Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. by Marcus Tullius Cicero
page 71 of 228 (31%)
page 71 of 228 (31%)
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produced the same effect, as the violent ones which were excited by
Sulpicius. For Sulpicius was really the most striking, and, if I may be allowed the expression, the most tragical Orator I ever heard:--his voice was strong and sonorous, and yet sweet, and flowing:--his gesture, and the sway of his body, was graceful and ornamental, but in such a style as to appear to have been formed for the Forum, and not for the stage:--and his language, though rapid and voluble, was neither loose nor exuberant. He was a professed imitator of Crassus, while Cotta chose Antonius for his model: but the latter wanted the force of Antonius, and the former the agreeable humour of Crassus."--"How extremely difficult, then," said Brutus, "must be the art of speaking, when such consummate Orators as these were each of them destitute of one of its principal beauties!"--"We may likewise observe," said I, "in the present instance, that two Orators may have the highest degree of merit, who are totally unlike each other: for none could be more so than Cotta and Sulpicius, and yet both of them were far superior to any of their cotemporaries. It is therefore the business of every intelligent matter to take notice what is the natural bent of his pupil's capacity; and, taking that for his guide, to imitate the conduct of Socrates with his two scholars Theopompus and Ephorus, who, after remarking the lively genius of the former, and the mild and timid bashfulness of the latter, is reported to have said that he applied a spur to the one, and a curb to the other. The Orations now extant, which bear the name of Sulpicius, are supposed to have been written after his decease by my cotemporary P. Canutius, a man indeed of inferior rank, but who, in my mind, had a great command of language. But we have not a single speech of Sulpicius that was really his own: for I have often heard him say, that he neither had, nor ever could commit any thing of the kind to writing. And as to Cotta's speech in defence of himself, called a vindication of the _Varian Law_, it was composed, at his own request, by L. Aelius. This Aelius was a man of merit, and a very worthy Roman knight, who was |
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