Such
was the conviction of the ancients, and to produce this result they were
aware that it was necessary not only to declaim in the schools of
rhetoricians, or to exercise the tongue and the voice in fictitious
controversies quite remote from reality, but also to imbue the mind with
those studies which treat of good and evil, of honour and dishonour, of
right and wrong. All this, indeed, is the subject-matter of the orator's
speeches. Equity in the law-court, honour in the council-chamber, are our
usual topics of discussion. Still, these often pass into each other, and no
one can speak on them with fulness, variety, and elegance but he who has
studied human nature, the power of virtue, the depravity of vice, and the
conception of those things which can be classed neither among virtues nor
vices. These are the sources whence flows the greater ease with which he who
knows what anger is, rouses or soothes the anger of a judge, the readier
power with which he moves to pity who knows what pity is, and what emotions
of the soul excite it. An orator practised in such arts and exercises,
whether he has to address the angry, the biassed, the envious, the
sorrowful, or the trembling, will understand different mental conditions,
apply his skill, adapt his style, and have every instrument of his craft in
readiness, or in reserve for every occasion. Some there are whose assent is
more secured by
an incisive and terse style, in which each
inference is rapidly drawn. With such, it will be an advantage to have
studied logic. Others are more attracted by a diffuse and smoothly flowing
speech, appealing to the common sentiments of humanity. To impress such we
must borrow from the Peripatetics commonplaces suited and ready prepared for
every discussion. The Academy will give us combativeness, Plato, sublimity,
Xenophon, sweetness. Nor will it be unseemly in an orator to adopt even
certain exclamations of honest emotion, from Epicurus and Metrodorus, and to
use them as occasion requires. It is not a philosopher after the Stoic
school whom we are forming, but one who ought to imbibe thoroughly some
studies, and to have a taste of all. Accordingly, knowledge of the civil law
was included in the training of the ancient orators, and they also imbued
their minds with grammar, music, and geometry. In truth, in very many, I may
say in all cases, acquaintance with law is desirable, and in several this
last-mentioned knowledge is a necessity.