I should have been happy, replied Messala, to have heard both my
friends. It is, however, some compensation for the loss, that I find
men of their talents, instead of giving all their time to the little
subtleties and knotty points of the forum, extending their views to
liberal science, and those questions of taste, which enlarge the mind,
and furnish it with ideas drawn from the treasures of polite
erudition. Enquiries of this kind afford improvement not only to those
who enter into the discussion, but to all who have the happiness of
being present at the debate. It is in consequence of this refined and
elegant way of thinking, that you, Secundus, have gained so much
applause, by the life of Julius Asiaticus [b], with which you have
lately obliged the world. From that specimen, we are taught to expect
other productions of equal beauty from the same hand. In like manner,
I see with pleasure, that our friend Aper loves to enliven his
imagination with topics of controversy, and still lays out his leisure
in questions of the schools [c], not, indeed, in imitation of the
ancient orators, but in the true taste of our modern rhetoricians.


XV. I am not surprised, returned Aper, at that stroke of raillery. It
is not enough for Messala, that the oratory of ancient times engrosses
all his admiration; he must have his fling at the moderns. Our talents
and our studies are sure to feel the sallies of his pleasantry [a]. I
have often heard you, my friend Messala, in the same humour. According
to you, the present age has not a single orator to boast of, though
your own eloquence, and that of your brother, are sufficient to refute
the charge. But you assert roundly, and maintain your proposition with
an air of confidence. You know how high you stand, and while in your
general censure of the age you include yourself, the smallest tincture