The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4Cicero, Marcus Tullius
History
The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin -- Translations into English
V. There is a certain political science which is made up of many and
important particulars. A very great and extensive portion of it is
artificial eloquence, which men call rhetoric. For we do not agree
with those men who think that the knowledge of political science is
in no need of and has no connexion with eloquence; and we most widely
disagree with those, on the other hand, who think that all political
ability Is comprehended under the skill and power of a rhetorician. On
which account we will place this oratorical ability in such a class as
to assert that it is a part of political science. But the duty of this
faculty appears to be to speak in a manner suitable to persuading men;
the end of it is to persuade by language. And there is difference
between the duty of this faculty and its end; that with respect to the
duty we consider what ought to be done; with respect to the end we
consider what is suitable to the duty. Just as we say, that it is the
duty of a physician to prescribe for a patient in a way calculated to
cure him; and that his end is to cure him by his prescriptions. And
so we shall understand what we are to call the duty of an orator, and
also what we are to call his end; since we shall call that his duty
which he ought to do, and we shall term that his end for the sake of
which he is bound to do his duty.
We shall call that the material of the art, on which the whole art,
and all that ability which is derived from art, turns. Just as if we
were to call diseases and wounds the material of medicine, because
it is about them that all medical science is concerned. And in like
manner, we call those subjects with which oratorical science and
ability is conversant the materials of the art of rhetoric. And these
subjects some have considered more numerous, and others less so. For
Gorgias the Leontine, who is almost the oldest of all rhetoricians,
considered that an orator was able to speak in the most excellent
manner of all men on every subject. And when he says this he seems to
be supplying an infinite and boundless stock of materials to this art.
But Aristotle, who of all men has supplied the greatest number of aids
and ornaments to this art, thought that the duty of the rhetorician
was conversant with three kinds of subjects; with the demonstrative,
and the deliberative, and the judicial.
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