V. DELIVERY.

THE delivery of a Latin oration was marked by a fire and force of which we have small conception. Though the Romans were an extremely dignified and formal race, yet beneath the surface they had all the violent emotions which we in modern times associate with the Mediterranean nations. The actio or delivery occupies one of the first places in ancient treatises on oratory (actio in dicendo una dominatur, de Or. III, lvi, 213). The range of expressed emotion was much wider than is usual with us, not only in pitch of voice and inflection of tone, but also in bodily activity, sometimes going beyond what the best orators of the time regarded as becoming. Violent movements of the arms, stamping of the feet, changes of position, gestures of the whole body, so that sometimes the knee would touch the ground, were not infrequent. The Latin language, however, did not have that violent and sudden stress with which we are familiar, and on which we depend for spasmodic force. It had instead a more sustained and singing tone, capable of infinite variations. The syllabic accent, too, was very slight, and almost merged in a kind of rhythmic ictus depending on the quantity of the syllables.

Hence particular attention was paid to the numerus, or succession of long and short syllables, so as to give, along with varying tones of emphasis, an agreeable musical cadence which is foreign to the spirit of most modern languages. The most emphatic words were indicated by an intensity of tone throughout, as in modern music, and the less emphatic, coming at the end, were pronounced with a full, orotund utterance, so as to round out the period, but with a descending stress rather than with a rising one such as we have in English. Such a close as těměrĭtās fili comprobavit was regarded as especially effective. So quin eiusdem hominis sit qui improbōs probēt probōs improbārě is praised by Cicero as an ideal cadence.

VI. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION.

IN the time of Cicero the Roman "State" had technically a republican constitution, that is, every citizen had a share in the government. But not every citizen had an equal share, partly from fixed constitutional principles, and partly from differentiations in social prominence which affected constitutional rights.

I. CITIZENSHIP AND ORDERS IN THE STATE.

Accordingly there were among Roman citizens three social (and in a manner political) ranks (ordines): the Senatorial Order (ordo senatorius), the Equestrian Order (ordo equestris), and the People (populus, in the narrower sense). The first two of these made up the Roman aristocracy.

I. SENATORIAL ORDER. The Ordo Senatorius was strictly speaking only another name for the Senate, the members of which, by virtue of their life tenure of office, their privileges and insignia, and their esprit de corps, formed a kind of Peerage. The list of Senators, regularly numbering 300, was in early times made up by the Censors at their discretion from among those who had held high magistracies. But after the reforms of Sulla (B.C. So) every person who had held the quæstorship - the lowest grade of the regular magistracy (see below, p. lix) - was lawfully entitled to a seat in the Senate. This aristocracy was therefore an official or bureaucratic class. Their number fluctuated, running up to five or six hundred.

Nobility, however, did not really depend on holding offices oneself, but on being descended from an ancestor who had held a curule office. When any person not so descended was chosen a magistrate, he was called a novus homo,2 and, though he of course became a member of the Senatorial Order, he was not regarded as a noble. His posterity, however, would belong to the nobility. But such instances were very uncommon; for the Senate and the magistrates had such control over the elections that it was very difficult for any person not already a member of the nobility to be chosen to any office entitling him to enter the Senate. Hence the Senatorial Order and the Nobility were practically identical, and "new men

1 Whoever held any curule office — that is, dictator, consul, interrex, prætor, magister equitum, or curule ædile- - secured to his posterity the ius imaginum; that is, the right to place in the hall and carry at funeral processions a wax mask of this ancestor, as well as of any other deceased members of the family of curule rank. The privilege was highly prized.

2 Examples are Cato the Censor, Marius, and Cicero.

could not well cover the whole ground, and each of them was accordingly subdivided into several smaller parts, which varied according to the character of the oration. Thus the exordium contained a principium and an insinuatio (the suggestions to be made in order to gain the favorable attention of the hearer), and all the various forms of proof had their place as well as their names in the confirmatio. Even the main divisions are not all clearly marked, but generally they can be made out in Cicero's speeches. For examples, see the summary and the running analysis of each oration in the notes.

With the same particularity were the necessary duties of the orator divided, and furnished each with its technical name: inventio, the gathering of material; dispositio, the arrangement; elocutio, the suitable expression in language; memoria, the committing to memory; actio, the delivery. Under each of these, again, was a body of lore with its technical phrases. Elocutio embraced the whole doctrine of what we should call style, and the use of all rhetorical devices, ornaments (lumina), and forms of speech. So that no science was ever more completely digested and labelled than this of oratory.

Of the orations in the present edition, Roscius, Verres, and Archias belong purely to the genus iudiciale; the Manilian Law and the four Orations against Catiline belong to the genus deliberativum.

III. CICERO AS AN ORATOR.

CICERO'S success as an orator was due more than anything else to his skill in effectively presenting the strong points of a case and cleverly covering the weak ones. For this he had extraordinary natural talents, increased by very diligent study and practice, and never, even in his greatest success, did he relax the most careful study of his cases to this end. Attention is called throughout the notes to his felicities in this branch of his art, which, because it is not strictly literary, is likely to be overlooked, and all the more because such art must always be carefully concealed. It is sufficient, however, to call attention to it here generally, referring the student to the notes for details.

On the literary side of oratory, Cicero's only rival is Demosthenes, to whom he is superior in everything except moral earnestness and the power that comes from it, a quality which belongs to the man rather than the orator. Teuffel (Gesch. der Röm. Lit.) ascribes to him an extraordinary activity of intellect, a lively imagination, quickness and warmth of feeling, a marvellous sense of form, an inexhaustible fertility of expression, an incisive and diverting wit, with the best physical advantages. As to his "form," he speaks of it as "clear, choice, clean, copious, appropriate, attractive, tasteful, and harmonious." The whole range of tones from light jest even to tragic vehemence was at his command, and especially did he excel in an appearance of conviction and emotion, which he increased by an impassioned delivery. Of course he is not always at his best, but it is never safe to criticise his compositions without a careful study of the practical necessities of the occasion.

Thus Cicero's style is often criticised as redundant and tautological, a criticism which must proceed either from igno