The dialogue entitled _Brutus, sive De Claris Oratoribus_, was written, and is also feigned to have taken place, after Cæsar had attained to sovereign power, though he was still engaged in the war against Scipio in Africa. The conference is supposed to be held among Cicero, Atticus, and Brutus, (from whom it has received its name,) near a statue of Plato, which stood in the pleasure-grounds of Cicero’s mansion, at Rome. Brutus having experienced the clemency of the conqueror, whom he afterwards sacrificed, left Italy, in order to amuse himself with an agreeable tour through the cities of Greece and Asia. In a few months he returned to Rome, resigned himself to the calm studies of history and rhetoric, and passed many of his leisure hours in the society of Cicero and Atticus. The first part of the dialogue, among these three friends, contains a few slight, but masterly sketches, of the most celebrated speakers who had flourished in Greece; but these are not so much mentioned with an historical design, as to support by examples the author’s favourite proposition, that perfection in oratory requires proficiency in all the arts. The dialogue is chiefly occupied with details concerning Roman orators, from the earliest ages to Cicero’s own time. He first mentions such speakers as Appius Claudius and Fabricius, of whom he knew nothing certain, whose harangues had never been committed to writing, or were no longer extant, and concerning whose powers of eloquence he could only derive conjectures, from the effects which they produced on the people and Senate, as recorded in the ancient annals. The second class of orators are those, like Cato the Censor, and the Gracchi, whose speeches still survived, or of whom he could speak traditionally, from the report of persons still living who had heard them. A great deal of what is said concerning this set of orators, rests on the authority of Hortensius, from whom Cicero derived his information(348). The third class are the deceased contemporaries of the author, whom he had himself seen and heard; and he only departs from his rule of mentioning no living orator at the special request of Brutus, who expresses an anxiety to learn his opinion of the merits of Marcellus and Julius Cæsar. Towards the conclusion, he gives some account of his own rise and progress, of the education he had received, and the various methods which he had practised in order to reach those heights of eloquence he had attained.