disposition, and hope to rise by honourable means. The eminent orator
is the model which every parent recommends to his children. Even the
common people [e] stand at gaze, as he passes by; they pronounce his
name with pleasure, and point at him as the object of their
admiration. The provinces resound with his praise. The strangers, who
arrive from all parts, have heard of his genius; they wish to behold
the man, and their curiosity is never at rest, till they have seen his
person, and perused his countenance.


VIII. I have already mentioned Eprius Marcellus and Crispus Vibius
[a]. I cite living examples, in preference to the names of a former
day. Those two illustrious persons, I will be bold to say, are not
less known in the remotest parts of the empire, than they are at
Capua, or Vercellæ [b], where, we are told, they both were born. And
to what is their extensive fame to be attributed? Not surely to their
immoderate riches. Three hundred thousand sesterces cannot give the
fame of genius. Their eloquence may be said to have built up their
fortunes; and, indeed, such is the power, I might say the inspiration,
of eloquence, that in every age we have examples of men, who by their
talents raised themselves to the summit of their ambition.

But I waive all former instances. The two, whom I have mentioned, are
not recorded in history, nor are we to glean an imperfect knowledge of
them from tradition; they are every day before our eyes. They have
risen from low beginnings; but the more abject their origin, and the
more sordid the poverty, in which they set out, their success rises in
proportion, and affords a striking proof of what I have advanced;
since it is apparent, that, without birth or fortune, neither of them
recommended by his moral character, and one of them deformed in his