[21]
and indeed had I felt otherwise in this connexion, I might have defended my
point with greater boldness and freedom.1 Marcus
Antonius declared that he had seen no man who was
genuinely eloquent (and to be eloquent is a far less
achievement than to be an orator), while Cicero himself has failed to find his orator in actual life and
merely imagines and strives to depict the ideal. Shall
I then be afraid to say that in the eternity of time
that is yet to be, something more perfect may be found
than has yet existed?
1 Quintilian's reverence for Cicero is such that he feels hampered in maintaining his thesis.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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