40 Again, what stimulus to
genius and what fire to the orator was furnished by incessant popular
assemblies, by the privilege of attacking the most influential men, and by the
very glory of such feuds when most of the good speakers did not spare even a
Publius Scipio, or a Sulla, or a Cneius Pompeius, and following the common
impulse of envy availed themselves of the popular ear for invective against
eminent citizens. I am not speaking of a quiet and peaceful accomplishment,
which delights in what is virtuous and well regulated. No; the great and famous
eloquence of old is the nursling of the licence which fools called freedom; it
is the companion of sedition, the stimulant of an unruly people, a stranger to
obedience and subjection, a defiant, reckless, presumptuous thing which does
not show itself in a well-governed state. What orator have we ever heard of at
Sparta or at Crete? A very strict discipline and very strict laws prevailed,
tradition says, in both those states. Nor do we know of the existence of
eloquence among the Macedonians or Persians, or in any people content with a
settled government. There were some orators at Rhodes and a host of them at
Athens, but there the people, there any ignorant fellow, anybody, in short,
could do anything. So too our own state, while it went astray and wore out its
strength in factious strife and discord, with neither peace in the forum, unity
in the senate, order in the courts, respect for merit, or seemly behaviour in
the magistrates, produced beyond all question a more vigorous eloquence, just
as an untilled field yields certain herbage in special plenty. Still the
eloquence of the Gracchi was not an equivalent to Rome for having to endure
their legislation, and Cicero’s fame as an orator was a poor compensation for
the death he died.
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