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

"You are wrong, Catulus," said Antonius, "for I myself have met with many Phormions. Who, indeed, is there among those Greeks that seems to think any of us understand anything? To me, however, they are not so very troublesome; I easily bear with and endure them all; for they either produce something which diverts me, or make me repent less of not having learned from them. I dismiss them less disdainfully than Hannibal dismissed the philosopher, and on that account, perhaps, have more trouble with them; but certainly all their teaching, as far as I can judge, is extremely ridiculous. For they divide the whole matter of oratory into two parts; the controversy about the cause and about the question. The cause they call the matter relating to the dispute or litigation affecting the persons concerned; 1the question, a matter of infinite doubt. Respecting the cause they give some precepts; on the other part of pleading they are wonderfully silent. They then make five parts, as it were, of oratory; to invent what you are to say, to arrange what you have invented, to clothe it in proper language, then to commit it to memory, and at last to deliver it with due action and elocution; a task, surely, requiring no very abstruse study. For who would not understand without assistance, that nobody can make a speech unless he has settled what to say, and in what words, and in what order, and remembers it? Not that I find any fault with these rules, but I say that they are obvious to all; as are likewise those four, five, six, or even seven partitions, (since they are differently divided by different teachers,) into which every speech is by them distributed; for they bid us adopt such an exordium as to make the hearer favourable to us, and willing to be informed and attentive; then to state our case in such a manner, that the detail may be probable, clear, and concise; next, to divide or propound the question; to confirm what makes for us by arguments and reasoning, and refute what makes for the adversary; after this some place the conclusion of the speech, and peroration as it were; others direct you, before you come to the peroration, to make a digression by way of embellishment or amplification, then to sum up and conclude. Nor do I altogether condemn these divisions; for they are made with some nicety, though without sufficient judgment, as must of necessity be the case with men who had no experience in real pleading. For the precepts which they confine to the exordium and statement of facts are to be observed through the whole speech; since I can more easily make a judge favourable to me in the progress of my speech, than when no part of the case has been heard; and desirous of information, not when I promise that I will prove something, but when I actually prove and explain; and I can best make him attentive, not by the first statement, but by working on his mind through the whole course of the pleading. As to their direction that the statement of facts should be probable, and clear, and concise, they direct rightly; but in supposing that these qualities belong more peculiarly to the statement of facts than to the whole of the speech, they seem to me to be greatly in error; and their whole mistake lies assuredly in this, that they think oratory an art or science, not unlike other sciences, such as Crassus said yesterday might be formed from the civil law itself; so that the general heads of the subject must first be enumerated, when it is a fault if any head be omitted; next, the particulars under each general head, when it is a fault if any particular be either deficient or redundant; then the definitions of all the terms, in which there ought to be nothing either wanting or superfluous.

"But if the more learned can attain this exactness in the civil law, as well as in other studies of a small or moderate extent, the same cannot, I think, be done in an affair of this extent and magnitude. If, however, any are of the opinion that it can be done, they must be introduced to those who profess to teach these things as a science; they will find everything ready set forth and complete; for there are books without number on these subjects, neither concealed nor obscure. But let them consider what they mean to do; whether they will take up arms for sport or for real warfare; for with us a regular engagement and field of battle require one thing, the parade and school of exercise another. Yet preparatory exercise in arms is of some use both to the gladiator and the soldier; but it is a bold and ready mind, acute and quick at expedients, that renders men invincible, and certainly not less effectively if art be united with it.

"I will now, therefore, form an orator for you, if I can; commencing so as to ascertain, first of all, what he is able to do. Let him have some trace of learning; let him have heard and read something; let him have received those very instructions in rhetoric to which I have alluded. I will test what becomes him; what he can accomplish with his voice, his lungs, his breath, and his tongue. If I conceive that he may reach the level of eminent speakers, I will not only exhort him to persevere in his efforts, but, if he seem to me to be a good man, 2will entreat him; so much honour to the whole community do I think that there is in an excellent orator, who is at the same time a good man. But if it appears likely, after he has done his utmost in every way, that he will be numbered only among tolerable speakers, I will allow him to act as he pleases, and not be very troublesome to him. But if he shall be altogether unfit for the profession, and lacking in sense, I will advise him to make no attempts, or to turn himself to some other pursuit. For neither is he, who can do excellently, to be left destitute of encouragement from us, nor is he, who can do some little, to be deterred; because one seems to me to be the part of a sort of divinity; the other, either to refrain from what you cannot do extremely well, or to do what you can perform not contemptibly, is the part of a reasonable human being; but the conduct of the third character, to declaim, in spite of decency and natural deficiency, is that of a man who, as you said, Catulus, of a certain ranter, collects as many witnesses as possible of his folly by a proclamation from himself. Of him then, who shall prove such as to merit our exhortation and encouragement, let me so speak as to communicate to him only what experience has taught myself, that, under my guidance, he may arrive at that point which I have reached without any guide; for I can give him no better instructions.

"To commence then, Catulus, by taking an example from our friend Sulpicius here; I first heard him, when he was but a youth, in a case of small importance; he was possessed of a voice, figure, deportment, and other qualifications suited for the profession which we are considering. His mode of speaking was quick and hurried, which was owing to his genius; his style animated and somewhat too redundant, which was owing to his youth. I was very far from entertaining a slight opinion of him, since I like fertility to show itself in a young man; for, as in vines, those branches which have spread too luxuriantly are more easily pruned than new shoots are produced by culture if the stem is defective; so I would wish there to be that in a youth from which I may take something away. The sap cannot be enduring in that which attains maturity too soon. I immediately saw his ability; nor did I lose any time, but exhorted him to consider the forum as his school for improving himself, and to choose whom he pleased for a master; if he would take my advice, Lucius Crassus. To this advice he eagerly listened, and assured me that he would act accordingly; and added also, as a compliment, that I too should be a master to him. Scarcely a year had passed from the time of this conversation and recommendation of mine, when he accused Gaius Norbanus, 3and I defended him. It is incredible what a difference there appeared to me between him as he was then and as he had been a year before; nature herself led him irresistibly into the magnificent and noble style of Crassus; but he could never have arrived at a satisfactory degree of excellence in it, if he had not directed his efforts, by study and imitation, in the same course in which nature led him, so as intently to contemplate Crassus with his whole mind and faculties.