§ 1. It is not my purpose to write a rhetoric. Many learned men have done that, especially Cicero, and Aristotle before him. But because I am instructing a prince who will place orators over his youth, I shall propose a brief practice for teaching this most beautiful science. For I protested above that nothing is more ruinous to academies than that each man should have the right to teach according to his own judgment: many lack prudence in establishing an order; more lack love of labor; and most lack constancy, for they gradually grow languid. I shall therefore propose the laws which our Society prescribes for the professor of rhetoric: both that I may answer those who criticize our method of teaching because they do not know it, and that I may show the reason by which it comes about that so many men distinguished in eloquence proceed from the schools of the Society. The professor’s rules therefore read as follows:
“The level of this school cannot easily be defined by certain fixed limits, for it forms the pupil toward perfect eloquence, which embraces the two greatest faculties, oratory and poetry—of these two, however, the first place must always be assigned to oratory—and it serves not utility alone but also indulges ornament.”
Eloquence certainly extends very widely, as I demonstrated in the preceding chapter, and it is not altogether perfect without knowledge of the other sciences. But young men must be instructed in such a way that they can carry the common precepts and the exercise of style over to the other sciences to which they will devote their labor. The first place is assigned to prose speech, because its use and necessity are chief in the state.
§ 2. Yet poetry must not be neglected altogether, even by those of middling ability. First, it confers a more perfect knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages, for poets speak, as it were, another language. Next, nothing is equally useful for abundance and elegance of speech, since the laws of verse compel a variety of words, thoughts, and figures to be devised. Nothing, however, is equally praiseworthy in young men as abundance of speech and a certain, as it were,
luxuriance. For since wisdom is not yet mature enough to cut away and restrain everything that flows too excessively, there nevertheless ought to be something which a more mature judgment may one day remove. A vine which luxuriates prodigally is rendered fruitful by pruning; one which does not put forth superfluous shoots withers before autumn. Professors therefore provide very badly for abilities when they exercise with sharp epigrams and maxims those who do not yet comprehend them. For they confine abilities just as much as those who enclose growing bodies in garments smaller than their measure.
Let ample and customary subject matter be given: let them describe woods, seas, battles, and the common exercises of all poets—sunrise and sunset. The third utility of verse is that through practice they may learn thoroughly the quantities of syllables. I have indeed seen learned men who not only did not dare to pronounce and read but could not determine the quantity of syllables even while reading poets. This matter is so important that it impedes the freedom not only of delivering a speech but even of speaking privately. A constant fear of error threatens and oppresses speech with anxious dread.
This strict rhetoric therefore assists the other marvelously, renders it abundant, and adorns it; it brings it about that one dares to speak and read freely. Finally, prose speech also demands rhythms for itself, but generally avoids poetic rhythms, concerning which no one can judge unless learned. Cicero certainly labored very much in verse, but with neither Muses nor Apollo. Yet this exercise was an aid to him in eloquence. Nor, however, should Cicero’s poems be judged so harshly; for before him, who among the Romans wrote better ones? He read the ancients and spoke in their manner. For in Cicero’s time prose speech flourished, and poetry a little afterward. The words of the rule follow:
§ 3. “In general, it can be said that eloquence is contained chiefly in three things: the precepts of speaking, style, and erudition.”
Those three perfect eloquence if the natural goods of ability, memory, and disposition have been added. The individual matters must now be discussed.
Concerning precepts, the rule decrees as follows: “Although precepts can be sought and observed from every quarter, nevertheless in the daily lecture none are to be explained except Cicero’s rhetorical books and Aristotle’s Rhetoric—if it seems good—and his Poetics.”
And in the distribution of time: “The second hour before noon is to be given to a lecture either on the precepts, if a speech is explained after dinner, or on a speech, if the precepts are explained then, provided that constancy is preserved in what was begun at the start of the year. A repetition is to follow, and when necessary a subject is to be given for writing a speech or poem. Whatever time remains is to be assigned either to contest or to the things they wrote in the first hour.” And: “In the first hour after noon, after repetition of the last lesson, a new lecture is to be held, either on a speech, if precepts were expounded in the morning, or on the precepts, if a speech was. A repetition is to follow this in the customary manner.”
No one has doubted that precepts are necessary. And it indeed seems to me that, although men are lower and weaker in many respects, they especially excel beasts in this: that they can speak. Therefore he seems to me to have attained something glorious who excels men themselves in the very thing by which men excel beasts. If perhaps this is accomplished not by nature alone nor by exercise, but is acquired also by a certain artifice, it is not foreign to the subject to see what those men say who left us certain precepts concerning that matter.
But before we speak of oratorical precepts, it seems necessary to speak of the kind of the art itself, its office, end, material, and parts. For when these matters are known, each person’s mind will be able to consider the system and life of the art itself more easily and readily. There is a certain political science which consists of many great matters. A great and ample part of it is artificial eloquence, which they call theoretical rhetoric. For we neither agree with those who think that political science does not need eloquence, nor dissent greatly from those who think that it is wholly contained in the power and artifice of the rhetorician.
The precepts of the rhetoricians are innumerable and their books manifold; they must be sought from every quarter, for no book is so bad that it does not confer something good. But our public law commands that in the schools they be sought by explaining Cicero and Aristotle alone. And indeed I marvel at Cicero when he says in Book 2 of On the Orator that he will transmit only those things which practice itself taught him, and adds that, with us as guides, one should come to the place to which we came without a guide, since we are able to teach better things. I marvel, I say, since he had so many books of the Greeks and heard their orators, as he acknowledges concerning himself in the book On Famous Orators; nevertheless, once carried higher himself, he left everyone below him.
He certainly had Aristotle’s books, in which Aristotle treated those things accurately; he is, however, more obscure and concise than is suitable for his explanation everywhere, especially in the three books of the Rhetoric. In the Rhetoric to Alexander he is plainer and professes great diligence, for he begins thus:
Ἐπέστειλάς μοι ὅτι πολλάκις πολλοὺς πέπομφας πρὸς ἡμᾶς τοὺς διαλεξομένους ὑπὲρ τοῦ γραφῆναί σοι τὰς μεθόδους τῶν πολιτικῶν λόγων. Ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ διὰ ῥᾳθυμίαν ὑπερεβαλόμην ἐν τούτοις τοῖς χρόνοις, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ ζητεῖν οὕτως ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν γραφῆναί σοι διηκριβωμένως, ὡς οὐδεὶς ἄλλος γέγραφε τῶν περὶ ταῦτα πραγματευομένων.
“I have been informed by your letters that you have often sent certain men to us to ask me to write out for you the precepts of civil causes. I did not delay the matter up to this time through any negligence, but in order to seek to write to you about these things so diligently that certainly no other person who had labored in these matters ever wrote more diligently.”
Rightly and deservedly, therefore, do we follow those authors, but we Latins chiefly follow the Latin Cicero, who not only meditated upon the laws of eloquence in the shade but exercised them in the field and dust. He therefore transmitted genuine precepts and, what is chief, with such elegance and dignity that, while others are barren in them, he displayed the greatest eloquence in slender matters. Then, if we depart from Cicero, whom at last shall we explain? For what schoolman has lately arisen so speechless that some Rhetoric of his has not come forth into the light? Will you teach those laws from a compendium? It is not fitting: unless you teach eloquence eloquently, you will render pupils tongueless and mute. Soarius’s Rhetoric itself is collected principally from Cicero and Quintilian; it is proposed to beginners at first, until they draw all the precepts from the fountains themselves. So much concerning precepts.
§ 4. Concerning style, the instructions for the rhetorician teach many things, especially those of Cicero. The chief point is that each person should propose someone to himself to be reproduced by imitation. Thus Cicero indeed says in Book 2 of On the Orator: “Therefore let this be first among my precepts: that we show whom he is to imitate, and in such a way that he most diligently pursues those things which excel most in the man whom he will imitate. Then let exercise be added, by which, in imitating, he may reproduce and so express the man whom he previously selected—not as I have often known many imitators to do, who in imitating pursue either things that are easy or even those that are conspicuous and almost faulty. Nothing is easier than to imitate someone’s clothing, stance, or movement. If there is also something faulty, it is no great thing to take it up and be faulty in it. Thus that Fufius, who even now rages in the state after losing his voice—
does not attain the sinews in Gaius Fimbria’s speaking, which Fimbria nevertheless possessed, but imitates the distortion of his mouth and the breadth of his words. Yet that man did not know how to select the person to whom he should especially be similar, and in the very man whom he had selected he wished to imitate even his faults. But anyone who does as he ought must first keep watch in selecting; then, in the man whom he has approved, let him most diligently pursue the qualities that excel most.”
“For what cause do you judge there to be why individual ages have produced almost individual kinds of speaking? We cannot judge this so easily among our orators, because they certainly did not leave many writings from which a judgment could be made, as among the Greeks, from whose writings the system and inclination of speaking belonging to each age can be understood. The most ancient men whose writings survive are generally Pericles and Alcibiades, and in the same age Thucydides: subtle, acute, brief, abounding more in thoughts than words. It could not have happened that the kind was one and the same for all unless they had proposed someone to themselves for imitation. Critias, Theramenes, and Lysias followed them. Many writings of Lysias survive, some of Critias; concerning Theramenes we hear. All still retained at that time the sap of Pericles, but they were of a somewhat more abundant thread. Behold, Isocrates arose, the master of all those men, from whose school innumerable leaders issued as from the Trojan horse; but some of them wished to be illustrious in procession, others in battle.”
§ 5. Whom, then, will a young man imitate, if not Cicero? Those who lived before Cicero did not leave many writings, and now none survive; those who followed him are inferior to Cicero, and each followed a certain peculiar kind of speaking. Each also had certain faults of his own, greater than Cicero’s, and virtues much smaller. The first reason, therefore, why we propose Cicero is that no one has given us a better man.
No ancient author escaped criticisms. Pericles and Thucydides were judged acute and unadorned by many. Many blamed Plato’s σύγχυσιν, his confusion; the ancients said that many things in him were useless and many foreign to the matter. Athenaeus, Book 11, chapter 22 of the Deipnosophists, and Theopompus in his book Against Plato’s Manner. Aristotle’s accurate diligence and often his μικρολογία (minuteness of discourse) were tiresome; because of his obscurity he displeased many, and to such a degree that they judged the ink of the cuttlefish to have been poured over his writings.
But, to withdraw from the quarrels and rivalries of the Greeks, let us treat the Latins. Lenaeus, Pompey’s freedman, called Sallust a monster, a thief of Cato’s words, and a most unlearned affecter. Trogus charged Livy with Patavinity; Caligula judged him verbose. Seneca, while he always desires to speak acutely, often drives home empty and frigid subtleties; nevertheless, Caligula almost removed him from the midst of life because of his eloquence. Quintus Remmius Palaemon called Varro, commended in so many ways by his contemporaries, a pig. All either had faults or envy fastened faults upon them. Terence, Virgil, and Cicero are accused by the Greeks of extortion; but Terence and Virgil gloried in having transferred Greek things to their own use. Cicero joined the force of Demosthenes, the sweetness of Isocrates, and the abundance of Plato, as Quintilian judged truly.
Nor ought it to deter us from him that he himself is not the author of everything; rather, it ought to allure us to imitate a man who so expressed by imitation the three virtues of the three most excellent orators that he surpassed them all. Yet among the men of his own age he was called rather swollen, Asiatic, excessively redundant in repetitions, sometimes frigid in witticisms, fractured and spineless in compositions. Indeed, Brutus called him soft, as the same Quintilian reports. He himself acknowledges the swelling, but, admonished by Molon, corrected it; and would that there were a similar swelling in all young men. Cicero, Book 2 of On the Orator. That swelling was ornament before the people, redundancy before the senate. The other faults belong to his rivals, not to Cicero; although nothing prevents a man who speaks daily in the senate or courts from having said many things which he would bring back to the anvil. Who does not know the difference between a public speaker who is well prepared and one who speaks for the occasion?
We speak of the speeches which have been left to us. They carried off this prerogative: the age was able to preserve no speeches of any earlier Roman orator besides them. Nor does the authority of Brutus move me. As a follower of Stoic discipline and an admirer of Cato, he despised a more polished and copious speech. But I shall convict those who censure the labors of our Society in this department and call men elsewhere, using as witnesses the very men whom they have cited to me; and I shall produce an argument to which not even calumny will attempt to reply.
He must be regarded as a great orator whose speeches brought it about that the speeches of all who flourished in the Roman state by the praise of eloquence ceased to be read—and this in a free state, not through fear or flattery but by the freest judgment, even that of his bitterest enemies—and whom posterity then imitated. But it is manifest that this happened to Cicero. In the Brutus, Brutus himself and the experience then present are witnesses. “Curio, therefore, was almost of the same age, certainly an illustrious orator, concerning whose ability one can judge from his speeches. For there are others, and also his noble speech For Servius Fulvius on Incest. When we were boys, it was judged the best of all; now it scarcely appears amid this crowd of new volumes.”
“I understand excellently,” says Brutus, “who brought about that crowd of volumes.” “And I,” Cicero says, “understand, Brutus, whom you mean. Certainly we both brought something good to the young—a kind of speaking more magnificent than it had been and more ornate—and perhaps caused harm because the ancient speeches, after ours appeared, ceased to be read, not indeed by me, for I prefer them to my own, but by most men.” “Number me,” he says, “among the most, although I see, on your authority, that many things which I formerly despised must now be read by me.”
They will therefore concede this to me: even if we possessed an orator more ancient than Cicero, he should nevertheless not be proposed for imitation, since Rome ceased to read him when Cicero’s volumes had been published and, as though acorns had been disdained after grain was discovered, rejected the ancient diction. Nor did the following age find anyone so foolishly arrogant that he would make himself equal to Cicero. Seneca, the most eloquent man of his time, acknowledges Cicero as the father of Roman eloquence. “Our Cicero too,” he says, “from whom Roman eloquence arose, was a gradual worker.” Let the same Seneca be heard concerning composition in Epistle 100: “Read Cicero: his composition is uniform; it keeps its cadence, is carefully wrought, slow, and soft without disgrace. By contrast, that of Asinius Pollio is rough and leaping and will abandon you where you least expect. Finally, in Cicero everything comes to an end; in Pollio it falls, except for a very few expressions which are bound to a fixed measure and a single model.”
But in Epistle 114 he seems to wish to censure Cicero. Yet because he speaks ambiguously, let us rather accept it in a good sense and not impute envy to Seneca, as if, because he himself followed another form of speaking, he had censured Cicero’s style. Those who delight in criticisms of great men will believe this more readily, because writers transmit that Seneca turned Nero away from reading the ancient orators so that he might keep him longer in admiration of himself. I shall transcribe the whole passage because it treats imitation:
“Let us pass to composition. How many
kinds of fault do you have in this? Some approve a stiff and rough composition. They deliberately disturb anything that has flowed out rather smoothly; they do not wish the joint to be without a rough place; they consider manly and brave whatever strikes the ear through unevenness. The composition of some is no composition but modulation, so greatly does it flatter and glide softly. What shall I say about that in which words are deferred and, long awaited, are scarcely returned at the close? What of that which is slow at its ending, as Cicero’s is, sloping downward and ending softly, and answering in no other way than it customarily does, according to its own manner and cadence? The fault is not only in the kind of thoughts, if they are either petty and childish or shameless and have dared more than decency allows, but if they are flowery and excessively sweet, if they issue into emptiness and effect nothing more than their sound.
“Some one man under whom eloquence then stands introduces these faults; the others imitate and transmit them one to another. Thus, while Sallust was in vigor, amputated sentences, words falling before they were expected, and obscure brevity stood for cultivation. Arruntius, a man of rare frugality who wrote histories of the Punic War, was Sallustian and strove toward that kind. In Sallust there is: ‘He made an army with silver,’ that is, he procured it with money. Arruntius began to love that expression and placed it on every page. In one place he says: ‘They made flight for our men.’ In another: ‘Hiero, king of the Syracusans, makes war.’ And elsewhere: ‘When these things were heard, they made the men of Panormus surrender to the Romans.’ I wished to give you a taste. The whole book is woven from these expressions. Things which were rare in Sallust are frequent and almost continuous in this man—and not without cause, for Sallust happened upon them, whereas this man sought them.
“You see, however, what follows when someone’s fault serves as a model. Sallust said, ‘while the waters were wintering.’ Arruntius says in the first book of the Punic War: ‘Suddenly the storm wintered.’ And elsewhere, when he wished to say that the year had been cold, he says: ‘The whole year wintered.’ And elsewhere: ‘Thence he sent sixty light transports, besides the soldiers and the sailors’ necessaries, while the north wind was wintering.’ He does not cease thrusting this word into every place. Somewhere Sallust says: ‘Amid civil arms he seeks reputations for equity and goodness.’ Arruntius could not restrain himself from immediately placing in his first book: ‘There were enormous reputations concerning Regulus.’ These, therefore, and faults of this kind, which imitation has impressed upon someone, are not indications of luxury or a corrupted mind.”
In Book 2 of the Natural Questions, Seneca says that Caecinna would have had some name for eloquence had Cicero’s shadow not oppressed him. Lucan gave him the same testimony:
The greatest author of Roman eloquence, Cicero, beneath whose law and toga fierce Catiline trembled before the peace-making axes. Eloquence added strength to a feeble cause.
What of Velleius Paterculus? “All eloquence burst forth under the leader of its own workmanship.” Pliny, Epistle 20: “The best speech of Cicero is the longest.” And Fabius 12.20: “Cicero is most eminent in all the qualities which are praised in each individual.” Indeed, even those who were his enemies charged him not with speechlessness but with immoderate eloquence; for no sane man denied that he was the most eloquent of Romulus’s descendants.
§ 6. Nevertheless, some censure this: they say that those who imitate Cicero are not learned. They prefer Lipsius or another in whose individual periods and thoughts there is either a point worthy of an epigram, a precious word from antiquity, or a hemistich from the best Greek sayings. Those things do not move me; for while such men pursue them studiously and affectedly, they become not only dry but even barbarous.
In that kind of style Justus Lipsius had a most peculiar gift; yet he himself everywhere inculcates the imitation of Cicero, detests his own imitators, and no one ever—or certainly very few—has attempted without inept subtleties what Lipsius did. But if that charge is pressed against the Society, it will be repelled without great labor by those who understand that it is one thing to draw forth the thought of one’s mind evenly, in Latin, and considerately, and another to patch together rhapsodies by leaps.
Let Caelius Rhodiginus come forward, who opened the eyes of all antiquarians. Although he has often seemed to many to speak stones—for his whole speech is rough and rocky—he nevertheless pursues Cicero with true praises in Book 25, chapter 13: “And lest we seem through want to have passed over our own authors, what is more abundant than Cicero, whom Pliny admires as placed beyond every hazard of ability, Quintilian pronounces the best master of speaking, Jerome confesses to have stood upon the summit of Latin eloquence, and Augustine, so great an assertor of Christian truth, plainly acknowledged that he owed his salvation to the Hortensius? What is more eminent? What streams of water overflow so greatly? What sea inundates more spaciously? What thunderbolt flashes more impetuously? You would believe him to seize the judge, envelop him, drive him headlong, and trample him down; you would think him not merely to set the hearer on fire, but himself to burn. Finally, you would believe him a certain god of minds. Whatever opposes and resists that rushing violence is judged to be beyond human comprehension.
“In him the force of Demosthenes ranges widely, the abundance of Plato shines, and Isocratean pleasantness caresses, entices, and moves—the school and workshop of speaking belonging to the man whose house lay open, as it were, to all Greece. Nor would you seek in vain the subtlety of Lysias, the acuteness of Hyperides, the resonance of Aeschines, the gravity of Africanus, or the gentleness of Laelius. So much the less tolerable is the book of Largus Licinius, which was portentously entitled The Scourge of Cicero. The qualities which shone singly in others all blossom together in one man, and indeed at the highest degree, so that you might judge the others hay, as they say. If you think that they should be compared with him, you would accomplish no more than if you attempted to compare act with potency, or with the entelechy which lies hidden in matter. Yet you will find men who, swelling with a censorious brow, contend that they have scented something of Asiatic swelling in so great an orator.”
Marcus Cicero writes concerning himself and Demosthenes: “You see,” he says, “that he accomplishes many things and we attempt many; that he is able, while we wish, to speak in whatever manner the cause demands.” There are afterward those who extol to me the brevity of Sallust with praises. I pass over what Seneca writes: while Sallust was in vigor, amputated sentences, words falling before they were expected, and obscure brevity stood for cultivation, which Arruntius, a man of rare frugality, imitated in the books in which he embraced the histories of the Punic War. That brevity is certainly plausible. I add also what the gravest authors have called it: immortal. Yet what is it to a judge whose attention is already occupied? Nor would I greatly approve Thucydides for this use. And because we seem to be tearing down great names before which it would have been far more honorable to rise, this is Marcus Cicero’s own judgment, from whom we know it was elsewhere also transmitted thus: “Brevity,” he says, “is a praise sometimes in some part of speaking; in eloquence as a whole it has no praise.”
Speeches from Cicero’s books are therefore expounded so that the precepts of eloquence may shine more brightly in them, with all antiquity approving this. Yet other writings are not rejected, for the sixth rule also permits the exposition of others. The lecture is twofold: one pertains to art, in which the precepts are explained; the other to style, in which speeches are explained. In each, however, two things must be considered: first, which authors are to be taken up for exposition; then, what method of interpretation can be maintained. Enough has been said concerning the first in the first rule: Cicero alone is to be used for speeches; for precepts, Aristotle is to be added to Cicero.
A speech must never be omitted; indeed, the explanation of precepts should be continued for almost the whole year, for the force of oratorical precepts is immense. Yet in place of this, where custom permits, as the year is now declining, the use of some author who contains greater erudition or variety is not forbidden. A certain lecture upon a poet may sometimes be interposed during the summer between lectures on precepts or on a speech.
§ 7. Of historians, Livy and Sallust are chiefly expounded. I do not trouble myself about the judgments of others; I shall use the testimony of the man whom I have already called forth on Cicero’s behalf. “Moreover,” says Caelius in Book 25, chapter 3, “that milky and overflowing amplitude of the Paduan historian, so often affecting the reader that it almost overwhelms him with a certain stupor, seems to me to nourish the ability far more richly; so much so that—as that man says of painters who did not know how to take their hand from the panel—you cannot tear your eyes away from the reading. In his speaking all things are not merely sketched but graphically expressed.
“That most sweet abundance, yet austere and not boiled down, shining and blossoming without labor—as Seneca writes of Theophrastus—is not merely poured over with nectar but anointed with a certain enchantment of Circe, whom Homer, the prince of letters, wished to be understood as a goddess. You desire to depart; the indescribable vastness of eloquence holds you with caressing loves. Yet it is not vast, but more honorably arranged, more preciously cultivated, divinely unencumbered. Nowhere is there childish paint or empty cosmetics, nowhere a more tightly curled lock. You are not present; the pleasantness already tasted summons you, far more powerfully than the songs of the Sirens, past which the deaf rower is at last said to have traveled. Not even a blind man could neglect this pleasantness if he perceived it only by its fragrance.
“What now shall I say of erudition? In this one man it so continually gushes forth, exults in such manifold fashion, and provokes every most ingenious man—his ear first well steamed and then washed with sharp vinegar—by a recondite knowledge of things, that in the very year when we were commenting upon these matters I drew this confession from my hearers for whose sake that labor was performed at Padua and whose inner fiber was by no means horn: that they carried away more benefit from one lecture dictated upon Titus Livy than from ten upon Sallust, whom we explained on spare days, that is, feast days.”
Pollio Asinius nevertheless thinks that the phrasing of this man savors somewhat of Patavinity. I suppose this is because his speech is not colored with a certain urbanity, that is, the genuine propriety of the city of Rome—a quality which is perceived while reading rather than capable of being expressed in speech. For something greater rings and resounds more urbanely in Roman writers than in those of the other nations. Thus too Quintus Granius, a Roman herald, overwhelmed Tinca of Placentia, a most witty man, with some indescribable native flavor. And so a little old woman called Theophrastus, a man of divine eloquence, a foreigner, having marked his affectation of one word.
I believe that those Paduan hearers loved their fellow citizen too greatly. For who does not see that Sallust possessed greater ability and a more inward eloquence? Certainly Roman history has no men equal to these. Velleius is not to be despised; Curtius is customarily read in the humanities class. Tacitus surpassed all Romans and Greeks in prudence and judgment, but his style is more concise and weightier in thoughts than young men can comprehend or are able to imitate. Therefore he must be read by learned men, not proposed to beginners.
§ 8. But if someone asks me by what method those works are explained, I shall now state that too. Rule 7 speaks thus concerning precepts: “As to the method of interpretation, if precepts are being explained: first, the meaning of the precept is to be opened up, after the judgments of the interpreters have been compared, if it is rather obscure and they do not agree. Second, other rhetoricians who prescribe the same thing, or the same author if he prescribes the same elsewhere, are to be brought forward. Third, some reason for the precept itself is to be devised. Fourth, several similar and especially illustrious passages of orators and poets in which they employed that precept are to be adduced. Fifth, if anything from varied erudition and history contributes to the matter, it is to be added. Finally, it is to be shown how it can be accommodated to our own affairs; and this is to be done with the greatest possible selection and ornament of words.”
Rule 8 speaks in this manner concerning a speech or poem: “If a speech or poem is explained: first, the thought is to be expounded if it is obscure, and differing interpretations are to be judged. Second, the whole method of the art—namely, invention, disposition, and expression—is to be examined: how aptly the orator insinuates himself, how suitably he speaks, or from what topics he takes arguments for persuading, adorning, and moving; how many precepts he often mingles in one and the same place; in what manner he encloses reasoning for producing belief within figures of thought, and in turn interweaves figures of thought with figures of words. Third, several passages similar both in matter and words are to be brought forward, and other orators or poets who used the same precept to persuade or narrate something similar are to be produced. Fourth, the matters themselves are to be confirmed by the judgments of wise men, if the subject permits. Fifth, from history, fables, and all erudition, those things are to be sought which contribute to adorning the passage. Finally, the words are to be weighed, and their propriety, ornament, abundance, and rhythm observed. These things, however, have not been brought forward so that the master should always pursue them all, but so that he may select from them those which seem more opportune.”
§ 9. I do not think anyone will ask me about the utility or dignity of this interpretation, but rather that all will marvel how one man can be equal to so many and such varied labors. For it is the labor of a whole day, divided into various parts. First he reviews and corrects compositions. That immense labor is described in the fourth rule: “In correcting a composition, let him indicate if any fault has been committed in oratorical or poetic art, in elegance and cultivation of speech, in connecting the discourse, in arranging rhythms, in orthography, or otherwise; if any passage has been treated wrongly, obscurely, or humbly; if decorum has been insufficiently preserved; if any digression has been too long; and other things of the same kind. Finally, when the speech has been completed, let each pupil offer to the teacher the whole speech copied out together—or at least corrected—which he had previously brought in parts, so that it may appear that the speeches have been perfected by everyone.”
Ten things are proposed in the correction of a speech, five in its explanation, and still others in the theme; but I shall afterward explain the manner in which the Society forms its own instructors into professors.
§ 10. The exercises are daily, according to Rule 5: “The pupils’ exercises while the master corrects the compositions will be, for example: to imitate some passage of a poet or orator; to produce some description, such as of gardens, temples, a storm, and similar things; to vary the same expression in several ways; to translate a Greek speech into Latin or conversely; to embrace in prose the verses of a poet, both in Latin and in Greek; to change one kind of poem into another; to compose epigrams, inscriptions, and epitaphs; to excerpt expressions, whether Greek or Latin, from good orators and poets; to accommodate rhetorical figures to particular subjects; to draw forth from rhetorical and topical places many arguments concerning some matter; and other things of the same kind.”
Rule 9 determines the subject and kind of composition: “A subject for a speech is to be dictated, either the whole at the beginning of each month or in parts each week—for at most one speech is to be completed in each month. Let it be brief, but such as proceeds through all parts of a speech. Let the teacher indicate the topics of confirmation, the principal figures of amplification which could be employed, and, if it seems good, certain passages of good authors for imitation. Sometimes, after some writer according to whose imitation they should form the speech has been pointed out, let the matter be proposed word for word.”
And Rule 10: “The subject of a poem can also be transmitted either in writing or orally, either by indicating the matter alone or by adding a particular thought. Let it be either brief—such as the subject of an epigram, ode, elegy, or epistle—to be completed at one sitting; or longer, so that they may weave a poem, just as a speech, over several sittings.”
And Rule 19: “The master will sometimes be able to propose to the pupils, in place of a subject, some brief action—namely, an eclogue, scene, or dialogue—so that afterward the one which has been written best of all may be presented in the school, with the parts distributed among them, but without any theatrical ornament.” It is not merely to be presented to the master but also exhibited for public judgments.
Rule 18: “Let poems be affixed to the walls of the school about every other month to adorn some more celebrated day, to promulgate officeholders, or on some other occasion, with all the most select poems copied out by the pupils. Indeed, according to the custom of the regions, let there also be something in shorter prose”—
§ 11. All this exercise tends to this end: that they exercise themselves as much as possible in writing and speaking. For eloquence is learned chiefly by practice. It is pleasing to marvel at the negligence of our age when it is estimated from the diligence of the ancients. Suetonius writes concerning Octavian Augustus: “From his earliest age he eagerly and most laboriously practiced eloquence and liberal studies. During the war at Mutina, amid so great a mass of affairs, he is said to have read, written, and declaimed every day. For thereafter he never spoke in the Senate, before the people, or before the soldiers except with a speech meditated and composed beforehand, although he did not lack the ability to speak extemporaneously upon sudden occasions. And lest he incur a hazard of memory or consume time in learning by heart, he instituted the practice of reciting everything. More serious conversations also with individuals, and even with his Livia, he had only from writings and from a little book, lest he say more or less extemporaneously. He pronounced with a sweet and peculiar tone of voice, and continually gave attention to Phonascus; but sometimes, when his throat was weakened, he addressed the people through the voice of a herald.”
Every circumstance increases our wonder. He was already eighteen years old; from his earliest youth he practiced eagerly. During the war at Mutina, where he was contending for reputation, resources, and life against powerful enemies, he read, wrote, and declaimed daily, so that you may recognize the genuine pupil of Cicero. That he chiefly read Cicero is evident from what was said above.
Posted compositions and declamations are proposed for this reason: that they may exercise mutual criticism and publicly furnish a specimen of their progress. We certainly see abilities wonderfully aroused by this means. In vain will they learn all the laws of all oratorical precepts; in vain will they read everything; they will not become orators without practice. No one becomes a soldier by reading or watching the gladiatorial art: it is necessary to strike the stake, to be burdened with arms and palisades, and to have struck the target with a practice weapon, so that at some time you may cut down an enemy. Tullius, the best master and model of speaking, chiefly commends this in Book 1 of On the Orator: “But the principal thing is that which—to speak truthfully—we do least; for it is a matter of great labor, which most of us flee: to write as much as possible. The pen is the best and most excellent maker and master of speaking, and not unjustly. For if meditation and reflection easily surpass a sudden and fortuitous speech, surely assiduous and diligent writing will surpass meditation itself. For all the topics, whether of art or of a certain ability and prudence, which are present in the matter concerning which we write, show themselves and occur to us when we seek them and contemplate them with the whole acuteness of our ability. And all the thoughts and all the words of every kind which are especially illustrious must come beneath the point of the pen and present themselves. Then the very arrangement and formation of the words is perfected in writing, not by a poetic rhythm but by a certain oratorical rhythm and measure.
“These are the things which produce cries and admiration in good orators, and no one will attain them unless he has written long and much, even if he has practiced most vigorously in these extemporaneous speeches. And one who comes to speaking from the habit of writing brings this ability: even if he speaks suddenly, nevertheless the things which are said seem like things written. And even if at some time in speaking he has brought something written, when he has departed from it, the remaining speech will follow in a similar manner. Just as, when a ship has been set in motion and the rowers have ceased, the ship itself nevertheless retains its motion and course when the impulse and beat of the oars have been interrupted, so in a continuous speech, when the written portions fail, the remaining speech nevertheless maintains an equal course, set in motion by the likeness and force of the written portions.”
§ 12. In the same place he relates a twofold exercise. For he used either to express a Latin speech or verses in other words—in which he says there was this defect, that others had already occupied the best words—or to translate Greek. “Afterward,” he says, “it pleased me, and I employed this method as a young man, to translate the Greek speeches of the greatest orators. By reading them I attained this: that when I rendered in Latin what I had read in Greek, I not only employed the best words, yet words in customary use, but also formed certain words by imitation which were new to our people, provided they were suitable.”
What hope of eloquence can there be for us if we stand so far from Cicero and every subject for writing is tedious? How slight a reason calls young men away from writing—indeed, from speaking! It is shameful to say: when they offer a theme, they believe that they are laboring for their teacher. Ludovicus Vives severely assailed that error in his commentary on Book 22, chapter 11, of Augustine’s City of God: “Certainly there was a divine force of ability in Marcus Tullius, who, amid the affairs and commotions of the whole world, so withdrew himself whenever he pleased that he found time not only in which to read, but also in which to write those things which we are never sated with admiring. If a little priestly benefice worth one or two annual sesterces, or a very small and very easy procuratorship, falls to one of us, we judge ourselves so hindered and entangled that we suppose we have obtained a lawful discharge from all letters and that we are treated with no slight injustice if we are summoned back to them. But if we handle any letters at all, first of all we of course cast up and repeatedly urge to the point of disgust our enormous and intolerable occupations, continually lamenting them, displaying them to others as objects of pity, and charging much to the account of the public advantage if anything has been wrought by us for their sake amid so many pressing affairs by which we are overwhelmed. Let us blush, by all the Muses, when idle, to reproach the parent both of Roman eloquence and of Latin philosophy for any lapse whatever, since his errors are more learned than all our well-spoken things.”
How far had those men withdrawn from Brutus, to whom Cicero’s age yielded and lowered its fasces?
“Not so much the fruit and glory of speaking,” says that man, “as its study and exercise delights me, and nothing will take it away from me, especially since you are so devoted to study.” Thus plainly does Cicero describe his own youth in On Famous Orators: “The orators were heard by me every day in public assemblies. But grief first struck me, who was most eager to hear, when Cotta was expelled; while frequently hearing the others I was held by the keenest devotion, and every day, writing, reading, and preparing, I was not content with merely the exercises of an orator.” And again: “Every day I practiced by declaiming, and I did this much in Latin also, but more often in Greek.”
I had to set forth these things so that learned men who think otherwise may understand openly upon whose authority the schools demand daily writings—prose and verse, Latin and Greek—and resound with daily declamations. For at one time the frequency of compositions was objected to me; by displaying Cicero’s example I answered them without words of my own. And certainly, if Tullius returned to life and watched those exercises, he would admonish this alone: that each should exercise himself with the greatest accuracy and labor. For by speaking wrongly men become accustomed to speak wrongly, and by writing badly to write badly. I have seen young men who changed their style in three months through diligent exercise; I have seen those who after two years wrote humbly and abjectly, because they never wished to lift their pen from the ground.
§ 13. I have spoken about writing; it follows that I treat of delivery. Thus Rule 16: “On alternate Saturdays, during the last half-hour before noon, with the humanities pupils assembled, a declamation, or a lecture, or a poem, or a Greek speech, or a poem and speech together, is to be delivered from the lectern by one or two of the pupils.”
And Rule 17: “In the hall or church, a more serious speech or poem, or both—now in Latin, now in Greek—or a declamatory case, with arguments set forth on either side and a judgment delivered, is to be held about once each month; nevertheless, only after it has been reviewed and approved by the prefect of higher studies.”
And Rule 19: “The master will sometimes be able to propose to the pupils, in place of a subject, some brief action—namely, an eclogue, scene, or dialogue—so that afterward the one which has been written best of all may be presented in the school, with the parts distributed among them, but without any theatrical ornament.”
Rule 12 also pertains here: “The contest or exercise will consist both in correcting those things which one rival has detected in the other’s speech, and in proposing to one another those things in which they practiced during the first hour; then in recognizing or composing figures; then in reciting or applying the precepts of rhetoric, letters, poems, or history; then in expounding more difficult passages of authors and explaining difficulties; then in pursuing the customs of the ancients and matters pertaining to erudition; then in interpreting hieroglyphics, Pythagorean symbols, apophthegms, proverbs, emblems, and riddles; then in declaiming, and in similar matters at the teacher’s discretion.”
All those things form and perfect the orator, even the performances of comedies and the contests of disputants. They shake off useless shame, furnish boldness, and strengthen the voice. For the majesty of an orator shines forth in delivery; the very countenance, voice, and breath are what rule the minds of the hearers. “There ought to be added,” says Tullius in Book 2 of On the Orator, “a delivery varied, vehement, full of mind, full of breath, full of grief, full of truth. If in these works someone has comprehended that art by which, like Phidias, he can fashion the statue of Minerva, he will certainly not labor to learn how, like that same craftsman, to make the smaller works upon the shield.”
§ 14. Nor is the voice alone polished and made illustrious; it is also rendered more urbane if the instruments of speaking are exercised by frequent delivery. For we distinguish different nations, even when they speak one language, from their sibilations and a certain peculiarity; there is something which can be heard but cannot at all be explained. Nature gave the same instruments of speaking to all—the tongue, lips, teeth, and palate. All those things are more rustic in the unpracticed and draw much from the common people unless they are diligently exercised. For in a marvelous manner the part of the upper lip which they call φίλτρον (philtrum), and the lower which is called τύπος (form), are adjusted by speaking; the prominence itself and προσωμία (facial configuration) produce certain marks of speaking. The tongue also is drawn by habit toward a particular part in such a way that it can hardly be changed. There is no other cause than custom and a nature made from motion. For just as the fingers of lyre players strike most softly and swiftly the distinctions of the strings, so too words are formed by use. Why, indeed, are the Chinese inhabitants unable to utter letters which are expressed by a swift curling of the air and by a stroke of the tongue as though of a plectrum—such as L and R—unless because they have not exercised the tongue for it? Nicolas Trigault of our Society certainly reported to me that those who associate familiarly with Europeans gradually learn to pronounce those letters.
§ 15. The most delicate judgment of the ears is also very greatly aided by rhythm, which is perceived only through the sound of the voice; because one who has not frequently heard men speaking, nor spoken himself, must necessarily be destitute of that faculty. Aristotle, in Book 3, chapter 8, of the Rhetoric, advises that speech ought indeed to possess rhythm:
Τὸ δὲ σχῆμα τῆς λέξεως δεῖ μήτε ἔμμετρον εἶναι μήτε ἄρρυθμον· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀπίθανον (πεπλάσθαι γὰρ δοκεῖ), καὶ ἅμα καὶ ἐξίστησι· προσέχειν γὰρ ποιεῖ τῷ ὁμοίῳ, πότε πάλιν ἥξει· ὥσπερ οὖν τῶν κηρύκων προλαμβάνουσι τὰ παιδία, τὸ “τίνα αἱρεῖται ἐπίτροπον ὁ ἀπελεύθερος;” “Κλέωνα.” τὸ δὲ ἄρρυθμον ἀπέραντον· δεῖ δὲ πεπεράνθαι μέν, μὴ μέτρῳ δέ· ἀηδὲς γὰρ καὶ ἄγνωστον τὸ ἄπειρον. περαίνεται δὲ ἀριθμῷ πάντα· ὁ δὲ τοῦ σχήματος τῆς λέξεως ἀριθμὸς ῥυθμός ἐστιν, οὗ καὶ τὰ μέτρα τμήματα. διὸ ῥυθμὸν δεῖ ἔχειν τὸν λόγον, μέτρον δὲ μή· ποίημα γὰρ ἔσται. ῥυθμὸν δὲ μὴ ἀκριβῶς· τοῦτο δὲ ἔσται, ἐὰν μέχρι του ᾖ. τῶν δὲ ῥυθμῶν ὁ μὲν ἡρῷος σεμνὸς καὶ λεκτικῆς ἁρμονίας δεόμενος· ὁ δὲ ἴαμβος αὐτή ἐστιν ἡ λέξις ἡ τῶν πολλῶν· διὸ μάλιστα πάντων τῶν μέτρων ἰαμβεῖα φθέγγονται λέγοντες.
“The form of expression ought neither to possess meter nor to be without rhythm. The former is less suited to persuasion, for it seems to have been fabricated, and at the same time it distracts; for it causes attention to be given to when the like will come again. Thus children anticipate the heralds: ‘Whom does the freedman choose as patron?’ ‘Cleon.’ But that which is without rhythm is without a limit. It ought to be bounded, but not by meter; for what is unbounded is unpleasant and not accommodated to cognition. All things are bounded by number. But the number of the form of speech is rhythm, of which meters also are sections. Therefore speech ought to have rhythm, but not meter; otherwise it will be a poem. Nor ought it to seek rhythm with exactness. This will be accomplished if it possesses it only up to a certain point. Among rhythms, the heroic is grand and suited to diction, but in need of harmony. The iambus, however, is the very expression of the multitude. Therefore those who speak utter iambics more than any other meter.”
Indeed, the voice itself is made vibrant, the movements are made smooth, and confidence in speaking is prepared when one remembers that it has gone well. But nothing is equally necessary to the voice as moderation, or frequent change, so that it may be accommodated to every emotion. And this is the one reason why we frequently impose dialogues, little comedies, and contests upon youth who must be exercised; for by that method they learn to bend the voice to all movements of minds, much better than by the flute of Gracchus. But this matter also was once a concern to the greatest orators. Cicero, Book 3 of On the Orator: “For the use and praise of delivery, the voice without doubt obtains the greatest part. First it is to be desired by us; then, whatever it shall be, it is to be preserved. Concerning how the voice is to be cared for, nothing now pertains to this kind of instruction; yet I certainly judge that it must be cared for greatly. But it does not seem foreign to the office of this discourse of ours to observe that, as I said a little before, in very many matters that which is most useful is somehow also most becoming.
“For maintaining the voice in speaking, nothing is more useful than frequent change; nothing more destructive than an unrestrained exertion without interruption. And as regards our ears and the pleasantness of delivery, what is more fitting than alternation, variety, and change? Accordingly, that same Gracchus—as you can hear, Catulus, from Licinius, your client, a learned man whom he had as a slave at his hand—was accustomed to have a skilled man stand concealed behind him with a little ivory flute when he addressed the assembly. This man would quickly sound that note by which he might either arouse him when relaxed or call him back from exertion.”
“By Hercules, I have heard it,” says Catulus, “and I have often admired both the man’s diligence and also his learning and knowledge.” “But I,” says Crassus, “have heard it too, and indeed I grieve that those men fell into that deception in the state—although such a web is now being woven and such a manner of life is being urged on in the state and displayed to posterity that we already desire to have men like those citizens whom our fathers did not endure.” “Leave that conversation, I beg you, Crassus,” says Julius, “and return to the flute of Gracchus, whose rationale I do not yet fully understand.”
“In every voice,” says Crassus, “there is some middle pitch, but one proper to each voice. To raise the voice gradually from this point is useful and pleasant. For there is something rustic in beginning with a shout, and that same practice is salutary for strengthening the voice. Then there is a certain extreme of exertion, which nevertheless is lower than the sharpest shout; the flute will not permit you to proceed to that shout and will nevertheless call you back from the exertion itself. Conversely, there is likewise a certain deepest point in relaxation, to which one descends as though by steps of sounds. This variety and this course of the voice through all its sounds will both preserve the voice and bring pleasantness to delivery. But you will leave the flute-player at home and carry with you into the forum the perception produced by this habit.”
It is especially important, however, that by hearing and speaking the discourse should be colored, as it were, by a certain urbanity. But what is the color of urbanity? Tullius answers in On Famous Orators: “‘I do not know,’ I said; ‘I only know that there is a certain one. You, Brutus, will now understand it when you come into Gaul. You will indeed hear certain words not current at Rome, but these can be changed and unlearned. The greater matter is that something more urbane rings and resounds in the voices of our orators. Nor does this appear in orators alone, but also in others. I remember Titus Tinca of Placentia, a most witty man, contending in sharp speech with our friend Quintus Granius, the herald.’ ‘Is he,’ says Brutus, ‘the one concerning whom Lucilius says many things?’ ‘The very same. But Granius overwhelmed Tinca, though he said no fewer things wittily, by some indescribable native flavor. Thus I no longer marvel that what is related happened to Theophrastus. When he asked a certain little old woman for how much she was selling something, and she answered and added, “Stranger, it cannot be sold for less,” he took it ill that he could not escape the appearance of a foreigner, although he had passed his life at Athens and spoke excellently. In all our urbane speakers, as I think, there is a certain sound, just as there was among the Attic speakers.’”
§ 16. Therefore those who despise these things as though accidental deprive their pupils of a great and almost the whole fruit of their labors: either because the matter is one of great labor, or because the teachers themselves do not know the laws of delivery, or because instruction in this part is disagreeable to the pupils; for to correct the voice and gesture very often contains a silent reproach of rusticity.
§ 17. I wish the things which I have said concerning Latin to be understood concerning Greek also, although I observe that pupils generally make less progress in it, because that language is less loved and does not seem to many to possess the same utility. Nevertheless, I shall not omit the things which have been established among us concerning it.
“In the second hour before noon,” it says in the distribution of time, “after the last lecture upon a Greek author has been repeated, a new one is to be explained and exacted. The remaining time is to be reserved now for correcting Greek compositions, now for Greek syntax and metrical art, and now for a Greek contest.”
Rule 13 indicates to us a selection of authors and the most excellent ones: “The Greek lecture, whether upon orators, historians, or poets, is to be only upon ancient and classical authors: Demosthenes, Plato, Thucydides, Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and others of that kind—provided that they have been expurgated—among whom, with the best right, Saints Nazianzen, Basil, and Chrysostom are to be placed. During the first semester, orators or historians are to be interpreted; yet once each week some epigrams or brief poems may be interposed. In the latter semester, conversely, a poet is to be explained, with an orator or historian interposed once. Although the method of interpretation ought not entirely to reject matters of erudition and art, it will nevertheless look rather to the propriety and use of the language. Therefore some expressions are to be dictated in each lecture.”
Rule 14 provides thus concerning Greek precepts: “At the beginning of the year, Greek syntax and the measure of syllables are to be explained on alternate days, if there is need; syntax indeed briefly, by recalling certain principal heads.”
The last part concerns erudition, about which Rule 15 is written thus: “For the sake of erudition, on a vacation day, in place of a historian and poet, it is permitted sometimes to bring forward other more recondite matters: such as hieroglyphics; emblems; questions pertaining to the poetic art—concerning the epigram, epitaph, ode, elegy, epic, and tragedy; concerning the Roman senate and the Athenian senate; concerning the military practice of each nation; concerning gardening, clothing, the dining room, the triumph, the Sibyls, and other things of the same kind—yet in moderation.”
What we call erudition therefore extends very widely and embraces every knowledge of histories and antiquity. This is the knowledge of history and of those things which are attached to it, such as laws, institutions, and customs.