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.

"clear,

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 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

rance or inattention. One of the great arts of the public speaker is to keep before his audience a few points in such a way that they cannot be lost sight of. To accomplish this, these points must be repeated as many times as possible, but with such art that the fact of repetition shall not be noticed. Hence the same thing must often be said again and again, or else dwelt upon with a profusion of rhetoric, in order to allow time for the idea to gain a lodgement. It was to this art that the late Rufus Choate owed his success as an advocate, though the literary critic would fain reduce his speeches to one-half their length. Literary tautology is in fact a special oratorical virtue. A spoken word you hear but once unless it is repeated, and there are things which have to be heard many times before they can have their effect.

Again, apart from "repetitional" tautology, it must be remembered that the Latin language was in a sense a rude tongue, lacking in nice distinctions. Such distinctions must be wrought out by a long-continued effort to express delicate shades of thought. Hence it often becomes necessary in Latin to point the exact signification of a word or phrase capable of several meanings, either by contrasting it with its opposite, or else by adding another word which has an equally general meaning, but which, like a stereoscopic view, gives the other side of the same idea, and so rounds out and limits the vagueness of the first. Thus the two together often produce as refined distinctions as any language which has a larger and more precise vocabulary.

In the oration for the Manilian Law (i. 3), for instance, we have singulari eximiaque virtute. Here singulari might mean simply odd (not found in others). This of itself is not necessarily a compliment any more than peculiar is in English, but when Cicero adds eximia the two words together convey the idea that the virtus is not only peculiar to Pompey, but exemplary and of surpassing merit.

At the same time the two

words allow the orator to dwell longer on a point that he wishes to emphasize.

In the same oration (v. 12) the words periculum et discrimen occur. In a treatise on synonyms it would be impossible to distinguish between these two, because each is very often used for the other with precisely the same meaning. But when the two are used together, as in this passage, they are not tautological, as would at first appear to a microscopic critic. The first refers to the immediate moment of doubt, the question whether it (the salus) shall be preserved or not; the second, to the ultimate decisive moment, which determines that doubt and finally decides. In English we should ordinarily put the whole into one (modified) idea, and say "most dangerous crisis," or the like. But the Latin has a habit of dividing the two parts of an idea and stating each separately. Hence we have the figure that we call hendiadys, which simply means that one language, or age, states separately and co-ordinately what another language, or age, unites into one complex.

In gloriam . . . tueri et conservare (the same oration, v. 12), tueri, the first word, refers to the action of the subject, the effort to maintain; conservare, the second, to the result [to be] attained, the preservation of the glory. To complete the idea both are necessary, because from the general turn of the thought both the effort and the result are alike important. In this way the same general idea can be artfully repeated from two different points of view without the hearer's suspecting a repetition.

To such causes as these is to be attributed the frequent use of words in a manner often called tautological.

IV. LATIN AND ENGLISH STYLE.

Two differences between Latin and English prose are noticeable. Latin prose is periodic in its structure; i.e. the main idea, instead of being expressed at once, briefly followed or preceded by its modifications, all in short detached sentences (as in English), is so put as to embrace all its modifying clauses with itself in one harmonious whole. This is also done at times in formal discourse in English, but in Latin it was the prevailing style. Though this method of presentation seems to us involved, yet it is after all only an artistic elaboration of the loose parenthetical way of speaking habitual with unlettered persons, or, in other words, it simply follows the natural processes of the human mind. But when developed it allows and stimulates an antithetic balance of thought both in sound and sense, so that each element of an idea is brought into notice by an opposing one, or is so embroidered on the level surface of the main idea or injected into it that it cannot fail to get its true effect at the instant when that effect is required.1

If we take the opening period of the oration for Roscius (p. 2), the main clause is credo ego; the rest of the sentence is all the object of credo in the indirect discourse. The main verb of the indirect discourse is mirari (changed from miramini), with vos in the accusative as its subject. The object of mirari is the indirect question quid sit quod, etc., embracing all the rest (changed from a direct question quid est quod, etc.). Again, the subject of sit is all that follows, being a clause with quod, of which surrexerim is the main verb and all the other clauses are modifiers. The clause cum . . . sedeant is a kind of adverbial modifier of surrexerim, while the clause qui . . . sim . . . comparandus is a kind of adjective modifier of ego the subject of surrexerim, and qui sedeant is a kind of adjective modifier of his.

1 See A. S. Hill's Foundations of Rhetoric, pp. 220-222.

Omnes hi, etc., is an independent sentence, but is connected in thought with the preceding, and explains the fact at which the jurors are supposed to be surprised, i.e. I suppose you wonder, etc., but the fact is, etc.

In another sentence, the beginning of the Manilian Law, we have a good example of the antithetic balancing of one word or clause against another which marks the Latin periodic style. The sentence consists of two parts, the first concessive, introduced by quamquam; the second adversative, introduced by tamen. So, in the first, conspectus balances locus, which is brought into relief by autem (" and again "); while ad agendum amplissimus and ad dicendum ornatissimus are balanced in like manner against each other. In the second part, the relative clause qui . . . patuit (virtually concessive) is, as usual, embodied in the main clause, bringing the relative as near as possible to its antecedent aditu; voluntas and rationes are set in antithesis by sed; while the main verb, prohibuerunt, comes last as usual. The logical form of the whole is, "Though political speaking has its advantages, yet I have been prevented," etc.

By stating first the leading thought (hoc aditu, etc.), and putting the verb at the end, Latin is able to make the main clause active, thus partly disguising the art of the antithesis. Here, as elsewhere, it is of great help in reading to observe these two rules: (1) that Latin puts first the main idea, the key to the whole; and (2) that it constantly deals in antitheses, often forcing them when they do not naturally occur (as in amplissimus and ornatissimus), each thought or expression having its pendant, like ornaments which go in pairs.

The second main difference between Latin and English prose style is that in English the emphasis gravitates towards the end, while in Latin the more emphatic word always comes first. This is not, like the corresponding usage in English, a mere tendency, but a universal practice, which can be and is managed by the writer with exquisite skill, so that a Latin prose