Of all the arts next to war, Eloquence was of most importance in Rome; since, if the former led to the conquest of foreign states, the latter opened to each individual a path to empire and dominion over the minds of his fellow citizens226. [pg 109]Without this art, wisdom itself, in the estimation of Cicero, could be of little avail for the advantage or glory of the commonwealth227.

During the existence of the monarchy, and in the early age of the republic, law proceedings were not numerous. Many civil suits were prevented by the absolute dominion which a Roman father exercised over his family; and the rigour of the decemviral laws, in which all the proceedings were extreme, frequently concussed parties into an accommodation; while, at the same time, the purity of ancient manners had not yet given rise to those criminal questions of bribery and peculation at home, or of oppression and extortion in the provinces, which disgraced the closing periods of the commonwealth, and furnished themes for the glowing invective of Cicero and Hortensius. Hence there was little room for the exercise of legal oratory; and whatever eloquence may have shone forth in the early ages of Rome, was probably of a political description, and exerted on affairs of state.

From the earliest times of the republic, history records the wonderful effects which Junius Brutus, Publicola, and Appius Claudius, produced by their harangues, in allaying seditions, and thwarting pernicious counsels. Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives us a formal speech, which Romulus, by direction of his grandfather, made to the people after the building of the city, on the subject of the government to be established228. There are also long orations of Servius Tullius; and great part of the Antiquities of Dionysius is occupied with senatorial debates during the early ages of the republic. But though the orations of these fathers of Roman eloquence were doubtless delivered with order, gravity, and judgment, and may have possessed a masculine vigour, well calculated to animate the courage of the soldier, and protect the interests of the state, we must not form our opinion of them from the long speeches in Dionysius and Livy, or suppose that they were adorned with any of that rhetoric art with which they have been invested by these historians. A nation of outlaws, destined from their cradle to the profession of arms,—taught only to hurl the spear or javelin, and inure their bodies to other martial exercises,—with souls breathing only conquest,—and regarded as the enemies of every state till they had become its masters, could have possessed but few topics of illustration or embellishment, and were not likely to cultivate any species of rhetorical refinement. To convince by solid arguments when [pg 110]their cause was good, and to fill their fellow-citizens with passions corresponding to those with which they were themselves animated, would be the great objects of an eloquence supplied by nature and unimproved by study. Quintilian accordingly informs us, that though there appeared in the ancient orations some traces of original genius, and much force of argument, they bore, in their rugged and unpolished periods, the signs of the times in which they were delivered.

The orations of Cato the Censor have been already mentioned as remarkable for their rude but masculine eloquence. When Cato was in the decline of life, a more rich and copious mode of speaking at length began to prevail. Ser. Galba, by the warmth and animation of his delivery, eclipsed Cato and all his contemporaries. He was the first among the Romans who displayed the distinguishing talents of an orator, by embellishing his subject,—by digressing, amplifying, entreating, and employing what are called topics, or common-places of discourse. On one occasion, while defending himself against a grave accusation, he melted his judges to compassion, by producing an orphan relative, whose father had been a favourite of the people. When his orations, however, were afterwards reduced to writing, their fire appeared extinguished, and they preserved none of that lustre with which his discourses are said to have shone when given forth by the living orator. Cicero accounts for this from his want of sufficient study and art in composition. While his mind was occupied and warmed by the subject, his language was bold and rapid; but when he took up the pen, his emotion ceased, and the periods fell languid from its point; “which,” continues he, “never happened to those who, having cultivated a more studied and polished style of oratory, wrote as they spoke. Hence the mind of Lælius yet breathes in his writings, though the force of Galba has failed.” It appears, however, from an anecdote recorded by [pg 111]Cicero, that Galba was esteemed the first orator of his age by the judges, the people, and Lælius himself.—Lælius, being intrusted with the defence of certain persons suspected of having committed a murder in the Silian forest, spoke for two days, correctly, elegantly, and with the approbation of all, after which the Consuls deferred judgment. He then recommended the accused to carry their cause to Galba, as it would be defended by him with more heat and vehemence. Galba, in consequence, delivered a most forcible and pathetic harangue, and after it was finished, his clients were absolved as if by acclamation229. Hence Cicero surmises, that though Lælius might be the more learned and acute disputant, Galba possessed more power over the passions; he also conjectures, that the former had more elegance, but the latter more force; and he concludes, that the orator who can move or agitate his judges, farther advances his cause than he who can instruct them.

Lælius is also compared by Cicero with his friend, the younger Scipio Africanus, in whose presence, this question concerning the Silian murder was debated. They were almost equally distinguished for their eloquence; and they resembled each other in this respect, that they both invariably delivered themselves in a smooth manner, and never, like Galba, exerted themselves with loudness of speech or violence of gesture230; but their style of oratory was different,—Lælius affecting a much more ancient phraseology than that adopted by his friend. Cicero himself seems inclined most to admire the rhetoric of Scipio; but he says, that, being so renowned a captain, and mankind being unwilling to allow supremacy to one individual, in what are considered as the two greatest of arts, his contemporaries for the most part awarded to Lælius the palm of eloquence.

The intercourse which was by this time opening up with Greece, and the encouragement now afforded to Greek teachers, who always possessed the undisputed privilege of dictating the precepts of the arts, produced the same improvement m oratory that it had effected in every branch of literature. Marcus Emilius Lepidus was a little younger than Galba or Scipio, and was Consul in 617. From his orations, which were extant in the time of Cicero, it appeared that he was the first who, in imitation of the Greeks, gave harmony and sweetness to his periods, or the graces of a style regularly polished and improved by art.

Cicero mentions a number of other orators of the same age [pg 112]with Lepidus, and minutely paints their peculiar styles of rhetoric. We find among them the names of almost all the eminent men of the period, as Emilius Paulus, Scipio Nasica, and Mucius Scævola. The importance of eloquence for the purposes of political aggrandizement, is sufficiently evinced, from this work of Cicero, De Claris Oratoribus, since there is scarcely an orator mentioned, even of inferior note, who did not at this time rise to the highest offices in the state.

The political situation of Rome, and the internal inquietude which now succeeded its foreign wars, were the great promoters of eloquence. We hear of no orators in Sparta or Crete, where the severest discipline was exercised, and where the people were governed by the strictest laws. But Rhodes and Athens, places of popular rule, where all things were open to all men, swarmed with orators. In like manner, Rome, when most torn with civil dissensions, produced the brightest examples of eloquence. Cicero declares, that wisdom without eloquence was of little service to the state231; and from the political circumstances of the times, that sort of oratory was most esteemed which had most sway over a restless and ungovernable multitude. The situation of public affairs occasioned those continual debates concerning the Agrarian Laws, and the consequent popularity acquired by the most factious demagogues. Hence, too, those frequent impeachments of the great—those ambitious designs of the patricians—those hereditary enmities in particular families—in fine, those incessant struggles between the Senate and plebeians, which, though all prejudicial to the commonwealth, contributed to swell and ramify that rich vein of eloquence, which now flowed so profusely through the agitated frame of the state. During the whole period previous to the actual breaking out of the civil wars, when the Romans turned the sword against each other, and the mastery of the world depended on its edge, oratory continued to open the most direct path to dignities. The farther a Roman citizen advanced in this career, so much nearer was he to preferment, so much the greater his reputation with the people; and when elevated to the dignified offices of the state, so much the higher his ascendancy over his colleagues.

The Gracchi were the genuine offspring, and their eloquence the natural fruits of these turbulent times. Till their age, oratory had been a sort of Arcanum imperii,—an instrument of government in the power of the Senate, who used every precaution to retain its exclusive exercise. It was the [pg 113]great bulwark that withstood the tide of popular passion, and weakened it so as not to beat too high or strongly on their own order and authority. The Gracchi not only broke down the embankment, but turned the flood against the walls of the Senate itself. The interests of the people had never yet been espoused by men endued with eloquence equal to theirs. Cicero, while blaming their political conduct, admits that both were consummate orators; and this he testifies from the recollection of persons still surviving in his day, and who remembered their mode of speaking. Indeed, the wonderful power which both brothers exercised over the people is a sufficient proof of their eloquence. Tiberius Gracchus was the first who made rhetoric a serious study and art. In his boyhood, he was carefully instructed in elocution by his mother Cornelia: he also constantly attended the ablest and most eloquent masters from Greece, and, as he grew up, he bestowed much time on the exercise of private declamation. It is not likely, that, gifted as he was by nature, and thus instructed, the powers of eloquence should long have remained dormant in his bosom. At the time when he first appeared on the turbulent stage of Roman life, the accumulation of landed property among a few individuals, and the consequent abuse of exorbitant wealth, had filled Italy with slaves instead of citizens—had destroyed the habits of rural industry among the people at large, and leaving only rich masters at the head of numerous and profligate servants, gradually rooted out those middle classes of society which constitute the strength, the worth, and the best hopes of every well-regulated commonwealth. It is said, that while passing through Etruria on his way to Numantia, Tiberius Gracchus found the country almost depopulated of freemen, and thence first formed the project of his Agrarian law, which was originally intended to correct the evils arising from the immense landed possessions of the rich, by limiting them to the number of acres specified in the ancient enactments232, and dividing the conquered territories among the poorer citizens. Preparatory to its promulgation, he was wont to assemble the people round the rostrum, where he pleaded for the poor, in language of which we have a specimen in Plutarch: “The wild beasts of Italy have their dens to retire to—their places of refuge and repose; while the brave men who shed their blood in the cause of their country, have nothing left but fresh air and sunshine. Without houses, without settled habitations, they wander from place to place with their wives and children; and their commanders do but [pg 114]mock them, when, at the head of their armies, they exhort their soldiers to fight for their sepulchres and altars. For, among such numbers, there is not one Roman who has an altar which belonged to his ancestors, or a tomb in which their ashes repose. The private soldiers fight and die to increase the wealth and luxury of the great; and they are styled sovereigns of the world, while they have not a foot of ground they can call their own233.” By such speeches as these, the people were exasperated to fury, and the Senate was obliged to have recourse to Octavius, who, as one of the tribunes, was the colleague of Gracchus, to counteract the effects of his animated eloquence. Irritated by this opposition, Gracchus abandoned the first plan of his law, which was to give indemnification from the public treasury to those who should be deprived of their estates, and proposed a new bill, by which they were enjoined forthwith to quit those lands which they held contrary to previous enactments. On this subject there were daily disputes between him and Octavius on the rostrum. Finding that his plans could not otherwise be accomplished he resolved on the expedient of deposing his colleague; and thenceforth, to the period of his death, his speeches (one of which is preserved by Plutarch) were chiefly delivered in persuasion or justification of that violent measure.

Caius Gracchus was endued with higher talents than Tiberius, but the resentment he felt on account of his brother’s death, and eager desire for vengeance, led him into measures which have darkened his character with the shades of the demagogue. At the time of his brother’s death he had only reached the age of twenty. In early youth, he distinguished himself by the defence of one of his friends named Vettius, and charmed the people by the eloquence which he exerted. He appears soon afterwards to have been impelled, as it were, by a sort of destiny, to the same political course which had proved fatal to his brother, and which terminated in his own destruction. His speeches were all addressed to the people, and were delivered in proposing laws, calculated to increase their authority, and lessen that of the Senate,—as those for colonizing the public lands, and dividing them among the poor; for regulating the markets, so as to diminish the price of bread, and for vesting the judicial power in the knights. A fragment of his speech, De Legibus Promulgatis, is said to have been recently discovered, with other classical remains, in the Ambrosian Library. Aulus Gellius also quotes from this harangue, a passage, in which the orator complained that some respect[pg 115]able citizens of a municipal town in Italy had been scourged with rods by a Roman magistrate. Gellius praises the conciseness, neatness, and graceful ease of the narrative, resembling dramatic dialogue, in which this incident was related. Similar, but only similar qualities, appear in his accusation of the Roman legate, who, while travelling to Asia in a litter, caused a peasant to be scourged to death, for having asked his slaves if it was a corpse they were carrying. “The relation of these events,” says Gellius, “does not rise above the level of ordinary conversation. It is not a person complaining or imploring, but merely relating what had occurred;” and he contrasts this tameness with the energy and ardour with which Cicero has painted the commission of a like enormity by Verres234.

Though similar in many points of character and also in their political conduct, there was a marked difference in the style of eloquence, and forensic demeanour, of the two brothers. Tiberius, in his looks and gestures, was mild and composed—Caius, earnest and vehement; so that when they spoke in public, Tiberius had the utmost moderation in his action, and moved not from his place: whereas Caius was the first of the Romans, who, in addressing the people, walked to and fro in the rostrum, threw his gown off his shoulder, smote his thigh, and exposed his arm bare235. The language of Tiberius was laboured and accurate, that of Caius bold and figurative. The oratory of the former was of a gentle kind, and pity was the emotion it chiefly raised—that of the latter was strongly impassioned, and calculated to excite terror. In speaking, indeed, Caius was often so hurried away by the violence of his passion, that he exalted his voice above the regular pitch, indulged in abusive expressions, and disordered the whole tenor of his oration. In order to guard against such excesses, he stationed a slave behind him with an ivory flute, which was modulated so as to lead him to lower or heighten the tone of his voice, according as the subject required a higher or a softer key. “The flute,” says Cicero, “you may as well leave at home, but the meaning of the practice you must remember at the bar236.”

In the time of the Gracchi, oratory became an object of assiduous and systematic study, and of careful education. A youth, intended for the profession of eloquence, was usually introduced to one of the most distinguished orators of the city, [pg 116]whom he attended when he had occasion to speak in any public or private cause, or in the assemblies of the people, by which means he heard not only him, but every other famous speaker. He thus became practically acquainted with business and the courts of justice, and learned the arts of oratoric conflict, as it were, in the field of battle. “It animated,” says the author of the dialogue De Causis Corruptæ Eloquentiæ,—“it animated the courage, and quickened the judgment of youth, thus to receive their instructions in the eye of the world, and in the midst of affairs, where no one could advance an absurd or weak argument, without being exposed by his adversary, and despised by the audience. Hence, they had also an opportunity of acquainting themselves with the various sentiments of the people, and observing what pleased or disgusted them in the several orators of the Forum. By these means they were furnished with an instructor of the best and most improving kind, exhibiting not the feigned resemblance of eloquence, but her real and lively manifestation—not a pretended but genuine adversary, armed in earnest for the combat—an audience ever full and ever new, composed of foes as well as of friends, and amongst whom not a single expression could fall but was either censured or applauded.”

The minute attention paid by the younger orators to all the proceedings of the courts of justice, is evinced by the fragment of a Diary, which was kept by one of them in the time of Cicero, and in which we have a record, during two days, of the various harangues that were delivered, and the judgments that were pronounced237.

Nor were the advantages to be derived from fictitious oratorical contests long denied to the Roman youth. The practice of declaiming on feigned subjects, was introduced at Rome about the middle of its seventh century. The Greek rhetoricians, indeed, had been expelled, as well as the philosophers, towards the close of the preceding century; but, in the year 661, Plotius Gallus, a Latin rhetorician, opened a declaiming school at Rome. At this period, however, the declamations generally turned on questions of real business, and it was not till the time of Augustus, that the rhetoricians so far prevailed, as to introduce common-place arguments on fictitious subjects.

The eloquence which had originally been cultivated for seditious purposes, and for political advancement, began now to be considered by the Roman youth as an elegant accomplishment. It was probably viewed in the same light that we [pg 117]regard horsemanship or dancing, and continued to be so in the age of Horace—

Under all these circumstances it is evident, that in the middle of the seventh century oratory would be neglected by none; and in an art so sedulously studied, and universally practised, many must have been proficients. It would be endless to enumerate all the public speakers mentioned by Cicero, whose catalogue is rather extensive and dry. We may therefore proceed to those two orators, whom he commemorates as having first raised the glory of Roman eloquence to an equality with that of Greece—Marcus Antonius, and Lucius Crassus.

The former, sirnamed Orator, and grandfather of the celebrated triumvir, was the most employed patron of his time; and, of all his contemporaries, was chiefly courted by clients, as he was ever willing to undertake any cause which was proposed to him. He possessed a ready memory, and remarkable talent of introducing everything where it could be placed with most effect. He had a frankness of manner which precluded any suspicion of artifice, and gave to all his orations an appearance of being the unpremeditated effusions of an honest heart. But though there was no apparent preparation in his speeches, he always spoke so well, that the judges were never sufficiently prepared against the effects of his eloquence. His language was not perfectly pure, or of a constantly sustained elegance, but it was of a solid and judicious character, well adapted to his purpose—his gesture, too, was appropriate, and suited to the sentiments and language—his voice was strong and durable, though naturally hoarse—but even this defect he turned to advantage, by frequently and easily adopting a mournful and querulous tone, which, in criminal questions, excited compassion, and more readily gained the belief of the judges. He left, however, as we are informed by Cicero, hardly any orations behind him239, having resolved never to publish any of his pleadings, lest he should be convicted of maintaining in one cause something which was inconsistent with what he had alleged in another240.

The first oration by which Antony distinguished himself, [pg 118]was in his own defence. He had obtained the quæstorship of a province of Asia, and had arrived at Brundusium to embank there, when his friends informed him that he had been summoned before the Prætor Cassius, the most rigid judge in Rome, whose tribunal was termed the rock of the accused. Though he might have pleaded a privilege, which forbade the admission of charges against those who were absent on the service of the republic, he chose to justify himself in due form. Accordingly, he returned to Rome, stood his trial, and was acquitted with honour241.

One of the most celebrated orations which Antony pronounced, was that in defence of Norbanus, who was accused of sedition, and a violent assault on the magistrate, Æmilius Cæpio. He began by attempting to show from history, that seditions may sometimes be justifiable from necessity; that without them the kings would not have been expelled, or the tribunes of the people created. The orator then proceeded to insinuate, that his client had not been seditious, but that all had happened through the just indignation of the people; and he concluded with artfully attempting to renew the popular odium against Cæpio, who had been an unsuccessful commander242.

What Cicero relates concerning Antony’s defence of Aquilius, is an example of his power in moving the passions, and is, at the same time, extremely characteristic of the manner of Roman pleading. Antony, who is one of the speakers in the dialogue De Oratore, is introduced relating it himself. Seeing his client, who had once been Consul and a leader of armies, reduced to a state of the utmost dejection and peril, he had no sooner begun to speak, with a view towards melting the compassion of others, than he was melted himself. Perceiving the emotion of the judges when he raised his client from the earth, on which he had thrown himself, he instantly took advantage of this favourable feeling. He tore open the garments of Aquilius, and showed the scars of those wounds which he had received in the service of his country. Even the stern Marius wept. Him the orator then apostrophized; imploring his protection, and invoking with many tears the gods, the citizens, and the allies of Rome. “But whatever I could have said,” remarks he in the dialogue, “had I delivered it without being myself moved, it would have excited the derision, instead of the sympathy, of those who heard me243.”

Antony, in the course of his life, had passed through all the highest offices of the state. The circumstances of his death, which happened in 666, during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, were characteristic of his predominant talent. During the last proscription by Marius, he sought refuge in the house of a poor person, whom he had laid under obligations to him in the days of his better fortune. But his retreat being discovered, from the circumstance of his host procuring for him some wine nicer than ordinary, the intelligence was carried to Marius, who received it with a savage shout of exultation, and, clapping his hands for joy, he would have risen from table, and instantly repaired to the place where his enemy was concealed; but, being detained by his friends, he immediately despatched a party of soldiers, under a tribune, to slay him. The soldiers having entered his chamber for this purpose, and Antony suspecting their errand, addressed them in terms of such moving and insinuating eloquence, that his assassins burst into tears, and had not sufficient resolution to execute their mission. The officer who commanded them then went in, and cut off his head244, which he carried to Marius, who affixed it to that rostrum, whence, as Cicero remarks, he had ably defended the lives of so many of his fellow-citizens245; little aware that he would soon himself experience, from another Antony, a fate similar to that which he deplores as having befallen the grandsire of the triumvir.

Crassus, the forensic rival of Antony, had prepared himself in his youth, for public speaking, by digesting in his memory a chosen number of polished and dignified verses, or a certain portion of some oration which he had read over, and then delivering the same matter in the best words he could select246. Afterwards, when he grew a little older, he translated into Latin some of the finest Greek orations, and, at the same time, used every mental and bodily exertion to improve his voice, his action, and memory. He commenced his oratorical career at the early age of nineteen, when he acquired much reputation by his accusation of C. Carbo; and he, not long afterwards, greatly heightened his fame, by his defence of the virgin Licinia. Another of the best speeches of Crassus, was that addressed to the people in favour of the law of Servilius Cæpio, restoring in part the judicial power to the Senate, of which they had been recently deprived, in order to vest it solely in the body of knights. But the most, splendid of all the appearances of Crassus, was one that proved the immediate cause of his death, which happened in 662, a short while [pg 120]before the commencement of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla; and a few days after the time in which he is supposed to have borne his part in the dialogue De Oratore. The Consul Philippus had declared, in one of the assemblies of the people, that some other advice must be resorted to, since, with such a Senate as then existed, he could no longer direct the affairs of the government. A full Senate being immediately summoned, Crassus arraigned, in terms of the most glowing eloquence, the conduct of this Consul, who, instead of acting as the political parent and guardian of the Senate, sought to deprive its members of their ancient inheritance of respect and dignity. Being farther irritated by an attempt on the part of Philippus, to force him into compliance with his designs, he exerted, on this occasion, the utmost efforts of his genius and strength; but he returned home with a pleuritic fever, of which he died in the course of seven days. This oration of Crassus, followed as it was by his almost immediate death, made a deep impression on his countrymen; who, long afterwards, were wont to repair to the senate-house, for the purpose of viewing the spot where he had last stood, and fallen, as it may be said, in defence of the privileges of his order.

Crassus left hardly any orations behind him, and he died while Cicero was still in his boyhood; yet that author, having collected the opinions of those who had heard him, speaks with a minute and apparently perfect intelligence of his mode of oratory. He was what may be called the most ornamental speaker that had hitherto appeared in the Forum. Though not without force, gravity, and dignity, these were happily blended with the most insinuating politeness, urbanity, ease, and gaiety. He was master of the most pure and accurate language, and of perfect elegance of expression, without any affectation, or unpleasant appearance of previous study. Great clearness of exposition distinguished all his harangues, and, while descanting on topics of law or equity, he possessed an inexhaustible fund of argument and illustration. In speaking, he showed an uncommon modesty, which went even the length of bashfulness. When a young man, he was so intimidated at the opening of a speech, that Q. Maximus, perceiving him overwhelmed and disabled by confusion, adjourned the court, which the orator always remembered with the highest sense of gratitude. This diffidence never entirely forsook him; and, after the practice of a long life at the bar, he was frequently so much agitated in the exordium of his discourse, that he was observed to grow pale, and to tremble in every part of his frame247. Some persons considered [pg 121]Crassus as only equal to Antony; others preferred him as the more perfect and accomplished orator: Antony chiefly trusted to his intimate acquaintance with affairs and ordinary life: He was not, however, so destitute of knowledge as he seemed; but he thought the best way to recommend his eloquence to the people, was to appear as if he had never learned anything248. Crassus, on the other hand, was well instructed in literature, and showed off his information to the best advantage. Antony possessed the greater power of promoting conjecture, and of allaying or exciting suspicion, by opposite and well-timed insinuations; but no one could have more copiousness or facility than Crassus, in defining, interpreting, and discussing, the principles of equity. The language of Crassus was indisputably preferable to that of Antony; but the action and gesture of Antony were as incontestably superior to those of Crassus.

Sulpicius and Cotta, who were both born about 630, were younger orators than Antony or Crassus, but were for some time their contemporaries, and had risen to considerable reputation before the death of the latter and assassination of the former. Sulpicius lived for some years respected and admired; but, about the year 665, at the first breaking out of the dissensions between Sylla and Marius, being then a tribune of the people, he espoused the part of Marius. Plutarch gives a memorable account of his character and behaviour at this conjuncture, declaring that he was second to none in the most atrocious villainies. Alike unrestrained in avarice and cruelty, he committed the most criminal and enormous actions without hesitation or reluctance. He sold by public auction the freedom of Rome to foreigners—telling out the purchase-money on counters erected for that purpose in the Forum! He kept 3000 swordsmen in constant pay, and had always about him a company of young men of the equestrian order, ready on every occasion to execute his commands; and these he styled his anti-senatorian band249. Cicero touches on his crimes with more tenderness; but says, that when he came to be tribune, he stript of all their dignities those with whom, as a private individual, he had lived in the strictest friendship250. Whilst Marius kept his ground against his rival, Sulpicius transacted all public affairs, in his capacity of tribune, by violence and force of arms. He decreed to Marius the command in the Mithridatic war: He attacked the Consuls with his band while they were holding an assembly of the people in the Tem[pg 122]ple of Castor and Pollux, and deposed one of them251. Marius, however, having been at length expelled by the ascendancy of Sylla, Sulpicius was betrayed by one of his slaves, and immediately seized and executed. “Thus,” says Cicero, “the chastisement of his rashness went hand in hand with the misfortunes of his country; and the sword cut off the thread of that life, which was then blooming to all the honours that eloquence can bestow252.”

Cicero had reached the age of nineteen, at the period of the death of Sulpicius. He had heard him daily speak in the Forum, and highly estimates his oratoric powers253. He was the most lofty, and what Cicero calls the most tragic, orator of Rome. His attitudes, deportment, and figure, were of supreme dignity—his voice was powerful and sonorous—his elocution rapid; his action variable and animated.

The constitutional weakness of Cotta prevented all such oratorical vehemence. In his manner he was soft and relaxed; but every thing he said was sober and in good taste, and he often led the judges to the same conclusion to which Sulpicius impelled them. “No two things,” says Cicero, “were ever more unlike than they are to each other. The one, in a polite, delicate manner, sets forth his subject in well-chosen expressions. He still keeps to his point; and, as he sees with the greatest penetration what he has to prove to the court, he directs to that the whole strength of his reasoning and eloquence, without regarding other arguments. But Sulpicius, endued with irresistible energy, with a full strong voice, with the greatest vehemence, and dignity of action, accompanied with so much weight and variety of expression, seemed, of all mankind, the best fitted by nature for eloquence.”

It was supposed that Cotta wished to resemble Antony, as Sulpicius obviously imitated Crassus; but the latter wanted the agreeable pleasantry of Crassus, and the former the force of Antony. None of the orations of Sulpicius remained in the time of Cicero—those circulated under his name having been written by Canutius after his death. The oration of Cotta for himself, when accused on the Varian law, was composed, it is said, at his request by Lucius Ælius; and, if this be true, nothing can appear to us more extraordinary, than that so accomplished a speaker as Cotta should have wished any of the trivial harangues of Ælius to pass for his own.

The renown, however, of all preceding orators, was now about to be eclipsed at Rome; and Hortensius burst forth in [pg 123]eloquence at once calculated to delight and astonish his fellow-citizens. This celebrated orator was born in the year 640, being thus ten years younger than Cotta and Sulpicius. His first appearance in the Forum was at the early age of nineteen—that is, in 659; and his excellence, says Cicero, was immediately acknowledged, like that of a statue by Phidias, which only requires to be seen in order to be admired254. The case in which he first appeared was of considerable responsibility for one so young and inexperienced, being an accusation, at the instance of the Roman province of Africa, against its governors for rapacity. It was heard before Scævola and Crassus, as judges—the one the ablest lawyer, the other the most accomplished speaker, of his age; and the young orator had the good fortune to obtain their approbation, as well as that of all who were present at the trial255. His next pleading of importance was in behalf of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, in which he even surpassed his former speech for the Africans256. After this we hear little of him for several years. The imminent perils of the Social War, which broke out in 663, interrupted, in a great measure, the business of the Forum. Hortensius served in this alarming contest for one year as a volunteer, and in the following season as a military tribune257. When, on the re-establishment of peace in Italy in 666, he returned to Rome, and resumed the more peaceful avocations to which he had been destined from his youth, he found himself without a rival258. Crassus, as we have seen, died in 662, before the troubles of Marius and Sylla. Antony, with other orators of inferior note, perished in 666, during the temporary and last ascendancy of Marius, in the absence of Sylla. Sulpicius was put to death in the same year, and Cotta driven into banishment, from which he was not recalled until the return of Sylla to Rome, and his election to the dictatorship in 670. Hortensius was thus left for some years without a competitor; and, after 670, with none of eminence but Cotta, whom also he soon outshone. His splendid, warm, and animated manner, was preferred to the calm and easy elegance of his rival. Accordingly, when engaged in a cause on the same side, Cotta, though ten years senior, was employed to open the case, while the more important parts were left to the management of Hortensius259. He continued the undisputed sovereign of the Forum, till Cicero returned from his quæstorship in Sicily, in 679, when the talents of that orator first [pg 124]displayed themselves in full perfection and maturity. Hortensius was thus, from 666 till 679, a space of thirteen years, at the head of the Roman bar; and being, in consequence, engaged during that long period, on one side or other, in every cause of importance, he soon amassed a prodigious fortune. He lived, too, with a magnificence corresponding to his wealth. An example of splendour and luxury had been set to him by the orator Crassus, who inhabited a sumptuous palace in Rome, the hall of which was adorned with four pillars of Hymettian marble, twelve feet high, which he brought to Rome in his ædileship, at a time when there were no pillars of foreign marble even in public buildings260. The court of this mansion was ornamented by six lotus trees, which Pliny saw in full luxuriance in his youth, but which were afterwards burned in the conflagration in the time of Nero. He had also a number of vases, and two drinking-cups, engraved by the artist Mentor, but which were of such immense value that he was ashamed to use them261. Hortensius had the same tastes as Crassus, but surpassed him and all his contemporaries in magnificence. His mansion stood on the Palatine Hill, which appears to have been the most fashionable situation in Rome, being at that time covered with the houses of Lutatius Catulus, Æmilius Scaurus, Clodius, Catiline, Cicero, and Cæsar262. The residence of Hortensius was adjacent to that of Catiline; and though of no great extent, it was splendidly furnished. After the death of the orator, it was inhabited by Octavius Cæsar263, and formed the centre of the chief imperial palace, which increased from the time of Augustus to that of Nero, till it covered a great part of the Palatine Mount, and branched over other hills. Besides his mansion in the capital, he possessed sumptuous villas at Tusculum, Bauli, and Laurentum, where he was accustomed to give the most elegant and expensive entertainments. He had frequently peacocks at his banquets, which he first served up at a grand augural feast, and which, says Varro, were more commended by the luxurious, than by men of probity and austerity264. His olive plantations he is said to have regularly moistened and bedewed with wine; and, on one occasion, during the hearing of an important case, in which he was engaged along with Cicero, begged that he would change with him the previously arranged order of pleading, as he was obliged to go to the country to pour wine on a favourite platanus, which grew near his Tus[pg 125]culan villa265. Notwithstanding this profusion, his heir found not less than 10,000 casks of wine in his cellar after his death266. Besides his taste for wine, and fondness for plantations, he indulged a passion for pictures and fish-ponds. At his Tusculan villa, he built a hall for the reception of a painting of the expedition of the Argonauts, by the painter Cydias, which cost the enormous sum of a hundred and forty-four thousand sesterces267. At his country-seat, near Bauli, on the sea shore, he vied with Lucullus and Philippus in the extent of his fish-ponds, which were constructed at immense cost, and so formed that the tide flowed into them268. Under the promontory of Bauli, travellers are yet shown the Piscina Mirabilis, a subterraneous edifice, vaulted and divided by four rows of arcades, and which is supposed by some antiquarians to have been a fish-pond of Hortensius. Yet such was his luxury, and his reluctance to diminish his supply, that when he gave entertainments at Bauli, he generally sent to the neighbouring town of Puteoli to buy fish for supper269. He had a vast number of fishermen in his service, and paid so much attention to the feeding of his fish, that he had always ready a large stock of small fish to be devoured by the great ones. It was with the utmost difficulty he could be prevailed on to part with any of them; and Varro declares, that a friend could more easily get his chariot mules out of his stable, than a mullet from his ponds. He was more anxious about the welfare of his fish than the health of his slaves, and less solicitous that a sick servant might not take what was unfit for him, than that his fish might not drink water which was unwholesome270. It is even said, that he was so passionately fond of a particular lamprey, that he shed tears for her untimely death271.

The gallery at the villa, which was situated on the little promontory of Bauli, and looking towards Puteoli, commanded one of the most delightful views in Italy. The inland prospect towards Cumæ was extensive and magnificent. Puteoli was seen along the shore at the distance of 30 stadia, in the direction of Pompeii; and Pompeii itself was invisible only from its distance. The sea view was unbounded; but it was enlivened by the numerous vessels sailing across the bay, and the ever changeful hue of its waters, now saffron, azure, or purple, according as the breeze blew, or as the sun ascended or declined272.

Hortensius possessed another villa in Italy, which rivalled in its sylvan pomp the marine luxuries of Bauli. This mansion lay between Ostia and Lavinium, (now Pratica,) near to the town of Laurentum, so well remembered from ancient fable and poetry, as having been the residence of King Latinus, at the time of the arrival of Æneas in Italy, and at present known by the name of Torre di Paterno. The town of Laurentum was on the shore, but the villa of Hortensius stood to the north-east at some distance from the coast,—the grounds subsequently occupied by the villa of the younger Pliny intervening between it and Laurentum, and also between it and the Tuscan sea. Around were the walks and gardens of patrician villas; on one side was seen the town of Laurentum, with its public baths; on the other, but at a greater distance, the harbour of Ostia. Near the house were groves, and fields covered with herds—beyond were hills clothed with woods. The horizon to the north-east was bounded by magnificent mountains, and beyond the low maritime grounds, which lay between the port of Ostia and Laurentum, there was a distant prospect of the Tuscan sea273.

Hortensius had here a wooded park of fifty acres, encompassed with a wall. This enclosure he called a nursery of wild beasts, all which came for their provender at a certain hour, on the blowing of a horn—an exhibition with which he was accustomed to amuse the guests who visited him at his Laurentian villa. Varro mentions an entertainment, where those invited supped on an eminence, called a Triclinium, in this sylvan park. During the repast, Hortensius summoned his Orpheus, who, having come with his musical instruments, and being ordered to display his talents, blew a trumpet, when such a multitude of deer, boars, and other quadrupeds, rushed to the spot from all quarters, that the sight appeared to the delighted spectators as beautiful as the courses with wild animals in the great Circus of the Ædiles274!

The eloquence of Hortensius procured him not only all this wealth and luxury, but the highest official honours of the state. He was Ædile in 679, Prætor in 682, and Consul two years afterwards. The wealth and dignities he had obtained, and the want of competition, made him gradually relax from that assiduity by which they had been acquired, till the increasing fame of Cicero, and particularly the glory of his consulship, stimulated him to renew his exertions. But his habit of labour had been in some degree lost, and he never again recovered [pg 127]his former reputation. Cicero partly accounts for this decline, from the peculiar nature and genius of his eloquence275. It was of that showy species called Asiatic, which flourished in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, and was infinitely more florid and ornamental than the oratory of Athens, or even Rhodes, being full of brilliant thoughts and of sparkling expressions. This glowing style of rhetoric, though deficient in solidity and weight, was not unsuitable in a young man; and being farther recommended by a beautiful cadence of periods, met with the utmost applause. But Hortensius, as he advanced in life, did not prune his exuberance, or adopt a chaster eloquence; and this luxury, and glitter of phraseology, which, even in his earliest years, had occasionally excited ridicule or disgust among the graver fathers of the senatorial order, being totally inconsistent with his advanced age and consular dignity, which required something more serious and composed, his reputation diminished with increase of years; and though the bloom of his eloquence might be in fact the same, it appeared to be somewhat withered276. Besides, from his declining health and strength, which greatly failed in his latter years, he may not have been able to give full effect to that showy species of rhetoric in which he indulged. A constant toothache, and swelling in the jaws, greatly impaired his power of elocution and utterance, and became at length so severe as to accelerate his end—