Res Gestae

This trade of forensic oratory the great Plato defined as πολιτικῆς μορίου εἴδωλον (that is, the shadow of a small part of the science of government[*](Plato, Gorgias, 463 b. For amplitudo Platonis, cf. xxii. 16, 22, sermonum amplitudine lovis aemulus Platon. ) ) or as the fourth part of flattery;[*](I.e., the lowest of the four parts.) but Epicurus counts it among evil arts, calling it κακοτεχνία.[*](The art of deceiving; cf. Quintilian, ii. 15, 2; 20, 2. Epicurus denied that it was an art.) Tisias[*](One of the earliest rhetoricians, a teacher of Gorgias; see Cic., Brut. 12, 46.) says that it is the artist of persuasion, and Gorgias of Leontini agrees with him.

This art, thus defined by the men of old, the cunning of certain Orientals raised to a degree hateful to good men, for which reason it is even confined by the restraints of a time fixed beforehand.[*](So, at Athens, to a space of time marked by the emptying of the clepsydra, or water-clock.) Therefore after having described in a very few words its unworthiness, with which I became acquainted while I was living in those parts, I shall return to the course of the narrative with which I began.