1.
If there is any natural ability in me, O judges,—and I know how slight that is; or
if I have any practice as a speaker,—and in that line I do not deny that I have some
experience; or if I have any method in my oratory, drawn from my study of the liberal
sciences, and from that careful training to which I admit that at no part of my life have I
ever been disinclined; certainly, of all those qualities, this Aulus Licinius is entitled to
be among the first to claim the benefit from me as his peculiar right. For as far as ever my
mind can look back upon the space of time that is past, and recall the memory of its earliest
youth, tracing my life from that starting-point, I see that Archias was the principal cause of
my undertaking, and the principal means of my mastering, those studies. And if this voice of
mine, formed by his encouragement and his precepts, has at times been the instrument of safety
to others, undoubtedly we ought, as far as lies in our power, to help and save the very man
from whom we have received that gift which has enabled us to bring help to many and salvation
to some.
[2]
And lest any one should, perchance, marvel at this
being said by me, as the chief of his ability consists in something else, and not in this
system and practice of eloquence, he must be told that even we ourselves have never been
wholly devoted to this study. In truth, all the arts which concern the civilising and
humanising of men, have some link which binds them together, and are, as it were, connected by
some relationship to one another.
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