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 established[228]. 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.
With exception of the speech of Appius Claudius to oppose a peace with Pyrrhus, there are no harangues mentioned by the Latin critics or historians as possessing any charms of oratory, previously to the time of Cornelius Cethegus, who flourished during the second Punic war, and was Consul about the year 550. Cethegus was particularly distinguished for his admirable sweetness of elocution and powers of persuasion, whence he is thus characterized by Ennius, a contemporary poet, in the 9th book of his Annals:
“Additur orator Cornelius suaviloquenti
Ore Cethegus Marcus, Tuditano collega;
Flos delibatus populi, suadæque medulla.”
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 acclamation[229]. 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 gesture[230]; 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 state[231]; 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.