[a] The eloquence of Cicero, and the eminent orators of that age, was
preferred by all men of sound judgement to the unnatural and affected
style that prevailed under the emperors. Quintilian gives a decided
opinion. Cicero, he says, was allowed to be the reigning orator of his
time, and his name, with posterity, is not so much that of a man, as
of eloquence itself. _Quare non immerito ab hominibus ætatis suæ,
regnare in judiciis dictus est: apud posteros vero id consecutus, ut
Cicero jam non hominis, sed eloquentiæ nomen habeatur._ Lib. x. cap.
1. Pliny the younger professed that Cicero was the orator with whom he
aspired to enter into competition. Not content with the eloquence of
his own times, he held it absurd not to follow the best examples of a
former age. _Est enim mihi cum Cicerone æmulatio, nec sum contentus
eloquentiâ sæculi nostri. Nam stultissimum credo, ad imitandum non
optima quæque præponere._ Lib. i. epist. 5.
[b] Nicetes was a native of Smyrna, and a rhetorician in great
celebrity. Seneca says (_Controversiarum_, lib. iv. cap. 25), that his
scholars, content with hearing their master, had no ambition to be
heard themselves. Pliny the younger, among the commendations which he
bestows on a friend, mentions, as a praise-worthy part of his
character, that he attended the lectures of Quintilian and Nicetes
Sacerdos, of whom Pliny himself was at that time a constant follower.
_Erat non studiorum tantum, verum etiam studiosorum amantissimus, ac
prope quotidie ad audiendos, quos tunc ego frequentabam, Quintilianum
et Niceten Sacerdotem, ventitabat._ Lib. vi. epist. 6.
[c] Mitylene was the chief city of the isle of Lesbos, in the Ægean
Sea, near the coast of Asia. The place at this day is called
_Metelin_, subject to the Turkish dominion. _Ephesus_ was a city of
_Ionia_, in the Lesser Asia, now called _Ajaloue_ by the Turks, who
are masters of the place.
[d] Domitius Afer and Julius Africanus have been already mentioned,
section xiii. note [d]. Both are highly praised by Quintilian. For
Asinius Pollio, see s. xii. note [e].