After the death of Gracchus there was a temporary lull in politics; the victorious aristocracy, so nearly crushed, prudently decided to compromise with the populace rather than to risk the awakening of another Gracchus by exploiting their restored power. Young men who had heard the brilliant reformer in their youth, men like Crassus, Antonius, and Catulus, grew up to be distinguished orators. They inherited the results of a great evolution of prose, they directly or indirectly received the benefits of a deeper respect for elaborate style because of a new contact with Greek teachers, and they were granted the leisure and tranquility to consider the needs of a more artistic expression. Licinius Crassus, in whose orations Cicero found the first mature Latin prose,[24] began as a partisan of Gaius Gracchus and in his youth doubtless imitated his hero’s fiery style. He also gave some attention to the Greek rules though he held that rules did not create style but were merely a collection of deductions drawn by analysts from the practices of the eloquent.[25] He preferred observing Roman speakers to studying the precepts of the Greeks,[26] and he thought Roman oratory sounder than Greek because at Rome the pleaders were the foremost statesmen whereas in Greece only hirelings practiced the art.[27] In these views he was not far from representing orthodox opinions.[28] There were other great men who gave even less credit to scholastic practice. Antonius his rival—by many considered the more brilliant speaker of the two—claimed that rhetoric was useless in that it only formulated the obvious;[29] Scaevola pointed out that Roman statesmen who had brought Roman government to the pinnacle of glory had nothing to learn in expression from inexperienced Greek pedagogues;[30] and Cicero’s account of the style of such great orators as Sulpicius, Caesar Strabo, and Cotta reveals the fact that the oratory of these men was a home product.[31] On the other hand there were men who tried to make up for the deficiency in practical experience by drilling at doctrine, with the usual result that their language became tangled in artifice. Men like Albucius[32] and the first Curio remind us in type and experience of the courtly Tudor wits who had little to do or say and ended in euphuism.