But he whose eloquence is like to some great torrent that rolls down rocks and disdains a bridge Verg. Aen. viii. 728. and carves out its own banks for itself, will sweep the judge from his feet, struggle as he may, and force him to go whither he bears him. This is the orator that will call the dead to life (as, for example, Cicero calls upon Appius Caecus See III. viii. 54. Cicero in the pro Caclio makes both Appius Caecus and her brother Clodius address Clodia the former rebuking her for her immorality, the latter exhorting her thereto. ); it is in his pages that his native land itself will cry aloud and at times address the orator himself, as it addresses Cicero in the speech delivered against Catiline in the senate.

Such an orator will also exalt his style by amplification and rise even to hyperbole, as when Cicero Phil. II. xxvii. 67. The passage continues: could scarce, methinks, have swallowed with such speed so many things, scattered in so many places. cries, What Charybdis was ever so voracious! or By the god of truth, even Ocean's self, etc. (I choose these fine passages as being familiar to the student). It is such an one that will bring down the Gods to form part of his audience or even to speak with him, as in the following, For on you I call, ye hills and groves of Alba, on you, I say, ye fallen altars of the Albans, altars that were once the peers and equals of the holy places of Rome. pro, Mil. xxxi. 85. This is he that will inspire anger or pity, and while he speaks the judge will call upon the gods and weep, following him wherever he sweeps him from one emotion to another, and no longer asking merely for instruction.

Wherefore if one of these three styles has to be selected to the exclusion of the others, who will hesitate to prefer this style to all others, since it is by far the strongest and the best adapted to the most important cases?

For Homer himself assigns to Menelaus Mil. iii. 214. The words which Quintilian translates by non deerrare verbhis are οὐδ᾽ ἀφαμαρτοεπής, no stumbler in speech, rather than correct in speech. an eloquence, terse and pleasing, exact (for that is what is meant by making no errors in words ) and devoid of all redundance, which qualities are virtues of the first type: and he says that from the lips of Nestor Il. i. 249. flowed speech sweeter than honey, than which assuredly we can conceive no greater delight: but when he seeks to express the supreme gift of eloquence possessed by Ulysses Il. iii. 221. he gives a mighty voice and a vehemence of oratory equal to the snows of winter in the abundance and the vigour of its words.

With him then, he says, no mortal will contend, and men shall look upon him as on a god. A blend of Il. iii. 223 and Od. viii. 173. It is this force and impetuosity that Eupolis admires in Pericles, this that Aristophanes Aeh. 530. Then in his wrath Pericles the Olympian lightened and thundered and threw all Greece into confusion. compares to the thunderbolt, this that is the power of true eloquence.

But eloquence cannot be confined even to these three forms of style. For just as the third style is intermediate between the grand and the plain style, so each of these three are separated by interspaces which are occupied by intermediate styles compounded of the two which he on either side.

For there are styles fuller or plainer than the plain, and gentler or more vehement than the vehement, while the gentler style itself may either rise to greater force or sink to milder tones. Thus we may discover almost countless species of styles, each differing from the other by some fine shade of difference. We may draw a parallel from the winds. It is generally accepted that there are four blowing from the four quarters of the globe, but we find there are also a large number of winds which he between these, called by a variety of names, and in certain cases confined to certain districts and river valleys.

The same thing may be noted in music. For after assigning five notes to the lyre, musicians fill up the intervals between the strings by a variety of notes, and between these again they interpose yet others, so that the original divisions admit of a number of gradations.

Eloquence has, therefore, a quantity of different aspects, but it is sheer folly to inquire which of these the orator should take as his model, since every species that is in itself correct has its use, and what is commonly called style of speaking does not depend on the orator. For he will use all styles, as circumstances may demand, and the choice will be determined not only by the case as a whole, but by the demands of the different portions of the case.

For just as he will not speak in the same way when he is defending a client on a capital charge and when he is speaking in a lawsuit concerned with an inheritance, or discussing interdicts and suits taking the form of a wager, cp. I. x. 5 and IV. ii. 61. Sponsio (= wager) was a form of lawsuit in which the litigant promised to pay a certain sum of money if he lost his case. The intrdiet was an order issued by the praetor commanding or prohibiting certain action. or claims in connexion with loans, so too he will preserve a due distinction between the speeches which he makes in the senate, before the people and in private consultations, while he will also introduce numerous modifications to suit the different persons and circumstances of time and place. Thus in one and the same speech he will use one style for stirring the emotions, and another to conciliate his hearers; it is from different sources that he will derive anger or pity, and the art which he employs in instructing the judge will be other than that which he employs to move him.

He will not maintain the same tone throughout his exordium, statement of fact, arguments, digression and peroration. He will speak gravely, severely, sharply, with vehemence, energy, fullness, bitterness, or geniality, quietly, simply, Hatteringly, gently, sweetly, briefy or wittily; he will not always be like himself, but he will never be unworthy of himself.

Thus the purpose for which oratory was above all designed will be secured, that is to say, he will speak with profit and with power to effect his aim, while he will also win the praise not merely of the learned, but of the multitude as well.

They make the gravest mistake who consider that the style which is best adapted to win popularity and applause is a faulty and corrupt style of speaking which revels in license of diction or wantons in childish epigram or swells with stilted bombast or riots in empty commonplace or adorns itself with blossoms of eloquence which will fall to earth if but lightly shaken, or regards extravagance as sublime or raves wildly under the pretext of free speech.

I am ready to admit that such qualities please many, and I feel no surprise that this should be the case. For any kind of eloquence is pleasing and attractive to the car, and every effort of the voice inspires a natural pleasure in the soul of man; indeed this is the sole cause of those familiar gatherings in the Forum or on the Old Wall, The agger of Servius Tullius, which served as a promenadec. The nearest modern parallel may be found in the Hyde Park orator. so that there is small reason for wonder if any pleader is safe to draw a ring of listeners from the crowd.

And when any unusually precious phrase strikes the ears of an uneducated audience, whatever its true merits, it wakens their admiration just for the very reason that they feel they could never have produced it themselves. And it deserves their admiration, since even such success is hard to attain. On the other hand, when such displays are compared with their betters, they sink into insignificance and fade out of sight, for they are like wool dyed red that pleases in the absence of purple, but, as Ovid Halm. Am. 707 sqq. says, if compared with a cloak of Tyrian dye, pales in the presence of the fairer hue.

If, however, we test such corrupt eloquence by the touchstone of a critical taste, as, for example, we test inferior dyes with sulphur, it will lay aside the false brilliance that deceived the eye and fade to a pallor almost too repulsive to describe. Such passages shine only in the absence of the sunlight, just as certain tiny insects seem transformed in the darkness to little flames of fire. Finally, while many approve of things that are bad, no one disapproves of that which is good.

But the true orator will not merely be able to achieve all the feats of which I have spoken with supreme excellence, but with the utmost ease as well. For the sovereign power of eloquence and the voice that awakens well-deserved applause will be free from the perpetual distress of harassing anxiety which wastes and fevers the orator who painfully corrects himself and pines away over the laborious weighing and piecing together of his words.

No, our orator, brilliant, sublime and opulent of speech, is lord and master of all the resources of eloquence, whose affluence surrounds him. For he that has reached the summit has no more weary hills to scale. At first the climber's toil is hard, but the higher he mounts the easier becomes the gradient and the richer the soil.

And if by perseverance of study he pass even beyond these gentler slopes, fruits for which none have toiled thrust themselves upon him, and all things spring forth unbidden; and yet if they be not gathered daily, they will wither away. But even such wealth must observe the mean, without which nothing is either praiseworthy or beneficial, while brilliance must be attended by manliness, and imagination by soundness of taste.

Thus the works of the orator will be great not extravagant, sublime not bombastic, bold not rash, severe but not gloomy, grave but not slow, rich but not luxuriant, pleasing but not effeminate, grand but not grandiose. It is the same with other qualities: the mean is safest, for the worst of all faults is to fly to extremes.