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

49Ernesti supposes him to be Gaius Cassius Longinus, who is mentioned by Cicero, pro Planco, c. 24.

50In one period or sentence he twice raised and twice lowered his voice: he raised it in the former members of the period, and lowered it in the latter; and this he did in one breath. Proust. This seems not quite correct. Cicero appears to mean, that of the two members the voice was once raised and once lowered in each.

51Orellius's text has praeceptis oratoris ; but we must undoubtedly read oratoriis with Pearce.

52Atticus was exceedingly pleased with this treatise, and commended it extremely, but objected to the removal of Scaevola from the conversation, after he had been introduced into the first dialogue. Cicero defends himself by the example of their 'god Plato,' as he calls him, in his book De Republica; where the scene being laid in the house of an old gentleman, Cephalus, the old man, after bearing a part in the first conversation, excuses himself, saying, that he must go to prayers, and returns no more, Plato not thinking it suitable to his age to be detained in the company through so long a discourse. With greater reason, therefore, he says that he had used the same caution in the case of Scaevola; since it was not to be supposed that a person of his dignity, extreme age, and infirm health, would spend several successive days in another man's house: that the first day's dialogue related to his particular profession, but the other two chiefly to the rules and precepts of the art, at which it was not proper for one of Scaevola's temper and character to be present only as a hearer. Ad Attic, iv. 16. B.

53Retire from the heat, like Scaevola, and take rest.

Table of Contents

There was, if you remember, brother Quintus, a strong persuasion in us when we were boys, that Lucius Crassus had acquired no more learning than he had been enabled to gain from instruction in his youth, and that Marcus Antonius was entirely destitute and ignorant of all erudition whatsoever; and there were many who, though they did not believe that such was really the case, yet, that they might more easily deter us from the pursuit of learning, when we were inflamed with a desire of attaining it, took a pleasure in reporting what I have said of those orators; so that, if men of no learning had acquired the greatest wisdom, and an incredible degree of eloquence, all our industry might seem vain, and the earnest perseverance of our father, one of the best and most sensible of men, in educating us, might appear to be folly. We used to refute these arguments with the aid of witnesses whom we had at home, our father, Gaius Aculeo our relative, and Lucius Cicero our uncle; for our father, Aculeo (who married our mother's sister, and whom Crassus esteemed the most of all his friends), and our own uncle (who went with Antonius into Cilicia, and left it at the same time with him), often told us many particulars about Crassus, relative to his studies and learning; and as we, with our cousins, Aculeo's sons, learned what Crassus approved, and were instructed by the masters whom he engaged, we had also frequent opportunities of observing (since, though boys, 1we could understand this) that he spoke Greek so well that he might have been thought not to know any other language, and he put such questions to our masters, and discoursed upon such subjects in his conversation with them, that nothing appeared to be new or strange to him. But with regard to Antonius, although we had frequently heard from our uncle, a person of the greatest learning, how he had devoted himself, both at Athens and at Rhodes, to the conversation of the most learned men; yet I myself also, when quite a youth, often asked him many questions on the subject, as far as the bashfulness of my early years would permit. What I am writing will certainly not be new to you, (for at that very time you heard it from me,) namely, that from many and various conversations, he appeared to me neither ignorant nor unaccomplished in anything in those branches of knowledge of which I could form any opinion. But there was such peculiarity in each, that Crassus desired not so much to be thought unlearned as to hold learning in contempt, and to prefer, on every subject, the understanding of our countrymen to that of the Greeks; while Antonius thought that his oratory would be better received by the Roman people, if he were believed to have had no learning at all; and thus the one imagined that he should have more authority if he appeared to despise the Greeks, and the other if he seemed to know nothing of them.

But what their object was, is certainly not relevant to our present purpose. It is pertinent, however, to the treatise which I have commenced, and to this portion of it, to remark that no man could ever excel and reach eminence in eloquence without learning, not only the art of oratory, but every branch of useful knowledge. For almost all other arts can support themselves independently, and by their own resources; but to speak well, that is, to speak with learning, and skill, and elegance, has no definite province within the limits of which it is enclosed and restricted. Everything that can possibly fall under discussion among mankind, must be effectively treated by him who professes that he can practise this art, or he must relinquish all title to eloquence. For my own part, therefore, though I confess that both in our own country and in Greece itself, which always held this art in the highest estimation, there have arisen many men of extraordinary powers, and of the highest excellence in speaking, 2without this absolute knowledge of everything; yet I affirm that such a degree of eloquence as was in Crassus and Antonius, could not exist without a knowledge of all subjects that contribute to form that wisdom and that force of oratory which were seen in them. On this account, I had the greater satisfaction in committing to writing that dialogue which they formerly held on these subjects; both that the notion which had always prevailed, that the one had no great learning, and that the other was wholly unlearned, might be eradicated, and that I might preserve, in the records of literature, the opinions which I thought divinely delivered by those consummate orators concerning eloquence, if I could by any means learn and fully register them; and also, indeed, that I might, as far as I should be able, rescue their fame, now upon the decline, from silence and oblivion. If they could have been known from writings of their own, I should, perhaps, have thought it less necessary for me to elaborate thus; but since one left but little in writing, (at least, there is little extant,) and that was what he wrote in his youth, 3and the other almost nothing, I thought it due from me to men of such genius, while we still retain a lively remembrance of them, to render their fame, if I could, imperishable. I enter upon this undertaking with the greater hopes of achieving my object, 4because I am not writing of the eloquence of Servius Galba or Gaius Carbo, concerning which I should be at liberty to invent whatever I pleased, as no one now living could confute me; but I publish an account to be read by those who have frequently heard the men themselves of whom I am speaking, so that I may commend those two illustrious men to such as have never seen either of them, from the recollection, as witnesses, of those to whom both those orators were known, and who are now alive and present among us.

Nor do I now aim at instructing you, dearest and best of brothers, by means of rhetorical treatises, which you regard as unpolished; (for what can be more refined or graceful than your own language?) but though, whether it be, as you use to say, from judgment, or, as Isocrates, the father of eloquence, has written of himself, from a sort of bashfulness and ingenuous timidity, that you have shrunk from speaking in public, or whether, as you sometimes jokingly remark, you thought one orator sufficient, not only for one family, but almost for a whole community, I yet think that these books will not appear to you of that kind which may deservedly be ridiculed because elegant learning is lacking in those who have discussed the art of speaking; for nothing seems to me to be missing in the conversation of Crassus and Antonius, that any one could imagine possible to be known or understood by men of the greatest genius, the keenest application, the most consummate learning, and the utmost experience; as you will very easily be able to judge, who have been pleased to acquire the knowledge and theory of oratory through your own exertions, and to observe the practice of it in mine. But that we may the sooner accomplish the task which we have undertaken, and which is no ordinary one, let us leave our exordium, and proceed to the conversation and arguments of the characters whom I have offered for your attention.