for their rude but masculine eloquence. When Cato was in the decline of
life, a more rich and copious mode of speaking at length began to prevail.
Ser. Galba, by the warmth and animation of his delivery, eclipsed Cato and
all his contemporaries. He was the first among the Romans who displayed
the distinguishing talents of an orator, by embellishing his subject,—by
digressing, amplifying, entreating, and employing what are called topics,
or common-places of discourse. On one occasion, while defending himself
against a grave accusation, he melted his judges to compassion, by
producing an orphan relative, whose father had been a favourite of the
people. When his orations, however, were afterwards reduced to writing,
their fire appeared extinguished, and they preserved none of that lustre
with which his discourses are said to have shone when given forth by the
living orator. Cicero accounts for this from his want of sufficient study
and art in composition. While his mind was occupied and warmed by the
subject, his language was bold and rapid; but when he took up the pen, his
emotion ceased, and the periods fell languid from its point; “which,”
continues he, “never happened to those who, having cultivated a more
studied and polished style of oratory, wrote as they spoke. Hence the mind
of Lælius yet breathes in his writings, though the force of Galba has
failed.” It appears, however, from an anecdote recorded by Cicero, that
Galba was esteemed the first orator of his age by the judges, the people,
and Lælius himself.—Lælius, being intrusted with the defence of certain
persons suspected of having committed a murder in the Silian forest, spoke
for two days, correctly, elegantly, and with the approbation of all, after
which the Consuls deferred judgment. He then recommended the accused to
carry their cause to Galba, as it would be defended by him with more heat
and vehemence. Galba, in consequence, delivered a most forcible and
pathetic harangue, and after it was finished, his clients were absolved as
if by acclamation(229). Hence Cicero surmises, that though Lælius might be
the more learned and acute disputant, Galba possessed more power over the
passions; he also conjectures, that the former had more elegance, but the
latter more force; and he concludes, that the orator who can move or
agitate his judges, farther advances his cause than he who can instruct
them.
Lælius is also compared by Cicero with his friend, the younger Scipio
Africanus, in whose presence, this question concerning the Silian murder
was debated. They were almost equally distinguished for their eloquence;
and they resembled each other in this respect, that they both invariably
delivered themselves in a smooth manner, and never, like Galba, exerted
themselves with loudness of speech or violence of gesture(230); but their
style of oratory was different,—Lælius affecting a much more ancient
phraseology than that adopted by his friend. Cicero himself seems inclined
most to admire the rhetoric of Scipio; but he says, that, being so
renowned a captain, and mankind being unwilling to allow supremacy to one
individual, in what are considered as the two greatest of arts, his
contemporaries for the most part awarded to Lælius the palm of eloquence.
The intercourse which was by this time opening up with Greece, and the
encouragement now afforded to Greek teachers, who always possessed the
undisputed privilege of dictating the precepts of the arts, produced the
same improvement m oratory that it had effected in every branch of
literature. Marcus Emilius Lepidus was a little younger than Galba or
Scipio, and was Consul in 617. From his orations, which were extant in the
time of Cicero, it appeared that he was the first who, in imitation of the
Greeks, gave harmony and sweetness to his periods, or the graces of a
style regularly polished and improved by art.
Cicero mentions a number of other orators of the same age with Lepidus,
and minutely paints their peculiar styles of rhetoric. We find among them
the names of almost all the eminent men of the period, as Emilius Paulus,
Scipio Nasica, and Mucius Scævola. The importance of eloquence for the
purposes of political aggrandizement, is sufficiently evinced, from this
work of Cicero, _De Claris Oratoribus_, since there is scarcely an orator
mentioned, even of inferior note, who did not at this time rise to the
highest offices in the state.
The political situation of Rome, and the internal inquietude which now
succeeded its foreign wars, were the great promoters of eloquence. We hear
of no orators in Sparta or Crete, where the severest discipline was
exercised, and where the people were governed by the strictest laws. But
Rhodes and Athens, places of popular rule, where all things were open to
all men, swarmed with orators. In like manner, Rome, when most torn with
civil dissensions, produced the brightest examples of eloquence. Cicero
declares, that wisdom without eloquence was of little service to the
state(231); and from the political circumstances of the times, that sort
of oratory was most esteemed which had most sway over a restless and
ungovernable multitude. The situation of public affairs occasioned those
continual debates concerning the Agrarian Laws, and the consequent
popularity acquired by the most factious demagogues. Hence, too, those
frequent impeachments of the great—those ambitious designs of the
patricians—those hereditary enmities in particular families—in fine, those
incessant struggles between the Senate and plebeians, which, though all
prejudicial to the commonwealth, contributed to swell and ramify that rich
vein of eloquence, which now flowed so profusely through the agitated
frame of the state. During the whole period previous to the actual
breaking out of the civil wars, when the Romans turned the sword against
each other, and the mastery of the world depended on its edge, oratory
continued to open the most direct path to dignities. The farther a Roman
citizen advanced in this career, so much nearer was he to preferment, so
much the greater his reputation with the people; and when elevated to the
dignified offices of the state, so much the higher his ascendancy over his
colleagues.
The Gracchi were the genuine offspring, and their eloquence the natural
fruits of these turbulent times. Till their age, oratory had been a sort
of _Arcanum imperii_,—an instrument of government in the power of the
Senate, who used every precaution to retain its exclusive exercise. It was
the great bulwark that withstood the tide of popular passion, and weakened
it so as not to beat too high or strongly on their own order and
authority. The Gracchi not only broke down the embankment, but turned the
flood against the walls of the Senate itself. The interests of the people
had never yet been espoused by men endued with eloquence equal to theirs.
Cicero, while blaming their political conduct, admits that both were
consummate orators; and this he testifies from the recollection of persons
still surviving in his day, and who remembered their mode of speaking.
Indeed, the wonderful power which both brothers exercised over the people
is a sufficient proof of their eloquence. Tiberius Gracchus was the first
who made rhetoric a serious study and art. In his boyhood, he was
carefully instructed in elocution by his mother Cornelia: he also
constantly attended the ablest and most eloquent masters from Greece, and,
as he grew up, he bestowed much time on the exercise of private
declamation. It is not likely, that, gifted as he was by nature, and thus
instructed, the powers of eloquence should long have remained dormant in
his bosom. At the time when he first appeared on the turbulent stage of
Roman life, the accumulation of landed property among a few individuals,
and the consequent abuse of exorbitant wealth, had filled Italy with
slaves instead of citizens—had destroyed the habits of rural industry
among the people at large, and leaving only rich masters at the head of
numerous and profligate servants, gradually rooted out those middle
classes of society which constitute the strength, the worth, and the best
hopes of every well-regulated commonwealth. It is said, that while passing
through Etruria on his way to Numantia, Tiberius Gracchus found the
country almost depopulated of freemen, and thence first formed the project
of his Agrarian law, which was originally intended to correct the evils
arising from the immense landed possessions of the rich, by limiting them
to the number of acres specified in the ancient enactments(232), and
dividing the conquered territories among the poorer citizens. Preparatory
to its promulgation, he was wont to assemble the people round the rostrum,
where he pleaded for the poor, in language of which we have a specimen in
Plutarch: “The wild beasts of Italy have their dens to retire to—their
places of refuge and repose; while the brave men who shed their blood in
the cause of their country, have nothing left but fresh air and sunshine.
Without houses, without settled habitations, they wander from place to
place with their wives and children; and their commanders do but mock
them, when, at the head of their armies, they exhort their soldiers to
fight for their sepulchres and altars. For, among such numbers, there is
not one Roman who has an altar which belonged to his ancestors, or a tomb
in which their ashes repose. The private soldiers fight and die to
increase the wealth and luxury of the great; and they are styled
sovereigns of the world, while they have not a foot of ground they can
call their own(233).” By such speeches as these, the people were
exasperated to fury, and the Senate was obliged to have recourse to
Octavius, who, as one of the tribunes, was the colleague of Gracchus, to
counteract the effects of his animated eloquence. Irritated by this
opposition, Gracchus abandoned the first plan of his law, which was to
give indemnification from the public treasury to those who should be
deprived of their estates, and proposed a new bill, by which they were
enjoined forthwith to quit those lands which they held contrary to
previous enactments. On this subject there were daily disputes between him
and Octavius on the rostrum. Finding that his plans could not otherwise be
accomplished he resolved on the expedient of deposing his colleague; and
thenceforth, to the period of his death, his speeches (one of which is
preserved by Plutarch) were chiefly delivered in persuasion or
justification of that violent measure.
Caius Gracchus was endued with higher talents than Tiberius, but the
resentment he felt on account of his brother’s death, and eager desire for
vengeance, led him into measures which have darkened his character with
the shades of the demagogue. At the time of his brother’s death he had
only reached the age of twenty. In early youth, he distinguished himself
by the defence of one of his friends named Vettius, and charmed the people
by the eloquence which he exerted. He appears soon afterwards to have been
impelled, as it were, by a sort of destiny, to the same political course
which had proved fatal to his brother, and which terminated in his own
destruction. His speeches were all addressed to the people, and were
delivered in proposing laws, calculated to increase their authority, and
lessen that of the Senate,—as those for colonizing the public lands, and
dividing them among the poor; for regulating the markets, so as to
diminish the price of bread, and for vesting the judicial power in the
knights. A fragment of his speech, _De Legibus Promulgatis_, is said to
have been recently discovered, with other classical remains, in the
Ambrosian Library. Aulus Gellius also quotes from this harangue, a
passage, in which the orator complained that some respectable citizens of
a municipal town in Italy had been scourged with rods by a Roman
magistrate. Gellius praises the conciseness, neatness, and graceful ease
of the narrative, resembling dramatic dialogue, in which this incident was
related. Similar, but only similar qualities, appear in his accusation of
the Roman legate, who, while travelling to Asia in a litter, caused a
peasant to be scourged to death, for having asked his slaves if it was a
corpse they were carrying. “The relation of these events,” says Gellius,
“does not rise above the level of ordinary conversation. It is not a
person complaining or imploring, but merely relating what had occurred;”
and he contrasts this tameness with the energy and ardour with which
Cicero has painted the commission of a like enormity by Verres(234).
Though similar in many points of character and also in their political
conduct, there was a marked difference in the style of eloquence, and
forensic demeanour, of the two brothers. Tiberius, in his looks and
gestures, was mild and composed—Caius, earnest and vehement; so that when
they spoke in public, Tiberius had the utmost moderation in his action,
and moved not from his place: whereas Caius was the first of the Romans,
who, in addressing the people, walked to and fro in the rostrum, threw his
gown off his shoulder, smote his thigh, and exposed his arm bare(235). The
language of Tiberius was laboured and accurate, that of Caius bold and
figurative. The oratory of the former was of a gentle kind, and pity was
the emotion it chiefly raised—that of the latter was strongly impassioned,
and calculated to excite terror. In speaking, indeed, Caius was often so
hurried away by the violence of his passion, that he exalted his voice
above the regular pitch, indulged in abusive expressions, and disordered
the whole tenor of his oration. In order to guard against such excesses,
he stationed a slave behind him with an ivory flute, which was modulated
so as to lead him to lower or heighten the tone of his voice, according as
the subject required a higher or a softer key. “The flute,” says Cicero,
“you may as well leave at home, but the meaning of the practice you must
remember at the bar(236).”
In the time of the Gracchi, oratory became an object of assiduous and
systematic study, and of careful education. A youth, intended for the
profession of eloquence, was usually introduced to one of the most
distinguished orators of the city, whom he attended when he had occasion
to speak in any public or private cause, or in the assemblies of the
people, by which means he heard not only him, but every other famous
speaker. He thus became practically acquainted with business and the
courts of justice, and learned the arts of oratoric conflict, as it were,
in the field of battle. “It animated,” says the author of the dialogue _De
Causis Corruptæ Eloquentiæ_,—“it animated the courage, and quickened the
judgment of youth, thus to receive their instructions in the eye of the
world, and in the midst of affairs, where no one could advance an absurd
or weak argument, without being exposed by his adversary, and despised by
the audience. Hence, they had also an opportunity of acquainting
themselves with the various sentiments of the people, and observing what
pleased or disgusted them in the several orators of the Forum. By these
means they were furnished with an instructor of the best and most
improving kind, exhibiting not the feigned resemblance of eloquence, but
her real and lively manifestation—not a pretended but genuine adversary,
armed in earnest for the combat—an audience ever full and ever new,
composed of foes as well as of friends, and amongst whom not a single
expression could fall but was either censured or applauded.”
The minute attention paid by the younger orators to all the proceedings of
the courts of justice, is evinced by the fragment of a Diary, which was
kept by one of them in the time of Cicero, and in which we have a record,
during two days, of the various harangues that were delivered, and the
judgments that were pronounced(237).
Nor were the advantages to be derived from fictitious oratorical contests
long denied to the Roman youth. The practice of declaiming on feigned
subjects, was introduced at Rome about the middle of its seventh century.
The Greek rhetoricians, indeed, had been expelled, as well as the
philosophers, towards the close of the preceding century; but, in the year
661, Plotius Gallus, a Latin rhetorician, opened a declaiming school at
Rome. At this period, however, the declamations generally turned on
questions of real business, and it was not till the time of Augustus, that
the rhetoricians so far prevailed, as to introduce common-place arguments
on fictitious subjects.
The eloquence which had originally been cultivated for seditious purposes,
and for political advancement, began now to be considered by the Roman
youth as an elegant accomplishment. It was probably viewed in the same
light that we regard horsemanship or dancing, and continued to be so in
the age of Horace—
“Namque, et nobilis, et decens,
Et pro sollicitis non tacitus reis,
Et centum puer artium,
Latè signa feret militiæ suæ(238).”
Under all these circumstances it is evident, that in the middle of the
seventh century oratory would be neglected by none; and in an art so
sedulously studied, and universally practised, many must have been
proficients. It would be endless to enumerate all the public speakers
mentioned by Cicero, whose catalogue is rather extensive and dry. We may
therefore proceed to those two orators, whom he commemorates as having
first raised the glory of Roman eloquence to an equality with that of
Greece—Marcus Antonius, and Lucius Crassus.
The former, sirnamed _Orator_, and grandfather of the celebrated triumvir,
was the most employed patron of his time; and, of all his contemporaries,
was chiefly courted by clients, as he was ever willing to undertake any
cause which was proposed to him. He possessed a ready memory, and
remarkable talent of introducing everything where it could be placed with
most effect. He had a frankness of manner which precluded any suspicion of
artifice, and gave to all his orations an appearance of being the
unpremeditated effusions of an honest heart. But though there was no
apparent preparation in his speeches, he always spoke so well, that the
judges were never sufficiently prepared against the effects of his
eloquence. His language was not perfectly pure, or of a constantly
sustained elegance, but it was of a solid and judicious character, well
adapted to his purpose—his gesture, too, was appropriate, and suited to
the sentiments and language—his voice was strong and durable, though
naturally hoarse—but even this defect he turned to advantage, by
frequently and easily adopting a mournful and querulous tone, which, in
criminal questions, excited compassion, and more readily gained the belief
of the judges. He left, however, as we are informed by Cicero, hardly any
orations behind him(239), having resolved never to publish any of his
pleadings, lest he should be convicted of maintaining in one cause
something which was inconsistent with what he had alleged in another(240).
The first oration by which Antony distinguished himself, was in his own
defence. He had obtained the quæstorship of a province of Asia, and had
arrived at Brundusium to embank there, when his friends informed him that
he had been summoned before the Prætor Cassius, the most rigid judge in
Rome, whose tribunal was termed the rock of the accused. Though he might
have pleaded a privilege, which forbade the admission of charges against
those who were absent on the service of the republic, he chose to justify
himself in due form. Accordingly, he returned to Rome, stood his trial,
and was acquitted with honour(241).
One of the most celebrated orations which Antony pronounced, was that in
defence of Norbanus, who was accused of sedition, and a violent assault on
the magistrate, Æmilius Cæpio. He began by attempting to show from
history, that seditions may sometimes be justifiable from necessity; that
without them the kings would not have been expelled, or the tribunes of
the people created. The orator then proceeded to insinuate, that his
client had not been seditious, but that all had happened through the just
indignation of the people; and he concluded with artfully attempting to
renew the popular odium against Cæpio, who had been an unsuccessful
commander(242).
What Cicero relates concerning Antony’s defence of Aquilius, is an example
of his power in moving the passions, and is, at the same time, extremely
characteristic of the manner of Roman pleading. Antony, who is one of the
speakers in the dialogue _De Oratore_, is introduced relating it himself.
Seeing his client, who had once been Consul and a leader of armies,
reduced to a state of the utmost dejection and peril, he had no sooner
begun to speak, with a view towards melting the compassion of others, than
he was melted himself. Perceiving the emotion of the judges when he raised
his client from the earth, on which he had thrown himself, he instantly
took advantage of this favourable feeling. He tore open the garments of
Aquilius, and showed the scars of those wounds which he had received in
the service of his country. Even the stern Marius wept. Him the orator
then apostrophized; imploring his protection, and invoking with many tears
the gods, the citizens, and the allies of Rome. “But whatever I could have
said,” remarks he in the dialogue, “had I delivered it without being
myself moved, it would have excited the derision, instead of the sympathy,
of those who heard me(243).”
Antony, in the course of his life, had passed through all the highest
offices of the state. The circumstances of his death, which happened in
666, during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, were characteristic of his
predominant talent. During the last proscription by Marius, he sought
refuge in the house of a poor person, whom he had laid under obligations
to him in the days of his better fortune. But his retreat being
discovered, from the circumstance of his host procuring for him some wine
nicer than ordinary, the intelligence was carried to Marius, who received
it with a savage shout of exultation, and, clapping his hands for joy, he
would have risen from table, and instantly repaired to the place where his
enemy was concealed; but, being detained by his friends, he immediately
despatched a party of soldiers, under a tribune, to slay him. The soldiers
having entered his chamber for this purpose, and Antony suspecting their
errand, addressed them in terms of such moving and insinuating eloquence,
that his assassins burst into tears, and had not sufficient resolution to
execute their mission. The officer who commanded them then went in, and
cut off his head(244), which he carried to Marius, who affixed it to that
rostrum, whence, as Cicero remarks, he had ably defended the lives of so
many of his fellow-citizens(245); little aware that he would soon himself
experience, from another Antony, a fate similar to that which he deplores
as having befallen the grandsire of the triumvir.
Crassus, the forensic rival of Antony, had prepared himself in his youth,
for public speaking, by digesting in his memory a chosen number of
polished and dignified verses, or a certain portion of some oration which
he had read over, and then delivering the same matter in the best words he
could select(246). Afterwards, when he grew a little older, he translated
into Latin some of the finest Greek orations, and, at the same time, used
every mental and bodily exertion to improve his voice, his action, and
memory. He commenced his oratorical career at the early age of nineteen,
when he acquired much reputation by his accusation of C. Carbo; and he,
not long afterwards, greatly heightened his fame, by his defence of the
virgin Licinia. Another of the best speeches of Crassus, was that
addressed to the people in favour of the law of Servilius Cæpio, restoring
in part the judicial power to the Senate, of which they had been recently
deprived, in order to vest it solely in the body of knights. But the most,
splendid of all the appearances of Crassus, was one that proved the
immediate cause of his death, which happened in 662, a short while before
the commencement of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla; and a few days
after the time in which he is supposed to have borne his part in the
dialogue _De Oratore_. The Consul Philippus had declared, in one of the
assemblies of the people, that some other advice must be resorted to,
since, with such a Senate as then existed, he could no longer direct the
affairs of the government. A full Senate being immediately summoned,
Crassus arraigned, in terms of the most glowing eloquence, the conduct of
this Consul, who, instead of acting as the political parent and guardian
of the Senate, sought to deprive its members of their ancient inheritance
of respect and dignity. Being farther irritated by an attempt on the part
of Philippus, to force him into compliance with his designs, he exerted,
on this occasion, the utmost efforts of his genius and strength; but he
returned home with a pleuritic fever, of which he died in the course of
seven days. This oration of Crassus, followed as it was by his almost
immediate death, made a deep impression on his countrymen; who, long
afterwards, were wont to repair to the senate-house, for the purpose of
viewing the spot where he had last stood, and fallen, as it may be said,
in defence of the privileges of his order.