I say nothing about the learners' first rudiments. Even with these little
pains are taken, and on the reading of authors, on the study of antiquity
and a knowledge of facts, of men and of periods, by no means enough labour
is bestowed. It is rhetoricians, as they are called, who are in request.
When this profession was first introduced into our city, and how little
esteem it had among our ancestors, I am now about to explain; but I will
first recall your attention to the training which we have been told was
practised by those orators whose infinite industry, daily study and
incessant application to every branch of learning are seen in the contents
of their own books. You are doubtless familiar with
Cicero's book, called
Brutus. In the latter part of it (the first gives an account of the ancient
orators) he relates his own beginnings, his progress, and the growth, so to
say, of his eloquence. He tells us that he learnt the civil law under
Quintus Mucius, and that he thoroughly imbibed every branch of philosophy
under
Philo of the Academy and under Diodotus the Stoic; that not content
with the teachers under
ANCIENT EDUCATION
HUMANISTIC |
whom he had had the opportunity of studying at
Rome, he travelled through
Achaia and
Asia Minor so as to
embrace every variety of every learned pursuit. Hence we really find in
Cicero's works that he was not deficient in the knowledge of geometry,
music, grammar, or, in short, any liberal accomplishment. The subtleties of
logic, the useful lessons of ethical science, the movements and causes of
the universe, were alike known to him. The truth indeed is this, my
excellent friends, that
Cicero's wonderful eloquence wells up and overflows
out of a store of erudition, a multitude of accomplishments, and a knowledge
that was universal. The strength and power of oratory, unlike all other
arts, is not confined within narrow and straitened limits, but the orator is
he who can speak on every question with grace, elegance, and persuasiveness,
suitably to the dignity of his subject, the requirements of the occasion,
and the taste of his audience.