[a] The advocates, at that time, wore a tight cloak, or mantle, like that which the Romans used on a journey. Cicero, in his oration for Milo, argues that he who wore that inconvenient dress, was not likely to have formed a design against the life of any man. Apparet uter esset insidiator; uter nihil cogitaret mali: cum alter veheretur in rheda, penulatus, unà sederet uxor. Quid horum non impeditissimum? Vestitus? an vehiculum? an comes? A travelling-cloak could give neither grace nor dignity to an orator at the bar. The business was transacted in a kind of chat with the judges: what room for eloquence, and that commanding action which springs from the emotions of the soul, and inflames every breast with kindred passions? The cold inanimate orator is described, by Quintilian, speaking with his hand under his robe; manum intra pallium continens.
Section XL.
[a] Maternus is now drawing to a conclusion, and, therefore, calls to mind the proposition with which he set out; viz. that the flame of oratory is kept alive by fresh materials, and always blazes forth in times of danger and public commotion. The unimpassioned style, which suited the areopagus of Athens, or the courts of Rome, where the advocate spoke by an hour-glass, does not deserve the name of genuine eloquence. The orations of Cicero for Marcellus, Ligarius, and king Dejotarus, were spoken before Cæsar, when he was master of the Roman world. In those speeches, what have we to admire, except delicacy of sentiment, and elegance of diction? How different from the torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion, that roused, inflamed, and commanded the senate, and the people, against Catiline and Marc Antony!
[] For the account of Cicero's death by Velleius Paterculus, see s. xvii. note [e]. Juvenal ascribes the murder of the great Roman orator to the second Philippic against Antony.
——Ridenda poemata malo,
Quam te conspicuæ divina Philippica famæ,
Volveris a primâ quæ proxima.
SAT. x. ver. 124.
I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,