the clearness of intellect with which he unravels the web of guilt woven by Oppianicus and Sassia. This remarkable oration has been analyzed by Dr. Blair.[819] Again, passing over other forensic orations, we come to that on which he had evidently expended all his resources of art, taste, and skill—the speech for the poet Archias.[820] If possible it is even too elaborate and polished for so graceful a theme. Although the object of the advocate was simply to establish the right of his client to Roman citizenship, the genius of the poet of Antioch furnished an opportunity not to be neglected for digressing into the fields of literature, and for pronouncing a truly academical eulogium on poetry. It is satisfactory to the admirers of Cicero to find that the attack which has been made on the genuineness of this pleasing oration is groundless and unwarrantable.[821] The oration _pro Cælio_[822] is the most entertaining in the whole collection. It contains a rich fund of anecdote, seasoned with witty observations; a knowledge of human nature illustrated in a piquant and humorous style, expressed in a tone of most gentlemanlike yet playful eloquence, and interspersed with passages of great beauty. It presents a marked contrast to the coarse personal abuse which defaces the otherwise powerful invective against L. Piso, which was delivered in the following year.[823] The list, though many more marvellous specimens are omitted, must be closed with the oration in defence of T. Annius Milo. On this occasion Cicero lost his wonted self-possession. When the court opened, Pompey was presiding on the bench, and he had caused the Forum to be occupied with soldiers. The sight, added, perhaps, to the consciousness that he was advocating a bad cause, struck Cicero with alarm; his voice trembled, his tongue refused to give utterance to the conceptions which he had formed. The judges were unmoved; and Milo remained in his self-imposed exile at Marseilles. When Cicero left the court his courage and calmness returned. He penned the oration which is now extant. He had little or no proof or evidence to offer, and therefore, as an argumentative work, it is unconvincing; but for force, pathos, and the externals of eloquence, it deserves to be reckoned amongst his most wonderful efforts. When the exiled Milo read it, he is said to have exclaimed, “O, Cicero, if you had pleaded so, I should not be eating such capital fish here!” The author himself and his contemporaries thought this his finest oration; probably its deficiencies were concealed by its eloquence and ingenuity. It appears that the oration which he actually delivered was taken down in writing by reporters, and was extant in the time of Asconius Pedianus, the most ancient commentator on Cicero’s orations.[824] Its feebleness proved the correctness of the judgment of antiquity.