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

Catulus then observed, "You seem to me, Antonius, to have set clearly before us what he who designs to be an orator ought to learn, and what he may assume from that which he has learned without particular instruction; for you have reduced his whole business to two kinds of cases only, and have left particulars, which are innumerable, to practice and comparison. But take care lest the hydra and lion's skin be included in those two kinds, and the Hercules, and other greater works be left among the matters which you omit. For it does not seem to me to be less difficult to speak on the nature of things in general, than on the cases of particular persons, and it seems even much more difficult to discourse on the nature of the gods, than on matters that are disputed amongst men." "It is not so," replied Antonius; "for to you, Catulus, I will speak, not so much like a person of learning, as, what is more, one of experience. To speak on all other subjects is, believe me, mere play to a man who does not lack sense or practice, and is not destitute of common literature or liberal education; but, in contested cases, the business is of great difficulty; I know not whether it be not the greatest by far of all human efforts, where the abilities of the orator are, by the unlearned, estimated according to the result and success; where an adversary presents himself armed at all points, who is to be at once attacked and repelled; where he, who is to decide the question, is unsympathetic, or offended, or even friendly to your adversary, and hostile to yourself; when he is either to be instructed or undeceived, restrained or incited, or managed in every way, by force of argument, according to the case and the occasion; when his benevolence is often to be turned to hostility, and his hostility to benevolence; when he is to be moved, as by some machinery, to severity or to indulgence, to sorrow or to merriment, you must exert your whole power of thought, and your whole force of language; with which must be joined a delivery varied, energetic, full of life, full of spirit, full of feeling, full of nature. If any one, in such efforts as these, shall have mastered the art to such a degree, that, like Phidias, he can make a statue of Minerva, he will, like that great artist, find no difficulty in learning how to execute the smaller figures upon the shield."

FOOTNOTES

1The words cum essemus eiusmodi in this parenthesis, which all commentators regard as corrupt, are left untranslated.

2 Multos et ingeniis et magna laude dicendi . This passage, as Ellendt observes, is manifestly corrupt. He proposes ingeniis magnos et laude dicendi; but this seems hardly Ciceronian. Aldus Manutius noticed that an adjective was apparently wanting to ingeniis, but other editors have passed the passage in silence.

3See Brut. c. 43, 44.

4 Spe aggredior maiore ad probandum . That ad probandum is to be joined with spe, not with aggredior it shown by Ellendt on b. i. c. 4.

5The second hour of the morning, answering to our eight o'clock.

6The same that was consul with Gaius Marius, when they obtained, in conjunction, the famous victory over the Cimbri.

7He was the brother of Quintus Catulus, by the mother's side, and about twenty years his junior. Their mother's name was Popilia. Ellendt. See c. 11. He was remarkable for wit, but his oratory is said to have wanted nerve. Brut. c. 48. Cicero with great propriety makes Sulpicius sit with Crassus, and Cotta walk with Antonius; for Sulpicius wished to resemble Crassus in his style of oratory; Cotta preferred the manner of Antonius. Brutus, c. 55.

8In the speech which he made on behalf of Curius, on the occasion mentioned in book i. c. 39. Proust.

9A learned orator, who wrote in the time cf the Gracchi, and who is mentioned by Cicero, Brut. c. 26. Proust. Of Decimus nothing is known. Ellendt.

10 Navasse operam ; that is, bene collocasse. Ernesti.

11Ironically spoken.

12 Quae ad scientiam non saepe perveniat . Ellendt encloses these words in brackets as spurious, regarding them as a gloss on the preceding phrase that has crept into the text. Their absence is desirable.

13The reader will observe that the construction in the text is multi omnium generum atque artium, as Ellendt observes, referring to Matthiae.

14iii. 2, 7.

15See b. i. c. 62.

16The writer of Comedies. Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte. Hor.

17I wished to refute you yesterday, that I might draw Scaevola and Cotta from you. This is spoken in jest. Proust.

18B. i. c. 31.

19Rhet. i. 3, 1.

20See note on c. 3.

21Domitius Ahenobarbus. Plin. H. N. xvii. 1.

22A tribune of the people, 99 B.C., whom Antonius opposed about the Agrarian law. He is mentioned also in c. 66, and appears to be the same that is said to have played vigorously at ball, ii. 62, iii 23. Ellendt. See also Cic. Brut. c. 62.

23Of these, Acusilas or Acusilaus, a native of Argos, was the most ancient, according to Suidas. Ellendt. The others are better known.

24Lucius Coelius Antipater published a history of the Punic Wars, as Cicero says in his Orator, and was the master of Crassus, the speaker in these dialogues, as appears from Cic. Brut. c. 26. Proust.

25 Aptus et pressus . A scriptor, or orator aptus, will be one 'structa et rotunda compositione verborum utens'; and pressus will be, 'in verborum circuitione nec superfluens nec claudicans.' Ellendt.

26He is called Pusillus Thucydides by Cicero, Ep. ad Q. Fratr. xii.

27A promontory of Campania, where Antonius had a country house.

28Ruhnken, in a note on Timaeus's Lex. p. 78, expresses a suspicion that Cicero, when he wrote this, was thinking of a passage in Plato's Letters, Ep. vii. p. 718, F. Greenwood. Orellius very judiciously inserts tactu, the conjecture of Ernesti, in his text, instead of the old reading cantu, which, though Ellendt retains and attempts to defend it, cannot be made to give any satisfactory sense.

29Cicero means orators. The speeches which historians have written are not given as their own, but put into the mouths of others. Ellendt.

"The greater and more wonderful you represent such performances," said Catulus, "the greater longing possesses me to know by what methods or precepts such power in oratory may be acquired; not that it any longer concerns me personally, (for my age does not stand in need of it, and we used to pursue a different plan of speaking, as we never extorted decisions from the judges by force of eloquence, but rather received them from their hands, after conciliating their goodwill only so far as they themselves would permit,) yet I wish to learn your thoughts, not for any advantage to myself, as I say, but from a desire for knowledge. Nor do I need any Greek master to repeat his hackneyed precepts, when he himself never saw the forum, or was present at a trial; presumption similar to what is told of Phormion the Peripatetic; for when Hannibal, driven from Carthage, came to Ephesus as an exile to seek the protection of Antiochus, and, as his name was held in great honour among all men, was invited by those who entertained him to hear the philosopher whom I mentioned, if he were inclined; and when he had indicated that he was not unwilling, that copious speaker is said to have harangued some hours upon the duties of a general, and the whole military art; and when the rest of the audience, who were extremely delighted, inquired of Hannibal what he thought of the philosopher, the Carthaginian is reported to have answered, not in very good Greek, but with very good sense, that 'he had seen many foolish old men, but had never seen any one more deeply foolish than Phormion." Nor did he say so, indeed, without reason; for what could have been a greater proof of arrogance, or impertinent loquacity, than for a Greek, who had never seen an enemy or a camp, or had the least concern in any public employment, to deliver instructions on the military art to Hannibal, who had contended so many years for empire with the Romans, the conquerors of all nations? In this manner all those seem to me to act, who give rules on the art of speaking; for they teach others that of which they have no experience themselves. But they are perhaps less in error in this respect, that they do not attempt to instruct you, Catulus, as he did Hannibal, but boys only, or youths."