Rhetorum praeceptor

You ask, my boy, how you can get to be a public speaker, and be held to personify the sublime and glorious name of sophist; life, you say, is not worth living, unless when you speak you can clothe yourself in such a mantle of eloquence that you will be irresistible and invincible, that you will be admired and stared at by everyone, counting among the Greeks as a highly desirable treat for their ears. Consequently, you wish to find out what the roads are that lead to this goal. Come, I have no desire to be churlish, lad, especially when a mere youngster who craves what is noblest, not knowing how to come by it, draws near and asks, as you do now, for advice— a sacred matter. So listen; and in so far as it lies in my power, you may have great confidence that soon you will be an able hand at discerning what requires to be said and expressing it in words,[*](Like Pericles (Thuc. 2, 60). ) if only you on your part are willing henceforth to abide by what I tell you, to practise it industriously, and to follow the road resolutely until you reach your goal.

Certainly the object of your quest is not trivial, nor one that calls for little effort, but rather one for which it is worth while to work hard, to scant your sleep, and to put up with anything whatsoever.

Do not be daunted, however, and do not be dismayed at the greatness of your expectations, thinking to undergo untold labours before you achieve them. I shall not conduct you by a rough road, or a steep and sweaty one, so that you will turn back halfway out of weariness. In that case I should be no better than those other guides who use the customary route—long, steep, toilsome, and, as a rule, hopeless. No, my advice has this to commend it, that ascending in the manner of a leisurely stroll through flowery fields and perfect shade in great comfort and luxury by a sloping bridle-path that is very short as well as very pleasant, you will gain the summit without sweating for it, you will bag your game without any effort, yes, by Heaven, you will banquet at your ease, looking down from the height at those who went the other way as they creep painfully upward over sheer and slippery crags, still in the foot-hills of the ascent, rolling off head-first from time to time, and getting many a wound on the sharp rocks—and you, the while, on the top long before them, with a wreath upon your head, will be fortunate beyond compare, for you will have acquired from Rhetoric in an instant, all but in your sleep, every single blessing that there is!

Yes, my promise goes to that extent in its generosity ;[*](A quotation from Demosthenes, Phil. 1, 44, 15. ) but in the name of Friendship[*](More literally, Friendship’s patron; 7. ¢. Zeus. ) do not disbelieve me, when I say that I shall show

Just to show you, I should like to tell you the tale of a Sidonian merchant's idea which disbelief made ineffectual and profitless to the man who heard it. Alexander was then ruler of the Persians, having deposed Darius after the battle of Arbela, and postmen had to run to every quarter of the realm carrying Alexander’s orders. The journey from Persia to Egypt was long, since one had to make a detour about the mountains, then to go through Babylonia to Arabia, and then to traverse a wide expanse of desert before reaching Egypt at last, after spending in this way, even if one travelled light, twenty very long days on the road. Well, this annoyed Alexander, because he had heard that the Egyptians were showing signs of disaffection, and he was unable to be expeditious in transmitting his decisions concerning them to his governors. At that juncture the Sidonian merchant said: “I give you my word, King Alexander, to show you a short route from Persia to Egypt. If a man went over these mountains—and he could do it in three

But you must not make the same mistake. Experience will convince you that nothing can prevent you from arriving as a public speaker, in a single day, and not a full day at that, by flying across the mountains from Persia to Egypt!

I wish first of all to paint you a picture in words, like Cebes of old, and show you both the roads; for there are two that lead to Lady Rhetoric, of whom you seem to me exceedingly enamoured. So let her be sitting upon a high place, very fair of face and form, holding in her right hand the Horn of Plenty, which runs over with all manner of fruits. Beside her imagine, pray, that you see Wealth standing, all golden and lovely. Let Fame, too, and Power stand by; and let Compliments, resembling tiny Cupids, swarm all about her on the wing in great numbers from every side. If you have ever seen the Nile represented in a painting, lying on the back of a crocodile or a hippopotamus, such as are frequent in his stream, while tiny infants play beside him—the Egyptians call them cubits— the Compliments that surround Rhetoric are like these.[*](Evidently there were many copies of this picture about, and they were not all exactly alike. The Vatican has a treatment of the theme in sculpture, in which Nile rests upon a sphinx, and has about him sixteen ‘ cubits,” symbolizing the desired yearly rise of his stream. )

Now you, her lover, approach, desiring, of course,

Then when you draw near the mountain, at first you despair of climbing it, and the thing seems to you just as Aornus[*](A table-mountain captured by Alexander on his way to India, 11 stades high at its lowest point, according to Arrian (Alex. 4, 28). Cunningham identifies it ss Ranigat. Tomaschek considers the Greek name derived from Sanscrit avarana by popular etymology; but compare the Avestan name Upairi-saena (above the eagle). ) looked to the Macedonians when they observed that it was precipitous on every side, truly far from easy even for a bird to fly over, calling for a Dionysus or a Heracles if it were ever going to be taken.

That is how it seems to you at first; and then, after a little, you see two roads. To be more exact, one of them is but a path, narrow, briery, and rough, promising great thirstiness and sweat; Hesiod has been beforehand with us and has already described it very carefully, so that I shall not need to do so.[*](Works and Days, 286-292. ) The other, however, is level, flowery, and wellwatered, just as I described it a moment ago, not to detain you by saying the same things over and over when you might even now be a speaker.

But I must add at least this much, that the rough, steep road used not to have many tracks of wayfarers, and whatever tracks there were, were very old. I myself, unlucky dog, got up by that road and did all that hard work without any need; but as the other was level and had no windings at all, I could see from a distance what it was like without having travelled it myself. You see, being still young, I could not discern what was better, but believed that poet[*](Epicharmus. ) to be telling the truth when he said that

But, to resume—when you reach the starting-point, I am sure that you will be in doubt, and indeed are even now in doubt, which road to follow. I propose, therefore, to tell you how to do now in order to mount to the highest peak with the greatest ease, to be fortunate, to bring off the marriage, and to be accounted wonderful by everyone. It is quite enough that I should have been duped and should have worked hard. For you, let everything grow “without sowing and without ploughing,” as in the time of Cronus.[*](The quotation is from Odyssey, 9,.109, but there is also an allusion to Hesiod’s description of the time of Cronus, the golden age, when the “‘grain-giving earth bore fruit of itself, in plenty and without stint” (Works and Days, 117-118). )

On the instant, then, you will be approached by a vigorous man with hard muscles and a manly stride, who shows heavy tan on his body, and is bold-eyed and alert. He is the guide of the rough road, and he will talk a lot of nonsense to you, the poor simpleton. In exhorting you to follow him, he will point out the footprints of Demosthenes and of Plato, and one or two more—great prints, I grant you, too great for men of nowadays, but for the most part dim and indistinct through lapse of time ; and he will say that you will have good fortune and will contract a lawful marriage with Rhetoric if you

That is what this man will say, the impostor, the absolute old fogey, the antediluvian, who displays dead men of a bygone age to serve as patterns, and expects you to dig up long-buried speeches as if they were something tremendously helpful, wanting you to emulate the son of a sword-maker, and some other

If you turn to the other road, you will find many people, and among them a wholly clever and wholly handsome gentleman with a mincing gait, a thin neck, a languishing eye, and a honeyed voice, who distils perfume, scratches his head with the tip of his finger,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Pompey, 48 fin. ) and carefully dresses his hair, which is scanty now, but curly and raven-black—an utter] delicate Sardanapalus, a Cinyras, a very Agathon (that charming writer of tragedies, don’t you know?). I am thus explicit that you may recognize him by these tokens, and may not overlook a creature so marvellous, and so dear to Aphrodite and the Graces. But what am I talking about? Even if you had your eyes shut, and he should come and speak to you, unsealing those Hymettus lips and releasing upon the air those wonted intonations, you would

If, then, you go to him and put yourself in his hands, you will at once, without effort, become an orator, the observed of all, and, as he himself calls it, king of the platform, driving the horses of eloquence four-in-hand. For on taking you in charge, he will teach you first of all—but let him address you himself.

It would be comical for me to do the talking on behalf of such an accomplished speaker, as I should be poorly cast, it may very well be, for parts of that nature and importance; I might fall down and so put out of countenance the hero whom I impersonated.

He would address you, then, somewhat in this fashion, tossing back what hair is still left him, faintly smiling in that sweet and tender way which is his wont, and rivalling Thais herself of comic fame, or Malthace, or Glycera, in the seductiveness of his tone, since masculinity is boorish and not in keeping with a delicate and charming platform-hero —

he will address you, I say, using very moderate language about himself: “Prithee, dear fellow, did Pythian Apollo send you to me, entitling me the best of speakers, just as, when Chaerephon questioned him, he told who was the wisest in that generation?[*](Socrates, in the Apology of Plato, says that when Chaerephon in his zeal “asked whether anyone was wiser than I, the Pythia responded that nobody was wiser ” (21 ). ) If that is not the case, but you have come of your own accord in the wake of rumour, because you hear everybody speak of my achievements with astonishment, praise, admiration, and self-abasement, you shall very soon learn what a superhuman person you have come to. Do not expect to see something that you can compare with

“As you yourself wish to become a speaker, and cannot learn this with greater ease from anyone else, just attend, dear lad, to all that I shall say, copy me in everything, and always keep, I beg you, the rules which I shall bid you to follow. ‘In fact, you may press on at once; you need not feel any hesitation or dismay because you have not gone through all the rites of initiation preliminary to Rhetoric, through which the usual course of elementary instruction guides the steps of the senseless and silly at the cost of great weariness. You will not require them at all. No, go straight in, as the proverb says, with unwashen feet,[*](The saying in full was ἀνίπτοις ποσὶν ἀναβαίνων ἐπὶ τὸ στέγος (going up to the roof with unwashed feet), and so can hardly contain any reference to ceremonial purification. Perhaps going up on the roof was tantamount to going to bed, Cf. Song of Solomon, 5, 3. ) and you will not fare any the worse for that, even if you are quite in the prevailing fashion and do not know how to write. Orators are beyond all that!

“I shall first tell you what equipment you must yourself bring with you from home for the journey, and how you must provision yourself so that you can finish it soonest. Then giving you my personal instruction along the road, partly by example set for you while you proceed, and partly by precept, before sunset I shall make you a public speaker, superior to them all, just like myself—indubitably

“Bring with you, then, as the principal thing, ignorance; secondly, recklessness, and thereto effrontery and shamelessness. Modesty, respectability, selfrestraint, and blushes may be left at home, for they are useless and somewhat of a hindrance to the matter in hand. But you need also a very loud voice, a shameless singing delivery, and a gait like mine. They are essential indeed, and sometimes sufficient in themselves.[*](Compare the conversation between Demosthenes and the sausage-seller in Aristophanes, Knights, 150-235. ) Let your clothing be gaily-coloured, or else white, a fabric of Tarentine manufacture, so that your body will show through ; and wear either high Attic sandals of the kind that women wear, with many slits, or else Sicyonian boots, trimmed with strips of white felt. Have also many attendants, and always a book in hand.

“That is what you must contribute yourself. The rest you may now see and hear by the way, as you go forward. And next I shall tell you the rules that you must follow in order that Rhetoric may recognize and welcome you, and not turn you her back and bid you go to, as if you were an outsider prying into her privacies. First of all, you must pay especial attention to outward appearance, and to the graceful set of your cloak. Then cull from some source or other fifteen, or anyhow not more than twenty, Attic words, drill yourself carefully in them, and have them ready at the tip of your tongue

Hunt up obscure, unfamiliar words, rarely used by the ancients, and have a heap of these in readiness to launch at your audience. The many-headed crowd will look up to you and think you amazing, and far beyond themselves in education, if you call rubbing down ‘ destrigillation,’ taking a sun-bath ‘insolation,’ advance payments ‘hansel,’ and daybreak ‘crepuscule.” Sometimes you must yourself make new monstrosities of words and prescribe that an able writer be called fine-dictioned, an intelligent man sage-minded, and a dancer handiwise.[*](According to Lucian himself in the treatise On Dancing (69), the word xe:plcopos (handiwise) was applied to dancers by Lesbonax, a rhetorician, whose son was one of Tiberius’ teachers. Its appropriateness lay in the extensive use of gesture in Greek dancing. ). If you commit a solecism or a barbarism, let shamelessness be your sole and only remedy, and be ready at once with the name of someone who is not now alive and never was, either a poet or a historian, saying that he, a learned man, extremely precise in his diction, approved the expression. As for reading the classics, don’t you do it—either that twaddling Isocrates or that uncouth Demosthenes or that tiresome Plato. No, read the speeches of the men who lived only a little before our own time, and

“When you really must speak, and those present suggest themes and texts for your discussion, carp at all the hard ones and make light of them as not fit, any one of them, fora real man. But when they have made their selection,[*](That is to say, when the audience had selected, from the different topics suggested by individuals, the one that they preferred. ) unhesitatingly say ‘whatever comes to the tip of your unlucky tongue.’[*](A quotation from an unknown poet, which had become a proverb (Athenaeus 5, 217 c). « Proverbial for putting the cart before the horse. ) Take no pains at all that the first thing, just because it really is first, shall be said at the appropriate time, and the second directly after it, and the third after that, but say first whatever occurs to you first ; and if it so happens, don’t hesitate to buckle your leggings on your head and your helmet on your leg.* But do make haste and keep it going, and only don’t stop talking. If you are speaking of a case of assault or adultery at Athens, mention instances in India or Ecbatana. Cap everything with references to Marathon and Cynegeirus, without which you cannot succeed at all. Unendingly let Athos be crossed in ships and the Hellespont afoot; let the sun be shadowed by the arrows of the Medes, and Xerxes flee the field and Leonidas receive admiration; let the inscription of Othryades be deciphered, and let allusions to Salamis, Artemisium, and Plataea come thick and fast. Over everything let those few words of yours run riot and bloom, and let ‘sundry’

“If ever it seems an opportune time to intone, intone everything and turn it into song. And if ever you are at a loss for matter to intone, say ‘Gentlemen of the jury’ in the proper tempo and consider the music of your sentence complete. Cry ‘Woe is me!’ frequently; slap your thigh, bawl, clear your throat while you are speaking, and stride about swaying your hips. If they do not cry ‘Hear!’ be indignant and upbraid them; and if they stand up, ready to go out in disgust, command them to sit down: in short, carry the thing with a high hand.

“That they may marvel at the fulness of your speeches, begin with the story of Troy, or even with the marriage of Deucalion and Pyrrha,[*](That is to say, before the Flood. ) if you like, and bring your account gradually down to date. Few will see through you, and they, as a rule, will hold their tongues out of good nature; if, however, they do make any comment, it will be thought that they are doing it out of spite. The rank and file are already struck dumb with admiration of your appearance, your diction, your gait, your pacing back and forth, your intoning, your sandals, and that ‘sundry’ of yours; and when they see your sweat and your labouring breath they cannot fail to believe that you are a terrible opponent in debates. Besides, your extemporary readiness goes a long way with the crowd to absolve your mistakes and procure you admiration ; so see to it that you never write anything out or appear in public with a prepared speech, for that is sure to show you up.