ORA´TOR
ORA´TOR Cicero remarks (
Or. Part. c.
28, 100) that “a certain kind of causes belong to Jus Civile, and that
Jus Civile is conversant about statutes (
lex) and custom (
mos）
appertaining to things public and private, the knowledge of which,
though neglected by most orators, seems to me to be necessary for the
purposes of oratory.” In his treatise on the Orator, and
particularly in the first book, Cicero has given his opinion of the duties
and requisite qualifications of an orator in the form of a dialogue, in
which Lucius Licinius Crassus and M. Antonius are the chief speakers.
Crassus was himself a model of the highest excellence in oratory; and the
opinions attributed to him as to the qualifications of an orator were those
of Cicero himself, who in the introductory part of his first book (100.6)
declares that “in his opinion no man can deserve the title of a
perfect orator unless he has acquired a knowledge of all important
things and of all arts: for it is out of knowledge that oratory must
blossom and expand, and if it is not founded on matter which the orator
has fully mastered and understood, it is idle talk, and may almost be
called puerile.” According to Crassus, the province of the orator
embraces everything: he must be able to speak well on all subjects.
Consequently he must have a knowledge of the Jus Civile (1.44, 197), the
necessity for which Crassus illustrates by instances; and he should not only
know the Jus Civile, as being necessary when he has to speak in causes
relating to private matters and to privata judicia, but he should also have
a knowledge of the Jus Publicum, which is conversant about a state as such,
and he should be familiar with the events of history and instances derived
from the experience of the past. Antonius (1.49, 213) limits the
qualifications of the orator to the command of language pleasant to the ear
and of arguments adapted to convince in causes in the forum and on ordinary
occasions. He further requires the orator to have competent voice and action
and sufficient grace and ease. In 1.58, 246, he contends that an orator does
not require a knowledge of the Jus Civile, in support of which he instances
himself, for Crassus allowed that Antonius could satisfactorily conduct a
cause, though Antonius, according to his own admission, had never learnt the
Jus Civile, and had never felt the want of it in such causes as he had
defended.
The profession then of the orator, who with reference to a client's case is
also called
patronus (
do
Orat. i 56, 237;
Brut. 38, 143), was quite
distinct from that of the consulting lawyer [
JURISCONSULTI], and also from that of the
advocatus, at least in the time of Cicero (2.74,
301), and even later (
de Orat. dial. 34). The advocatus
assisted a party with legal advice, and accompanied him into court, though
there his assistance was not active, being limited to the effect which might
be produced by the mere fact of his reputation; but after the fall of the
Republic the functions of advocatus and patronus or orator are confused, as
the greater jurists ceased to go into court. An orator, who possessed a
competent knowledge of the civil law, would have thereby an advantage, as
Antonius admits (1.59, 251); but as there were many essentials to an orator,
which were difficult of attainment, he says that it would be unwise to
distract him with other things. Some requisites of oratory, such as voice
and gesture, could be acquired only by discipline: whereas a competent
knowledge of the law of a case (
juris utilitas）
could be got at any time from a jurisconsult or from books. Antonius thinks
that in this matter the Roman acted more wisely than the Greek orators, who,
being ignorant of law, had the assistance of low fellows who worked for
hire, and were called Pragmatici (1.45): the Roman orators entrusted the
maintenance of the law to the high character of their professed jurists.
So far as the profession of an advocate consists in the skilful conduct of a
cause, and in the supporting of his own side of a question by proper
argument, it must be admitted with Antonius that a very moderate knowledge
of law is sufficient; and indeed even a purely legal argument requires not
so much the accumulation of a vast store of legal knowledge as the power of
handling the matter when it has been collected. The method in which this
consummate master of his art managed a cause is stated by himself (
de Orat. 2.72, 292); and in another passage
(
Brut. 37, 129) Cicero has recorded his merits as an
orator. Servius Sulpicius, who was the greatest lawyer of his age, had a
good practical knowledge of the law; but others had this also, and what
distinguished him from all his contemporaries was something else:
“Many others as well as Sulpicius had a great knowledge of the
law: he alone possessed it as an art. But the knowledge of law by itself
would never have helped him to this without the
[p. 2.295]possession of that art which teaches us to divide the whole of a thing
into its parts, by exact definition to develop what is imperfectly seen,
by explanation to clear up what is obscure: first of all to see
ambiguities, then to disentangle them, lastly to have a rule by which
truth and falsehood are distinguished, and by which it shall appear what
consequences follow from premisses, and what do not”
(
Brut. 41, 152). With such a power Sulpicius combined a
knowledge of letters and a pleasing style of speaking. As a forensic orator
then he must have been one of the first that ever lived: but still among the
Romans his reputation was that of a jurist, while Antonius, who had no
knowledge of the law, is put on a level as an orator (
patronus) with L. Crassus, who of all the eloquent men of
Rome had the best acquaintance with the law.
How serious a study oratory was among the komans is attested by Cicero, who
(
Brut. 91, &c.) tells us by what painful labour
he achieved excellence. Roman oratory reached its perfection in the century
which preceded the Christian era: its decline dates from the establishment
of the imperial power under Augustus and his successors: for though there
were many good speakers and more skilful rhetoricians under the Empire, the
oratory of the Republic was rendered by circumstances unsuitable for the
senate, for the popular assemblies, or for cases of crime and high
misdemeanour. Upon this subject, see Savigny,
History of the Roman
Law is the Middle Ages, i. p. 25.
In the Dialogue
de Oratoribus. which is
attributed (no doubt rightly) to Tacitus, Messala, one of the speakers,
attempts (100.28, &c.) to assign the reasons for the low level of
oratory in the time of Vespasian (when the Dialogue was written) compared
with its condition in the age of Cicero and his predecessors. He attributes
its decline to the neglect of the discipline under which children were
formerly brought up, and to the practice of resorting to
rhetores, who professed to teach the art of oratory. This
gives occasion to speak more at length of the early discipline of the old
orators, and of Cicero's course of study as described in the
Berutus. The old orators (100.34) learnt their art by
constant attendance on some eminent orator, and by actual experience of
business: the orators of Messala's time were formed in the schools of
Rhetoric, and their powers were developed by exercises on fictitious
matters. These however, it is obvious, were only secondary causes. The
immediate causes appear to be indicated by Maternus, another speaker in the
Dialogue, who attributes the former flourishing condition of eloquence to
the political influence which oratory conferred on its possessor under the
Republic, and to the party struggles and even the violence that are incident
to such a social condition. The allusion to the effect produced by the
establishment of the Empire is clear enough in the following words, which
refer both to the Imperial and the Republican periods: “Cum mixtis
omnibus et moderatore uno carentibus, tantum quisque orator saperet,
quantum erranti populo persuaderi poterat.”
The memorials of Roman oratory are the speeches of Cicero: but they are only
a small portion of the great mass of oratorical literature. The fragments of
the Roman orators, from Appius Caecus and M. Porcius Cato to Q. Aurelius
Symmachus, have been collected by H. Meyer, Zürich, 1 vol. 8vo, 2nd
edit., 1842.
[
G.L] [
J.B.M]
