The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: Dialog on Oratory Book 1 [40]

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.

41. And so now the forum, which is all that our speakers have left them of
antiquity, is an evidence of a state not thoroughly reformed or as orderly as
we could wish. Who but the guilty or unfortunate apply to us? What town puts
itself under our protection but one harassed by its neighbours or by strife
at home? When we plead for a province, is it not one that has been plundered
and ill-treated? Surely it would be better not to complain than to have to seek
redress. Could a community be found in which no one did wrong, an orator would
be as superfluous among its innocent people as a physician among the healthy.
As the healing art is of very little use and makes very little progress in nations
which enjoy particularly robust constitutions and vigorous frames, so the orator
gets an inferior and less splendid renown where a sound morality and willing
obedience to authority prevail. What need there of long speeches in the senate,
when the best men are soon of one mind, or of endless harangues to the people,
when political questions are decided not by an ignorant multitude, but by one
man of pre-eminent wisdom? What need of voluntary prosecutions, when crimes
are so rare and slight, or of defences full of spiteful insinuation and exceeding
proper bounds, when the clemency of the judge offers itself to the accused in
his peril?

Be assured, my most excellent, and, as far as the age re-quires, most eloquent
friends, that had you been born in the past, and the men we admire in our own
day, had some god in fact suddenly changed your lives and your age, the highest
fame and glory of eloquence would have been yours, and they too would not have
lacked moderation and self-control. As it is, seeing that no one can at the
same time enjoy great renown and great tranquillity, let everybody make the
best of the blessings of his own age without disparaging other periods.

Maternus had now finished. There were, replied Messala, some points I should
controvert, some on which I should like to hear more, if the day were not almost
spent. It shall be, said Maternus, as you wish, on a future occasion, and anything
you have thought obscure in my argument, we will again discuss. Then he rose
and embraced Aper. I mean, he said, to accuse you before the poets, and so will
Messala before the antiquarians. And I, rejoined Aper, will accuse you before
the rhetoricians and professors.

They laughed good-humouredly, and we parted.