Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/759

 and then consider their characteristics with reference to the class to which they severally belong, and the audiences to whom they were addressed ; as deliberative or judicial; delivered in the senate, from the rostra, or before the tribunal of a judge.

Every one must at once be struck by the absolute command which Cicero had over the resources of his native tongue. His words seem to gush forth without an effort in an ample stream; and the sustained dignity of his phraseology is preserved from pompous stiffness by the lively sallies of a ready wit and a vivid imagination, while the happy variety which he communicated to his cadences prevents the music of his carefullymeasured periods from filling on the ear with cloying monotony. It is a style which attracts without startling, which fixes without fatiguing the attention. It presents a happy medium between the florid exuberance of the Asiatic school and the meagre dryness which Calvus, Brutus, and their followers mistook for Attic terseness and vigour. But this beauty, although admirably calculated to produce a powerful impression for the moment, loses somewhat of its charm as soon as the eye is able to look steadily upon its fascinations. It is too evidently a work of art, the straining after effect is too manifest, solidity is too often sacrificed to show, melody too often substituted for rough strength; the orator, passing into a rhetorician, seles rather to please the fancy than to convince the understanding; the declaimer usurps the place of the practical man of business.

If the skill of Cicero in composition is surpassing, not less remarkable was his tact and judgment. No one ever knew human nature better, or saw more clearly into the recesses of the heart. No one was ever more thoroughly familiar with the national feelings and prejudices of the Romans, or could avail himself more fully of such knowledge. But although prompt to detect the weaknesses of others, he either did not perceive or could not master his own. The same wretched vanity which proved such a fruitful source of misery in his political career, introduced a most serious vice into his oratory,—a vice which, had it not been palliated by a multitude of virtues, might have proved fatal to his reputation. On no occasion in his speeches can he ever forget himself. We perpetually discover that he is no less eager to recommend the advocate than the cause to his judges.

The audiences which Cicero addressed were either the senate, the persons entrusted with the administration of the laws, or the whole body of the people convoked in their public meetings.

In the senate, during the last days of the Republic, eloquence was for the most part thrown away. The spirit of faction was so strong that in all important questions the final issue was altogether independent of the real bearing of the case or of the arguments employed in the debate. Of the extant orations of Cicero, nineteen were addressed to the Senate viz. the first against Rullus, the first and fourth against Catiline, twelve of the Philippics, including the second, which was never delivered, the fragments of the In Toga Candida and of the In Clodium et Curionem, the In Pisonem, and the De Provinciis Consularibus. Each of these is examined separately; it is enough to remark at present, that the first fifteen were called forth by great emergencies, at periods when Cicero for a brief space was regarded as the leader of the state, and would, therefore, exert himself with spirit and conscious dignity; that the three following contain the outpourings of strongly-excited personal feelings, that against Piso especially, being a singular specimen of the coarsest invective, while the De Provinciis, which alone is of a strictly deliberative character, is a lame attempt to give a false colouring to a bad cause.

Occasional failures in the courts of justice would be no indication of want of ability in the advocate, for corruption was carried to such a frightful extent, that the issue of a trial was frequently determined before a syllable had been spoken, or a witness examined ; but it would appear that Cicero was generally remarkably fortunate in procuring the acquittal of those whose cause he supported, and, except in the instance of Verres, he scarcely ever appeared as an accuser. The courts of justice were the scene of all his earliest triumphs; his devotion to his clients alone won for him that popularity to which he owed his elevation; he never was seen upon the rostra until he had attained the rank of praetor, and there is no record of any harangue in the senate until two years later. We have some difficulty in deciding the precise amount of praise to be awarded to him in this branch of his profession, because we are in no instance in possession of both sides of the case. We know not how much is a masterly elucidation, how much a clever perversion of the truth. The evidence is not before us; we see points which were placed in prominent relief, but we are unable to discover the facts which were quietly kept out of view, and which may have been all-important. What we chiefly admire in these pleadings is the well-concealed art with which he tells his story. There is a sort of graceful simplicity which lulls suspicion to sleep; the circumstances appear so plain, and so natural, that we are induced to follow with confidence the guidance of the orator, who is probably all the while leading us aside from the truth.

Although the criterion of success must be applied with caution to the two classes of oratory we have just reviewed, it may be employed without hesitation to all dealings with popular assemblies. We must admit that that man must be one of the greatest of orators who will boldly oppose the prejudices and passions of the vulgar, and, by the force of his eloquence, will induce them to abandon their most cherished projects. This Cicero frequently did. We pass over his oration for the Manilian law, for here he had the people completely on his side; but when, two years afterwards, he came forward to oppose the Agrarian law of the tribune Rullus, he had to struggle with the prejudices, interests, and passions of the people. The two speeches delivered on this occasion have come down to us, and are triumphs of art. Nothing can be more dexterous than the tact with which he identifies himself with his hearers, reminds them that he was the creature of their bounty, then lulls all suspicion to sleep by a warm eulogy on the Gracchi, declares that he was far from being opposed to the principle of such measures, although strongly opposed to the present enactment, which was in fact a disguised plot against their liberties, and then cunningly taking advantage of some inadvertence in the wording of the law, contrives to kindle their indignation by representing it as a studied insult to their favourite Pompey, and through him to themselves.