Titus Livius was so unfavourable to Sallust, that he reproached him with this sentence, “prosperity has a wonderful tendency to cloak misconduct,” as being not only translated, but even spoiled in the translation. Nor does he do this out of regard to Thucydides, with a view to extol him. He praises him whose rivalry he does not fear, and thinks that Sallust could be more easily surpassed by him if he were previously excelled by Thucydides.—Seneca.
Titus Livy used to say that Miltiades, the rhetorician, made the following elegant remark—“they are mad on common-place subjects ...” in reference to orators who hunt after antiquated or obsolete terms, and consider chastity of style to consist in obscurity of diction.—Seneca.
Several have fallen into the same error: nor is it a novel defect, since I find, even in Livy, that there was a certain teacher of rhetoric who ordered his pupils to throw an air of mystery over their expressions, which he expressed by the Greek word [Greek: skotison]. From which circumstance originated the remarkable expression of approbation: “so much the better: even I myself did not understand.”—Quintilian.
Therefore that hint was the safest, of which an example occurs in Livy, in the letter written to his son, “we ought to read Demosthenes and Cicero, and them too in such a manner that each of us should closely resemble Demosthenes and Cicero.”—Quintilian.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] 193,750l.
[2] 12l. 18s. 4d.
[3] Called Galli, and Corybantes.