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.

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 combined 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 com

pares 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.

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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

became intimate friends, and were retained together on many famous cases.

87. Cicero marks the climax of Roman oratory —

"Deflendus Cicero est, Latiaeque silentia linguae."

SENECA.

His magnificent struggle against Antony was followed by the final overthrow of Roman liberty and the subsequent death of eloquence. Oratory under the empire. lacked the inspiration of patriotism, and was but an artificial striving after a lost ideal.

88. In Cicero's time there were two styles of oratory, each of which had its enthusiastic supporters. They were known respectively as the Asiatic and the Attic. The former stood for display and emotional affectation in composition and delivery, the latter for directness, simplicity, and naturalness. Hortensius was a conspicuous example of the Asiatic school. He had a natural fondness for ostentation, and a fine voice. Cicero classed himself with the Attic school, but was himself accused of Asianism. As a matter of fact, he belonged to neither. He had received most of his training at Rhodes, and the Rhodian school represents most nearly the golden mean between the two extremes.

89. The gravitas and dignitas which were so characteristic of Roman character and speech gave a majestic, sustained, and musical rhythm to Roman eloquence which was very effective. A musical alternation of long and short syllables was carefully observed and blended harmoniously with the word accent. Masters of style always studied for the best cadences, and certain combinations of quantity and accent were considered peculiarly desirable. For the end of a sentence Cicero (optimi), and especially (comprobavit). The cadence at the end of a hexameter (— ~ ~ — ~) was not favored.

favored the cadences

(filiam),

90. Even more important than the composition was the actio or delivery of the oration. Orators used far greater vehemence in voice, tone, and gesture than would be considered good taste now. Every fiber of the body was called into play. The speaker would run about the rostra, stamp his feet, get on his knees, wave his arms, while the expression of his face and the tone of his voice expressed all the varying shades of emotion.

91. No science was ever more carefully analyzed and labeled than oratory among the Romans. The duties of the orator in preparing his speech were embraced under the following:

Inventio, Dispositio, Elocutio, Memoria, Actio. Inventio is the gathering of the material; dispositio, its proper arrangement; elocutio, clothing it in proper language; memoria, memorizing it; actio, the delivery.

92. The oration itself had a definite plan, the principal features of which are usually easy to trace. A typical speech has the following arrangement:Exordium, the introductory remarks. Narratio, the statement of the case. Propositio, what the orator expects to prove. Partitio, the divisions of his argument.

Argumentatio, the argument, which is divided into: a. Confirmatio, the affirmative argument.

b. Confutatio, the refutation of real or supposed arguments of the opposite side.

Peroratio, the closing remarks.

93. Orations were of three principal kinds, judicial, deliberative, and demonstrative. The judicial oration was one delivered before a judge or jury; a deliberative oration, one discussing some public question before the senate or an assembly of the people (see 28); a demon