In the case of weaker understandings however some concession must be made and they should be directed merely to follow the call of their nature, since thus they will be more effective in doing the only thing that lies in their power. But if we are fortunate enough to meet with richer material, such as justifies us in the hope of producing a real orator, we must leave no oratorical virtue uncared for.

For though he will necessarily have a natural bent for some special department of oratory, he will not feel repelled by the others, and by sheer application will develop his other qualities until they equal those in which he naturally excels. The skilled gymnast will once again provide us with a parallel: if he undertakes to train a pancratiast, The pancration was a mixture of wrestling and boxing. he will not merely teach him how to use his fists or his heels, nor will he restrict his instructions to the holds in wrestling, giving special attention to certain tricks of this kind, but will train him in every department of the science. Some will no doubt be incapable of attaining proficiency in certain exercises; these must specialise on those which lie within their powers.

For there are two things which he must be most careful to avoid: first, he must not attempt the impossible, secondly he must not switch off his pupil from what he can do well to exercises for which he is less well suited. But if his pupil is like the famous Nicostratus, whom we saw when he was old and we were boys, he will train him equally in every department of the science and will make him a champion both in boxing and wrestling, like Nicostratus himself who won the prize for both contests within a few days of each other.

And how much more important is the employment of such methods where our future orator is concerned! It is not enough to be able to speak with terseness, subtlety or vehemence, any more than it would be for a singing master to excel in the upper, middle or lower register only, or in particular sections of these registers alone. Eloquence is like a harp and will never reach perfection, unless all its strings be taut and in tune.

Though I have spoken in some detail of the duties of the teacher, I shall for the moment confine my advice to the learners to one solitary admonition, that they should love their masters not less than their studies, and should regard them as the parents not indeed of their bodies but of their minds.

Such attachments are of invaluable assistance to study. For under their influence they find it a pleasure to listen to their teachers, believe what they say and long to be like them, come cheerfully and gladly to school, are not angry when corrected, rejoice when praised, and seek to win their master's affection by the devotion with which they pursue their studies.

For as it is the duty of the master to teach, so it is the duty of the pupil to show himself teachable. The two obligations are mutually indispensable. And just as it takes two parents to produce a human being, and as the seed is scattered in vain, if the ground is hard and there is no furrow to receive it and bring it to growth, even so eloquence can never come to maturity, unless teacher and taught are in perfect sympathy.

These elementary stages are in themselves no small undertaking, but they are merely members and portions of the greater whole; when therefore the pupil has been thoroughly instructed and exercised in these departments, the time will as a rule have come for him to attempt deliberative and forensic themes. But before I begin to discuss these, I must say a few words on the theory of declamation, which is at once the most recent and most useful of rhetorical exercises.

For it includes practically all the exercises of which we have been speaking and is in close touch with reality. As a result it has acquired such a vogue that many think that it is the sole training necessary to the formation of an orator, since there is no excellence in a formal speech which is not also to be found in this type of rhetorical exercise.

On the other hand the actual practice of declamation has degenerated to such an extent owing to the fault of our teachers, that it has come to be one of the chief causes of the corruption of modern oratory; such is the extravagance and ignorance of our declaimers. But it is possible to make a sound use of anything that is naturally sound.

The subjects chosen for themes should, therefore, be as true to life as possible, and the actual declamation should, as far as may be, be modelled on the pleadings for which it was devised as a training.

For we shall hunt in vain among sponsions sponsio (= a wager) was a form of lawsuit in which the litigant promised to pay a certain sum of money if he lost his case. The interdict was an order issued by the praetor commanding or prohibiting certain action. It occurred chiefly in disputes about property. and interdicts for magicians and plagues and oracles and stepmothers more cruel than any in tragedy, and other subjects still more unreal than these. The themes of the controversiae often turned on the supernatural and on crimes and incidents such as rarely or never occur in actual life. What then? are we never to permit young men to handle unreal or, to be more accurate, poetic themes that they may run riot and exult in their strength and display their full stature?

It were best to prohibit them absolutely. But at any rate the themes, however swelling and magnificent, should not be such as to seem foolish and laughable to the eye of an intelligent observer. Consequently, if we must make some concession, let us allow the declaimer to gorge himself occasionally, as long as he realises that his case will be like that of cattle that have blown themselves out with a surfeit of green food: they are cured of their disorder by blood-letting and then put back to food such as will maintain their strength; similarly the declaimer must be rid of his superfluous fat, and his corrupt humours must be discharged, if he wants to be strong and healthy.

Otherwise, the first time he makes any serious effort, his swollen emptiness will stand revealed. Those, however, who hold that declamation has absolutely nothing in common with pleading in the courts, are clearly quite unaware of the reasons which gave rise to this type of exercise.

For if declamation is not a preparation for the actual work of the courts, it can only be compared to the rant of an actor or the raving of a lunatic. For what is the use of attempting to conciliate a non-existent judge, or of stating a case which all know to be false, or of trying to prove a point on which judgment will never be passed? Such waste of effort is, however, a comparative trifle. But what can be more ludicrous than to work oneself into a passion and to attempt to excite the anger or grief of our hearers, unless we are preparing ourselves by such mimic combats for the actual strife and the pitched battles of the law-courts?

Is there then no difference between our declamations and genuine forensic oratory? I can only reply, that if we speak with a desire for improvement, there will be no difference. [ wish indeed that certain additions could be made to the existing practice; that we made use of names, that our fictitious debates dealt with more complicated cases and sometimes took longer to deliver, that we were less afraid of words drawn from everyday speech and that we were in the habit of seasoning our words with jests. For as regards all these points, we are mere novices when we come to actual pleading, however elaborate the training that the schools have given us on other points.

And even if display is the object of declamation, surely we ought to unbend a little for the entertainment of our audience.

For even in those speeches which, although undoubtedly to some extent concerned with the truth, are designed to charm the multitude (such for instance as panegyrics and the oratory of display in all its branches), it is permissible to be more ornate and not merely to disclose all the resources of our art, which in cases of law should as a rule be concealed, but actually to flaunt them before those who have been summoned to hear us.

Declamation therefore should resemble the truth, since it is modelled on forensic and deliberative oratory. On the other hand it also involves an element of display, and should in consequence assume a certain air of elegance.

In this connexion I may cite the practice of comic actors, whose delivery is not exactly that of common speech, since that would be inartistic, but is on the other hand not far removed from the accents of nature, for, if it were, their mimicry would be a failure: what they do therefore is to exalt the simplicity of ordinary speech by a touch of stage decoration.