[Sidenote: Minor orators.] The orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114-50 B. C.) is chiefly known through Cicero. He was the advocate of Verres when Cicero conducted the prosecution, he spoke against the Manilian Law, which Cicero supported, and in several suits he was engaged by the same client who secured Cicero’s services. Hortensius was the chief representative of the florid and ornamental “Asian” style of oratory at Rome. Among the orators who adopted the simple Attic style, the most important were Marcus Calidius, who was prætor in 57 B. C. and died in 47 B. C.; Gaius Licinius Calvus (87-47 B. C.), who has been mentioned above (page 62) as a poet; Marcus Junius Brutus, the leader of the conspirators who murdered Cæsar; and Quintus Cornificius, who was also a poet (see page 64). [Sidenote: Quintus Cicero.] Quintus Tullius Cicero (102-43 B. C.), the brother of Marcus, was also a literary man, though far inferior to his brother. When he was Cæsar’s lieutenant in Gaul, in 54 B. C., he wrote several tragedies, apparently translations from the Greek, and he was also the author of annals and of an epic poem on Cæsar’s expedition to Britain. The only writings of Quintus Cicero now existing are three letters to Tiro and one to Marcus Cicero, besides an _Essay on Candidature for the Consulship_, in the form of a letter to Marcus, written when he was a candidate for that office in 64 B. C. This gives some interesting information about the methods of Roman politicians, but has little literary interest. The first of Marcus Cicero’s _Letters to Quintus_ is a similar treatise on the government of a province, written when Quintus was beginning his third year as proprætor of Asia, 59 B. C. [Sidenote: Tiro.] Another writer closely connected with Cicero was his freedman and friend Tiro, who wrote Cicero’s biography, made editions of his speeches and letters, and collected his witticisms, besides writing on grammar and inventing a system of shorthand.