Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker.Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Philosophy
Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Oratory -- Early works to 1800
humourous manner, as to relax the severity of the Judges into a smile or
an open laugh:--not one who knows how to dilate and expand his subject, by
reducing it from the limited considerations of time, and person, to some
general and indefinite topic;--not one who knows how to enliven it by an
agreeable digression: not one who can rouse the indignation of the Judge,
or extort from him the tear of compassion;--or who can influence and bend
his soul (which is confessedly the capital perfection of an Orator) in
such a manner as shall best suit his purpose.
"When Hortensius, therefore, the once eloquent and admired Hortensius, had
almost vanished from the Forum, my appointment to the Consulship, which
happened about six years after his own promotion to that office, revived
his dying emulation; for he was unwilling that after I had equalled him in
rank and dignity, I should become his superior in any other respect. But
in the twelve succeeding years, by a mutual deference to each other's
abilities, we united our efforts at the Bar in the most amicable manner:
and my Consulship, which at first had given a short alarm to his jealousy,
afterward cemented our friendship, by the generous candor with which he
applauded my conduct. But our emulous efforts were exerted in the most
conspicuous manner, just before the commencement of that unhappy period,
when Eloquence herself was confounded and terrified by the din of arms
into a sudden and a total silence: for after Pompey had proposed and
carried a law, which allowed even the party accused but three hours to
make his defence, I appeared, (though comparatively as a mere _noviciate_
by this new regulation) in a number of causes which, in fact, were become
perfectly the same, or very nearly so; most of which, my Brutus, you was
present to hear, as having been my partner and fellow-advocate in many of
them, though you pleaded several by yourself; and Hortensius, though he
died a short time afterwards, bore his share in these limited efforts. He
began to plead about ten years before the time of your birth; and in his
sixty-fourth year, but a very few days before his death, he was engaged
with you in the defence of Appius, your father-in-law. As to our
respective talents, the Orations we have published will enable posterity
to form a proper judgment of them. But if we mean to inquire, why
Hortensius was more admired for his Eloquence in the younger part of his
life, than in his latter years, we shall find it owing to the following
causes. The first was, that an _Asiatic_ style is more allowable in a
young man than in an old one. Of this there are two different kinds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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