Vertitur, atque ipsas flatus gravis inficit auras,
Vel rabidus clamor fracto quum forte sonore
Planum radit iter. Sic est Hortensius olim
Absumptus: caussis etenim confectus agendis
Obticuit, quum vox, domino vivente, periret,
Et nondum exstincti moreretur lingua diserti[277].”
A few months, however, before his death, which happened in 703, he pleaded for his nephew, Messala, who was accused of illegal canvassing, and who was acquitted, more in consequence of the astonishing exertions of his advocate, than the justice of his cause. So unfavourable, indeed, was his case esteemed, that however much the speech of Hortensius had been admired, he was received on entering the theatre of Curio on the following day, with loud clamour and hisses, which were the more remarked, as he had never met with similar [pg 128]treatment in the whole course of his forensic career[278]. The speech, however, revived all the ancient admiration of the public for his oratorical talents, and convinced them, that had he always possessed the same perseverance as Cicero, he would not have ranked second to that orator. Another of his most celebrated harangues was that against the Manilian law, which vested Pompey with such extraordinary powers, and was so warmly supported by Cicero. That against the sumptuary law proposed by Crassus and Pompey, in the year 683, which tended to restrain the indulgence of his own taste, was well adapted to Hortensius’ style of eloquence; and his speech was highly characteristic of his disposition and habits of life. He declaimed, at great length, on the glory of Rome, which required splendour in the mode of living followed by its citizens[279]. He frequently glanced at the luxury of the Consuls themselves, and forced them at length, by his eloquence and sarcastic declamation, to relinquish their scheme of domestic retrenchment.
The speeches of Hortensius, it has been already mentioned, lost part of their effect by the orator’s advance in years, but they suffered still more by being transferred to paper. As his chief excellence consisted in action and delivery, his writings were much inferior to what was expected from the high fame he had enjoyed; and, accordingly, after death, he retained little of that esteem, which he had so abundantly possessed during his life[280]. Although, therefore, his orations had been preserved, they would have given us but an imperfect idea of the eloquence of Hortensius; but even this aid has been denied us, and we must, therefore, now chiefly trust for his oratorical character to the opinion of his great but unprejudiced rival. The friendship and honourable competition of Hortensius and Cicero, present an agreeable contrast to the animosities of Æschines and Demosthenes, the two great orators of Greece. It was by means of Hortensius that Cicero was chosen one of the college of Augurs—a service of which his gratified vanity ever appears to have retained an agreeable recollection. In a few of his letters, indeed, written during the despondency of his exile, he hints a suspicion that Hortensius had been instrumental in his banishment, with a view of engrossing to himself the whole glory of the bar[281]; but this mistrust ended with his recall, which Hortensius, though originally he had advised him to yield to the storm, urged on with all the influence of which he was possessed. Hortensius also appears to have been free from every feeling of jealousy or envy, which in him was still [pg 129]more creditable, as his rival was younger than himself, and yet ultimately forced him from the supremacy. Such having been their sentiments of mutual esteem, Cicero has done his oratoric talents ample justice—representing him as endued with almost all the qualities necessary to form a distinguished speaker. His imagination was fertile—his voice was sweet and harmonious—his demeanour dignified—his language rich and elegant—his acquaintance with literature extensive. So prodigious was his memory, that, without the aid of writing, he recollected every word he had meditated, and every sentence of his adversary’s oration, even to the titles and documents brought forward to support the case against him—a faculty which greatly aided his peculiarly happy art of recapitulating the substance of what had been said by his antagonists or by himself[282]. He also originally possessed an indefatigable application; and scarcely a day passed in which he did not speak in the Forum, or exercise himself in forensic studies or preparation. But, of all the various arts of oratory, he most remarkably excelled in a happy and perspicuous arrangement of his subject. Cicero only reproaches him, and that but slightly, with showing more study and art in his gestures than was suitable for an orator. It appears, however, from Macrobius, that he was much ridiculed by his contemporaries, on account of his affected gestures. In pleading, his hands were constantly in motion, whence he was often attacked by his adversaries in the Forum for resembling an actor; and, on one occasion, he received from his opponent the appellation of Dionysia, which was the name of a celebrated dancing girl[283]. Æsop and Roscius frequently attended his pleadings, to catch his gestures, and imitate them on the stage[284]. Such, indeed, was his exertion in action, that it was commonly said that it could not be determined whether people went to hear or to see him[285]. Like Demosthenes, he chose and put on his dress with the most studied care and neatness. He is said, not only to have prepared his attitudes, but also to have adjusted the plaits of his gown before a mirror, when about to issue forth to the Forum; and to have taken no less care in arranging them, than in moulding the periods of his discourse. He so tucked up his gown, that the folds did not fall by chance, but were form[pg 130]ed with great care, by means of a knot artfully tied, and concealed in the plies of his robe, which apparently flowed carelessly around him[286]. Macrobius also records a story of his instituting an action of damages against a person who had jostled him, while walking in this elaborate dress, and had ruffled his toga, when he was about to appear in public with his drapery adjusted according to the happiest arrangement[287]—an anecdote, which, whether true or false, shows, by its currency, the opinion entertained of his finical attention to everything that concerned the elegance of his attire, or the gracefulness of his figure and attitudes. He also bathed himself in odoriferous waters, and daily perfumed himself with the most precious essences[288]. This too minute attention to his person, and to gesticulation, appears to have been the sole blemish in his oratorical character; and the only stain on his moral conduct, was his practice of corrupting the judges of the causes in which he was employed—a practice which must be, in a great measure, imputed to the defects of the judicial system at Rome; for, whatever might be the excellence of the Roman laws, nothing could be worse than the procedure under which they were administered[289].
Hortensius has received more justice from Cicero than another orator, Licinius Calvus, who, for a few years, was also considered as his rival in eloquence. Calvus has already been mentioned as an elegant poet; but Seneca calls his competition with Cicero in oratory, iniquissimam litem. His style of speaking was directly the reverse of that of Hortensius: he affected the Attic taste in eloquence, such as it appeared in what he conceived to be its purest form—the orations of Lysias. Hence that correct and slender delicacy at which he so studiously aimed, and which he conducted with great skill and elegance; but, from being too much afraid of the faults of redundance and unsuitable ornament, he refined and attenuated his discourse till it lost its raciness and spirit. He compensated, however, for his sterility of language, and diminutive figure, by his force of elocution, and vivacity of action. “I have met with persons,” says Quintilian, “who preferred Calvus to all our orators; and others who were of opinion, that the too great rigour which he exercised on himself, in point of precision, had debilitated his oratorical talents. Nevertheless, his speeches, though chaste, grave, and correct, are frequently also vehement. His taste of writing was Attic; and his untimely death was an injury to his reputation, if he designed to add to his compositions, and not to retrench them.” His most celebrated oration, which was against the unpopular Vatinius, was delivered at the age of twenty. The person whom he accused, overpowered and alarmed, interrupted him, by exclaiming to the judges, “Must I be condemned because he is eloquent?” The applause he obtained in this case may be judged of from what is mentioned by Catullus, of some one in the crowd clapping his hands in the middle of his speech, and exclaiming, “O what an eloquent little darling[290]!” Calvus survived only ten years after this period, [pg 132]having died at the early age of thirty. He left behind him twenty-one books of orations, which are said to have been much studied by the younger Pliny, and were the models he first imitated[291].
Calvus, though a much younger man than Cicero, died many years before him, and previous to the composition of the dialogue Brutus. Most of the other contemporaries, whom Cicero records in that treatise on celebrated orators, were dead also. Among an infinite variety of others, he particularly mentions Marcus Crassus, the wealthy triumvir, who perished in the ill-fated expedition against the Parthians; and who, though possessed but of moderate learning and capacity, was accounted, in consequence of his industry and popular arts, among the chief forensic patrons. His language was pure, and his subject well arranged; but in his harangues there were none of the lights and flowers of eloquence,—all things were expressed in the same manner, and the same tone.