Institutio Oratoria

For

Rocks and solitudes answer to the voice,

For on you I call, ye hills and groves of Alba; I call you to bear me witness, and ye, too, fallen altars of the Albans, that were once the peers and equals of the holy places of Rome.

But the public man, who is truly wise and devotes himself not to idle disputations, but to the administration of the state, from which those who call themselves philosophers have withdrawn themselves afar, will gladly employ every method that may contribute to the end which he seeks to gain by his eloquence, although he will first form a clear conception in his mind as to what aims are honourable and what are not.

There is a form of eloquence which is becoming in the greatest men, but inadmissible in others. For example, the methods of eloquence employed by commanders and conquerors in their hour of triumph are to a great extent to be regarded as in a class apart. The comparison of the eloquence of Plompey and Cato the younger, who slew himself in the civil war, will illustrate my meaning. The former was extraordinarily eloquent in the description of his own exploits, while the latter's powers were displayed in debates in the senate.

Again, the same remark will seem freedom of speech in one's mouth, madness in another's, and arrogance in a third. We laugh at the words used by Thersites [*](Il. ii. 225. ) to Agamemnon; but put them in the mouth of Diomede or some other of his peers, and they will seem the expression of a great spirit.

Shall I regard you as consul,

when you refuse to

v10-12 p.177

regard me as a senator?