ANCIENT RHETORIC AND POETIC
ANCIENT
RHETORIC AND POETIC
INTERPRETED FROM REPRESENTATIVE
WORKS
BY
CHARLES SEARS BALDWIN
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
ΤΟ ΜΕΝ ΔΗ ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΟΝ ΦΥΛΟΝ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΝ
_Lucian_
GLOUCESTER, MASS.
PETER SMITH
1959
COPYRIGHT, 1924
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
REPRINTED, 1959
BY PERMISSION OF
MARSHALL W. BALDWIN
NELSON GLENN MCCREA
ARTIS VTRIVSQVE
LITTERATE PERITO
HVNC LIBRVM
COLLEGA AMICVS
D. D. D.
PREFACE
To interpret ancient rhetoric and poetic afresh from typical theory
and practise is the first step toward interpreting those traditions
of criticism which were most influential in the middle age. Medieval
rhetoric and poetic in turn, besides illuminating medieval literature,
prepare for clearer comprehension of the Renaissance renewal of
allegiance to antiquity. Thus the historical survey needed to focus
many important detached studies itself needs a preliminary volume of
exposition. The influences of ancient oratory, drama, and story cannot
be measured surely without more specific knowledge of ancient precept
and practise, firmer grasp of ancient conceptions, than has been offered
by any synthesis in English. Even in other languages the available
compends are generally rather digests, or dictionaries of terms, than
interpretations of leading ideas. Instead of risking once more the
inadequacy and the forced emphasis that beset such a method, I have tried
to make the most representative ancients speak for themselves.
Though the very choice of spokesmen interposes the chooser, scholars
generally, I hope, will accept Aristotle for the theory of rhetoric as
the energizing of knowledge, Cicero for its scope and skill in practise,
Quintilian for its teaching, and so on through a list chosen for
representative significances. Nor does the plan of spokesmen preclude
sufficient indications of general theory and practise. It shows in
Cicero the influence not only of Aristotle, but of Isocrates. In poetic,
ancient epic art is revealed most definitely and most largely in the
_Æneid_ because Vergil, besides being one of the greatest of poets, was
so studious a craftsman as to choose from all the ancient experience
the most vital ways of narrative. Historically the New Comedy seems
more significant than the Old; and the same consideration has included
not only Ovid, but even Seneca. These analyses of ancient achievement
are made complementary to ancient theory by being strictly limited to
composition.
All the authors chosen have been already expounded and translated, some
of them again and again, but rather as philosophers, or as orators, or
as men of letters, or simply as Greeks or Romans, than as writers on
composition. Yet composition was not only one of the greatest ancient
achievements; it was a constant preoccupation and a consistent technic.
No other body of technic is more thorough and comprehensive than ancient
rhetoric; and few have been so generally recognized. Every writer had it
in mind; and since commentators have often had in mind something else, I
have felt myself bound always to explore the technical connotations of
the originals, and usually to retranslate. Verification is facilitated
by exact citation, and comparative study by the indexes. What may thus
serve incidentally as a book of reference is primarily, however, a
progressive exposition from ideas through principles to details. The
Greek philosophy of rhetoric is confirmed and applied in the great period
of Rome by the most influential orator of history. Aristotle’s theory
and Cicero’s vindication put us in the best position to comprehend the
method and the detail of Quintilian. This in turn guides appreciation
of that abundant study of style which is exemplified typically in
Dionysius of Halicarnassus and illuminated by the genius who wrote the
_De sublimitate_. Through such spokesmen, with complementary technical
analysis of ancient achievement, the way seems surest toward recovering
inductively the ancient artistic experience.
This experience has remained too long in abeyance for speakers, writers,
and teachers of English. In the United States, though composition has
been studied during the past fifty years more generally, perhaps, than
in any other country except France, neither our theory nor our pedagogy
has applied very widely the ancient lore. Jesuit schools, indeed, have
maintained the tradition of rhetoric, as have some others teaching
composition consecutively through Latin; but in general the multitude
of modern text-books of English composition shows little use of ancient
experience. Thus it has been possible to propose as new, and even to try,
methods exploded in Rome two thousand years ago. There is no question of
reviving an equally exploded archaism. Nor need we fall again into the
Ciceronianism of the Renaissance. Ancient deviation, as I have tried to
show, is no less instructive than ancient progress. The point is so to
comprehend what the ancients learned in singularly fortunate conditions
as to guide our own theory away from vain repetition toward progressive
realization of our own opportunities.
Metric, except where it bears incidentally on prose rhythms, has
been deliberately excluded. In the present divergence of critical
interpretation an entire volume would hardly suffice for a really
contributory synthesis. The larger movements of poetic, dramaturgy and
the development of verse narrative, show a consistency that warrants a
synthesis of ancient poetic; and there is even greater consistency in
ancient rhetoric. But we may not lightly speak of ancient metric, as if
it were continuous from Greek through Latin. Nor is the metric of either
Greek or Latin, significant as it is incidentally, necessary to the
comprehension of ancient rhetoric or poetic.
The innovation of expounding rhetoric and poetic side by side was
suggested by the demands of that historical treatment which is proposed
for a later volume. But though it was designed for this larger purpose,
it has meantime facilitated the immediate task. Actually the experience
of the ancients seems to be best approached from their conception of
composition as twofold. Logical composition and imaginative composition
are, indeed, distinct; but each technic, defined within its own scope,
helps to define the other by contrast. Making each more distinct,
the contrast further exhibits interrelations and confusions highly
significant for the history of both pedagogy and criticism. Not merely as
archæology, then, ancient rhetoric and poetic demand reconsideration, but
as the theory of widely suggestive experiences in the progressive art of
words.
The bibliographies at the head of each chapter or section, and the notes,
are strictly selective. Enumeration of what I have read myself could only
embarrass the guidance of readers who wish to proceed from this book to
further study. Omitting, therefore, all mere acknowledgment of my long
and manifold indebtedness, omitting also the obvious books of reference,
whether histories or topical digests, the apparatus directs immediately
to interpretations either of the authors themselves or of those
principles and habits of ancient art which seem most significant for
the study, the practise, and the teaching of composition. For example,
the references are not to Volkmann and Christ-Schmid, but to Heinze,
Rhys Roberts, Hendrickson, Hubbell, to Sandys the editor rather than to
Sandys the historian; and preference has been given to works in English.
Personal indebtedness begins with a scholar who was professor of Greek
before he became professor of English. The late Thomas R. Price revealed
the study of composition as embracing all ordered expression from a
periodic sentence to a tragedy. The working out of that integrating
conception has been furthered by so many colleagues that specific
acknowledgment must perforce be limited to those interested immediately
in this volume. Professor LaRue VanHook read my translation of Dio
Chrysostom’s _Oratio LII_; Professor Nelson Glenn McCrea, the entire
manuscript and the proof. For criticism of the manuscript I am no less
deeply indebted to Professors Brander Matthews and Ashley H. Thorndike;
for valuable suggestions on the proofs, to Professors Edward D. Perry,
Frank G. Moore, and Donald L. Clark, and to the Rev. Professor Francis P.
Donnelly, S. J. In 1920 Professor Rhys Roberts, after sharing his acute
and sympathetic scholarship in conversation on the plan of both volumes,
did me the honor to read in manuscript the first draft of Chapter II.
High appreciation of all this generosity and a grateful sense of this
fellowship of letters at once acquit these scholars of all responsibility
for my interpretations and encourage my hope of contributing toward a
more fruitful criticism of ancient composition.
C. S. B.
BARNARD COLLEGE
MAY, 1924
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. RHETORIC AND POETIC 1
II. THE _RHETORIC_ OF ARISTOTLE 6
Book I 7
Book II 17
Book III 21
III. RHETORIC IN THE _DE ORATORE_ AND _ORATOR_ OF CICERO 37
_De Oratore_ 40
_Orator_ 56
IV. THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC 62
Quintilian on the Teaching of Rhetoric (_De institutione
oratoria_) 63
_Declamatio_ in Seneca, Tacitus, and Pliny 87
V. THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF RHETORIC 102
Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Sentences 103
The Great Unknown on Imaginative Diction (“Longinus on
the Sublime”) 122
VI. THE _POETIC_ OF ARISTOTLE 132
Tabular View 135
The Idea of Dramatic Movement 158
VII. POETIC IN ANCIENT DRAMA AND NARRATIVE 167
Drama 168
Greek Tragedy 168
Senecan Tragedy 186
Latin Comedy 188
Narrative 192
The _Æneid_ 192
The Narrative Poetry of Ovid 216
The _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius 221
VIII. RHETORIC IN ANCIENT CRITICISM OF POETIC 224
The Pervasiveness of Rhetoric 224
Criticism from Grammarians 226
Criticism from Professional Public Speakers 229
Dio of Prusa 231
Plutarch’s _How Youth Should Read Poetry_ 239
Horace’s _Ars Poetica_ 242
TABULAR INDEX OF LATIN AND GREEK RHETORICAL TERMS 249
GENERAL INDEX 253
CHAPTER I
RHETORIC AND POETIC
The two great works of Aristotle on composition, the _Rhetoric_ and the
_Poetic_, presuppose an ancient division. That a philosopher should have
written either is itself significant; that he should have written both
implies his ratification of the ancient idea that the art of speaking
and writing is not throughout its various phases single and constant,
but distinctly twofold. On the one hand, the ancients discerned and
developed an art of daily communication, especially of public address,
τέχνη ῥητορική, _ars oratoria_, rhetoric; on the other hand, an art of
imaginative appeal, τέχνη ποιητική, _ars poetica_, poetic.
A distinction between the two in diction, the idea that the language of
poetic is more freely imaginative, is both commonplace and superficial.
The ancients, of course, were aware of it, and frequently thus contrasted
poetry with oratory[1] or with history. But the distinction between the
diction of public address and the diction of drama or epic, between prose
style and poetic style, was not in ancient thought fundamental. Rather
the ancients saw here common ground. Their discussions of prose style
freely draw examples from poetry; for their rhetoric, more explicitly
than most modern rhetoric, realized that the appeal of public address,
in so far as it is an appeal of style, is largely imaginative and
rhythmical.[2] Polybius, indeed, reproaches Phylarchus for his eagerness
to be pathetic and his habit of visualizing the terrible, “as do the
writers of tragedies”[3]; but as a restriction on style in history this
is quite exceptional and would involve disparaging Thucydides. The common
view of history is summed up playfully by Lucian: “Let the [historian’s]
thought, in so far as it too is high-sounding and uplifted, appropriate
and seize something of poetic, especially when it is involved in arrays
and battles by land or sea; for then there will be need of a poetic wind
to fill the sails and bear the tall ship over the waves.”[4] In oratory
the ancients specifically inculcated imaginative visualization, and
taught it from the poets. Their general distinction of style between
prose and verse was in the habit of rhythms. No, the ancient distinction
between rhetoric and poetic is far more than a differentiation of style.
The difference that Aristotle saw between history and poetry is far
deeper; and perhaps this was in the mind of Polybius when he went on to
say,[5] “the end of history is not the same as that of tragedy, but the
opposite,” and complained that Phylarchus was too fond of working up
crises (περιπέτειαι). Even the flippant Lucian may have meant to imply,
though he does not carry out, a deeper difference when he said:[6]
“the undertakings of the poetic art [in general] and of poems [in
particular], and the appropriate rules, are one thing; those of history,
quite another.” At any rate, the Aristotelian distinction of history from
poetry, repeated by Polybius in the second century B.C. and by Lucian
in the second century A.D., is not merely in diction, not in prose or
verse, but in composition.
So, even more evidently and pervasively, is the broader distinction
between oratory and poetry. Rhetoric and poetic connoted two fields
of composition, two habits of conceiving and ordering, two typical
movements. The movement of the one the ancients saw as primarily
intellectual, a progress from idea to idea determined logically; that
of the other, as primarily imaginative, a progress from image to image
determined emotionally. This distinction is more fundamental than
that of so-called literary forms. The ancients were well aware that a
particular composition might shift from one movement to the other, a
play of Euripides lean toward oratory, an oration of Isocrates move for
a while in the mode of poetry. What they contemplated in their division
was not primarily a composition, but composition as a general habit, the
predominant and determining way of composing, the difference between the
habitual movement of a Demosthenes and that of a Sophocles. Finding these
to be distinct essentially, as typical processes of conceiving, ordering,
and uttering, Aristotle treated them separately as two distinct technics,
rhetoric and poetic.[7]
That the distinction between the habitual composition, or movement, of
rhetoric and that of poetic is not oftener made explicitly by ancient
critics need cause little surprise. The distinction may have been
familiar enough to be tacitly assumed. It is, in fact, often assumed; it
was quite clear in the mind of whoever wrote the _De sublimitate_; but
it is sharply defined and fully carried out only by Aristotle. We must
remember that ancient criticism had no second Aristotle, that it was
preoccupied with rhetoric, and that it usually discussed speaking and
writing, as modern criticism does no less usually, in terms of style.
The long history of criticism shows few outstanding works on composition
in the large. None the less for the meagerness of criticism, the active
presence of the distinction is seen in the greatest works of antiquity.
Nor is the distinction unknown to modern criticism. It is misinterpreted,
for instance, at the beginning of Blair’s Lecture XXXVIII, confirmed
by De Quincey’s distinction[8] between literature of knowledge and
literature of power, and revived in the division, cited by Renard[9] from
H. Balzac, into “_écrivains d’idées_ and _écrivains d’images_.” But in
spite of significant occurrences and recurrences, it seems not to have
controlled any consecutive movement of modern criticism.
Again, the four “forms of discourse” widely accepted by American
text-books naturally combine into exposition and argument under rhetoric
on the one hand and, on the other, description and narrative under
poetic. But obvious as this seems, the older, simpler, more fundamental
division does not widely control modern pedagogy. None the less its
pedagogical aspect, in either ancient or modern times, is more important
than that of many more current critical distinctions. For learning to
write, the distinction between rhetoric and poetic is more directive
than the distinction, for instance, of literary forms. It is also more
supported and interpreted by psychology; for it divides not merely what
is composed, but the typical habits of composing.
Thus the experience of the ancients with composition, an experience
so prolonged and so progressive as to constitute a full and distinct
chapter in the history of art, may be approached first by dividing as
they divided. Each technic, defined within its own scope, helps to define
the other by contrast. Making each more distinct, the contrast further
exhibits interrelations and confusions highly significant for the history
of both pedagogy and criticism.
Rhetoric in the philosophy of Aristotle is essentially the art of giving
effectiveness to truth. Accepting this theory, Cicero nevertheless feels
rather the tradition of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness to
the speaker. The constructive review of a great orator exploring his art
is thus complementary to the analysis of the philosopher. Even after
Aristotle and Cicero there was room for a third survey. Quintilian showed
how rhetoric pervaded and largely directed ancient education. For that
ancient art which was at once useful and fine, an education and a career,
had great spokesmen. We shall begin best, and go on most surely, by
letting them speak: Aristotle for the function and scope of rhetoric,
Cicero for its pursuit and achievements, Quintilian for its method.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] Quintilian, for instance, appreciates Lucan as “ardens et concitatus
et sententiis clarissimus, et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus
quam poetis imitandus.” _Inst. Or._ X. i. 90.
[2] Typical of this habit of thought is: “Exigitur enim iam ab oratore
etiam poeticus decor ... ex Horatii et Vergilii et Lucani sacrario
prolatus.” Tacitus, _Dialogus, 20_.
[3] Polybius, II. 56.
[4] Lucian, _Quomodo historia_, 45.
[5] Polybius, II. 56.
[6] Lucian, _Quomodo historia_, 8.
[7] The terms _rhetoric_ and _poetic_ are contrasted in Lucian,
_Demosthenis encomium_, 5-8, 17-18; Strabo, I. ii. 6 (C. 17, end).
[8] Essay on Pope.
[9] G. Renard, _La méthode scientifique de l’histoire littéraire_, page
385.
CHAPTER II
THE _RHETORIC_ OF ARISTOTLE
The only art of composition that concerns the mass of mankind, and is
therefore universal in both educational practise and critical theory,
is the art of effective communication by speaking and writing. This is
what the ancients and most moderns call rhetoric. More ample and exact
definition, though unnecessary for elementary practise, is demanded
for fruitful theory; and the theory of rhetoric has always concerned
so many more people than the theory of any other art as to be part of
every pedagogy. Here the practise of education not only may be guided by
philosophy; it must be. For any coherence in its teaching, rhetoric must
be comprehended not only in its immediate functions, but in its pervasive
relations to other studies. It is at once the constant in educational
schemes and the art among sciences. How we are in a given time and place
to learn or teach rhetoric depends on how we understand its function and
scope in specific relations.
The importance of a theory of rhetoric in this aspect was discerned by
the greatest philosopher of antiquity. In Aristotle’s comprehensive
survey of thought and action rhetoric is not merely included; it has
substantive place. Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_,[1] though professedly more
analytical than constructive, has a consecutive development. Neither his
ethics nor his politics receives more scrutiny or shows more penetration
and grasp. As if he dared not slight it, he shows in this work,
comparatively brief though it is, the full reach of his intelligence. In
detail it has been questioned; but in conception and plan, in direction
of thought and order of presentation, it has remained fruitful.
BOOK I
Book I _surveys by definition and division the opportunity
of the public speaker_. (i) Rhetoric is the complement of
logic (dialectic). It is the art of persuasion formulated
by investigating the methods of successful address; and
its object is to promote a habit of discerning what in any
given case is essentially persuasive. Proof as contemplated
by rhetoric proceeds by such means as may be used in public
address. Instead of the syllogism, which is proper to
abstract logic, rhetoric typically uses the enthymeme, that
approximate syllogism which is proper and necessary to the
actual concrete discussion of public questions. Thus rhetoric
serves as a general public means (1) of maintaining truth
and justice against falsehood and wrong, (2) of advancing
public discussion where absolute proof is impossible, (3) of
cultivating the habit of seeing both sides and of exposing
sophistries and fallacies, and (4) of self-defense. (ii) The
means of persuasion outside of rhetoric (πίστεις ἄτεχνοι) are
witnesses, documents, and other evidence; the means within
the art of rhetoric (ἔντεχνοι) are the moral force of the
speaker, his adaptation to the disposition of the audience,
and his arguments. (iii) The three fields of rhetoric are: (1)
deliberative address to a popular assembly, discussing the
expediency of a proposal for the future; (2) forensic address
to a court, discussing the justice of a deed in the past; and
(3) panegyric, commemorating the significance of a present
occasion. The eleven remaining chapters of this book analyze
each of these fields in its main aspects, or fundamental
topics, _e.g._, wealth, happiness, government, crime, virtue,
etc.[2]
The bare digest will show that Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ is hardly a manual.
In fact, it is rather less a manual than is his _Poetic_. It is a
philosophical survey. The scope of rhetoric is measured not by any scheme
of education, but by the relations of knowledge to conduct and affairs.
To be comprehended, this great work should be read consecutively, for
it is not merely systematic; in spite of parts undeveloped, it is
progressive, and its chief significance, perhaps, is from its total
development. The following discussion presupposes a fresh and consecutive
reading.
About rhetoric Aristotle would first of all have right thinking,
conceptions large enough to be suggestive and distinct enough to be true.
So the definition in his first chapter is slowly inductive. First we
are to distinguish rhetoric from logic.[3] As modes of thought the two
are alike general, both applicable universally, neither having its own
subject-matter. As modes of utterance they differ typically in that while
logic is abstract, rhetoric is concrete; while the one is analytic, the
other is synthetic; while the one is a method of study, the other is a
method of communication.
Rhetoric, no less than logic, has subject-matter in every given case.
Only its perverters teach it as merely an art of dealing with persons,
of reaching an audience. No less than logic, it is a means of bringing
out truth, of making people see what is true and fitting. But rhetoric
contemplates having truth embraced. It is the application of proof to
people. Its distinction from logic is here, in the typical mode of proof.
The type in logic is the syllogism; the type in rhetoric Aristotle calls
the enthymeme.[4] By this he means concrete proof, proof applicable
to human affairs, such argument as is actually available in current
discussion. The enthymeme is not inferior to the syllogism; it is merely
different. Actually, public address on current public questions cannot be
carried on by syllogisms or by final inductions. That by which it can be
carried on, the strongest proof possible to actual discussion, Aristotle
calls enthymeme.
From this typical mode of rhetoric Aristotle gathers its fourfold
function: first and foremost, to make truth prevail by presenting it
effectively in the conditions of actual communication, to move; second,
to advance inquiry by such methods as are open to men generally, to
teach; third, to cultivate the habit of seeing both sides and of
analyzing sophistries and fallacies, to debate; and finally to defend
oneself and one’s cause. That truth does not always prevail shows the
need of effective presentation. The first function, then, of rhetoric
is to make truth prevail among men as they are. Truth cannot be learned
by the mass of men through scientific investigation; for that demands
special training. A second direction, then, of rhetoric is to make the
results of investigation generally available, to teach truth in general
human terms. Debate, Aristotle’s third item, which is one whole field of
rhetoric, may indeed be mere logical fence, using terms and propositions
as mere counters; but real skill in debate, the habit of seeing both
sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies, tends to make truth
emerge from current discussion. The fourth use of rhetoric, for
self-defense, seems added merely for completeness and to rebut the common
objection that rhetoric is abused. That, says Aristotle, is no argument
against it.[5]
The definition implied and sketched in Chapter I and formulated in
Chapter II, may be summed up in the word persuasion, if we are careful
to speak of persuasion not as achievement, but as method. Just as we ask
of medicine, not that it shall infallibly heal—a degree of achievement
impossible in human affairs—but that it shall discern and use all the
means of healing available in the given case, so the true end of rhetoric
is to induce such habitual skill as shall _discern in any given case the
available means of persuasion_.[6]
As means of persuasion we must include both those that are extrinsic and
those that are intrinsic,[7] those that lie outside the art of rhetoric
in the domains of subject-matter and those that lie within, the facts
of the case and the technic of making them tell. For rhetoric has to
include subject-matter, the forces of knowledge. Though this is extrinsic
in the sense of lying outside the art of rhetoric, it is essential.
Rhetoric is an art, as Aristotle is careful to show; but it differs from
other arts in the degree of importance it must always attach to its
subject-matter. The division here into extrinsic means and intrinsic
means as both necessary to persuasion is not merely the obvious one into
matter and manner, substance and style; it is a division of the springs
of composition, the sources of effectiveness, into those that lie outside
and those that lie inside of utterance, or presentation. It frankly
accepts rhetoric as more than artistic, as never self-sufficient and
absolute, as always relating presentation to investigation.
Equally philosophical is the following division[8] of the intrinsic
means of persuasion into: (1) those inherent in the character or moral
potentiality (ἦθος) of the speaker, (2) those inherent in his actual
moving of the audience, and (3) those inherent in the form and phrase of
the speech itself. That the three are not mutually exclusive is evident
and must have been deliberate. Aristotle is telling us that rhetoric
as an art is to be approached from these three directions and in this
order. The division is comprehensive not only as being satisfying
psychologically, but as constituting an outline for the whole work,
the headings of the development in three books: first, the speaker
himself; secondly, the audience; and finally, in the light of these
two, and as the bringing of the one to bear on the other, the speech.
Book I deals with the speaker as himself the prime means of persuasion.
Rhetoric, Aristotle implies, is necessarily ethical in that everything
consecutively imparted or communicated, as distinct from the abstractions
of geometry or logic, is subjective. Moreover, in making the speaker
the point of departure Aristotle admits that other trend of classical
pedagogy which made rhetoric a cultivation of personality. Book II,
proceeding to the second item of the division above, deals with the
audience, with knowledge of human nature, especially of typical habits
of mind; for rhetoric in this aspect too is ethical. It deals with the
interaction of moral forces in speaker and audience, and also with the
direct arousing of emotion. The speech itself, the final utterance,
which is the subject of Book III, has thus been approached as the art of
adjusting the subject-matter of a given case through the intelligence and
emotion of the speaker to the intelligence and emotion of the audience.
This is the only book of very specific technic; and it comes last
psychologically.
Aristotle’s division and its order are the division and the order
not merely of analysis, but of much the same synthesis as underlies
the actual processes of composition. I begin with myself; for the
subject-matter else is dead, remaining abstract. It begins to live,
to become persuasive, when it becomes my message. Then only have I
really a subject for presentation. A subject, for purposes of address
as distinct from purposes of investigation, must include the speaker.
It is mine if it arouses me. I consider next the audience, not for
concession or compromise, but for adaptation. What is mine must become
theirs. Therefore I must know them, their ἦθος and their πάθος. My
address becomes concrete through my effort to bring it home. The truth
must prevail—through what? Against what? Not only through or against
reasoning, but through or against complexes of general moral habit and
the emotions of the occasion. I must establish sympathy, win openness of
mind, instruct in such wise as to please and awaken, rouse to action.
My speech is for these people now. Only thus am I ready to consider
composition; for only thus can I know what arguments are available, or
what order will be effective, or what style will tell.
This is the philosophy of presentation. What is its practise? Rhetoric
ranges for subject-matter most often in the fields of social ethics and
politics, tempting its professors, Aristotle adds acutely, to assume the
mask of politics.[9] It deals with “the ordinary and recognized subjects
of deliberation,”[10] with matters still in dispute and doubt. Thus
dealing with social and political conduct, it can neither proceed, as
logic does, by absolute propositions nor arrive at logical demonstration.
Its premises are not universals, but generally accepted probabilities.
That is, to resume his previous distinction, the mode of rhetoric is
not the syllogism or induction proper to logical formulation, but the
enthymeme or instances proper to actual presentation. The mode of
scientific induction emerges to-day in the “gas laws” or the formula
of the velocity of light; the mode of rhetoric emerges in Huxley’s
“Piece of Chalk.” Abstract deduction is summed up in the syllogism;[11]
concrete deduction, in the enthymeme. By enthymeme, as Aristotle has
now made fully clear, is meant a “rhetorical syllogism” in the sense of
a deduction available concretely for presentation, as distinct from a
deduction formulated abstractly for analysis. His enthymeme is deductive
method used constructively. It is not mere popular reasoning, logic
modified for popular consumption, but public reasoning, such reasoning
as is available with the public for building up public opinion and policy.
Therefore the headings, or “topics,” of rhetoric are not peculiar to a
particular field of investigation, but general or “common topics” such as
justice or expediency, which express common human relations. To deviate
from these into the method peculiar to a given subject-matter, physics
for example, is to pass[12] from rhetorical method for presentation over
to scientific method for analysis; and this, of course, the speaker must
do to the extent of mastering his subject-matter before he presents it.
Though he must not forget that his ultimate task is to present to an
audience and therefore concretely, neither can he forget that what is
to be presented must be acquired. In so far as he investigates he will
follow scientific method, the analysis proper to the field, the “special
topics.” Thus for his education he needs some study of the “special
topics” of those sciences that furnish most of his subject-matter, the
“special topics” of ethics and politics. Of these he must have, as
part of his equipment, a practical or working knowledge, the orator’s
equipment for considering each case within its own field as well as in
its general relations to human nature. Aristotle’s distinction here
between general and special “topics” coincides with his earlier division
(page 10) of the means of persuasion into intrinsic and extrinsic. The
extrinsic means are knowledge, to be got by the methods of getting; the
intrinsic means are utterance, to be given by the methods of giving.
At this point, the opening of Chapter iii,[13] Aristotle makes his
scientific division of rhetoric by its fields. The three fields of
rhetoric are: (1) the _deliberative_, persuasion in public assemblies
as to matters of current discussion, looking to the future, urging
expediency: (2) the _forensic_, accusation and defense in courts, looking
to the past, urging justice; and (3) the _occasional_,[14] praise or
blame, looking to the present, urging honor. The underlying, general,
or “final topics” of rhetoric, as distinct from the special topics that
it uses from other studies, are thus seen to be expediency (including
practicability), justice, honor, and their opposites; and the special
topics drawn by rhetoric from philosophy, ethics, and politics may be
grouped in a speaker’s compend of these studies according as they apply
to the deliberative, the forensic, or the occasional field.
In deliberative oratory[15] the speaker deals with good and bad, not in
the abstract as the philosopher contemplates virtue or happiness, but
in concrete matters of doubt and dispute. So his topic of possibility
is not abstract, as in mathematics, but concrete, in relation to human
will. So in general Aristotle disclaims for his classification of the
ordinary subjects of deliberative oratory any attempt at scientific
division or scientific method of investigation. Those he follows in his
other works; here the analysis that he provides is avowedly practical.
Since in politics,[16] for example, the public speaker needs to know
something of finance, war, commerce, legislation, Aristotle gives him a
suggestive summary of what he should learn. In our modern educational
systems such a summary has far less importance; but the correlation
remains vital. Pedagogically as well as philosophically, deliberative
oratory must be correlated with its natural subject-matter. So to-day
college courses in rhetoric demand correlation with college courses in
history, sociology, economics, and politics. The professors of these
subjects train for investigation, teaching the scientific method proper
to each; the professor of rhetoric trains for presentation, teaching
general methods, Aristotle’s general or “final topics,” for handling all
such material. But unless each method of training can make use of the
other, both will suffer. Rhetoric must lean upon such real knowledge of
a given subject-matter as is furnished by the studies dealing with that
subject-matter scientifically, i.e., by its “special topics.” Meantime
Aristotle’s summary is intended not to explore these special topics, but
to show what they are.
Similarly the student of deliberative oratory needs such a survey of
philosophy[17] as will acquaint him with current ideas concerning
happiness, whether of rank, offspring, wealth, honor, health, beauty,
or strength, and concerning a good old age, friendship, fortune, and
virtue. Therefore Aristotle, summarizing these conceptions, supplies[18]
a cursory examination of good in general and of goods, or good things,
in particular, proceeding[19] both by definition and by comparison, and
not limiting his discussion to the deliberative field. To the latter, and
to politics, he reverts in the concluding chapter[20] of this section by
enumerating briefly the common forms of polity: democracy, oligarchy,
aristocracy, and monarchy.
Since occasional oratory[21] demands an equipment primarily ethical,
Aristotle provides a summary of moral nobility[22] by definition and
comparison. This is applied more specifically than the preceding section
to rhetorical method, in this case to the method of enhancing or
heightening and to the method of comparison.
For forensic oratory[23] Aristotle provides as a speaker’s compend of
philosophy a survey of the objects and conditions of crime. He makes
no specific mention of what we now call criminal tendencies; and
his division of “extrinsic proofs,” i.e., of legal evidence (laws,
witnesses, contracts, tortures, the oath) is for the modern lawyer
neither scientific nor significant.
BOOK II
As Book I is the book of the speaker, Book II is the book of the
audience. The audience is not merely discussed; it furnishes the point
of view. As Book I considers the necessities and opportunities of the
speaker, so Book II considers the attitude of the audience. Book I is
rhetoric as conceived; Book II is rhetoric as received.
Since rhetoric is for judgment—for even deliberative speeches
are judged, and forensic is [concerned entirely with]
judgment—we must see to it not only that the speech shall be
convincing and persuasive, but also that the judge shall be in
the right frame of mind. For it makes a great difference to
persuasion, especially in deliberative speeches, but also in
forensic, how the speaker strikes the audience—both how the
hearers think he regards them, and in addition how they are
disposed toward him. How the speaker strikes the audience is
of more practical concern for deliberative speeches; how the
hearer is disposed, for forensic. The effect is not the same
on a friendly audience as on a hostile one, on the angry as on
the tranquil, but either different altogether or different in
degree.... Three [impressions] constitute persuasiveness—three,
that is, outside of the arguments used: wisdom, virtue, and
good will [i.e., a speaker’s persuasiveness, in the sense of
his personal effect on his hearers, depends on their believing
him to be wise, upright, and interested in them].... From
what sources [in moral habits, ἦθος], then, the speaker may
strike his hearers as wise and earnest we must gather from
the analysis of the virtues, whether his immediate purpose
be to make his audience feel thus and so or to appear thus
and so himself; but good will and affection we must discuss
now under the head of the emotions (πάθη). By emotions I
mean any changes, attended by pain or pleasure, that make a
difference to men’s judgment [of a speech]; e.g., anger, pity,
fear, etc., and their opposites. The consideration of each
emotion—anger, for instance—must have a threefold division: (1)
how people are angry, (2) what they are angry at, and (3) why;
for if we should know only one or two of these, not all three,
it would be impossible to excite anger, and so with the other
emotions.[24]
In this way Aristotle proceeds to analyze, in Chapters ii-xi, the common
emotions: anger, love, fear, shame, benevolence, pity, envy, emulation,
and their opposites. The relation of these to the formation of character
leads to six chapters on character in youth, in age, in the prime of
life, and on the typical dominant traits of character seen respectively
in persons of social rank, of wealth, of power, and of good fortune.[25]
The classification here will be more satisfying as psychology if we
remember that it analyzes the common types of character and emotion in a
crowd. Aristotle is attempting neither an analysis of mental operations
nor a science of human nature, but such a practical classification as may
inculcate the habit of adaptation to the feelings of an audience.
The psychological analysis of the audience concluded with Chapter xvii,
Aristotle returns to rhetoric in our ordinary sense at Chapter xviii
with a recapitulation.[26] “The use of persuasive discourse,” he says,
resuming the language of the opening of this book, “is for judgment,” or
decision; i.e., persuasion connotes an audience to be persuaded. After
showing that this is true in all cases, and summarizing briefly the
main aspects of Books I and II, he concludes his transition by saying:
“it remains for us to go on with the common topics.”[27] With these he
actually goes on, not merely extending the treatment of them in Book
I (see page 14), but considering them now as to their availability,
their effect upon hearers. More explicit statement, however, of this
distinction might well have made the bearing of these latter chapters
clearer. The topic of possibility[28] implies the range of the argument
from antecedent probability (_a priori_). Example[29] includes analogy,
both from history[30] and from fiction, with specific mention of fables.
In this wide sense, including mere illustration, it means little more
than vividness of presentation through the concrete and specific; but
that its persuasive value far exceeds its logical cogency no one doubts
who knows audiences. This is the angle, too, from which Aristotle
discusses maxims.[31] “They have great service for speeches because
audiences are commonplace. People are pleased when a speaker hits on
a wide general statement of opinions that they hold in some partial
or fragmentary form.”[32] The same point of view controls the further
discussion of enthymemes,[33] which includes a hint of something like
Mill’s Canon of Concomitant Variations,[34] directions for logical
exclusion, for analysis demanding particulars, for dilemma, and for
_reductio ad absurdum_. Remarking the popularity of the refutative, or
destructive enthymeme over the constructive, and touching the fallacies
of _petitio principii_ and _post hoc_, the book concludes[35] with
methods of refutation (λύσις).
BOOK III
Book III studies the speech itself. Book I having presented rhetoric from
the view of the speaker, and Book II from the view of the audience, Book
III now applies it directly to the speech.[36]
Since rhetoric must treat systematically three things: (1) what
the means of persuasion are to be, (2) the diction,[37] (3)
how to arrange[38] the parts of the speech, ... [the first has
been discussed]. We have next to speak of the diction. For it
is not enough to know what we ought to say; we must also know
how we ought to say it, and this contributes much to the effect
of the speech. The first subject of our inquiry [(1) above]
was naturally that which comes first by nature, the facts
themselves—in what aspects they are persuasive. The second is
the expression of these in the diction. The third [_not_ (3)
above], which is of very great importance, is the delivery.
The threefold division sketched here seems at first sight to coincide,
so far as it goes, with the one that afterward became traditional.
Classical rhetoric as a whole assumes a fivefold division: (1) εὕρεσις,
_inventio_, the gathering and analysis of the material; (2) τάξις,
_dispositio_, _collocatio_, the arrangement, sequence, or movement in
the large; (3) λέξις, _elocutio_, the diction, or the choice of words
and their combination in phrases, clauses, and sentences, the movement
in detail; (4) ὑπόκρισις, _pronuntiatio_, delivery, or “elocution”; (5)
μνήμη, _memoria_, memory. But Aristotle’s division neither corresponds
to this nor is consistent with itself. The first item is the same in
both. Aristotle’s second item is clearly the same as the later third,
and has the same name (λέξις, diction). The third item of his opening
sentence seems equivalent to the traditional second (τάξις), and uses the
corresponding verb (τάξαι); but below he makes his third item instead
delivery (ὑπόκρισις), which is the fourth item of the traditional
division, and then proceeds in the same chapter to include delivery,
by implication, under diction.[39] In a word, the opening division of
Book III is baffling. But the actual development of the book is quite
clear: chapters i-xii on λέξις, diction, or, in the widest sense, style;
chapters xiii-xix, on τάξις, or arrangement.
Delivery, after declaring it to have the greatest force (δύναμιν ...
μεγίστην), he dismisses in a few sentences. Tantalizing in its brevity,
this passage is nevertheless suggestive; for it sketches an analytic
division of delivery into voice-placing and volume, pitch, and rhythm; it
points to the value for public speaking of the arts of dramatic recital;
and, most important of all, it relates delivery to the whole idea of
style as concrete presentation _versus_ abstract formulation.
In thus uniting delivery and diction as alike means of effective
utterance Aristotle has seemed to some readers to disparage both. He has
seemed to express, as in a similar passage of Book I,[40] a philosophic
contempt for style. But this impression is not confirmed by scrutiny.
Not only can he hardly be thought to despise that to which he devotes
himself cordially throughout a large part of his treatise, but his words
here hardly yield the inference that has been drawn from prejudicial
translation. They may be rendered more precisely as follows:
An art [of delivery] is not yet settled; for even that of
diction emerged but late and seems a bore when regarded
ideally. But[41] since the whole practise of rhetoric is gauged
to actual effect upon hearers (πρὸς δόξαν), we must give
delivery our care, not of [abstract] right, but of necessity.
[Abstract] justice, indeed, demands of our speech nothing
more than that it should neither offend nor propitiate. For
[abstractly] just [method] is so to make one’s plea with
the facts that everything beyond exposition is superfluous.
Nevertheless [delivery] is of great importance, as I have
said, because of the human frailty of the hearer. Indeed, the
consideration of the hearer is in a degree necessary in all
teaching; for even in explanation it makes some difference
whether we speak thus or thus—not so much, however [as in
active persuasion], all these things [i.e., of diction and
delivery] being means of suggesting images[42] and gauged to
the hearer. Therefore no one thus teaches geometry.
That art, then [of delivery], when it comes, will produce the
same effects as acting; and some authors, as Thrasymachus on
the pathetic, have made a slight attempt at it. Acting is both
a natural gift and less reducible to art; but diction has its
technic. That is why those who have mastered it take prizes
regularly, as do the histrionic orators;[43] for written
speeches prevail more by diction than by thought.
“No one thus teaches geometry” cannot be taken as a slur on style.
It simply reminds us, by applying to diction a distinction made with
great fulness in the first two chapters of Book I, that rhetoric is
not geometry. Formulation, as in geometry, is colorless because it is
abstract; but any actual presentation, even mere information (ἐν πάσῃ
διδασκαλίᾳ), demands style, whether concreteness or the arts of delivery,
for mere lucidity (πρὸς τὸ δηλῶσαι), much more for any sort of appeal.
For any sort of presentation, Aristotle is saying, we must study style;
and we must include the study of delivery except in those written
addresses which depend on style even more than on thought.
The appeal of style, Aristotle says in this same first chapter,[44] was
first discerned by the poets. The method of suggestion, in other words,
belongs to poetic. This is more than a critical distinction; it has an
application directly pedagogical. The teaching of style, always delicate
and difficult, may well begin through poetry, which in descriptive
heightening and in harmony of sound with sense, especially of pace with
mood, most plainly exhibits style as adaptation. The connection of this
with delivery, both with reading aloud and with dramatic recital, though
obvious, is often neglected. Elocution in our modern sense may, if
rightly related, be one of the gateways to appreciation of style.[45]
Chapter ii,[46] after glancing at the fundamental virtue of lucidity,
considers the choice of words for appropriateness and for suggestiveness,
i.e., for their connotation, and especially for the descriptive
vividness of the concrete, as in metaphors. Chapter iii[47] deals with
the inappropriateness arising from bad taste;[48] Chapter iv,[49] with
the extension of metaphor into simile. Chapter v[50] passes from single
words and phrases to their combination in clauses and sentences. The
distinction is important, and is kept throughout the classical rhetoric
from Aristotle down. The choice of words is ἐκλογή (_electio_); the
shaping of clauses and sentences is σύνθεσις (_compositio_). Frequent
translation of the latter by our English word _composition_, which has a
meaning so much wider as to be quite different, misses the specific point
of technic, and often makes the ancient writers say what they did not
mean.[51]
As the primary virtue in the choice of words is precision, so the first
consideration in their combination, says Aristotle, is purity, idiom,
conformity to usage. This assured, the next considerations of movement in
detail are dignity,[52] which he presents as mainly amplification, and
appropriateness.[53] Appropriateness here is not merely of the single
word, as in Chapters ii and iii, but of the movement, or pace. It is
gauged both to the moral habit (ἦθος) of the audience and to the emotion
(πάθος) of the occasion.
From this general idea of appropriate movement Aristotle passes[54] to
specific consideration of rhythm with his oft-quoted dictum:
The order[55] of the diction must be neither metrical
nor unrhythmical. The former, by seeming artificial, is
unpersuasive and at the same time distracting. For it
makes us think of recurrences and wait for them to come, as
children anticipate the answer to the heralds’ “Whom does the
freedman choose as his attorney? Cleon.” On the other hand,
the unrhythmical is immeasurable, and a measure we must have,
though not by metrical recurrence; for the boundless can be
grasped neither by the ear nor by the mind. Now measure in the
most general sense is number;[56] and number as applied to the
order of the diction is rhythm, of which meters are sections.
Rhythm, therefore, the speech must have, but not meter, or it
will be a poem—rhythm not too nice, that is, not carried too
far.
Of the three rhythms the heroic is solemn and lacking in prose
harmony.[57] The iambic is the very diction of the crowd; i.e.,
it is heard oftener than any other measure in speech, and
it lacks capacity to lift and startle. The trochaic[58] is
too suggestive of comic dancing, as is evident in trochaic
tetrameters, which are a skipping rhythm. There remains the
pæan.
Having laid down the principle that prose movement should be rhythmical,
but not metrical, why does Aristotle proceed immediately to discuss it
in terms of meters? Simply, perhaps, because these terms are familiar
and definite. How else, indeed, shall we speak of a particular movement
specifically? Perhaps also because the consideration of the larger, freer
rhythms of prose is best opened through the fixed rhythms of verse,
i.e., because meter is the gateway to appreciation of rhythm, as poetry
in a wider sense (see page 24) is the gateway to style in a wider sense.
For us moderns it is the more significant that the classical doctrine of
clauses and sentences deals so largely with rhythm, since our doctrine
throws the emphasis on logic. That the σύνθεσις, or _compositio_, should
be idiomatic, dignified, appropriate, Aristotle has urged briefly; that
it should be rhythmical he proceeds to set forth in detail, consecutively
showing how.[59]
Thus that the diction should be rhythmical, not unrhythmical,
what rhythms make it rhythmical, and in what modes, has been
set forth.
Now diction[60] [in its sentence-movement] is connected
either loosely and only by conjunctions, as the preludes in
the dithyrambs, or compactly, as the antistrophes of the old
poets. The former movement is the old one, as in Herodotus;
for, though once universal, it is now exceptional. By calling
it loose I mean that it has no end in itself except as its
subject-matter runs out. It is unsatisfying to the ear by its
indefiniteness, since we all wish to glimpse the end. That
[natural desire] is why [runners] lose wind and heart only at
the goal. They do not give out before because they are looking
ahead to the finish.
The loose movement, then, of diction is this; the compact, on
the other hand, is the one by periods [or definite units].
By _period_ I mean a diction having a beginning and an
end in itself and a length to be grasped as a whole. Such
sentence-movement is both satisfying to the ear and easily
followed by the mind;[61] _satisfying_ as being the opposite
of endless and as giving the hearer the sense of always
having hold of something, because something has always been
ended by itself, whereas the unsatisfying is neither to see
ahead nor to get through; _easily followed_, as being easily
held in mind, and that because periodic diction has number,
which is the chief aid to memory. That is why verses are more
easily remembered than loose prose, because verse has number to
measure it. The period should also be completed with the sense,
not broken off....
A period[62] is either in members or simple. Composed in
members, it is such a diction as makes a rounded whole and yet
is distinct in its parts, and such as the breath will carry
easily, not by [arbitrary] division, but as a whole. A member
is one of its parts; and by simple period I mean a period of
one member. Both members and periods should be neither curt[63]
nor long. For short [members] often make the hearer stumble,
since while he is still surging ahead, if he is pulled up by
the stopping of the measure that he carries in his head as
a guide, he must stumble as in a collision. Long [members]
on the other hand make the hearer feel himself left behind,
as by walking companions making the turn beyond the usual
stretch.... Over-use of short members, since it precludes the
periodic form, drags the hearer headlong.
In other words, the period is a sentence movement forecast and fulfilled
by the speaker, divined and held by the hearer, as a definite rhythmical
and logical unit. Its characteristic is that conclusiveness which
satisfies at once ear and mind. In sound and in syntax it is the opposite
of formless aggregation, of the addition of clause to clause as by
afterthoughts. Forethought, indeed, is its very note. Thus its typical
advantages are rather for oratory than for narrative. Oratory moves by
grouping around ideas; narrative, by adding image to image. The style of
Herodotus is in this sense aggregative. Its aim being to proceed not from
idea to idea in thought, but from fact to fact in time, it is “loosely
joined,” “running on,” without other rhythmical value than fluency.
That Aristotle means to disparage Herodotus when he calls this movement
old and unsatisfying need hardly be inferred. Old it is typically, the
movement of all early prose, of Herodotus no more than of Froissart and
Villani. Unsatisfying, unpleasing to the ear (ἀηδές) it is not—in its
place; but its place is not in oratory, which demands definite measures
to mark definite stages of thought. Otherwise the audience is frustrated
and loses the way.
What Aristotle means by his comparison of the two movements is that the
former is unsatisfying, not absolutely, but for the purposes of the
latter, i.e., for oratory. This interpretation is confirmed by what he
adds concerning the length of members, or clauses. That staccato habit
of short statements which in oratory “drags the hearer headlong,”[64]
unsatisfied and uncomprehending, may in narrative be actually superior.
To drag the hearer headlong is sometimes precisely what a story-teller
desires. Examples abound, for instance, in Victor Hugo, for whom this
movement became a mannerism. Neither of the two sentence movements, which
from the point of view of Aristotle’s time we may call the historical and
the oratorical, has remained through the long development of prose quite
the same. Narrative has developed in modern times a movement more and
more consciously poetic, while history in our special modern sense has
turned more and more to the conscious group-movement which he associated
with oratory. To-day we see much the same difference between our prose
fiction and our expository history that he saw between Herodotus and
Demosthenes. But the change is in application, not in the movements
themselves. It remains true, and important, that there is on the one
hand a prose movement rhythmically and intellectually loose, indefinite,
and current, and on the other hand a prose movement compact, conscious,
concluded point by point. The latter, the periodic, remains the typical
movement of public address; for the audience, in order to follow, in
order “to have hold of something[65] and to get something done,” demands
definite measures.[66]
Having laid down as fundamental the distinction between the two typical
prose movements, Aristotle proceeds to details: the balance of member
against member,[67] and the heightening of the individual member[68] by
visualizing metaphor. His recurrence here to metaphor is unexpected,
since he has discussed this already in Chapter ii[69] under the choice
of words; but here something is added. The connotation of figurative
language is explored further as a means to make a whole statement
telling. Aristotle is inquiring how such pithy sayings as he has just
exemplified in balance and antithesis are made forcible[70] by other
means; and he implies that the process is essentially poetic, as being
imaginative first in realization and secondly[71] in movement.
Imaginative realization in metaphor and simile is considered here as
intellectual suggestion. As enthymemes, so metaphors and similes must
steer between the obvious and the subtle. The best images, like the best
enthymemes, stimulate the hearer to coöperate, to see the relation for
himself.
As to sense such are the popular enthymemes; as to style [they
are popular] if the order, or movement[72] is antithetical....
So for the terms; if metaphorical, they must be neither
far-fetched, for then they are hard to grasp, nor trite, for
then they stir no emotion; and besides [as to movement] they
must put [the thing] before our eyes; for we must see it in
action rather than in intention (happening rather than about to
happen, present rather than future). The essential elements,
then, are three: metaphor, antithesis, actuality.[73]
Numerous examples follow[74] of ἀστεῖα, or pithy sayings, and Chapter
xi[75] expands
what is meant by “before our eyes” and how this is to be done.
I mean that those passages put the thing before our eyes which
show it in action.[76] For instance, to say that a good man is
“square” is metaphor ... but it does not show him in action,
whereas “in flowering vigor” does, and so does “at large.” And
in “Straightway the Greeks with bounding feet” the “bounding”
is at once actuality and metaphor.... In all these [instances
from Homer] by being alive (living, organic) [the subject]
seems to be in action.... They all make the subject moving and
living; and actuality is movement.[77]
Aristotle’s recurrence, then, to metaphor in the midst of his doctrine of
sentence movement is because metaphor has the wider implication. It may
be more than a single vivid word; it should extend to a whole habit of
realizing a thing in action; and this involves expression in a sentence
movement that shall heighten the suggestion by its pace.
In like manner the recurrence to aptness, or adaptation, is not
repetition. Chapters ii[78] and iii[79] deal with aptness of single
words; chapter xii,[80] with aptness of sentence movement. From the
general definition[81] of apt movement as adaptation both to the moral
habit of the audience (ἦθος) and to the emotion of the occasion (πάθος)
Chapter xii now proceeds to the typical adaptations offered by the
several fields of oratory: the deliberative, the forensic, and the
occasional.[82]
It must not be forgotten that one style is appropriate to one
kind [of oratory], another style to another. Style for writing
is not the same as style for debate, nor style for public
debate the same as style for legal pleading. Both [style for
writing and style for debate] have to be known: the latter,
as command of correct (or idiomatic) utterance; the former,
as deliverance from the necessity of keeping silence when one
wishes to communicate—[an inhibition] which those suffer who do
not know how to write. Style for writing is the most precise;
style for debate, the most histrionic (the best adapted to
delivery). The latter is [adaptation] of two sorts: expression
of character, and expression of emotion. This is why actors
also seek such plays, and dramatists such personæ [as give
expression to character and emotion].
The distinction here between style for writing (to be read aloud) and
style for speaking (for immediate utterance) is general, as appears in
the following reference to asyndeton and in the comparison of public
speaking to the broad brush work of fresco; but it is also particular.
It distinguishes occasional, or panegyric oratory as demanding a style
more literary. “Style for writing,” above, must from its context refer to
panegyric; and below Aristotle adds: “The style of occasional oratory is
best suited to writing; for its function is to be read.”[83]
The final section[84] of Book III deals with the larger parts of a
speech: exordium, statement of facts, proof, peroration. This discussion
of τάξις (_dispositio_) is both meager and perfunctory, hardly more
than a rehearsal of those definitions and counsels which were already
familiar in teaching and apparently in manuals,[85] and which were to
be handed on by later tradition. Its importance is therefore primarily
historical. It has little other significance, little of the Aristotelian
discernment and suggestiveness. What the modern teacher of rhetoric
misses, both here and throughout the later classical discussions of
_dispositio_, is some definite inculcation of consecutiveness. That
consecutiveness was achieved in the best practise there can be no doubt;
how it was taught we are left to guess. As to movement in this larger
sense, what we commonly mean by composition, Aristotle’s _Poetic_ is more
definite and more suggestive than his _Rhetoric_.
He begins[86] by saying that the only essential parts of a speech are
proposition and proof. It is presently apparent that by “parts” here
he means components, or elements, of any and every sort of speech.
The statement of facts, for instance, is not a part in the sense of a
distinct division except in forensic; and Aristotle rightly objects[87]
to subdivisions by “parts” which are neither distinct nor applicable
generally. Even refutation, as he shows later,[88] is not a distinct
part, either in function or in method or in place. The most that can
be allowed are four: proposition and proof as essential, exordium and
peroration as usual.
With the same common sense he shows that the first function of the
exordium[89] is to put the hearers in a position to understand; its
second, to win their sympathy.[90] Chapter xvi[91] passes to the
recital of facts (διήγησις). The common rendering of this term by
_narrative_ has been widely misleading. True, the corresponding Latin
term is _narratio_, and the thing is narrative in the sense of being
sometimes, though not always, chronological; but _narrative_ in our
modern use, and especially in our modern text-books, is associated with
objects and methods which Aristotle is not here considering at all, and
which he rightly relegated to poetic. The Greek term διήγησις and the
corresponding Latin _narratio_ mean exactly what is called in a modern
lawyer’s brief the “statement of facts,” as distinct from the following
“argument.” It therefore belongs properly, as a distinct part having a
distinct place, to forensic. When used in occasional oratory,[92] it
should on the contrary be broken up, not as in forensic continuous. In
deliberative oratory[93] it has least scope, i.e., it hardly appears as
a separable part.
But the recital of facts, though it corresponds to the “statement” of a
brief in substance, need not be so limited in style. A speech is not a
brief; and the pleader, ancient or modern, must make his facts live.[94]
Speak also from the emotions, reciting what goes with them
(i.e., their physical expression), both what is familiar and
what is characteristic of yourself or your opponent: “He left
me with a scowl”; or, as Æschines said of Cratylus, “hissing
and shaking his fists.” [Such descriptive suggestions are
really] elements of persuasion; for the familiar images become
tokens of what you are trying to impress. Many such expressions
are to be had from Homer: “So she spoke, and the old woman
covered her face with her hands,” as we commonly put our hands
to our eyes when we begin to weep.
As to persuasion by argument[95] Aristotle begins with a mere hint of
that determination of the main issue and character of the case which
was afterward elaborated into the classified doctrine of the στάσις
(_status_).
Examples [παραδείγματα, he goes on] are more suited to
deliberative oratory; enthymemes, to forensic.[96]... Do not
speak in enthymemes seriatim, but mix them in [with other means
of persuasion]; or they will impair one another. There is a
quantitative limit.... Do not seek an enthymeme for everything;
or you will write like some philosophers; ... and do not speak
in enthymeme when your immediate aim is emotional ... or
ethical.
The peroration[97] consists: (1) of disposing the hearer well
toward oneself and ill toward one’s adversary; (2) of enhancing
and disparaging; (3) of stirring the hearer to emotion; (4)
and of recapitulation.... [For this last function] the primary
idea is that what was promised has been given in full, so
that we must tell both what [we have said] and why. This is
told by comparison [of our own case] with our opponent’s....
Asyndeton[98] befits the final words, that they may be
peroration, not oration: “I have spoken; you have heard; you
have it; judge.”
With no less abruptness Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ stops. It can hardly be
said to conclude; and certainly it has no peroration.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] _Text_, edited with notes, commentary, and index, COPE, E. M., and
SANDYS, J. E., 3 volumes, Cambridge, 1877.
_Translations_ (the best recent ones in English), WELLDON, J. E. C.,
with analysis and critical notes, London, 1886; JEBB, R. C., edited with
introduction and supplementary notes by SANDYS, J. E., Cambridge, 1909.
Welldon’s tabular view is valuable. Jebb’s rendering of technical terms
is generally more discerning.
_Criticism._ Aristotle having engaged the attention of nearly every
important writer on rhetoric—and of many quite unimportant—for over
two thousand years, a list of the commentaries and criticisms would
be endless and bewildering. Nor would any addition here to the
bibliographies already available be especially suggestive. The history
of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ will emerge incidentally throughout this
work. The best single exegesis in English, especially of the relations
of the _Rhetoric_ to the Aristotelian philosophy, remains E. M. Cope’s
_Introduction to Aristotle’s Rhetoric_, London, 1867.
[2] Quoted from the author’s article on Aristotle in the _Cyclopedia of
Education_.
[3] 1354 a.
[4] 1355 a.
[5] 1355 b.
[6] 1355 b τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν, or, as the preceding context puts it,
τὰ ὑπάρχοντα πιθανά.
[7] αἳ μὲν ἄτεχνοί εἰσιν αἳ δ’ ἔντεχνοι. Cope, _Introduction_, page
150, translates “unscientific and scientific”; Welldon, “inartistic or
artistic”; Jebb, “inartificial or artificial.” None of these translations
is satisfactory in connotation. _Scientific_, or _artistic_, or
_artificial_ suggests associations not borne out by the context and
ultimately misleading. Aristotle says simply “means that lie outside of
the art and means that lie within it.” The means that lie within are
hardly, in fact or in his intention, _scientific_. They are _artistic_ in
the broadest sense of being attainable by art, not in the narrower sense
of belonging to fine art, nor in the colloquial sense of being pretty.
_Artificial_ they are not at all, except when they are misapplied.
[8] 1356 a.
[9] 1356 a.
[10] 1357 a.
[11] 1356 a.
[12] 1358 a.
[13] 1358 b.
[14] Of the various translations of Aristotle’s ἐπιδεικτικός,
“demonstrative” is flatly a mistranslation, “oratory of display” is
quite too narrow a translation, and “epideictic” is not a translation at
all. The nearest word in current use is “_panegyric_,” which is right
as far as it goes. But English use, though it lacks a single equivalent
word, is none the less familiar with the thing. The kind of oratory that
Aristotle means is the oratory of the Gettysburg Address, of most other
commemorative addresses, and of many sermons. The French equivalent is
_discours de circonstance_.
[15] Chapter iv. 1359 a.
[16] 1359 b-1360 a.
[17] 1360 b-1361 b.
[18] Chapter vi. 1362 a-1363 b.
[19] Chapter vii. 1363 b.
[20] Chapter viii. 1366 a.
[21] Chapter ix. 1366 a-1368 a.
[22] τὸ καλόν, treated again in Book II from the point of view of the
audience.
[23] Chapters x-xv. 1368 b-1377 b.
[24] Chapter i. 1377 b. “In regard to πάθη and ἤθη, which move juries,
the most important part is to know how these emotions are aroused and
allayed. This alone, judging that it is none of their business, the
rhetors have not borrowed from Aristotle, though they have borrowed
everything else.” Philodemus, _Rhetorica_, trans. Hubbell, Transactions
of the Connecticut Academy, vol. 23 (September, 1920), page 338.
[25] “The import of these ‘characters,’ as of the ἤθη τῶν πολιτειῶν in I.
8. 6, and the use to which they are to be applied, may be thus expressed
in other words. Certain ages and conditions of men are marked by
different and peculiar characteristics. A speaker is always liable to be
confronted with an audience in which one or other of these classes forms
the preponderating element. In order to make a favorable impression upon
them, he must necessarily adapt his tone and language [Aristotle means
rather his method and arguments] to the sentiments and habits of thought
prevailing amongst them, and the feelings and motives by which they are
usually influenced. And for this purpose he must study their characters,
and make himself acquainted with their ordinary motives and feelings and
opinions. And the following analysis will supply him with topics for this
purpose.” Cope, _Introduction_, foot-note to page 248.
[26] Certain difficulties here in the text, with the principal
emendations proposed, are discussed by Cope in his _Introduction_, and
more largely in the Cope and Sandys edition. Vahlen was so convinced of
an error in transmission that he proposed to restore what he considered
the original order by transposing bodily Chapters xviii-end and Chapters
i-xvii. But in spite of difficulties of detail, the present order shows
sufficiently clear progress if we remember that these latter chapters
(xviii-end) are written, as all the rest of the book is written, from the
point of view of the audience. So viewed, what has seemed repetition and
expansion of Book I is seen to be distinct, and not merely additional,
but progressive.
[27] 1391 b.
[28] τὸ δυνατόν. Chapter xix.
[29] παράδειγμα. Chapter xx.
[30] πράγματα προγεγενημένα.
[31] γνῶμαι. Chapter xxi.
[32] 1395 b.
[33] Chapters xxii-xxiv.
[34] Opening of Chapter xxiii.
[35] Chapters xxv-xxvi.
[36] 1403 b.
[37] λέξις. It should be observed that Aristotle is not here divorcing
“manner” from “matter.” Book III opens a third approach, which
presupposes the preceding approaches. This seems to be insufficiently
considered by H. P. Breitenbach (The _De compositione of Dionysius of
Halicarnassus considered with reference to the Rhetoric of Aristotle_),
who regards Book III as a deviation from the philosophic position of the
preceding books.
[38] τάξαι.
[39] The fifth traditional item, memory, he omits altogether.
[40] Chapter i, 1354.
[41] 1404 a.
[42] φαντασία.
[43] Welldon’s translation “rhetorical actors” can hardly stand. The
phrase τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ὑπόκρισιν ῥήτορσιν means rather _acting orators_,
or, more exactly, orators who practise the art of the actor, who are
skilled in delivery. Their advantage appears in their winning prizes
for written speeches, which can be memorized and declaimed and which
are sometimes _tours de force_, showing more style than thought. Such
speeches—I think Aristotle cites them as an extreme case—show the
separable value of style, including delivery.
[44] 1404 a.
[45] At the close of this first chapter Welldon’s translation “rhetorical
style” is misleading. Aristotle says, as Jebb correctly translates, “that
style of which we are speaking,” i.e., prose style, the style of public
address. “The other style,” he adds, “has been treated in the _Poetic_.”
[46] 1404 b.
[47] 1406 a.
[48] τὰ ψυχρά.
[49] 1406 b.
[50] 1407 a.
[51] Style (λέξις, _elocutio_) consists of:
(1) choice of the right word (ἐκλογή, _electio_);
(2) the movement, rhythm, or pace of sentences and clauses (σύνθεσις,
_compositio_). Chapters v-xii deal with (2).
[52] ὄγκος. Chapter vi, 1407 b.
[53] Chapter vii, 1408 a.
[54] Chapter viii, 1408 b.
[55] The Greek word σχῆμα is quite general, applicable to any sort of
guiding principle, outline, system, or plan. Our English words _outline_,
_plan_, etc., though otherwise fairly equivalent, have visual, graphic,
static associations quite foreign to the context. Aristotle’s images
for style are drawn not from architecture or painting, but from music
and other modes of movement. By _the_ diction he means—indeed, he says
later—prose diction.
[56] Literally, “all things are measured by number.”
[57] λεκτικῆς ἁρμονίας. Cope and Welldon translate “conversational
harmony.” The literal sense of the phrase is “speech harmony,” “harmony
of diction, or of style”; but since Aristotle can hardly mean to say that
the heroic measure lacks harmony of diction _in verse_, and since he
is talking of prose, I translate “prose harmony.” Ἁρμονία may be taken
either in the general or in the particular (musical) sense of harmony;
but in the latter sense its application is restricted to melody.
[58] 1409 a.
[59] For a modern scientific discussion of prose rhythm see W. M.
Patterson, _The Rhythm of Prose_, New York, Columbia University Press,
1916. See also Morris W. Croll, _The cadence of English oratorical
prose_. Studies in Philology, 16:1, University of North Carolina,
January, 1919.
[60] Chapter ix, 1409 a.
[61] 1409 b, ἡδεῖα δ’ ἡ τοιαύτη καὶ εὐμαθής. The translation of Cope and
of Welldon, “easily learnt” is amiss; and Welldon’s foot-note thereon
about learning speeches by heart is still more misleading. The εὐσύνοπτον
(end of 1409 a), “easily grasped as a whole,” of the preceding sentence
does not imply writing and reading; and there is no other word in the
context even to suggest this except the reference to memory, which in
the classical rhetoric is rarely applied to memorizing. The translation
“easily learnt” is precluded both by the general trend of the passage
and by the specific figures of walking, running, and breathing. Here, as
throughout the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetic_, Aristotle avoids speaking
of style in the visual terms common to modern generations of writers
and readers. His terms, whether literal or figurative, are generally
auditory and motor. When he uses others, it is to distinguish something
special, as in Chapter xii (below) the exceptional, literary opportunity
of such compositions as those of Isocrates. Not only does his _Rhetoric_
deal primarily and generally with oral composition, but in particular
this section on σύνθεσις (_compositio_) deals with movement almost
exclusively. Not until he has explained the period rhythmically does he
add our modern definition that it should _also_ be concluded with the
sense, i.e., with the syntax. Meantime he finds the period superior to
the loose sentence—for oratory—first because it satisfies the ear by
being heard as a definite rhythm, and secondly because it satisfies the
mind by being intended and apprehended as a definite unit of thought.
[62] 1409 b.
[63] The admirable rendering of Jebb.
[64] 1409 b (toward end).
[65] 1409 b.
[66] For the contrast between the two movements in modern prose, see my
_College Composition_, pages 184-188; for the effect of a passage of
short sentences vs. that of a passage of long sentences, pages 69-71.
Though the sentence unit, in our modern logical sense, is not always
clear from the punctuation of even modern editions of ancient texts, it
will usually be clear from the conclusion of the rhythm. In the earlier
stages of modern prose, on the other hand, it is sometimes so dubious
as to suggest that it was not always felt distinctly. The artistic
development of modern prose, in other words, is partly the progressive
distinction of periods.
[67] Chapter ix, 1410 a.
[68] Chapter x, 1410 b.
[69] 1404 b.
[70] τὰ ἀστεῖα καὶ τὰ εὐδοκιμοῦντα, lively and pleasing, smart and
popular.
[71] Chapter xi, below.
[72] σχῆμα.
[73] ἐνέργεια.
[74] 1411 a.
[75] 1411 b.
[76] ἐνεργοῦντα. Here, perhaps, is the suggestion for Lessing’s famous
doctrine in the _Laokoön_ as to Homeric description.
[77] 1412 a.
[78] 1404 b.
[79] 1406 a.
[80] 1413 b.
[81] Chapter vii, 1408 a.
[82] For this division see Book I, Chapter iii, 1358 b.
[83] ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐπιδεικτικὴ λέξις γραφικωτάτη· τὸ γὰρ ἔργον αὐτῆς
ἀνάγνωσις (1414 a). The intervening reference to Chæremon, a poet said
to have been better to read than to hear, as “precise as a professional
speech-writer,” should not deviate us here into consideration of speeches
written out to be memorized. For a full discussion of the professional
speech-writer (λογογράφος) see Cope and Sandys on Book II. xi. 7. Here
Aristotle is discussing something different, the adaptation of occasional
oratory as nicer and more literary in sentence movement. Perhaps he
implies too that such speeches had better be composed, as well as
elaborated, in writing. Certainly this kind of oratory, from Isocrates
down, regularly included many compositions which we should call essays
and which were not even intended to be spoken.
[84] Chapters xiii-xix.
[85] τέχναι. See Cope, _Introduction_, page 331.
[86] Chapter xiii, 1414 a.
[87] 1414 b.
[88] 1418 b.
[89] Chapter xiv, 1415 a.
[90] 1415 b-1416 b.
[91] 1416 b.
[92] Chapter xvi, 1416 b. The counsel is too often forgotten by
panegyrists in Congress, perhaps because they are lawyers.
[93] 1417 b.
[94] See above on style in general (1404 a), on the vividness of the
concrete (1404 b), on visualizing metaphor (1410 b), and on describing in
action (1411 b).
[95] Chapter xvii, 1417 b. For the place of Chapters xvii and xviii
in relation to the whole work see foot-note 5 to page 197 of Jebb’s
translation.
[96] 1418 a.
[97] ἐπίλογος. Chapter xix, 1419 b.
[98] 1420 a.
CHAPTER III
RHETORIC IN THE _DE ORATORE_ AND _ORATOR_ OF CICERO[1]
Cicero remains after two thousand years the typical orator writing on
oratory. The most eminent orator of Roman civilization, he wrote more
than any other orator has ever written on rhetoric; and historically he
has been more than any other an ideal and model. Conscious of his own
range and of the narrowness and low esteem that seem from the beginning
to have cursed teachers and especially manuals of rhetoric, he is anxious
in his greater works, _De oratore_ and _Orator_, to appear not as a
rhetorician, but as a philosopher. Though no treatment could well be more
different from Aristotle’s, he is at pains to urge the Academic theory
that rhetoric is a branch of philosophy, and to avoid the technical terms
of the art while keeping its traditional categories. In this attitude he
is but the more typically the artist discussing his own art. He writes as
the man of letters in any age writes on literary composition. We may be
annoyed at a certain condescension toward teachers—as if they might think
themselves able to impart anything like his skill! We may be baffled in
trying to reduce some of his elaborations to specific terms. But rather
we should be grateful to find rhetoric presented, for once at least,
pleasantly as well as suggestively, and still more to find the orator
insisting that it must have the same large scope as is claimed for it by
the philosopher. Where Aristotle and Cicero agree, we may feel sure.
Cicero has been disparaged as a maker of phrases. That he is certainly.
“They write Latin,” says Newman[2] of other great authors; “Cicero
writes Roman.” His own style is the final answer to his detractors. He
is evidently, indeed, a very conscious man of letters, and filed his
speeches for publication; but can we deny vigor of thought to the maker
of such vigorous phrase without lapsing into the separation of style from
substance? Mere style is incredible—unless, as no one pretends of Cicero,
the style is bad. So much _a priori_; and in fact his works will bear
analysis. But he is not creative. He clarifies the thoughts of others
and brings them to bear. His habit and skill are not at all scientific.
His achievement is of style to the extent that it is an achievement of
presentation. What he says of rhetoric, for instance, others have said
before him; he says it better, more clearly, more vividly. He says it so
much better, indeed, that his phrase has a certain finality. It witnesses
not only his extraordinary command of diction, but also his constant
awareness of human implications. His very diffuseness springs from his
constant sense of how people think and feel while they hear and read. In
all this he is typically the orator.
_DE ORATORE_
The title _De oratore_ exactly expresses the subject. Cicero is
discussing rhetoric, indeed; he is writing _de arte oratoria_; but
always, as Aristotle in his first book, from the point of view of the
speaker. It is worth insisting on that the practitioner here coincides
with the philosopher, and both with the theory and practise of rhetoric
in the best days of the ancient tradition. The training of the public
speaker, this tradition consistently repeats, must focus the whole
training of the man. The vice of the teaching of rhetoric in its
decadence under the Empire[3] was so to pervert this principle as to
make all training subordinate to technical skill in rhetoric; and indeed
the principle has this danger of making the whole man serve rhetoric,
instead of making rhetoric bring out the whole man. None the less the
principle rightly conceived is fruitful; and no one has shown this more
persuasively than Cicero.
The form is obviously the Platonic dialogue. The protagonists are the
famous orators Crassus and Antonius, with Scævola, Cotta, Catulus, and
Sulpicius as minor interlocutors. Whatever basis there may have been in
the actual conversations of these historical persons,[4] the work, like
its model, is fiction. It is dramatic in representing the speakers as
_personæ_; but its imaginative realization goes no further. The literary
device of the dialogue is used only to add concreteness to the discussion
of what is always dry when it is abstract. The object is the discussion,
not even incidentally the men who discuss. They talk always as orators
and to promote oratory; and as orators they proceed from point to point.
Plato’s _personæ_ are realized more dramatically. Though only Socrates
is created fully, the others emerge as individuals. The movement of a
Platonic dialogue is far more conversational. Not only does its form give
the illusion of actual talk; its thought moves hither and yon, suggesting
rather than concluding, seeking yet other approaches and departures, not
marching but questing. Cicero raises questions, indeed, but as they are
raised by the public speaker who has predetermined the answer and the
stages by which we are to reach it. For all the ease and skill of its
dialogue, _De oratore_ proceeds by paragraphs as definitely as _De lege
Manilia_.
Though rhetoric is necessary to every educated man for
effective communication, and especially to every aspiring youth
(_laudis cupidus_), how rare are good orators! The reason is
the wide scope. Oratory demands knowledge not only as eruditio,
but also in relation to human will (_animorum motus_). It
demands expressiveness in a wide range of style and delivery.
What more noble? The orator is a principal supporter of the
State. So begins Crassus (I. i-viii); but Scævola demurs,
unwilling to grant either that states have been established and
maintained by orators or that the orator is accomplished in
every sort of utterance and of culture.[5] Here the question
is posed, Is oratory a special art or a comprehensive study?
Though abstractly it may be both, though the one view does not
exclude the other absolutely, practically the emphasis of the
training will be determined by a choice between the two.
As if to forestall restriction, Crassus begins with the widest
extension. He will not agree to exclude[6] from the scope of
oratory public management, instruction, even research. Of the
Greeks who urge this, he says, Plato is a refutation of his
own doctrine, being himself an orator. Democritus, Aristotle,
Theophrastus, Carneades, show the force of oratory; Chrysippus,
the lack of it. Sound without substance is folly.[7] Even legal
pleading demands more than is taught by the rhetoricians. The
orator’s effectiveness depends on knowledge of human emotions;
and they are a field of philosophy. Though he may leave it to
the philosophers as _cognitio_, he must know it[8] as applied
to presentation. To make philosophy effective, you must have
rhetoric. [Does this finally leave the point, which is that
rhetoric needs philosophy?] “What the philosophers dispute in
their corners without any urgency of application, and so in
thin and feeble talk, the orator will set forth in such a way
as to please and move.”[9] Socrates used to say[10] ‘Everybody
is eloquent enough on what he knows’; but the truth is rather
that neither can any one be eloquent on what he does not know,
nor can he be eloquent on what he does know unless he know also
the art of rhetoric.
“Therefore,[11] if we seek to define and embrace the force of
oratory as both general and special, he methinks is an orator,
worthy of so responsible a title, who will say whatever falls
to him for presentation with wise forecast of the whole, order,
style, memory, and a certain dignity of delivery.”
It is disconcerting to arrive, after all, at the traditional parts of
rhetoric. For the definition resolves itself into this:
1. _prudenter_, with wise forecast of the whole = _inventio_;
2. _composite_,[12] with skill in arrangement = _dispositio_;
3. _ornate_, with command of enhancing words = _elocutio_;
4. _memoriter_, with sure memory = _memoria_;
5. _cum actionis dignitate_, with dignity of delivery = _actio_.
But the traditional five parts of rhetoric are more than the table of
contents of the manuals (_artes_). They constitute what we now call in
college schedules a group of studies; and Crassus is contending for the
group as a whole. What he has been insisting on is the importance and
the scope of that first part which, in the long history of rhetoric,
teachers have most often and most dangerously neglected, _inventio_, the
investigation, analysis, and grasp of the subject-matter. He adds[13]
that the orator, though in any given case he may gather his information
from authorities, will express this information as no expert can express
it; and he repeats that in one branch of knowledge he must himself be an
expert, namely in human nature.
The practical difficulty of such a conception of oratory,
rejoins Antonius,[14] is that we have not leisure to realize
it. And if we had, should we not better spend our time on
the practise of speaking? The manuals,[15] he adds somewhat
evasively, have nothing to say about justice, temperance, etc.;
they talk of introductions and perorations. The main thing[16]
is that the orator should appear to his auditory to be the
sort of man that he wishes to appear. That is the result of
dignity of life, about which theories of rhetoric have no more
to say than about the means by which men are moved [Crassus
might have retorted by citing Aristotle’s whole second book].
No rhetorician[17] was ever even a tolerable orator; many
orators have never studied rhetoric. The materials of rhetoric
[in the large sense of material urged by Crassus] are too
indeterminate[18] for an art.
“I call him a master[19] who can speak keenly and clearly to an
average audience from the average point of view; but I call him
eloquent[20] who more wondrously and largely can enhance and
adorn what he will, and hold in mind and memory all the sources
of all things that pertain to public speaking.”
But what pertains to public speaking? How widely should the training
for it range? The definition of Antonius obviously stresses _elocutio_.
Whether he means to make this the main concern of the orator depends
on whether he includes among his “sources” the fund of knowledge urged
by Crassus. The context seems to show that he does not. To put his
definition beside that of Crassus above is to see that its intention is
narrower. It specifies no more than style, first as the amplitude and
vividness that enhance a particular passage, and secondly as the orator’s
general virtuosity.
Crassus returns to the charge with a summary[21] of the actual
training. The student should practise[22] not only extempore
speaking from outline, but also writing. The writing that he
advises here is not for the casting of a given speech in a
particular form, but for education in range and control of
expression. To this end he recommends also wide reading. The
study of law, he adds,[23] should be both of technical detail
and also of larger aspects and relations.
Antonius stands his ground. His second definition of the orator
is substantially a repetition of his first, merely sharpening
the contrast.
“But the orator[24]—and he is the subject of our inquiry—I do
not define as does Crassus, who has seemed to me to include
knowledge of all sciences and arts within the orator’s single
function and name. I think him an orator who can use words
agreeable to hear and thoughts (_sententiis_) adapted to prove
in cases both forensic and deliberative; ... and I would have
him also skilled in voice, gesture, and manner.”
Lest there should seem to be a begging of the question in the
word _sententiis_, which means thoughts and therefore may seem
to imply the studies urged by Crassus, _sententia_ should be
understood rather of the brilliant expression of a single idea
than of a line of thought or of intellectual grasp in general.
That neither of the latter is intended here is shown by the
context.
Because certain orators, Antonius resumes, have been masters of
other things than oratory it does not follow that these other
things belong to oratory. The most that can be said is that, to
attain eminence in oratory, one must have heard, seen, and read
much. Neither an orator’s knowledge of human nature nor his
use of this knowledge in speaking is scientific. Nor must the
orator be a lawyer any more than he must be an actor. Mastery
of law, of acting, of history, of other things, is, indeed, an
advantage; but it is not a necessity to oratory. If the orator
is to be, as Crassus has described him,[25] one who can speak
in ways adapted to persuade, he must sacrifice many other
studies in order to master his own proper art.
One closes the first book with the idea that both Crassus and Antonius
are right. The two men, even more than the two views, are complementary.
The views are irreconcilable only when pushed to the extreme; and in
extreme form either the extensiveness of Crassus or the intensiveness
of Antonius may become a _reductio ad absurdum_. Normally rhetoric is
both extensive and intensive, both a comprehensive study of life and a
specific art, even as the means of persuasion are both extrinsic and
intrinsic. Doubtless Cicero meant to leave this impression; for he gives
full weight to the theory of Antonius here, makes him the mouthpiece
in Book II for the specific lore of _inventio_, which corresponds to
the knowledge urged in Book I by Crassus, and makes Crassus in Book III
the spokesman for style. But certainly Cicero sympathizes, and wishes
us to sympathize, with Crassus. It is Cicero, not merely Crassus, who
pleads that the teaching of the orator be not the imparting of tricks,
nor mainly of technic in a wider and worthier sense, but the gradual
bringing to bear of the whole man. He saw in the focusing of rhetoric on
style a typical danger for teaching. The danger was present, apparently,
in the teaching of his own day; it was serious in the time of Tacitus;
it was epidemic in the schools of _declamatio_ that spread along the
Mediterranean and taught some of the fathers of the Church. The view of
Antonius, uncorrected by the view of Crassus, is imperfect theoretically;
practically it leads to the typical vices of the teaching of composition:
historically it has branded a stigma on the word Rhetoric and all its
derivatives.
The view of Crassus, too, has its dangers: the danger of vagueness and
dissipation, the danger of pretentiousness and sometimes of sciolism.
But apparently these dangers can more readily be met and counteracted,
and must be risked; for the history of rhetoric seems to show that his
is the right emphasis and the more fruitful idea. Speaking and writing
are less a profession even for orators and men of letters, much less for
educated mankind in general, than a life. Though the same may be said of
engineering, though all technical education involves general education,
yet in learning to speak and write the technic is smaller in proportion
to the general training. The training of Roman youth in oratory was at
its best education for leadership. In this education composition was both
end and means. It has been so always, it is so to-day, in the hands of
its best teachers. The specific application is to open in the teaching
of composition manifold relations. It thrives on what we now call
correlation; it dwindles in segregation. For we may learn from Cicero to
give rhetoric the same abundant relations to human affairs as he urges
his orator to seek in all his oratory.
Because it has most of the Ciceronian message Book I has been the most
studied and probably the most fruitful. The division of Book II is
conventional. After glancing at the fields of oratory and the component
parts of a speech and urging imitation, it treats _inventio_[26]
and _dispositio_[27] under the usual heads and briefly summarizes
_memoria_.[28]
Oratory, says Antonius, is essentially either deliberative or
forensic; for Aristotle’s third division, occasional oratory,
is not so much a separate field as a particular direction and
a fundamental habit of thought. Cicero is quite unconvincing
here. Perhaps his own habit of introducing into forensic the
ways of occasional oratory, as in his _Archias_, blinded him to
the significance of Aristotle’s third category.
The traditional _exordium_, _narratio_, etc., Antonius finds to
be rather elements than parts, since the particular function
of each is not confined to one place. From this perfunctory
rehearsal we are awakened by suggestive advice to teachers.[29]
Those who really teach rhetoric are engaged less in drill than
in promotion of the spirit that wins success.[30] “Therefore I
will train, if I can, so as first to discern what the pupil can
do. Let him be imbued with literature; let him have read and
heard something; let him have learned the rules; I will provoke
him so far as is feasible to his utmost in voice, force,
spirit. If I perceive that he can reach the heights, I will
beg him, and if he seems also a good man, I will conjure him,
to revise; so much social value do I attach to this technical
skill for both the outstanding orator and the good man. But if,
do what he will, he is going to remain mediocre, I will let him
do what he will, and especially not nag him; if he is going to
be positively offensive or ridiculous, I will tell him to close
his lips or try something else. For neither can we ever desert
the student of exceptional ability nor deter the one who has at
least some ability....
“To begin at home,[31] Catulus, I first heard Sulpicius here
in an unimportant case when he was a stripling. Though he
showed physical equipment of voice, presence, gesture, his
speech was rapid, hurried—a matter of temperament—and somewhat
effervescent and superabundant—a matter of youth. I did not
scorn him. I am glad to see youth exuberant. As with vines,
it is easier to prune than to cultivate. You should have seen
the change in him when next I heard him after he had studied
Crassus.”
The first specific counsel, then, is for the teacher promotion; for the
student it is imitation, such as Sulpicius’s of Crassus, not mere copying
of mannerisms, but such as produces[32] schools of eloquence from the
example of great orators.[33]
Under _inventio_ the first task is the investigation of the facts.
“But finally[34] to bring the orator whom we are forming to
actual cases ... we will teach him first—laugh if you will—to
know them thoroughly and deeply. This is not taught in school;
for the cases assigned to boys are easy. For example: ‘The
statute forbids a stranger (_peregrinus_) to climb a wall;
[this man] climbed; he repulsed the enemy; he is brought to
trial.’ No labor to know a case of this sort; for rightly
nothing is taught [in school] about studying a case. But in
the forum one has to know documents, contracts and agreements,
decrees, the lives of the parties. Through carelessness in
getting such knowledge men who in their anxiety to appear much
in demand undertake too many cases often lose.[35] Not only so,
but they may be suspected of bad faith or of incompetence.
“For my part,[36] I take pains to learn the case from the
client himself, alone, that he may talk more freely, and to
debate against him, that he may defend himself and advance
whatever arguments he has thought out. When I have dismissed
him, I quite dispassionately take three parts: my own, my
opponent’s, the judge’s. Whatever arguments promise more help
than embarrassment I settle on, rejecting others in the same
way. By this plan I manage to think at one time and speak at
another.[37] Some speakers have the confidence to do both at
once; but I am sure that they too would speak somewhat better
if they recognized the advisability of setting aside one time
for thought, another for speech.”
Though this is a conventional topic, and though its application here is
legal, it is none the less instructive generally; and it might directly
improve the teaching of argument and the practise of debate in our
colleges.
The second heading under _inventio_ is also conventional, the _status_,
or determination of the main character of the case and the main issues.
The _status_ was determined in the classical system by applying certain
traditional questions. The _status legalis_ may be set aside as
applicable only to legal pleading. The _status rationalis_, or _status_
considered in the general aspects of reason as an affair of common
argument, was determined by asking oneself how far the debate hinged
(1) on fact, on whether such-and-such things had happened, or (2) on
definition, the facts being generally admitted, or (3) more broadly, on
the interpretation of admitted facts and definitions. Though most cases
need to be looked at from all these three points of view, in most there
will be found a decided predominance of one; and forecast of this will
direct the emphasis of the whole argument, will tell where to throw one’s
weight. This one is the _status_ of that case.
In the Latin terms:
(1) if the main question is _an sit_, the _status_ is
_coniectura_, or _status coniecturalis_;
(2) if it is _quid sit_, the _status_ is _finis_, or _status
definitivus_;
(3) if it is _quale sit_, the _status_ is _qualitas_, or
_status generalis_.
Though Cicero’s discussion[38] is necessarily conventional, he
has keen practical suggestions. As to (2), which in his order
is third, Antonius says:
“We are often advised to define the crucial term briefly;[39]
but that is puerile. What we need is not a brief or abstract
definition, as of terms like _law_ or _state_ defined according
to the rule of neither too little nor too much. In the case I
have mentioned neither Sulpicius nor I attempted definition
of that sort. Rather each of us dilated on treason with every
means of amplification. For mere definition, in the first
place, is often snatched out of your hands if a single word
be objected to or added or omitted; in the second place, by
its very nature it smacks of teaching (_doctrina_) and almost
childish practise; and finally, it cannot enter the perception
and mind of the judge, for before it is grasped it slips past.”
But the case must be surveyed also as to its ἦθος and its πάθος.
“Then I most carefully consider[40] both the appeal _of_ my
client’s character and my own and the appeal _to_ the feelings
of those whom I address. So every theory of speaking seeks
persuasion[41] through (1) establishing the facts, (2) winning
the sympathy of the audience, and (3) arousing those of whom
the case demands action....”
“Teachers,[42] indeed, have divided cases into several kinds
and have provided a fund of arguments for each kind. This is
adapted to the education of the young; for as soon as a case is
posed, they know where to find arguments for it. Nevertheless
not only is it slow-witted to pursue rivulets, not discerning
the fount, but it is becoming to our age and habit to summon
what we wish from the source whence all things flow.”
The lore of preliminary analysis is concluded with a brilliant summary
under three questions of Cicero’s own:[43] (1) what kind of case is it in
general (_naturam causæ_), i.e., of fact or of interpretation? (2) on
what does it turn, i.e., what is the point but for which there would be
no debate? _(quid faciat causam; id est, quo sublato controversia stare
non possit)?_ (3) why is it disputed? how does the dispute arise (_quid
veniat in iudicium_)?
The transition from argument to the other means of persuasion, from
_probare_ or _docere_ to _conciliare_ and _movere_, is the caveat
of Antonius against the current division of cases into general and
particular[44] as a capital error. Theoretically every particular case
must have general relations; practically, if oratory is not to lapse into
mere accumulation of details, the orator must have the habit of bringing
these general relations to bear. Antonius adds the further caveat that
the whole system of the _status_ is merely analytical. It is logical;
and logic shows only how to judge arguments, not how to find them.[45]
The sources of arguments (_sedes argumentorum_)[46] are therefore more
important.
As to _conciliare_ and _movere_[47] Cicero says only the usual things,
perhaps because _inventio_ in these aspects is rather to be promoted by
exhortation than imparted by new categories.
Men take a decision oftener through feeling than through fact
or law.[48] They are moved by evidences of character in the
speaker and in his client.[49] Orators must have a scent for
an audience, for what people are feeling, thinking, waiting
for, wishing. To arouse feeling, the orator must have it
himself.[50] He need not feign it; it arises naturally from
his imaginative sympathy, as on the stage.[51] Emotional
appeal is not to be made suddenly; it is to be led up to and
down from;[52] and it demands full force of delivery.[53] The
only way to rebut feeling is by feeling. Cicero adds the usual
sections on wit and humor.[54]
The treatment of _dispositio_[55] gives little specific counsel toward
the achievement of that sequence in which Cicero himself excelled.
In general, _dispositio_ has to consider: how to make the most
of the stronger points without seeming to slur the weaker;
whether the case will prevail more readily through argument or
through appeal, through direct proof or through refutation;
how to cover retreat at need by making sure that the case,
if it cannot be won, shall at least not be damaged. [To
translate this doctrine into the terms of modern manuals, the
first general consideration of _dispositio_ is emphasis, both
as proportion of space and as progressive iteration of main
points.]
The traditional order[56] (_exordium_, _narratio_, etc.,) is
natural; but the real problem is the arrangement, or sequence,
of the proof and the weighing of arguments rather than the
counting of them. [This is a practical caveat against the
tyro’s idea that he can prevail by sheer force of numbers. To
be effective, an argument must be more than a series; it must
be a line. Its progression is more than arithmetical; it is
rather geometrical.] Appeal to feeling[57] should be rather
pervasive than located in particular divisions. The strongest
arguments should be put first and last; the exordium composed
after the rest of the speech, in order to be the more carefully
adapted[58] and more essentially related to the plaintiff,[59]
the defendant, the case, or the judges. The _narratio_,[60]
though concise, must be ample not only for vividness, but even
for clearness. Constructive argument and refutation are to be
considered together as a whole [i.e., debate is always at once
destructive and constructive].
Without making panegyric[61] as a separate kind of oratory,
we can see that deliberative speeches offer more scope in
that direction than forensic. Cicero adds general topics for
panegyric.
The chapters on _memoria_[62] begin with the familiar story of Simonides,
to make the obvious point that what furthers memory is order. Visual
associations, Cicero thinks, are strongest, and can be used to recall
even sentences. But verbal memory is less important. The orator’s memory
is of things.[63]
In Book III Crassus discusses style (_elocutio_). About a third of
the book[64] amplifies the theme that rhetoric is inseparable from
philosophy. What follows is a conventional treatment of the choice of
words (_electio_)[65] and the movement of sentences (_compositio_),[66]
with a few chapters on delivery.[67] These latter topics are handled so
much more explicitly in _Orator_ that only the first part claims analysis.
By style we mean generally diction that is idiomatic, clear,
vivid, and apt.[68] Idiom and clearness we may take for
granted. “All elegance of speaking, though it is polished by
the study of grammar, is promoted by reading aloud orators and
poets.[69]... If there be a certain Roman and urban tone,
in which there is nothing to offend, to displease, or even
to attract notice, nothing to sound or smell foreign, let us
follow this and learn to flee not only country roughness but
also foreign bravado.[70] ... women more easily keep the pure
tradition.”
“That scheme of thought and expression and force of speaking
the ancient Greeks used to call philosophy.[71]... For that
ancient teaching appears to have been the preceptress alike
of living rightly and of speaking well. Nor were the teachers
separate; the same masters formed morals and speech.”[72]
From the scorn of Socrates for rhetoric arose the unnatural
separation of rhetoric from philosophy ... “that divorce as it
were of the tongue from the heart ... that one class of persons
should teach us to think, another to speak, rightly.”[73]
Philosophy has suffered by this separation. The Cyrenaic
philosophy remains incomplete by dissuading from public life.
The Stoic philosophy, though it declares eloquence to be virtue
and wisdom, makes wisdom practically unattainable; and the
dry abstractness of address cultivated by the Stoics is quite
ineffective. Rhetoric, on the other hand, has suffered by being
reduced to maxims of pleading. In a word, training in rhetoric,
to be adequate, must include philosophy; and philosophy remains
ineffective without rhetoric. This, of course, is the ideal;
but it is not practically impossible; for we are not saying
that the orator must be a philosopher, only that he must know
philosophy.[74]
Therefore style must not be conceived either as the
controversial acrimony of the forum or as conventional
adornment borrowed by ignorance. The style must become the
thought, not weary the audience by display; and the very idea
of enhancing implies a store of thought.[75]
The futile distinction made by rhetoricians between a
particular case and a general has this bearing on style, that
eloquence consists in bringing to bear on every question those
fundamental human aspects which can be exhibited only through
large knowledge; for copiousness of style comes only from
copiousness of thought. The Greeks gave oratory to philosophy,
philosophy to oratory. Our Roman ancestors aspired to knowledge
in all fields that touch civil life. The greatness of the arts
has been diminished by division and separation.[76]
These twenty chapters are a brilliant instance of what the ancients
meant by amplification. Logically they do little more than iterate the
truism that style is inseparable from substance; but actually they make
the truism live. Cicero is an admirable example of his own definition of
the eloquent as those “who speak with clear distinctions, lucid order,
amplitude, brilliance of matter and manner, and in prose weave something
of the spell of verse—in a word, who enhance.”[77] “Immortal gods! said
Catulus, what a variety of things, Crassus, you have embraced! what
force, what abundance! and from what poverty have you dared to lead the
orator forth and establish him in the kingdom of his fathers!”[78]
_ORATOR_
Cicero’s _De oratore_, though it covers all five parts of rhetoric, is
most ample as to _inventio_. His _Orator_ is complementary in that it is
largely devoted to _elocutio_.[79] Like the earlier work, _Orator_ is
specifically limited to deliberative and forensic oratory. Occasional
oratory, or panegyric, though he declines again to treat it as a
separate field,[80] Cicero recognizes as the “nurse of that orator whom
we wish to form,” especially in sentence skill.[81] _Inventio_[82] and
_dispositio_,[83] as depending more on foresight than on eloquence,
are barely summarized. _Elocutio_ occupies three-fourths of the
discussion.[84]
_Orator_ has been less attractive than _De oratore_ for the reason that
it is more compact and more technical. None the less it has a cogency
and a felicity even more characteristically Ciceronian. Few men writing
on style have shown in their own styles so much precision and charm. _De
oratore_ keeps the fluency of dialogue; _Orator_ shows more of Cicero’s
own mastery of the oratorical period.
The division of style into three kinds (_genus tenue_, _genus medium_,
_genus grande_)[85] has been much discussed as to its origin.[86]
Whatever its origin, it is dubious as philosophy and has been vicious as
pedagogy. Cicero applies it later[87] to the three tasks, or objects,
of oratory: to prove, to win sympathy, to move. He adds[88] that the
orator should excel in all three directions. But this hardly warrants a
division of style into three kinds; for actually the teacher too ready
to classify, or the student too ready to think of style as separable and
additional, may thereby deviate his whole study. Historically the trail
of the three styles has been baneful. For inculcating style perhaps the
least fruitful means is classification.[89]
But Cicero’s discussion of style, though grouped at first by this
classification, ranges beyond it.
DIGEST OF _ORATOR_, 61-236, ON STYLE[90]
Style (61) is the very mark of the orator. The diction of the
philosophers (62-63) has neither the force nor the pungency
of oratory; for the philosophers (64) are limited to abstract
discussion, as the sophists (65) to decoration, and the
historians (66) to a somewhat diffuse smoothness. The style of
poetry (67) differs not in speed or vividness, but in boldness
of diction (68) and in sometimes being pursued for sheer values
of sound.
The three styles of speaking[91] arise from the orator’s
three objects: (69) to prove, to please, to move. Aptness,
then, demands adjustment not only to the speaker (71) and the
audience (72), but also to the object. What is proper to the
plain style (_genus tenue_, 75)? This sounds so ordinary that
it seems easier than it is; for, though not strong, it must
be sound. It is untrammeled by cadences (77), is free without
rambling, and neither fits word to word nor avoids the pleasant
negligence of one elaborating matter rather than manner. It
avoids periodic structure (85) and dramatic delivery (86);
but admits a careful use of wit (87-90). The median style
(_genus medium_, 92), adjusted to the winning of sympathy
(_conciliare_), aimed at the ἦθος of the audience, has as its
chief character _suavitas_; as its chief exponent, Demetrius of
Phalerum. The high style (_genus grande_, 97), aiming at πάθος,
though it is the acme, is not to be pursued exclusively; for
the perfect orator must be master of all three (100); the three
may be modified (103), combined, and varied; and variety is
necessary (109) both in any given speech and as a habit.
After a summary, 113-139, of the orator’s necessary knowledge,
especially of the other parts of rhetoric, Cicero passes to his
main topic, harmony. Explaining (140-148) the importance of
this, he defines it in its simplest aspect of euphony (149);
negatively as the avoidance of hiatus, stops, and other awkward
combinations, positively as balance, symmetry, the rounding out
of the phrase by correspondence (165).
The rest of _Orator_, about one third (l-lxxi, 168-236) is
devoted to prose rhythm under four heads: (a) origin, (b)
cause, (c) nature, (d) use. Under the first Cicero develops a
rhetorical doctrine of rhythm from Thrasymachus, Isocrates, and
Gorgias. As to the second, its cause (177-8), he says: “The
ear, or the mind through the ear, contains in itself a certain
natural measure[92] of all spoken sounds.” The third heading,
the nature of rhythm, is treated at greater length (liii-lx,
179-203). Analyzing rhythm to show that it has an effect
distinct from that of mere euphony, Cicero goes on to examine
what this effect is (183). Since there is a distinct rhythmical
effect in prose, it can be explained, though it appeals to
sense, not to reason, and though it is less obvious and less
essential than in verse. It is lacking (186) in earlier
writers, Herodotus for example.[93] It has to be sought as a
final grace of prose (186). “If there is (187) prose stinted
and concise and other prose dilated and fluent, the difference
must arise not from the nature of letters (_litterarum_),
but from the variety of intervals, long and short; and since
prose is now steady, now shifting, according as it is woven
and blended with these intervals, the nature of the difference
(or of this variety) must reside in the rhythm (_numeris_,
187).”[94]
Prose being unmetrical, however, are its rhythms (188) still
the same as those of verse? The feet must be the same; but
what rhythms are available in prose? That any foot is possible
appears in that we often fall carelessly into meter. Prose
consists largely of iambs; but we often lapse into less
familiar meters. It is plain, then, that prose feet are the
same as poetic.
Some think iambic, as being most like real life (191), more
suited to simple narrative; dactylic, to the dignity with which
it is associated in heroic verse. Ephorus prefers the pæan or
the dactyl to the spondee or the trochee because the latter are
either too slow or too rapid. Aristotle, finding the heroic
too grand for prose, the iambic too colloquial (192), and the
trochaic too tripping, approves (193) the pæan. This is to be
preferred as being less readily metrical (196); but it should
be varied by other measures. Iambic is most frequent (197) in
the plain style, the pæan in the grand style; but all should
be mingled for variety. “Thus the hearers will hardly notice
the snaring of their delight [in sound] and the pains to square
the speech. These will be the less apparent if the words and
thoughts are weighty; for those who are listening to these and
liking them—the words, I mean, and the thoughts—while their
attention and admiration are thus fixed do not notice the
rhythm, though they would be less pleased without it.” (197).
Prose is rhythmical not (198) by never varying—that would be
verse—but by movement neither limping nor fluctuating, but even
and constant. Prose rhythm, therefore, is more difficult than
verse. The rhythm of the period (199), in order to make such a
close as the ear desires, must be marshalled that way from the
start. Prose rhythm may arise, without rhythmical intention,
from the harmonizing[95] of the phrase.
The use (204) of rhythm is most extensive in panegyric (207);
in the other fields it enters when panegyric enters, or when
statement of facts demands rather dignity than poignancy, often
also in amplification, and most frequently in the peroration
(210). For variety change (211) from the statements grouped
and rounded in periods to statements detached (_incisa_ and
_membra_). Debate, more than exposition, needs speed. The
cadence, or close (_clausula_, 215) may be in any one of
several modes. The dichoreus, preferred in Asia (212), is
admirable; but any one cadence palls. A full period (221)
consists of four parts, or clauses (_membra_), i.e., is about
the length of four hexameter verses; and is held together by
_nodi continuationis_. When we wish to shift to detached short
sentences (_membratim_), as we must often do in forensic, we
pause, and break the rhythm that might suggest artifice. But
even in such shorter reaches (223) we need rhythm, whether
they be _incisa_, _membra_, or short periods; and these may
be supported by a longer period, ending in a dichoreus or
a spondee. The shorter reaches demand freer measures. They
are of most force in forensic (225), especially in proof and
refutation. Nor is any sort of speaking (226) stronger than to
strike with two or three words, sometimes even with one, and
then to interpose a rhythmical period.
Rhythm is not merely beautiful (227), but, like the beautiful
motions of athletes, useful. Pursuit of it must avoid the
appearance of artifice, padding (231) to round the cadence, the
laming of the movement by too many short reaches, and monotony.
Proof of the value of rhythm may be made by dislocating[96] the
sentence movement of a good orator without changing the words,
or conversely by rearranging the sentences of a careless orator
(233). Those who affect to despise rhythm (234) are unable to
master it. Calling themselves Attic, they ignore the rhythm of
Demosthenes. If they prefer a loose style, let them follow it
if they can show even in their parts the beauty that is lacking
in the whole (235), or if they can compose in any other style;
but the perfect orator (236) is master of all his art.
Cicero’s treatment of rhythm in oratory, though sometimes vague and
as a whole unsatisfying, is important historically. Its very extent
and care show that for the orator, no less than for the theorist,
rhythm in the classical tradition was a main consideration. It was not
something additional, a final grace of style, but an essential element
of oratorical effectiveness. Moreover it was a primary and controlling
consideration in all that revision which is spent on the shaping of
sentences. The oral and auditory ancients taught sentences more largely
as movements in time than do the writing and visual moderns. They are
thus the more instructive to those whose ears writing and print have
trained imperfectly. In every case, of course, ancient or modern, the
unit is logical, the expression of a thought; but whereas modern manuals
generally confine themselves to terms of syntax, the ancient rhetoric is
constantly aware of the effects of rhythm. Its analysis of these, though
it leaves much to be desired in scientific accuracy,[97] serves at least
to direct attention and stimulate imitation; and more than the modern
logic of the sentence it seems to promote fluency.[98]
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] Besides many incidental references, Cicero left seven works dealing
mainly or entirely with rhetoric: _De inventione_ (about 86 B.C.), _De
oratore_ (55 B.C.), _Partitiones oratoriæ_ (about 54 B.C.), _Brutus_
(46 B.C.), _Orator_ (46 B.C.), _De optimo genere oratorum_ (about 46
B.C.), _Topica_ (44 B.C.). Of these the most explicit and suggestive are
_De oratore_ and _Orator_, which are used as the basis of the following
chapter.
The most convenient bibliographical guide to Cicero’s rhetorical doctrine
is Laurand, L., _De M. Tulli Ciceronis studiis rhetoricis_ (University
of Paris thesis, 1907), which also summarizes lucidly its derivation and
progress.
The best editions in English are: Wilkins, A. S., _M. Tulli Ciceronis
De Oratore_, Oxford, 1893 (3d ed.), 3 volumes (introduction, including
a sketch of the history of rhetoric and a tabular analysis of the
treatise _Ad Herennium_ formerly ascribed to Cicero; analyses, notes,
index); Sandys, J. E., _M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator_ ... Cambridge, 1885
(introduction, including a sketch of the history of rhetoric, a brief
analysis of Cicero’s rhetorical works, a study and an abstract of
_Orator_, and a list of editions, commentaries, and translations; notes,
indices).
English translations of _De oratore_: Guthrie, W., London, 1808 & 1840;
Watson, J. S., London (Bohn), 1855 & 1896; Calvert, F. B., Edinburgh,
1870; Moor, E. N. P., (Book I only), London, 1904. Of _Orator_ Sandys
(page xcvii) cites three English translations, of which only Yonge’s
seems to be available in this country. The French translation by Colin
(_Traduction du traité de l’orateur de Cicéron, avec des notes, par M.
l’Abbé Colin_, Paris, 1737), though somewhat paraphrastic, is accurate so
far as I have used it. Another accompanies Bornecque’s edition, Paris,
1921.
Among recent critical studies the following will be found suggestive
in their several directions: Hendrickson, G. L., _The Peripatetic mean
of style and the three stylistic characters_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxv.
125 (1904); _Ancient characters of style_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxvi. 249
(1905); _Cicero’s Brutus and the technique of citation in dialogue_,
Amer. Jo. Philol. xxvii, 184 (1906); Hubbell, H. M., _The influence
of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius and Aristides_ (Yale thesis, 1914);
Nassal, F., _Æsthetisch-rhetorische Beziehungen zwischen Dionysius von
Halikarnass und Cicero_ (Tübingen thesis, 1910). For study of rhetorical
terms see Causeret, C., _Étude sur la langue de la rhétorique et de la
critique dans Cicéron_, Paris, 1886, which is classified by the fivefold
division, _inventio_, _collocatio_, etc. The influence of Cicero in the
middle age and the Renaissance will be discussed in a later volume.
[2] _Literature_, the second lecture on _University Subjects_ in the
_Idea of a University_.
[3] See below, Chapter IV. II.
[4] W. B. Owen in the introduction to his edition of Book I (Boston,
1895) makes more of this than its importance seems to warrant.
[5] _In omni genere sermonis et humanitatis perfectum_, I. ix. 35
[6] I. xi.
[7] I. xii. 51.
[8] I. xiii. 55.
[9] 56.
[10] 63.
[11] I. xv. 64. _Quam ob rem, si quis universam et propriam oratoris vim
definire complectique vult, is orator erit mea sententia, hoc tamen gravi
dignus nomine, qui, quæcumque res inciderit quæ sit dictione explicanda,
prudenter et composite et ornate et memoriter dicet cum quadam actionis
etiam dignitate._
[12] Wilkins (note _ad loc._) evidently takes _composite_ in a general
sense as referring to composition (_dispositio_, _collocatio_); for he
says: “The definition includes all the five main divisions of oratory,”
and _dispositio_ is not otherwise mentioned. But for the apparent
intention to include all five parts, _composite_ would more readily
suggest _compositio_, which is the technical name for sentence movement,
one of the subdivisions of _elocutio_. _Compositio_ is consistently used
in this special sense; but whether _composite_ is so meant here or not,
Cicero intended four of the five parts, if not five; and that suffices
to establish his allusion to the traditional division. The issue between
Crassus and Antonius has little to do with _dispositio_; it concerns the
scope of _inventio_.
For the division of rhetoric see pages 21, 65, the table in foot-note 1a
to Chapter V, and Wilkins’s introduction, page 57.
[13] I. xvi.
[14] xviii.
[15] xix. 86.
[16] 87.
[17] xx. 91.
[18] 92.
[19] _disertus._ I. xxi. 94.
[20] _Eloquentem vero qui mirabilius et magnificentius augere posset
atque ornare quæ vellet, omnisque omnium rerum, quæ ad dicendum
pertinerent fontis animo ac memoria contineret._
[21] I. xxv-xxxv.
[22] xxxiii. 149 seq.
[23] xxxvi-xlvii.
[24] xlix. 213. _Oratorem autem, quoniam de eo quærimus, equidem non
facio eundem quem Crassus, qui mihi visus est omnem omnium rerum atque
artium scientiam comprehendere uno oratoris officio ac nomine; atque eum
puto esse qui et verbis ad audiendum iucundis et sententiis ad probandum
accommodatis uti possit in causis forensibus atque communibus: hunc ego
appello oratorem eumque esse præterea instructum voce et actione et
lepore quodam volo._
[25] lxi. 260.
[26] xxiv-lxxi.
[27] lxxii-lxxxv.
[28] lxxxvi-lxxxviii.
[29] xx. 84.
[30] _Animus acer et præsens et acutus idem atque versutus invictos viros
efficit._
[31] xxi. 88.
[32] xxii.
[33] Tacitus (_Dial._ 34) says that the older method (of Cicero’s time),
supplanted in his own time by the schools of the _declamatores_, was
apprenticeship.
[34] xxiv. 99.
[35] xxiv. 101.
[36] 102.
[37] 103.
[38] xxiv-xxvi, 104-110. For the more detailed presentation of Quintilian
see Chapter iv, page 74.
[39] xxv. 108.
[40] xxvii. 114.
[41] Hendrickson (Amer. Journ. Philol. xxvi. 260) finds this threefold
division first here. The usual terms are _docere_, _conciliare_, _movere_.
[42] xxvii. 117.
[43] xxx. 132.
[44] xxxi. 133.
[45] xxxviii. 157.
[46] xxxix. cf. above, xxvii. 117.
[47] xlii-lxxi.
[48] xlii. 178.
[49] xliii. 182.
[50] xlv. 190.
[51] xlvi. 191.
[52] xlix-liii. 213.
[53] liii. 214.
[54] liv-lxxi.
[55] lxxii-lxxxv.
[56] lxxvi.
[57] lxxvii.
[58] lxxviii.
[59] lxxix.
[60] lxxx.
[61] lxxxii-lxxxv.
[62] lxxxvi-lxxxviii.
[63] lxxxviii. 359. _verborum memoria, quæ minus est nobis necessaria ...
rerum memoria propria est oratoris._
[64] xv-xxxvi.
[65] xxxviii-xlii.
[66] xliii-liv.
[67] lvi-lxi.
[68] x. 37.
[69] 39.
[70] xii. 44.
[71] _sapientiam._ xv. 56.
[72] 57.
[73] xvi. 61.
[74] xvii-xxiii.
[75] xxiv-xxvii.
[76] xxviii-xxxv.
[77] xiv. 53.
[78] xxxii. 126.
[79] Sandys notes that the avowed object is “criticism, and not direct
instruction.” This, however, is part of Cicero’s literary method and of
his habit of scorning the manuals. As to his main topic, _elocutio_, he
writes _doctrina_ as definite as that of _De oratore_ on the other parts;
and though his headings are not all conventional, his outline and order
are thoroughly systematic.
[80] 37, seq.
[81] 40, _verba iunxisse_; cf. 77, _vinculis numerorum_; 208.
[82] 44, seq.
[83] 50, seq.
[84] 61-236.
[85] 20-23.
[86] See the articles by Hendrickson cited in the first foot-note to this
chapter.
[87] 69.
[88] 100.
[89] One could wish that Cicero had been content with his twofold
division in _Brutus_, xxiii. 89: _cum duæ summæ sint in oratore laudes,
una subtiliter disputandi ad docendum, altera graviter agendi ad animos
audientium permovendos_.
[90] The digest of the whole _Orator_ at pages lxxiv-lxxvi of the edition
of Sandys need be neither repeated nor revised. Assuming this, I have
added here certain significant rhetorical details, translation of some
important passages, and the connection of the topics.
[91] See above.
[92] _Mensionem_, 177. The word in a similar passage at 67 is _mensura_.
[93] Because, says Sandys, their style is unperiodic, and there can
hardly be rhythm without periods. He cites the famous passage from
Aristotle discussed above at page 27, and notes Quintilian’s demur as to
Herodotus. This is a fair inference from Cicero’s context; and, indeed,
the ancients generally considered prose rhythm as oratorical rhythm. The
narrative rhythms of imaginative prose were naturally not much discussed
separately in a time when prose fiction was undeveloped. The nearest
approach to these in oratory was in panegyric. But Dionysius with more
discernment praises the _compositio_ of Herodotus. (See below, Chapter v.)
[94] The translation is closer to that of Colin than to that of Sandys.
The point—and if it is obvious, it is often forgotten—seems to be that
variety in prose depends on rhythm.
[95] _concinnitas_ (201). Cicero does not say explicitly what I have
summarized in the last sentence above; but I think he implies it. He does
not hint what Stevenson brings out in _Some Technical Elements of Style
in Literature_, that subconscious rhythmical predilection may be a cause,
or a determining factor, in adaptation.
[96] Dionysius of Halicarnassus exhibits this specifically with telling
effect in the first part of _De compositione verborum_. See below,
Chapter v.
[97] For scientific analysis, with a succinct review of previous
investigations, see W. M. Patterson, _The Rhythm of Prose_, New York,
Columbia University Press, 1916. For the _clausula_ in particular see
the summary of Zielinski in Sandys, _Companion to Latin Studies_, 655;
Quintilian below, page 79; and M. W. Croll, _The cadence of English
oratorical prose_. Studies in Philology, 16:1, University of North
Carolina, January, 1919.
[98] That the classical rhetoric has so little to say of narrative
rhythms is due not so much to the limited scope of ancient narrative as
to the fact that these rhythms are considered properly in poetic. See
page 30.
CHAPTER IV
THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC
The pedagogy of rhetoric, more constant and more pervasive than that of
most subjects still taught, demands historical interpretation, and thus
extensive and consecutive survey.[1] Summary of its history has conveyed
little of its vitality; but analysis of two cardinal documents will show,
first, what the constant tradition of teaching was typically throughout
the great classical centuries, and secondly what the teaching of rhetoric
was destined to become, with almost equal constancy and pervasiveness,
during the centuries of decadence. For each of these traditions there is
fortunately, besides much other testimony, a typical text. Quintilian,
writing long after rhetoric had ceased to function as an instrument of
assembly government, nevertheless comprehends its best older tradition
and the whole scope of its classical development in a great work of
pedagogy, _De institutione oratoria_ (about 95 A.D.). Seneca the Elder,
who died about the time of Quintilian’s birth, had already recorded from
memory and notes in his _Controversiæ_ that particular application of the
ancient schooling which in the generation before Quintilian was already
infecting the old rhetoric, and through which the teaching of both Greek
and Roman schools was to be dwarfed and perverted. Quintilian, though
writing later than Seneca, preserves ancient rhetoric as a ripe whole;
Seneca, though earlier, isolates the germ of its decay.
I. QUINTILIAN ON THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC (_DE INSTITUTIONE ORATORIA_)[2]
A. TABULAR VIEW[3]
1. preliminary studies (προγυμνάσματα, I-II. x)
a. earliest lessons in speech I. i-iii
b. studies with _grammaticus_ (_ante officium rhetoris_)
(1) in diction as usage iv-vii
(2) ” ” ” style viii
(a) lectures on poetry (_prælectio_), with reading aloud
(_lectio_)
(3) in composition ix
(a) retelling of fables
(b) paraphrase of poetry
(c) formal amplification of maxims (_chria_, χρεία)
(4) in contributory subjects (music, geometry, astronomy) x
(5) in enunciation (lessons from an actor) xi
c. studies with _rhetor_ (_prima apud rhetorem elementa_)
(1) learning from his example II. i-iii
(2) exercises in composition iv
(a) rehearsal of events
(x) summary of the plot of a tragedy or comedy
(_fabula_, _argumentum_)
(y) summary of historical events (_historia_)
(b) elementary analysis of statements of fact
(x) analysis of legends
(y) analysis of history
(c) elementary panegyric (_laudatio_) and parallel
(_comparatio_)
(d) amplification of typical propositions (_loci communes_,
_theses_)
(3) _rhetor’s_ analysis of models (_prælectio_) v
(4) speeches from assigned outline (_præformata materia_) vi, vii
[(5) advice to teachers on correction and promotion] viii, ix
(6) speeches on hypothetical cases (_declamatio_) x
(a) deliberative (_suasoriæ_)
(b) forensic (_controversiæ_)
2. definition of rhetoric (II. xi-III. v)
a. function and scope xi-xxi
b. origin and earlier development III. i, ii
c. the five parts of rhetoric iii
(1) investigation (_inventio_, εὕρεσις, discussed III.
vi-VI. v)
(2) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις, discussed in VII)
(3) style (_elocutio_, λέξις, discussed in VIII, IX)
(4) memory (_memoria_, μνήμη, discussed in XI. ii)
(5) delivery (_pronuntiatio_, _actio_, ὑπόκρισις, discussed
in XI. iii)
d. the three fields of oratory iv
(1) occasional, panegyric (_demonstrativum_, ἐπιδεικτικόν;
see chapter vii)
(2) deliberative (_deliberativum_, συμβουλευτικόν; see chapter
viii)
(3) forensic (_iudiciale_, δικανικόν; see chapters ix-xi)
e. the three aims of oratory v
(1) to inform (_docere_)
(2) to win sympathy (_conciliare_, _delectare_)
(3) to move (_movere_)
3. investigation and handling of material (_inventio_, εὕρεσις,
III. vi-VI. v; _dispositio_, τάξις, VII)
a. the nature of the case (_status_, στάσις)
(1) in law (_status legalis_)
(2) in reason (_status rationalis_) as having for its main
issue
(a) fact (_an sit_, _status coniecturalis_, _coniectura_,
στοχασμός)
(b) definition (_quid sit_, _status definitivus_, _finis_,
ὅρος)
(c) morals or policy (_quale sit_, _status generalis_,
_qualitas_, ποιότης)
b. the parts of pleading (IV. i-VII)
(1) components
(a) exordium (προοίμιον) IV. i
(b) statement of facts (_narratio_, διήγησις) ii
(c) excursus, proposition, division iii-v
(d) proof (_confirmatio_, ἀπόδειξις; as including appeal,
πίστις)
(x) evidence V. i-vii
(y) argument viii-xi
(z) order xii
(e) refutation (_refutatio_, λύσις) xiii
(x) destructive enthymeme
(f) peroration (_peroratio_, ἐπίλογος) xiv
(2) pervasive elements VI. i
(a) appeal
(x) imaginative ii
(y) humorous iii
(b) debate (_altercatio_) iv
(c) judgment (_iudicium_, _consilium_) v
(3) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις) VII
4. style (_elocutio_, λέξις, VIII, IX)
a. choice of words (_electio_, ἐκλογή, including figures)
VIII. i-IX. iii
b. sentence-movement (_compositio_, σύνθεσις) IX. iv
5. training for facility (_firma facilitas_, X, XI)
a. reading to foster speaking X. i
b. imitation ii
c. writing for practise iii
d. revision iv
e. translation and other exercises v
f. preparing the speech vi
g. speaking the speech vii
(1) adaptation XI. i
(2) memory ii
(3) delivery iii
6. the orator himself
a. moral force and philosophy XII. i, ii
b. knowledge of law and history iii, iv
c. physique v, vi
d. dealings with clients vii-ix
e. styles of oratory x
f. when to leave the platform xi
B. THE TERMS
Quintilian’s survey is in the traditional terms of classical rhetoric.
These demand the more attention because translation has often missed the
specific meanings attached to recognized technical terms. “Institutes of
Oratory,” never precisely rendering his title, is now almost meaningless.
_Institutio Oratoria_ means The Teaching of Rhetoric and announces not so
much a manual for students as a survey for teachers. Of the pedagogical
terms, _grammatica_ and _grammaticus_ may still be rendered “grammar” and
“grammarian” only if they are understood to have wider scope. _Prælectio_
(I. viii) describes the habitual introductory exposition of a passage
of poetry by _grammaticus_, or less commonly of a passage of oratory by
_rhetor_ (II. v). _Materia_, meaning generally “material,” means often
technically (II. vi. vii) a prescribed outline, as French _matière_
still does in pedagogical use. _Declamatio_ (II. x) was quite different
from “declamation.” It was speaking, usually extempore, on an assigned
hypothetical case, and grew, as will appear below, from an exercise for
boys to an exhibition of virtuosity by men.
Of the five traditional parts of rhetoric (III. iii), the first,
_inventio_, does not mean “invention”; it means, in Aristotelian
language, the discovery of all the extrinsic means of persuasion, or more
simply, survey of the material and forecast. _Dispositio_ (_collocatio_)
refers not to the arrangement of details, but to the plan of the whole.
_Elocutio_ means “elocution” in the sense borne by that word before
the nineteenth century. It is sufficiently rendered by “style” and is
always conceived in two aspects: (1) _electio_, the choice of words,
including “figures of speech”; and (2) _compositio_, the arrangement
of words in clauses and sentences, including rhythm and harmony—in a
word, sentence-movement. _Compositio_ does not mean, though it is often
translated, “composition” in the wide sense now current. For the latter
the term is _dispositio_. _Memoria_ ranges far beyond memorizing. It
embraces the speaker’s whole command of his material in the order of his
constructive plan and in relation to rebuttal, and was most stressed for
speeches unwritten. _Pronuntiatio_ and _actio_ cover the whole field of
delivery, including all that is now often called “elocution,” from the
placing of the voice to the handling of the body.
In detail, _status_ (III. vi), meaning generally and simply “status,”
refers technically to a classifying system for determining “the nature of
the case” (see 3. a, in the tabular view above). Of its three divisions,
_coniectura_, having nothing to do with “conjecture,” denotes a main
issue of fact; _finis_, a main issue of definition; _qualitas_, a more
general issue of morals or policy. _Narratio_ (IV. ii) means never
“narration” in the sense assigned by recent text-books, always either
“statement of the facts” or, more generally, “exposition.” These and
other technical terms have been guarded, in the tabular view above and in
the interpretations below, by adding the Latin originals.
C. TYPICAL DOCTRINE
(1) _Elementary Exercises_
The tradition of _grammatica_ as having the twofold function of forming
right speech and of expounding poetry[4] continued for centuries.[5]
Traditional also are the first exercises in composition.[6] A chapter (x)
on the concurrence of other studies toward a rounded education,[7] and
one on elocution (xi), close a preliminary pedagogy so suggestive as to
be still studied to-day.
(2) _Declamatio_
The counsels to _rhetor_ (II) imply a warm atmosphere of promotion and a
general habit of collaboration.
“The teacher himself should speak something—nay, many things
a day—for auditory memory. Though reading aloud may supply a
plenty of examples to imitate, nevertheless the living voice
gives ampler nourishment, especially the voice of the teacher,
whom the pupils, if they be rightly taught, at once love and
respect.... Thus while mastery comes through writing, critical
faculty will come through hearing.” II. ii.
The teacher should frankly and fully show how. His criticism should
beware of setting up inhibitions. To be promotive, he should find
something to praise, and, besides explaining why he would have this out
or that changed, should illuminate by interposing something of his own.
Sometimes it will be helpful to give whole treatments which the boy may
imitate without losing faith in his own (II. iv). In short, the teacher’s
_declamatio_ should be a model for his students (II. v).
“In this teachers have shown a divergence of method. Some of
them would develop orally the outlines that they gave their
pupils to speak from, not content to guide by the [assigned]
division. Not only would they amplify argumentatively, but also
emotionally. Others, giving only a sketch, would after the
pupils’ speeches treat what each one had scanted. Some topics,
indeed, they would elaborate with no less care than when they
themselves were the orators. Either method is useful; neither,
I think, should be separated from the other; but, if there must
be a choice between the two, it will more avail to have shown
the right way in advance than to recall from their error those
who have already fallen.” II. vi. 1-2.
The same promotive guidance appears in the assigning of outlines
(_materiæ_), less and less ample as the pupils advance, for written
composition (II. vi). This writing was generally for practise, not for
casting a particular speech in form to be memorized. Sometimes, says
Quintilian, the boys may recite what they have written out; but generally
learning by heart is better spent on the orators and historians than on
their own work (vii).
The _declamatio_ recommended by Quintilian is speaking from outline on
hypothetical cases. The more elementary assignments, for deliberative
speeches, were called _suasoriæ_; the more advanced, for forensic
speeches, _controversiæ_. Both he treats only as school exercises. Within
these limits he recommends _declamatio_ as an important pedagogical
discovery.
“So soon as [the youth] is well taught and sufficiently
exercised in these first tasks, themselves not small, but as
it were members and parts of greater ones, let the time demand
the essaying of deliberative speaking and forensic on assigned
outlines. Before I go into the method of these, I must tell
briefly what _declamatio_ has as its idea, which is at once
the most recent discovery and far the most useful. For it at
once embraces almost all the exercises just discussed and
offers the nearest likeness to actuality. Therefore it has
become so popular as to be in the opinion of many sufficient
of itself to develop eloquence. Nor can there be found any
mastery in consecutive discourse which is not related to
this exercise in speaking. True, the actual practise has so
declined by the fault of teachers that among the chief causes
corrupting eloquence have been the license and ignorance of
_declamatores_; but we may use well what is essentially good.
“Let the outlines of the fictitious cases assigned be therefore
as like as possible to actuality; and let the _declamatio_,
so far as possible, imitate those pleas for which it was
invented to prepare. Wizards, pestilence, oracles, stepmothers
more cruel than those of tragedy, and other topics even more
imaginary, we seek in vain among real law cases. What, then?
Are we never to permit a young man to elaborate themes outside
of statistics, even poetical ones, such indeed as I myself have
mentioned, that he may have room, take some pleasure in the
assignment, and enter as it were into the body [of the party he
defends]? That used to be all very well; but at least let such
[exercises] be grand and swelling without being silly and to
critical eyes ridiculous.” II. x. 1-6.
Evidently the _declamatio_ that Quintilian recommends is not the
_declamatio_ that he heard about him. He wishes to recall to its original
purpose what was already out of hand. Originally, he implies, it defined
that general practise in debating which must have been as common in the
ancient teaching as in modern universities. But already, as he also
admits by implication, it had become quite different. Already it was
established both as a special exercise and as a special form of public
speaking. With the narrowing of the field of public discussion, the large
old rhetoric surveyed by Quintilian had been narrowed more and more
toward an artificial combination of forensic ingenuity with dramatic
imagination. Instead of training youth to lead in public policy and to
secure justice for individuals, _declamatio_ had become an end in itself,
the rhetor’s own kind of oratory. As an exhibition of skill it was his
easiest means of winning pupils, and of holding them by letting them
exhibit themselves. The inherent vice of artificiality, which Quintilian
admits by implication, he nevertheless assigns entirely to perverted
educational practise. He would recall _declamatio_ from invention to
actuality, and from display to exercise. That his warning was already too
late is evident from Seneca (see section II of this chapter). Meantime
one of the chief opportunities for perversion will be found in the
_prosopopœiæ_ described next.
The pervasive classical inculcation of appropriateness (see also XI. i)
was carried into _declamatio_ through specific exercises known generally
as _prosopopœiæ_ (προσωποποιίαι). Their idea was an imaginative entering
into the character, the emotional as well as the intellectual habit,
of the person for whom one was speaking (_fictæ alienarum personarum
orationes_, VI. i. 25). In more elementary form, sometimes called
_ethopœiæ_ (ἠθοποιίαι) they bade the student say what Priam must have
said to Achilles, or Sulla on renouncing the dictatorship, or some other
character of history or fiction on a critical occasion; and they began
even with the boy’s amplification of fables and myths.[8] As applied to
_declamatio_ (_suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_) they are thus described by
Quintilian:
“Therefore _prosopopœiæ_ seem to me far the most difficult,
since they add to the other tasks of deliberative _declamatio_
(_suasoria_) the difficulty of characterization (_persona_).
For the same arguments must be urged in one way by Cæsar, in
another by Cicero, in another by Cato. But the practise is most
useful, either as a twofold task or as of the greatest interest
to poets also or to future historians. To orators it is even
necessary. For the many orations composed by Greeks or Latins
to be delivered by others had to adapt what was to be said
to the speaker’s habit of life. Did Cicero think in the same
way, or assume the same character, when he wrote for Pompey as
when he wrote for Ampius and others? Did he not, discerning
the fortune, the rank, the deeds of each of them, express the
very image of every one to whom he was giving voice, so that
they seemed to speak beyond themselves, indeed, but still as
themselves? Nor is a speech less faulty for deviating from
the person than from the case to which it should be adapted.
Admirably, therefore, Lysias, in what he wrote for the
untrained, is seen to have been faithful to their actual style.
“But _declamatores_[9] especially have to consider what
befits each character; for the forensics (_controversiæ_)
that they speak as advocates do are very few. Usually they
become sons or fathers, rich, old, harsh, mild, avaricious,
even superstitious, timid, or mocking, so that even comedy
actors hardly conceive more ways of life on the stage than
they on the platform. All these [exercises] may be regarded
as _prosopopœiæ_. I have brought them under the head of
_suasoriæ_ because the only difference is in [the assumption
of] character, although the exercise is sometimes extended also
to _controversiæ_.”[10] III. viii. 49-52.
(3) _Status_
Quintilian’s chapter (III, vi) on _status_ is one of his most important,
both as specific doctrine and as typical of ancient method. He has
simplified a pedagogical device which, while it had been hampered by too
analytical subdivision, had long vindicated itself as one of the most
effective applications of the ancient theory of systematic guidance.
_Status_, meaning the essential character of the case as it appeared to
preliminary survey of all the material and all the bearings, had come
to denote a uniform system for determining that essential character
by leading questions. To gauge the sufficiency of his preparation and
the line of his argument, to bring to bear not only his particular
investigation, but the whole fund of his experience, the student was to
ask himself what the case meant to him as a whole. He must interpret it
as resting mainly on one of three issues: (1) of fact (_an sit_); (2) of
definition (_quid sit_); or (3) of general considerations, as of right or
expediency (_an recte sit_). The first was called _status coniecturalis_,
or _coniectura_; the second, _status definitivus_, or _finis_; the third,
_status generalis_, or _qualitas_.[11] Even if two of these entered, or
all three, one must always be the focus.
The first _status_ (_coniecturalis_, _an sit_) is most
frequently determining in criminal cases at law; but it may be
determining in any debate involving history, for instance on
the question of the recognition of Anglican orders by the Roman
or the Eastern Church, or on the question of the historical
justification of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of
the United States. Whether it is to be determining must usually
be forecast by experiment; for the ancient system presupposes
that all three _status_ will be tried in preparation
before one is chosen. Actually many arguments against the
validity of Anglican orders have interpreted the _status_
as _coniecturalis_; i.e., they rely mainly on establishing
certain facts of the English Reformation. Others have chosen
_status definitivus_. Though neither excludes the other, one,
according to the ancient system and by the very conditions of
public address, will always be for that particular speech _the
status_. There can be no cogency without unity.
Erskine’s defense of Lord George Gordon in a trial for treason
was based on the second _status_ (_definitivus_, _quid sit_). The
facts alleged he admitted. That Gordon was concerned in a riot
he did not challenge. _Status coniecturalis_ he simply waived.
He organized his case to show that what Gordon admittedly did
could not be construed as coming within the term treason.
In the defence of Orestes, a familiar ancient assignment, the
_status_ could not, except by mere ingenious perversion, be
_coniecturalis_. The facts of his killing of Clytemnestra and
of her previous killing of Agamemnon had to be admitted. The
_status_ might, indeed, be _definitivus_ for some one who cared
to split hairs about what we now call murder or homicide; but
naturally it was the third (_generalis_, _an recte sit_). Orestes
was justified on the ground of the sacred duty to avenge the
murder of his father. _The_ issue was whether even a criminal
mother should be executed by her own son.
College debaters defending the maintenance of the Monroe
Doctrine settled on the third _status_. The forcing of the
second by their opponents they found themselves prepared to
rebut. The issues of democracy, protection, peace seemed to
them vital as offering valid arguments for and against, i.e.,
as being real clashes of actual opinion; and all these issues
fell under _status generalis_. _Status coniecturalis_ could
never be made determining. _Status definitivus_ would lead to
quibbling costly for opponents who should raise it. _Status
generalis_ held _the_ issue.
This sort of forecast, surveying the whole trend, the ancients regarded
as so vital that they reduced it to a system. The classified _status_ is
typical of their pedagogy of rhetoric. Their teaching of _inventio_ did
not stop with investigation; it promoted reflection directly and guided
it so systematically that no essential aspect could be ignored. Such
questioning for focus and line in our day of statistical accumulation is
not less, but more valuable.
(4) _The Parts of a Speech_
The traditional parts of an oration Quintilian discusses (IV-VI) under
their traditional subdivisions. The exordium (IV. i), for instance,
may be drawn from the case, from the persons, from the occasion, or
from rebuttal of one’s opponent; and its threefold aim is to remove
prejudice, to win attention, and to open the way for understanding.[12]
But Quintilian often constructively recombines the traditional items,
and often interprets them from teaching experience. The statement of
facts (_narratio_, IV. ii) is not limited to pure exposition; even
rehearsal may contribute to persuasion. Its cardinal virtue of clearness
he reasserts in rebuke of those students whom an itch to be always
impressive makes impatient of the obligation.
“When they have experienced the whole range, they will find
nothing in eloquence more difficult than to say what every
hearer thinks he would have said himself, because it seems to
him not good, but true.” IV. ii. 38.
That the statement of facts should be brief does not permit its being
either abrupt or meager. That it should sound true implies that it should
be in character, i.e., that it should be dramatically consistent and
convincing, and also that it should lead into the argument. Similarly
practical are the warnings against making the division (IV. v) too minute
and against letting it hamper emotional appeal or interrupt progressive
coherence. To his conspectus of the ancient classification of proof (V)
Quintilian adds (xiii) the following shrewd maxims for rebuttal:
Defense demands more skill than attack.
The system of _status_ has one of its main uses in refutation.
Rebuttal often consists largely in breaking down analogies.
Never rebut what your opponent did not say.
Neither be too anxious nor fight over every item.
Peroration should be more than recapitulation; it should take
occasion from the adversary. VI. i.
(5) _Plan_
Quintilian’s discussion of _dispositio_ (VII) is like that of other
ancient treatises in confining itself to plan in general. Without
specific doctrine for the promotion of cogency as progressive coherence,
it carries forward the system of _status_ as determining the main line
of argument. That the ancients appreciated and practised what is now
taught in American schools and colleges as the lore of paragraphs is
evident in their best composition, notably in the orations of Cicero. The
decline from such progressive coherence among the later _declamatores_
is one of the marks of decadence (see section II, below). But how the
lore was taught we are left to infer. The elementary working out of what
is now unfortunately called a detached paragraph, i.e., of a single
short composition, is prescribed in the _chria_ (I. ix) much as in modern
manuals; but that does not touch the art of composing a sustained speech
_by_ paragraphs. In the cogency of mounting by stages we miss the typical
systematic instruction. Some of this must have been inculcated through
assigned outline (_materia_, page 67 above), some of it by the rhetor’s
oral teaching. Quintilian’s instruction as to the close of the exordium
is a clear hint of what is now taught as paragraph emphasis.
“The proem should put last that to which the beginning of what
follows can most conveniently be linked.” IV. i. 76.
There are, indeed, other hints; but that so important an aspect of
composition should not be a distinct topic even in Quintilian’s
constructive pedagogy leaves the ancient lore of _dispositio_ too
analytical to be sufficient for modern teachers.
(6) _Style Analyzed_
Quintilian’s long discussion of style (_elocutio_, VIII-XI) opens
with one of his best sayings, “let care in words be solicitude for
things”;[13] and the whole introduction is an admirable answer to the
old quibble about form and substance. If he thereupon proceeds for two
books by the usual categories, he at least avoids the subdivision that
had become excessive, and provides a convenient guide to the voluminous
classical lore of _elocutio_.[14] Typical is his introduction, under
sentence-movement (_compositio_, IX. iv), to the doctrine of sentence
close (_clausula_).
[“Though rhythm must be pervasive] it is more demanded in
closing cadences (_in clausulis_) and more obvious; first,
because every thought has its own conclusion and demands a
natural pause to separate it from the beginning of the one that
follows; and furthermore, because the ear, having followed an
oral sequence, having been guided by the current of flowing
prose, is more critical when that movement stops and gives time
to consider. Neither hard, therefore, nor abrupt should be the
place where the attention takes breath and is renewed. Here is
the dwelling-place of prose; here is the point to which the
audience looks forward; here speaks the orator’s whole merit.”
IX. iv. 61-62. (The text of the last sentence is dubious;
but the general intention of exalting the importance of the
_clausula_ is clear.)
(7) _Style Promoted_
Having followed the usual analysis of style, Quintilian proceeds (X)
to constructive promotion, to the ways of gaining secure control
(_firma facilitas_; see the tabular view, page 66). “We who contemplate
oratorical power, not mountebank volubility, have to inculcate both
range and discrimination” (_copia cum iudicio_, X. i. 8). So the vivid
impressions that come through the ear should be supplemented by critical
reading. The reading of poetry promotes concrete realization, heightening
of style, emotional appeal, and aptness in characterization.[15] From
imitation Quintilian passes (X. iii) to writing for practise in style.
Since this, like deep plowing, is for a better yield, he goes into
specific counsels.
Repeat what you have just written, both for connection and
to warm up afresh. Fluency comes from habit, not from haste.
You will not learn to write well by writing rapidly; you will
learn to write rapidly by writing well. Lolling and looking at
the ceiling will not answer; you must follow a plan (_ratio_).
Rapid extempore draft (_silva_) has this disadvantage, that
subsequent revision, though it may amend words and rhythm, is
likely to leave the superficiality (_levitas_) that has arisen
from hasty crowding. Better exercise prevision, and so conduct
your work (_opus ducere_) from the beginning that revision
shall be polishing, not entirely making over.
Dictation, by either urging or delaying the natural pace of
composition, leads to crude, random, or inept expression. It is
neither writing nor speaking; for it has neither the accuracy
of the one nor the impetus of the other. Incidentally it
precludes those motor activities which help composing when one
is alone.[16]
Though solitude is best—night, the closed door, the single
light—since you cannot always have it, learn abstraction. X.
iii. 3-28, paraphrased.
In transition Quintilian observes that meditation (_cogitatio_, X. vi)
for speaking without writing can go so far as to fix not only the order
of points, which is enough, but even the connection of words. The value
to the speaker of practise in writing is to make channels (_formæ_)
for such meditation. Since meditation must always leave a margin for
improvisation, the plan must be such as may be easily left and resumed.
In other words, to give the speaker secure control, the plan must be
progressive. Iterating this in the next chapter,[17] Quintilian adds that
the other main means to extempore power is concrete realization.[18]
Writing gives speaking precision; speaking gives writing ease (X.
vii. 29). From this summary of their general relations in education,
Quintilian passes to the use of writing in the preparation of a
particular speech.
“Busy pleaders commonly write the most essential parts and
the beginnings [i.e., of paragraphs, so as to be readier to
pick up the constructive pattern after weaving in rebuttal
impromptu]. The rest of their prepared matter they grasp by
meditation: and what arises suddenly they meet extempore.” X.
vii. 30.
Brief notes to be held in the hand are admissible, but not what
is advised by Lænas, to write out the whole speech and then sum
it up in outline.[19] X. vii. 32, paraphrased.
The secure control that Quintilian seeks to promote, that _firma
facilitas_ which is the subject of the whole tenth book, is evidently
quite different from mere fluency. With the gift of gab in boys he has
long ago expressed his impatience. “Impromptu garrulity, without the
meditation that the master intends, almost without hesitation in rising
to speak, is really the brag of a mountebank” (II. iv. 15). He not only
presupposes, he specifically inculcates, most careful preparation.
(8) _Memory_
In this preparation the importance that he gives to writing, not only
for general practise, but for the composition of a particular speech,
may seem greater than is warranted by experience. Even so he is far from
supporting those who represent classical oratory as having been generally
written and memorized.[20] That the urgencies of public address could be
met by that method is _a priori_ a difficult assumption; and even the
spread of the oratory of display in his time, and his own professorial
fondness for finish of style, did not lead Quintilian to urge memorizing
generally and unreservedly. Rather what he offers under _memoria_ (XI.
ii) has the usual wide ancient scope. It should be read in its connection
with what he has already taught (X. vi. vii, page 80 above) about
_cogitatio_.
“All training rests upon memory.... It is the power that
makes available funds of examples, laws, decisions, opinions,
precedents, funds which the orator ought to have in abundance
and at command. Rightly is it called the treasury of eloquence.
“Those who plead much ought not only to retain surely, but to
discern [bearings] quickly, not only to grasp what has been
written by reading it over and over, but to follow the sequence
of points and words in what has been [merely] thought out,[21]
to remember the points made on the other side, and, instead
of rebutting them seriatim, to bring them in where they will
be opportune. Nay, extempore speaking seems to me to rest
upon no less vigor of mind.[22] For while we are saying one
thing, we have to be considering what we are going to say. So
while thought (_cogitatio_) is always questing beyond what
is [actually on the carpet], whatever it finds meantime it
deposits, so to speak, in the memory; and the memory, as it
were a third hand, transmits what it has received from forecast
(_inventione_) to expression (_elocutioni_).” XI. ii. 1-3.
Devices and exercises for training and applying such a faculty (XI.
ii. 8-35) are summed up (36) under the two principles of _divisio_ and
_compositio_, definiteness of outline and definiteness of sentence
movement. The former is thus iterated for the third time (see X. vi. vii)
as essential. The importance of the latter lies in the fact that the mind
more readily retains settled rhythms (39). As verse is easier to memorize
than prose, so periodic rhythms than unperiodic.[23] Thus Quintilian
faces finally the question of learning by heart. That it was a question,
even for Quintilian, shows that classical practise was divided, as modern
practise is, by differences both in talent and in the field of habitual
exercise.
“From this diversity of talents arises the question whether
the preparation of a speech should go so far as learning by
heart (_ad verbum sit ediscendum dicturis_), or only far
enough to grasp the force of each point and the order (_an
vim modo rerum atque ordinem complecti satis sit_). As to
this doubtless no rule can be proclaimed as universal. With a
memory strong enough, and with time enough, I should like to
hold every syllable. Otherwise it is idle to write [the speech
out. Such power] is to be secured especially in boyhood, and
memory to be trained to that habit, lest we learn to excuse
ourselves. Therefore to be prompted or to refer to notes is a
fault, because it encourages slackness, and there is no secure
hold without some anxiety not to lose. By prompting or the use
of notes the impetus of delivery is interrupted, the speech
halting and abrupt; and he who speaks as if he were reciting
forfeits the whole charm even of what he has written well by
betraying that it has been written [i.e., memorizing, to be
effective, must be perfect].
“Memory can even give such an impression of impromptu talent
that we seem not to have brought the speech from home, but to
have laid hold of it on the spot; and that is a great advantage
both to the orator and to his case....
“But if memory is less tractable, or if time does not suffice,
tying oneself to words will be useless, since the forgetting
of a single one may lead to awkward hesitation, or even to
silence. It is far safer, having firmly grasped the substance,
to give oneself freedom of expression.” XI. ii. 44-48.
D. SCOPE AND PLAN
The comprehensive program announced by Quintilian in his proem is carried
through. No other ancient treatise is so exhaustive.[24] Including
all the traditional topics, he proceeds upon the classical theory of
systematic guidance, but makes the important contribution of pedagogical
order. For his plan is progressive. Though sometimes anxiously analytical
in subdivision, he is constructive in making his main line not the survey
of the subject, but the development of the student. The traditional five
parts of rhetoric stand out clearly; but they cover only about half
of the space, and they do not determine the plan. Rather Quintilian
proceeds from less to more, from boyhood through adolescence to manhood.
His idea is to widen and deepen the practise of public speaking as it
opens more and more to the growing speaker. Aristotle’s philosophy
of rhetoric begins with the speaker as theoretically the efficient
cause; Quintilian’s pedagogy ends with the speaker as practically the
efficient result. So, before entering upon definitions, he devotes two
books to practical exercises, beginning not with the subject, but with
the boy.[25] So, after he has defined the field and scope, he expounds
_inventio_ as in practise it expands, and links it with _dispositio_. So
the two books in which _elocutio_ is traditionally analyzed are followed
by the two that show practically how it may be achieved; and these two
are the culmination, the final application of all the preceding doctrine.
His _Institutio_ is faithfully what its title proposes, a pedagogy of
rhetoric.
That it keeps its place in the history not only of rhetoric, but of
education is due, of course, to Quintilian’s cogency; it is due also to
the largeness of the subject. Rhetoric, for the fortunate few who alone
could aspire to leadership, comprised most of the higher systematic
education. The scope so brilliantly vindicated by Cicero[26] is taken
by Quintilian as a matter of course. Thus his work is in more than one
aspect a general pedagogy. Thus also rhetoric itself, to fulfil his
demands and follow his methods, must keep his conception of bringing to
bear the whole man. The narrowing of rhetoric in practise arose from the
narrowing of public life and meant the narrowing of education.
II. DECLAMATIO IN SENECA,[27] TACITUS, AND PLINY
A. DECLAMATIO
The _declamatio_ exhibited by Seneca, though already established, was
fairly new at Rome.[28] Cicero, writing about the time of Seneca’s birth,
still uses _declamare_, _declamatio_, and _controversia_[29] in their
older general senses. His approval of practise speaking on hypothetical
cases was apparently of something like our modern “moot courts.”
_Controversiæ_ of the Senecan sort he knew only in their incipiency.[30]
Tacitus, writing his _Dialogus de oratoribus_ about 81 A.D., a few years
before Quintilian’s _Institutio_, shows clearly that the specialized
_controversiæ_, from being common, had become pervasive almost to the
extent of monopoly. From the older, Ciceronian position of comprehensive
training his Messalla derides _declamatio_ and all its works.
“As to this [education of an orator] the great men of the past
had made up their minds. To bring it about they discerned the
need not of _declamatio_ in the schools of the rhetors, nor
of exercising tongue and voice in imaginary _controversiæ_
without specific relation to actuality, but of filling the mind
by the technic (_artibus_) of discussing (_disputatur_, i.e.,
discussing after the manner of the philosophers) good and
evil, honor and dishonor, justice and injustice; for this is
the orator’s subject matter (_subiecta ad dicendum materia_).”
Tacit. _Dial._ 31, 1.
[The dialogue, which of course gives more than one point of
view, but none the less clearly shows the position of Tacitus,
proceeds from such general studies to the old custom of
apprenticing oneself to an experienced orator (31-34), and then
contrasts the modern habit as follows.]
“But now our striplings are drawn off into the schools of
those who are called rhetors. How little, just before Cicero’s
time, these teachers pleased our ancestors is evident from the
fact that the censors Crassus and Domitius bade them close,
as Cicero puts it, their ‘schools of impudence.’ Well, as I
started to say, the boys are drawn off into schools in which
it would be hard to say whether the place itself, or their
fellow students, or the sort of exercise, is likely to do their
talents more harm. The place has no respect, since every one
is equally unskilled; the fellow students give no impetus to
progress, since boys among boys and youths among youths speak
and are heard with equal carelessness; but the exercises are
in great part positively thwarting. For two sorts of themes
are handled with the rhetors: _suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_.
Of these the _suasoriæ_, as being easier and demanding
less foresight (_prudentia_), are left to the boys; the
_controversiæ_ are assigned to those of more power. My word!
what assignments! and how incredibly composed! It follows,
moreover, that _declamatio_ may be applied to an assignment far
removed from actuality. So it comes to pass that they pursue
with great words rewards for tyrannicides, or the choice to be
made by ravished maidens, or incests of matrons, or whatever is
argued as often in school as seldom in the forum. When they
come before real judges—” ... Tacit. _Dial._ 35, 1-7.
What Quintilian deplores, then, in the practise of _declamatio_ Tacitus
shows to have been none the less common. All the more significant is
the slight and as it were unwilling consideration that Quintilian gives
to these fashionable aspects. Even while he insists on the value of
_declamatio_ for general training, he deprecates that wide departure
from actual pleading in themes, conception, and style which Seneca
records as a matter of course and Tacitus derides as habitual. The use
of _declamatio_ by mature speakers not for exercise, but for exhibition,
he passes over incidentally in a few sentences as a perversion. Its
undoubted prevalence he admits sadly as something that a serious teacher
should ignore.[31] Both the scorn of the historian and the reservations
of the teacher spring from the older, larger tradition of rhetoric. To
this both Tacitus and Quintilian discerned in _declamatio_ a menace.
How far their fears were justified will appear in later narrowing and
perversion. Meantime they have supplied for interpreting the collection
of Seneca not only the ancient standard, but also the necessary
information.
B. CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF SENECA’S COLLECTION
Seneca’s _Controversiæ_[32] is a collection of the _declamationes_
made by celebrated rhetors. Though Seneca may well have used published
material, his extensive reports, as it were verbatim,[33] at once attest
the grasp of the ancient _memoria_ and suggest, amid considerable
variety, a fund of stock cases. To exhibit the rhetors’ skill by
competition, his plan is to show side by side different treatments
of the same theme. He interpolates specific, and, in the prefaces to
the several books, general criticism. Though he does not offer his
collection of models explicitly as a comprehensive guide, his pervasive
implication is that _declamatio_ exhibits the cardinal virtues. Rhetoric
might with more safety tend to monopolize education so long as it had
its old comprehensiveness; but as it was narrowed, it tended to put
the cart before the horse. “Give your mind to eloquence,” says Seneca;
“from this you can range easily into all arts.”[34] The idea is almost
opposite educationally to Cicero’s view that eloquence is nourished by
all studies; and the eloquence exhibited by Seneca is itself much smaller
than that intended by Cicero.
(1) _Subjects for Suasoriæ_
_Suasoriæ_ were deliberative; _controversiæ_, forensic. Though in actual
practise the one field of oratory seems as difficult as the other,
in pedagogical use _suasoriæ_ were generally assigned as elementary
exercises, the boy’s first extended compositions with the rhetor.[35] The
seven surviving specimens of Seneca’s collection are on the following
themes:—
1. Alexander debates whether to embark on the ocean.
2. The three hundred Spartans sent against Xerxes debate,
after the flight of the expeditionary forces from the rest of
Greece, whether they too shall flee.
3. Agamemnon debates whether to sacrifice Iphigenia, when
Calchas has declared that the Trojan expedition cannot
otherwise set sail with the consent of the gods.
4. Alexander the Great debates the entry into Babylon after the
auguries have warned that danger lurks for him there.
5. The Athenians debate whether to remove the monuments of
their victories over the Persians, Xerxes having threatened to
come back unless they do so.
6. Cicero debates whether to appeal to Antonius for mercy.
7. Cicero debates whether to burn his writings, Antonius having
offered him immunity on this condition.[36]
That the subjects seem to have been always historical reminds us that
Roman deliberative oratory was barred from its natural field of the
living present. Thus restricted, it is meager even for a school exercise.
(2) _Subjects for Controversiæ_
The cases assigned for the _controversiæ_ of older students, though more
various, were even more removed from actuality. The list of those used by
Seneca to exhibit the skill of the rhetors themselves fully justifies the
exclamation of Tacitus,[37] _quales, per fidem!_ Posed as available for
argument on either side—a rhetor would sometimes espouse now one side,
now the other—they are difficult, subtle, sensational, often so dubious
as to preclude quotation, always remote. On their face they were chosen
and iterated by men who desired sensation, prized ingenuity, and had
turned the art of persuasion to advertisement.
_A Disinheriting Uncle_ (I. 1)
“Children who refuse support to their parents are liable to
imprisonment.”
Two brothers quarreled. The son of one of them, in spite
of his father’s prohibition, supported his uncle, who had
fallen into poverty. Disinherited on this account, he made
no legal protest. He was adopted by his uncle. Through a
legacy the uncle became rich. The father began to be in want.
The son supported him in spite of the uncle’s prohibition.
He was disinherited. [Speak for either the young man or the
disinheriting uncle.]
_The Pirate Chief’s Daughter_ (I. 6)
[A young man] captured by pirates wrote to his father for
ransom. He was not ransomed. The pirate chief’s daughter
induced him to promise marriage if he got his freedom. He
promised. She left her father to follow him. He has returned to
his father and has married her. An orphan heiress comes along.
His father bids him repudiate the pirate chief’s daughter and
marry the heiress. When he refuses, he is disinherited. [Defend
either the father or the son.]
_An Oath of Husband and Wife_ (II. 2)
A husband and a wife made an oath that if anything happened to
either, the other would die. The husband, traveling abroad,
sent a messenger to his wife to announce that her husband had
died. She threw herself from a cliff. Having recovered, she is
bidden by her father to leave her husband. She refuses. She is
disinherited. [Speak for either the wife or her father.]
_Poison Given to a Maniac Son_ (III. 7)
A father has given poison to a son who was raging mad and did
violence to himself. The mother brings action for cruelty.
[Speak for either the father or the mother.]
_Crucifixion of a Slave who Refuses Poison to his Master_ (III.
9)
A sick man has asked his slave to give him poison. The slave
has not given it. The master provides in his will that his
heirs shall crucify the slave. The slave appeals to the
tribunes. [Speak for either the appellant or the respondent.]
_An Exiled Father Excluded from his Lands_ (VI. 2)
“Aiding an exile with shelter or food is prohibited.”
“The penalty for homicide shall be exile for five years.”
The father of a son and a daughter was found guilty of homicide
and exiled. He used to come to one of his properties near the
frontier. The son learned this and punished the overseer. The
overseer excluded the father. The father began to go to his
daughter’s. Tried for harboring an exile, she was acquitted on
the plea of her brother. The five-year period having expired,
the father disinherits the son. [Speak for either the father or
the son.]
Against such subjects, against others equally subtle and unreal, even
indecent and perverted, both Tacitus and Quintilian protest in the name
of education. Training for actual pleading, they urge, is not to be had
from tyrannicide, rape, incest, wizards, pestilence, and stepmothers.
Seneca leaves no doubt that such subjects were typical; but he expressly
repudiates the assumption that _controversiæ_ should be exercises to
train for the bar.[38] That _declamatio_ was quite different not only in
his view, but in fact, there is no room to doubt. The difference between
what Tacitus and Quintilian urge on principle and what they themselves,
as well as Seneca and Pliny, record as practise is decisively sharp. It
is the difference between the old rhetoric and the new. Even in Seneca’s
time, much more in that of Quintilian, _declamatio_ was measured as
a special form of public speaking. As such Seneca seems to regard it
with complacency. That he thinks it self-sufficient and self-justifying
seems evident from his pains to give its oral triumphs the permanence of
written record. _Declamatio_ might be cursed by the older tradition as
bad education, or justified as originally good by ignoring what it had
become. None the less it had gone quite out from the old rhetoric, and
had been accepted and widely applauded as an end in itself.
That it perverted schooling, as Tacitus complains, was partly due to its
inevitable tendency to turn the school into an auditorium. The rhetor
remained, indeed, a teacher; but even in teaching he offered himself as a
model.[39] The transition was easy to offering himself to the public as
an orator in the latest style of oratory. While this was one of the few
ways left under the Empire for appeal to a large audience, it was also
one of his chief means of publicity. What the rhetor was thus to become
throughout the Roman Empire may be clearly forecast from Pliny’s account
of Isæus.
(3) _Pliny on Isæus_
Great as is the reputation that had prepared me for Isæus,
I found him greater. He has in the highest degree mastery,
abundance, fertility. He speaks always extempore, but as if
he had long written. The diction is Greek, nay Attic; the
prelude, neat, simple, winsome, or grave and lofty. He asks
for several _controversiæ_, and lets the audience choose,
often even the side. He rises; his robe is right; he begins.
Instantly everything is ready, and ready almost equally. Deep
thoughts respond at once and words, but what words! chosen
and refined. From his impromptus gleam much reading and much
writing. He introduces aptly, states the case lucidly, argues
keenly, sums up strongly, in style is superb. In a word, he
instructs, charms, moves;[40] and which he does best you hardly
know. The enthymemes are frequent, and so are the terse and
finished syllogisms, an achievement difficult even for writing.
His memory is incredible. He resumes what he has spoken
extempore, and does not slip on a single word. Such control he
has attained by study and practise; for day and night he does
nothing else, hears nothing else, says nothing else. Past his
sixtieth year, he is still only a schoolman; and nothing is
more ingenuous than that sort of man, or more unsophisticated,
or better. We who are crowded at the bar and in real cases
learn, even against our will, much cunning. The school and
the auditorium, with their made-up cases, are inoffensive and
innocuous—and none the less happy, for old men especially. For
what is happier in old age than what is pleasantest in youth?
Therefore I account Isæus not only most eloquent, but also most
blest; and if you have no desire to know him, you are made of
stone and iron. So come, if not for other reasons, if not on my
account, at least to hear him. Have you ever read of the man
of Gades who was so stirred by the name and fame of Livy that
he came from the ends of the earth to see him and, once having
seen him, forthwith went his way? ’Tis crass, uncultured,
stupid, almost base, to think no more highly of an experience
than which nothing is pleasanter, or prettier, or more refined.
You will say, “I can read no less eloquent orators here.” Yes;
but there is always a chance to read, not always to hear.
Besides, the living voice, as the phrase goes, is far more
moving. For though what you read may be more vehement, yet
what is fixed by the delivery, the mien, the bearing, the very
gesture of a speaker abides deeper in the mind. Else we give
the lie to the story of Æschines, who when he had read aloud
to the Rhodians a speech of Demosthenes, and every one was
admiring it, is said to have added: “What if you had heard the
beast himself?” And Æschines, on the testimony of Demosthenes,
had a most brilliant delivery. None the less he admitted that
the man who had begotten that speech delivered it far better.
All this goes to prove that you should hear Isæus, if only to
say that you have heard him. Pliny, _Epist._ II. 3.
In essentials this description applies to the _controversiæ_ preserved
by Seneca. The Greek rhetor Isæus whom Pliny heard at the end of the
first century is recognizably like the Roman rhetors whom Seneca heard
some hundred years before.[41] A century had only fixed the type as a
distinct form of oratory, and extended its vogue. Succeeding centuries
repeated it, in Greek and in Latin, throughout the Roman world. Meantime
Tarsus may have taught _declamatio_ to its most famous citizen. Certainly
St. Jerome knew it well. “We have been rhetoricated,” he says with grim
humor, “and have played a bit in the way of the _declamatores_.”[42]
Indeed, the rhetoric that came first and most actively to the Fathers
of the Church must have come through _declamatio_.[43] Its influence as
late as the fourth century on St. Augustine throws into sharp relief his
ignoring of it in his rhetoric for preachers, the fourth book of _De
doctrina christiana_. With such real work of oratory _declamatio_ has
nothing to do.
C. SENECA’S CLASSIFICATION AND TREATMENT
Instead of giving his specimens entire, Seneca divides them by a
threefold critical classification: (1) _sententiæ_, (2) _divisio_, (3)
_colores_. The treatments of the same case by different _declamatores_
are thus compared specifically as to (1) the significances, (2) the
analysis, (3) the imaginative handling.
(1) The term _sententiæ_ might imply such interpretations as were
significant because they were leading. Taken thus, it suggests the
saliences which mark, stage by stage, the development of a single,
controlling interpretation. But _sententiæ_ was used familiarly of such
interpretations as were valuable rather separately than together, for
themselves rather than for the furthering of a progressive development—in
a word, aphorisms, or epigrams. The latter sense had become the more
common, and in fact is what Seneca exhibits. His _declamatores_ seem more
concerned to strike now and strike again than to urge on. Though they
still distinguish the formal parts (proem, statement, etc.),[44] they
are no longer preoccupied with the onward march of the older tradition.
For the cogency of progressive development they have substituted the
momentary effectiveness of striking summaries.
(2) Seneca’s _divisio_, the analysis of the case, shows similarly not the
stages of a consecutive order, but merely the components of an arbitrary
classification. Given such cases as were posed, even the _divisio_
called for ingenuity. Its preliminary _quæstiones_ sometimes suggest an
ingenious and perverted application of the traditional _status_.[45]
(3) Under _colores_[46] Seneca exhibits the imaginative development.
Meaning generally the tone, or cast—in a large sense, the style,
_colores_ means specifically in Seneca’s collection (1) descriptive
amplification, and (2) dramatic characterization. Even the descriptions
were more than concrete realization of the facts; they were imaginative
elaborations.
Quintus Haterius, on the side of the father [in the case of the
pirate chief’s daughter, above, page 92] evoked a very fine
picture. In the abrupt style habitual with him he began to
describe, as if he heard the tumult, how everything was laid
waste and ravaged, the farms given to the flames, the peasants’
flight; and, when he had amplified the terror, he added: “Why
shudder, young man? ’Tis the arrival of your father-in-law.”
Seneca, _Controversiæ_, I. 6. 12.
[Fabianus] was apter at _suasoriæ_. The local color of places,
the courses of rivers, the sites of cities and the habits of
their peoples, no one described more amply. Never did he
pause for lack of a word. His soothing speech would flow about
everything with swiftest and easiest course. _Ibid._ II. præf.
3.
More boldly and ingeniously imaginative was the characterization. The
case itself being fictitious, the treatment might go the whole length
of fiction. At least the _declamatio_ must so enter into the motives,
and especially the emotions, of the parties as to make them _dramatis
personæ_; at most he might go so far as to supply his imaginary dialogues
with a plot.[47] Thus a guilty son is staged in dialogue with his father:
I shall die. I shall die.
Perhaps. I shall not weep.
Heart, why quiverest thou? Tongue, why tremblest? Eyes, why
are ye dulled? It is not yet the thirtieth day.
You beg for life? I gave it; and you have lost it.
It is your will that your son should die.
My will? No, your madness, your blind and rash desire, yes,
and her father, too soon overborne by your prayers.
Seneca, _Controversiæ_, II. 3. 1.
That such dramatization is obviously an extension of the school
_prosopopœiæ_[48] shows how pervasive was the preoccupation with
imaginative development. “Asinius Pollio used to say that the _color_
was to be exhibited in the statement of facts, and carried out in the
arguments.”[49] What was left of the old rhetoric? The interpretations
demanded by _sententiæ_ and _divisio_ were at least intellectual; but
the main interpretation, the goal and measure of skill, was imaginative.
The surest way to fame was through _colores_. Through _colores_ what had
once been useful as a school exercise was artificially extended, and
forensic was turned into a form of occasional oratory.
_Sententiæ_, _divisio_, _colores_, epigrams, ingenious analysis,
imaginative development, seem a poor substitute for the traditional five
parts of rhetoric. Especially impoverishing was the restriction of the
ancient _inventio_. With investigation supplanted by fiction, debate lost
its typical training and its typical power. With the shift of emphasis
to imagination, rhetoric was confused with poetic,[50] to the impairing
of both. Nor was _dispositio_ furthered by _sententiæ_ and _divisio_.
Salience, instead of being used to further consecutiveness, became an
end in itself. The whole was sacrificed to the parts. _Elocutio_, thus
left to itself, tended inevitably toward an art of display. The history
of rhetoric has no more striking proof that style, when cultivated in
artificial isolation, goes bad.
So wide a departure suggests a divergence in conception, a divergence
older and deeper than the particular innovations of _declamatio_. Beside
Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness
to truth there had persisted the conception of it as the art of giving
effectiveness to the speaker. Though the two conceptions are not mutually
exclusive, the dominance of the one or of the other tends either to give
rhetoric those manifold relations and that constant answer to reality
which mark its great ancient achievements, or on the other hand to narrow
it toward virtuosity and display. The large pedagogy of Quintilian is
animated by the Aristotelian conception. The other conception, brilliant
in Gorgias and his like, had already animated not only the _declamatores_
at Rome, but that larger “second sophistic”[51] which became pervasively
the rhetoric of the imperial centuries, in Greek and in Latin, throughout
the Roman world. Ancient rhetoric offers the historic example, then, of a
divergence that has remained typical.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] Historical studies are relegated to a later volume.
[2] The long and wide influence of Quintilian will be discussed in a
later volume. It is briefly indicated by Sandys, _History of Classical
Scholarship_, vol. I, and traced more specifically by Ch. Fierville in
his admirable French edition of Book I (Paris, 1890), which also offers
the best biography and bibliography. Much of the introduction in W.
Peterson’s edition of Book X (Oxford, 1891) is devoted to Quintilian’s
literary criticism.
The two modern English translations are (1) by J. S. Watson in the Bohn
Library (Oxford, 1891, and probably earlier), and (2) by H. E. Butler in
the Loeb Classical Library (London, 1921-2). Both occasionally miss the
significance of technical terms. The former, providing summaries and many
of the valuable notes of Spalding and Capperonier, is the more useful.
[3] Since Quintilian’s survey includes all the cardinal terms of
classical rhetoric, the corresponding Greek terms have been added for
convenience of reference.
Compare the valuable analysis of the treatise _Ad Herennium_ (current in
the middle age as Cicero’s) in the introduction to Wilkins’s edition of
Cicero’s _De oratore_, vol. I, pages 56-64.
[4] recte loquendi scientiam et poetarum enarrationem, I. iv. 2.
ratio loquendi et enarratio auctorum, quarum illam _methodicen_, hanc
_historicen_ vocant, I. ix. 1.
[5] John of Salisbury, for instance, discusses it about 1159 in
_Metalogicus_, Migne, 850 C. D.
[6] Προγυμνάσματα. The widely used compend of them by Hermogenes (late
second century) includes myth, tale, chria, proverb, analysis destructive
and constructive, commonplace, encomium, comparison, characterization
(ἠθοποιία), description (ἔκφρασις), thesis, and the proposal of a bill.
[7] orbis ille doctrinæ quam Græci ἐγκύκλιον παιδείαν vocant, I. x. 1.
[8] Thus Hermogenes on the exercise of retelling myths: “Myths are
sometimes to be expanded, sometimes to be told concisely. How? By now
telling in bare narrative, and now by feigning the words of the given
characters. For example, ‘the monkeys in council deliberated on the
necessity of settling in houses. When they had made up their minds to
this and were about to set to work, an old monkey restrained them, saying
that they would more easily be captured if they were caught within
enclosures.’ Thus if you are concise; but if you wish to expand, proceed
in this way. ‘The monkeys in council deliberated on the founding of a
city; and one coming forward made a speech to the effect that they too
must have a city. “For see,” said he, “how fortunate in this regard are
men. Not only does each of them have a house, but all going up together
to public meeting or theater delight their souls with all manner of
things to see and hear.”’ Go on thus, dwelling on the incidents and
saying that the decree was formally passed; and devise a speech for the
old monkey.” Προγυμνάσματα, ed. Rabe, 2-3.
The exercise is still used in French schools, and for older pupils is
carried, as by the ancients, into a sort of historical fiction.
[9] Though the word seems to refer rather to the masters than to the
pupils, the whole passage none the less clearly indicates the nature and
scope of the exercise for students. The dramatic skill of a _declamator_
is described again in similar terms at X. i. 71; the use of _prosopopœia_
in the peroration of legal pleading, at VI. i. 25-27.
[10] _Suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_, Quintilian adds, should not be
treated as essentially different. So far as _prosopopœia_ goes, they
differ hardly at all; and otherwise they differ mainly in degree,
_controversiæ_ being more difficult.
Besides the consecutive discussion of _declamatio_ in chapter x of
Book II, much of which is quoted above, Quintilian has many incidental
references and allusions. At IV. ii. 29, he defines _declamatio_
as _forensium actionum meditatio_, “exercise in pleading”, and he
implies the same definition in _ad declamandum ficta materia_ (I. x.
33) and in _fictas ad imitationem fori consiliorumque materias_ (i.e.,
_controversias suasoriasque_, II. iv. 41). Steadfastly ignoring its
use as a form of public speaking, he consistently treats it as a
school exercise. He implies that _declamatio_ embraced a large part of
actual teaching when he complains (II. i. 8) that it is forecast by
_grammaticus_, and calls _rhetor_ (II. i. 3) _declamandi magister_.
He says repeatedly that it depends largely on imaginative realization
of character and emotion (VI. i. 25-27; X. i. 71; and the passage on
_prosopopœiæ_ quoted above). He admits the use of it as an exhibition
of virtuosity (_in ostentationem_, II. x. 10), but satirizes this (II.
xx. 3) by the anecdote commemorating the futile skill of a man who could
throw grains through the eye of a needle. Though he regards it as a
gymnastic profitable for mature speakers in providing variety and relief
(X. v. 17), he has no patience with the common practise of keeping up
indefinitely what is properly a school exercise (XII. xi. 15). Finally he
repeats explicitly and implicitly his warning that _declamatio_ should be
kept close to actuality; and in a long passage (V. xii. 17-22) concluding
his discussion of the _sedes argumentorum_, he indignantly condemns its
perversion into prettiness as an emasculation of oratory.
Lucian, whose satire does not spare rhetors, makes specific mention now
and then of _declamatio_, using the term μελέτη or μελετᾶν: _Demonax_,
33, 36; _Rhetorum præceptor_, 17. One passage is very like Quintilian’s
in the text above: “But the chief exercise and the aim of the art of
dancing, as I said, is acting, which is practised in the same way by
rhetors, especially by those who cultivate the so-called _declamationes_.
Their art is the more applauded for its adaptation to the assigned
characters and for its consonance with the persons introduced, whether
princes, tyrannicides, poor men, or farmers.” _De saltatione_, 65. Some
of his satires, e.g., _Tyrannicida_, _Abdicatus_, and some of the
_encomia_, sound like mock _declamationes_.
[11] Watson’s (Bohn) translation quotes (foot-notes to pages 212-13 of
volume I) Capperonier’s tabular summary of the doctrine of _status_
found in Quintilian, Cicero, the treatise _Ad Herennium_, and Hermogenes.
For Cicero see also pages 49-51 above.
Jæneke’s Leipzig dissertation (1904) _De statuum doctrina ab Hermogene
tradita_ compares by tabular view (pages 23-4, 120-1) the system of
Hermagoras, as it is inferred from Cicero, Quintilian, and St. Augustine,
with that of Hermogenes.
[12] The maxim was _reddere auditores benevolos, attentos, dociles_.
The classical lore on the third of these functions is surveyed by F. P.
Donnelly, S. J., in _A function of the classical exordium_, Classical
Weekly, V. 204-7, New York, May 11, 1912.
[13] Curam ergo verborum rerum volo esse solicitudinem. VIII, proem,
20. The passage goes on: “For generally the best words are inseparable
from their things, and are discerned by their own light. But we look
for them as if they were always lurking and hiding. So, forgetting that
they must be near the subject-matter, we seek them elsewhere and, when
we have found them, lay hold of them by force. A higher spirit is needed
for essaying eloquence; for if she is in sound health throughout her
frame, she will not think her care should be spent on manicuring and
hairdressing.” Fronto, on the contrary, praises the young Marcus Aurelius
for digging up words, “ut verbum ex alto eruas et ad significandum
adcommodes,” ed., Haines, I. 6.
[14] For Aristotle’s treatment see above page 24; for Cicero’s, pages 53,
57; for those of Dionysius and “Longinus,” Chapter V.
[15] in rebus spiritus et in verbis sublimitas et in affectibus motus
omnis et in personis decor. X. i. 27.
[16] For an interesting note on dictation as practised by a professional
orator, see H. von Arnim, _Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa_, page 140.
[17] via, X. vii. 5; intendendus animus ... usque ad ultimum, X. vii. 16.
[18] imagines, X. vii. 15.
[19] The interpretation is substantially that of Luigi Valmaggi: “Insomma
il precetto di Quintiliano è questo, che occorre o recitare a memoria o
improvvisare sia pure su appunti presi meditando il discorso, ma è d’uopo
evitare assolutamente una miscela dei due sistemi.” _Osservazioni sul
libro x di Quintiliano_, in Atti della reale accademia delle scienze di
Torino, 37:228.
[20] Our modern habits of writing and reading hinder our comprehension
of the speaking and listening ancient world. Especially are we liable to
misinterpretation of the idea of writing in the ancient rhetoric. This
contemplated primarily general training in style. It also included some
written preparation for a particular speech, and finally the writing out
of some speeches, especially speeches on occasion, in full. But that
this last was the general ancient practise has never been sufficiently
supported and is _a priori_ improbable. The writing out of speeches after
they had been spoken, and the common ancient practise of writing speeches
for other men to learn and deliver, are not in point, and must be kept
apart from the question of written preparation. The traditional quarrel
between the ancient oratory which relied more and that which relied
less on writing is admirably summed up by Van Hook, _Alcidamas versus
Isocrates; the spoken versus the written word_, in the introduction to
his translation of the attack of Alcidamas _On those who write written
speeches_, Classical Weekly, XII, 89-94, New York, Jan. 20, 1919. Though
there is ground for difference of opinion in interpreting what we can
learn of the habit of Demosthenes or of Cicero, there is no ground for
assuming that the ancient counsels of care in preparation generally imply
writing out. Quintilian, who leans toward written preparation, is by
himself almost sufficient testimony to the contrary.
[21] _Cogitatis_, with obvious reference to _cogitatio_ in X. vi. vii.
[22] Note that _memoria_ is vigor of mind, and that it is first, as
often, applied to extempore speaking.
[23] For Aristotle on this aspect of the period (_Rhetoric_, iii, 1409
b), see 27 above.
[24] See the tabular view above (page 63, with foot-note 3) and
Quintilian’s own review and forecast in the proem to Book VIII.
[25] How deliberate and consistent is his order appears, for instance, at
the opening of II. xi, where the definitions begin: Iam hic ergo nobis
inchoanda est ea pars artis ex qua capere initium solent qui priora
omiserunt.
[26] See Chapter III, pages 38, 46.
[27] The best edition is _Sénèque le rhéteur, controverses et suasoires_,
traduction nouvelle (with expository introduction), texte revu (in fine
print at the bottom of each page), Henri Bornecque (Lille), 2 volumes,
Paris (Garnier), 1902.
The best discussion is also by Bornecque, _Les déclamations et
les déclamateurs d’après Sénèque le père_, Travaux et mémoires de
l’Université de Lille, nouvelle série, I. Droit, Lettres—fascicule 1,
Lille, au siège de l’Université, 1902 (bibliography, index of authors
cited other than Seneca, catalogue raisonné of _declamatores_).
Incidental and more general discussion will be found in standard
treatises on Roman literature of the Empire, in G. Boissier’s _La fin du
paganisme_, and in his _Tacite_, pages 200-240.
Peterson’s translation of the _Dialogus_ of Tacitus is published in the
Loeb Classical Library.
[28] For a summary of the earlier Greek history see Bornecque, _Déclam._,
40.
[29] E.g. _De orat._ I. 140.
[30] Commentabar declamitans—sic enim nunc loquuntur. _Brutus_, 310. On
this point Seneca has no doubt:—Declamabat autem Cicero non quales nunc
controversias dicimus, ne tales quidem quales ante Ciceronem dicebantur,
quas thesis vocabant. Hoc enim genus maxime, quo nos exercemur, adeo
novum est, ut nomen quoque ejus novum sit. Seneca, _Controversiæ_, I.
præf. 12.
[31] See above, pages 70-73 and foot-note 10. The objection of
Petronius, _Satyricon_ i. 2, is less specific.
[32] Seneca the Elder (sometimes called the Rhetor, circ. 56 B.C.-39
A.D.) made the collection in his last years.
[33] Bornecque, _Déclam._ 25, thinks that the _Controversiæ_ may be taken
as substantial reproductions.
[34] _Controv._ II, præf. 3. J. W. H. Walden quotes a similar counsel
from Libanius, _Ep._ 248: καὶ σύ τοι τὸ ἄρχειν ἔχεις ἀπὸ τοῦ δύνασθαι
λέγειν. _The Universities of Ancient Greece_, page 78, foot-note.
Bornecque, _Déclam._ 135, sums up the situation as follows: “la
rhétorique, devenue l’étude unique, perd, du même coup, le contact avec
la réalité ... et elle dépouille à peu près toute valeur comme moyen
d’éducation oratoire et général.”
[35] Tacitus, _Dial._ 35-5, quoted above, page 88. Quintilian, II. iv. 25.
[36] C. T. Cruttwell translates the second of these at page 335 of his
_History of Roman Literature_.
The subjects mentioned incidentally by Quintilian are similar:—Deliberant
Patres conscripti an stipendium militi constituant. III. viii. 18.
Deliberant Patres conscripti an Fabios dedant Gallis bellum minitantibus.
19. Deliberat C. Cæsar an perseveret in Germaniam ire, cum milites passim
testamenta facerent. 19.
Pompeius deliberavit Parthos, an Africam, an Ægyptum peteret. 33.
Deliberat Cæsar an Britanniam impugnet. VII. iv. 2.
[37] _Dial._ 35. 5, quoted above, page 88.
[38] Deinde res ipsa diversa est: totum aliud est pugnare, aliud
ventilare. Hoc ita semper habitum est, scholam quasi ludum esse, forum
arenam. III. præf. 13.
The same point of view is taken by Pliny in the letter (_Epist._ II. 3)
quoted below.
The following _controversia_ was assigned to the young Marcus Aurelius
by his master Fronto: “I have sent you an outline; the case is serious.
A consul of the Roman people, laying aside his robes, has donned a coat
of mail and among the young men at the feast of Minerva has slain a lion
in the sight of the Roman people. He is denounced before the Censors.
Put into shape and develop.” _Correspondence of Fronto_, ed., with a
translation, C. R. Haines, London and New York (Loeb Classical Library),
1919, vol. I, page 210 (see the further correspondence on this theme,
pages 212, 214).
[39] See above, page 69.
[40] For all its informality, Pliny’s letter runs, as it were
inevitably, into the traditional channels of the formal parts of
a speech (_proœmiatur_, _narrat_, _pugnat_) and the three ends of
oratory (_docet_, _delectat_, _afficit_). Indeed, it shows throughout a
familiarity with rhetorical technic, and assumes a like familiarity on
the part of its recipient.
[41] H. Keil’s editio maior of Pliny’s Letters (Leipzig, 1870) dates
the second book A.D. 97-100, within a few years of Quintilian’s
_Institutio_. For Isæus see Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 20, and
Juvenal’s satirical phrase “Isæo torrentior” (I. iii. 74).
[42] “Rhetoricati sumus, et in morem declamatorum paululum lusimus,”
quoted by Labriolle, _Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne_,
Paris, 1920, page 470. _Lusimus_ corresponds to Seneca’s description of
_declamatio_ as _ludus_ (foot-note 38 above).
[43] The history of _declamatio_ as a direct and an indirect influence is
reserved for a later volume. It is summarized suggestively by Bornecque
in both the introduction to his edition of Seneca and his treatise
cited in foot-note 27. Walden’s ample summaries of the work of Libanius
(4th century) in his _Universities of Ancient Greece_ corroborate what
Bornecque says of St. Augustine.
[44] See Pliny’s letter on Isæus above.
[45] E.g., I. præf. 21; II. iii. 11. See also Bornecque, _Déclam._ 51.
For _status_ see above, page 74.
[46] The long and intricate history of _colores_, extending, with that
of its Romance cognates, through the middle ages, must be postponed; but
its interest may be divined by merely glancing at the successive uses
recorded in a few dictionaries. The importance of exploring the term
has been urged again by Fletcher in his _“True Meaning” of Dante’s Vita
Nuova_, Romanic Review, XI. 119.
[47] For the literary influence of this habit of oral fiction see
Bornecque, _Décl._
[48] See above, page 71.
[49] Seneca, _Controversiæ_, IV. iii. 3. Doubtless Quintilian had such
perversion of _narratio_ in mind when he wrote: “[_The narratio_] should
be neither dry and starved ... nor again winding and seductive with
far-fetched descriptions, into which many are led by imitation of the
license of poetry.” II. iv. 3.
[50] See the section on Ovid in Chapter VII below. Bornecque sums up
the tendency acutely as “pénétration réciproque de la poésie et de la
déclamation,” _Déclam._ 115.
[51] The development of this history is reserved to a later volume.