[107]
As regards
wit and the power of exciting pity, the two most
powerful instruments where the feelings are concerned, we have the advantage. Again, it is possible
[p. 63]
that Demosthenes was deprived by national custom1
of the opportunity of producing powerful perorations, but against this may be set the fact that the
different character of the Latin language debars us
from the attainment of those qualities which are
so much admired by the adherents of the Attic
school. As regards their letters, which have in
both cases survived, and dialogues, which Demosthenes never attempted, there can be no comparison
between the two.
1 cp. xvi. 4; vi i 7 Quintilian refers to an alleged law at Athens forbidding appeals to the emotion.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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