These gifts did not at first promise the final achievement. With neither good voice nor com manding presence, short-breathed, defective in articulation, clumsy in manner, Demosthenes on his first appearance in the assembly aroused up roarious and derisive laughter. But he deter mined to be heard later. Ile ran up hill, de claimed by the seashore, gestured before a mirror, and learned from actors the outward signs of eloquence. To getting the inner spirit and power were devoted seven years of appren ticeship in speech-writing and studies in history and law. politics and economics, with civil cases in courts, until he began to discuss State affairs in the assembly and to assert for Athens her leadership and to rouse her slumbering patriot ism. Then there was the ethical element as the basis of all, giving irresistible force to his clear, terse. and (linnet address. What is honorable, for States as for citizens, as distinguished from what is expedient. was the undercurrent of his discourse; so what was best for the whole country rather than what was profitable for his own city. With this main motive underlying the power he had gained by patient toil, he won the primacy in a group not easy to approach. It is not possible to sum up briefly the secret of his surpassing power; but the vast variety which follows exact adaptation to present purpose as related to a final issue covers 111 a general way the many phases of Demosthenes's eloquence. Like all great masters of art, he could go out of himself to become a part of occasions and oppor tunities. Losing himself in these, he gained the whole world's tribute of admiration, and his fame still survives as the most eloquent orator of ant iquity.
With the decline of liberty Greek oratory be gan to be imitative, and an age of original pro duction was followed as usual by classification, criticism, and partial reproduction.
Early Roman oratory, like the people, was sturdy and energetic, more practical than imag inative. War, politics, legal and political rights were controlling ideas. Extension of domain and the sway of law were the main purpose of national life, and public speech took its tone from these sentiments. At first it was martial, to soldiers on the field and to the populace on the return front war, when the vietor found eloquence an aid in winning civil honors. The courts, too, were an early training ground for speakers, as also the primitive drama hail been in both lone and Greece, in which lengthening speeches of actors finally outgrew dialogue.
Pristine oratory in Italy was exemplified by Cato the Censor in the first half of the second century B.C. Austere, reserved. morose, as Cato was, his speaking was rude, unpolished, and un graceful, yet. clear, concise, and direct, making him a formidable accuser and a strong defender. Contemporary eloquence was marked by a similar vigor and vehemence unaccompanied by Athenian graces, until the Gracchi dropped early harshness and introduced a milder and freer mode. Their successors, condescending to learn at Al liens, be gan to elevate the art to the eminence attained by Greek genius. Alarcus Antonius was master
of point and pathos; Licinius Crassus of per spicuity and the union of brevity with elegance; Cicero reached the height of Roman eloquence.
For one hundred years increasing refinement had been adding imported grace to native strength. Cicero, after the custom of his time, sought foreign accomplishments in the rhetori cal schools of Greece and Asia. At forty he was skilled beyond his contemporaries as a fo rensic and deliberative orator. His excellence lay in harmonious and full development more than in possession of special aptitudes alone. Skilled in all the arts of discourse, like the rhetorician that lie was, methodical in arrange ment, adroit in treatment of subject and audi ence, resourceful, versatile, adaptive in discus sion; copious, lucid, graphic in diction; flexible, rhythmical, harmonious in style; plausible, felici tous, brilliant in manner; knowing the power of an apposite word and a fitting phrase, always adapting his mood to that of his hearers in order to bring them eventually to his own posi tion—these were Cieero's virtues, ranging over the whole field of oratorical possibilities. Adapt Mg himself to every class of subjects. lie also brought himself into harmony with the structure of the Latin language, which required fullness for perspicuity; also into sympathy with Roman taste, which loved the swell and the rhythm, the balance and the cadence of sonorous sentences. Ms copiousness sometimes runs into verbosity and his elaboration into artificiality; but his customary wealth of diction, solid argument, philosophic sentiments, and fervent declamation captivated his hearers and carried his points by persuasion. if not by conviction. Cicero spoke right onward toward the end and object of dis course, reducing his usual amplification to brief est enumeration, making his speech both clear • and stimulating. Better than all else, lie pos sessed the ethical element which is the founda tion essential to all effective speaking, an hon esty and sincerity which is everything to the unskilled. and without which brilliant eloquence is mere trickery. His aim was to do right; his mistakes were those of his judgment rather than his heart. In a sense his eloquence was complementary to Demosthenes's, his acknowl edged master. if not so energetic, it was more vivacious, enlivened with a wit which the ter ribly earnest Greek did not possess. If it did not sweep down throngs with chain shot, there was much display of flash and fire, which pleased by picturesqueness and accomplished the same purpose with superficial hearers, that is with the majority. if it was more wordy, the people whom it addressed and the language they used demanded more leisurely thought and noire ex panded expression; but together these two hail ers of speaking men in the two dominant nations of ancient Eurotne achieved every excellence of oratorical form and manner. What they lacked was not yet revealed—the higher reaches of ethics and a more comprehensive kindness.