[106]
I regard the excellences of these
two orators as being for the most part similar, that
is to say, their judgment, their gift of arrangement,
their methods of division, preparation and proof, as
well as everything concerned with invention. In
their actual style there is some difference. Demosthenes is more concentrated, Cicero more diffuse;
Demosthenes makes his periods shorter than Cicero,
and his weapon is the rapier, whereas Cicero's periods
are longer, and at times he employs the bludgeon as
well: nothing can be taken from the former, nor
added to the latter; the Greek reveals a more
studied, the Roman a more natural art.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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