Another peculiarity of the time was that an emperor even did not disdain to inculcate virtue in public, guided, we may boldly assert, by no impulse of vanity, but by a more generous motive than that of exhibiting his eloquence. Marcus Aurelius, for it is of him we are speaking, was going to war with the Marcomanni. It was feared, and with too good cause, that he might die on this expedition, and he was implored earnestly, and without flattery, to address the people, and leave to them, by way of farewell, the moral precept that had guided his own career. He consented, and for three days in succession his people learned, from the imperial philosopher, duty as he himself understood and practised it. A curious and touching spectacle it must have been to see a sovereign regarding the instruction of his subjects as one of the functions of royalty. In unveiling his great soul, Marcus Aurelius revealed to his people the secret of an administration judged previously only by its beneficial effects; and left to his successors a model that was to find, alas! few imitators.[Footnote 80]
[Footnote 80: Vulcatius Gallicanus, Life of Aridius Cassius, 3.]
V.
In all ages, even the most degraded, a few souls have found a source of happy inspiration in moral truth. Whether among such self-appointed guides in spiritual matters there were many really worthy of their mission, we may be permitted to doubt. The instance, Lucian (I do not speak of Christians, whose veracity might be doubted), shows the conduct of these teachers of virtue to have been little in accordance with their language. Morality was in danger of being stricken with sterility under such tillage, but the field remained fertile though ill cultivated.
What can eloquence accomplish if the matter itself of eloquence be wanting? All cannot be orators for the choosing, nor even all who are endowed by heaven with those precious gifts that make an orator. There must be great interests to defend and great questions to debate. Place Demosthenes or Mirabeau in a chair of rhetoric, and what would they do with their genius? A time came when there was no call but for school harangues; when professors trained their pupils in reading and speaking upon hackneyed themes familiar to every classroom. That such exercises may be useful for children of fifteen years of age, I will not deny; but here we have masters of eloquence descanting upon these venerable subjects, and impersonating Alexander or Themistocles, Miltiades, Menelaus, or Priam. They were scholars whose schooling was never ended. Gray heads betokened no emancipation from childish leading-strings, and death found them far removed from the maturity of manly oratory.
Would you know the subjects that attracted a delighted audience? A Lacedaemonian urging the Greeks to destroy trophies raised during the Peloponnesian war; or a Scythian conjuring his countrymen to abandon the life of cities for a wandering existence. One while we have Athenians wounded in Sicily praying for death at the hands of their companions; again, Demosthenes justifying himself against Demades for receiving Persian gold; with a hundred such trite themes, preserved to us by the complaisant biographers of the rhetors. It is unlucky that they have not transmitted for our edification any of these marvellous harangues entire, but we know enough of them to be sure that the style then in vogue was that sonorous Asiatic eloquence, pompous and commonplace in tone, compared by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to a courtesan entering an honest household to drive thence the mother of the family. Demosthenes is not to be recognized in the flowery declamation put into his mouth in common with other great personages. There were usages of style and rhetorical receipts, adapted to all circumstances, serviceable for none.
The glory of ancient Greece was another text on which rhetors loved to exercise their skill. They consoled themselves for achieving no exploits by celebrating those of their ancestors; boasting of victories only when the day of victory was long gone by. One orator was pleasantly nicknamed Marathon from his inability to pronounce any discourse without referring to the warriors killed at Marathon. Platea, Salamis, and Mycale had become rhetorical commonplaces. "Why," asks Plutarch sadly, "why recall triumphs that serve only to inspire us with useless pride? We should propose only imitable examples. Are we not like children walking about in their fathers' shoes?"
The eulogium of a city, a god, or some grand personage afforded matter for ample development. Socrates tells us that speech makes trifles important and great things trifling. This false definition of eloquence was received as a precept, as an axiom. Panegyrists no longer confined their commendation to heroes and great men, but pleaded the cause of the tyrant Phalaris or the cowardly Thersites. One vaunted the merits of long hair, another of bald heads. The praises were sung of parasites, parrots, gnats, and fleas. "In tenui labor," said Virgil, when about to sing of bees; but he could add, "at tenuis, non gloria;" for who can help admiring the labors of these intelligent republicans? The rhetor promised himself no less glory in celebrating the almost invisible wonders of the flea. This kind of discourse received a name which may be translated "paradoxical or unsustainable causes." Yet, strange to say, clever men did not disapprove of such topics. Aulus Gellius considers them suited to awaken talent, to sharpen wit, and inure it to difficulties. [Footnote 81]
[Footnote 81: Lucian, Phalaris, The Gnat; Dion Chrysostom, passim; Plutarch, Art of Listening, 13; Synesius, Praise of Baldness; Aulus Geilius, xvii. 12.]
To bring something out of nothing is a success of which one may justly be proud. But rhetors, like conquerors, possessed an insatiable ambition. They wished to astonish the world with new feats of prowess, and possibility has no limits for adventurous and valiant spirits. To speak without preparation, sagely, long-windedly, without error or hesitation, being the noblest triumph attainable by man, improvisation became the exercise par excellence. [Footnote 82] There stood the orator, erect and tranquil, sure of himself and of his powers, waiting until the audience should throw him the text selected for his dissertation. The word given, he plunged into the discourse; words flowed in a self-supplying stream, pure and abundant; and periods unrolled themselves with admirable facility. No obstacle was insuperable; the stream flowed on and on, straying perchance into side channels here and there; but the listener followed its wanderings contentedly, for the paths were flowery and came quickly to a termination. Phrases ready for all times, and served up on all occasions, with a facility that knew neither pause nor obstruction—such was the supreme merit or the age. But if we may believe certain cavillers, it often sufficed to bring to the work audacity, to push on boldly, careless of ideas, prompt in the creation of new and odd expressions, regardless of solecisms, and anxious to avoid but one thing—silence. [Footnote 83] To acquire this noble art, one needed little study. Ignorance was no longer an obstacle, for it gave greater intrepidity and audacity. "Would you have your son a good orator," says an epigram of the Anthology, "do not let him learn his letters." [Footnote 84]