Institutio Oratoria

Another when asked whether he was a follower of Theodorus or Apollodorus, replied,

Oh! as for me, I am all for the Thracians.

Consequently they make it their boast that they speak on impulse and owe their success to their native powers; they further assert that there is no need of proof or careful marshalling of facts when we are speaking on fictitious themes, but only of some of those sounding epigrams, the expectation of which has filled the lecture-room; and these they say are best improvised on the spur of the moment.

Further, owing to their contempt for method, when they are meditating on some future effusion, they spend whole days looking at the ceiling in the hope that some magnificent inspiration may occur to them, or rock their bodies to and fro, booming inarticulately as if they had a trumpet inside them and adapting their agitated movements, not to the delivery of the words, but to their pursuit.

Some again settle on certain definite openings long before they have thought what they are going to say, with a view to using them as pegs for subsequent snatches of eloquence, and then after practising their delivery first in silent thought and then aloud for hours together, in utter desperation of providing any connecting links, abandon them and

The least unreasonable of them devote their attention not to the actual cases, but to their purple patches, in the composition of which they pay no attention to the subject-matter, but fire off a series of isolated thoughts just as they happen to come to hand.

The result is a speech which, being composed of disconnected passages having nothing in common with each other, must necessarily lack cohesion and can only be compared to a schoolboy's notebook, in which he jots down any passages from the declamations of others that have come in for a word of praise. None the less they do occasionally strike out some good things and some fine epigrams, such as they make their boast. Why not? slaves and barbarians sometimes achieve the same effects, and if we are to be satisfied with this sort of thing, then good-bye to any theory of oratory.

I must, however, admit that the general opinion is that the untrained speaker is usually the more vigorous. This opinion is due primarily to the erroneous judgment of faulty critics, who think that true vigour is all the greater for its lack of art, regarding it as a special proof of strength to force what might be opened, to break what might be untied and to drag what might be led.

Even a gladiator who plunges into the fight with no skill at arms to help him, and a wrestler who puts forth the whole strength of his body the moment he has got a hold, is acclaimed by them for his outstanding vigour, although it is of frequent occurrence in such cases for the latter to be overthrown by his own strength and for the former to find the fury of his

But there are many details in this department of our art which the unskilled critic will never notice. For instance, careful division under heads, although of the utmost importance in actual cases, makes the outward show of strength seem less than the reality; the unhewn block is larger than the polished marble, and things when scattered seem more numerous than when placed together.

There is moreover a sort of resemblance between certain merits and certain defects: abuse passes for freedom of speech, rashness for courage, prodigality for abundance. But the untrained advocate will abuse too openly and too often, even though by so doing he imperils the success of the case which he has undertaken and not seldom his own personal safety as well.

But even such violence will win men's good opinion, since they are only too pleased to hear another say things which nothing would have induced them to utter themselves. Such speakers are also less careful to avoid that other peril, the pitfall of style, and are so reckless in their efforts that sometimes in their passion for extravagance they light upon some really striking expression. But such success is rare and does not compensate for their other defects.

For the same reason the uninstructed sometimes appear to have a richer flow of language, because they say everything that can be said, while the learned exercise discrimination and self-restraint. To this must be added the fact that such persons take no trouble to prove their contentions, and consequently steer clear of the chilly reception given in our decadent law-courts to arguments and

Again, their epigrams, the sole objects of their quest, seem all the more striking because of the dreariness and squalor of their context, since flashes are more clearly seen against a background, not of mere

shade,

None the less it must be confessed that learning does take something from oratory, just as the file takes something from rough surfaces or the whetstone from blunt edges or age from wine; it takes away defects, and if the results produced after subjection to the polish of literary study are less, they are less only because they are better.

But these creatures have another weapon in their armoury: they seek to obtain the reputation of speaking with greater vigour than the trained orator by means of their delivery. For they shout on all and every occasion and bellow their every utterance

with uplifted hand,

Smite your hands together, stamp the ground, slap your thigh, your breast, your forehead, and you will go straight to the heart of the dingier members of your audience. [*](pullatus = wearing dark clothes, i.e. the common people, as opposed to the upper classes wearing the white or purple bordered toga. ) But the educated speaker, just as he knows how to moderate his style, and to impart variety and artistic form to his speech, is an equal adept in the matter of delivery and will suit his action to the tone of each

But the ranters confer the title of force on that which is really violence. You may also occasionally find not merely pleaders, but, what is far more shameful, teachers as well, who, after a brief training in the art of speaking, throw method to the winds and, yielding to the impulse of the moment, run riot in every direction, abusing those who hold literature in higher respect as fools without life, courage or vigour, and calling them the first and worst name that occurs to them.

Still let me congratulate these gentlemen on attaining eloquence without industry, method or study. As for myself I have long since retired from the task of teaching in the schools and of speaking in the courts, thinking it the most honourable conclusion to retire while my services were still in request, and all I ask is to be allowed to console my leisure by making such researches and composing such instructions as will, I hope, prove useful to young men of ability, and are, at any rate, a pleasure to myself.

Let no one however demand from me a rigid code of rules such as most authors of textbooks have laid down, or ask me to impose on students of rhetoric a system of laws immutable as fate, a system in which injunctions as to the exordium and its nature lead the way; then come the statement of facts and the laws to be observed in this connexion: next the proposition or, as some prefer, the digression, followed by prescriptions as to the order in which the various questions should be discussed, with all the other rules, which some speakers follow as though they had no

If the whole of rhetoric could be thus embodied in one compact code, it would be an easy task of little compass: but most rules are liable to be altered by the nature of the case, circumstances of time and place, and by hard necessity itself. Consequently the all-important gift for an orator is a wise adaptability since he is called upon to meet the most varied emergencies.