Institutio Oratoria

Again in what branch of knowledge worthy of literary expression was Plato deficient? How many generations' study did Aristotle require to embrace not merely the whole range of philosophical and rhetorical knowledge, but to investigate the nature of every beast and plant. And yet they had to discover all these things which we only have to learn. Antiquity has given us all these teachers and all these patterns for our imitation, that there might be no greater happiness conceivable than to be born in this age above all others, since all previous ages have toiled that we might reap the fruit of their wisdom.

Marcus Cato was at once a great general, a philosopher, orator, historian, and an expert both in law and agriculture, and despite his military labours abroad and the distractions of political struggles at home, and despite the rudeness of the age in which he lived, he none the less learned Greek, when far advanced in years, that he might prove to mankind that even old men are capable of learning that on which they have set their hearts.

How wide, almost universal, was the knowledge that Varro communicated to the world! What of all that goes to make up the equipment of an orator was lacking to Cicero? Why should I say

But, it will be urged, to carry out such a task is difficult and has never been accomplished. To which I reply that sufficient encouragement for study may be found in the fact, firstly, that nature does not forbid such achievement and it does not follow that, because a thing never has been done, it therefore never can be done, and secondly, that all great achievements have required time for their first accomplishment.

Poetry has risen to the heights of glory, thanks to the efforts of poets so far apart as Homer and Virgil, and oratory owes its position to the genius of Demosthenes and Cicero. Finally, whatever is best in its own sphere must at some previous time have been non-existent. But even if a man despair of reaching supreme excellence (and why should he despair, if he have talents, health, capacity and teachers to aid him?), it is none the less a fine achievement, as Cicero [*](Or. i. 4. ) says, to win the rank of second or even third.

For even if a soldier cannot achieve the glory of Achilles in war, he will not despise fame such as fell to the lot of Ajax and Diomede, while those who cannot be Homers may be content to reach the level of Tyrtaeus. Nay, if men had been obsessed by the conviction that it was impossible to surpass the man who had so far shown himself best, those whom we now regard as best would never have reached such distinction, Lucretius