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Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. by Marcus Tullius Cicero
page 14 of 228 (06%)
with a high opinion of his elegance, and not, as Eupolis relates of
Pericles, to _sting_ as well as to _please_.

"You see, then, in the very city in which Eloquence was born and nurtured,
how late it was before she grew to maturity; for before the time of Solon
and Pisistratus, we meet with no one who is so much as mentioned for his
talent of speaking. These, indeed, if we compute by the Roman date, may be
reckoned very ancient; but if by that of the Athenians, we shall find them
to be moderns. For though they flourished in the reign of Servius Tullius,
Athens had then subsisted much longer than Rome has at present. I have
not, however, the least doubt that the power of Eloquence has been always
more or less conspicuous. For Homer, we may suppose, would not have
ascribed such superior talents of elocution to Ulysses, and Nestor (one of
whom he celebrates for his force, and the other for his sweetness) unless
the art of Speaking had then been held in some esteem; nor could the Poet
himself have been master of such an ornamental style, and so excellent a
vein of Oratory as we actually find in him.--The time indeed in which he
lived is undetermined: but we are certain that he flourished many years
before Romulus: for he was at least of as early a date as the elder
Lycurgus, the legislator of the Spartans.

"But a particular attention to the art, and a greater ability in the
practice of it, may be observed in Pisistratus. He was succeeded in the
following century by Themistocles, who, according to the Roman date, was a
person of the remotest antiquity; but, according to that of the Athenians,
he was almost a modern. For he lived when Greece was in the height of her
power, but when the city of Rome had but lately freed herself from the
shackles of regal tyranny;--for the dangerous war with the Volsci, who
were headed by Coriolanus (then a voluntary exile) happened nearly at the
same time as the Persian war; and we may add, that the fate of both
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