Cicero in fact employed few of the figures of speech, the names of which he felt that convention required him to list, and his modulations are so intricate and varied that, despite a score of dissertations on the subject, no one has yet succeeded in analyzing them according to the standard scheme which he transmitted from the accepted authorities. For Cicero himself, living prose had a native movement and a wealth of sound that lay beyond analysis. His rules were for dull minds that required the aid of rules. His own ear required none. The teacher who compels his students to count the specific clausulae of an oration of Cicero commits an unpardonable crime against the holy spirit of a great art. The student must, of course, learn to read that prose with an accurate pronunciation of the sounds and quantities, but after that the rhythm will take care of itself. Cicero speaks[38] of his own oration _Pro Caecina_ as an example of the “plain style,” employed in explicative demonstration, and the _Pro Rabirio_ as an illustration of the grave and lofty style employed in compelling persuasion, while he cites the _De Imperio Pompei_ as an instance of the “middle style.” He who has read these three speeches conscientiously feels the difference between them, yet he will not be able to convey that feeling by means of the traditional statistics of the stylistic doctorand. There are quite as many examples of the favorite rhythms (clausulae) in the _Pro Caecina_ as in the _Pro Rabirio_, a fact that shows that Cicero’s ear was remarkably sensitive to this effect and guided his vocal expression even when he was not consciously striving for it. Even in metaphors and in such devices as the rhetorical question, the _Pro Caecina_ does not differ materially from the _Pro Rabirio_.[39] And this again shows that this orator was by nature luminous and aggressive as a successful speaker must be.