24 Aper having finished
speaking, Maternus said, You recognise, do you not, our friend Aper’s force and
passion? With what a torrent, what a rush of eloquence has he been defending
our age? How full and varied was his tirade against the ancients! What ability
and spirit, what learning and skill too did he show in borrowing from the very
men themselves the weapons with which he forthwith proceeded to attack them!
Still, as to your promise, Messala, there must for all this be no change. We
neither want a defence of the ancients, nor do we compare any of ourselves,
though we have just heard our own praises, with those whom Aper has denounced.
Aper himself thinks otherwise; he merely followed an old practice much in vogue
with your philosophical school of assuming the part of an opponent. Give us
then not a panegyric on the ancients (their own fame is a sufficient panegyric)
but tell us plainly the reasons why with us there has been such a falling off
from their eloquence, the more marked as dates have proved that from the death
of Cicero to
this present day is but a hundred and twenty years.
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