Institutio Oratoria

In his letters to intimate friends, it is true, and occasionally in his dialogues, he tells the truth of his own eloquence, though in the latter case he is careful always to place the remarks in question in the mouth of some other character. And yet I am not sure that open boasting is not more tolerable, owing to its sheer straightforwardness, than that perverted form of self-praise, which makes the millionaire say that he is not a poor man, the man of mark describe himself as obscure, the powerful pose as weak, and the eloquent as unskilled and even inarticulate.

But the most ostentatious kind of boasting takes the form of actual self-derision. Let us therefore leave it to others to praise us. For it beseems us, as Demosthenes says, to blush even when we are praised by others. I do not mean to deny that there are occasions when an orator may speak of his own achievements, as Demosthenes himself does in his defence of Ctesiphon. [*](De Cor. 128. ) But on that occasion he qualified his statements in such a way as to show that he was compelled by necessity to do so, and to throw the odium attaching to such a proceeding on the man who had forced him to it.

Again, Cicero often speaks of his suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy, but either attributes his success to the

One could only wish that he had shown greater restraint in his poems, which those who love him not are never weary of criticising. I refer to passages such as: [*](From the poem on his consulship.)

1. Let arms before the peaceful toga yield,
2. Laurels to eloquence resign the field,

1. O happy Rome, born in my consulship!

Jupiter, by whom he is summoned to the assembly of the gods,

Minerva that taught him her accomplishments

But while it is unseemly to make a boast of one's eloquence, it is, however, at times permissible to express confidence in it. Who, for instance, can blame the following? [*](Phil. i. 2. )

What, then, am I to think? That I am held in contempt? I see nothing either in my past life, or my position, or such poor talents as I may possess, that Antony can afford to despise.

Or did he wish to challenge me to a contest of eloquence? I could wish for nothing better. For what ampler or richer theme could I hope to find than to speak at once for myself and against Antony?

Another form of arrogance is displayed by those who declare that they have come to a clear conviction of

For such assertions may to some extent be justified by the age, rank, and authority of the speaker. But scarcely any orator is possessed of these advantages to such an extent as to exempt him from the duty of tempering such assertions by a certain show of modesty, a remark which also applies to all passages in which the advocate draws any of his arguments from his own person. What could have been more presumptuous than if Cicero had asserted that the fact that a man was the son of a Roman knight should never be regarded as a serious charge, in a case in which he was appearing for the defence? But he succeeded in giving this very argument a favourable turn by associating his own rank with that of the judges, and saying, [*](Pro Cael. ii. 4. )

The fact of a man being the son of a Roman knight should never have been put forward as a charge by the prosecution when these gentlemen were in the jury-box and I was appearing for the defendant.