may be unwilling to proclaim your merit, posterity will do you ample
justice [i].


XXIV. As soon as Aper concluded, You see, said Maternus, the zeal and
ardour of our friend: in the cause of the moderns, what a torrent of
eloquence! against the ancients, what a fund of invective! With great
spirit, and a vast compass of learning, he has employed against his
masters the arts for which he is indebted to them. And yet all this
vehemence must not deter you, Messala, from the performance of your
promise. A formal defence of the ancients is by no means necessary. We
do not presume to vie with that illustrious race. We have been praised
by Aper, but we know our inferiority. He himself is aware of it,
though, in imitation of the ancient manner [a], he has thought proper,
for the sake of a philosophical debate, to take the wrong side of the
question. In answer to his argument, we do not desire you to expatiate
in praise of the ancients: their fame wants no addition. What we
request is, an investigation of the causes which have produced so
rapid a decline from the flourishing state of genuine eloquence. I
call it rapid, since, according to Aper's own chronology, the period
from the death of Cicero does not exceed one hundred and twenty years
[b].


XXV. I am willing, said Messala, to pursue the plan which you have
recommended. The question, whether the men who flourished above one
hundred years ago, are to be accounted ancients, has been started by
my friend Aper, and, I believe, it is of the first impression. But it
is a mere dispute about words. The discussion of it is of no moment,
provided it be granted, whether we call them ancients, or our