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'The Dialogue on the Orators' is now generally admitted to have been written by Tacitus, although formerly it was ascribed to others—among them to Quintilian or the younger Pliny. The grounds of doubt arose from a fancied dissimilarity in its style to that of the unquestioned works of the historian. But there is nothing in the language of this dialogue that need disentitle it to a place among his writings. On the contrary, it displays several marks of his authorship, as well in the construction of sentences as in a sarcastic turn of mind. The 'Annals' are his latest, the 'Dialogue' is probably his earliest composition. The latter is more diffuse, the former more condensed; and this would naturally be the difference between the style of a young and that of a mature and perhaps aged writer.

The time at which Tacitus was training himself for the bar was one of conflict between those who desired to return to a healthier period of eloquence—and especially to the era of Hortensius and Cicero—and those who clung to modern fashion, maintaining that it was better suited to their more polished age. The Ciceronian manner, the former argued, attained to the highest perfec-