This was a kind of speaking in which the ancients used to take delight, even before the time of Isocrates; and especially Gorgias; in whose orations his very neatness generally produces an harmonious rhythm. We too frequently employ this style; as in the fourth book of our impeachment of Verres:—"Compare this peace with that war; the arrival of this praetor with the victory of that general; the debauched retinue of this man, with the unconquerable army of the other; the lust of this man with the continence of that one; and you will say that Syracuse was founded by the man who in reality took it; and was stormed by this one, who in reality received it in an admirable and settled condition."
This sort of rhythm then must be well understood.
L. We must now explain that third kind of an harmonious and well-arranged speech, and say of what character it is; and what sort of ears those people have who do not understand its character, or indeed what there is in them that is like men at all, I do not know. My ears delight in a well-turned and properly finished period of words, and they like conciseness, and disapprove of redundancy. Why do I say my ears? I have often seen a whole assembly raise a shout of approval at hearing a musical sentence. For men's ears expect that sentences shall be strung together of well-arranged words. This was not the case in the time of the ancients. And indeed it was nearly the only thing in which they were deficient: for they selected their words carefully, and they gave utterance to dignified and sweet sounding ideas; but they paid little attention to arranging them or filling them up. "This is what delights me," one of them would say. What are we to say if an old primitive picture of few colours delights some men more than this highly finished one? Why, I suppose, the style which succeeds must be studied again; and this latter style repudiated.
People boast of the names of the ancients. But antiquity carries authority with it in precedents, as old age does in the lives of individuals; and it has indeed very great weight with me myself. Nor am I more inclined to demand from antiquity that which it has not, than to praise that which it has; especially as I consider what it has as of more importance than what it has not. For there is more good in well chosen words and ideas in which they excel, than in the rounding off of phrases in which they fail. It is after their time that the working up of the termination of a sentence has been introduced; which I think that those ancients would have employed, if it had been known and employed in their day; as since it has been introduced we see that all great orators have employed it.
LI. But it looks like envy when what we call "number," and the Greeks [Greek: ruthmos] is said to be employed in judicial and forensic oratory. For it appears like laying too many plots for the charming of people's ears if rhythm is also aimed at by the orator in his speeches. And relying on this argument those critics themselves utter broken and abrupt sentences, and blame those men who deliver well rounded and neatly turned discourses. If they blame them because their words are ill adapted and their sentiments are trifling, they are right; but if their arguments are sound, their language well chosen, then why should they prefer a lame and halting oration to one which keeps pace with the sentiments contained in it? For this rhythm which they attack so has no other effect except to cause the speaker to clothe his ideas in appropriate language; and that was done by the ancients also, not unusually by accident, and often by nature; and those speeches of theirs which are exceedingly praised, are so generally because they are concisely expressed. And it is now near four hundred years since this doctrine has been established among the Greeks; we have only lately recognised it. Therefore was it allowable for Ennius, despising the ancient examples, to say:—
"In verses such as once the Fauns
And ancient poets sang:"
and shall it not be allowed me to speak of the ancients in the same manner? especially as I am not going to say, "Before this man …" as he did; nor to proceed as he did, "We have ventured to open …" For I have read and heard of some speakers whose orations were rounded off in an almost perfect manner. And those who cannot do this are not content with not being despised; they wish even to be praised for their inability. But I do praise those men, and deservedly too, whose imitators they profess to be; although I see something is wanting in them. But these men I do not praise at all, who imitate nothing of the others except their defects, and are as far removed as possible from their good qualities.
But if their own ears are so uncivilised and barbarous, will not the authority of even the most learned men influence them? I say nothing of Isocrates, and his pupils Ephorus and Naucrates; although those men who are themselves consummate orators ought also to be the highest authorities on making and ornamenting a speech. But who of all men was ever more learned, or more acute, or a more accurate judge of the discovery of, or decision respecting all things than Aristotle? Moreover, who ever took more pains to oppose Isocrates? Aristotle then, while he warns us against letting verses occur in our speeches, enjoins us to attend to rhythm. His pupil Theodectes, one of the most polished of writers, (as Aristotle often intimates,) and a great artist, both felt and enjoined the same thing. And Theophrastus is more distinct still in laying down the same rule.
Who then can endure those men who do not agree with such authorities as these? Unless indeed they are ignorant that they ever gave any such rules. And if that is the case, (and I really believe it is,) what then? Have they no senses of their own to be guided by? Have they no natural idea of what is useless? None of what is harsh, cramped, lame, or superfluous? When verses are being repeated, the whole theatre raises an outcry if there is one syllable too few or too many. Not that the mob knows anything about feet or metre; nor do they understand what it is that offends them, or know why or in what it offends them. But nevertheless nature herself has placed in our ears a power of judging of all superfluous length and all undue shortness in sounds, as much as of grave and acute syllables.
LII. Do you wish then, O Brutus, that we should give a more accurate explanation of this whole topic, than those men themselves have done who have delivered these and other rules to us? Or may we be content with those which have been delivered by them? But why do I ask whether you wish this? when I know from your letters, written in a most scholar-like spirit, that you wish for it above all things. First of all, then, the origin of a well-adapted and rhythmical oration shall be explained, then the cause of it, then its nature, and last of all its use.