one understood nothing, the other perhaps more than himself—about which he also wrote, 'I do not care to be read by Persius' (for this man was, as we knew, almost the most learned of all our countrymen) 'but I want Laelius Decumus'—whom we knew to be a good man and not unlettered, but nothing compared to Persius—so I, if now I must dispute about these our studies, should not indeed wish to do so before rustics, but much less before you; for I prefer that my speech be not understood than be censured."

Then Caesar said: "For my part, Catulus, I now seem to myself to have spent my labour well in coming hither; for this very refusal of disputation was itself a kind of disputation, to me at least most pleasant. But why do we hinder Antonius, whose part it is, I hear, to discourse about the whole of eloquence, and whom Cotta and Sulpicius have long been awaiting?"

"For my part," said Crassus, "I will neither allow Antonius to say a word, and I myself will be silent, unless I first obtain something from you"—"What, pray?" said Catulus. "That you stay here today." Then, when he hesitated, because he had promised his brother, "I," said Julius, "answer for both: so we will do; and indeed on that condition, even if you were to say not a word, you would keep me here."

Hereupon Catulus smiled, and at the same time said: "My hesitation is cut off, since I had given no orders at home, and he, at whose house I was to be, has so easily promised without my opinion." Then all turned their eyes upon Antonius, and he said: "Listen, then, listen; for you will hear a man instructed from the school and from a master and in Greek letters; and indeed I shall speak the more confidently, because Catulus has come as a hearer, to whom not only we of the Latin tongue, but even the Greeks themselves, are wont to concede the subtlety and elegance of their own language.

But because, nevertheless, this whole thing, whatever it is, whether art or zeal of speaking, can be nothing unless impudence be added, I will teach you, my pupils, what I myself never learned—what I think about every kind."

When they had smiled at this, "The matter," he said, "seems to me to be excellent in respect of faculty, moderate in respect of art; for art belongs to those things which are known; but all the orator's action is contained in opinions, not in knowledge; for we both speak before those who do not know, and we say those things which we ourselves do not know; and so they at different times both feel and judge differently about the same matters, and we often plead contrary causes, not only so that Crassus speaks against me sometimes, or I against Crassus, when it is necessary that one of the two say what is false, but even so that each of us defends at different times different things about the same matter, when there cannot be more than one truth. As, then, in a matter of this kind, which rests on falsehood, which does not often arrive at knowledge, which hunts after the opinions and often the errors of men, so I will speak, if you think there is a cause why you should listen."

"We do indeed, and very greatly," said Catulus, "think so, and the more because you seem about to use no ostentation; for you have begun not gloriously, as you think, but rather from truth than from some kind of dignity."

"As, then, I have confessed about the kind itself," said Antonius, "that it is no great art, so this I affirm—that certain very acute precepts can be given for handling the minds of men and for catching their goodwill. If anyone wishes to call the knowledge of this matter a certain great art, I will not contend; for since most men plead causes in the forum rashly and with no method, while some, by reason of practice or some habit, do it more skilfully, there is no doubt that, if anyone observes what it is whereby some speak better than others, he can note it: therefore he who shall have done this in the whole field will have found, if not plainly an art, yet a kind of quasi-art.

And would that, as I seem to myself to see those things in the forum and in causes, so now I could search them out for you—in what manner they may be discovered! But of myself I shall see; now I set forth this, of which I have persuaded myself: that, although it be not an art, yet nothing is more glorious than a perfect orator; for, to pass over the use of speaking, which holds sway in every peaceful and free state, there is so great a delight in the very faculty of speaking, that nothing more pleasant can be perceived either by the ears or the minds of men.

For what song can be found sweeter than a well-measured speech? What poem more fitting than the artistic rounding of words? What actor more pleasing in imitating the truth than the orator in upholding it? What is more subtle than frequent and acute thoughts? What more wonderful than a matter illustrated by the splendour of words? What more full than a speech heaped up with every kind of matter? Nor is there any matter which is not proper to the orator, provided it ought to be spoken of with elegance and weight.

His it is, in giving counsel about the greatest matters, to set forth his opinion with dignity; his too is the rousing of a languishing people and the moderating of an unbridled one; by the same faculty both the fraud of men is summoned to destruction and integrity to safety. Who can exhort to virtue more ardently, who recall from vices more keenly, who censure the wicked more harshly, who praise the good more ornately, who break a passion more vehemently by accusing it? Who lighten grief more gently by consoling?

And history, indeed—the witness of times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the mistress of life, the messenger of antiquity—by what other voice than the orator's is it commended to immortality? For if there is any other art that professes a knowledge of either coining or choosing words; or if anyone but the orator is said to shape a speech and to vary and distinguish it as if by certain ornaments of words and thoughts; or if any method, whether of arguments, or of thoughts, or, in short, of arrangement and order, is handed down except by this one art—let us confess either that what this art professes is alien to it, or that it is common to it with some other art; but if in this one alone is that method and doctrine, then, even if those of other arts have spoken well, it is not on that account the less proper to this one alone;

but as the orator can speak best about those matters which belong to the other arts, provided only he has learned them—as Crassus said yesterday—so men of the other arts speak more elegantly of their own matters, if they have learned anything from this art.

For if some farmer about rustic matters, or even—as many do—some physician about diseases, or some painter about painting, has written or spoken eloquently, eloquence is not on that account to be reckoned of that art; in which, because there is great power in the talents of men, many even without instruction attain something of every kind and art; but, although what is proper to each can be judged from this—when you see what each art teaches—yet nothing can be more certain than this, that all the other arts can perform their function without eloquence, but the orator cannot obtain his name without it; so that the others, if they are eloquent, have something from him, but he, unless he has furnished himself with his own domestic stores, cannot seek the abundance of speaking from elsewhere."

Then Catulus said: "Although, Antonius, that course of your speech is by no means to be hindered by interruption, yet you will allow me, and will pardon me; 'for I cannot but cry out,' as that man says in the Trinummus: so well did you seem both to express subtly the power of the orator, and to praise it most copiously; which indeed it especially becomes the eloquent man to do—to praise eloquence; for he ought, in praising it, to employ that very thing which he praises. But go on further; for I agree with you that this whole thing—to speak eloquently—is yours, and that if anyone do this in another art, he uses a good thing borrowed from elsewhere, not proper or his own."

And Crassus said: "The night, Antonius, has polished you for us and made you a man; for in yesterday's conversation you had described to us an orator of some single function, as Caecilius says—some oarsman or porter, a man poor in culture and unrefined." Then Antonius said: "Yesterday I had set this before myself, that, if I refuted you, I should draw these pupils away from you; but now, with Catulus and Caesar listening, I think I ought not so much to fight with you as to say what I myself feel.

It follows, then—since we must set up here the man of whom we speak in the forum and in the eyes of the citizens—that we see what business we give him and to what office we wish him to be appointed; for Crassus yesterday, when you, Catulus and Caesar, were not present, laid down briefly, in the division of the art, the same thing which most Greeks laid down, nor indeed showed what he himself thought, but what was said by them: that there are two first kinds of questions in which eloquence is engaged—one unlimited, the other definite.

The unlimited seemed to me to be that in which something is asked generally, in this manner: whether eloquence is to be sought? whether honours are to be sought? The definite, that in which something is asked in regard to persons and to a fixed and defined matter; of which kind are those which are engaged in the forum and in the causes and disputes of citizens.

These seem to me to be placed either in pleading a suit or in giving counsel; for that third kind, which was touched on both by Crassus and—as I hear—was added by Aristotle himself, who especially illustrated these matters, though it be of use, is yet less necessary." "What, pray?" said Catulus; "is it panegyrics? For I see that this is set down as the third kind."

"Yes," said Antonius, "and in that kind indeed I know that both I and all who were present were vehemently delighted, when Popilia, your mother, was praised by you—the first woman, I think, to whom this honour was paid in our state. But not all things, whatsoever we speak, seem to me to be referred to art and precepts;

for from those very fountains whence all the ornaments of speaking are drawn, it will be permitted also to adorn a panegyric, nor to need those elements which, even if no one hand them down, who is there that does not know what is to be praised in a man? For, the things being laid down which Crassus stated at the beginning of that speech of his which he held as censor against his colleague—that, in those things which are given to men by nature or fortune, he could endure with an even mind to be surpassed; but in those things which men could provide for themselves, in those he could not endure to be surpassed—he who shall praise anyone will understand that the goods of fortune are to be set forth by him;

these are of birth, of wealth, of kindred, of friends, of resources, of health, of beauty, of strength, of talent, and of the other things which are either of the body or external; if the man has had them, that he has used them well; if he has not had them, that he has wisely done without them; if he has lost them, that he has borne it with moderation; then, what the man whom he praises has either done or borne wisely, what generously, what bravely, what justly, what magnificently, what piously, what gratefully, what humanely, and, in short, what with any virtue: these things, and those of this kind, he who wishes to praise will easily see; and he who wishes to blame, the contrary."

"Why, then," said Catulus, "do you hesitate to make this the third kind, since it lies in the system of things? For it is not, if it is easier, on that account to be struck out of the number." "Because," said he, "I am unwilling to handle all things which sometimes fall to the orator, however slight they be, as though nothing could be said without their own precepts;

for testimony, too, must often be given, and sometimes even with greater care, as I myself was obliged to do against Sextus Titius, a seditious and turbulent citizen; in giving that testimony I unfolded all the counsels of my consulship, by which I had withstood that tribune of the plebs on behalf of the commonwealth, and I set forth what I judged he had done against the commonwealth; I was long detained, I heard much, I answered much. Do you, then, think it good, when you give precepts about eloquence, to hand down also, as if in an art, something about giving testimony?"

"There is no need at all," said Catulus. "What if—as often happens to the greatest men—instructions must be set forth either in the senate by a commander, or to a commander, or to a king, or to some people from the senate—must this part of causes, because a more careful kind of speech must be used in matters of this sort, on that account be reckoned, or be furnished with its own precepts?" "By no means," said Catulus; "for the faculty for matters of this kind will not be wanting to the eloquent man, gained from the other matters and causes."

"Therefore likewise," said he, "those things which must often be eloquently treated, and which I a little while ago, when I was praising eloquence, said belonged to the orator, neither have any place of their own in the division of parts, nor any fixed kind of precepts, and yet must be treated no less eloquently than what is said in a suit—rebuke, exhortation, consolation; of which there is nothing that does not demand the highest ornaments of speaking; but as for the art, those matters do not require precepts."

"I plainly agree," said Catulus. "Come now," said Antonius, "of what kind of orator, and of how great a man in speaking, do you think it is to write history?" "If, as the Greeks wrote, of the greatest," said Catulus; "if, as ours did, there is no need of an orator; it is enough not to be a liar." "And yet, that you may not despise our countrymen," said Antonius, "the Greeks themselves at first wrote in the same way as our Cato, as Pictor, as Piso;

for history was nothing else but the compilation of annals; for the sake of which, and of preserving the public record, from the beginning of Roman affairs down to the pontifex maximus Publius Mucius, the pontifex maximus committed to writing all the events of each year, and entered them on a white tablet, and set up the board at his house, so that the people might have the power of knowing them; and these are even now called the Great Annals.

This manner of writing many have followed, who without any ornaments have left only records of times, men, places, and deeds; and so, just as among the Greeks were Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, and very many others, so was our Cato, and Pictor, and Piso, who neither hold by what things a speech is adorned—for these things have only lately been imported hither—and, provided that what they say be understood, think the one praise of speaking to be brevity.

A little did he raise himself and add a greater sound of voice to history, that excellent man, the friend of Crassus, Antipater; the rest were not embellishers of facts, but only narrators." "It is," said Catulus, "as you say; but that very Caelius neither distinguished history by variety of colours, nor polished that work by the arrangement of words and a smooth and even flow of speech; but, as a man neither learned nor especially apt for speaking, he hewed it out as best he could; yet he surpassed, as you say, his predecessors."

"It is no wonder," said Antonius, "if that matter has not yet been illustrated in our tongue; for no one studies the eloquence of our countrymen except to shine in causes and in the forum; but among the Greeks the most eloquent men, removed from forensic causes, applied themselves both to other illustrious matters and most of all to the writing of history: for we have heard that the famous Herodotus, who first adorned this kind, was not at all engaged in causes; and yet his eloquence is so great that he greatly delights me at least, so far as I can understand what is written in Greek; and after him Thucydides, in my opinion, easily surpassed all in the art of speaking;

who is so crowded with abundance of matter that he well-nigh equals the number of his words by the number of his thoughts, and is so apt and compressed in his words that you would not know whether the matter is illustrated by the speech or the words by the thoughts: and yet not even him, although he was engaged in public affairs, have we received as one of the number of those who often pleaded causes; and these very books he is said to have written when he had been removed from public affairs and—as was wont to happen at Athens to every best man—driven into exile;

him followed Philistus of Syracuse, who, being most intimate with the tyrant Dionysius, spent his leisure in writing history and especially imitated, as it seems to me, Thucydides. But afterward, from that most famous workshop, as it were, of the rhetorician, two men outstanding in talent, Theopompus and Ephorus, impelled by their master Isocrates, betook themselves to history; they never touched causes at all.

Finally, setting out even from philosophy, Xenophon, that follower of Socrates, was the first; afterward, from Aristotle's school, Callisthenes, the companion of Alexander, wrote history, and he indeed almost in the rhetorical manner; but that earlier one used a certain gentler tone, and, though he has not that impetus of the orator—less vehement perhaps, yet somewhat, as it seems to me at least, sweeter. The youngest in age of all these, Timaeus—but, so far as I can judge, by far the most learned, and most abounding in copiousness of matter and variety of thoughts, and not unpolished in the very composition of words—brought a great eloquence to writing, but no forensic experience."

When he had said this, "What is this, Catulus?" said Caesar; "where are those who say Antonius does not know Greek? How many historians he has named! How knowingly, how aptly he has spoken of each one!" "By Hercules," said Catulus, "wondering at this, I now cease to wonder at that which I wondered at much more before—that this man, when he did not know these things, could do so much in speaking." "And yet, Catulus," said Antonius, "I read these books, and some others, not hunting for any usefulness toward speaking, but for the sake of delight, when there is leisure.

What then? There is, I will confess, nevertheless something; as, when I walk in the sun, even if I walk for another cause, yet it naturally happens that I am coloured; so, when I have read those books at Misenum—for at Rome it is scarcely allowed—rather diligently, I feel that my speech is, as it were, coloured by their touch. But that this may not seem to you to extend too widely, I understand in the Greeks only these things, which the very men who wrote them wished to be understood by the common people:

into your philosophers, if ever I have fallen, deceived by the titles of the books, which are generally inscribed with known and illustrious subjects, about virtue, about justice, about honour, about pleasure, I understand not a single word; so are they bound by narrow and concise disputations; the poets, who have spoken altogether as if in some other language, I do not attempt to touch. With those, as I said, I delight myself, who have written either deeds or their own speeches, or who so speak that they seem to have wished to be familiar to us who are not most learned.

But I return thither: do you see how great a function of the orator history is? I scarcely know whether it be not the greatest, by the flood and the variety of the speech; and nowhere do I find it separately set forth in the precepts of the rhetoricians; for they lie before our eyes. For who does not know that the first law of history is that one dare say nothing false? Then that one dare say nothing untrue? That there be no suspicion of favour in writing? None of enmity?

These foundations, of course, are known to all; but the very building-up rests upon facts and words: the system of facts demands the order of times, the description of regions; it requires also—since in great matters worthy of memory, first counsels, then deeds, afterward outcomes are looked for—both that it be signified, concerning counsels, what the writer approves, and that it be declared, in deeds, not only what was done or said, but also in what manner; and when the outcome is spoken of, that all the causes be unfolded, whether of chance or of wisdom or of rashness, and not only the deeds of the men themselves, but also, concerning those who excel in fame and name, the life and nature of each;

but the system of words and the kind of speech must be a flowing and extended one, with a certain smoothness evenly streaming on, without this judicial harshness and without the forensic stings of epigrams. Do you see that of all these so great matters there are no precepts which are found in the arts of the rhetoricians? In the same silence many other functions of the orator have lain—exhortations, precepts, consolations, admonitions—all of which must be treated most eloquently, but have no place in these arts which have been handed down.

And in this kind there is also that boundless forest, in that most writers—as Crassus too showed—have given the orator two kinds for speaking: one about a fixed and definite cause, such as are those which are engaged in suits, in deliberations (let anyone add, if he will, also panegyrics); the other, which almost all writers call, but no one explains, the unlimited question of the kind, without time and without person. What this is and how great it is, when they speak of it, they do not seem to me to understand:

for if it belongs to the orator to be able to speak on whatever matter is set unlimitedly, he will have to speak how great the magnitude of the sun is, what the shape of the earth; about mathematical, about musical matters he will not be able, having undertaken this burden, to refuse to speak; in short, to him who professes that it is his not only to speak about those controversies which are marked by times and persons—that is, about all forensic matters—but also about the unlimited questions of the kind, no kind of speech can be excepted.

But if we wish also to add to the orator that part of questions which is wandering and free and widely open—so that we should think the orator must speak about good or evil things, things to be sought or shunned, honourable or base, useful or useless, about virtue, justice, self-restraint, prudence, greatness of soul, liberality, piety, friendship, duty, good faith, and the other virtues and their contrary vices; and likewise about the commonwealth, about empire, about military affairs, about the discipline of the state, about the characters of men—let us assume that part too, but in such a way that it be circumscribed within moderate regions.

For my part I think that all things which pertain to the practice of citizens, the custom of men, which are engaged in the habit of life, in the system of the commonwealth, in this civil society, in the common sense of man, in nature, in character, must be grasped by the orator; if not so that he may answer separately about these matters after the manner of the philosophers, yet certainly so that he may prudently weave them into a cause; but about these very matters that he should speak in such a way as those who established laws, statutes, and states spoke—simply and splendidly, without any train of disputations and without a meagre wrangling of words.

At this point, lest there be any wonder if no precepts about so many and so great matters are laid down by me, I lay it down thus: that, as in the other arts, when the most difficult things of each art have been handed down, the rest, because they are either easier or similar, need not be handed down; as in painting, he who has thoroughly learned to paint one form of man can paint of any form or age, even if he has not learned it, and there is no danger that he who paints a lion or a bull excellently cannot do the same with many other quadrupeds—and there is altogether no art in which everything that can be effected by that art is handed down by the teacher, but those who have learned the very kinds of the chief and definite matters attain the rest by themselves—

similarly I think that in this—whether method or exercise—of speaking, he who has attained that power, of being able to move at his own pleasure the minds of those who hear with some power of deciding, whether about the commonwealth, or about his own matters, or about those against whom or on whose behalf he speaks—he will inquire no more, about that whole kind of the remaining speeches, what he should say, than that famous Polyclitus, when he was fashioning a Hercules, inquired how he should fashion the skin or the hydra, even though he had never learned to do these things separately."

Then Catulus said: "Excellently, Antonius, you seem to me to have set before our eyes what he ought to learn who is to be an orator, and what, even if he has not learned it, he would assume from what he has learned; for you have led the whole man into two kinds only of causes, and left the rest, countless, to exercise and likeness: but see lest in those two kinds you have the hydra and the skin, while the Hercules and other greater works are left in those matters which you pass over; for it seems to me no less a work to speak about the universal kinds of things than about the causes of individuals, and much greater even to speak about the nature of the gods than about the suits of men." "It is not so," said Antonius;

"for I will tell you, Catulus, not so much as a learned man as—what is greater—as one who has experience: the speaking about all other matters, believe me, is play to a man not dull, nor unexercised, nor without common letters and the more polished culture; in the contests of causes there is a certain great work, and I scarcely know whether of human works it be by far the greatest; in which the power of the orator is for the most part judged by the inexperienced by the outcome and the victory; where an armed adversary is at hand, who must both be struck and repelled; where often he who is to be the master of the matter is a stranger and angry, or even a friend of the adversary and an enemy to you; when he must be either taught or untaught, or repressed or roused, or in every way moderated by the speech to suit the occasion and the cause (in which often goodwill must be led to hatred, and hatred to goodwill); or, as by some engine, must now be turned to severity, now to mildness, now to sadness, now to gladness of mind;

the weight of all thoughts, the weights of all words must be used; there must be added a delivery various, vehement, full of spirit, full of breath, full of grief, full of truth. In these works, if anyone has grasped that art, so that he can fashion the image of Minerva like Phidias, he will not indeed labour at how, like the same artist, he should learn to make those lesser works on the shield."

Then Catulus said: "The greater and more wonderful you have made those things, the greater an expectation holds me, by what methods and by what precepts that so great a power is acquired; not that it now concerns me—for my age does not require it, and we have followed a certain other kind of speaking, who never wrested verdicts from the hands of the judges by a kind of force of speech, but rather, their minds being appeased, received only as much as they themselves allowed—but yet I ask these things of yours for no use of my own, led only by the zeal of knowing.

Nor do I need some Greek teacher to chant to me well-worn precepts, when he himself has never looked upon the forum, never upon any trial; as that Peripatetic Phormio is said to have done, when Hannibal, expelled from Carthage, had come to Ephesus to Antiochus as an exile, and, because his name had great glory among all, had been invited by his hosts to hear, if he wished, the man I have mentioned; and when he had said that he was not unwilling, the wordy man is said to have spoken some hours about the duty of a commander and about military affairs. Then, when the rest who had heard him were vehemently delighted, they asked of Hannibal what he himself judged of that philosopher: hereupon the Carthaginian is reported to have answered, not in the best Greek, but yet freely, that he had often seen many doting old men, but had seen no one who doted more than Phormio.

And, by Hercules, not without reason; for what could be done either more arrogant or more wordy than for a Greek, who had never seen an enemy, never a camp, never, in short, touched the least part of any public office, to give precepts about military affairs to Hannibal, who for so many years had contended with the Roman people, the conqueror of all nations, about empire? This all those who give precepts about the art of speaking seem to me to do; for what they themselves have not experienced, that they teach others; but in this perhaps they err less, that they try to teach not you, as that man Hannibal, but boys or youths."

"You err, Catulus," said Antonius; "for I myself have already fallen in with many a Phormio. For who is there of those Greeks who thinks any of us understands anything? And to me, indeed, they are not so troublesome; I easily bear and endure them all; for either they bring something which does not displease me, or they bring it about that I repent the less of not having learned; but I dismiss them not so insultingly as Hannibal dismissed that philosopher, and on that account I have perhaps even more trouble. But yet their doctrine, so far as I can judge, is very ridiculous:

for they divide the whole matter into two parts, into the controversy of the cause and into that of the question: they call a cause a matter placed in the dispute and controversy of defendants; but a question a matter placed in unlimited doubt; about the cause they give precepts; about the other part of speaking there is a wonderful silence.

Then they make, as it were, five members of eloquence: to find what you would say, to arrange what is found, then to adorn it with words, afterward to commit it to memory, then at the last to deliver and pronounce it; a thing surely not recondite; for who would not see this of his own accord—that no one can speak unless he have both what he would say, and in what words, and in what order he would say it, and remember these things? And I do not blame these things, but say that they are set before our eyes, as also those four, or five, or six, or even seven parts (since they are divided differently by different men), into which all speech is by these men distributed:

for they bid us begin in such a way as to make the hearer well-disposed to us, and teachable, and attentive; then to narrate the matter, and so that the narrative be probable, that it be open, that it be brief; afterward to divide the cause or set it forth; to confirm our own points by arguments and reasons; then to refute the contrary; then some place at this point the conclusion of the speech and, as it were, the peroration, others bid us, before the peroration, digress for the sake of adorning or amplifying, and then conclude and round off.

Not even these things do I blame; for they are neatly distributed, but yet—a thing which was inevitable for men without experience of the truth—not skilfully: for those precepts which they wished to belong to introductions and narratives must be preserved throughout whole speeches;

for I can more easily make a judge well-disposed when I am in the course of my speech than when all is unheard; and teachable, not when I promise that I shall demonstrate, but then, when I teach and explain; and attentive we can make him in the whole action by rousing the minds of the judges, not by the first announcement.

But as to their bidding the narrative be probable and open and brief, they rightly admonish us: that they think these things to be more proper to the narrative than to the whole speech—in this they seem to me greatly to err; and altogether in this is all their error, that they think this to be a certain art not unlike the others, of such a kind as Crassus said yesterday could be composed about the civil law itself: that the kinds of matters should first be set forth—in which there is a fault if any kind is passed over; then the parts of the several kinds—in which both to omit some part and to have a superfluous one is faulty; then the definitions of all the words—in which neither ought anything to be absent nor to overflow.

But if this can be attained in the civil law, if even in small or moderate matters by the more learned, I do not think the same can be done in so great and so boundless a matter as this; but if there are some who think so, they must be led to those who teach these things; they will attain everything already explained and polished; for there are countless books about these matters, neither hidden nor obscure: but let them see what they wish—whether they are going to take up arms for play or for fight; for fight and the battle-line require one thing, our play and exercise-ground another; and yet the very playful art of arms profits somewhat both the gladiator and the soldier; but a keen mind, present and acute and likewise versatile, makes men invincible.

Wherefore I will now so train the orator for you, if I can, that I may first foresee what he can effect: for let him be tinged with letters; let him have heard something, read something, received those very precepts; I will try what becomes him, what he can effect with his voice, his strength, his breath, his tongue. If I understand that he can attain to the highest, I will not only exhort him to labour, but, if he shall also seem to me to be a good man, I will entreat him; so great is the ornament I reckon there is in an excellent orator who is at the same time a good man, for the whole state; but if it shall seem, when he has done everything to the utmost, that he will nevertheless come only to the rank of moderate orators, I will permit him to do what he wishes; I will not be greatly troublesome; but if he shall plainly be unfit and absurd, I will admonish him to restrain himself or to transfer himself to another study;

for neither is he who can do best to be in any way deserted by our exhortation, nor is he who can do something to be deterred: of which the one seems to me to be of a certain divinity; the other—either not to do what you cannot do best, or to do what you do not do worst—of humanity; but that third, to cry out contrary to what becomes one and to what one can do, is the mark of a man who, as you, Catulus, said of a certain bawler, gathers by his own domestic crying as many witnesses as possible of his own folly.

Of him, then, who shall be such that he must be exhorted and helped, let us so speak that we may hand down to him only those things which experience has taught us, so that, with us as guides, he may come whither we ourselves came without a guide, since we cannot teach him better things.

And, to begin with our friend, this Sulpicius, Catulus, I first heard as a very young man in a small cause, with his voice and form and movement of body and the other things apt for this function of which we are inquiring, but with a speech swift and impetuous, which was of his talent, and with words boiling over and a little too redundant, which was of his age. I did not despise it; for I wish fecundity to pour itself forth in a young man; for, as in vines, those things which have poured themselves forth too much are more easily checked than, if the stock have no strength, new shoots are roused up by cultivation; likewise I wish there to be in a young man that from which I may prune something; for there cannot be lasting sap in that which has too quickly run through to maturity.

I saw at once his natural quality, and I did not let the moment slip, and I exhorted him to think the forum his school for learning, and to choose for his master whomever he wished; me, indeed, if he would hear me, Lucius Crassus: which he eagerly caught at, and affirmed that he would so do, and even added—for the sake of compliment, of course—that I too should be his master. Scarcely a year had passed from this conversation of my exhortation, when he accused Gaius Norbanus, I defending: it is not credible what a difference there seemed to me between him who then was and him who had been a year before. Altogether nature itself was leading him toward that magnificent and splendid kind of Crassus, but that could not have profited him enough, unless he had bent himself with the same zeal and imitation, and had so accustomed himself to speak as to regard Crassus with his whole mind and his whole soul.

Therefore let this be first in my precepts—that we point out whom he should imitate; then let exercise be added, by which, in imitating, he may fashion and express him whom he has chosen, not as I have often known many imitators to do, who pursue in imitation either those things which are easy, or even those which are conspicuous and almost faulty.

Nothing is easier than to imitate someone's dress, or carriage, or movement; but if there be even something faulty, to take that and to be like in that fault is no great thing—as that man who, even now, his voice lost, rages in the commonwealth, Fufius, does not attain the sinews in speaking of Gaius Fimbria, which yet that man had, but imitates the distortion of the mouth and the broadness of the words; but yet that man neither knew how to choose whom he would most resemble, and in the very man he had chosen wished to imitate even the faults;

but he who shall do as he ought must first be watchful in choosing; then, in him whom he has approved, must pursue most diligently those things which most excel. For what cause do you think there is why the several ages have brought forth almost several kinds of speaking? A thing which we cannot so easily judge in our own orators, because they have left no very many writings from which a judgement could be made, as in the Greeks, from whose writings it can be understood what the method and inclination of speaking of each age was.

The most ancient, of whom indeed the writings survive, are well-nigh Pericles and Alcibiades, and of the same age Thucydides—subtle, acute, brief, abounding more in thoughts than in words: it could not have happened that there should be one kind common to all, unless they set someone before themselves for imitation. These were followed by Critias, Theramenes, Lysias: many of Lysias's writings exist; some of Critias's; of Theramenes we hear; all even then retained that sap of Pericles, but were of a somewhat richer thread.

Behold, then, there arose Isocrates, from whose school, as from the Trojan horse, none but leaders came forth; but of them some wished to be illustrious in the procession, some in the battle-line. And both those—Theopompus, Ephorus, Philistus, Naucrates, and many others—differ in their natures, but in their inclination are like both one another and their master; and those who betook themselves to causes, as Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lycurgus, Aeschines, Dinarchus, and several others, though they were not equal among themselves, yet were all engaged in the same kind of imitating the truth, and so long as the imitation of them remained, so long did that kind of speaking and the zeal for it live;

but after these were extinguished, and all memory of them was gradually obscured and vanished, certain other softer and more relaxed kinds of speaking flourished. Thence Demochares, whom they say was the son of Demosthenes's sister; then that Demetrius of Phalerum, in my opinion the most polished of all those, and others like these arose. And if we wish to pursue this down to our own time, we shall understand that, as today all Asia imitates that Menecles of Alabanda and his brother Hierocles, whom I heard, so there has always been someone whom most men wished to resemble.

This likeness, then, whoever wishes to attain by imitation, let him pursue it both by frequent and great exercises and most of all by writing; which if our Sulpicius would do, his speech would be much more compressed; in which now sometimes—as rustics are wont to say of plants in their greatest luxuriance—there is a certain rankness, which must be cropped away by the pen."

Hereupon Sulpicius said: "You admonish me rightly, and it is grateful to me; but I do not think that even you, Antonius, have done much writing." Then he said: "As though I did not give others precepts which I myself lack: but yet I am thought not even to keep accounts; however, in the one matter judgement can be made from my private estate, and in the other from what I say, however little that is, what I do.

And yet we see that there are many who imitate no one, and by their own nature attain what they wish without the likeness of anyone; which can rightly be observed in you, Caesar and Cotta; of whom the one has attained a certain charm and wit unusual at least to our orators, the other a most acute and most subtle kind of speaking; nor indeed does your contemporary Gaius Curio—whose father was in my opinion the most eloquent of those times—seem to me to imitate anyone greatly; who yet, by the weight and elegance and abundance of his words, has expressed a certain form and figure of speaking of his own; which I was best able to judge in that cause which he spoke against me before the centumviri on behalf of the brothers Cossus; in which nothing was wanting to him that not only a copious but even a wise orator ought to have.

But, to lead at length to causes that man whom we have set up—and to those indeed in which there is a little more business, of trials and suits—someone perhaps will have laughed at this precept; for it is not so much acute as necessary, and rather of a not foolish admonisher than of a learned master—this we shall enjoin upon him first: that whatever causes he is going to handle, he should learn them diligently and thoroughly.

This is not taught in the school; for easy causes are brought to boys; 'the law forbids a foreigner to ascend the wall; he ascended; he repelled the enemy: he is accused.' There is no trouble in learning a cause of this kind; rightly, then, do they give no precepts about learning the cause. But in the forum the documents, the testimonies, the agreements, the compacts, the stipulations, the relationships, the connections, the decrees, the responses, in short the whole life of those who are engaged in the cause, must be learned; by neglect of which things we see most causes—and especially private ones, for they are often much more obscure—lost.

Thus some, while they wish their own labour to be thought great, so that they may seem to flit about the whole forum and to go from cause to cause, plead causes that they have not learned; in which there is indeed that great offence either of negligence, in matters undertaken, or of treachery, in matters accepted; but there is also that, greater than they suppose, that no one can speak otherwise than most disgracefully about a matter which he does not know: so, while they despise the censure of indolence, which is the greater, they incur even that which they themselves the more shun, of slowness.

For my part I am wont to take pains that each one should himself teach me about his own matter, and that no one else be present, that he may speak the more freely, and to plead the adversary's cause, that he may plead his own and bring out into the open whatever he has thought about his case: and so, when he has departed, I alone sustain three persons with the greatest equanimity of mind—my own, the adversary's, the judge's. Whatever point is such that it has more of help than of harm, this I judge must be spoken; where I find more of evil than of good, that I wholly reject and cast out.

Thus I attain this—that at one time I think what I shall say, at another I say it; which two things most men, relying on talent, do at the same time; but certainly those very men would speak somewhat better, if they thought they should take one time for thinking, another for speaking.

When I have thoroughly learned the matter and the cause, there at once occurs to my mind what the point of dispute is; for there is nothing that is disputed among men—whether the cause consists of a charge, as of a crime, or of a controversy, as of an inheritance, or of a deliberation, as of war, or of a discussion, as about the method of living—in which it is not asked either what has been done or is being done or will be done, or of what kind it is, or by what name it is called.

And our causes, at least those that are of charges, are for the most part defended by denial; for both in cases of extortion, which are the greatest, almost everything must be denied, and in cases of bribery it is rarely granted that you can separate liberality and kindness from canvassing and largess; in cases of assassins, of poisonings, of embezzlement, one must deny: this, then, is the first kind of causes in trials, from the controversy of fact; in deliberations, for the most part from the future, rarely from the present or the past.

Often, too, it is asked not whether a thing is so or not, but of what kind it is; as when Gaius Carbo the consul was defending the cause of Lucius Opimius before the people, in my hearing, he denied nothing about the killing of Gaius Gracchus, but said that it had been done rightly for the safety of the fatherland; as Publius Africanus had answered the same Carbo, then a tribune of the plebs governing the commonwealth with another mind, when he asked about Tiberius Gracchus, that he seemed to have been justly slain; and 'justly' all things are defended which are of such a kind that they seem either to have had to be done, or to have been allowed, or to have been necessary, or to have been done through ignorance or by chance.

Then it is asked what a thing is called, when there is a dispute by what word something is to be named; as I myself had the greatest contention with this Sulpicius in the cause of Norbanus; for, though I confessed most of the things that were objected by him, yet I denied that majesty had been diminished by him—on which word that whole cause depended, under the Apuleian law.

And in this kind of causes some give the precept that each side should briefly define that word which makes the cause—which to me at least is wont to seem altogether childish: for there is one definition of words when there is a dispute among learned men about those very matters which are engaged in the arts—as when it is asked what art is, what law is, what a state is—in which reason and learning prescribe this, that the force of the thing which you define be so expressed that nothing be absent and nothing be superfluous;

which indeed in that cause neither Sulpicius did nor I attempted to do; for, so far as each of us could, we expanded with all abundance of speaking what it was to diminish majesty: for a definition, in the first place, is often wrested from one's hands by reproving one word, or adding, or taking away; then by its very kind it smacks of learning and a well-nigh boyish exercise; and again it cannot enter into the perception and the mind of the judge, for it slips past before it is grasped.

But in that kind in which it is disputed of what kind a thing is, there often arises also a contention from the interpretation of a writing, in which there can be no controversy except from an ambiguity; for that very thing, that the writing differs from the intention, has a certain kind of ambiguity; which is then explained, when those words which are wanting are supplied, by the adding of which it is defended that the meaning of the writing was clear; and if anything is disputed from contradictory writings, no new kind arises, but the cause of the former kind is doubled; and that either can never be decided, or will be so decided that, by bringing back the omitted words, that writing, whichever we shall defend, is supplemented; thus it comes about that one kind is left in those causes which are disputed on account of a writing, if anything has been written ambiguously.

But of ambiguities, since there are several kinds, which seem to me to be better known by those who are called dialecticians, while these our countrymen are ignorant of them, though they ought to know them no less—then that is most frequent in all usage either of speech or of writing, when something is made ambiguous because either a word or words have been omitted.

But again they err, when they separate this kind of causes, which is engaged in the interpretation of a writing, from those causes in which it is disputed of what kind each thing is; for nowhere is it so much asked of what kind the very nature of the thing is as in a writing, which is wholly separated from the controversy of fact.

Thus there are altogether three kinds which can fall into discussion and controversy: what is being done or has been done or will be done; or of what kind it is; or by what name it is named; for that which certain Greeks add, 'whether a thing has been rightly done,' is wholly contained in 'of what kind it is.' But now I will return to my purpose.

When, then, the cause being received and its kind being known, I begin to handle the matter, I settle nothing before what that is to which all that speech, proper to the question and the trial, must be referred; then I most diligently consider those two things, of which the one has a commendation of ourselves or of those whom we defend, the other is fitted to moving the minds of those before whom we speak, toward that which we wish.

Thus all the method of speaking rests upon three things for persuading: that we prove that what we maintain is true; that we win over to ourselves those who listen; that we summon their minds to whatever motion the cause shall demand.

For proving, moreover, a twofold material is laid before the orator: one of those things which are not devised by the orator, but, being placed in the matter, are handled by method—as documents, testimonies, agreements, examinations, laws, decrees of the senate, things judged, decrees, responses, and the rest, if there are any, which are not found by the orator, but are brought to the orator from the cause; the other is that which is placed wholly in the disputation and argumentation of the orator;

thus in the former kind one must think about handling the arguments, in the latter even about finding them. And those, indeed, who teach, when they have cut up causes into several kinds, supply to the several kinds an abundance of arguments; which, even if it is more apt for instructing youths, so that, as soon as a cause is set down, they may have something to which to refer, whence they may at once draw forth ready arguments, yet it is the mark of a slow talent to pursue the rivulets and not to see the springs of things; and it is now of our age and practice to fetch what we wish from the head, and to see whence all things flow.

And the first kind of those things which are brought to the orator must be meditated by us once for all, for every use of like matters; for both for documents and against documents, for witnesses and against witnesses, for examinations and against examinations, and likewise about the other matters of the same kind, we are wont to speak either separately about the universal kind, or definitely about particular times, men, causes; which topics—this I say to you, Cotta and Sulpicius—you ought to have prepared and ready by much study and meditation.

For it is long now for me to set forth by what method one ought either to confirm or to weaken witnesses, documents, examinations. These are all matters of even moderate talent, but of the greatest exercise; art and precepts they require only so far as to be adorned with certain lights of speaking.

And likewise those things which are of the other kind, which are wholly produced by the orator, have no difficult devising, but require a more brilliant and polished setting-forth; and so, since these two things must be sought by us in causes—first, what, then, in what manner we should speak—the latter, which seems wholly tinged with art, although it requires art, yet it is of well-nigh moderate prudence to see what should be said; the other is that in which is discerned that divine power and virtue of the orator—to speak the things which must be spoken elegantly, copiously, and variously.

Wherefore that former part, since it has once so pleased you, I will not refuse to polish and finish—how much I attain, you will judge—from what topics the speech may be led to those three things which alone avail for producing conviction, that the minds be both won over and taught and moved; but in what manner those things may be illustrated, there is at hand one who can teach all, who first brought this into our customs, who most increased it, who alone perfected it.

For I, Catulus—for I will say it without fearing the suspicion of flattery—think that there is no orator of any little distinction whom our age has produced whom I have not both often and diligently heard; and so, if there is anything in me—which I now seem to hope, since indeed you, men of these talents, give me so much labour to listen to—it is from this, that no one ever did anything as an orator in my hearing which did not deeply settle in my memory: and so I, such as I am, however small I am for judging, having heard all the orators, without any doubt thus lay down and judge that no one of all has had so many and so great ornaments of speaking as are in Crassus.

Wherefore, if you too think this same thing, the division will not, I think, be unfair, if, when I have created, nourished, confirmed this orator whom I am now fashioning, as I have undertaken, I hand him over to Crassus to be clothed and adorned."

Then Crassus said: "Do you indeed, Antonius, go on as you have begun; for it is the mark neither of a good nor of a generous parent not to clothe and adorn him whom you have begotten and reared, especially since you cannot deny that you are wealthy. For what ornament, what power, what spirit, what dignity was wanting to that orator who, in winding up a cause, did not hesitate to raise up a defendant of consular rank and to tear open his tunic and to show the judges the scars on the front of the old commander? who likewise, when this Sulpicius was the accuser, defending a seditious and frenzied man, did not hesitate to adorn the very seditions and to show, in the weightiest words, that many of the people's onsets were often not unjust, which no one could prevent; that many seditions, too, had often been made for the good of the commonwealth—as when the kings were driven out, as when the tribunician power was established; that that sedition of Norbanus, arising from the grief of the citizens and from hatred of Caepio, who had lost an army, could neither be repressed and had been justly kindled?

Could so doubtful, so unheard-of, so slippery, so novel a topic be handled without a certain incredible power and faculty of speaking? What shall I say of the appeal to pity for Gnaeus Manlius, what of that for Quintus Rex? What of countless others? In which this did not shine forth most—that single acuteness which all grant you—but these very things which you now wish to make over to me have always been excellent and outstanding in you."

Then Catulus said: "I, indeed, am wont to admire this most of all in you—that, although you are most unlike one another in speaking, yet each of you so speaks that nothing seems to him to have been denied by nature or not conferred by learning; wherefore, Crassus, you will not deprive us of your sweetness, but, if anything has been omitted or left by Antonius, will set it forth; nor of you, Antonius, if you shall not have said something, shall we suppose that you could not, rather than that you preferred it to be said by Crassus."

Hereupon Crassus said: "Why do you not, Antonius, omit those things which you have proposed, which none of these desire—from what topics those things which must be said in causes may be found; which, although they are said by you in a certain new and excellent way, are yet both easier in fact and common in the precepts; bring forth to us whence you draw those things which you most often handle, and always divinely."

"I will bring them forth, indeed," said he; "and that I may the more easily exact from you what I seek, I will refuse you nothing that you ask of me. Of my whole method in speaking, and of that very faculty which Crassus just now extolled to heaven in words, there are three things, as I said before: one of winning over men, another of teaching them, the third of stirring them up.

Of these three parts the first requires gentleness of speech, the second acuteness, the third force; for it is necessary that he who is to adjudge the cause to us either incline toward us by an inclination of will, or be led by the arguments of the defence, or be compelled by an emotion of the mind. But since that part in which the unfolding and defence of the matters themselves is placed seems to contain all the doctrine, as it were, of this kind, of it we will speak first, and will say a few things; for there are few things which we seem to have, now handled by practice and as it were noted in the mind.

And to you, Crassus, wisely admonishing, we will gladly assent—that we should leave aside the defences of particular causes which the masters are wont to hand down to boys, but should open up those heads whence all disputation is drawn for every cause and every speech. For neither, as often as some word must be written by us, must the letters of that word be sought out by thought; nor, as often as a cause must be pleaded, must we revolve back to the arguments set apart for that cause, but must have certain topics which, as letters for writing a word, so may at once occur for unfolding a cause.

But these topics can at length profit only that orator who is versed either in the practice of affairs, which age finally brings, or in the hearing and reflection which zeal and diligence have outrun in advance of age. For if you bring me a man however learned, however keen and acute in thinking, however ready in delivery, if he be at the same time a stranger to the custom of the state, to its precedents, its institutions, its characters and the inclinations of his fellow-citizens, those topics from which arguments are drawn will profit him little: I need a worked-over mind, as a field not once ploughed but ploughed again, that it may bring forth better and larger crops; and the working-over is practice, hearing, reading, letters.

And first let him see the nature of the cause, which is never hidden—whether it is asked whether a thing was done, or of what kind it is, or what name it has; which being perceived, there at once occurs, by a certain natural prudence—not by those subtractions which those men teach—what makes the cause, that is, that which, being removed, the controversy cannot stand; then what comes into judgement: which those men bid us seek thus: 'Opimius killed Gracchus. What makes the cause? That he did it for the commonwealth's sake, when, by a decree of the senate, he had called to arms. Take this away, there will be no cause. But Decius denies that this very thing was lawful against the laws. It will come, then, into judgement whether it was lawful, by a decree of the senate, for the sake of saving the commonwealth.' These things, indeed, are plain and set in vulgar prudence; but those things must be sought which both the accuser and the defender ought to bring forward as arguments looking to that which comes into judgement.

And here that must be seen in which is the greatest error of those masters to whom we send our children—not that this, indeed, greatly pertains to speaking, but that you may see what kind this is of those who seem learned to themselves. It is dull and unpolished: for in dividing the modes of speeches they set up two kinds of causes: one they call that in which, without persons and times, it is inquired about the universal kind; the other, that which is defined by fixed persons and times; ignorant that all controversies are referred to the force and nature of the universal kind;

for in that very cause of which I spoke before, the person of Opimius pertains nothing to the orator's topics, nothing that of Decius; about the universal kind itself there is an unlimited question—whether he seems liable to punishment who has slain a citizen, by a decree of the senate, for the sake of preserving the fatherland, when this was not lawful by the laws; in short, there is no cause in which that which comes into judgement is inquired about by the persons of the defendants and not by the universal doubt of the kinds themselves.

Nay even, in those very cases where it is disputed about the fact—whether Decius took moneys against the laws—the arguments both of the charges and of the defence ought to be referred to the kind and the universal nature: because he is extravagant, to luxury; because greedy of another's property, to avarice; because seditious, to turbulent and bad citizens; because he is accused by many, to the kind of witnesses; and on the contrary, what is said for the defendant, all must necessarily be revolved from the time and the man to the common heads of things and kinds.

And these, perhaps, to a man not quickly grasping in mind all things that are in the nature of things, may seem very many, which come into judgement when it is inquired about the fact; but yet the multitude is of charges and of defences, not unlimited of topics.

But those things which, when it is not disputed about the fact, are inquired of what kind they are—if you count them from the defendants, they are both countless and obscure; if from the matters, they are both quite moderate and clear; for if we place Mancinus's cause in Mancinus alone, as often as a man whom the pater patratus has surrendered shall not have been received, so often a new cause will arise; but if that controversy makes the cause—whether he whom the pater patratus has surrendered, if he be not received, seems to have the right of return—then the name of Mancinus pertains nothing to the art of speaking nor to the arguments of Mancinus's defence;

and, if besides the dignity or unworthiness of the man brings anything, it is outside the question, and yet that very speech must necessarily be referred to the disputation of the universal kind. These things I do not dispute with the purpose of refuting learned men; although they are to be censured who, in defining the kind, describe these causes as placed in persons and times; for although times and persons come in, yet it must be understood that the causes depend not on these, but on the kind of the question.

But this is nothing to me; for we ought to have no contest with those men; it is enough only that it be understood that they have not even attained this, which in so great leisure, even without this forensic exercise, they could have effected—to distinguish the kinds of things and to set them forth a little more subtly.

But this, as I said, is nothing to me; that is to me, and much more to you, our Cotta and Sulpicius: in the way in which those men's arts now stand, the multitude of causes is to be dreaded; for it is unlimited, if it is placed in persons—as many men, so many causes; but if it is referred to the universal questions of the kinds, it is so moderate and few that all diligent and mindful and sober orators ought to have them run through in mind and, I may almost say, conned by heart; unless perchance you think that Lucius Crassus learned the cause from Manius Curius, and for that reason brought forward many points, why, though no posthumous son had been born, Curius ought nevertheless to be the heir of Coponius:

the name of Coponius or Curius pertained nothing to the abundance of arguments, nor to the force and nature of the cause; the whole question was in the universal kind of the matter and the business, not in the time and the names: when it is so written, 'if a son be born to me, and he die before, etc., then let that man be my heir,' whether he seems to be heir who is appointed heir, the son being dead—the question of perpetual law and of the universal kind requires not the names of men, but the method of speaking and the sources of arguments.

In which even these our jurisconsults hinder us from learning and deter us; for I see that in the books of Cato and of Brutus it is generally reported by name what each man answered to some man or woman about a point of law; I suppose so that we might think that the cause of consultation or doubt was in the men, not in the matter; so that, because men were countless, we, disheartened, might cast away the wish to learn together with the hope of learning thoroughly. But these things Crassus will some day unfold for us and set forth, described by kinds; for—lest perchance you do not know—yesterday he promised us this, Catulus, that he would gather the civil law, which is now diffused and scattered, into fixed kinds, and reduce it to an easy art."

"And indeed," said Catulus, "that is by no means difficult for Crassus, who both learned what could be learned of the law, and what was wanting to those who taught him, he himself will supply, so that he can either aptly arrange or ornately illustrate what is in the law." "Therefore," said Antonius, "we shall learn those things from Crassus then, when he has betaken himself, as he intends, from the crowd and the benches into leisure and the chair."

"This indeed I have often heard from him," said Catulus, "when he said it was now fixed for him to retire from the courts and causes; but, as I am wont myself to say to him, it will not be allowed; for neither will he suffer his aid often to be implored in vain by good men, nor will the state bear it with an even mind, which, if it lacks the voice of Lucius Crassus, will think itself robbed of a certain ornament." "Why, by Hercules," said Antonius, "if these things have been truly said by Catulus, you must live with me in the same mill, Crassus; and let us yield that yawning and drowsy wisdom to the leisure of the Scaevolae and the other blessed ones."

Hereupon Crassus smiled gently and said: "Only weave to the end, Antonius, what you have begun; but that yawning wisdom, as soon as I have fled to it, will claim me into liberty." "Of this topic, which I have just begun, this is the end," said Antonius; "since it has been understood that not in the countless persons of men nor in the unlimited variety of times, but in the kinds and natures of causes, are all things placed which are called into doubt, but that the kinds are defined not only in number but also in fewness, so that those who were zealous of speaking might grasp the material of speech which belonged to each kind, described in all its topics, furnished and adorned—I mean in facts and thoughts.

These by their own force will bring forth words, which always seem to me at least sufficiently adorned, if they are of such a kind that the matter itself seems to have brought them forth; and if you ask the truth, what seems true to me at least—for I can affirm nothing else but my own opinion and view—this equipment of causes and of the universal kinds we ought to bring into the forum, and not, as each matter is brought to us, then at last to search out the topics from which we may dig out arguments; which indeed can be thoroughly handled, with zeal applied and practice, by all who have but moderately considered them; but yet the mind must be referred to those heads and to those topics, which I have now often named, from which all things invented are drawn for every speech; and this whole thing, whether of art or of observation or of habit, is to know the regions within which you may hunt out and track down what you seek:

when you have hedged about in thought all that region, if only you have become thoroughly versed in the practice of affairs, nothing will escape you, and everything that is in the matter will occur and fall in your way. And so, since for finding in speaking there are three things—acuteness, then method, which, if we wish, we may call art, and third diligence—I cannot indeed but concede the first place to talent; but yet diligence rouses even the very talent out of slowness;

diligence, I say, which in all matters, as in defending causes, avails most. This must be especially cultivated by us; this must always be applied; there is nothing which it does not attain: that the cause be thoroughly known, which I said at the outset, is of diligence; that we listen attentively to the adversary, and catch not only his thoughts but even all his words, in short perceive all his looks, which generally indicate the feelings of the mind, is of diligence;

yet to do this dissemblingly, lest he seem to himself to gain anything, is of prudence; then that the mind be revolved in those topics which I shall set forth a little later, that it may thoroughly insinuate itself into the cause, that it be intent with care and reflection, is of diligence; that to these things it apply, as a kind of light, the memory, the voice, the strength, is of diligence.

Between talent indeed and diligence very little room is left for art: art shows only where you should seek, and where that is which you are eager to find; the rest are in care, attention of mind, reflection, vigilance, assiduity, labour; I will embrace it in one word, which we have now often used—diligence; in which one virtue all the remaining virtues are contained.

For we see how the philosophers abound in abundance of speech, who—as I think, but you, Catulus, know these things better—give no precepts of speaking, nor on that account the less undertake, whatever matter is proposed, to speak about it copiously and abundantly."

Then Catulus said: "It is, Antonius, as you say, that most philosophers hand down no precepts of speaking and yet have ready what to say about each thing; but Aristotle, the man whom I most admire, set down certain topics, from which the whole way of every argument might be found, not only for the disputation of philosophers, but also for this speaking which we use in causes; from which man, indeed, Antonius, your speech has not for a long time strayed, whether by a likeness to that divine talent you fall into the same footsteps, or whether you have even read and learned those very things—which to me at least seems more probable; for I see that you have given more labour to Greek matters than we had supposed."

Then he said: "The truth you shall hear from me, Catulus: I always thought the orator would be more pleasant and more acceptable to this people who should give, first, as little indication as possible of any art, and then none of Greek matters: and I likewise thought it was the mark of a beast, not a man, when the Greeks were undertaking, professing, treating such great matters, and were promising to give men the method both of seeing the most obscure things and of living well and speaking copiously, not to lend an ear; and, if you did not dare to hear them openly, lest you diminish your authority among your fellow-citizens, yet by listening on the side to catch their voices and to attend from afar to what they related. And so I did, Catulus, and I tasted, in summary, the causes and the very kinds of all those men."

"By Hercules," said Catulus, "very timidly, as if toward some rock of lust, did you put in your mind to philosophy, which this state has never spurned; for Italy was once full of Pythagoreans, then when that great Greece was in this nation; from which some even report that Numa Pompilius, our king, was a Pythagorean, who lived very many years before Pythagoras himself; on which account he must be held the greater man, since he knew that wisdom of establishing a state almost two centuries before the Greeks perceived that it was born; and certainly this state has produced none more famous, or weightier in authority, or more polished in culture than Publius Africanus, Gaius Laelius, Lucius Furius, who always had openly with them most learned men from Greece.

And I often heard this from them, when they said that the Athenians had done a most acceptable thing both to themselves and to many of the leading men of the state, in that, when they were sending ambassadors to the senate about their greatest affairs, they had sent the three most noble philosophers of that age—Carneades and Critolaus and Diogenes; and so, while they were at Rome, they were frequently heard both by themselves and by others; whom, when you had as authorities, Antonius, I wonder why you have declared, like that Zethus of Pacuvius, almost war upon philosophy."

"By no means," said Antonius; "and I have so resolved rather to philosophize, as Neoptolemus in Ennius does, 'in a few things; for altogether it does not please me.' But yet this is my opinion, which I seemed to have set forth: I do not disapprove of those studies, provided only they be moderate; but I think the reputation of those studies and the suspicion of art, among those who judge causes, is adverse to the orator; for it diminishes both the authority of the orator and the credit of the speech.

But, that the speech may be called back whither it has digressed, of those three most famous philosophers whom you said came to Rome, do you not see that Diogenes was the one who said that he handed down the art of reasoning well and of distinguishing the true and the false, which he called by the Greek word dialectic? In this art, if indeed it be an art, there is no precept how the truth may be found, but only how it may be judged;

for both everything that we utter in such a way that we say it either is or is not, and, if it be simply stated, the dialecticians undertake to judge whether it be true or false; and, if it be uttered in combination and other things be joined to it, they judge whether they are rightly joined and whether the sum of each particular reasoning is true; and at the last they prick themselves with their own subtleties, and by much questioning find out not only those things which they themselves can no longer untie, but even those by which things already begun and rather woven are well-nigh unwoven again.

Here, then, this Stoic helps us nothing, since he does not teach in what manner I may find what to say; and the same even hinders, because he both discovers many things which he says can in no way be untied, and brings a kind of speech that is not liquid, not flowing and streaming, but meagre, dry, concise and minute, which if anyone shall approve, he will so approve it as yet to confess that it is not suited to the orator; for this speech of ours must be accommodated to the ears of the multitude, to delight their minds, to impel them, to prove those things which are weighed not in the goldsmith's balance, but in a certain popular scale;

wherefore we dismiss that whole art, which is too dumb in devising arguments, too talkative in judging them. That Critolaus, whom you mention as having come with Diogenes, I think could have profited this our study more; for he was of that Aristotle, from whose discoveries I seem to you not to wander far. And between this Aristotle—both that book of whom I read, in which he set forth the arts of speaking of all his predecessors, and those in which he himself said certain things of his own about the same art—and those true masters of this art, this seemed to me to be the difference, that he with the same edge of mind with which he had seen the force and nature of all things, looked also upon these things which pertained to the art of speaking, which he despised; but those who thought this alone worth cultivating dwelt in handling this one method, not with the same prudence as he, but with greater practice and zeal in this one kind.

But Carneades's incredible power of speaking and his versatility would be very much to be wished for by us—a man who in those disputations of his never defended a thing which he did not make probable, never attacked one which he did not overthrow. But this is something greater than is to be demanded from those who hand down and teach these things.

But I, for my part, if I now wished to train someone altogether raw for speaking, would rather hand him over to those assiduous men beating the same anvil day and night in one task, who would insert into his mouth all the most minute particles and all the smallest morsels chewed up, as nurses do for infant boys; but if it be one who seems to me both liberally instructed in learning and already imbued with some practice and to be of a sufficiently keen talent, thither I would hurry him, where he might be held not by some secluded little stream, but whence the whole river bursts forth; one who may point out to him the seats and, as it were, dwelling-places of all arguments, and briefly illustrate them and define them in words.

For what is there in which he can stick fast who has seen that everything which is taken in a speech, either for proving or for refuting, is either taken from its own matter by its own force and nature, or assumed from without? from its own force, when either the whole matter, what it is, is inquired, or a part of it, or the name which it has, or something which touches that matter; but from without, when those things are gathered which are outside and do not inhere in the nature of the matter.

If the whole matter is inquired, the force must be unfolded by a universal definition, thus: 'if majesty is the greatness and dignity of the state, he diminishes it who has handed over an army to the enemies of the Roman people, not he who has handed over him who did this to the power of the Roman people.'

But if a part, by partition, in this manner: 'either the senate had to be obeyed about the safety of the commonwealth, or another counsel had to be devised, or it had to be done of one's own accord; another counsel is proud, one's own is arrogant; the counsel of the senate, therefore, had to be used.' If from the name, as Carbo: 'if he is a consul who consults for his fatherland, what else did Opimius do?'

But if from that which touches the matter, there are several seats and topics of arguments; for we shall seek both conjuncts, and kinds, and the parts subjected to the kinds, and likenesses, and unlikenesses, and contraries, and consequents, and consentaneous things, and, as it were, antecedents, and repugnant things; and we shall track out the causes of things, and those things which have arisen from causes; and we shall seek the greater, the equal, the lesser.

From conjuncts arguments are drawn thus: 'if the highest praise is to be given to piety, you ought to be moved when you see Quintus Metellus mourn so piously.' But from kind: 'if magistrates ought to be in the power of the Roman people, why do you accuse Norbanus, whose tribunate obeyed the will of the state?'

But from a part which is subjected to a kind: 'if all who take thought for the commonwealth ought to be dear to us, surely above all the commanders, by whose counsels, virtue, and dangers we keep both our safety and the dignity of empire.' But from likeness: 'if wild beasts love their offspring, with what indulgence ought we to be toward our children?'

But from unlikeness: 'if it is the mark of barbarians to live for the day, our counsels ought to look to everlasting time.' And in each kind, both of likeness and of unlikeness, examples are to be set down, drawn from the deeds or sayings or fortunes of others, and often feigned narratives. Now from the contrary: 'if Gracchus acted wickedly, Opimius acted nobly.' From consequents: 'if both that man was slain with the sword, and you, his enemy, were seized in that very place with a bloody sword, and no one besides you was seen there, and no one had a motive, and you were always bold, what is there that we can doubt about the crime?'

From consentaneous and antecedent and repugnant things, as once Crassus when a young man: 'not, Carbo, if you defended Opimius, on that account will these men think you a good citizen: that you simulated and sought something is evident, because you often bewailed the death of Tiberius Gracchus in assemblies, because you were a partner in the slaying of Publius Africanus, because you brought forward that law in your tribunate, because you always dissented from the good.'

But from the causes of things thus: 'if you wish to take away avarice, its mother must be taken away, luxury.' But from those things which have arisen from causes: 'if we use the resources of the treasury both for the aids of war and for the ornaments of peace, let us be slaves to the revenues.'

But the greater and the lesser and the equal we shall compare thus: from the greater: 'if a good reputation surpasses riches, and money is so greatly sought after, how much more is glory to be sought!' from the lesser: 'this man, for the sake of a slight acquaintance, bears that man's death so familiarly: what if he had himself loved? what will this man do to me, his father?' From the equal: 'it is the mark of the same man both to rob and to lavish moneys against the commonwealth.'

But from without are assumed those things which are supported not by their own force but by a foreign one, as these: 'this is true; for Quintus Lutatius said it. This is false; for an examination was held. This must necessarily follow; for I recite the documents.' About which whole kind I spoke a little while ago.

These, as briefly as they could be said, so have they been said by me; for as, if I wished to point out to someone gold which had been buried in many places, it ought to be enough if I showed the signs and marks of the places, which being known he might himself dig for himself and find what he wished with little labour and no error; so I have noted these marks of arguments, which show the seeker where they are; the rest is dug out by care and reflection;

but what kind of argument best suits each kind of cause is not the part of an exquisite art to prescribe, but it is of moderate talent to judge; for we are not now doing this, to set forth some art of speaking, but to hand down to most learned men certain admonitions, as it were, of our practice. With these topics, then, fixed in the mind and reflection, and roused in every matter set before us for speaking, there will be nothing that can escape the orator, not only in forensic disputes, but altogether in any kind of speaking whatever.

But if he shall attain to seem such as he wishes to seem, and so to affect the minds of those before whom he pleads that he can either draw or hurry them whithersoever he wishes, surely he will require nothing further for speaking. Now we see that it is by no means enough to find what you should say, unless you can handle what is found;

but the handling ought to be various, lest the hearer either recognize the art or be wearied by the satiety of likeness: one ought to set forth what one brings, and to show why it is so; sometimes to conclude from those same topics, sometimes to leave them and pass to another; often not to set forth, but, by bringing forward the very reasoning, to declare what should have been set forth; if you say anything is like something, first to confirm that it is like, then to join what is at issue; for the most part to conceal the points of division of the arguments, lest anyone be able to number them, so that they are distinguished in substance but seem confused in words.

These things, hastening, both before the learned and as myself half-learned, I run through, that we may at length come to those greater matters: for there is nothing greater in speaking, Catulus, than that the hearer favour the orator, and be himself so moved that he is governed by a certain impulse and disturbance of mind rather than by judgement or counsel: for men judge far more by hatred or love or desire or anger or grief or gladness or hope or fear or error or some emotion of the mind, than by truth or precept or any norm of law or formula of trial or by the laws.

Wherefore, unless something else pleases you, let us proceed to those matters." "A little," said Catulus, "even now seems to be wanting to those things which you have set forth, Antonius, which must be unfolded by you before you set out thither whither you say you are aiming." "What, pray?" said he. "What order pleases you," said Catulus, "and what arrangement of arguments, in which you always seem to me a god."

"See how much of a god I am," said he, "in that kind, Catulus: by Hercules, it would not have come into my mind unless I had been reminded; so that you may judge that in those things in which I sometimes seem to effect something, I am wont in speaking to fall in by practice, or rather by chance. And indeed that very matter, which, because I did not know it, I passed by as one passes an unknown man, has so great force in speaking that none has more for winning; but yet you seem to me to have asked me before the time the method of order and of arranging matters;

for if I had placed all the force of the orator in arguments and in the matter itself proved by itself, it would now be time to say something about the order of arguments and the arrangement of matters; but since three things were proposed by me, and one has been spoken of, when I have spoken of the two remaining, then at last will be the time to inquire about arranging the whole speech.

It avails much, then, for winning, that the character and institutions and deeds and life of those who plead causes, and of those for whom, be approved, and likewise that those of the adversaries be disapproved, and that the minds of those before whom it is pleaded be won over, as much as possible, to goodwill both toward the orator and toward him for whom the orator speaks. But minds are won over by the dignity of a man, by his deeds, by the estimation of his life; which can more easily be adorned, if they exist, than feigned, if they are none. But these things help in the orator: gentleness of voice, modesty of countenance, friendliness of words; if you pursue anything more keenly, that you seem to do it unwillingly and under compulsion. To bring forward signs of facility, liberality, gentleness, piety, a grateful mind, not grasping, not greedy, is very useful; and all those things which belong to the upright, the modest, the not keen, the not stubborn, the not litigious, the not bitter, greatly win goodwill and alienate it from those in whom these things are not; and so the same things are to be applied conversely against the adversaries.

But this whole kind of speech excels in those causes in which the mind of the judge can less be inflamed by a keen and vehement incitement; for not always is a forcible speech sought, but often a placid, lowered, gentle one, which most commends defendants. But I call defendants not only those who are accused, but all about whose matter it is disputed; for so they spoke of old.

To express, then, the characters of these in speech as just, upright, religious, modest, patient of injuries, has a wonderful force; and this, whether in the introductions or in narrating the matter or in the peroration, has so great force, if it be handled sweetly and with feeling, that often it avails more than the cause. But so much is effected by a certain feeling and method of speaking, that the speech, as it were, fashions the character of the orator; for by a certain kind of thoughts and a certain kind of words, with a gentle delivery added that signifies friendliness, it is brought about that we seem upright, well-conducted, good men.

But to this is joined that unlike method of speech, which by a certain other kind moves and impels the minds of the judges, that they either hate or love or envy or wish safe or fear or hope or desire or shrink or rejoice or grieve or pity or wish to punish, or are led to those emotions, if any are akin to such emotions of the mind.

And this is to be wished for by the orator, that the judges bring of their own accord to the cause some emotion of mind suited to that which the orator's advantage requires; for it is easier, as they say, to spur on one who is running than to move one who is languid; but if that be not, or be more obscure, then, just as for a diligent physician, before he tries to apply medicine to the sick, not only the disease of him whom he wishes to heal, but also the habit of the well man and the nature of the body must be learned, so I, when I approach the handling of the minds of the judges in a doubtful and weighty cause, busy myself with my whole mind in this thought and care, that I may smell out, as sagaciously as I can, what they feel, what they think, what they expect, what they wish, whither they seem able most easily to be led by the speech.

If they give themselves and, as I said before, of their own accord incline and lean whither we impel, I accept what is given and set sail toward that whence some breeze shows itself; but if the judge is untouched and quiet, there is more work; for everything must be roused by speaking, with nature helping nothing. But so great force has that which has been rightly said by a good poet—'speech, that bends the soul and is the queen of all things'—that not only can it catch one who is inclining, or incline one who is standing, but even take one who is opposed and resisting, like a brave and good commander.

These are those things which Crassus, jesting, just now demanded of me, when he said they were wont to be handled by me divinely, and praised in the cause of Manius Aquilius and Gaius Norbanus and some others as having been done excellently; which, by Hercules, Crassus, when they are handled by you in causes, I am wont to shudder at: so great a force of mind, so great an impulse, so great a grief is wont to be signified by your eyes, your countenance, your gesture, in short by that finger of yours; so great is the flood of the weightiest and best words, the thoughts so genuine, so true, so new, so without paint and boyish daubing, that you seem to me not only to set the judge on fire, but yourself to burn.

And it cannot happen that he who hears should grieve, should hate, should envy, should dread anything, should be led to weeping and pity, unless all those emotions which the orator wishes to apply to the judge shall seem impressed and branded upon the orator himself. But if some feigned grief were to be undertaken, and if in this kind of speech there were nothing but what was false and simulated by imitation, perhaps some greater art would be required: now I do not know what happens to you, Crassus, or to the rest; but as for myself there is no reason why I should lie before men most prudent and most friendly: never, by Hercules, did I wish to rouse grief or pity or envy or hatred in speaking before the judges, without being myself moved, in stirring the judges, by those very feelings to which I wished to lead them;

for neither is it easy to bring it about that the judge be angry with him whom you wish, if you yourself seem to take it calmly; nor that he hate him whom you wish, unless he first see you burning with hatred; nor will he be led to pity, unless you show him signs of your grief by words, thoughts, voice, countenance, in short by weeping with him; for as no material is so easy to kindle that it can catch fire unless fire be applied to it, so no mind is so prepared to grasp the force of the orator that it can be set on fire, unless he himself approach it inflamed and burning.

And, lest this perhaps seem great and wonderful, that a man should so often be angry, so often grieve, so often be roused by every emotion of mind, especially in matters that concern others, great is the force of those thoughts and those topics which you handle and treat in speaking, so that there is no need of simulation and deceit; for the very nature of that speech which is undertaken to move the minds of others moves the orator himself even more than any of those who hear.

And, lest we wonder that this happens in causes, in trials, in the dangers of friends, in the gathering of men, in the state, in the forum, when there is at stake not only the estimation of our talent—for that would be a lighter matter (although, when you have professed that you can do what few can, not even that is to be neglected)—but there are other things much greater, good faith, duty, diligence, by which, led, even when we defend most utter strangers, yet we cannot reckon them strangers, if we ourselves wish to be held good men—

but, as I said, lest this seem strange in us, what can be so feigned as a verse, as a stage, as plays? Yet in this kind I myself have often seen that, from the part, the eyes of the actor seemed to me to burn, as he spoke those very verses: 'Did you dare to separate him from you, or to enter Salamis without him? And did you not stand in awe of your father's face?'

He never spoke that 'face' but that Telamon seemed to me to rage, angry, in grief for his son; but the same, his voice bent to a piteous sound, 'when, my life now spent, you mangled, bereaved, extinguished me of my children; nor of your brother's death, nor of his little son, who was handed to your guardianship'—he seemed to speak weeping and lamenting; and if that actor, though he acted it daily, yet could not act it without grief, what do you think of Pacuvius in the writing—was he of a gentle and relaxed mind? In no way could it be.

For I have often heard that no one can be a good poet—a thing which they say was left in writing by Democritus and Plato—without an inflammation of the mind and as it were a certain breath of madness. Wherefore do not think that I myself—who do not wish to imitate and shadow forth in speaking the ancient and feigned griefs of heroes, nor am the actor of another's part, but the author of my own—when Manius Aquilius had to be kept in the state, did, in the winding-up of that cause, what I did without great grief:

for when I remembered that the man whom I knew to have been consul, a commander adorned by the senate, had ascended the Capitol in ovation, this same man, when I saw him afflicted, weakened, mourning, brought to the utmost danger, I did not attempt to stir pity in others before I myself was seized by pity. I felt indeed at that time that the judges were greatly moved, when I raised up the sad and squalidly clad old man, and when I did those things which you, Crassus, praise—not by art, of which I know not what to say, but by a great motion of mind and grief, that I tore his tunic, that I showed his scars.

When Gaius Marius, present and seated, much aided the mournfulness of my speech with his own tears, and when, frequently appealing to him, I commended his colleague to him, and called him himself as advocate to defend the common fortune of commanders, that appeal to pity was not without my own tears, not without grief, nor the imploring of all the gods and men and citizens and allies; in all which words, which were then uttered by me, if my grief had been absent, my speech would have been not only not piteous, but even to be laughed at. Wherefore I teach you this, Sulpicius—a good and learned master, forsooth—that in speaking you may be able to grow angry, to grieve, to weep.

Although why should I teach you this, who in accusing my comrade had kindled so great a conflagration, not by speech only, but much more by the force and grief and ardour of your mind, that I scarcely tried to approach to extinguish it? For you had everything superior in the cause: you brought into judgement violence, flight, stoning, the cruelty of the tribune in the grave and pitiable downfall of Caepio; then it was agreed that the chief man both of the senate and of the state, Marcus Aemilius, had been struck with a stone; that Lucius Cotta and Titus Didius had been driven by force from the temple, when they wished to interpose their veto against the bill, no one could deny.

There was added that you, a young man, were thought to complain of these things on behalf of the commonwealth with the highest dignity; while I, a man of censorian rank, could scarcely seem to defend honourably enough a seditious citizen, cruel in the calamity of a man of consular rank. The judges were the best citizens, the forum was full of good men, so that scarcely a slight indulgence of excuse was granted me, that nevertheless I defended one who had been my quaestor. Here what shall I say—that I employed some art? I will tell what I did; if it please, you will set my defence in some place of art.

I collected the kinds, vices, dangers of all seditions, and drew that speech from all the variety of the times of our commonwealth, and so concluded that I said that, although all seditions had always been troublesome, yet some had been just and well-nigh necessary. Then I treated those things which Crassus just now mentioned: that neither could the kings have been driven out of this state, nor the tribunes of the plebs created, nor the consular power so often diminished by plebiscites, nor appeal—that patroness of the state and avenger of liberty—given to the Roman people, without the dissension of the nobles; and that, if those seditions had been to the safety of this state, it was not therefore at once, if any movement of the people had been made, to be set down to Gaius Norbanus as a nefarious crime and a capital offence. But if it had ever been granted to the Roman people that it should seem to be roused justly—which I showed had often been granted—no cause had been juster than that one. Then I turned and converted the whole speech to inveighing against Caepio's flight, to bewailing the destruction of the army: so I both refreshed by my speech the grief of those who mourned their own, and renewed the minds of the Roman knights, before whom as judges the cause was then pleaded, to hatred of Quintus Caepio, by whom they themselves had been alienated on account of the courts.

When I perceived that I had taken possession of the trial and of my own defence—because I had both won over to myself the goodwill of the people, whose right I had defended even in conjunction with sedition, and had turned the whole minds of the judges to our cause, whether by the calamity of the state, or by the grief and longing for their kinsmen, or by their own hatred toward Caepio—then I began to mingle with this vehement and fierce kind of speech that other kind of which I disputed before, of gentleness and mildness: that I was contending on behalf of my comrade, who, by the custom of our ancestors, ought to be to me in the place of a son, and on behalf of well-nigh all my reputation and fortunes; that nothing more disgraceful could happen to me as to my estimation, nothing more bitter as to my grief, than if I, who was thought often to have been a saviour to citizens most utterly strangers to me, yet my own fellow-citizens, could not bring aid to my own comrade.

I begged of the judges that they would concede this to my age, to my honours, to my deeds, if they saw me affected with a just and pious grief; especially if in other causes they had understood that I had always deprecated everything for the dangers of friends, never anything for myself. Thus in that whole defence and cause, what seemed to lie in art—that I should speak about the Apuleian law, that I should explain what it was to diminish majesty—I touched and skimmed over very briefly; by those two parts of the speech, of which the one has commendation, the other excitement, which are least polished by the precepts of the arts, that whole cause was handled by me, so that I seemed both most keen in renewing the odium against Caepio, and most gentle in declaring my own character toward my connections: thus, the minds of the judges being moved rather than instructed, your accusation, Sulpicius, was then vanquished by us.

Hereupon Sulpicius said: 'Truly, by Hercules, Antonius, you recall those things; for I never saw anything that so slipped out of one's hands as that very cause then slipped from me. For when—as you said—I had handed over to you not a trial but a conflagration, what an opening was yours, immortal gods! what fear! what hesitation, what stumbling and dragging of words! How at the outset you held to that one thing which men gave you toward pardon—that you were speaking on behalf of a man most closely bound to you, your own quaestor! How first you fortified your way to obtaining a hearing.

But behold, when I thought you had effected nothing else but that men should think you must be pardoned, defending a wicked citizen, because of the bond of connection, you began to creep on secretly, while others yet suspected nothing, but I was now in great dread, that you were defending not that sedition of Norbanus, but the anger of the Roman people, and that anger not unjust, but deserved and due. Then what topic was passed over by you against Caepio? How you mingled all those things—hatred, envy, pity! And this not only in the defence, but even against Scaurus and my other witnesses, whose testimonies you refuted not by refuting, but by fleeing to the same impulse of the people;

which when they were just now recalled by you, for my part I desired no precepts; yet that very demonstration of your defences I think to be no slight doctrine.' 'And yet, if you please,' said he, 'we will hand down also those things which we are wont to follow in speaking and which we especially aim at; for now long life and the practice of the greatest matters have taught us, so that we may grasp by what things the minds of men are moved.

For my part I am wont first to consider whether the cause demands it; for neither in small matters are these torches of speaking to be applied, nor before men so disposed that we can avail nothing toward bending their minds by speech, lest we be thought worthy either of ridicule or of hatred, if we either act tragedies in trifles or attempt to tear up those things which cannot be moved.

Now, since these things are for the most part especially to be worked upon by speech in the minds of the judges, or of whoever they shall be before whom we plead—love, hatred, anger, envy, pity, hope, gladness, fear, vexation: we feel that love is won, if we seem to defend, in justice, that which is useful to the very men before whom we plead, or if we labour on behalf of good men or at least of those who are good and useful to them; for this matter wins love the more, that defence of virtue, affection; and it profits more, if a hope of future usefulness is set forth, than the recalling of a past benefit.

One must strive to show that in the matter which you defend there is either dignity or usefulness, and that he to whom you would win this love has referred nothing to his own advantage and has done nothing at all for his own sake; for men's own advantages are envied, but their zeal for serving others is favoured.

And at this point one must see, lest those whom we wish to be loved for their benefactions, we seem to extol too much their praise and glory, which is wont most of all to be envied; and from these same topics we shall learn both to build up hatred against others and to remove it from ourselves and ours; and these same kinds must be handled in either rousing or appeasing anger; for if you magnify that which is pernicious or useless to the very men who hear, hatred is created; but if that which is against good men, or against those whom each least ought to have so treated, or against the commonwealth, then is roused, if not so bitter a hatred, yet an offence not unlike envy or hatred;

likewise fear is struck in either from their own dangers or from common ones: the former, that proper one, is more inward; but this common one too must be brought to the same likeness. Equal and one method is of hope, gladness, vexation; but I scarcely know whether of all the movements envy be by far the keenest, nor is less of strength needed in repressing it than in rousing it. But men envy most their equals or inferiors, when they feel themselves left behind, and grieve that those others have flown ahead; but the superior too are often vehemently envied, and the more if they boast themselves too intolerably and pass beyond the equality of common right by the eminence of their dignity or fortune; which if they must be inflamed, it must especially be said that they were not gained by virtue, then even by vices and faults, then, if they are more honourable and weighty, yet that those merits are not so great as the insolence and disdain of the man.

But for appeasing it, it must be said that those things were gained by great labour, by great dangers, and were conferred not for his own advantage but for that of others; and that he, if he seems to have gained any glory, yet, although that be not an unfair wage of danger, is not delighted by it, and casts it all off and lays it down; and altogether it must be brought about—since most men are envious, and this is the most common and perpetual fault, and a pre-eminent and flourishing fortune is envied—that this opinion be diminished and that fortune, eminent in reputation, seem mingled with labours and miseries.

Now pity is moved, if he who hears can be brought to refer those things which are bewailed of another to his own affairs, which he has either borne bitterly or fears, so that, looking at another, he frequently returns to himself; and while the single cases of human miseries are gravely received, if they are spoken of mournfully, then afflicted and prostrate virtue is most lamentable. And as that other part of the speech, which by the commendation of uprightness ought to preserve the appearance of a good man, must be gentle, as I have often now said, and lowered, so this, which is undertaken by the orator to change the minds and to bend them by every method, must be intent and vehement.

But there is a certain likeness, difficult to distinguish, in these two kinds, of which we wish one to be gentle, the other vehement; for both from that gentleness, by which we win those who hear, something ought to flow into this keenest force by which we rouse the same men, and from this force something of spirit must sometimes be breathed into that gentleness; nor is there any speech more tempered than that in which the harshness of contention is seasoned by the humanity of the orator himself, while the remission of gentleness is firmed by a certain weight and contention.

But in either kind of speaking, both that in which force and contention is sought, and this which is accommodated to life and character, both the beginnings ought to be slow and likewise the endings spun out and prolonged. For neither should one leap at once into that kind of speech—for it is wholly removed from the cause, and men first desire to hear that very thing which is proper to their judgement—nor, when you have entered upon that method, should one quickly depart;

for not, as an argument, as soon as it is set down, is caught up, and a second and third is demanded, so can you, as soon as you have introduced it, move pity or envy or anger: the very reasoning confirms an argument, and as soon as it is sent forth, it cleaves; but that kind of speech requires not the instruction of the judge, but rather his disturbance, which no one can attain except by much and various and copious speech, and a like contention of delivery;

wherefore those who speak either briefly or in a lowered way can instruct the judge, but cannot move him, in which is everything. Now this is plain, that the faculty for opposite sides of all matters is supplied from the same topics. But an argument must be resisted either by reproving those things which are taken for proving it, or by demonstrating that what they wish to conclude does not follow from the premises nor is a consequence; or, if you do not so refute it, something must be brought for the contrary side, which is either weightier or equally weighty.

But those things which are done either gently, for winning over, or vehemently, for moving, must be taken away by contrary emotions, so that goodwill be removed by hatred, envy by pity. But sweet, and often very useful, is jesting and wit; which, even if all other things can be handed down by art, are at least proper to nature and certainly require no art: in which you, in my opinion, Caesar, far excel others; on which account you can even more be either a witness to me that there is no art of wit, or, if there is any, you above all can teach it to us.

'For my part,' said he, 'I think it easier to dispute about any matter by a man not unurbane than about wit itself. And so, when I had seen certain Greek books inscribed "about things laughable," I had come into some hope that I could learn something from them; but I found many laughable and salty sayings of the Greeks—for both the Sicilians excel in this kind, and the Rhodians and the Byzantines, and beyond the rest the Attics; but those who tried to deliver a certain method and art of this matter turned out so saltless that nothing of theirs is laughed at except their very saltlessness;

wherefore to me at least this matter seems in no way able to be handed down by teaching. For since there are two kinds of wit, one diffused evenly through all the discourse, the other very acute and brief, the former was called by the ancients banter (cavillatio), this other railing (dicacitas). Each thing has a light name. No wonder; for this whole thing—to move laughter—is light.

But yet, as you say, Antonius, I have seen much profit very often gained in causes by charm and wit. But since in that kind of continuous pleasantry art is not required—for nature fashions and creates men as imitators and witty narrators, with countenance and voice and the very kind of speech helping—then indeed in this other kind of railing what place has art, when the witty saying ought to be sent forth and to cleave before it can seem to have been able even to be thought of?

For what could this my brother be helped by art, when, asked by Philippus what he was barking at, he answered that he saw a thief? What in his whole speech could Crassus, whether before the centumviri against Scaevola, or against the accuser Brutus, when he spoke on behalf of Gnaeus Plancius? For that which you, Antonius, attribute to me, must by the opinion of all be conceded to Crassus; for scarcely anyone besides him will be found excelling in either kind of charm: both that which is in the continuity of discourse, and this which is in quickness and in a saying.

For that whole continuous Curian defence against Scaevola overflowed with a certain hilarity and jesting; it had not those brief sayings; for he spared the dignity of his adversary, in which he preserved his own; which is most difficult for witty and railing men—to have regard to men and times, and to hold back those things which occur when they can be said most saltily; and so some witty men interpret this very thing not without point;

for they say that Ennius says that a wise man can more easily keep down a flame in his burning mouth than hold back good sayings—these good sayings, of course, which are salty; for these sayings are now called by their own proper name. But as Crassus held back these against Scaevola, and in that other kind, in which there were no stings of insult, eluded that cause and disputation, so against Brutus, whom he hated and whom he judged worthy of insult, he fought with either kind.

How many things he said about the baths which that man had lately sold, how many about his lost patrimony! And those brief sayings—when that man said he was sweating without a cause, 'no wonder,' he said, 'for you have just come out of the baths.' There were countless others, but no less pleasant was that continuous one: for when Brutus had raised up two readers, and given to the one Crassus's speech about the colony of Narbo to read, to the other that about the Servilian law, and had set side by side passages contradictory to one another about the commonwealth, our friend here most wittily gave the three little books of Brutus's father about the civil law to three men to read.

From the first book: 'It chanced that we were in the Privernate country.' 'Brutus, your father testifies that he left you the Privernate estate.' Then from the second book: 'We were at Alba, I and my son Marcus.' 'A wise man, evidently among the first of our state, knew this whirlpool; he feared lest, when the son should have nothing, nothing should be thought left to him.' Then from the third book, in which he made an end of writing—for so many are the genuine books of Brutus, as I heard Scaevola say—'We chanced to sit down at Tibur, I and my son Marcus.' 'Where are these estates, Brutus, which your father left you, recorded in public documents? And had he not had you already grown up,' he said, 'he would have composed a fourth book and left it written that he had even bathed in the baths with his son.'

Who, then, is there who would not confess that Brutus was no less refuted by this charm and these jests than by those tragedies which the same man acted, when by chance, in the same cause, the old woman Junia was being carried out for burial? By the immortal gods, what a thing was that, how great a force! how unexpected! how sudden! when, his eyes fixed, his whole gesture threatening him, with the highest weight and quickness of words: 'Brutus, why do you sit? What do you wish that old woman to announce to your father? What to all those whose images you see borne? What to your ancestors? What to Lucius Brutus, who freed this people from kingly domination? What do you do? To what matter, to what glory, to what virtue are you devoted? To increasing your patrimony? But that is not the mark of nobility.

But suppose it were, nothing is left; lusts have squandered it all. Or to the civil law? It is your father's. But it will say that you, when you were selling the house, did not even except for yourself your father's chair among the fixtures and movables. Or to military affairs? You who have never seen a camp! Or to eloquence? Which is not in you, and whatever there is of voice and tongue, you have bestowed it all upon that most disgraceful trade of calumny! Do you dare to look upon the light? You to gaze on these men? You to be in the forum, you in the sight of the citizens? You not to shudder at that dead woman, you not at the very images? Whom you have left yourself no place not only to imitate, but not even to set up.'

But these things were tragic and divine; while witty and urbane things were countless even from one assembly; for there was never a greater contention, nor before the people a weightier speech, than that of this man against his colleague lately in the censorship, nor one more seasoned with charm and pleasantry. Wherefore, Antonius, I agree with you in both points—that wit often greatly profits in speaking, and that it can in no way be handed down by art: this indeed I wonder at, that you have attributed so much to us in that kind and have not borne off the palm of this matter too to Crassus.'

Then Antonius said: 'I should indeed have so done, were it not that sometimes I envy this Crassus a little; for to be ever so witty and salty is not in itself too much to be envied; but since he is of all men the most graceful and most urbane, and at the same time both is and seems the most weighty and severe—which has befallen him alone—it seemed to me scarcely to be borne.' Hereupon, when Crassus himself had smiled, 'And yet,' said Antonius, 'though you denied, Julius, that there is an art of wit, you opened up something which seemed to need a precept: for you said that regard ought to be had for the men, the matter, the time, lest the jest detract anything from weightiness; which indeed is wont above all to be observed by Crassus. But this is a precept for omitting wit, when there is no need of it; we, however, are inquiring how we may use it, when there is need—as against an adversary, and especially if his folly can be made sport of; against a witness who is foolish, eager, frivolous, if men seem likely to listen readily.

Altogether those things are more acceptable which we say when provoked than those which we say first; for both the quickness of talent is greater, which appears in answering, and answering is the mark of good-nature; for we seem as though we would have been quiet, had we not been provoked—as in that very assembly nothing was said by this man, which at least seemed wittily said, which he did not say when challenged in answer; but there was so great weight in Domitius, so great authority, that what was thrown out by him seemed rather to be relieved by charm than to be broken by contention.'

Then Sulpicius said: 'What then? Shall we suffer Caesar—who, although he concedes wit to Crassus, yet labours much more at that study himself—not to unfold for us this whole kind of jesting, what it is and whence it is drawn, especially since he confesses that there is so great a force and usefulness in salt and urbanity?' 'What if,' said Julius, 'I agree with Antonius saying that there is no art of salt?'

When Sulpicius had fallen silent at this, 'As though indeed,' said Crassus, 'there were any art of these very things of which Antonius has now long been speaking: there is a certain observation, as he himself said, of those things which avail in speaking; which, if it could make men eloquent, who would not be eloquent? For who could not learn these things either easily or at least in some way? But I think there is this force and this usefulness in these precepts, not that we be led by art to find what we should say, but that we may either be confident that those things which we attain by nature, by zeal, by exercise, are right, or understand that they are faulty, when we have learned to what they should be referred.

Wherefore, Caesar, I too ask this of you, that, if it seems good to you, you dispute about this whole kind of jesting what you think, lest perchance some part of speaking, since you so wished, seem to have been omitted in such an assembly and in so careful a discourse.' 'For my part,' said he, 'since you exact the contribution from a guest, Crassus, I will not bring it about that, if I shrink away, I give you some cause for refusing. Although I am often wont to wonder at the impudence of those who act gesture on the stage with Roscius looking on; for who can move himself, whose faults that man does not see? So I now, with Crassus listening, will first speak about wit, and will teach—a pig teaching the orator, as they say—him whom, when Catulus lately heard him, he said that others ought to be hay.'

Then he said: 'Catulus was jesting, especially since he himself so speaks that he seems to be fed on ambrosia. But let us hear you, Caesar, that we may see the rest of Antonius.' And Antonius said: 'Very few things indeed remain to me; but yet, now wearied with the labour and the journey of my disputation, I will rest in Caesar's discourse as in a very opportune lodging.' 'And yet,' said Julius, 'you will say my hospitality is not too liberal; for I will thrust you and cast you out into the road as soon as you have tasted ever so little.

And, lest I detain you longer, I will very briefly set forth what I think about that whole kind. About laughter there are five things to be inquired: one, what it is; second, whence it is; third, whether it belongs to the orator to wish to move laughter; fourth, how far; fifth, what are the kinds of the ridiculous. And as for that first—what laughter itself is, in what way it is roused, where it is, in what manner it arises and so suddenly bursts forth that, wishing to hold it, we cannot, and how at the same moment it seizes the sides, the mouth, the veins, the eyes, the countenance—let Democritus see to that; for it does not pertain to this discourse, and, if it did pertain, I should yet not be ashamed to be ignorant of that which not even those knew who professed it.

But the place and region, as it were, of the ridiculous—for that is next inquired—is contained in a certain baseness and deformity; for these things are laughed at, either alone or chiefly, which mark and designate some baseness, not basely. But—to come to that third point—it is plainly the orator's to move laughter; either because the very hilarity wins goodwill toward him by whom it has been roused; or because all admire the acuteness often placed in a single word, especially of one answering, sometimes also of one provoking; or because it breaks the adversary, hinders him, makes light of him, deters him, refutes him; or because it signifies that the orator himself is a polished man, that he is learned, that he is urbane; most of all because it mitigates and relaxes sadness and severity, and often loosens by a jest and laughter odious matters which are not easily dissolved by arguments.

But how far the ridiculous is to be handled by the orator must be most diligently seen—which we had placed in the fourth place of inquiry. For neither conspicuous wickedness, joined with crime, nor again conspicuous misery, is laughed at when assailed: men wish the criminal to be wounded by some greater force than the ridiculous; they do not wish the wretched to be mocked, unless perchance they boast themselves; but most of all must the affection of men be spared, lest you rashly speak against those who are loved.

This moderation, then, must first be applied in jesting; and so those things are most easily made sport of which are worthy neither of great hatred nor of the greatest pity; wherefore all the material of the ridiculous is in those vices which are in the life of men who are neither beloved nor calamitous nor those who seem to be hurried off to punishment for a crime; and these things, prettily handled, are laughed at.

There is also in deformity and the vices of the body a pretty enough material for jesting; but we ask the same thing which in other matters is most to be asked—how far; in which not only is this enjoined, that nothing be said saltlessly, but also, even if you could say something most ridiculously, both must be avoided by the orator, lest the jest be either scurrile or mimic. What things of this kind are we shall the more easily understand when we come to the very kinds of the ridiculous. For there are two kinds of wit, of which one is handled by a thing, the other by a saying:

by a thing, when sometimes something is narrated as a kind of little tale, as once you, Crassus, against Memmius, that he had eaten Largus's arm, when he had quarrelled with him at Tarracina about a sweetheart: a salty narrative, and yet feigned by yourself; you added a close: that all Tarracina then had inscribed on every wall the letters L. L. L. M. M.; when you asked what that was, a certain old townsman told you,

'Biting Memmius mangles Largus's arm (Lacerat Lacertum Largi Mordax Memmius).' You perceive how witty this kind is, how elegant, how oratorical, whether you have something true that you can narrate—which yet must be sprinkled with little lies—or whether you feign. But the virtue of this kind is, that you so set forth the deeds that the characters of him about whom you narrate, his speech, his looks, may all be expressed, so that to those who hear those things seem then to be done and to happen.

In a thing there is likewise the ridiculous which is wont to be taken from a certain distorted imitation, as the same Crassus: 'By your nobility, by your family!' What else was there in which the assembly laughed, except that imitation of countenance and voice? But when he said, 'By your statues!' and with arm extended even added something a little of gesture, we laughed more vehemently. Of this kind is that Roscian imitation of an old man: 'These things, Antipho, I sow for you, he says; it is old age, when I hear it.' And yet this whole thing is so ridiculous by its very kind, that it must be handled most cautiously; for it belongs to mimes and to mimics, if the imitation is excessive, as does obscenity. The orator ought to steal the imitation, so that he who hears may imagine more than he sees; let him likewise display his own ingenuousness and modesty by avoiding baseness of words and obscenity of things.

These two, then, are the kinds of that ridiculous which is placed in a thing, which are proper to continuous wit, in which the characters of men are described and so portrayed that, either by some thing narrated, they are understood what they are, or, by an imitation briefly thrown in, are detected in some conspicuous vice fit for mockery.

But in a saying the ridiculous is that which is moved by a certain acuteness of a word or thought; but as in that former kind, whether of narration or of imitation, the likeness of mimes and mimics is to be avoided, so in this the scurrile railing of the orator must be greatly shunned. How, then, shall we distinguish your friend Granius, or my friend Vargula, from Crassus, from Catulus, from the rest? By Hercules, it does not come into my mind: for they are railing men; than Granius indeed no one is more railing. This, I suppose, first—that, as often as a saying can be said, we should not think it necessary to say it.

A tiny witness came forward. 'May I question him?' said Philippus. Then the examiner, in haste, 'Only briefly.' Hereupon he, 'You will not complain: I shall question a very tiny one.' Ridiculous. But the judge Lucius Aurifex was sitting, himself shorter even than the witness: all the laughter was turned upon the judge; the whole thing seemed scurrile and ridiculous. Therefore those things which can fall upon men whom you would not wish, however pretty they be, are yet by their very kind scurrile;

as that Appius, who wishes to be railing—and, by Hercules, is so—but sometimes sinks into this scurrile vice. 'I shall dine,' he said, 'at your house,' to this one-eyed friend of mine, Gaius Sextius; 'for I see there is room for one.' This is scurrile, both because he provoked without cause, and yet said that which would fit all one-eyed men; such things, because they are thought premeditated, are less laughed at: that of Sextius was excellent and extempore: 'Wash your hands,' he said, 'and dine.' A regard, then, for the time, and a moderation and temperance of the railing itself, and a rarity of sayings, will distinguish the orator from the buffoon; and that we speak with a cause, not that we may seem ridiculous, but that we may accomplish something, while they do it all day and without cause. For what did Vargula gain, when the candidate Aulus Sempronius had embraced him together with his brother Marcus, in saying, 'Boy, drive off the flies'? He sought a laugh, which in my opinion is the very slightest fruit of talent. We shall, then, moderate the time of speaking by prudence and weightiness; of which would that we had some art! But nature is mistress.

said he, 'and dine.' A regard, then, for the time, and a moderation and temperance of the railing itself, and a rarity of sayings, will distinguish the orator from the buffoon; and the fact that we speak with a cause, not that we may seem ridiculous but that we may accomplish something, while they do it all day and without cause. For what did Vargula gain, when the candidate Aulus Sempronius had embraced him together with his brother Marcus, in saying, 'Boy, drive off the flies'? He sought a laugh, which in my opinion is the very slightest fruit of talent. We shall, then, moderate the time of speaking by prudence and weightiness; of which would that we had some art! But nature is mistress.

Now let us set forth in summary the very kinds which most move laughter. Let this, then, be the first division: that what is wittily said has its wit sometimes in the thing, sometimes in the word; but that men are most delighted when the laughter is moved by thing and word conjoined. But remember this, that whatever topics I shall touch, whence the ridiculous is drawn, from those same topics weighty thoughts too can generally be drawn: so much only is the difference, that weightiness is placed in honourable and serious matters, jesting in slightly base and as it were deformed ones—as by the same words we can both praise a thrifty servant and, if he is worthless, jest. That old Neronian saying about a thievish servant is ridiculous: that he was the only one in whose house nothing was either sealed or shut up—which same thing is wont to be said of a good servant.

But this is by the same words; all things are from the same topics. For as for what Spurius Carvilius's mother said—when he was lamed grievously from a wound received for the commonwealth, and on that account was ashamed to go out in public—'why do you not go out, my Spurius? As often as you take a step, so often let your virtues come into your mind,' that is noble and weighty: but what Glaucia said to the limping Calvinus, 'where is that old saying—"does he limp? Nay, this man halts!"'—that is ridiculous; and each is drawn from that which could be observed in lameness. 'What is more sluggish (ignavius) than this Navius?' said Scipio severely; but to a man of bad smell, 'I see I am being surrounded (circumventum) by you,' said Philippus rather ridiculously: but either kind is contained by the likeness of a word changed in a letter.

Things said from ambiguity are thought even most pointed, but they are engaged not always in jesting, often even in weightiness. To that elder Africanus, adjusting a wreath to his head at a banquet, when it kept breaking, Publius Licinius Varus said: 'Do not wonder if it does not fit; for the head is big': both praiseworthy and honourable; but of the same kind is 'for Calvus it is enough that he says too little (parum).' Not to be long: there is no kind of jest from which serious and weighty things too may not be taken.

And this also must be noticed, that not all ridiculous things are witty. For what can be so ridiculous as a buffoon (sannio)? But he is laughed at by his very mouth, countenance, voice, in short by his very body; I can call him salty, and so, not that I should wish an orator to be of that kind, but a mime. Wherefore the first kind, which most of all moves laughter, is not ours: the morose, the superstitious, the suspicious, the boastful, the foolish: these very natures are laughed at, which characters we are wont to make sport of, not to sustain.

The second kind is in imitation, exceedingly ridiculous, but we are allowed to use it only stealthily, if ever, and in passing; otherwise it is by no means liberal; the third, the distortion of the mouth, is not worthy of us; the fourth, obscenity, is not only not worthy of the forum, but scarcely of the banquet of free men. So many things, then, being subtracted from this oratorical topic, the remaining wit is that which seems to be placed either in a thing, as I divided before, or in a word; for what, in whatever words you say it, is yet witty, is contained in the thing; what, the words being changed, loses its salt, has all its charm in the words.

Ambiguities are among the first acute and placed in the word, not in the thing; but they do not often move great laughter; rather they are praised as prettily, as learnedly said; as in the case of that Titius, who, since he played at ball studiously and was at the same time thought to break the sacred statues by night, and his comrades, when he had not come to the field, sought him, was excused by Vespa Terentius, who said he had broken his arm; as that of Africanus, which is in Lucilius: 'What of Decius? Do you wish to make a little nut (nuculam) or to be pierced (confixum)?' said he:

as your friend, Crassus, Granius, 'it is not worth a sixth-part.' And if you ask, he who is called railing will most excel in this kind; but other things move greater laughter. Ambiguity in itself is indeed approved, as I said before, even most of all; for it seems the mark of a man of talent to be able to lead the force of a word into another sense than the rest take it; but it moves admiration rather than laughter, except sometimes when it falls upon some other kind of the ridiculous too, which kinds I will myself run through.

But you know that it is a very well-known kind of the ridiculous, when we expect one thing and another is said: here our own error moves laughter even in ourselves; and if an ambiguity too be mingled in, it becomes more salty; as in Novius that man seems to be merciful who sees a judgement-debtor led away: he asks thus: 'for how much is he assigned?' 'A thousand sesterces.' If he had only added 'you may lead him off,' that would be the kind of ridiculous beyond expectation; but because he added 'I add nothing, you may lead him off'—an ambiguity being added—it was, as it seems to me at least, most salty. This is graceful, when in an altercation a word is caught up from the adversary and from it something is hurled, as by Catulus against Philippus, at that very man who provoked.

But since there are several kinds of ambiguity, about which there is a certain more subtle doctrine, we must attend to and hunt after words; in which, so that we may avoid those that are rather frigid—for one must beware lest the saying be thought far-fetched—we shall yet say very many things acutely. Another kind is that which has a small change of a word, which, placed in a letter, the Greeks call paronomasia, as 'Nobiliorem, mobiliorem' (the more noble, the more fickle) said Cato; or, as the same man, when he had said to someone 'let us go for a walk (deambulatum),' and the other said 'what need was there of "de-"?', 'Nay rather,' said he, 'what need was there of you (te)?' Or that answer of the same man,

'if you are both face to face (adversus) and turned away (aversus) unchaste.' The interpretation of a name too has acuteness, when you turn to the ridiculous why someone is so called; as I lately said that Nummius the bribe-distributor (divisor), as Neoptolemus at Troy, so he in the Campus Martius had found his name; and all these are contained in a word. Often, too, a verse is wittily inserted, either as it is or a little changed, or some part of a verse, as that of Statius by the chafing Scaurus; from which there are some who say that your law about citizenship, Crassus, was born: 'Hush, be silent, what is this clamour? Those who have neither mother nor father, such confidence? Away with that pride!' For in the case of Caelius that of yours, Antonius, was even useful to the cause: when that man as witness said the money had proceeded from himself, and had a rather effeminate son, as that man was now departing: 'Do you feel the old man has been touched (cheated) of thirty minae?'

Into this kind are thrown also proverbs, as that of Scipio, when Asellus boasted that he had traversed all the provinces while doing military service: 'Drive on the little ass (agas asellum),' and the rest; wherefore these too, since they cannot, the words being changed, keep the same charm, are drawn as placed not in the thing but in the words.

There is also a not saltless kind placed in the word, from this—when you seem to take the matter according to the word and not according to the meaning; of which one kind is that whole Tutor, an old mime, exceedingly ridiculous. But I leave the mimes; only I wish this kind of the ridiculous to be marked by some conspicuous and known instance; but of this kind is that which you, Crassus, lately said to him who had asked you whether you would be troublesome if he came to you well before light, 'you indeed,' you said, 'will not be troublesome.' 'You will bid yourself, then,' said he, 'be awakened?' And you, 'surely I had said you would not be troublesome.'

Of this same kind is that old saying which they say that Maluginensis Scipio uttered, when he was reporting from his century that Acidinus was consul, and the crier had said 'speak of Lucius Manlius': 'A good man,' he said, 'and an excellent citizen, I think.' Ridiculous too is that of Lucius Nasica to the censor Cato; when that man said, 'to the best of your heart's knowledge, have you a wife?' 'By Hercules,' he said, 'not to the best of my heart's knowledge.' These are either frigid, or salty then, when something else was expected. For nature, as I said before, our own error delights; from which, when we are as it were deceived in our expectation, we laugh.

In words too are those things which are drawn either from an altered expression, or from the metaphor of a single word, or from the inversion of words. From an alteration, as once Rusca, when he was bringing forward a law about ages, the dissuader Marcus Servilius said, 'tell me, Marcus Pinarius, if I speak against you, will you speak ill of me, as you have done to the rest?' 'As you have sown, so shall you reap,' he said.

But from metaphor, as when that elder Scipio said to the Corinthians, who were promising him a statue in that place where there were those of other commanders, that the troopers (turmalis) displeased him. But words are inverted, as, when Crassus was pleading before Marcus Perperna as judge on behalf of Aculeo, and against Aculeo on Gratidianus's side there was present Lucius Aelius Lamia, deformed, as you know; who, when he interrupted offensively, 'Let us hear,' said Crassus, 'the pretty boy.' When there had been laughter, 'I could not,' said Lamia, 'fashion my own shape, but I could my talent'; then this man, 'Let us hear,' said he, 'the eloquent one': there was much more vehement laughter. These too are graceful, as in weighty thoughts, so in jests—for I said a while ago that the method of jesting is one, of severity another,

but that of weighty and of jocular things there is one material—therefore words set in antithesis adorn a speech above all, which same kind is often also witty; as that Servius Galba, when he was bringing forward his own friends as judges to the tribune of the plebs Lucius Scribonius, and Libo said, 'when at last, Galba, will you come out of your dining-room?' 'When you,' said he, 'come out of another man's bedroom.' From which kind that too is not far distant which Glaucia said to Metellus, 'you have a villa at Tibur, a sheepfold on the Palatine.' And the kinds of words which are witty I think I have now stated;

of things there are more, and these, as I said before, are more laughed at; among which is narration, a matter truly difficult; for those things must be expressed and set before the eyes which seem both probable—which is proper to narration—and which are, what is proper to the ridiculous, somewhat base; of which, as the briefest example, let that serve which I set down before, of Crassus about Memmius. And to this kind let us add also the narrations of fables.

Something is drawn also from history, as, when Sextus Titius said that he was Cassandra, 'I can name,' said Antonius, 'many an Ajax son of Oileus among your lovers.' There is also that from likeness, which has either a comparison or, as it were, an image: a comparison, as that Gallus once, as witness against Piso, when he had said that countless money had been given to the prefect Magius, and Scaurus refuted it by Magius's poverty, 'you err,' he said, 'Scaurus; for I do not say that Magius saved it, but that, as a naked man might gather nuts, he carried it off in his belly'; as that of old Marcus Cicero, the father of this excellent man, our friend, 'our countrymen are like Syrian slaves: the better each

knew Greek, so the more worthless he was.' Images too are greatly laughed at, which generally are drawn into deformity or some vice of the body with the likeness of something baser: as that of mine against Helvius Mancia, 'I will now show what kind of man you are,' when he said, 'show, I pray'; I pointed with my finger to a Gaul painted on the Cimbric Marian shield under the New Shops, distorted, his tongue thrust out, his cheeks flapping; laughter was roused; nothing seemed so like Mancia; as to Titus Pinarius, twisting his chin in speaking: 'then

let him say, if he wishes anything, when he has cracked his nut.' Those things too, which for the sake of diminishing or magnifying are carried to an incredible exaggeration; as you, Crassus, in an assembly: 'Memmius thinks himself so great that, going down into the forum, he lowers his head at the Fabian arch'; of which kind is also that which Scipio at Numantia, when he was angry with Gaius Metellus, is said to have uttered: 'if his mother

had borne a fifth, she would have borne an ass.' There is also a pointed implication, when by a small matter and often by a word an obscure and hidden thing is illustrated; as, when Publius Cornelius—a man, as he was thought, avaricious and thievish, but conspicuously brave and a good commander—was thanking Gaius Fabricius because he, an enemy, had made him consul, especially in a great and grave war: 'there is no reason,' he said, 'why you should thank me, if I preferred to be plundered rather than to be sold'; as Africanus to Asellus, when he objected that unlucky lustrum, 'do not wonder,' he said; 'for he who took you off the rolls of the tax-payers completed the lustrum and sacrificed the bull.' There is also an urbane dissembling, when other things are said than you think—not in that kind of which I spoke before, when you say contraries, as Crassus to Lamia, but when with a whole kind of speech you jest severely, while you think otherwise than you speak;

as our Scaevola to that Septumuleius of Anagnia, to whom gold had been weighed out for the head of Gaius Gracchus, when he asked to be taken to Asia as prefect: 'what do you want, madman?' he said; 'so great is the multitude of bad citizens that I assure you of this, that if you stay at Rome, you will in a few years come to the greatest wealth.'

In this kind Fannius in his annals says that this Africanus Aemilianus was excellent and calls him by the Greek word eiron (dissembler); but, as they relate who know these things better, Socrates, I think, far surpassed all in this irony and dissembling, in charm and humanity. The kind is very elegant and salty with weightiness, and suited both to oratorical speeches and to urbane conversations.

And, by Hercules, all these things which are disputed by me about wit are no greater seasonings of forensic actions than of all conversations. For just as that which is in Cato—who reported many things, from which some are set down by me by way of example—seems to me very clever, that Gaius Publicius was wont to say that 'Publius Mummius was a man for any season,' so assuredly the matter stands that there is no time of life in which it does not become charm and humanity to be present.

But I return to the rest. Akin to this dissembling is when a vicious thing is called by an honourable word; as when Africanus the censor was removing from his tribe that centurion who had not been present in Paulus's battle, when that man said he had stayed in the camp for the sake of guard, and asked why he was marked by him, 'I do not love,' he said,

'those who are too diligent.' Acute too is that, when from another's speech you catch up something other than he wishes; as Maximus to Salinator, when Tarentum being lost, Livius had nevertheless held the citadel and had made many splendid sallies from it, and when Maximus, some years after, had recovered that town, and Salinator asked him to remember that he had recovered Tarentum by his service, 'why should I not remember?' he said. 'For I should never

have recovered it, unless you had lost it.' There are also those somewhat absurd things, but by that very name often ridiculous, not only most apt for mimes, but also in some way for us: 'A foolish man, after he began to have an estate, dropped dead.' And 'What is that woman to you?' 'A wife.' 'Like me, by the god of faith.' And 'as long as he was at the waters, he never dropped dead.' This kind is lighter and, as I said, mimic, but yet has sometimes a place even with us, so that even a not foolish man may say something as if foolishly, with salt: as to you, Antonius, Mancia, when he had heard that you, as censor, had been prosecuted by Marcus Duronius for bribery,

'now at length,' he said, 'you will be allowed to do your own business.' These things are greatly laughed at, and, by Hercules, all things which are said by prudent men, through simulation, somewhat absurdly and saltily. Of which kind is also not to seem to understand what you understand, as Pontidius, 'what do you think of a man caught in adultery?' 'Slow!' as I, who in a levy with Metellus, when he would not accept the excuse of my eyes from me

and had said, 'do you, then, see nothing?' 'I do indeed,' said I, 'from the Esquiline gate I see your villa'; as that of Nasica, who, when he had come to the poet Ennius and, asking at the door for Ennius, the maid had told him he was not at home, Nasica perceived that she had said it by her master's order and that he was within; a few days afterward, when Ennius had come to Nasica and was asking for him at the door, Nasica cried out that he was not at home; then Ennius, 'what? do I not know your voice?' he said. Hereupon Nasica, 'you are an impudent man: when I sought you, I believed your maid that you were not at home; do you not believe me myself?' That too is pretty, by which he who said something is mocked in that very kind in which he said it;

as, when the consular Quintus Opimius, who as a young man had had a bad name, said to a festive fellow, Egilius, who seemed rather effeminate but was not, 'what of you, my Egilia? When will you come to me with your distaff and wool?' 'By Pollux, I do not dare,' said he, 'for my mother forbade me to approach women of ill fame.'

Salty too are those things which have a hidden suspicion of the ridiculous; of which kind is that of the Sicilian, to whom, when a certain friend complained that he said his wife had hanged herself from a fig-tree, 'I pray you,' he said, 'give me cuttings from that tree to plant.' Of the same kind is what Catulus said to a certain bad orator: who, when he thought in his epilogue that he had moved pity, after he had sat down, asked this man whether he seemed to have moved pity, 'and great pity indeed,' he said; 'for I think no one is so hard as not to have thought your speech worthy of pity.'

But to me, by Hercules, those splenetic and as it were peevish ridiculous things greatly move me—not when they are said by a peevish man; for then it is not salt, but the nature, that is laughed at; in which, as it seems to me, that is very salty in Novius: 'why do you weep, father?' 'A wonder if I should not sing: I am condemned.' To this kind almost contrary is the kind of the ridiculous of the patient and slow man, as, when Cato had been struck by one who carried a chest, and that man said 'beware,' he asked 'whether he carried anything else

besides the chest.' There is also a salty reproof of folly, as that of the Sicilian, to whom the praetor Scipio was giving as patron of his cause his own guest, a noble man but exceedingly foolish, 'I pray you, praetor,' he said, 'give that patron to my adversary, then give me no one.' Those things too move us which are explained by conjecture far otherwise than they are, but acutely and neatly; as, when Scaurus was accusing Rutilius of bribery, since he himself had been made consul, and that man had suffered repulse, and showed in his account-books the letters A. F. P. R., and said it was 'made on the faith of Publius Rutilius' (actum fide P. Rutili); but Rutilius said 'before done, after entered' (ante factum, post relatum); Gaius Canius, a Roman knight, when he was present with Rufus, cried out that neither was declared by those letters: 'what, then?' said Scaurus; 'Aemilius did it, Rutilius is punished' (Aemilius fecit, plectitur Rutilius). Discrepancies too are laughed at:

'what is wanting to this man except an estate and virtue?' Pretty too is a familiar reproof, as of one erring; as when Granius rebuked Albius because, when by his account-books something seemed to have been proved by Albucius, and he was greatly rejoicing that Scaevola was acquitted, he did not understand that it had been adjudged against his own account-books.

Like this is also the friendly admonition in giving counsel; as when, to a bad advocate who had dulled his voice in speaking, Granius advised that he drink cold mead as soon as he had returned home, 'I shall ruin,' said he, 'my voice,

if I do that': 'better that,' he said, 'than your client.' Pretty too is it, when what is suited to each man is told; as, when Scaurus had some envy from this, that he had taken possession of the goods of Phrygio Pompeius, a wealthy man, without a will, and was sitting as advocate for the defendant Bestia, when a certain funeral was being carried by, the accuser Gaius Memmius said, 'look, Scaurus, a dead man is being carried; if you can be his possessor.'

But of all these nothing is more laughed at than what is beyond expectation, of which there are countless examples, as that of the elder Appius, who, in the senate, when it was being treated about the public lands and the Thorian law, and Lucullus was being attacked by those who said that the public lands were grazed bare by his cattle, 'that is not Lucullus's cattle; you err,' he said—he seemed to defend Lucullus—'I think it is free: it grazes wherever it pleases.'

That too of Scipio pleases me, who struck down Tiberius Gracchus: when Marcus Flaccus, having thrown many reproaches at him, had brought Publius Mucius as judge, 'I object to him on oath,' he said, 'he is unfair'; when there had been a murmur, 'ah,' he said, 'Fathers, I do not object to him as unfair to me, but to all.' But than this Crassus nothing wittier: when the witness Silus had hurt Piso, by saying that he had heard something against him, 'it may be, Silus,' he said, 'that he from whom you say you heard it spoke in anger.' Silus nodded. 'It may also be that you did not rightly understand.' This too he nodded with his whole head, to give himself to Crassus. 'It may also be,' he said, 'that what you say you heard you never heard at all.' This fell out so beyond expectation that the laughter of all overwhelmed the witness. Of this kind Novius is full, whose familiar jest is

'a wise man, if you are cold, will tremble,' and very many others. Often, too, you may wittily concede to your adversary that very thing which he takes from you; as Gaius Laelius, when a certain man of bad birth said to him that he was unworthy of his ancestors, 'but, by Hercules,' said he, 'you are worthy of yours.' Often, too, ridiculous things are said sententiously, as Marcus Cincius, on the day on which he brought forward a law about gifts and presents, when Gaius Cento had come forward and rather insultingly asked, 'what do you bring forward, little Cincius?' 'That you may buy, Gaius,' he said, 'if you wish to use anything.'

Often, too, things which cannot happen are saltily wished for; as Marcus Lepidus, when, the rest exercising themselves on the field, he himself had lain down on the grass, 'I wish,' said he, 'this were to labour.' Salty too is it to answer slowly, to those asking and as it were inquiring, what they do not wish; as the censor Lepidus, when he had taken away a horse from Marcus Antistius of Pyrgi, and his friends clamoured and asked what he should answer to his father, as to why he said his horse had been taken from him, when he was an excellent colonist, most thrifty, most modest, most frugal, 'that I believe

none of those things,' he said. The Greeks collect certain others—execrations, expressions of wonder, threats; but I seem to myself to have divided these very things into too many kinds; for those which are contained in the method and force of a word are well-nigh fixed and definite; which for the most part, as I said before, are wont to be praised rather than laughed at;

but these which are in the thing itself and the thought are in their parts countless, in their kinds few; for laughter is moved by deceiving expectation, by mocking the natures of others, by the likeness of something baser, by dissembling, by saying something somewhat absurd, by reproving folly. And so he who wishes to speak jocosely must be imbued, as it were, by a certain nature apt for these kinds and by character, so that the very countenance too may be accommodated to each kind of the ridiculous; which indeed the more severe and serious it is, as in you, Crassus, the saltier those things which are said are wont to seem.

But now you, Antonius, who said that you would gladly rest in this lodging of my discourse, as though you had turned aside into the Pomptine country, a place neither pleasant nor healthful, I judge that you should think you have rested long enough, and proceed to finish the remaining journey.' 'For my part, and indeed cheerfully received by you,' said he, 'and both made more learned through you and even bolder now for jesting; for I do not fear that anyone will now think me lighter in that kind, since indeed you have brought forward to me as authorities the Fabricii and the Africani, the Maximi, the Catos, the Lepidi.

But you have those things which you wished to hear from me, about which indeed I had to speak and to think more carefully; for the rest are easier, and from those which have been said all the rest are born. For I, when I have approached a cause and pursued everything by thinking, so far as I could, when I have seen and learned both the arguments of the cause and those topics by which the minds of the judges are won, and those by which they are moved, then I settle what good each cause has, what evil; for there is scarcely any matter that can be called into the dispute or controversy of speaking which has not both, but how much it has, that matters;

but my method in speaking is wont to be this: that what good I have, that I embrace, adorn, exaggerate, there I dwell, there I lodge, there I cleave; but from the evil and the fault of the cause I so withdraw, not that it should appear that I flee it, but that the whole, by adorning and amplifying that good, may be overwhelmed, dissembled; and, if the cause is in arguments, I most of all guard the firmest, whether they are several or some one; but if the cause is in conciliation or in moving, I betake myself most of all to that part which can most move the minds of men.

In short, the sum of this kind is this: that, if in refuting the adversary the speech can be firmer than in confirming our own matters, I direct all my weapons against him; if our things can be proved more easily than those refuted, I try to draw the minds away from the contrary defence and to lead them to ours.

In short, those two things which seem easiest, since I cannot do those which are more difficult, I take to myself by my own right: one, that to a troublesome or difficult argument or topic I sometimes make no answer at all, which perhaps someone may justly have laughed at; for who is there that cannot do that? but yet I am now disputing about my own faculty, not that of others, and I confess that, if any matter presses me too vehemently, I am wont so to give way that I seem to flee not only with my shield not thrown away, but not even cast behind me, but to use a certain appearance and pomp in speaking, and a flight like a battle; but to halt in my own position so that I seem to have yielded not for the sake of fleeing the enemy, but of taking ground;

the other is that which I think most of all to be guarded against and provided for by the orator, and which is wont most to trouble me: I am wont to labour not so much to be of help to causes as to do no harm; not but that one should strive in both, but yet it is much more disgraceful for an orator to seem to have hurt a cause than not to have profited it. But what is this, Catulus, that you whisper among yourselves? Do you despise these things, as they are to be despised?' 'By no means,' said he; 'but Caesar seemed to wish to say something about that very matter.' 'Let him say it, and gladly,' said Antonius, 'whether for refuting or for inquiring.'

Then Julius said: 'By Hercules, Antonius, I have always been one who so spoke of you as an orator, that you seemed to me alone the most guarded in speaking, and that this was proper to your praise—that nothing was ever said by you which could harm him for whom you spoke; and this I remember, when a conversation had been begun by me with this Crassus, many listening, and Crassus in very many words praised your eloquence, that I said that among your other praises this was perhaps the greatest, that you not only said what was needful, but also did not say what was not needful;

then I remember that he answered me, that the rest in you were supremely to be praised, but that to say what was foreign and what would harm him for whom each man spoke was the mark of a wicked and treacherous man; wherefore he seemed to himself not eloquent who should not do that, but wicked who should do it. Now, if it seems good to you, Antonius, I should like you to demonstrate why you think this so great, to do no evil in a cause, that nothing seems to you greater in an orator.'

'I will tell, indeed, Caesar,' said he, 'what I understand; but do you, and you all,' said he, 'remember this, that I am not speaking about the divinity, as it were, of a perfect orator, but about the moderate measure of my exercise and habit. Crassus's answer indeed is of a certain excellent and singular talent; to whom it seemed like a portent that anyone could be found, an orator, who should do some evil in speaking and harm him whom he defended;

for he forms a conjecture about himself; whose force of talent is so great that he thinks no one says what is against himself except on purpose; but I am now disputing not about a certain pre-eminent and exceptional power, but about a well-nigh vulgar and common one. So among the Greeks it is reported that that Athenian Themistocles was of a certain incredible greatness of counsel and talent; to whom a certain learned man, and among the first cultivated, is said to have come, and to have promised that he would hand down to him the art of memory, which was then first brought forward; when he had asked what that art could effect, that teacher said—that he might remember everything; and Themistocles answered him, that he would do him a more grateful favour if he taught him to forget what he wished than if he taught him to remember.

Do you see what force was in the man, of a most keen talent, how powerful and how great a mind was his? Who so answered that we could understand that nothing from his mind, once it had been poured in, could ever flow out; when indeed it was more desirable to him to be able to forget what he did not wish to remember than to remember what he had once heard or seen. But neither, on account of this answer of Themistocles, must labour not be given by us to memory, nor must that caution and timidity of mine in causes be neglected on account of the pre-eminent prudence of Crassus; for neither of these men brought me any faculty, but signified his own.

For very many things must be looked round in causes, in every part of the speech, lest you stumble, lest you rush against anything: often some witness either does not hurt or hurts less, unless he be provoked; the defendant entreats, the advocates urge, that we inveigh, that we speak ill, in short that we cross-examine: I am not moved, I do not comply, I do not satisfy; and yet I gain no praise; for unskilled men can more easily blame what you have foolishly said than praise what you have wisely kept silent.

Here how much evil is done, if you have hurt an angry, a not foolish, a not frivolous witness! For he has both the will to harm in his anger, and the force in his talent, and the weight in his life. Nor, if Crassus does not commit this, does it therefore follow that many do not, and often, commit it. And nothing is wont to seem to me more disgraceful than that, from some saying or answer or question of the orator, that talk follows: 'he has killed.' 'His adversary?' 'Nay rather,' they say, 'himself and the man he

defends.' This Crassus thinks cannot happen except by treachery; but I very often see in causes men who are by no means bad do some evil. What of that which I said above, that I am wont to yield and—to say it more plainly—to flee those things which press my cause hard, when others do not so, but busy themselves in the enemy's camp and dismiss their own guards—do they harm causes moderately, when they either confirm the aids of the adversaries or ulcerate those things which they cannot heal?

What, when they have no regard for the persons whom they defend, if those things in them which are odious they do not mitigate by extenuating, but by praising and extolling make more odious, how much evil is there, pray, in that? What, if against men dear and pleasing to the judges you inveigh, without any forefortifying of speech, more bitterly and insultingly, do you not alienate the judges from yourself?

What, if those vices or disadvantages which are in some one judge or in several, you, in reproaching them in the adversaries, do not understand that you are inveighing against the judges—is the fault moderate? What, if, when you plead for another, you make the suit your own, or, hurt, are carried away by anger, you abandon the cause—do you do no harm? In which I—not because I willingly hear myself ill spoken of, but because I do not willingly abandon a cause—am thought too patient and slow; as when I rebuked you yourself, Sulpicius, because you were attacking the assistant, not the adversary; from which I gain even this, that, if anyone speaks ill of me, he seems petulant or plainly insane.

But in the very arguments, if you set down something either openly false, or contrary to what you have said or are going to say, or by its very kind remote from the practice of the courts and the forum, do you do no harm? In short, all my care is wont always to be engaged in this—I will say it the oftener—that, if I can, I may effect something good by speaking; but if not that, at least that I do no evil.

And so now I return thither, Catulus, in which you a little while ago were praising me—to the order and arrangement of matters and topics; of which the method is twofold: one which the nature of causes brings, the other which is provided by the judgement and prudence of orators: for that we should say something before the matter, then that we should set forth the matter, afterward that we should prove it by confirming our own defences and refuting the contrary, then that we should conclude and so make our peroration—this the very nature of speaking prescribes;

but to settle in what manner we should compose those things which must be said for the sake of proving and teaching—this is even most especially proper to the prudence of the orator. For many arguments occur; many which seem likely to profit in speaking; but of these some are so slight that they must be despised; some, even if they have some help, are sometimes of such a kind that there is in them some fault, and that which seems to profit is not of so great worth that it should be joined with some evil;

but those which are useful and firm, if they are yet, as often happens, very many, those of them which are either the slightest or very like to others weightier, I think ought to be separated and removed from the speech: for my part, when I collect the arguments of causes, I am wont not so much to number them as to weigh them.

And since—what I have now often said—we lead men to our opinion by three things, either by teaching or by conciliating or by moving, one of these three things must be carried before us, that we may seem to wish nothing else but to teach; the remaining two, like blood in bodies, must be diffused through the whole continuous speech; for both the beginnings and the other parts of the speech, about which we will say a few things a little later, ought greatly to have this force, that they may be able to pertain to moving the minds of those before whom it is pleaded.

But in those parts of the speech which, although they teach nothing by arguing, yet by persuading and moving effect very much, although the most proper place is both in beginning and in peroration, yet to digress from that which you have proposed and are pleading, for the sake of moving the minds, is often useful;

and so either when the matter has been narrated and set forth, often there is given a place for digressing to move the minds, or when our arguments have been confirmed or the contrary refuted, or in both places, or in all, if the cause has that dignity and abundance, it can rightly be done; and those causes are weightiest and fullest for amplifying and adorning which give the most openings for a digression of this kind, so that one may use those topics by which the impulses of the minds of those who hear may be either impelled or turned back.

And in this too I blame those who place those things which are least firm first; in which I think those also err who, if ever—a thing which never pleased me—they employ several advocates, wish each one to speak first in proportion as they think there is least in him: for the matter demands that the expectation of those who hear be relieved as quickly as possible; and if it be not satisfied at the beginning, much more labour must be spent in the rest of the cause; for that matter is in a bad way which does not seem at once, as soon as it has begun to be pleaded, to become better.

Therefore, as in an orator each best one, so in a speech let each firmest thing be first; provided that in both this be held, that those things which excel be reserved even for the peroration; if any are moderate—for the faulty ought to have place nowhere—let them be thrown into the middle crowd and the herd.

All these things being considered, then at last I am wont to think last of that which is first to be spoken—what exordium I should use. For if ever I have wished to find that first, nothing has occurred to me but what was meagre or trifling or vulgar or common. But the beginnings of speaking ought always to be careful and acute and furnished with thoughts, apt in words, and indeed proper to the causes; for the first acquaintance, as it were, and commendation of the speech is in the beginning, which forthwith ought to soothe and allure him who hears;

in which I am wont to wonder, not indeed at those who have given no labour to this matter, but at a man among the first eloquent and learned, Philippus, who is wont so to rise to speak that he knows not what first word he is going to have; and the same says that, when he has warmed his arm, then he is wont to fight; nor does he attend that those very men, from whom he draws this likeness, hurl those first javelins so gently that they may both serve gracefulness most of all and provide for their remaining strength.

And there is no doubt that the exordium of speaking ought not often to be vehement and pugnacious; but if even in that very gladiatorial contest of life, in which it is decided by the sword, yet before the encounter many things are done which seem to avail not for a wound but for show, how much more is this to be regarded in a speech, in which not force rather than delight is demanded! There is nothing, in short, in all the nature of things which pours itself forth entire and which unrolls itself wholly all at once; thus all things which are done and which are conducted most keenly, nature herself has fringed with gentler beginnings.

But these things in speaking are not to be sought from somewhere outside, but to be taken from the very bowels of the cause; therefore, the whole cause being tried and surveyed, all the topics being found and arranged, one must consider what exordium should be used.

Thus they will both be easily found—for they will be taken from those things which are most copious either in the arguments or in those parts to which I said one often ought to digress; and they will bring some weight, when they are drawn well-nigh from the inmost defence, and it will appear that they are not only not common nor can be transferred to other causes, but have wholly flowered forth from that cause which is being pleaded.

But every beginning ought to have either a signification of the whole matter which is being pleaded, or an approach to the cause and a fortifying, or some ornament and dignity; but, as to houses and temples vestibules and approaches, so to causes beginnings ought to be set in proportion to the matters; and so in small and unfrequented causes it is often more fitting to begin from the very matter;

but when a beginning must be used—which for the most part will be the case—thoughts may be drawn either from the defendant, or from the adversary, or from the matter, or from those before whom it is pleaded. From the defendant (I call defendants those whose matter is at stake), those things which signify a good man, which a liberal one, which a calamitous one, which one worthy of pity, which avail against a false accusation; from the adversary, from the same topics generally the contraries;

from the matter, if it be cruel, if nefarious, if beyond expectation, if undeserved, if wretched, if ungrateful, if unworthy, if novel, if such as cannot be restored and healed; from those before whom it is pleaded, that we make them well-disposed and well-thinking—which is better effected by pleading than by asking. This indeed must be diffused through the whole speech, and not least into the last part; but yet many beginnings are born of that kind.

For the Greeks also advise that in the beginning we make the judge attentive and teachable; which things are useful, but not more proper to the beginning than to the remaining parts; and easier even in the beginnings, both because then they are most attentive, when they expect everything, and because they can be more teachable at the outset; for those things are more brilliant which are said in the beginnings than those which are said in the middle of causes, either by proving or by refuting.

But the greatest abundance of beginnings for either alluring or rousing the judge we shall draw from those topics which, for producing emotions of the minds, will be in the cause; which, however, it will not be fitting to unfold wholly in the beginning, but only that the judge be at first lightly impelled, so that, he being now inclined, the rest of the speech may bear down.

But let the beginning be so connected with the following speech, that it may seem not, as it were, the prelude of a cithara-player, something attached, but a member cohering with the whole body. For some, when they have, after meditation, uttered that, so pass to the rest that they seem not to wish a hearing to be granted them. And such a prelude ought to be, not like that of the Samnites, who brandish their spears before the battle, which they use not at all in fighting, but such that with the very thoughts with which they have preluded they could even fight.

But as for their bidding the matter be narrated briefly, if it is to be called brevity when no word is superfluous, the speech of Lucius Crassus is brief; but if there is then brevity, when there is only so much of words as is necessary, that is sometimes needful; but often it is harmful, most of all in narrating, not only because it brings obscurity, but also because it takes away that virtue which is the greatest of narration—that it be pleasant and accommodated to persuading. Look at those words 'for after he had gone out from the youths . . .'

how long is the narration! The characters of the young man himself and the servile inquiry, the death of Chrysis, the countenance and form and lamentation of the sister, and the rest are narrated very variously and pleasantly. But if he had sought this brevity—'she is carried out, we go, we come to the tomb, she was placed on the fire'—he could have finished the whole in ten little verses; although this very 'she is carried out, we go' is so concise that it serves not brevity but rather grace.

But if there had been nothing except 'she was placed on the fire,' yet the whole matter could easily have been understood. But a narration distinguished by persons and interpunctuated by conversations has both festivity, and is both more probable—because you say a thing was done, when you set forth in what manner it was done—and is much more open to understanding, if it is sometimes dwelt upon and not run through with that brevity.

For a narration ought to be as open as the rest; but in this it must be the more elaborated, both because it is more difficult not to be obscure in narrating a matter than either in the beginning or in arguing or in perorating; and the obscurity of this part of the speech is even of greater danger than that of the rest, either because, if anything has been said somewhat obscurely in any other place, only that perishes which has been so said, while an obscure narration darkens the whole speech; or because other things you can, if you have once said something obscurely, say more plainly in another place, while of the narration there is one place in the cause. But the narration will be perspicuous, if it be narrated in usual words, if the order of times be observed, if it be narrated without interruption.

But when a narration is to be used or not, that is a matter of judgement; for neither, if a matter is known nor it is doubtful what was done, ought one to narrate, nor if the adversary has narrated, unless we are going to refute; and if ever there must be narrating, we shall neither keenly pursue those things which produce suspicion and a charge and will be against us, and shall draw off whatever we can; lest that happen which Crassus thinks happens, if ever it does, by treachery, not by folly—that we harm a cause. For it pertains to the sum of the whole cause whether a matter has been cautiously or, on the contrary, demonstrated, since the narration is the source of all the remaining speech.

It follows that the cause be set forth, in which it must be seen what comes into controversy; then the supports of the cause must be supplied, in combination both by weakening the contrary and by confirming your own. For there is one certain method in causes of that speech which avails for proving the argumentation; but it requires both confirmation and refutation; but since neither can those things which are said against us be refuted unless you confirm your own, nor these be confirmed unless you refute those, therefore these things are joined both by nature and by usefulness and by treatment.

But all things must for the most part be concluded by amplifying matters, either by inflaming the judge or by mitigating him; and all things must be referred, both with the earlier topics of the speech and most of all at the end, to moving the minds of the judges as much as possible and calling them to our advantage.

Nor indeed does there now seem to be cause why we should separate those precepts which must be handed down about persuasions or panegyrics, for most are common; but yet to persuade or dissuade something seems to me to be of the weightiest character; for it is the mark of a wise man to unfold his counsel about the greatest matters, and of an honourable and eloquent one, so that you can foresee by your mind, approve by your authority, persuade by your speech. And these things must be done in the senate with less display; for it is a wise council, and a place must be left for the speaking of many others, and even the suspicion of an ostentation of talent must be avoided:

the public assembly receives all the force of speech and demands weight and variety. Therefore in persuading nothing is more to be desired than dignity; for he who seeks usefulness sees not what the persuader most wishes, but what he sometimes more follows. For there is no one, especially in so famous a state, who does not think that dignity is most to be sought; but usefulness for the most part prevails, when that fear underlies, that, if dignity be neglected, not even it can be retained.

But the controversy among men's opinions is either in this, which is more useful; or even, when this is agreed, it is contended whether honour or usefulness should rather be consulted; which, because they often seem to fight with one another, he who will defend usefulness will enumerate the advantages of peace, of resources, of power, of revenues, of the garrison of soldiers, of the other things whose fruit we measure by usefulness, and likewise the disadvantages of the contraries; he who impels toward dignity will collect the examples of the ancestors, which were glorious even with danger, will magnify the immortal memory of posterity, will defend that usefulness arises from praise and that it is always joined with dignity.

But what can or cannot be done, and what too is necessary or not, in either matter must especially be inquired; for all deliberation is cut short, if it is understood that a thing cannot be done or if necessity is brought to bear; and he who has taught this, others not seeing it, has seen the most.

But for giving counsel about the commonwealth the chief thing is to know the commonwealth; for speaking convincingly, to know the characters of the state, which, because they are frequently changed, the kind of speech too must often be changed; and although the force of eloquence is well-nigh one, yet because the highest dignity is of the people, the weightiest cause is of the commonwealth, the greatest the movements of the multitude, a certain grander and more brilliant kind of speaking too seems to be employed; and the greatest part of the speech must be applied to the movements of the minds, sometimes either by exhortation or by some recalling, to rouse them to hope or to fear or to desire or to glory, often too to recall them from rashness, anger, hope, injury, envy, cruelty.

But it happens that, because the assembly seems to be, as it were, the greatest stage of the orator, by nature itself we are roused to a more ornate kind of speaking; for a multitude has a certain such force that, as a flute-player cannot play without flutes, so an orator cannot be eloquent without a listening multitude.

And since there are many and various popular pitfalls, the adverse acclamation of the people must be avoided, which is roused either by some fault of the speech—if anything seems to have been said harshly, arrogantly, basely, sordidly, with some fault of mind—or by an offence at the man or by envy, which is either just or arises from accusation and report, or if the matter displeases, or if the multitude is in some movement of its own desire or fear. To these four causes as many remedies are opposed: now rebuke, if there is authority; now admonition, which is, as it were, a gentler rebuke; now a promise, that if they will hear, they will approve; now entreaty, which is weak, but sometimes useful.

But in no place do wit and quickness and some brief saying, not without dignity and with charm, profit more; for nothing is so easy as that a multitude be led aside from sadness and often from bitterness by a saying fitly and briefly and acutely and cheerfully made. I have set forth for you, as best I could, in both kinds of causes what I am wont to follow, what to flee, what to regard, and by what method altogether to be engaged in causes.

Nor is that third kind, of panegyrics, difficult, which I at the outset, as it were, set apart from our precepts; but both because there are many kinds of speeches both weightier and of greater abundance, about which scarcely anyone would give precepts, and because we are not wont to use panegyrics very much, I separated this whole topic; for the Greeks themselves wrote panegyrics rather for reading and for delight or for adorning some man than for the sake of this forensic usefulness; whose are the books in which Themistocles, Aristides, Agesilaus, Epaminondas, Philip, Alexander, and others are praised; our panegyrics, which we use in the forum, have either the bare and unadorned brevity of testimony, or are written for a funeral assembly, which is least accommodated to the praise of a speech. But yet, since it must sometimes be used, and sometimes even written—as Gaius Laelius wrote for Quintus Tubero praising his uncle Africanus, or as we ourselves, for the sake of adorning, after the manner of the Greeks, may praise whomever we wish—let this topic too be handled by us.

It is plain, then, that some things in a man are to be wished for, others to be praised: birth, beauty, strength, resources, riches, and the rest which fortune gives, either externally or to the body, have not in themselves true praise, which is thought due to virtue alone; but yet, because virtue itself is most discerned in the use and moderation of those things, these goods of nature and of fortune too must be handled in panegyrics; in which is the highest praise—not to have exalted oneself in power, not to have been insolent in money, not to have preferred oneself to others on account of the abundance of fortune, so that resources and stores may seem to have given the means and material not to pride and lust, but to goodness and moderation.

But virtue, which is in itself praiseworthy and without which nothing can be praised, yet has several parts, of which one is more apt for praise than another; for there are some virtues which seem placed in the characters of men and in a certain affability and beneficence; others which are in some faculty of talent or in greatness and strength of mind; for clemency, justice, kindness, good faith, fortitude in common dangers are pleasant to hear in panegyrics;

for all these virtues are thought fruitful not so much to those who have them as to the race of men. Wisdom and greatness of mind, by which all human things are thought slight and as nothing, and a certain force of talent in devising, and eloquence itself, have no less of admiration, less of pleasantness: for they seem rather to adorn and protect the very men whom we praise than those before whom we praise. But yet in praising these kinds of virtues too must be joined; for the ears of men bear that both those things which are pleasant and grateful, and those things which are wonderful in virtue, be praised.

And since of the several virtues there are certain fixed duties and functions, and to each virtue its own proper praise is due, it must be unfolded, in the praise of justice, what he who is praised has done with good faith, what with equity, what with some duty of this kind; and likewise in the rest the deeds will be accommodated to the kind and force and name of each virtue.

But the most grateful praise is held to be that of those deeds which seem to have been undertaken by brave men without profit and reward; but those which were even with labour and danger to themselves, these have the richest abundance for praising, because they can both be told most ornately and heard most easily; for that, in fine, seems to be the virtue of a pre-eminent man which is fruitful to others, to himself either laborious or dangerous or at least without recompense. Great too and admirable is it wont to seem to have borne adverse chances wisely, not to have been broken by fortune, to have retained dignity in harsh affairs;

nor yet do those things not adorn—honours held, the decreed rewards of virtue, deeds approved by the judgements of men; among which it is even of praise to attribute happiness itself to the judgement of the immortal gods. But the matters to be taken up must be either pre-eminent in greatness, or first in novelty, or singular in their very kind; for neither small nor usual nor vulgar things are wont to seem worthy of admiration or of praise at all.

There is also a comparison with other pre-eminent men, splendid in a panegyric. About which kind it has pleased me to say a little more than I had shown, not so much on account of forensic use—which has been handled by me throughout this whole discourse—as that you might see this: that, if panegyrics are in the office of the orator—which no one denies—a knowledge of all the virtues, without which a panegyric cannot be effected, is necessary to the orator.

Now that the precepts of blaming are to be taken from the contrary vices is plain; at the same time this is before our eyes, that neither can a good man be properly and copiously praised without a knowledge of the virtues, nor a wicked one marked and blamed conspicuously and sharply enough without a knowledge of the vices. And these topics, both of praising and of blaming, we must often use in every kind of causes.

You have what I think about finding things and arranging them; I will add also about memory, that I may relieve Crassus of labour and leave him nothing else to discourse about except those things by which these are adorned.' 'Go on, indeed,' said Crassus; 'for I gladly perceive you now known as a master and at length unrolled from those coverings of your dissembling and laid bare; and in that you leave me nothing or not much, you do very conveniently, and it is grateful to me.'

'Now as to how much I shall have left you,' said Antonius, 'that will be in your power; for if you wish to deal truly, I leave you everything; but if to dissemble, see how you may satisfy these gentlemen. But, to return to the matter, I am not, indeed,' said he, 'of so great a talent as Themistocles was, so as to prefer the art of forgetting to that of memory; and I am grateful to that Simonides of Ceos, who first, they say, brought forward the art of memory.

For they say that, when Simonides was dining at Crannon in Thessaly at the house of Scopas, a fortunate and noble man, and had sung that poem which he had written about him, in which, for the sake of adorning, after the manner of the poets, much had been written about Castor and Pollux, that man too sordidly told Simonides that he would give him half of what he had agreed for that poem; the rest let him seek from his Tyndaridae, whom he had equally praised, if it seemed good to him.

A little later, they relate, it was announced to Simonides that he should come out; that two young men were standing at the door, who greatly called him out; that he rose, went out, saw no one: in this interval that banquet-hall, where Scopas was feasting, fell in; and by that ruin Scopas himself, crushed with his kinsmen, perished; whom, when his people wished to bury and could in no way distinguish them, mangled as they were, Simonides is said, from his remembering in what place each of them had reclined, to have been the pointer-out of each for burial; and, admonished by this thing, he is reported to have discovered that it is order most of all which brings light to memory.

And so for those who would exercise this part of their talent, places must be taken, and those things which they wished to hold by memory fashioned in the mind and placed in those places; thus it would come about that the order of the places would preserve the order of the matters, while the images of the matters would mark the matters themselves; and that we should use the places for wax and the images for letters.

But what fruit of memory there is for the orator, how great the usefulness, how great the force, what need is there for me to say? to hold what you have learned in receiving a cause, what you yourself have thought out? to have all your thoughts fixed in the mind? all the apparatus of words laid out? so to hear either him from whom you learn, or him to whom you must answer, that they seem not to pour the speech into your ears, but to inscribe it in your mind? And so only those who are strong in memory know what and how far and in what manner they are going to speak, what they have answered, what remains; and the same remember many things done by themselves at various times in other causes, many things heard from others.

Wherefore I confess indeed that the nature of this good is the chief, as of all those things of which I spoke before; but this whole art of speaking, or a certain image and likeness of an art, has this force, not that it should beget and create some whole, of which there is no part in our talents, but that it should bring forth and confirm those things which are already born and begotten in us;

but yet there is scarcely anyone of so keen a memory that, without arranging and marking the matters, he can grasp the order of all the words or thoughts, nor again of so dull a one that he is not aided by this habit and exercise. For this Simonides, or whoever else discovered it, saw prudently—that those things are most fashioned in our minds which have been delivered and impressed by sense; but that the keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight; wherefore those things could most easily be held by the mind which were perceived by the ears or by thought, if they were delivered to the minds with the recommendation of the eyes also; so that a certain conformation and image and figure might mark things invisible and removed from the judgement of sight, in such a way that what we could scarcely embrace by thinking we should, as it were, hold by gazing.

But these forms and bodies, like all things which come under sight, need a seat; for a body cannot be understood without a place. Wherefore, lest in a known and well-worn matter I be long and tedious, many places must be used, brilliant, distinct, at moderate intervals; and images that are active, keen, marked, which can occur and quickly strike the mind; which faculty both exercise will give—from which habit is begotten—and the noting of like words turned and changed by cases, or transferred from a part to a kind, and the figuring of a whole thought by the image of a single word, after the method and manner of some supreme painter distinguishing places by the variety of forms.

But the memory of words, which is less necessary to us, is distinguished by a greater variety of images; for there are many words which, as joints, connect the members of speech, which can be fashioned by no likeness; of these images must be fashioned by us, which we may always use; the memory of things is the orator's own; this we can mark by single persons well placed, so that we may grasp thoughts by images, order by places.

Nor is that true which is said by the slothful, that memory is overwhelmed by the weight of images and that even that is obscured which by itself nature could have held: for I myself have seen the greatest men and of well-nigh divine memory, at Athens Charmadas, in Asia Metrodorus of Scepsis, whom they say to be alive today, each of whom used to say that he wrote down, as it were letters in wax, by images in those places which he had, what he wished to remember. Wherefore by this exercise memory is not to be dug out, if it is none by nature; but certainly, if it lies hid, it is to be called forth.

You have the discourse, long enough, of a man—would that not impudent! Certainly, at least, of one not too modest; who indeed, with you, Catulus, and also with Lucius Crassus listening, have said so many things about the method of speaking; for the age of those young men perhaps ought to have moved me less. But you will surely pardon me, if only you have learned what cause has now impelled me to this loquacity unusual to me.'

'For our part,' said Catulus, 'for I answer this both for myself and for my brother, we not only pardon you, but love you and feel great gratitude to you; and as we recognize your humanity and good-nature, so we admire that knowledge and abundance. For my part I think I have even gained this, that I have been relieved of a great error and freed from that wonder, which, with many others, I was always wont to feel—whence was that so great divinity of yours in causes; for I did not think that you had touched those things which I see you to have most diligently learned and gathered from every side, and, taught by practice, partly to have corrected, partly to have approved;

and not the less do I admire your eloquence, and much more your virtue and diligence; and at the same time I rejoice that the judgement of my mind is approved, who always laid it down that no one can attain the praise of wisdom and of eloquence without the highest zeal and labour and learning. But yet what is that which you said would happen—that we should pardon you, if we knew what cause had impelled you to the discourse? For what other cause is there, except that you wished to humour both us and the zeal of these young men, who listened to you most attentively?'

Then he said: 'I wished to take away from Crassus all refusal, whom I knew a little while ago to approach this kind of discourse either too modestly or too unwillingly—for I do not wish to say of so pleasant a man too fastidiously. For what will he be able to say? That he is a man of consular and censorian rank? Our case is the same. Or will he bring forward his age? He is four years younger. Or that he does not know these things? Which I learned late, which I caught in haste, which—as they say—at odd hours of leisure, he learned from boyhood, with the highest zeal, under the greatest teachers. I will say nothing of his talent, to which no one was equal: for when I am speaking, no one was ever so contemptuous of himself but that he hoped he could speak either better or in the same way; but when Crassus is speaking, no one was so arrogant as to be confident that he would ever speak in like manner. Wherefore, lest these excellent men have come in vain, let us at length, Crassus, hear you.'

Then he said: 'Though I should grant that those things are so—which are very much otherwise—what, pray, have you left me today, Antonius, or anyone, that could be said? For I will say truly, most friendly men, what I feel: I have often heard learned men—why do I say often? nay sometimes; for how often could I, who came into the forum as a boy and was never away from it longer than as quaestor? But yet I heard, as I said yesterday, both at Athens, when I was there, most learned men, and in Asia that very Metrodorus of Scepsis, disputing about these very matters; nor indeed did anyone ever seem to me more copious or more subtle in this kind of speaking than this man has been today: but if it were otherwise, and I understood that something had been omitted by Antonius, I should not be so unurbane and well-nigh inhuman as to be reluctant in that which I felt you desired.'

Then Sulpicius said: 'Have you, then, forgotten, Crassus, that Antonius so divided with you, that he himself should set forth the equipment of the orator, and leave to you its distinction and ornament?' Hereupon he said: 'First, who allowed Antonius both to make the parts and himself to take first whichever he wished? Then, if I rightly understood—since I was listening very gladly—he seemed to me to speak conjointly about both matters.' 'But he,' said Cotta, 'did not touch the ornaments of speech nor that praise from which eloquence found its name.' 'Words, then,' said Crassus, 'Antonius left to me, the matter he himself took.'

Then Caesar said: 'If—which is the more difficult—he has left that to you, there is cause why we should desire to hear you; but if the easier, there is no cause why you should refuse.' And Catulus said: 'What of that which you said, Crassus—that, if we stayed today at your house, you would humour us—do you think it pertains nothing to your good faith?' Then Cotta, smiling, said: 'I could yield to you, Crassus: but see lest Catulus have brought in something of religion: this is a censor's task, and you see how it befits a man of censorian rank to commit that.' 'Come, then,' said he, 'as you wish. But now indeed, since it is that time of day, I judge that we must rise and rest; in the afternoon, if it is convenient for you, we will say something, unless perchance you prefer to put it off to tomorrow.' All said that they wished to hear, either at once or, if he himself preferred, in the afternoon, yet as soon as possible.