frequently on the lips of the masters, who collect pupils not by the
thoroughness of their teaching or by giving proof of their powers of
instruction, but by interested visits and all the tricks of
toadyism?'[70] Messala goes on[71] to denounce the unreality of the
exercises in the schools, whose deleterious effect is aggravated by the
low standard exacted. 'Boys and young men are the speakers, boys and
young men the audience, and their efforts are received with
undiscriminating praise.'

The same faults that were generated in the schools were intensified in
after-life. In the law courts the same smart epigrams, the same
meretricious style were required. No true method had been taught, with
the result that 'frivolity of style, shallow thoughts, and disorderly
structure' prevailed; orators imitated the rhythms of the stage and
actually made it their boast that their speeches would form fitting
accompaniments to song and dance. It became a common saying that 'our
orators speak voluptuously, while our actors dance eloquently'.[72]
Poetical colour was demanded of the orator, rhetorical colour of the
poet. The literary and rhetorical stages of education reacted on one
another.[73]

Further, just as the young poet had to his great detriment been
encouraged to recite at school, so he had to recite if he was to win
fame for his verse in the larger world. Even in a saner society poetry
written primarily for recitation must have run to rhetoric; in a
rhetorical age the result was disastrous. In an enormous proportion of
cases the poet of the Silver Age wrote literally for an audience. Great
as were the facilities for publication the poet primarily made his name,
not by the gradual distribution of his works among a reading public, but
by declaiming before public or private audiences. The practice of