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[115] Caelius1 has much natural talent and much wit, more especially when speaking for the prosecution, and deserved a wiser mind and a longer life. I have come across some critics who preferred Calvus2 to all other orators, and others again who agreed with Cicero that too severe self-criticism had robbed him of his natural vigour. But he was the possessor of a solemn, weighty and chastened style, which was also capable at times of genuine vehemence. He was an adherent of the Attic school and an untimely death deprived him of his full meed of honour, at least if we regard him as likely to have acquired fresh qualities.

1 M. Rufus Caelius, defended by Cicero in the pro Catlio. Killed in 48 B.C. Cp. IV. ii. 123.: VII. i. 53.

2 Calvus ((Gaius Licinius), a distinguish poet and. with Brutus, the leading orator of the Attic School. He died at the age of 34 in 48 B.C.

Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.

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