For who can suppose that amid the great multitude of students, the
utmost abundance of masters, the most eminent geniuses among men, the
infinite variety of causes, the most ample rewards offered to eloquence,
there is any other reason to be found for the small number of orators
than the incredible magnitude and difficulty of the art? A knowledge of
a vast number of things is necessary, without which volubility of words
is empty and ridiculous; speech itself is to be formed, not merely by
choice, but by careful construction of words; and all the emotions of
the mind which nature has given to man, must be intimately known; for
all the force and art of speaking must be employed in allaying or
exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this must be added a
certain portion of grace and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man,
and quickness and brevity in replying as well as attacking, accompanied
with a refined decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and
a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the
knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in particular, to be
neglected. And why need I add any remarks on delivery itself, which is
to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation
and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in
itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage proves; on
which though all bestow their utmost labor to form their look, voice,
and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to
whom we can attend with patience? What can I say of that repository for
all things, the memory; which, unless it be made the keeper of the
matter and words that are the fruits of thought and invention, all the
talents of the orator, we see, though they be of the highest degree of
excellence, will be of no avail? Let us then cease to wonder what is the
cause of the scarcity of good speakers, since eloquence results from all
those qualifications, in each of which singly it is a great merit to
labor successfully; and let us rather exhort our children, and others
whose glory and honor is dear to us, to contemplate in their minds the
full magnitude of the object, and not to trust that they can reach the
height at which they aim by the aid of the precepts, masters, and
exercises that they are all now following, but to understand that they
must adopt others of a different character.
In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an orator possessed of every
praiseworthy accomplishment unless he has attained the knowledge of
everything important, and of all liberal arts; for his language must be
ornate and copious from knowledge, since unless there be beneath the
surface matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an
empty and almost puerile flow of words....
"I am then of opinion," said Crassus, "that nature and genius in the
first place contribute most aid to speaking; and that to those writers
on the art to whom Antonius just now alluded, it was not skill and
method in speaking, but natural talent that was wanting; for there ought
to be certain lively powers in the mind and understanding, which may be
acute to invent, fertile to explain and adorn, and strong and retentive
to remember; and if any one imagines that these powers may be acquired
by art (which is false, for it is very well if they can be animated and
excited by art; but they certainly cannot by art be ingrafted or
instilled, since they are all the gifts of nature), what will he
say of those qualities which are certainly born with the man
himself--volubility of tongue, tone of voice, strength of lungs, and a
peculiar conformation and aspect of the whole countenance and body? I do
not say that art cannot improve in these particulars (for I am not
ignorant that what is good may be made better by education, and what is
not very good may be in some degree polished and amended); but there are
some persons so hesitating in their speech, so inharmonious in their
tone of voice, or so unwieldy and rude in the air and movements of their
bodies, that whatever power they possess either from genius or art, they
can never be reckoned in the number of accomplished speakers; while
there are others so happily qualified in these respects, so eminently
adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem not to have been born
like other men, but molded by some divinity. It is indeed a great task
and enterprise for a person to undertake and profess that while every
one else is silent, he alone must be heard on the most important
subjects, and in a large assembly of men; for there is scarcely any one
present who is not sharper and quicker to discover defects in the
speaker than merits; and thus whatever offends the hearer effaces the
recollection of what is worthy of praise. I do not make these
observations for the purpose of altogether deterring young men from the
study of oratory, even if they be deficient in some natural endowments.
For who does not perceive that to C. Caelius, my contemporary, a new man,
the mere mediocrity in speaking which he was enabled to attain was a
great honor? Who does not know that Q. Varius, your equal in age, a
clumsy uncouth man, has obtained his great popularity by the cultivation
of such faculties as he has?
"But as our inquiry regards the complete orator, we must imagine in our
discussion an orator from whom every kind of fault is abstracted, and
who is adorned with every kind of merit. For if the multitude of suits,
if the variety of causes, if the rabble and barbarism of the forum,
afford room for even the most wretched speakers, we must not for that
reason take our eyes from the object of our inquiry. In those arts in
which it is not indispensable usefulness that is sought, but liberal
amusement for the mind, how nicely, how almost fastidiously, do we
judge! For there are no suits or controversies which can force men,
though they may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, to endure
also bad actors upon the stage. The orator therefore must take the most
studious precaution not merely to satisfy those whom he necessarily must
satisfy, but to seem worthy of admiration to those who are at liberty to
judge disinterestedly. If you would know what I myself think, I will
express to you, my intimate friends, what I have hitherto never
mentioned, and thought that I never should mention. To me, those who
speak best and speak with the utmost ease and grace, appear, if they do
not commence their speeches with some timidity, and show some confusion
in the exordium, to have almost lost the sense of shame; though it is
impossible that such should not be the case: for the better qualified a
man is to speak, the more he fears the difficulties of speaking, the
uncertain success of a speech, and the expectation of the audience. But
he who can produce and deliver nothing worthy of his subject, nothing
worthy of the name of an orator, nothing worthy the attention of his
audience, seems to me, though he be ever so confused while he is
speaking, to be downright shameless; for we ought to avoid a character
for shamelessness, not by testifying shame, but by not doing that which
does not become us. But the speaker who has no shame (as I see to be the
case with many) I regard as deserving not only of rebuke but of personal
castigation. Indeed, what I often observe in you I very frequently
experience in myself; that I turn pale in the outset of my speech, and
feel a tremor through my whole thoughts, as it were, and limbs. When I
was a young man, I was on one occasion so timid in commencing an
accusation, that I owed to Q. Maximus the greatest of obligations for
immediately dismissing the assembly as soon as he saw me absolutely
disheartened and incapacitated through fear." Here, they all signified
assent, looked significantly at one another, and began to talk together;
for there was a wonderful modesty in Crassus, which however was not only
no disadvantage to his oratory, but even an assistance to it, by giving
it the recommendation of probity.