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

"Nor am I deterred, Crassus, by those tragic arguments of yours, 17on which the philosophers dwell most of all; I mean, when you said, that no man can, by speaking, excite the passions of his audience, or calm them when excited, (in which efforts it is that the power and greatness of an orator are chiefly seen,) unless one who has gained a thorough insight into the nature of all things, and the dispositions and motives of mankind; on which account philosophy must of necessity be studied by the orator; a study in which we see that the whole lives of men of the greatest talent and leisure are spent; the copiousness and magnitude of whose learning and knowledge I not only do not despise but greatly admire; but, for us who are engaged in so busy a state, and such occupations in the forum, it is sufficient to know and say just so much about the manners of mankind as is not inconsistent with human nature. For what great and powerful orator, whose object was to make a judge angry with his adversary, ever hesitated, because he was ignorant what anger was, whether 'a heat of temper,' or 'a desire of vengeance for pain received'? 18Who, when he wished to stir up and inflame other passions in the minds of the judges or people by his eloquence, ever uttered such things as are said by the philosophers? part of whom deny that any passions whatever should be excited in the mind, and say that they who rouse them in the breasts of the judges are guilty of a heinous crime, and part, who are inclined to be more tolerant, and to accommodate themselves more to the realities of life, say that such emotions ought to be but very moderate and gentle. But the orator, by his eloquence, represents all those things which, in the common affairs of life, are considered evil and troublesome, and to be avoided, as heavier and more grievous than they really are; and at the same time amplifies and embellishes, by power of language, those things which to the majority of mankind seem inviting and desirable; nor does he wish to appear so very wise among fools, as that his audience should think him impertinent or a pedantic Greek, or, though they very much approve his understanding, and admire his wisdom, yet should feel uneasy that they themselves are but idiots to him; but he so effectually penetrates the minds of men, so works upon their senses and feelings, that he has no occasion for the definitions of philosophers, or to consider in the course of his speech, 'whether the chief good lies in the mind or in the body;' 'whether it is to be defined as consisting in virtue or in pleasure;' 'whether these two can be united and coupled together;' or 'whether,' as some think, 'nothing certain can be known, nothing clearly perceived and understood;' questions in which I acknowledge that a vast multiplicity of learning, and a great abundance of varied reasoning is involved: but we seek something of a far different character; we want a man of superior intelligence, sagacious by nature and from experience, who can acutely divine what his fellow-citizens, and all those whom he wishes to convince on any subject by his eloquence, think, feel, imagine, or hope.

"He must penetrate the inmost recesses of the mind of every class, age, and rank; and must ascertain the sentiments and notions of those before whom he is pleading, 19or intends to plead; but his books of philosophy he must reserve to himself, for the leisure and tranquillity of such a Tusculan villa as this, and must not, when he is to speak on justice and honesty, borrow from Plato; who, when he thought that such subjects were to be illustrated in writing, imagined in his pages a new kind of commonwealth; so much was that which he thought necessary to be said of justice, at variance with ordinary life and the general customs of the world. But if such notions were received in existing communities and nations, who would have permitted you, Crassus, though a man of the highest character, and the chief leader in the city, to utter what you addressed to a vast assembly of your fellow-citizens? 20'Deliver us from these miseries, deliver us from the jaws of those whose cruelty cannot be satiated even with blood; suffer us not to be slaves to any but yourselves as a people, whom we both can and ought to serve.' I say nothing about the word miseries, in which, as the philosophers say, 21a man of fortitude cannot be; I say nothing of the jaws from which you desire to be delivered, that your blood may not he drunk by an unjust sentence; a thing which they say cannot happen to a wise man; but how dare you say that not only yourself, but the whole senate, whose cause you were then pleading, were slaves? Can virtue, Crassus, possibly be enslaved, according to those whose precepts you make necessary to the science of an orator; virtue which is ever and alone free, and which, though our bodies be captured in war, or bound with fetters, yet ought to maintain its rights and liberty inviolate in all circumstances? 22And as to what you added, that the senate not only can but ought to be slaves to the people, what philosopher is so effeminate, so languid, so enervated, so eager to refer everything to bodily pleasure or pain, as to allow that the senate should be the slaves of the people, to whom the people themselves have delivered the power, like certain reins as it were, to guide and govern them?

"Accordingly, when I regarded these words of yours as the divinest eloquence, Publius Rutilius Rufus, 23a man of learning, and devoted to philosophy, observed that what you had said was not only injudicious, but base and dishonourable. The same Rutilius used severely to censure Servius Galba, whom he said he very well remembered, because, when Lucius Scribonius brought an accusation against him, and Marcus Cato, a bitter and implacable enemy to Galba, had spoken with rancour and vehemence against him before the assembled people of Rome, (in a speech which he published in his Origines, 24) Rutilius, I say, censured Galba, for holding up, almost upon his shoulders, Quintus, the orphan son of Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, his near relation, that he might, through the memory of his most illustrious father, draw tears from the people, and for recommending two little sons of his own to the guardianship of the public, and saying that he himself (as if he was making his will in the ranks before a battle, 25without balance or writing tables, 26) appointed the people of Rome protectors of their orphan condition. As Galba, therefore, laboured under the ill-opinion and dislike of the people, Rutilius said that he owed his deliverance to such tragic tricks as these; and I see it is also recorded in Cato's book, that if he had not employed children and tears, he would have suffered. Such proceedings Rutilius severely condemned, and said banishment, or even death, was more eligible than such meanness. Nor did he merely say this, but thought and acted accordingly; for being a man, as you know, of exemplary integrity, a man to whom no person in the city was superior in honesty and sincerity, he not only refused to supplicate his judges, but would not allow his case to be pleaded with more ornament or freedom of language than the simple plainness of truth carried with it. 27Small was the part of it he assigned to Cotta here, his sister's son, and a youth of great eloquence; and Quintus Mucius also took some share in his defence, speaking in his usual manner, without ostentation, but simply and with perspicuity. But if you, Crassus, had then spoken, you, who just now said that the orator must seek assistance from those disputations in which the philosophers indulge, to supply himself with matter for his speeches, if you had been at liberty to speak for Publius Rutilius, not after the manner of philosophers, but in your own way, although his accusers had been, as they really were, accursed and mischievous citizens, and worthy of the severest punishment, yet the force of your eloquence would have rooted all their unwarrantable cruelty from the bottom of their hearts. But, as it was, a man of such a character was lost, because his case was pleaded in such a manner as if the whole affair had been transacted in the imaginary republic of Plato. Not a single individual uttered a groan; not one of the advocates gave vent to an exclamation; no one showed any appearance of grief; no one complained; no one supplicated, no one implored the mercy of the public. In short, no one even stamped a foot on the trial, for fear, I suppose, of renouncing the doctrine of the Stoics.