The eloquence of Carneades and his associates had made (to use a familiar term) a great sensation among the Roman orators, who soon split into two parties,--the one adhering to the rough unpolished manners of their forefathers, the other favouring the artificial graces which distinguished the Grecian rhetoricians. In the former class were Cato and Laelius,[262] both men of cultivated minds, particularly Cato, whose opposition to Greek literature was founded solely on political considerations. But, as might have been expected, the Athenian cause had prevailed; and Carbo and the two Gracchi, who are the principal orators of the next generation, are praised as masters of an oratory learned, majestic, and harmonious in its character.[263] These were succeeded by Antonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpicius, and Hortensius; who, adopting greater liveliness and variety of manner, form a middle age in the history of Roman eloquence. But it was in that which immediately followed that the art was adorned by an assemblage of orators, which even Greece will find it difficult to match. Of these Caesar, Cicero, Curio, Brutus, Caelius, Calvus, and Callidius, are the most celebrated. The talents, indeed, of Caesar were not more conspicuous in arms than in his style, which was noted for its force and purity.[264] Caelius, whom Cicero brought forward into public life, excelled in natural quickness, loftiness of sentiment, and politeness in attack;[265] Brutus in philosophical gravity, though he sometimes indulged himself in a warmer and bolder style.[266] Callidius was delicate and harmonious; Curio bold and flowing; Calvus, from studied opposition to Cicero's peculiarities, cold, cautious, and accurate.[267] Brutus and Calvus have been before noticed as the advocates of the dry sententious mode of speaking, which they dignified by the name of Attic; a kind of eloquence which seems to have been popular from the comparative facility with which it was attained.