the least worth reading; but as they are, or were, among his
recognized writings, a word shall be said of them in their proper
place.

The success of the education of Cicero probably became a commonplace
among Latin school-masters and Latin writers. In the dialogue De
Oratoribus, attributed to Tacitus, the story of it is given by Messala
when he is praising the orators of the earlier age. "We know well,"
says Messala, "that book of Cicero which is called Brutus, in the
latter part of which he describes to us the beginning and the progress
of his own eloquence, and, as it were, the bringing up on which it was
founded. He tells us that he had learned civil law under Q. Mutius
Scaevola; that he had exhausted the realm of philosophy--learning that
of the Academy under Philo, and that of the Stoics under Diodatus;
that, not content with these treatises, he had travelled through
Greece and Asia, so as to embrace the whole world of art. And thus
it had come about that in the works of Cicero no knowledge is
wanting--neither of music, nor of grammar, nor any other liberal
accomplishment. He understood the subtilty of logic, the purpose of
ethics, the effects and causes of things." Then the speaker goes on to
explain what may be expected from study such as that. "Thus it is, my
good friends--thus, that from the acquirement of many arts, and from a
general knowledge of all things, eloquence that is truly admirable is
created in its full force; for the power and capacity of an orator
need not be hemmed in, as are those of other callings, by certain
narrow bounds; but that man is the true orator who is able to speak
on all subjects with dignity and grace, so as to persuade those who
listen, and to delight them, in a manner suited to the nature of the
subject in hand and the convenience of the time."[42]