The regular place for taking the auspicia publica was the auguraculum on the Capitol, but other places were allowed, as the Rostra in the Forum, the garden of Scipio (Hortus Scipionis) in the Campus Martius, and the various temples where a good view of the open sky could be had. 75. The oldest augur was the president of the College of Augurs (Magister Collegi). All wore the toga praetexta and the purple-striped tunic, and carried the curved wand (lituus) as the insignia of office. b. Pontifices. 76. Nearly equaling in antiquity the College of Augurs, and rivaling it in importance, was the College of Pontifices. These were not priests in the strict sense of the word, but rather the interpreters of the divine law, and the guardians of the science and learning of the nation. They were the public astronomers, and regulated the calendar, and had to see to it that every religious and judicial act took place on the right day. They prescribed the forms of procedure in the civil and religious courts, and decided whether any proposed action was for or against divine law. They also kept the annals or records of important events, and, in that way, became the repositories of the first writings of history. These duties made the office of pontiff by far the most important of all those connected with religion. At their head was the pontifex maximus, who was, on the whole, the first officer in the state in rank and dignity. Among his duties was the appointment of the fifteen flamines (see 67) and the six Vestal Virgins. The Vestals were under his peculiar guardianship, and he lived in the Regia adjoining the temple of Vesta (see 105, 5 and 6). In Cicero's time there were fifteen pontifices. They gave information when asked, on all points relating to the external forms of worship, but never attempted to teach the people at large their religious duties. Anything like "preaching" was entirely unknown to the Romans. c. Fetiales. 77. In addition to the two colleges mentioned above, and versed in religious lore, was the college of twenty heralds or fetiales, whose duty it was to preserve, traditionally, treaties with foreign powers and to regulate all foreign relations. They passed on alleged violations of treaty rights, and in case of need made the formal declaration of war. d. Quindecim Viri Sacris Faciundis. 78. Below the greater colleges were others of a minor character. Among these was the board of fifteen men who had charge of the Sibylline books. These books, sold, according to tradition, to King Tarquin by the Cumaean Sibyl, were of unknown age and authorship. They were written in Greek and kept in a stone chest underground in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (see 109). They were placed in charge of at first two, then ten, and finally of fifteen men. These, when ordered by the senate, consulted the books and interpreted their oracular sayings. They were consulted only on extraordinary occasions, when terrifying prodigies had occurred and great danger seemed to overhang the state. It is believed that the words were written on loose palm leaves. The leaves were shuffled and one drawn out. Whatever oracle this contained was understood to be an expression of the divine will. The books were destroyed in 83 B.C. when the Capitol burned, but a new collection was at once made to replace the old. e. Haruspices. 79. When neither the divination of the augurs nor the responses of the Sibylline books seemed sufficient, the Romans had recourse to the haruspices, who came first from Etruria. They had no official college, nor were they possessed of any recognized authority, like the augurs or pontiffs. The haruspices made great pretensions, for, while the augurs could, through the auspices, answer simply "Yes" or "No" to a question as to the propriety of some specified act, the former professed the ability to read the future in detail, and the harder the case the greater their confidence. This they did from lightning,' earthquakes, and especially from viewing the entrails of animals. In all that they did, they used the most hairsplitting subtleties and distinctions; and the more startling the prodigy, the more confident their answers.2 There was much jealousy between the augurs and haruspices, and there was often so much absurdity in the latter's pretensions, that Cato used to say that he wondered how one haruspex could look at another with a straight face. ROMAN ORATORS AND ORATORY. 80. No country ever offered a grander field for the growth of oratory than ancient Rome. All conditions were favorable to its development. Freedom, the mother of eloquence, the Romans enjoyed from the earliest times. Nature had given them an innate readiness for speaking, a strong natural vein of eloquence. And education, social conditions, and the form of government were all such as to foster their talent. 2 81. A Roman boy received much of his training by his father's side, and accompanied him to the courts, the Forum, and the senate. From his earliest years he grew familiar with public life and heard the words of the most 1 See In Cat. III. § 19. 2 See Mommsen, History of Rome, I. 244. famous statesmen. When he had grown to manhood and wished to establish himself socially, he found that the way to the Roman peerage, the order of nobles (see 5), lay through the state offices, and that the strongest recommendation to these, next to military fame, was eloquence. He must then needs become a politician, a soldier, and an orator. We find these three pursuits com bined in all of Rome's greatest men. 82. Public speaking was much more important then than now. In the absence of newspapers it was the only way of disseminating political ideas and of shaping public policy. With the world's government centralized at Rome, the Roman rostra ruled the world. The growing turbulence of public affairs after the time of the Gracchi gave oratory still greater opportunities, and the fierce passions of partisan and demagogue expressed themselves in unparalleled vehemence. The grim reality of these bitter struggles must have been at the same time terrible and inspiring to the participants in them. The orator's denunciations were not mere empty thunders of eloquence addressed to an unresponsive audience. The Romans, with all their dignity, were a hot-blooded and excitable people, as was shown in many notable instances, and the stirring words of their orators were answered but too often by the flash of the dagger and the stroke of the sword. Few of Rome's greatest orators died natural deaths. 83. The earlier Romans were far more concerned with the matter than with the manner of a speech. At first they paid little attention to the latter. Eloquence was not based on theory, but was acquired by actual practice in public speaking. It was devoid of all artificial and technical adornment. Very little of this early oratory is extant, but Cicero praises it highly and gives a list of distinguished orators from 494 B.C. to his own time. Of the early orators the last and most famous was Cato the Censor (died 149). He left more than one hundred and fifty speeches. 84. After Cato the introduction of Greek letters began to influence Roman oratory. Men began to aim at beauty as well as at practical effectiveness in discourse. Rhetorical treatises began to appear, and orators began to draw from the riches of Greek philosophy and literature for adornment and illustration. Among the earliest to follow Greek methods in composition were Laelius, the younger Scipio, M. Lepidus, and Sulpicius Galba, all in the first half of the second century B.C. After these came the Gracchi, who were no less distinguished as orators than as champions of the oppressed. They employed a mode of speech that in its ease and freedom was almost like the Greek. They have been called the founders of classical Latin. Tiberius was the more dignified and profound, Caius the more intense in his oratory. 85. In the generation immediately preceding Cicero lived two men, M. Antonius and M. Licinius Crassus, who stood at the very summit of their art. Cicero compares their advent with that of Demosthenes and Hyperides at Athens. He had them both as teachers, and finds it hard to choose between them. They were both versed in Greek letters, though both affected to despise them to humor the popular prejudice against everything Greek. Cicero was the first to make Greek learning generally accessible and popular. 66 86. With Cicero himself we must place Hortensius. He was eight years older than Cicero, and his chief rival and antagonist when the latter rose to fame. He was so strong a forensic pleader that he was known as rex iudiciorum," the prince of the courts. Yet it was here, at the trial of Verres, that Cicero measured strength with him and proved himself superior. From rivals they |