A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, or the Causes of Corrupt Eloquence: The Works of Cornelius Tacitus, Volume 8 (of 8); With an Essay on His Life and Genius, Notes, SupplementsTacitus, Cornelius
Philosophy
A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, or the Causes of Corrupt Eloquence: The Works of Cornelius Tacitus, Volume 8 (of 8); With an Essay on His Life and Genius, Notes, Supplements
Tacitus, Cornelius
Dialogues, Latin; Oratory, Ancient
Hac sacrata die Tusco Bellona duello
Dicitur, et Latio prospera semper adest.
Appius est auctor, Pyrrho qui pace negatâ
Multum animo vidit, lumine cæcus erat.
FASTORUM lib vi. ver. 201.
[i] Quintilian acknowledges this fact, with his usual candour. The
question concerning Attic and Asiatic eloquence was of long standing.
The style of the former was close, pure, and elegant; the latter was
said to be diffuse and ostentatious. In the ATTIC, nothing was idle,
nothing redundant: the ASIATIC swelled above all bounds, affecting to
dazzle by strokes of wit, by affectation and superfluous ornament.
Cicero was said by his enemies to be an orator of the last school.
They did not scruple to pronounce him turgid, copious to a fault,
often redundant, and too fond of repetition. His wit, they said, was
the false glitter of vain conceit, frigid, and out of season; his
composition was cold and languid; wire-drawn into amplification, and
fuller of meretricious finery than became a man. _Et antiqua quidem
illa divisio inter Asianos et Atticos fuit; cum hi pressi, et integri,
contra, inflati illi et inanes haberentur; et in his nihil
superflueret, illis judicium maximè ac modus deesset. Ciceronem tamen
et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant ut tumidiorem, et
Asianum, et redundantem, et in repetitionibus nimium, et in salibus
aliquando frigidum, et in compositione fractum, exultantem, ac penè
(quod procul absit) viro molliorem._ Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 10. The
same author adds, that, when the great orator was cut off by Marc
Antony's proscription, and could no longer answer for himself, the men
who either personally hated him, or envied his genius, or chose to pay
their court to the, triumvirate, poured forth their malignity without
reserve. It is unnecessary to observe, that Quintilian, in sundry
parts of his work, has vindicated Cicero from these aspersions. See s.
xvii. note [b].
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