. . . . to distinguish between the place, rank, weight, age, and dignity of words, that they may not be put together absurdly in a speech, as it might be in a drunken and confused carouse; on what principles words are to be doubled and sometimes trebled, on occasion drawn up four deep, often carried to a fifth place1 or even extended further than that; that words be not heaped to no purpose or at random but be combined within fixed and intelligent limits.
I have heard you say sometimes, But indeed, when I have said something rather brilliant, I feel gratified, and that is why I shun eloquence. Why not rather correct and cure yourself of your self-gratification, instead of repudiating that which gratifies you. For acting as you now do, you are tying a poultice in the wrong place. What then? If you gratify yourself by giving just judgment, will you disown justice? If you gratify yourself by shewing some filial respect to your father, will you despise filial duty? You gratify yourself, when eloquent: chastize yourself then, but why chastize eloquence?
And yet Plato would tell you this and take you thus to task: Perilous, young man, is that hasty avoidance of self-gratification, for the last cloak that wraps the follower after wisdom is the love of fame, that is the last to be discarded:9 to Plato, to Plato himself, I say, will fame be a cloak to his very last day.
This also I remember to have heard, that wise men must needs have many things—I mean in their mental rules and postulates—to which in practice they occasionally give the go-by; and occasionally also must needs allow in practice some things which they cry out upon in their tenets; and that the right rules of wisdom and the necessary practices of life do not everywhere coincide.
Suppose that you, O Caesar, succeed in attaining to the wisdom of Cleanthes or Zeno, yet against your will10 you must put on the purple cloak, not the philosopher's mantle of coarse wool. Purple . . . . . . . . Cleanthes gained his livelihood by drawing water from a well; you have often to see that saffron-water is sprinkled broadcast and high in the theatre11 . . . . . . . . . . Diogenes the Cynic not only earned no money but took no care of what he had12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What, will the Immortal Gods allow the Comitium and Rostra and tribunals, that echoed to the speeches of Cato and Gracchus and Cicero, to be hushed in this age of all others? the wide world, which was vocal when you received it, to become dumb by your doing? If one cut out the tongue of a single man, he would be deemed a monster; to cut eloquence out from the human race—do you think that a trivial crime? Do you rank the doer of this with Tereus and Lycurgus? and this Lycurgus, what evil deed pray did he commit when he lopped the vines? It had surely been to the benefit of many a race and nation had the vine been extirpated from the face of the earth. Yet Lycurgus paid dear for his felled vines. Wherefore I hold that the extirpation of eloquence must fear vengeance from Heaven. For the vine is placed under the patronage of one God, while eloquence is the delight of many a denizen of Heaven—Minerva the mistress of speech, Mercury the controller of messages, Apollo the author of paeans, Liber the defender of dithyrambs, the Fauns inspirers of prophecies, Calliope the instructress of Homer, Homer the instructor of Ennius, and Sleep.13
Again, if the study of philosophy were concerned with practice alone, I should wonder less at your despising words14 so much. That you should, however, learn horn-dilemmas,15 heap-fallacies,16 liar-syllogisms,17 verbal quibbles and entanglements,18 while neglecting the cultivation of oratory, its dignity and majesty and charm and splendour—this shews that you prefer mere speaking to real speaking, a whisper and a mumble to a trumpet-note. Do you rank the words of Diodorus and Alexinus19 higher than the words of Plato and Xenophon and Antisthenes? as though anyone with a passion for the stage should copy the acting of Tasurcus rather than Roscius; as though in swimming, were both possible, one would choose to take pattern by a frog rather than by a dolphin, and flit rather on the puny wings of quails than soar with the majesty of an eagle.
Where is that shrewdness of yours? where your discernment? Wake up and hear what Chrysippus himself prefers. Is he content to teach, to disclose the subject, to define, to explain? He is not content: but he amplifies as much as he can, he exaggerates, he forestalls objections, he repeats, he postpones, he harks back, he asks questions, describes, divides, introduces fictitious characters, puts his own words in another's mouth: those are the meanings of αὔξειν, διασκενάζειν, ἐξεργάζεσθαι, πάλιν, λέγειν, ἐπαναφέρειν, παράπτειν, προσωποποιεῖν.20
Do you see that he handles almost all the weapons of the orator? Therefore if Chrysippus himself has shewn that these should be used, what more do I ask, unless it be that you should not employ the verbiage of the dialecticians but rather the eloquence of Plato? . . . . A sword must be used in fight against (opponents), but it matters much whether the blade be rusty or burnished . . . . Epictetus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . if he had dared, an epitaph21 . . . . . . . . . . . . carried through with the greatest credit . . . . . . . . . . . . If anywhere . . . . a disciple of Anaxagoras not of the sycophant Alexinus22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The tragedian Aesopus is said never to have put on a tragic mask without setting it in front of him and studying it a long time that he might conform his gestures and adapt his voice to the face of the mask . . . . . . . . . . . . or do you think it a greater task to write the tragedy Amphiaraus23 than to speak on the subject of an earthquake? . . . . you argue about a thunderbolt . . . .
Philosophy will tell you what to say, Eloquence how to say it24 . . . . For, using the language of dialecticians, a writer would speak of a Jove signing, nay rather wheezing, not thundering. Provide yourself rather with speech worthy of the thoughts you draw from philosophy, and the more noble your thoughts, the more impressive will your utterance be. Nay, lift yourself up and stand upright, and shake off with your strong top those tree-twisters who are bending you down, like a fir or stately alder, and lowering you to the level of stunted bushes, and make trial whether you have anywhere swerved from the right way. But summon Eloquence, the handmaid of philosophy, and cast away those crooked, twisted modes of speech . . . .25 which if you took them in, you would despise, and ignore when you have despised them. Tell me, I pray you, do you take anything in from your dialectics? are you proud of taking in anything? You need not confess to me, but think it over with yourself. I prophesy this, though you have kept many of your friends loyal to this teaching . . . .26
On Eloquence 2
? 162 A.D.
Fronto to Antoninus Augustus.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When all these have been examined, tested, distinguished, defined, and understood, then from the whole word-population, so to speak, just as in war, when a legion has to be enrolled, we not only collect the volunteers but also search out the skulkers of military age, so when there is need of word-reinforcements, we must not only make use of the voluntary recruits that offer themselves, but fetch out the skulkers and hunt them up for service.
At this point too, as I think, we must seek skilfully to find out the methods by which words are sought for, that we may not wait gaping open-mouthed till such time as a word shall fall of itself upon our tongues like a god-send2 from heaven; but that we should know their haunts and their coverts, so that, when we have need of choice words, we may follow them up along a beaten track rather than have no path to help us forward.
You must therefore scout over definite ground . . . . . . . . First of all a speaker must be on his guard against coining a new word like debased bronze, so that each several word may be both known by its age and delight by its freshness . . . . fortresses of words . . . . assembly-places of words . . . . . . . . Of obligations3 the kinds are two, the categories three-fold. The first class, of existence, that a man be; the second, of quality, that he be such and such; the third, of objective, that he satisfy the very object by reason of which he undertook the foregoing obligations . . . . of learning and practising wisdom: by this third class, however, I mean that of objective and that which has its end in the work to be done and is, as it were, content with itself. By this division of obligations, if indeed either he4 said what was true, or I carry correctly in my memory things heard long ago, for a man who aspires to wisdom those would count as the first things to be taken in hand which have to do with the preservation of life and health. So dining and bathing and anointing with oil and all functions of such a kind are obligations of the wise man. And yet neither at the baths can anyone lave himself with wisdom, nor when he has dined at table with a select company, and after the meal had occasion to vomit, will he bring up wisdom; but you can neither have life unless you eat, nor wisdom unless you live. What then is the warning here? that you should not think this business of wisdom to lie in dining and the pleasures of the table. The business of wisdom is not to eat, but apart from life, which is derived from food, there can be no wisdom and no pursuits. Now . . . . you see then that these primary obligations apply to all men . . . . . . . . but the second class of obligations which are suited to the character of each person, cannot be in the same way common to all. One kind of dinner is usual for the man at the wheel, and another off the whole chine of an ox for the prize-fighter; their times of dining are different, their washing is different, their sleeping, their keeping awake different.
Consider then whether in this second category of obligations be contained the pursuit of eloquence. For it falls to a Caesar to carry by persuasion necessary measures in the Senate, to address the people in a harangue on many important matters, to correct the inequities of the law, to despatch rescripts throughout the world, to take foreign kings to task, to repress by edicts disorders among the allies, to praise their services, to crush the rebellious and to cow the proud. All these must assuredly be done by speech and writing. Will you not then cultivate an art, which you see must be of great use to you so often and in matters of such moment? Or do you imagine that it makes no difference with what words you bring about what can only be brought about by words? You are mistaken if you think that an opinion blurted out in the Senate in the language of Thersites would carry equal weight with a speech of Menelaus or Ulysses, whose looks, in the act of speaking and their mien and attitude and melodious voices and the difference of cadence in their oratory Homer did not in fact disdain to describe5 . . . . . . . .
Can anyone fear him whom he laughs at, or could anyone obey his order, whose words he despised? When Alexander the Great was discussing the art of painting in the studio of Apelles, Hold your tongue, said the painter, about what you don't understand, that those boys yonder who are mixing the purple paint may not despise you6 . . . . There is no one, however authoritative, who when his skill is at fault is not looked down upon by him who has greater skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
You have achieved such great eloquence as is even more than enough for fame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and hair, though it need not be daily set off with a pin, yet must daily be smoothed out with a comb7 . . . . Croesus and Solon, Periander and Polycrates, Alcibiades in fine and Socrates.
Who doubts that a wise man is distinguished from an unwise man preeminently by his sagacity and choice of things and judgment, so that if there be an option and alternative between riches and poverty, though they are both of them devoid of vice and virtue, yet the choice between them is not devoid of praise or blame. For it is the special obligation of the wise man to choose rightly, and not wrongly put this first or that second.
If you ask me whether I covet good health, I should, if I were a philosopher, say no; for a wise man must not covet or desire anything which it may be he would covet in vain; nor will he covet anything which he sees to lie in the power of Fortune.8 Yet were the choice of one or the other forced upon me, I would rather choose the fleetness of Achilles than the lameness of Philoctetes. A similar course must be kept in eloquence. You should, therefore, not covet it too much or too much disdain it: yet if a choice must be made you would far and far prefer eloquence to dumbness.