CHAPTER X. Of different styles of oratory; comparison of the varieties in eloquence with those in painting and sculpture, § 1-9. Characters of several Latin orators, 10, 11. Merits of Cicero, 12-15. Styles of the Attic, Asiatic, and Rhodian orators, 16-19. Remarks on the true merits of Attic eloquence, and on those who injudiciously affected it, 20-26. The Romans were excelled by the Greeks only in delivery; cause of the inferiority of the Romans in this respect, 27-34. The Romans exhorted to cultivate force of thought and brilliancy of language, 35-39. Folly of those who would reject all ornament, 40-48. Whether a difference should be made in the styles of speaking and writing, 49-47. Of the simple, grand, and florid styles, 58-68. Many varieties and mixtures of these styles, 69-72. Of corrupt taste in eloquence, 73-76. A good style may be acquired by study and practice; but we must carry no fancied excellence to excess, 77-80. 1. It remains for me to speak of the style of oratory. This, in the first division of my work,* was proposed as the third part of it; for I undertook to treat of the art, the artificer, and the work. But as oratory is the work of the art of rhetoric and of the orator, and there are, as I shall show, many forms of it, the influence of the art and the artificer is apparent in all those forms; yet they differ very much one from another, not only in species, as one statue differs from another, one picture from another, and one speech from another, but in genus, as Tuscan statues from Grecian,† and Asiatic eloquence from Attic. 2. Yet these several kinds of work, of which I am speaking, have not only their artificers, but also their admirers, and it is for this reason, possibly, that there has not yet appeared a perfect orator, and that perhaps no art has reached its full perfection, not only because certain qualities are more prominent in some individuals than in others, but because the same form is not to all equally attractive, partly from the influence of circumstances and countries, and partly from varieties in the judgment and objects of each particular person. 3. The first painters of eminence, whose works deserve to be regarded for any other quality than their antiquity, * II. 14, 5. †The Tuscan being of a ruder character. See sect. 7. Many, however, suppose, as Spalding observes, that the art of statuary was introduced into Tuscany by colonists from Greece. See sect. 16. were Polygnotus and Aglaophon, whose simple colouring even now finds such ardent admirers, that they prefer these imperfect rudiments of an art that was still, as we may say, to be, to the performances of the greatest masters that arose after them; but this preference, as it appears to me, is given only from an affectation of superior intelligence. 4. Subsequently Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who were very nearly contemporaries, as they both flourished about the time of the Peloponnesian war, (for a dialogue of Socrates with Parrhasius is to be found in Xenophon,†) contributed much to the improvement of the art. Zeuxis is said to have found out the management of light and shade; Parrhasius to have studied outline with great accuracy. 5. Zeuxis gave the human body more than its natural fulness, thinking that he thus added to its nobleness and dignity, and, as it is supposed, adopting that idea from Homer, whose imagination delighted in the amplest figures, even in women. Parrhasius was so exact in all his figures, that they call him the legislator of painting, since other painters follow, as a matter of obligation, the representations of gods and heroes. just as they were given by him. 6. Painting flourished most, however, about the reign of Philip, and under the successors of Alexander; but with different species of excellence; for Protogenes was distinguished for accuracy, Pamphilus and Melanthius for judgment, Antiphilus for ease, Theon of Samos for producing imaginary scenes, which the Greeks call parracial, and Apelles for genius and grace, on which he greatly prided himself. What made Euphranor remarkable, was, that while he was among the most eminent in other excellent attainments, he was also a great master both of painting and statuary. 7. There was similar variety in regard to sculpture; Callon and Hegesias § made rude statues, like the Tuscan ;|| Calamis * Aglaophon was a native of the island of Thasos, and is said by Suidas to have been the father of Polygnotus, who, according to Pliny, H. N. xxxv. 9, flourished before the nineteenth Olympiad, or B.C. 412. + Mem. Soc. iii. 10. A native of the island of Ægina, who flourished about B.C. 516. See Pausan. ii. 32; vii. 18. We have no knowledge of more than two of his works; a statue of Proserpine, and a Minerva carved in wood. § A contemporary of Callon. That he was the same with Hegias, is, though not certain, very probable. See Smith's Dict. of Biog. and Mythol. Sect. 1. 1 produced some that were less inelegant; and Myron such as were of a softer character than those of any of his predecessors Accuracy and grace were highly conspicuous in Polycletus, to whom pre-eminence in the art is allowed by most critics; yet, that they may not grant him every excellence, they intimate that his figures were deficient in dignity; for though he gave supernatural grace to the human form, he is said not to have adequately expressed the majesty of the gods. 8. The representation of old age, too, he is said to have declined, and to have attempted nothing beyond a smooth cheek. But what was wanting in Polycletus, is said to have been fully exhibited in Phidias and Alcamenes.* 9. Phidias, however, is thought to have been a better sculptor of gods than of men; certainly in ivory he was far beyond any rival, even if he had produced nothing more than his Minerva at Athens, and his Olympian Jupiter at Elis, the majesty of which is thought to have added something to the impressiveness of the received religion; so exactly did the nobleness of that work represent the god. In adhering to nature Lysippus and Praxiteles are said to have been most successful; as for Demetrius,+ he is censured for too much exactness in that respect, having been fonder of accurate likeness than of beauty. 10. So it is with oratory. If we contemplate the varieties of it, we find almost as much diversity in the minds as in the bodies of orators. There were some forms of eloquence of a rude nature, in agreement with the times in which they appeared, but indicating mental power in the speakers; among whom we may number the Lælii, Africani, Catos, and Gracchi; and these we may call the Polygnoti and Callones of oratory. Of the middle kind Lucius Crassus and Quintus Hortensius may be thought the chief representatives. 11 There may be contemplated a vast multitude of orators, all flourishing about the same time. Among them we find the energy of Cæsar,‡ the natural talent of Cælius,§ the subtilty of Calidius, the accuracy of Pollio, the dignity of Messala,** the austerity of Calvus,++ the gravity of Brutus,‡‡ the acute * An Athenian who flourished about B.C. 420; he was a pupil of Phidias. Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 5; Pausan i. 20; v. 10. He probably lived about the time of Pericles, or soon after. + X. 1, 114. ** X. 1, 113. § X. 1, 115. ++X. 1. 115. ness of Sulpicius, and the severity of Cassius.+ Among those, also, whom we have ourselves seen, we recollect the copiousness of Seneca, the force of Julius Africanus, the mature judgment of Domitius Afer,|| the agreeableness of Crispus, the sonorous pronunciation of Trachalus,** and the elegance of Secundus. 12. But in Cicero we have not merely a Euphranor, distinguished by excellence in several particular departments of art, but eminent in every quality that is commended in any orator whatever. Yet the men of his own time presumed to censure him as timid, Asiatic, redundant, too fond of repetition, indulging in tasteless jests, loose in the structure of his sentences, tripping t in his manner, and (what is surely very far from truth) almost too effeminate in his general style for a man. 13. And after that he was cut off by the proscription of the triumvirs, those who had hated, envied, and rivalled him,‡‡ and who were anxious to pay their court to the rulers of the day, attacked him from all quarters, when he was no longer able to reply to them. But the very man who is now regarded by some as meagre and dry, appeared to his personal enemies, his contemporaries, censurable only for too flowery a style and too much exuberance of matter. Both charges are false, but for the latter there is the fairer ground.‡ 14. But his severest critics were those who desired to be thought imitators of the Attic orators. This band of calumniators, as if they had leagued themselves in a solemn confederacy, attacked Cicero as though he had been quite of another country, neither caring for their customs nor bound by their laws; of which school are our present dry, sapless, and frigid orators. 15. These are the men who give their meagreness the name of health, which is the very opposite to it; and who, because they cannot endure the brighter lustre of Cicero's eloquence, any more than they can look at the sun, shelter ** See c. 5, sect. 5, and x. 1, 119. + X. 1, 125. ¶ X. 1, 121. ++ Endeavoured to equal him, not in virtue and merit, but in reputation and popularity; as Hortensius, xi. 3, 8. Buttmann. §§ Illa mentiendi propior occasio.] Spalding left a note on this passage, in which he expressed his opinion that illa is the accusative plural; and Buttmann agrees with him. A themselves under the shade of the great name of Attic ora. tory. But as Cicero himself has fully answered such critics, in many parts of his works, brevity in touching on this point will be the rather excusable in me. 16. The distinction between Attic and Asiatic orators is indeed of great antiquity; the Attics being regarded as compressed and energetic in their style, the Asiatics as inflated and deficient in force; in the Attics it was thought that nothing was redundant, in the Asiatics that judgment and restraint were in a great measure wanting. This difference some, among whom is Santra,* suppose to have arisen from the circumstance that, when the Greek tongue spread itself among the people of Asia nearest to Greece, certain persons, who had not yet acquired a thorough mastery over the language, desired to attain eloquence, and began to express some things, which might have been expressed closely,† in a periphrastic style, and afterwards continued to do so. 17. To me, however, the difference in the character of the speakers and their audiences, seems to have caused the difference in their styles of oratory; for the people of Attica, being polished and of refined taste, could endure nothing useless or redun dant; which the Asiatics, a people in other respects vain and ostentatious, were puffed up with fondness for a showy kind of eloquence. 18. Those who made distinctions in these matters soon after added a third kind of eloquence, the Rhodian, which they define to be of a middle character between the other two, and partaking of each; for the orators of this school are not concise like the Attics, nor exuberant like the Asiatics, but appear to derive their styles partly from the country, and partly from their founder; 19. for Æschines, who fixed on Rhodes for his place of exile,§ carried thither the accomplishments then studied at Athens, which, like certain plants that dege A grammarian, of whom little is known but his name. He is cited by Festus and Paulus. + Quæ propriè signari poterant.] That is, if the Asiatics had had a greater knowledge of the Greek language. What, in their ignorance, they could not express exactly, they gave in a circumlocution. See sect. 35. § That Aschines opened a school of rhetoric at Rhodes, is related by very good authors, as Plutarch in his Life of Demosthenes, and Philostratus, Vit. Sophist. i. 18, 2; and see Phot. Cod. 61 and 264. mann. Butte |