[33]
We must also remember that Cicero1 thinks that not
even 'Thucydidcs or Xenophon will be of much service to an orator, although he regards the style of
the former as a veritable call to arms and considers
that the latter was the mouthpiece of the Muses.
It is, however, occasionally permissible to borrow the
graces of history to embellish our digressions, provided always that we remember that in those portions
of our speech which deal with the actual question
at issue we require not the swelling thews of the
athlete, but the wiry sinews of the soldier, and that
the cloak of many colours which Demetrius of
Phalerum2 was said to wear is but little suited to
the dust and heat of the forum.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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