Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

"To this Charmadas replied, that he did not deny that Demosthenes was possessed of consummate ability and the utmost energy of eloquence; but whether he had these powers from natural genius, or because, as was acknowledged, he diligently listened to the teachings of Plato, it was not what Demosthenes could do, but what the rhetoricians taught, that was the subject of inquiry. Sometimes too he was carried so far by the drift of his discourse, as to maintain that there was no art at all in speaking; and having shown by various arguments that we are so formed by nature as to be able to flatter, and to insinuate ourselves, as suppliants, into the favour of those from whom we wish to obtain anything, as well as to terrify our enemies by menaces, to relate matters of fact, to confirm what we assert, to refute what is said against us, and, finally, to use entreaty or lamentation; particulars in which the whole faculties of the orator are employed; and that practice and exercise sharpened the understanding, and produced fluency of speech, he rested his argument, in conclusion, on a multitude of examples that he adduced; for first, as if stating an indisputable fact, 33he affirmed that no writer on the art of rhetoric was ever even moderately eloquent, going back as far as some men called Corax and Tisias, 34who, he said, appeared to be the inventors and first authors of rhetorical science; and then named a vast number of the most eloquent men who had neither learned, nor cared to understand the rules of art, and amongst whom, (whether in jest, or because he thought, or had heard something to that effect,) he instanced me as one who had received none of their instructions, and yet, as he said, had some abilities as a speaker; of which two observations I readily granted the truth of one, that I had never been instructed, but thought that in the other he was either joking with me, or was under some mistake. But he denied there was any art, except such as lay in things that were known and thoroughly understood, things tending to the same object, and never misleading; but that everything treated by the orators was doubtful and uncertain; as it was uttered by those who did not fully understand it, and was heard by them to whom knowledge was not meant to be communicated, but merely false, or at least obscure notions, intended to live in their minds only for a short time. In short, he seemed bent on convincing me that there was no art of speaking, and that no one could speak skilfully, or so as fully to illustrate a subject, but one who had attained that knowledge which is delivered by the most learned of the philosophers. On which occasions Charmadas used to say, with a passionate admiration of your genius, Crassus, that I appeared to him very easy in listening, and you most pertinacious in disputation.

"Then it was that I, swayed by this opinion, remarked in a little treatise 35which got circulated, and into people's hands, without my knowledge and against my will, that I had known many good speakers, but never yet any one that was truly eloquent; for I accounted him a good speaker, who could express his thoughts with accuracy and perspicuity, according to the ordinary judgment of mankind, before an audience of moderate capacity; but I considered him alone eloquent, who could in a more admirable and noble manner amplify and adorn whatever subjects he chose, and who embraced in thought and memory all the principles of everything relating to oratory. This, though it may be difficult to us, who, before we begin to speak in public, are overwhelmed by canvassings for office and by the business of the forum, is yet within the range of possibility and the powers of nature. For I, as far as I can divine by conjecture, and as far as I can estimate the abilities of our countrymen, do not despair that there may arise at some time or other a person, who, when, with a keener devotion to study than we feel, or have ever felt, with more leisure, with better and more mature talent for learning, and with superior labour and industry, he shall have given himself up to hearing, reading, and writing, may become such an orator as we desire to see, one who may justly be called not only a good speaker, but truly eloquent; and such a character, in my opinion, is our friend Crassus, or some one, if such ever was, of equal genius, who, having heard, read, and written more than Crassus, shall be able to make some little addition to it."

FOOTNOTES

1After his consulship, 63 B.C., in the forty-fourth year of his age.

2There was a certain course of honours through which the Romans passed. After attaining the quaestorship, they aspired to the aedileship, and then to the praetorship and consulate. Cicero was augur, quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul, and proconsul of Asia. Proust.

3He refers to his exile, and the proposed union between Caesar and Pompey to make themselves masters of the whole commonwealth, a matter to which he was unwilling to allude more plainly. Ellendt.

4 Qui locus . Quae vitae pars. Proust.

5The civil wars of Marius and Sulla. Ellendt.

6Alluding to the conspiracy of Catiline.

7The two books De Inventione Rhetorica.

8 Prudentissimorum . Equivalent to doctissimorum. Pearce. Some manuscripts have eruditissimorum.

9Deliberative and judicial oratory; omitting the epideictic or demonstrative kind.

10P. 229. Compare Ruhnken ad Lex. Timaei, v. amphilaphes, and Manutius ad Cic. Div. ii. 11, p. 254. Cicero aptly refers to that dialogue of Plato, because much is said about eloquence in it. The plane-tree was greatly admired by the Romans for its wide-spreading shade. See I. H. Vossius ad Virg. Georg. ii. 70; Plin. H. N. xii. 1; xvii, 15; Hor. Od. ii. 15. 5; Gronov. Obss. i. 5. Ellendt.

11Crassus.

12Crassus and Antonius.

13Livy, xlv. 15, says that the freedmen were previously dispersed among all the four city tribes, and that Gracchus included them all in the Esquiline tribe. The object was to allow the freedmen as little influence as possible in voting.

14Gaius Papirius Carbo, after having been a very seditious tribune, went over in his consulship to the side of the patricians, and highly extolled Lucius Opimius for killing Gaius Gracchus. But, at the expiration of his consulship, being impeached by Crassus, on what grounds we do not know, he put himself to death. Cic. Orat. iii. 20, 74; Brut. 27, 103. Ellendt.

15An edict of the praetor forbidding something to be done, in contradistinction to a decree, which ordered something to be done. Ellendt refers to Gaius, iv. 139, 160.

16 Iusto sacramento . The sacramentum was a deposit of a certain sum of money laid down by two parties who were going to law; and when the decision was made, the victorious party received his money back, while that of the defeated party went into the public treasury Varro, L. L. v. 180.

17Crassus was quaestor in Asia, 109 B.C., and, on his return, at the expiration of his office, passed through Macedonia. Ellendt.

18See Quintilian, ii. 21.

19Though they are philosophers, and not orators or rhetoricians.

20 De iure civili generatim in ordines aetatesque descripto . Instead of civili, the old reading was civium, in accordance with which Lambinus altered descripto into descriptorum. Civili was an innovation of Ernesti, which Ellendt condemns, and retains civium; observing that Cicero means iura civium publica singulis ordinibus et aetatibus assignata. 'By ordines,' says Ernesti, 'are meant patricians and plebeians, senators, knights, and classes in the census; by aetates, younger and older persons.'

21He is frequently mentioned by the ancients; the passages relating to him have been collected by Junius de Pictura in Catal. Artif. Ernesti. See Plin. H. N. vii. 38; Plut. Sull. c. 14; Val. Max. vii. 12.

22A Roman shipbuilder. See Turneb. Advers. xi. 2.