Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero

whereas Cicero was often carried away by his love of jesting into scurrility, and when, to gain his ends in his cases, he treated matters worthy of serious attention with ironical mirth and pleasantry, he was careless of propriety. Thus, in his defence of Caelius, he said that his client, surrounded as he was by great luxury and extravagance, did nothing out of the way when indulging in pleasures; for not to enjoy what is in one’s possession was madness, he said, particularly when the most eminent philosophers assert that true happiness consists in pleasure.[*](Cf. Cicero, pro Caelio, 12, 28; but Plutarch’s interpretation does Cicero great injustice. Cf. 17, 39 f.)

And we are told that when Cato prosecuted Murena, Cicero, who was then consul, defended him, and because of Cato’s beliefs made much fun of the Stoic sect, in view of the absurdities of their so-called paradoxes;[*](Cf. pro Murena, 29-31.) and when loud laughter spread from the audience to the jurors, Cato, with a quiet smile, said to those who sat by: What a funny man we have, my friends, for consul!

And it would seem that Cicero was naturally prone to laughter and fond of jesting; his face, too, was smiling and peaceful. But in that of Demosthenes there was always a certain intense seriousness, and this look of thoughtfulness and anxiety he did not easily lay aside. For this reason his enemies, as he himself says,[*](In Phil. ii. 30.) called him morose and ill-mannered.