Ancient rhetoric and poetic

Interpreted From Representative Works

By Charles Sears Baldwin Professor Of Rhetoric In Columbia University

ΤΟ ΜΕΝ ΔΗ ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΟΝ ΦΥΛΟΝ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΝ _Lucian_

Gloucester, Mass. Peter Smith 1959

Copyright, 1924 By The Macmillan Company

Reprinted, 1959 By Permission Of Marshall W. Baldwin

Nelson Glenn Mccrea

Artis Vtrivsqve Litterate Perito Hvnc Librvm Collega Amicvs D. D. D.

Preface

To interpret ancient rhetoric and poetic afresh from typical theory and practise is the first step toward interpreting those traditions of criticism which were most influential in the middle age. Medieval rhetoric and poetic in turn, besides illuminating medieval literature, prepare for clearer comprehension of the Renaissance renewal of allegiance to antiquity. Thus the historical survey needed to focus many important detached studies itself needs a preliminary volume of exposition. The influences of ancient oratory, drama, and story cannot be measured surely without more specific knowledge of ancient precept and practise, firmer grasp of ancient conceptions, than has been offered by any synthesis in English. Even in other languages the available compends are generally rather digests, or dictionaries of terms, than interpretations of leading ideas. Instead of risking once more the inadequacy and the forced emphasis that beset such a method, I have tried to make the most representative ancients speak for themselves.

Though the very choice of spokesmen interposes the chooser, scholars generally, I hope, will accept Aristotle for the theory of rhetoric as the energizing of knowledge, Cicero for its scope and skill in practise, Quintilian for its teaching, and so on through a list chosen for representative significances. Nor does the plan of spokesmen preclude sufficient indications of general theory and practise. It shows in Cicero the influence not only of Aristotle, but of Isocrates. In poetic, ancient epic art is revealed most definitely and most largely in the _Æneid_ because Vergil, besides being one of the greatest of poets, was so studious a craftsman as to choose from all the ancient experience the most vital ways of narrative. Historically the New Comedy seems more significant than the Old; and the same consideration has included not only Ovid, but even Seneca. These analyses of ancient achievement are made complementary to ancient theory by being strictly limited to composition.

All the authors chosen have been already expounded and translated, some of them again and again, but rather as philosophers, or as orators, or as men of letters, or simply as Greeks or Romans, than as writers on composition. Yet composition was not only one of the greatest ancient achievements; it was a constant preoccupation and a consistent technic. No other body of technic is more thorough and comprehensive than ancient rhetoric; and few have been so generally recognized. Every writer had it in mind; and since commentators have often had in mind something else, I have felt myself bound always to explore the technical connotations of the originals, and usually to retranslate. Verification is facilitated by exact citation, and comparative study by the indexes. What may thus serve incidentally as a book of reference is primarily, however, a progressive exposition from ideas through principles to details. The Greek philosophy of rhetoric is confirmed and applied in the great period of Rome by the most influential orator of history. Aristotle’s theory and Cicero’s vindication put us in the best position to comprehend the method and the detail of Quintilian. This in turn guides appreciation of that abundant study of style which is exemplified typically in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and illuminated by the genius who wrote the _De sublimitate_. Through such spokesmen, with complementary technical analysis of ancient achievement, the way seems surest toward recovering inductively the ancient artistic experience.

This experience has remained too long in abeyance for speakers, writers, and teachers of English. In the United States, though composition has been studied during the past fifty years more generally, perhaps, than in any other country except France, neither our theory nor our pedagogy has applied very widely the ancient lore. Jesuit schools, indeed, have maintained the tradition of rhetoric, as have some others teaching composition consecutively through Latin; but in general the multitude of modern text-books of English composition shows little use of ancient experience. Thus it has been possible to propose as new, and even to try, methods exploded in Rome two thousand years ago. There is no question of reviving an equally exploded archaism. Nor need we fall again into the Ciceronianism of the Renaissance. Ancient deviation, as I have tried to show, is no less instructive than ancient progress. The point is so to comprehend what the ancients learned in singularly fortunate conditions as to guide our own theory away from vain repetition toward progressive realization of our own opportunities.

Metric, except where it bears incidentally on prose rhythms, has been deliberately excluded. In the present divergence of critical interpretation an entire volume would hardly suffice for a really contributory synthesis. The larger movements of poetic, dramaturgy and the development of verse narrative, show a consistency that warrants a synthesis of ancient poetic; and there is even greater consistency in ancient rhetoric. But we may not lightly speak of ancient metric, as if it were continuous from Greek through Latin. Nor is the metric of either Greek or Latin, significant as it is incidentally, necessary to the comprehension of ancient rhetoric or poetic.

The innovation of expounding rhetoric and poetic side by side was suggested by the demands of that historical treatment which is proposed for a later volume. But though it was designed for this larger purpose, it has meantime facilitated the immediate task. Actually the experience of the ancients seems to be best approached from their conception of composition as twofold. Logical composition and imaginative composition are, indeed, distinct; but each technic, defined within its own scope, helps to define the other by contrast. Making each more distinct, the contrast further exhibits interrelations and confusions highly significant for the history of both pedagogy and criticism. Not merely as archæology, then, ancient rhetoric and poetic demand reconsideration, but as the theory of widely suggestive experiences in the progressive art of words.

The bibliographies at the head of each chapter or section, and the notes, are strictly selective. Enumeration of what I have read myself could only embarrass the guidance of readers who wish to proceed from this book to further study. Omitting, therefore, all mere acknowledgment of my long and manifold indebtedness, omitting also the obvious books of reference, whether histories or topical digests, the apparatus directs immediately to interpretations either of the authors themselves or of those principles and habits of ancient art which seem most significant for the study, the practise, and the teaching of composition. For example, the references are not to Volkmann and Christ-Schmid, but to Heinze, Rhys Roberts, Hendrickson, Hubbell, to Sandys the editor rather than to Sandys the historian; and preference has been given to works in English.

Personal indebtedness begins with a scholar who was professor of Greek before he became professor of English. The late Thomas R. Price revealed the study of composition as embracing all ordered expression from a periodic sentence to a tragedy. The working out of that integrating conception has been furthered by so many colleagues that specific acknowledgment must perforce be limited to those interested immediately in this volume. Professor LaRue VanHook read my translation of Dio Chrysostom’s _Oratio LII_; Professor Nelson Glenn McCrea, the entire manuscript and the proof. For criticism of the manuscript I am no less deeply indebted to Professors Brander Matthews and Ashley H. Thorndike; for valuable suggestions on the proofs, to Professors Edward D. Perry, Frank G. Moore, and Donald L. Clark, and to the Rev. Professor Francis P. Donnelly, S. J. In 1920 Professor Rhys Roberts, after sharing his acute and sympathetic scholarship in conversation on the plan of both volumes, did me the honor to read in manuscript the first draft of Chapter II. High appreciation of all this generosity and a grateful sense of this fellowship of letters at once acquit these scholars of all responsibility for my interpretations and encourage my hope of contributing toward a more fruitful criticism of ancient composition.

C. S. B.

Barnard College

May, 1924

Contents

Page

I. Rhetoric And Poetic 1

II. THE _RHETORIC_ OF ARISTOTLE 6 Book I 7 Book II 17 Book III 21

III. RHETORIC IN THE _DE ORATORE_ AND _ORATOR_ OF CICERO 37 _De Oratore_ 40 _Orator_ 56

IV. THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC 62 Quintilian on the Teaching of Rhetoric (_De institutione oratoria_) 63 _Declamatio_ in Seneca, Tacitus, and Pliny 87

V. THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF RHETORIC 102 Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Sentences 103 The Great Unknown on Imaginative Diction (“Longinus on the Sublime”) 122

VI. THE _POETIC_ OF ARISTOTLE 132 Tabular View 135 The Idea of Dramatic Movement 158

VII. POETIC IN ANCIENT DRAMA AND NARRATIVE 167 Drama 168 Greek Tragedy 168 Senecan Tragedy 186 Latin Comedy 188 Narrative 192 The _Æneid_ 192 The Narrative Poetry of Ovid 216 The _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius 221

VIII. RHETORIC IN ANCIENT CRITICISM OF POETIC 224 The Pervasiveness of Rhetoric 224 Criticism from Grammarians 226 Criticism from Professional Public Speakers 229 Dio of Prusa 231 Plutarch’s _How Youth Should Read Poetry_ 239 Horace’s _Ars Poetica_ 242

Tabular Index Of Latin And Greek Rhetorical Terms 249

General Index 253

Chapter I

Rhetoric And Poetic

The two great works of Aristotle on composition, the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetic_, presuppose an ancient division. That a philosopher should have written either is itself significant; that he should have written both implies his ratification of the ancient idea that the art of speaking and writing is not throughout its various phases single and constant, but distinctly twofold. On the one hand, the ancients discerned and developed an art of daily communication, especially of public address, τέχνη ῥητορική, _ars oratoria_, rhetoric; on the other hand, an art of imaginative appeal, τέχνη ποιητική, _ars poetica_, poetic.

A distinction between the two in diction, the idea that the language of poetic is more freely imaginative, is both commonplace and superficial. The ancients, of course, were aware of it, and frequently thus contrasted poetry with oratory[1] or with history. But the distinction between the diction of public address and the diction of drama or epic, between prose style and poetic style, was not in ancient thought fundamental. Rather the ancients saw here common ground. Their discussions of prose style freely draw examples from poetry; for their rhetoric, more explicitly than most modern rhetoric, realized that the appeal of public address, in so far as it is an appeal of style, is largely imaginative and rhythmical.[2] Polybius, indeed, reproaches Phylarchus for his eagerness to be pathetic and his habit of visualizing the terrible, “as do the writers of tragedies”[3]; but as a restriction on style in history this is quite exceptional and would involve disparaging Thucydides. The common view of history is summed up playfully by Lucian: “Let the [historian’s] thought, in so far as it too is high-sounding and uplifted, appropriate and seize something of poetic, especially when it is involved in arrays and battles by land or sea; for then there will be need of a poetic wind to fill the sails and bear the tall ship over the waves.”[4] In oratory the ancients specifically inculcated imaginative visualization, and taught it from the poets. Their general distinction of style between prose and verse was in the habit of rhythms. No, the ancient distinction between rhetoric and poetic is far more than a differentiation of style.

The difference that Aristotle saw between history and poetry is far deeper; and perhaps this was in the mind of Polybius when he went on to say,[5] “the end of history is not the same as that of tragedy, but the opposite,” and complained that Phylarchus was too fond of working up crises (περιπέτειαι). Even the flippant Lucian may have meant to imply, though he does not carry out, a deeper difference when he said:[6] “the undertakings of the poetic art [in general] and of poems [in particular], and the appropriate rules, are one thing; those of history, quite another.” At any rate, the Aristotelian distinction of history from poetry, repeated by Polybius in the second century B.C. and by Lucian in the second century A.D., is not merely in diction, not in prose or verse, but in composition.

So, even more evidently and pervasively, is the broader distinction between oratory and poetry. Rhetoric and poetic connoted two fields of composition, two habits of conceiving and ordering, two typical movements. The movement of the one the ancients saw as primarily intellectual, a progress from idea to idea determined logically; that of the other, as primarily imaginative, a progress from image to image determined emotionally. This distinction is more fundamental than that of so-called literary forms. The ancients were well aware that a particular composition might shift from one movement to the other, a play of Euripides lean toward oratory, an oration of Isocrates move for a while in the mode of poetry. What they contemplated in their division was not primarily a composition, but composition as a general habit, the predominant and determining way of composing, the difference between the habitual movement of a Demosthenes and that of a Sophocles. Finding these to be distinct essentially, as typical processes of conceiving, ordering, and uttering, Aristotle treated them separately as two distinct technics, rhetoric and poetic.[7]

That the distinction between the habitual composition, or movement, of rhetoric and that of poetic is not oftener made explicitly by ancient critics need cause little surprise. The distinction may have been familiar enough to be tacitly assumed. It is, in fact, often assumed; it was quite clear in the mind of whoever wrote the _De sublimitate_; but it is sharply defined and fully carried out only by Aristotle. We must remember that ancient criticism had no second Aristotle, that it was preoccupied with rhetoric, and that it usually discussed speaking and writing, as modern criticism does no less usually, in terms of style. The long history of criticism shows few outstanding works on composition in the large. None the less for the meagerness of criticism, the active presence of the distinction is seen in the greatest works of antiquity.

Nor is the distinction unknown to modern criticism. It is misinterpreted, for instance, at the beginning of Blair’s Lecture XXXVIII, confirmed by De Quincey’s distinction[8] between literature of knowledge and literature of power, and revived in the division, cited by Renard[9] from H. Balzac, into “_écrivains d’idées_ and _écrivains d’images_.” But in spite of significant occurrences and recurrences, it seems not to have controlled any consecutive movement of modern criticism.

Again, the four “forms of discourse” widely accepted by American text-books naturally combine into exposition and argument under rhetoric on the one hand and, on the other, description and narrative under poetic. But obvious as this seems, the older, simpler, more fundamental division does not widely control modern pedagogy. None the less its pedagogical aspect, in either ancient or modern times, is more important than that of many more current critical distinctions. For learning to write, the distinction between rhetoric and poetic is more directive than the distinction, for instance, of literary forms. It is also more supported and interpreted by psychology; for it divides not merely what is composed, but the typical habits of composing.

Thus the experience of the ancients with composition, an experience so prolonged and so progressive as to constitute a full and distinct chapter in the history of art, may be approached first by dividing as they divided. Each technic, defined within its own scope, helps to define the other by contrast. Making each more distinct, the contrast further exhibits interrelations and confusions highly significant for the history of both pedagogy and criticism.

Rhetoric in the philosophy of Aristotle is essentially the art of giving effectiveness to truth. Accepting this theory, Cicero nevertheless feels rather the tradition of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness to the speaker. The constructive review of a great orator exploring his art is thus complementary to the analysis of the philosopher. Even after Aristotle and Cicero there was room for a third survey. Quintilian showed how rhetoric pervaded and largely directed ancient education. For that ancient art which was at once useful and fine, an education and a career, had great spokesmen. We shall begin best, and go on most surely, by letting them speak: Aristotle for the function and scope of rhetoric, Cicero for its pursuit and achievements, Quintilian for its method.

Foot-Notes:

[1] Quintilian, for instance, appreciates Lucan as “ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus, et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus.” _Inst. Or._ X. i. 90.

[2] Typical of this habit of thought is: “Exigitur enim iam ab oratore etiam poeticus decor ... ex Horatii et Vergilii et Lucani sacrario prolatus.” Tacitus, _Dialogus, 20_.

[3] Polybius, II. 56.

[4] Lucian, _Quomodo historia_, 45.

[5] Polybius, II. 56.

[6] Lucian, _Quomodo historia_, 8.

[7] The terms _rhetoric_ and _poetic_ are contrasted in Lucian, _Demosthenis encomium_, 5-8, 17-18; Strabo, I. ii. 6 (C. 17, end).

[8] Essay on Pope.

[9] G. Renard, _La méthode scientifique de l’histoire littéraire_, page 385.

Chapter II

The _Rhetoric_ Of Aristotle

The only art of composition that concerns the mass of mankind, and is therefore universal in both educational practise and critical theory, is the art of effective communication by speaking and writing. This is what the ancients and most moderns call rhetoric. More ample and exact definition, though unnecessary for elementary practise, is demanded for fruitful theory; and the theory of rhetoric has always concerned so many more people than the theory of any other art as to be part of every pedagogy. Here the practise of education not only may be guided by philosophy; it must be. For any coherence in its teaching, rhetoric must be comprehended not only in its immediate functions, but in its pervasive relations to other studies. It is at once the constant in educational schemes and the art among sciences. How we are in a given time and place to learn or teach rhetoric depends on how we understand its function and scope in specific relations.

The importance of a theory of rhetoric in this aspect was discerned by the greatest philosopher of antiquity. In Aristotle’s comprehensive survey of thought and action rhetoric is not merely included; it has substantive place. Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_,[1] though professedly more analytical than constructive, has a consecutive development. Neither his ethics nor his politics receives more scrutiny or shows more penetration and grasp. As if he dared not slight it, he shows in this work, comparatively brief though it is, the full reach of his intelligence. In detail it has been questioned; but in conception and plan, in direction of thought and order of presentation, it has remained fruitful.

Book I

Book I _surveys by definition and division the opportunity of the public speaker_. (i) Rhetoric is the complement of logic (dialectic). It is the art of persuasion formulated by investigating the methods of successful address; and its object is to promote a habit of discerning what in any given case is essentially persuasive. Proof as contemplated by rhetoric proceeds by such means as may be used in public address. Instead of the syllogism, which is proper to abstract logic, rhetoric typically uses the enthymeme, that approximate syllogism which is proper and necessary to the actual concrete discussion of public questions. Thus rhetoric serves as a general public means (1) of maintaining truth and justice against falsehood and wrong, (2) of advancing public discussion where absolute proof is impossible, (3) of cultivating the habit of seeing both sides and of exposing sophistries and fallacies, and (4) of self-defense. (ii) The means of persuasion outside of rhetoric (πίστεις ἄτεχνοι) are witnesses, documents, and other evidence; the means within the art of rhetoric (ἔντεχνοι) are the moral force of the speaker, his adaptation to the disposition of the audience, and his arguments. (iii) The three fields of rhetoric are: (1) deliberative address to a popular assembly, discussing the expediency of a proposal for the future; (2) forensic address to a court, discussing the justice of a deed in the past; and (3) panegyric, commemorating the significance of a present occasion. The eleven remaining chapters of this book analyze each of these fields in its main aspects, or fundamental topics, _e.g._, wealth, happiness, government, crime, virtue, etc.[2]

The bare digest will show that Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ is hardly a manual. In fact, it is rather less a manual than is his _Poetic_. It is a philosophical survey. The scope of rhetoric is measured not by any scheme of education, but by the relations of knowledge to conduct and affairs. To be comprehended, this great work should be read consecutively, for it is not merely systematic; in spite of parts undeveloped, it is progressive, and its chief significance, perhaps, is from its total development. The following discussion presupposes a fresh and consecutive reading.

About rhetoric Aristotle would first of all have right thinking, conceptions large enough to be suggestive and distinct enough to be true. So the definition in his first chapter is slowly inductive. First we are to distinguish rhetoric from logic.[3] As modes of thought the two are alike general, both applicable universally, neither having its own subject-matter. As modes of utterance they differ typically in that while logic is abstract, rhetoric is concrete; while the one is analytic, the other is synthetic; while the one is a method of study, the other is a method of communication.

Rhetoric, no less than logic, has subject-matter in every given case. Only its perverters teach it as merely an art of dealing with persons, of reaching an audience. No less than logic, it is a means of bringing out truth, of making people see what is true and fitting. But rhetoric contemplates having truth embraced. It is the application of proof to people. Its distinction from logic is here, in the typical mode of proof. The type in logic is the syllogism; the type in rhetoric Aristotle calls the enthymeme.[4] By this he means concrete proof, proof applicable to human affairs, such argument as is actually available in current discussion. The enthymeme is not inferior to the syllogism; it is merely different. Actually, public address on current public questions cannot be carried on by syllogisms or by final inductions. That by which it can be carried on, the strongest proof possible to actual discussion, Aristotle calls enthymeme.

From this typical mode of rhetoric Aristotle gathers its fourfold function: first and foremost, to make truth prevail by presenting it effectively in the conditions of actual communication, to move; second, to advance inquiry by such methods as are open to men generally, to teach; third, to cultivate the habit of seeing both sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies, to debate; and finally to defend oneself and one’s cause. That truth does not always prevail shows the need of effective presentation. The first function, then, of rhetoric is to make truth prevail among men as they are. Truth cannot be learned by the mass of men through scientific investigation; for that demands special training. A second direction, then, of rhetoric is to make the results of investigation generally available, to teach truth in general human terms. Debate, Aristotle’s third item, which is one whole field of rhetoric, may indeed be mere logical fence, using terms and propositions as mere counters; but real skill in debate, the habit of seeing both sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies, tends to make truth emerge from current discussion. The fourth use of rhetoric, for self-defense, seems added merely for completeness and to rebut the common objection that rhetoric is abused. That, says Aristotle, is no argument against it.[5]

The definition implied and sketched in Chapter I and formulated in Chapter II, may be summed up in the word persuasion, if we are careful to speak of persuasion not as achievement, but as method. Just as we ask of medicine, not that it shall infallibly heal—a degree of achievement impossible in human affairs—but that it shall discern and use all the means of healing available in the given case, so the true end of rhetoric is to induce such habitual skill as shall _discern in any given case the available means of persuasion_.[6]

As means of persuasion we must include both those that are extrinsic and those that are intrinsic,[7] those that lie outside the art of rhetoric in the domains of subject-matter and those that lie within, the facts of the case and the technic of making them tell. For rhetoric has to include subject-matter, the forces of knowledge. Though this is extrinsic in the sense of lying outside the art of rhetoric, it is essential. Rhetoric is an art, as Aristotle is careful to show; but it differs from other arts in the degree of importance it must always attach to its subject-matter. The division here into extrinsic means and intrinsic means as both necessary to persuasion is not merely the obvious one into matter and manner, substance and style; it is a division of the springs of composition, the sources of effectiveness, into those that lie outside and those that lie inside of utterance, or presentation. It frankly accepts rhetoric as more than artistic, as never self-sufficient and absolute, as always relating presentation to investigation.

Equally philosophical is the following division[8] of the intrinsic means of persuasion into: (1) those inherent in the character or moral potentiality (ἦθος) of the speaker, (2) those inherent in his actual moving of the audience, and (3) those inherent in the form and phrase of the speech itself. That the three are not mutually exclusive is evident and must have been deliberate. Aristotle is telling us that rhetoric as an art is to be approached from these three directions and in this order. The division is comprehensive not only as being satisfying psychologically, but as constituting an outline for the whole work, the headings of the development in three books: first, the speaker himself; secondly, the audience; and finally, in the light of these two, and as the bringing of the one to bear on the other, the speech. Book I deals with the speaker as himself the prime means of persuasion. Rhetoric, Aristotle implies, is necessarily ethical in that everything consecutively imparted or communicated, as distinct from the abstractions of geometry or logic, is subjective. Moreover, in making the speaker the point of departure Aristotle admits that other trend of classical pedagogy which made rhetoric a cultivation of personality. Book II, proceeding to the second item of the division above, deals with the audience, with knowledge of human nature, especially of typical habits of mind; for rhetoric in this aspect too is ethical. It deals with the interaction of moral forces in speaker and audience, and also with the direct arousing of emotion. The speech itself, the final utterance, which is the subject of Book III, has thus been approached as the art of adjusting the subject-matter of a given case through the intelligence and emotion of the speaker to the intelligence and emotion of the audience. This is the only book of very specific technic; and it comes last psychologically.

Aristotle’s division and its order are the division and the order not merely of analysis, but of much the same synthesis as underlies the actual processes of composition. I begin with myself; for the subject-matter else is dead, remaining abstract. It begins to live, to become persuasive, when it becomes my message. Then only have I really a subject for presentation. A subject, for purposes of address as distinct from purposes of investigation, must include the speaker. It is mine if it arouses me. I consider next the audience, not for concession or compromise, but for adaptation. What is mine must become theirs. Therefore I must know them, their ἦθος and their πάθος. My address becomes concrete through my effort to bring it home. The truth must prevail—through what? Against what? Not only through or against reasoning, but through or against complexes of general moral habit and the emotions of the occasion. I must establish sympathy, win openness of mind, instruct in such wise as to please and awaken, rouse to action. My speech is for these people now. Only thus am I ready to consider composition; for only thus can I know what arguments are available, or what order will be effective, or what style will tell.

This is the philosophy of presentation. What is its practise? Rhetoric ranges for subject-matter most often in the fields of social ethics and politics, tempting its professors, Aristotle adds acutely, to assume the mask of politics.[9] It deals with “the ordinary and recognized subjects of deliberation,”[10] with matters still in dispute and doubt. Thus dealing with social and political conduct, it can neither proceed, as logic does, by absolute propositions nor arrive at logical demonstration. Its premises are not universals, but generally accepted probabilities. That is, to resume his previous distinction, the mode of rhetoric is not the syllogism or induction proper to logical formulation, but the enthymeme or instances proper to actual presentation. The mode of scientific induction emerges to-day in the “gas laws” or the formula of the velocity of light; the mode of rhetoric emerges in Huxley’s “Piece of Chalk.” Abstract deduction is summed up in the syllogism;[11] concrete deduction, in the enthymeme. By enthymeme, as Aristotle has now made fully clear, is meant a “rhetorical syllogism” in the sense of a deduction available concretely for presentation, as distinct from a deduction formulated abstractly for analysis. His enthymeme is deductive method used constructively. It is not mere popular reasoning, logic modified for popular consumption, but public reasoning, such reasoning as is available with the public for building up public opinion and policy.

Therefore the headings, or “topics,” of rhetoric are not peculiar to a particular field of investigation, but general or “common topics” such as justice or expediency, which express common human relations. To deviate from these into the method peculiar to a given subject-matter, physics for example, is to pass[12] from rhetorical method for presentation over to scientific method for analysis; and this, of course, the speaker must do to the extent of mastering his subject-matter before he presents it. Though he must not forget that his ultimate task is to present to an audience and therefore concretely, neither can he forget that what is to be presented must be acquired. In so far as he investigates he will follow scientific method, the analysis proper to the field, the “special topics.” Thus for his education he needs some study of the “special topics” of those sciences that furnish most of his subject-matter, the “special topics” of ethics and politics. Of these he must have, as part of his equipment, a practical or working knowledge, the orator’s equipment for considering each case within its own field as well as in its general relations to human nature. Aristotle’s distinction here between general and special “topics” coincides with his earlier division (page 10) of the means of persuasion into intrinsic and extrinsic. The extrinsic means are knowledge, to be got by the methods of getting; the intrinsic means are utterance, to be given by the methods of giving.

At this point, the opening of Chapter iii,[13] Aristotle makes his scientific division of rhetoric by its fields. The three fields of rhetoric are: (1) the _deliberative_, persuasion in public assemblies as to matters of current discussion, looking to the future, urging expediency: (2) the _forensic_, accusation and defense in courts, looking to the past, urging justice; and (3) the _occasional_,[14] praise or blame, looking to the present, urging honor. The underlying, general, or “final topics” of rhetoric, as distinct from the special topics that it uses from other studies, are thus seen to be expediency (including practicability), justice, honor, and their opposites; and the special topics drawn by rhetoric from philosophy, ethics, and politics may be grouped in a speaker’s compend of these studies according as they apply to the deliberative, the forensic, or the occasional field.

In deliberative oratory[15] the speaker deals with good and bad, not in the abstract as the philosopher contemplates virtue or happiness, but in concrete matters of doubt and dispute. So his topic of possibility is not abstract, as in mathematics, but concrete, in relation to human will. So in general Aristotle disclaims for his classification of the ordinary subjects of deliberative oratory any attempt at scientific division or scientific method of investigation. Those he follows in his other works; here the analysis that he provides is avowedly practical. Since in politics,[16] for example, the public speaker needs to know something of finance, war, commerce, legislation, Aristotle gives him a suggestive summary of what he should learn. In our modern educational systems such a summary has far less importance; but the correlation remains vital. Pedagogically as well as philosophically, deliberative oratory must be correlated with its natural subject-matter. So to-day college courses in rhetoric demand correlation with college courses in history, sociology, economics, and politics. The professors of these subjects train for investigation, teaching the scientific method proper to each; the professor of rhetoric trains for presentation, teaching general methods, Aristotle’s general or “final topics,” for handling all such material. But unless each method of training can make use of the other, both will suffer. Rhetoric must lean upon such real knowledge of a given subject-matter as is furnished by the studies dealing with that subject-matter scientifically, i.e., by its “special topics.” Meantime Aristotle’s summary is intended not to explore these special topics, but to show what they are.

Similarly the student of deliberative oratory needs such a survey of philosophy[17] as will acquaint him with current ideas concerning happiness, whether of rank, offspring, wealth, honor, health, beauty, or strength, and concerning a good old age, friendship, fortune, and virtue. Therefore Aristotle, summarizing these conceptions, supplies[18] a cursory examination of good in general and of goods, or good things, in particular, proceeding[19] both by definition and by comparison, and not limiting his discussion to the deliberative field. To the latter, and to politics, he reverts in the concluding chapter[20] of this section by enumerating briefly the common forms of polity: democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, and monarchy.

Since occasional oratory[21] demands an equipment primarily ethical, Aristotle provides a summary of moral nobility[22] by definition and comparison. This is applied more specifically than the preceding section to rhetorical method, in this case to the method of enhancing or heightening and to the method of comparison.

For forensic oratory[23] Aristotle provides as a speaker’s compend of philosophy a survey of the objects and conditions of crime. He makes no specific mention of what we now call criminal tendencies; and his division of “extrinsic proofs,” i.e., of legal evidence (laws, witnesses, contracts, tortures, the oath) is for the modern lawyer neither scientific nor significant.

Book II

As Book I is the book of the speaker, Book II is the book of the audience. The audience is not merely discussed; it furnishes the point of view. As Book I considers the necessities and opportunities of the speaker, so Book II considers the attitude of the audience. Book I is rhetoric as conceived; Book II is rhetoric as received.

Since rhetoric is for judgment—for even deliberative speeches are judged, and forensic is [concerned entirely with] judgment—we must see to it not only that the speech shall be convincing and persuasive, but also that the judge shall be in the right frame of mind. For it makes a great difference to persuasion, especially in deliberative speeches, but also in forensic, how the speaker strikes the audience—both how the hearers think he regards them, and in addition how they are disposed toward him. How the speaker strikes the audience is of more practical concern for deliberative speeches; how the hearer is disposed, for forensic. The effect is not the same on a friendly audience as on a hostile one, on the angry as on the tranquil, but either different altogether or different in degree.... Three [impressions] constitute persuasiveness—three, that is, outside of the arguments used: wisdom, virtue, and good will [i.e., a speaker’s persuasiveness, in the sense of his personal effect on his hearers, depends on their believing him to be wise, upright, and interested in them].... From what sources [in moral habits, ἦθος], then, the speaker may strike his hearers as wise and earnest we must gather from the analysis of the virtues, whether his immediate purpose be to make his audience feel thus and so or to appear thus and so himself; but good will and affection we must discuss now under the head of the emotions (πάθη). By emotions I mean any changes, attended by pain or pleasure, that make a difference to men’s judgment [of a speech]; e.g., anger, pity, fear, etc., and their opposites. The consideration of each emotion—anger, for instance—must have a threefold division: (1) how people are angry, (2) what they are angry at, and (3) why; for if we should know only one or two of these, not all three, it would be impossible to excite anger, and so with the other emotions.[24]

In this way Aristotle proceeds to analyze, in Chapters ii-xi, the common emotions: anger, love, fear, shame, benevolence, pity, envy, emulation, and their opposites. The relation of these to the formation of character leads to six chapters on character in youth, in age, in the prime of life, and on the typical dominant traits of character seen respectively in persons of social rank, of wealth, of power, and of good fortune.[25] The classification here will be more satisfying as psychology if we remember that it analyzes the common types of character and emotion in a crowd. Aristotle is attempting neither an analysis of mental operations nor a science of human nature, but such a practical classification as may inculcate the habit of adaptation to the feelings of an audience.

The psychological analysis of the audience concluded with Chapter xvii, Aristotle returns to rhetoric in our ordinary sense at Chapter xviii with a recapitulation.[26] “The use of persuasive discourse,” he says, resuming the language of the opening of this book, “is for judgment,” or decision; i.e., persuasion connotes an audience to be persuaded. After showing that this is true in all cases, and summarizing briefly the main aspects of Books I and II, he concludes his transition by saying: “it remains for us to go on with the common topics.”[27] With these he actually goes on, not merely extending the treatment of them in Book I (see page 14), but considering them now as to their availability, their effect upon hearers. More explicit statement, however, of this distinction might well have made the bearing of these latter chapters clearer. The topic of possibility[28] implies the range of the argument from antecedent probability (_a priori_). Example[29] includes analogy, both from history[30] and from fiction, with specific mention of fables. In this wide sense, including mere illustration, it means little more than vividness of presentation through the concrete and specific; but that its persuasive value far exceeds its logical cogency no one doubts who knows audiences. This is the angle, too, from which Aristotle discusses maxims.[31] “They have great service for speeches because audiences are commonplace. People are pleased when a speaker hits on a wide general statement of opinions that they hold in some partial or fragmentary form.”[32] The same point of view controls the further discussion of enthymemes,[33] which includes a hint of something like Mill’s Canon of Concomitant Variations,[34] directions for logical exclusion, for analysis demanding particulars, for dilemma, and for _reductio ad absurdum_. Remarking the popularity of the refutative, or destructive enthymeme over the constructive, and touching the fallacies of _petitio principii_ and _post hoc_, the book concludes[35] with methods of refutation (λύσις).

Book III

Book III studies the speech itself. Book I having presented rhetoric from the view of the speaker, and Book II from the view of the audience, Book III now applies it directly to the speech.[36]

Since rhetoric must treat systematically three things: (1) what the means of persuasion are to be, (2) the diction,[37] (3) how to arrange[38] the parts of the speech, ... [the first has been discussed]. We have next to speak of the diction. For it is not enough to know what we ought to say; we must also know how we ought to say it, and this contributes much to the effect of the speech. The first subject of our inquiry [(1) above] was naturally that which comes first by nature, the facts themselves—in what aspects they are persuasive. The second is the expression of these in the diction. The third [_not_ (3) above], which is of very great importance, is the delivery.

The threefold division sketched here seems at first sight to coincide, so far as it goes, with the one that afterward became traditional. Classical rhetoric as a whole assumes a fivefold division: (1) εὕρεσις, _inventio_, the gathering and analysis of the material; (2) τάξις, _dispositio_, _collocatio_, the arrangement, sequence, or movement in the large; (3) λέξις, _elocutio_, the diction, or the choice of words and their combination in phrases, clauses, and sentences, the movement in detail; (4) ὑπόκρισις, _pronuntiatio_, delivery, or “elocution”; (5) μνήμη, _memoria_, memory. But Aristotle’s division neither corresponds to this nor is consistent with itself. The first item is the same in both. Aristotle’s second item is clearly the same as the later third, and has the same name (λέξις, diction). The third item of his opening sentence seems equivalent to the traditional second (τάξις), and uses the corresponding verb (τάξαι); but below he makes his third item instead delivery (ὑπόκρισις), which is the fourth item of the traditional division, and then proceeds in the same chapter to include delivery, by implication, under diction.[39] In a word, the opening division of Book III is baffling. But the actual development of the book is quite clear: chapters i-xii on λέξις, diction, or, in the widest sense, style; chapters xiii-xix, on τάξις, or arrangement.

Delivery, after declaring it to have the greatest force (δύναμιν ... μεγίστην), he dismisses in a few sentences. Tantalizing in its brevity, this passage is nevertheless suggestive; for it sketches an analytic division of delivery into voice-placing and volume, pitch, and rhythm; it points to the value for public speaking of the arts of dramatic recital; and, most important of all, it relates delivery to the whole idea of style as concrete presentation _versus_ abstract formulation.

In thus uniting delivery and diction as alike means of effective utterance Aristotle has seemed to some readers to disparage both. He has seemed to express, as in a similar passage of Book I,[40] a philosophic contempt for style. But this impression is not confirmed by scrutiny. Not only can he hardly be thought to despise that to which he devotes himself cordially throughout a large part of his treatise, but his words here hardly yield the inference that has been drawn from prejudicial translation. They may be rendered more precisely as follows:

An art [of delivery] is not yet settled; for even that of diction emerged but late and seems a bore when regarded ideally. But[41] since the whole practise of rhetoric is gauged to actual effect upon hearers (πρὸς δόξαν), we must give delivery our care, not of [abstract] right, but of necessity. [Abstract] justice, indeed, demands of our speech nothing more than that it should neither offend nor propitiate. For [abstractly] just [method] is so to make one’s plea with the facts that everything beyond exposition is superfluous. Nevertheless [delivery] is of great importance, as I have said, because of the human frailty of the hearer. Indeed, the consideration of the hearer is in a degree necessary in all teaching; for even in explanation it makes some difference whether we speak thus or thus—not so much, however [as in active persuasion], all these things [i.e., of diction and delivery] being means of suggesting images[42] and gauged to the hearer. Therefore no one thus teaches geometry.

That art, then [of delivery], when it comes, will produce the same effects as acting; and some authors, as Thrasymachus on the pathetic, have made a slight attempt at it. Acting is both a natural gift and less reducible to art; but diction has its technic. That is why those who have mastered it take prizes regularly, as do the histrionic orators;[43] for written speeches prevail more by diction than by thought.

“No one thus teaches geometry” cannot be taken as a slur on style. It simply reminds us, by applying to diction a distinction made with great fulness in the first two chapters of Book I, that rhetoric is not geometry. Formulation, as in geometry, is colorless because it is abstract; but any actual presentation, even mere information (ἐν πάσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ), demands style, whether concreteness or the arts of delivery, for mere lucidity (πρὸς τὸ δηλῶσαι), much more for any sort of appeal. For any sort of presentation, Aristotle is saying, we must study style; and we must include the study of delivery except in those written addresses which depend on style even more than on thought.

The appeal of style, Aristotle says in this same first chapter,[44] was first discerned by the poets. The method of suggestion, in other words, belongs to poetic. This is more than a critical distinction; it has an application directly pedagogical. The teaching of style, always delicate and difficult, may well begin through poetry, which in descriptive heightening and in harmony of sound with sense, especially of pace with mood, most plainly exhibits style as adaptation. The connection of this with delivery, both with reading aloud and with dramatic recital, though obvious, is often neglected. Elocution in our modern sense may, if rightly related, be one of the gateways to appreciation of style.[45]

Chapter ii,[46] after glancing at the fundamental virtue of lucidity, considers the choice of words for appropriateness and for suggestiveness, i.e., for their connotation, and especially for the descriptive vividness of the concrete, as in metaphors. Chapter iii[47] deals with the inappropriateness arising from bad taste;[48] Chapter iv,[49] with the extension of metaphor into simile. Chapter v[50] passes from single words and phrases to their combination in clauses and sentences. The distinction is important, and is kept throughout the classical rhetoric from Aristotle down. The choice of words is ἐκλογή (_electio_); the shaping of clauses and sentences is σύνθεσις (_compositio_). Frequent translation of the latter by our English word _composition_, which has a meaning so much wider as to be quite different, misses the specific point of technic, and often makes the ancient writers say what they did not mean.[51]

As the primary virtue in the choice of words is precision, so the first consideration in their combination, says Aristotle, is purity, idiom, conformity to usage. This assured, the next considerations of movement in detail are dignity,[52] which he presents as mainly amplification, and appropriateness.[53] Appropriateness here is not merely of the single word, as in Chapters ii and iii, but of the movement, or pace. It is gauged both to the moral habit (ἦθος) of the audience and to the emotion (πάθος) of the occasion.

From this general idea of appropriate movement Aristotle passes[54] to specific consideration of rhythm with his oft-quoted dictum:

The order[55] of the diction must be neither metrical nor unrhythmical. The former, by seeming artificial, is unpersuasive and at the same time distracting. For it makes us think of recurrences and wait for them to come, as children anticipate the answer to the heralds’ “Whom does the freedman choose as his attorney? Cleon.” On the other hand, the unrhythmical is immeasurable, and a measure we must have, though not by metrical recurrence; for the boundless can be grasped neither by the ear nor by the mind. Now measure in the most general sense is number;[56] and number as applied to the order of the diction is rhythm, of which meters are sections. Rhythm, therefore, the speech must have, but not meter, or it will be a poem—rhythm not too nice, that is, not carried too far.

Of the three rhythms the heroic is solemn and lacking in prose harmony.[57] The iambic is the very diction of the crowd; i.e., it is heard oftener than any other measure in speech, and it lacks capacity to lift and startle. The trochaic[58] is too suggestive of comic dancing, as is evident in trochaic tetrameters, which are a skipping rhythm. There remains the pæan.

Having laid down the principle that prose movement should be rhythmical, but not metrical, why does Aristotle proceed immediately to discuss it in terms of meters? Simply, perhaps, because these terms are familiar and definite. How else, indeed, shall we speak of a particular movement specifically? Perhaps also because the consideration of the larger, freer rhythms of prose is best opened through the fixed rhythms of verse, i.e., because meter is the gateway to appreciation of rhythm, as poetry in a wider sense (see page 24) is the gateway to style in a wider sense. For us moderns it is the more significant that the classical doctrine of clauses and sentences deals so largely with rhythm, since our doctrine throws the emphasis on logic. That the σύνθεσις, or _compositio_, should be idiomatic, dignified, appropriate, Aristotle has urged briefly; that it should be rhythmical he proceeds to set forth in detail, consecutively showing how.[59]

Thus that the diction should be rhythmical, not unrhythmical, what rhythms make it rhythmical, and in what modes, has been set forth.

Now diction[60] [in its sentence-movement] is connected either loosely and only by conjunctions, as the preludes in the dithyrambs, or compactly, as the antistrophes of the old poets. The former movement is the old one, as in Herodotus; for, though once universal, it is now exceptional. By calling it loose I mean that it has no end in itself except as its subject-matter runs out. It is unsatisfying to the ear by its indefiniteness, since we all wish to glimpse the end. That [natural desire] is why [runners] lose wind and heart only at the goal. They do not give out before because they are looking ahead to the finish.

The loose movement, then, of diction is this; the compact, on the other hand, is the one by periods [or definite units]. By _period_ I mean a diction having a beginning and an end in itself and a length to be grasped as a whole. Such sentence-movement is both satisfying to the ear and easily followed by the mind;[61] _satisfying_ as being the opposite of endless and as giving the hearer the sense of always having hold of something, because something has always been ended by itself, whereas the unsatisfying is neither to see ahead nor to get through; _easily followed_, as being easily held in mind, and that because periodic diction has number, which is the chief aid to memory. That is why verses are more easily remembered than loose prose, because verse has number to measure it. The period should also be completed with the sense, not broken off....

A period[62] is either in members or simple. Composed in members, it is such a diction as makes a rounded whole and yet is distinct in its parts, and such as the breath will carry easily, not by [arbitrary] division, but as a whole. A member is one of its parts; and by simple period I mean a period of one member. Both members and periods should be neither curt[63] nor long. For short [members] often make the hearer stumble, since while he is still surging ahead, if he is pulled up by the stopping of the measure that he carries in his head as a guide, he must stumble as in a collision. Long [members] on the other hand make the hearer feel himself left behind, as by walking companions making the turn beyond the usual stretch.... Over-use of short members, since it precludes the periodic form, drags the hearer headlong.

In other words, the period is a sentence movement forecast and fulfilled by the speaker, divined and held by the hearer, as a definite rhythmical and logical unit. Its characteristic is that conclusiveness which satisfies at once ear and mind. In sound and in syntax it is the opposite of formless aggregation, of the addition of clause to clause as by afterthoughts. Forethought, indeed, is its very note. Thus its typical advantages are rather for oratory than for narrative. Oratory moves by grouping around ideas; narrative, by adding image to image. The style of Herodotus is in this sense aggregative. Its aim being to proceed not from idea to idea in thought, but from fact to fact in time, it is “loosely joined,” “running on,” without other rhythmical value than fluency. That Aristotle means to disparage Herodotus when he calls this movement old and unsatisfying need hardly be inferred. Old it is typically, the movement of all early prose, of Herodotus no more than of Froissart and Villani. Unsatisfying, unpleasing to the ear (ἀηδές) it is not—in its place; but its place is not in oratory, which demands definite measures to mark definite stages of thought. Otherwise the audience is frustrated and loses the way.

What Aristotle means by his comparison of the two movements is that the former is unsatisfying, not absolutely, but for the purposes of the latter, i.e., for oratory. This interpretation is confirmed by what he adds concerning the length of members, or clauses. That staccato habit of short statements which in oratory “drags the hearer headlong,”[64] unsatisfied and uncomprehending, may in narrative be actually superior. To drag the hearer headlong is sometimes precisely what a story-teller desires. Examples abound, for instance, in Victor Hugo, for whom this movement became a mannerism. Neither of the two sentence movements, which from the point of view of Aristotle’s time we may call the historical and the oratorical, has remained through the long development of prose quite the same. Narrative has developed in modern times a movement more and more consciously poetic, while history in our special modern sense has turned more and more to the conscious group-movement which he associated with oratory. To-day we see much the same difference between our prose fiction and our expository history that he saw between Herodotus and Demosthenes. But the change is in application, not in the movements themselves. It remains true, and important, that there is on the one hand a prose movement rhythmically and intellectually loose, indefinite, and current, and on the other hand a prose movement compact, conscious, concluded point by point. The latter, the periodic, remains the typical movement of public address; for the audience, in order to follow, in order “to have hold of something[65] and to get something done,” demands definite measures.[66]

Having laid down as fundamental the distinction between the two typical prose movements, Aristotle proceeds to details: the balance of member against member,[67] and the heightening of the individual member[68] by visualizing metaphor. His recurrence here to metaphor is unexpected, since he has discussed this already in Chapter ii[69] under the choice of words; but here something is added. The connotation of figurative language is explored further as a means to make a whole statement telling. Aristotle is inquiring how such pithy sayings as he has just exemplified in balance and antithesis are made forcible[70] by other means; and he implies that the process is essentially poetic, as being imaginative first in realization and secondly[71] in movement.

Imaginative realization in metaphor and simile is considered here as intellectual suggestion. As enthymemes, so metaphors and similes must steer between the obvious and the subtle. The best images, like the best enthymemes, stimulate the hearer to coöperate, to see the relation for himself.

As to sense such are the popular enthymemes; as to style [they are popular] if the order, or movement[72] is antithetical.... So for the terms; if metaphorical, they must be neither far-fetched, for then they are hard to grasp, nor trite, for then they stir no emotion; and besides [as to movement] they must put [the thing] before our eyes; for we must see it in action rather than in intention (happening rather than about to happen, present rather than future). The essential elements, then, are three: metaphor, antithesis, actuality.[73]

Numerous examples follow[74] of ἀστεῖα, or pithy sayings, and Chapter xi[75] expands

what is meant by “before our eyes” and how this is to be done. I mean that those passages put the thing before our eyes which show it in action.[76] For instance, to say that a good man is “square” is metaphor ... but it does not show him in action, whereas “in flowering vigor” does, and so does “at large.” And in “Straightway the Greeks with bounding feet” the “bounding” is at once actuality and metaphor.... In all these [instances from Homer] by being alive (living, organic) [the subject] seems to be in action.... They all make the subject moving and living; and actuality is movement.[77]

Aristotle’s recurrence, then, to metaphor in the midst of his doctrine of sentence movement is because metaphor has the wider implication. It may be more than a single vivid word; it should extend to a whole habit of realizing a thing in action; and this involves expression in a sentence movement that shall heighten the suggestion by its pace.

In like manner the recurrence to aptness, or adaptation, is not repetition. Chapters ii[78] and iii[79] deal with aptness of single words; chapter xii,[80] with aptness of sentence movement. From the general definition[81] of apt movement as adaptation both to the moral habit of the audience (ἦθος) and to the emotion of the occasion (πάθος) Chapter xii now proceeds to the typical adaptations offered by the several fields of oratory: the deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional.[82]

It must not be forgotten that one style is appropriate to one kind [of oratory], another style to another. Style for writing is not the same as style for debate, nor style for public debate the same as style for legal pleading. Both [style for writing and style for debate] have to be known: the latter, as command of correct (or idiomatic) utterance; the former, as deliverance from the necessity of keeping silence when one wishes to communicate—[an inhibition] which those suffer who do not know how to write. Style for writing is the most precise; style for debate, the most histrionic (the best adapted to delivery). The latter is [adaptation] of two sorts: expression of character, and expression of emotion. This is why actors also seek such plays, and dramatists such personæ [as give expression to character and emotion].

The distinction here between style for writing (to be read aloud) and style for speaking (for immediate utterance) is general, as appears in the following reference to asyndeton and in the comparison of public speaking to the broad brush work of fresco; but it is also particular. It distinguishes occasional, or panegyric oratory as demanding a style more literary. “Style for writing,” above, must from its context refer to panegyric; and below Aristotle adds: “The style of occasional oratory is best suited to writing; for its function is to be read.”[83]

The final section[84] of Book III deals with the larger parts of a speech: exordium, statement of facts, proof, peroration. This discussion of τάξις (_dispositio_) is both meager and perfunctory, hardly more than a rehearsal of those definitions and counsels which were already familiar in teaching and apparently in manuals,[85] and which were to be handed on by later tradition. Its importance is therefore primarily historical. It has little other significance, little of the Aristotelian discernment and suggestiveness. What the modern teacher of rhetoric misses, both here and throughout the later classical discussions of _dispositio_, is some definite inculcation of consecutiveness. That consecutiveness was achieved in the best practise there can be no doubt; how it was taught we are left to guess. As to movement in this larger sense, what we commonly mean by composition, Aristotle’s _Poetic_ is more definite and more suggestive than his _Rhetoric_.

He begins[86] by saying that the only essential parts of a speech are proposition and proof. It is presently apparent that by “parts” here he means components, or elements, of any and every sort of speech. The statement of facts, for instance, is not a part in the sense of a distinct division except in forensic; and Aristotle rightly objects[87] to subdivisions by “parts” which are neither distinct nor applicable generally. Even refutation, as he shows later,[88] is not a distinct part, either in function or in method or in place. The most that can be allowed are four: proposition and proof as essential, exordium and peroration as usual.

With the same common sense he shows that the first function of the exordium[89] is to put the hearers in a position to understand; its second, to win their sympathy.[90] Chapter xvi[91] passes to the recital of facts (διήγησις). The common rendering of this term by _narrative_ has been widely misleading. True, the corresponding Latin term is _narratio_, and the thing is narrative in the sense of being sometimes, though not always, chronological; but _narrative_ in our modern use, and especially in our modern text-books, is associated with objects and methods which Aristotle is not here considering at all, and which he rightly relegated to poetic. The Greek term διήγησις and the corresponding Latin _narratio_ mean exactly what is called in a modern lawyer’s brief the “statement of facts,” as distinct from the following “argument.” It therefore belongs properly, as a distinct part having a distinct place, to forensic. When used in occasional oratory,[92] it should on the contrary be broken up, not as in forensic continuous. In deliberative oratory[93] it has least scope, i.e., it hardly appears as a separable part.

But the recital of facts, though it corresponds to the “statement” of a brief in substance, need not be so limited in style. A speech is not a brief; and the pleader, ancient or modern, must make his facts live.[94]

Speak also from the emotions, reciting what goes with them (i.e., their physical expression), both what is familiar and what is characteristic of yourself or your opponent: “He left me with a scowl”; or, as Æschines said of Cratylus, “hissing and shaking his fists.” [Such descriptive suggestions are really] elements of persuasion; for the familiar images become tokens of what you are trying to impress. Many such expressions are to be had from Homer: “So she spoke, and the old woman covered her face with her hands,” as we commonly put our hands to our eyes when we begin to weep.

As to persuasion by argument[95] Aristotle begins with a mere hint of that determination of the main issue and character of the case which was afterward elaborated into the classified doctrine of the στάσις (_status_).

Examples [παραδείγματα, he goes on] are more suited to deliberative oratory; enthymemes, to forensic.[96]... Do not speak in enthymemes seriatim, but mix them in [with other means of persuasion]; or they will impair one another. There is a quantitative limit.... Do not seek an enthymeme for everything; or you will write like some philosophers; ... and do not speak in enthymeme when your immediate aim is emotional ... or ethical.

The peroration[97] consists: (1) of disposing the hearer well toward oneself and ill toward one’s adversary; (2) of enhancing and disparaging; (3) of stirring the hearer to emotion; (4) and of recapitulation.... [For this last function] the primary idea is that what was promised has been given in full, so that we must tell both what [we have said] and why. This is told by comparison [of our own case] with our opponent’s.... Asyndeton[98] befits the final words, that they may be peroration, not oration: “I have spoken; you have heard; you have it; judge.”

With no less abruptness Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ stops. It can hardly be said to conclude; and certainly it has no peroration.

Foot-Notes:

[1] _Text_, edited with notes, commentary, and index, COPE, E. M., and SANDYS, J. E., 3 volumes, Cambridge, 1877.

_Translations_ (the best recent ones in English), WELLDON, J. E. C., with analysis and critical notes, London, 1886; JEBB, R. C., edited with introduction and supplementary notes by SANDYS, J. E., Cambridge, 1909. Welldon’s tabular view is valuable. Jebb’s rendering of technical terms is generally more discerning.

_Criticism._ Aristotle having engaged the attention of nearly every important writer on rhetoric—and of many quite unimportant—for over two thousand years, a list of the commentaries and criticisms would be endless and bewildering. Nor would any addition here to the bibliographies already available be especially suggestive. The history of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ will emerge incidentally throughout this work. The best single exegesis in English, especially of the relations of the _Rhetoric_ to the Aristotelian philosophy, remains E. M. Cope’s _Introduction to Aristotle’s Rhetoric_, London, 1867.

[2] Quoted from the author’s article on Aristotle in the _Cyclopedia of Education_.

[3] 1354 a.

[4] 1355 a.

[5] 1355 b.

[6] 1355 b τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν, or, as the preceding context puts it, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα πιθανά.

[7] αἳ μὲν ἄτεχνοί εἰσιν αἳ δ’ ἔντεχνοι. Cope, _Introduction_, page 150, translates “unscientific and scientific”; Welldon, “inartistic or artistic”; Jebb, “inartificial or artificial.” None of these translations is satisfactory in connotation. _Scientific_, or _artistic_, or _artificial_ suggests associations not borne out by the context and ultimately misleading. Aristotle says simply “means that lie outside of the art and means that lie within it.” The means that lie within are hardly, in fact or in his intention, _scientific_. They are _artistic_ in the broadest sense of being attainable by art, not in the narrower sense of belonging to fine art, nor in the colloquial sense of being pretty. _Artificial_ they are not at all, except when they are misapplied.

[8] 1356 a.

[9] 1356 a.

[10] 1357 a.

[11] 1356 a.

[12] 1358 a.

[13] 1358 b.

[14] Of the various translations of Aristotle’s ἐπιδεικτικός, “demonstrative” is flatly a mistranslation, “oratory of display” is quite too narrow a translation, and “epideictic” is not a translation at all. The nearest word in current use is “_panegyric_,” which is right as far as it goes. But English use, though it lacks a single equivalent word, is none the less familiar with the thing. The kind of oratory that Aristotle means is the oratory of the Gettysburg Address, of most other commemorative addresses, and of many sermons. The French equivalent is _discours de circonstance_.

[15] Chapter iv. 1359 a.

[16] 1359 b-1360 a.

[17] 1360 b-1361 b.

[18] Chapter vi. 1362 a-1363 b.

[19] Chapter vii. 1363 b.

[20] Chapter viii. 1366 a.

[21] Chapter ix. 1366 a-1368 a.

[22] τὸ καλόν, treated again in Book II from the point of view of the audience.

[23] Chapters x-xv. 1368 b-1377 b.

[24] Chapter i. 1377 b. “In regard to πάθη and ἤθη, which move juries, the most important part is to know how these emotions are aroused and allayed. This alone, judging that it is none of their business, the rhetors have not borrowed from Aristotle, though they have borrowed everything else.” Philodemus, _Rhetorica_, trans. Hubbell, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, vol. 23 (September, 1920), page 338.

[25] “The import of these ‘characters,’ as of the ἤθη τῶν πολιτειῶν in I. 8. 6, and the use to which they are to be applied, may be thus expressed in other words. Certain ages and conditions of men are marked by different and peculiar characteristics. A speaker is always liable to be confronted with an audience in which one or other of these classes forms the preponderating element. In order to make a favorable impression upon them, he must necessarily adapt his tone and language [Aristotle means rather his method and arguments] to the sentiments and habits of thought prevailing amongst them, and the feelings and motives by which they are usually influenced. And for this purpose he must study their characters, and make himself acquainted with their ordinary motives and feelings and opinions. And the following analysis will supply him with topics for this purpose.” Cope, _Introduction_, foot-note to page 248.

[26] Certain difficulties here in the text, with the principal emendations proposed, are discussed by Cope in his _Introduction_, and more largely in the Cope and Sandys edition. Vahlen was so convinced of an error in transmission that he proposed to restore what he considered the original order by transposing bodily Chapters xviii-end and Chapters i-xvii. But in spite of difficulties of detail, the present order shows sufficiently clear progress if we remember that these latter chapters (xviii-end) are written, as all the rest of the book is written, from the point of view of the audience. So viewed, what has seemed repetition and expansion of Book I is seen to be distinct, and not merely additional, but progressive.

[27] 1391 b.

[28] τὸ δυνατόν. Chapter xix.

[29] παράδειγμα. Chapter xx.

[30] πράγματα προγεγενημένα.

[31] γνῶμαι. Chapter xxi.

[32] 1395 b.

[33] Chapters xxii-xxiv.

[34] Opening of Chapter xxiii.

[35] Chapters xxv-xxvi.

[36] 1403 b.

[37] λέξις. It should be observed that Aristotle is not here divorcing “manner” from “matter.” Book III opens a third approach, which presupposes the preceding approaches. This seems to be insufficiently considered by H. P. Breitenbach (The _De compositione of Dionysius of Halicarnassus considered with reference to the Rhetoric of Aristotle_), who regards Book III as a deviation from the philosophic position of the preceding books.

[38] τάξαι.

[39] The fifth traditional item, memory, he omits altogether.

[40] Chapter i, 1354.

[41] 1404 a.

[42] φαντασία.

[43] Welldon’s translation “rhetorical actors” can hardly stand. The phrase τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ὑπόκρισιν ῥήτορσιν means rather _acting orators_, or, more exactly, orators who practise the art of the actor, who are skilled in delivery. Their advantage appears in their winning prizes for written speeches, which can be memorized and declaimed and which are sometimes _tours de force_, showing more style than thought. Such speeches—I think Aristotle cites them as an extreme case—show the separable value of style, including delivery.

[44] 1404 a.

[45] At the close of this first chapter Welldon’s translation “rhetorical style” is misleading. Aristotle says, as Jebb correctly translates, “that style of which we are speaking,” i.e., prose style, the style of public address. “The other style,” he adds, “has been treated in the _Poetic_.”

[46] 1404 b.

[47] 1406 a.

[48] τὰ ψυχρά.

[49] 1406 b.

[50] 1407 a.

[51] Style (λέξις, _elocutio_) consists of:

(1) choice of the right word (ἐκλογή, _electio_);

(2) the movement, rhythm, or pace of sentences and clauses (σύνθεσις, _compositio_). Chapters v-xii deal with (2).

[52] ὄγκος. Chapter vi, 1407 b.

[53] Chapter vii, 1408 a.

[54] Chapter viii, 1408 b.

[55] The Greek word σχῆμα is quite general, applicable to any sort of guiding principle, outline, system, or plan. Our English words _outline_, _plan_, etc., though otherwise fairly equivalent, have visual, graphic, static associations quite foreign to the context. Aristotle’s images for style are drawn not from architecture or painting, but from music and other modes of movement. By _the_ diction he means—indeed, he says later—prose diction.

[56] Literally, “all things are measured by number.”

[57] λεκτικῆς ἁρμονίας. Cope and Welldon translate “conversational harmony.” The literal sense of the phrase is “speech harmony,” “harmony of diction, or of style”; but since Aristotle can hardly mean to say that the heroic measure lacks harmony of diction _in verse_, and since he is talking of prose, I translate “prose harmony.” Ἁρμονία may be taken either in the general or in the particular (musical) sense of harmony; but in the latter sense its application is restricted to melody.

[58] 1409 a.

[59] For a modern scientific discussion of prose rhythm see W. M. Patterson, _The Rhythm of Prose_, New York, Columbia University Press, 1916. See also Morris W. Croll, _The cadence of English oratorical prose_. Studies in Philology, 16:1, University of North Carolina, January, 1919.

[60] Chapter ix, 1409 a.

[61] 1409 b, ἡδεῖα δ’ ἡ τοιαύτη καὶ εὐμαθής. The translation of Cope and of Welldon, “easily learnt” is amiss; and Welldon’s foot-note thereon about learning speeches by heart is still more misleading. The εὐσύνοπτον (end of 1409 a), “easily grasped as a whole,” of the preceding sentence does not imply writing and reading; and there is no other word in the context even to suggest this except the reference to memory, which in the classical rhetoric is rarely applied to memorizing. The translation “easily learnt” is precluded both by the general trend of the passage and by the specific figures of walking, running, and breathing. Here, as throughout the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetic_, Aristotle avoids speaking of style in the visual terms common to modern generations of writers and readers. His terms, whether literal or figurative, are generally auditory and motor. When he uses others, it is to distinguish something special, as in Chapter xii (below) the exceptional, literary opportunity of such compositions as those of Isocrates. Not only does his _Rhetoric_ deal primarily and generally with oral composition, but in particular this section on σύνθεσις (_compositio_) deals with movement almost exclusively. Not until he has explained the period rhythmically does he add our modern definition that it should _also_ be concluded with the sense, i.e., with the syntax. Meantime he finds the period superior to the loose sentence—for oratory—first because it satisfies the ear by being heard as a definite rhythm, and secondly because it satisfies the mind by being intended and apprehended as a definite unit of thought.

[62] 1409 b.

[63] The admirable rendering of Jebb.

[64] 1409 b (toward end).

[65] 1409 b.

[66] For the contrast between the two movements in modern prose, see my _College Composition_, pages 184-188; for the effect of a passage of short sentences vs. that of a passage of long sentences, pages 69-71. Though the sentence unit, in our modern logical sense, is not always clear from the punctuation of even modern editions of ancient texts, it will usually be clear from the conclusion of the rhythm. In the earlier stages of modern prose, on the other hand, it is sometimes so dubious as to suggest that it was not always felt distinctly. The artistic development of modern prose, in other words, is partly the progressive distinction of periods.

[67] Chapter ix, 1410 a.

[68] Chapter x, 1410 b.

[69] 1404 b.

[70] τὰ ἀστεῖα καὶ τὰ εὐδοκιμοῦντα, lively and pleasing, smart and popular.

[71] Chapter xi, below.

[72] σχῆμα.

[73] ἐνέργεια.

[74] 1411 a.

[75] 1411 b.

[76] ἐνεργοῦντα. Here, perhaps, is the suggestion for Lessing’s famous doctrine in the _Laokoön_ as to Homeric description.

[77] 1412 a.

[78] 1404 b.

[79] 1406 a.

[80] 1413 b.

[81] Chapter vii, 1408 a.

[82] For this division see Book I, Chapter iii, 1358 b.

[83] ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐπιδεικτικὴ λέξις γραφικωτάτη· τὸ γὰρ ἔργον αὐτῆς ἀνάγνωσις (1414 a). The intervening reference to Chæremon, a poet said to have been better to read than to hear, as “precise as a professional speech-writer,” should not deviate us here into consideration of speeches written out to be memorized. For a full discussion of the professional speech-writer (λογογράφος) see Cope and Sandys on Book II. xi. 7. Here Aristotle is discussing something different, the adaptation of occasional oratory as nicer and more literary in sentence movement. Perhaps he implies too that such speeches had better be composed, as well as elaborated, in writing. Certainly this kind of oratory, from Isocrates down, regularly included many compositions which we should call essays and which were not even intended to be spoken.

[84] Chapters xiii-xix.

[85] τέχναι. See Cope, _Introduction_, page 331.

[86] Chapter xiii, 1414 a.

[87] 1414 b.

[88] 1418 b.

[89] Chapter xiv, 1415 a.

[90] 1415 b-1416 b.

[91] 1416 b.

[92] Chapter xvi, 1416 b. The counsel is too often forgotten by panegyrists in Congress, perhaps because they are lawyers.

[93] 1417 b.

[94] See above on style in general (1404 a), on the vividness of the concrete (1404 b), on visualizing metaphor (1410 b), and on describing in action (1411 b).

[95] Chapter xvii, 1417 b. For the place of Chapters xvii and xviii in relation to the whole work see foot-note 5 to page 197 of Jebb’s translation.

[96] 1418 a.

[97] ἐπίλογος. Chapter xix, 1419 b.

[98] 1420 a.

Chapter III

Rhetoric In The _De Oratore_ And _Orator_ Of Cicero[1]

Cicero remains after two thousand years the typical orator writing on oratory. The most eminent orator of Roman civilization, he wrote more than any other orator has ever written on rhetoric; and historically he has been more than any other an ideal and model. Conscious of his own range and of the narrowness and low esteem that seem from the beginning to have cursed teachers and especially manuals of rhetoric, he is anxious in his greater works, _De oratore_ and _Orator_, to appear not as a rhetorician, but as a philosopher. Though no treatment could well be more different from Aristotle’s, he is at pains to urge the Academic theory that rhetoric is a branch of philosophy, and to avoid the technical terms of the art while keeping its traditional categories. In this attitude he is but the more typically the artist discussing his own art. He writes as the man of letters in any age writes on literary composition. We may be annoyed at a certain condescension toward teachers—as if they might think themselves able to impart anything like his skill! We may be baffled in trying to reduce some of his elaborations to specific terms. But rather we should be grateful to find rhetoric presented, for once at least, pleasantly as well as suggestively, and still more to find the orator insisting that it must have the same large scope as is claimed for it by the philosopher. Where Aristotle and Cicero agree, we may feel sure.

Cicero has been disparaged as a maker of phrases. That he is certainly. “They write Latin,” says Newman[2] of other great authors; “Cicero writes Roman.” His own style is the final answer to his detractors. He is evidently, indeed, a very conscious man of letters, and filed his speeches for publication; but can we deny vigor of thought to the maker of such vigorous phrase without lapsing into the separation of style from substance? Mere style is incredible—unless, as no one pretends of Cicero, the style is bad. So much _a priori_; and in fact his works will bear analysis. But he is not creative. He clarifies the thoughts of others and brings them to bear. His habit and skill are not at all scientific. His achievement is of style to the extent that it is an achievement of presentation. What he says of rhetoric, for instance, others have said before him; he says it better, more clearly, more vividly. He says it so much better, indeed, that his phrase has a certain finality. It witnesses not only his extraordinary command of diction, but also his constant awareness of human implications. His very diffuseness springs from his constant sense of how people think and feel while they hear and read. In all this he is typically the orator.

_De Oratore_

The title _De oratore_ exactly expresses the subject. Cicero is discussing rhetoric, indeed; he is writing _de arte oratoria_; but always, as Aristotle in his first book, from the point of view of the speaker. It is worth insisting on that the practitioner here coincides with the philosopher, and both with the theory and practise of rhetoric in the best days of the ancient tradition. The training of the public speaker, this tradition consistently repeats, must focus the whole training of the man. The vice of the teaching of rhetoric in its decadence under the Empire[3] was so to pervert this principle as to make all training subordinate to technical skill in rhetoric; and indeed the principle has this danger of making the whole man serve rhetoric, instead of making rhetoric bring out the whole man. None the less the principle rightly conceived is fruitful; and no one has shown this more persuasively than Cicero.

The form is obviously the Platonic dialogue. The protagonists are the famous orators Crassus and Antonius, with Scævola, Cotta, Catulus, and Sulpicius as minor interlocutors. Whatever basis there may have been in the actual conversations of these historical persons,[4] the work, like its model, is fiction. It is dramatic in representing the speakers as _personæ_; but its imaginative realization goes no further. The literary device of the dialogue is used only to add concreteness to the discussion of what is always dry when it is abstract. The object is the discussion, not even incidentally the men who discuss. They talk always as orators and to promote oratory; and as orators they proceed from point to point. Plato’s _personæ_ are realized more dramatically. Though only Socrates is created fully, the others emerge as individuals. The movement of a Platonic dialogue is far more conversational. Not only does its form give the illusion of actual talk; its thought moves hither and yon, suggesting rather than concluding, seeking yet other approaches and departures, not marching but questing. Cicero raises questions, indeed, but as they are raised by the public speaker who has predetermined the answer and the stages by which we are to reach it. For all the ease and skill of its dialogue, _De oratore_ proceeds by paragraphs as definitely as _De lege Manilia_.

Though rhetoric is necessary to every educated man for effective communication, and especially to every aspiring youth (_laudis cupidus_), how rare are good orators! The reason is the wide scope. Oratory demands knowledge not only as eruditio, but also in relation to human will (_animorum motus_). It demands expressiveness in a wide range of style and delivery. What more noble? The orator is a principal supporter of the State. So begins Crassus (I. i-viii); but Scævola demurs, unwilling to grant either that states have been established and maintained by orators or that the orator is accomplished in every sort of utterance and of culture.[5] Here the question is posed, Is oratory a special art or a comprehensive study? Though abstractly it may be both, though the one view does not exclude the other absolutely, practically the emphasis of the training will be determined by a choice between the two.

As if to forestall restriction, Crassus begins with the widest extension. He will not agree to exclude[6] from the scope of oratory public management, instruction, even research. Of the Greeks who urge this, he says, Plato is a refutation of his own doctrine, being himself an orator. Democritus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Carneades, show the force of oratory; Chrysippus, the lack of it. Sound without substance is folly.[7] Even legal pleading demands more than is taught by the rhetoricians. The orator’s effectiveness depends on knowledge of human emotions; and they are a field of philosophy. Though he may leave it to the philosophers as _cognitio_, he must know it[8] as applied to presentation. To make philosophy effective, you must have rhetoric. [Does this finally leave the point, which is that rhetoric needs philosophy?] “What the philosophers dispute in their corners without any urgency of application, and so in thin and feeble talk, the orator will set forth in such a way as to please and move.”[9] Socrates used to say[10] ‘Everybody is eloquent enough on what he knows’; but the truth is rather that neither can any one be eloquent on what he does not know, nor can he be eloquent on what he does know unless he know also the art of rhetoric.

“Therefore,[11] if we seek to define and embrace the force of oratory as both general and special, he methinks is an orator, worthy of so responsible a title, who will say whatever falls to him for presentation with wise forecast of the whole, order, style, memory, and a certain dignity of delivery.”

It is disconcerting to arrive, after all, at the traditional parts of rhetoric. For the definition resolves itself into this:

1. _prudenter_, with wise forecast of the whole = _inventio_; 2. _composite_,[12] with skill in arrangement = _dispositio_; 3. _ornate_, with command of enhancing words = _elocutio_; 4. _memoriter_, with sure memory = _memoria_; 5. _cum actionis dignitate_, with dignity of delivery = _actio_.

But the traditional five parts of rhetoric are more than the table of contents of the manuals (_artes_). They constitute what we now call in college schedules a group of studies; and Crassus is contending for the group as a whole. What he has been insisting on is the importance and the scope of that first part which, in the long history of rhetoric, teachers have most often and most dangerously neglected, _inventio_, the investigation, analysis, and grasp of the subject-matter. He adds[13] that the orator, though in any given case he may gather his information from authorities, will express this information as no expert can express it; and he repeats that in one branch of knowledge he must himself be an expert, namely in human nature.

The practical difficulty of such a conception of oratory, rejoins Antonius,[14] is that we have not leisure to realize it. And if we had, should we not better spend our time on the practise of speaking? The manuals,[15] he adds somewhat evasively, have nothing to say about justice, temperance, etc.; they talk of introductions and perorations. The main thing[16] is that the orator should appear to his auditory to be the sort of man that he wishes to appear. That is the result of dignity of life, about which theories of rhetoric have no more to say than about the means by which men are moved [Crassus might have retorted by citing Aristotle’s whole second book]. No rhetorician[17] was ever even a tolerable orator; many orators have never studied rhetoric. The materials of rhetoric [in the large sense of material urged by Crassus] are too indeterminate[18] for an art.

“I call him a master[19] who can speak keenly and clearly to an average audience from the average point of view; but I call him eloquent[20] who more wondrously and largely can enhance and adorn what he will, and hold in mind and memory all the sources of all things that pertain to public speaking.”

But what pertains to public speaking? How widely should the training for it range? The definition of Antonius obviously stresses _elocutio_. Whether he means to make this the main concern of the orator depends on whether he includes among his “sources” the fund of knowledge urged by Crassus. The context seems to show that he does not. To put his definition beside that of Crassus above is to see that its intention is narrower. It specifies no more than style, first as the amplitude and vividness that enhance a particular passage, and secondly as the orator’s general virtuosity.

Crassus returns to the charge with a summary[21] of the actual training. The student should practise[22] not only extempore speaking from outline, but also writing. The writing that he advises here is not for the casting of a given speech in a particular form, but for education in range and control of expression. To this end he recommends also wide reading. The study of law, he adds,[23] should be both of technical detail and also of larger aspects and relations.

Antonius stands his ground. His second definition of the orator is substantially a repetition of his first, merely sharpening the contrast.

“But the orator[24]—and he is the subject of our inquiry—I do not define as does Crassus, who has seemed to me to include knowledge of all sciences and arts within the orator’s single function and name. I think him an orator who can use words agreeable to hear and thoughts (_sententiis_) adapted to prove in cases both forensic and deliberative; ... and I would have him also skilled in voice, gesture, and manner.”

Lest there should seem to be a begging of the question in the word _sententiis_, which means thoughts and therefore may seem to imply the studies urged by Crassus, _sententia_ should be understood rather of the brilliant expression of a single idea than of a line of thought or of intellectual grasp in general. That neither of the latter is intended here is shown by the context.

Because certain orators, Antonius resumes, have been masters of other things than oratory it does not follow that these other things belong to oratory. The most that can be said is that, to attain eminence in oratory, one must have heard, seen, and read much. Neither an orator’s knowledge of human nature nor his use of this knowledge in speaking is scientific. Nor must the orator be a lawyer any more than he must be an actor. Mastery of law, of acting, of history, of other things, is, indeed, an advantage; but it is not a necessity to oratory. If the orator is to be, as Crassus has described him,[25] one who can speak in ways adapted to persuade, he must sacrifice many other studies in order to master his own proper art.

One closes the first book with the idea that both Crassus and Antonius are right. The two men, even more than the two views, are complementary. The views are irreconcilable only when pushed to the extreme; and in extreme form either the extensiveness of Crassus or the intensiveness of Antonius may become a _reductio ad absurdum_. Normally rhetoric is both extensive and intensive, both a comprehensive study of life and a specific art, even as the means of persuasion are both extrinsic and intrinsic. Doubtless Cicero meant to leave this impression; for he gives full weight to the theory of Antonius here, makes him the mouthpiece in Book II for the specific lore of _inventio_, which corresponds to the knowledge urged in Book I by Crassus, and makes Crassus in Book III the spokesman for style. But certainly Cicero sympathizes, and wishes us to sympathize, with Crassus. It is Cicero, not merely Crassus, who pleads that the teaching of the orator be not the imparting of tricks, nor mainly of technic in a wider and worthier sense, but the gradual bringing to bear of the whole man. He saw in the focusing of rhetoric on style a typical danger for teaching. The danger was present, apparently, in the teaching of his own day; it was serious in the time of Tacitus; it was epidemic in the schools of _declamatio_ that spread along the Mediterranean and taught some of the fathers of the Church. The view of Antonius, uncorrected by the view of Crassus, is imperfect theoretically; practically it leads to the typical vices of the teaching of composition: historically it has branded a stigma on the word Rhetoric and all its derivatives.

The view of Crassus, too, has its dangers: the danger of vagueness and dissipation, the danger of pretentiousness and sometimes of sciolism. But apparently these dangers can more readily be met and counteracted, and must be risked; for the history of rhetoric seems to show that his is the right emphasis and the more fruitful idea. Speaking and writing are less a profession even for orators and men of letters, much less for educated mankind in general, than a life. Though the same may be said of engineering, though all technical education involves general education, yet in learning to speak and write the technic is smaller in proportion to the general training. The training of Roman youth in oratory was at its best education for leadership. In this education composition was both end and means. It has been so always, it is so to-day, in the hands of its best teachers. The specific application is to open in the teaching of composition manifold relations. It thrives on what we now call correlation; it dwindles in segregation. For we may learn from Cicero to give rhetoric the same abundant relations to human affairs as he urges his orator to seek in all his oratory.

Because it has most of the Ciceronian message Book I has been the most studied and probably the most fruitful. The division of Book II is conventional. After glancing at the fields of oratory and the component parts of a speech and urging imitation, it treats _inventio_[26] and _dispositio_[27] under the usual heads and briefly summarizes _memoria_.[28]

Oratory, says Antonius, is essentially either deliberative or forensic; for Aristotle’s third division, occasional oratory, is not so much a separate field as a particular direction and a fundamental habit of thought. Cicero is quite unconvincing here. Perhaps his own habit of introducing into forensic the ways of occasional oratory, as in his _Archias_, blinded him to the significance of Aristotle’s third category.

The traditional _exordium_, _narratio_, etc., Antonius finds to be rather elements than parts, since the particular function of each is not confined to one place. From this perfunctory rehearsal we are awakened by suggestive advice to teachers.[29]

Those who really teach rhetoric are engaged less in drill than in promotion of the spirit that wins success.[30] “Therefore I will train, if I can, so as first to discern what the pupil can do. Let him be imbued with literature; let him have read and heard something; let him have learned the rules; I will provoke him so far as is feasible to his utmost in voice, force, spirit. If I perceive that he can reach the heights, I will beg him, and if he seems also a good man, I will conjure him, to revise; so much social value do I attach to this technical skill for both the outstanding orator and the good man. But if, do what he will, he is going to remain mediocre, I will let him do what he will, and especially not nag him; if he is going to be positively offensive or ridiculous, I will tell him to close his lips or try something else. For neither can we ever desert the student of exceptional ability nor deter the one who has at least some ability....

“To begin at home,[31] Catulus, I first heard Sulpicius here in an unimportant case when he was a stripling. Though he showed physical equipment of voice, presence, gesture, his speech was rapid, hurried—a matter of temperament—and somewhat effervescent and superabundant—a matter of youth. I did not scorn him. I am glad to see youth exuberant. As with vines, it is easier to prune than to cultivate. You should have seen the change in him when next I heard him after he had studied Crassus.”

The first specific counsel, then, is for the teacher promotion; for the student it is imitation, such as Sulpicius’s of Crassus, not mere copying of mannerisms, but such as produces[32] schools of eloquence from the example of great orators.[33]

Under _inventio_ the first task is the investigation of the facts.

“But finally[34] to bring the orator whom we are forming to actual cases ... we will teach him first—laugh if you will—to know them thoroughly and deeply. This is not taught in school; for the cases assigned to boys are easy. For example: ‘The statute forbids a stranger (_peregrinus_) to climb a wall; [this man] climbed; he repulsed the enemy; he is brought to trial.’ No labor to know a case of this sort; for rightly nothing is taught [in school] about studying a case. But in the forum one has to know documents, contracts and agreements, decrees, the lives of the parties. Through carelessness in getting such knowledge men who in their anxiety to appear much in demand undertake too many cases often lose.[35] Not only so, but they may be suspected of bad faith or of incompetence.

“For my part,[36] I take pains to learn the case from the client himself, alone, that he may talk more freely, and to debate against him, that he may defend himself and advance whatever arguments he has thought out. When I have dismissed him, I quite dispassionately take three parts: my own, my opponent’s, the judge’s. Whatever arguments promise more help than embarrassment I settle on, rejecting others in the same way. By this plan I manage to think at one time and speak at another.[37] Some speakers have the confidence to do both at once; but I am sure that they too would speak somewhat better if they recognized the advisability of setting aside one time for thought, another for speech.”

Though this is a conventional topic, and though its application here is legal, it is none the less instructive generally; and it might directly improve the teaching of argument and the practise of debate in our colleges.

The second heading under _inventio_ is also conventional, the _status_, or determination of the main character of the case and the main issues. The _status_ was determined in the classical system by applying certain traditional questions. The _status legalis_ may be set aside as applicable only to legal pleading. The _status rationalis_, or _status_ considered in the general aspects of reason as an affair of common argument, was determined by asking oneself how far the debate hinged (1) on fact, on whether such-and-such things had happened, or (2) on definition, the facts being generally admitted, or (3) more broadly, on the interpretation of admitted facts and definitions. Though most cases need to be looked at from all these three points of view, in most there will be found a decided predominance of one; and forecast of this will direct the emphasis of the whole argument, will tell where to throw one’s weight. This one is the _status_ of that case.

In the Latin terms:

(1) if the main question is _an sit_, the _status_ is _coniectura_, or _status coniecturalis_;

(2) if it is _quid sit_, the _status_ is _finis_, or _status definitivus_;

(3) if it is _quale sit_, the _status_ is _qualitas_, or _status generalis_.

Though Cicero’s discussion[38] is necessarily conventional, he has keen practical suggestions. As to (2), which in his order is third, Antonius says:

“We are often advised to define the crucial term briefly;[39] but that is puerile. What we need is not a brief or abstract definition, as of terms like _law_ or _state_ defined according to the rule of neither too little nor too much. In the case I have mentioned neither Sulpicius nor I attempted definition of that sort. Rather each of us dilated on treason with every means of amplification. For mere definition, in the first place, is often snatched out of your hands if a single word be objected to or added or omitted; in the second place, by its very nature it smacks of teaching (_doctrina_) and almost childish practise; and finally, it cannot enter the perception and mind of the judge, for before it is grasped it slips past.”

But the case must be surveyed also as to its ἦθος and its πάθος.

“Then I most carefully consider[40] both the appeal _of_ my client’s character and my own and the appeal _to_ the feelings of those whom I address. So every theory of speaking seeks persuasion[41] through (1) establishing the facts, (2) winning the sympathy of the audience, and (3) arousing those of whom the case demands action....”

“Teachers,[42] indeed, have divided cases into several kinds and have provided a fund of arguments for each kind. This is adapted to the education of the young; for as soon as a case is posed, they know where to find arguments for it. Nevertheless not only is it slow-witted to pursue rivulets, not discerning the fount, but it is becoming to our age and habit to summon what we wish from the source whence all things flow.”

The lore of preliminary analysis is concluded with a brilliant summary under three questions of Cicero’s own:[43] (1) what kind of case is it in general (_naturam causæ_), i.e., of fact or of interpretation? (2) on what does it turn, i.e., what is the point but for which there would be no debate? _(quid faciat causam; id est, quo sublato controversia stare non possit)?_ (3) why is it disputed? how does the dispute arise (_quid veniat in iudicium_)?

The transition from argument to the other means of persuasion, from _probare_ or _docere_ to _conciliare_ and _movere_, is the caveat of Antonius against the current division of cases into general and particular[44] as a capital error. Theoretically every particular case must have general relations; practically, if oratory is not to lapse into mere accumulation of details, the orator must have the habit of bringing these general relations to bear. Antonius adds the further caveat that the whole system of the _status_ is merely analytical. It is logical; and logic shows only how to judge arguments, not how to find them.[45] The sources of arguments (_sedes argumentorum_)[46] are therefore more important.

As to _conciliare_ and _movere_[47] Cicero says only the usual things, perhaps because _inventio_ in these aspects is rather to be promoted by exhortation than imparted by new categories.

Men take a decision oftener through feeling than through fact or law.[48] They are moved by evidences of character in the speaker and in his client.[49] Orators must have a scent for an audience, for what people are feeling, thinking, waiting for, wishing. To arouse feeling, the orator must have it himself.[50] He need not feign it; it arises naturally from his imaginative sympathy, as on the stage.[51] Emotional appeal is not to be made suddenly; it is to be led up to and down from;[52] and it demands full force of delivery.[53] The only way to rebut feeling is by feeling. Cicero adds the usual sections on wit and humor.[54]

The treatment of _dispositio_[55] gives little specific counsel toward the achievement of that sequence in which Cicero himself excelled.

In general, _dispositio_ has to consider: how to make the most of the stronger points without seeming to slur the weaker; whether the case will prevail more readily through argument or through appeal, through direct proof or through refutation; how to cover retreat at need by making sure that the case, if it cannot be won, shall at least not be damaged. [To translate this doctrine into the terms of modern manuals, the first general consideration of _dispositio_ is emphasis, both as proportion of space and as progressive iteration of main points.]

The traditional order[56] (_exordium_, _narratio_, etc.,) is natural; but the real problem is the arrangement, or sequence, of the proof and the weighing of arguments rather than the counting of them. [This is a practical caveat against the tyro’s idea that he can prevail by sheer force of numbers. To be effective, an argument must be more than a series; it must be a line. Its progression is more than arithmetical; it is rather geometrical.] Appeal to feeling[57] should be rather pervasive than located in particular divisions. The strongest arguments should be put first and last; the exordium composed after the rest of the speech, in order to be the more carefully adapted[58] and more essentially related to the plaintiff,[59] the defendant, the case, or the judges. The _narratio_,[60] though concise, must be ample not only for vividness, but even for clearness. Constructive argument and refutation are to be considered together as a whole [i.e., debate is always at once destructive and constructive].

Without making panegyric[61] as a separate kind of oratory, we can see that deliberative speeches offer more scope in that direction than forensic. Cicero adds general topics for panegyric.

The chapters on _memoria_[62] begin with the familiar story of Simonides, to make the obvious point that what furthers memory is order. Visual associations, Cicero thinks, are strongest, and can be used to recall even sentences. But verbal memory is less important. The orator’s memory is of things.[63]

In Book III Crassus discusses style (_elocutio_). About a third of the book[64] amplifies the theme that rhetoric is inseparable from philosophy. What follows is a conventional treatment of the choice of words (_electio_)[65] and the movement of sentences (_compositio_),[66] with a few chapters on delivery.[67] These latter topics are handled so much more explicitly in _Orator_ that only the first part claims analysis.

By style we mean generally diction that is idiomatic, clear, vivid, and apt.[68] Idiom and clearness we may take for granted. “All elegance of speaking, though it is polished by the study of grammar, is promoted by reading aloud orators and poets.[69]... If there be a certain Roman and urban tone, in which there is nothing to offend, to displease, or even to attract notice, nothing to sound or smell foreign, let us follow this and learn to flee not only country roughness but also foreign bravado.[70] ... women more easily keep the pure tradition.”

“That scheme of thought and expression and force of speaking the ancient Greeks used to call philosophy.[71]... For that ancient teaching appears to have been the preceptress alike of living rightly and of speaking well. Nor were the teachers separate; the same masters formed morals and speech.”[72] From the scorn of Socrates for rhetoric arose the unnatural separation of rhetoric from philosophy ... “that divorce as it were of the tongue from the heart ... that one class of persons should teach us to think, another to speak, rightly.”[73]

Philosophy has suffered by this separation. The Cyrenaic philosophy remains incomplete by dissuading from public life. The Stoic philosophy, though it declares eloquence to be virtue and wisdom, makes wisdom practically unattainable; and the dry abstractness of address cultivated by the Stoics is quite ineffective. Rhetoric, on the other hand, has suffered by being reduced to maxims of pleading. In a word, training in rhetoric, to be adequate, must include philosophy; and philosophy remains ineffective without rhetoric. This, of course, is the ideal; but it is not practically impossible; for we are not saying that the orator must be a philosopher, only that he must know philosophy.[74]

Therefore style must not be conceived either as the controversial acrimony of the forum or as conventional adornment borrowed by ignorance. The style must become the thought, not weary the audience by display; and the very idea of enhancing implies a store of thought.[75]

The futile distinction made by rhetoricians between a particular case and a general has this bearing on style, that eloquence consists in bringing to bear on every question those fundamental human aspects which can be exhibited only through large knowledge; for copiousness of style comes only from copiousness of thought. The Greeks gave oratory to philosophy, philosophy to oratory. Our Roman ancestors aspired to knowledge in all fields that touch civil life. The greatness of the arts has been diminished by division and separation.[76]

These twenty chapters are a brilliant instance of what the ancients meant by amplification. Logically they do little more than iterate the truism that style is inseparable from substance; but actually they make the truism live. Cicero is an admirable example of his own definition of the eloquent as those “who speak with clear distinctions, lucid order, amplitude, brilliance of matter and manner, and in prose weave something of the spell of verse—in a word, who enhance.”[77] “Immortal gods! said Catulus, what a variety of things, Crassus, you have embraced! what force, what abundance! and from what poverty have you dared to lead the orator forth and establish him in the kingdom of his fathers!”[78]

_Orator_

Cicero’s _De oratore_, though it covers all five parts of rhetoric, is most ample as to _inventio_. His _Orator_ is complementary in that it is largely devoted to _elocutio_.[79] Like the earlier work, _Orator_ is specifically limited to deliberative and forensic oratory. Occasional oratory, or panegyric, though he declines again to treat it as a separate field,[80] Cicero recognizes as the “nurse of that orator whom we wish to form,” especially in sentence skill.[81] _Inventio_[82] and _dispositio_,[83] as depending more on foresight than on eloquence, are barely summarized. _Elocutio_ occupies three-fourths of the discussion.[84]

_Orator_ has been less attractive than _De oratore_ for the reason that it is more compact and more technical. None the less it has a cogency and a felicity even more characteristically Ciceronian. Few men writing on style have shown in their own styles so much precision and charm. _De oratore_ keeps the fluency of dialogue; _Orator_ shows more of Cicero’s own mastery of the oratorical period.

The division of style into three kinds (_genus tenue_, _genus medium_, _genus grande_)[85] has been much discussed as to its origin.[86] Whatever its origin, it is dubious as philosophy and has been vicious as pedagogy. Cicero applies it later[87] to the three tasks, or objects, of oratory: to prove, to win sympathy, to move. He adds[88] that the orator should excel in all three directions. But this hardly warrants a division of style into three kinds; for actually the teacher too ready to classify, or the student too ready to think of style as separable and additional, may thereby deviate his whole study. Historically the trail of the three styles has been baneful. For inculcating style perhaps the least fruitful means is classification.[89]

But Cicero’s discussion of style, though grouped at first by this classification, ranges beyond it.

Digest Of _Orator_, 61-236, On Style[90]

Style (61) is the very mark of the orator. The diction of the philosophers (62-63) has neither the force nor the pungency of oratory; for the philosophers (64) are limited to abstract discussion, as the sophists (65) to decoration, and the historians (66) to a somewhat diffuse smoothness. The style of poetry (67) differs not in speed or vividness, but in boldness of diction (68) and in sometimes being pursued for sheer values of sound.

The three styles of speaking[91] arise from the orator’s three objects: (69) to prove, to please, to move. Aptness, then, demands adjustment not only to the speaker (71) and the audience (72), but also to the object. What is proper to the plain style (_genus tenue_, 75)? This sounds so ordinary that it seems easier than it is; for, though not strong, it must be sound. It is untrammeled by cadences (77), is free without rambling, and neither fits word to word nor avoids the pleasant negligence of one elaborating matter rather than manner. It avoids periodic structure (85) and dramatic delivery (86); but admits a careful use of wit (87-90). The median style (_genus medium_, 92), adjusted to the winning of sympathy (_conciliare_), aimed at the ἦθος of the audience, has as its chief character _suavitas_; as its chief exponent, Demetrius of Phalerum. The high style (_genus grande_, 97), aiming at πάθος, though it is the acme, is not to be pursued exclusively; for the perfect orator must be master of all three (100); the three may be modified (103), combined, and varied; and variety is necessary (109) both in any given speech and as a habit.

After a summary, 113-139, of the orator’s necessary knowledge, especially of the other parts of rhetoric, Cicero passes to his main topic, harmony. Explaining (140-148) the importance of this, he defines it in its simplest aspect of euphony (149); negatively as the avoidance of hiatus, stops, and other awkward combinations, positively as balance, symmetry, the rounding out of the phrase by correspondence (165).

The rest of _Orator_, about one third (l-lxxi, 168-236) is devoted to prose rhythm under four heads: (a) origin, (b) cause, (c) nature, (d) use. Under the first Cicero develops a rhetorical doctrine of rhythm from Thrasymachus, Isocrates, and Gorgias. As to the second, its cause (177-8), he says: “The ear, or the mind through the ear, contains in itself a certain natural measure[92] of all spoken sounds.” The third heading, the nature of rhythm, is treated at greater length (liii-lx, 179-203). Analyzing rhythm to show that it has an effect distinct from that of mere euphony, Cicero goes on to examine what this effect is (183). Since there is a distinct rhythmical effect in prose, it can be explained, though it appeals to sense, not to reason, and though it is less obvious and less essential than in verse. It is lacking (186) in earlier writers, Herodotus for example.[93] It has to be sought as a final grace of prose (186). “If there is (187) prose stinted and concise and other prose dilated and fluent, the difference must arise not from the nature of letters (_litterarum_), but from the variety of intervals, long and short; and since prose is now steady, now shifting, according as it is woven and blended with these intervals, the nature of the difference (or of this variety) must reside in the rhythm (_numeris_, 187).”[94]

Prose being unmetrical, however, are its rhythms (188) still the same as those of verse? The feet must be the same; but what rhythms are available in prose? That any foot is possible appears in that we often fall carelessly into meter. Prose consists largely of iambs; but we often lapse into less familiar meters. It is plain, then, that prose feet are the same as poetic.

Some think iambic, as being most like real life (191), more suited to simple narrative; dactylic, to the dignity with which it is associated in heroic verse. Ephorus prefers the pæan or the dactyl to the spondee or the trochee because the latter are either too slow or too rapid. Aristotle, finding the heroic too grand for prose, the iambic too colloquial (192), and the trochaic too tripping, approves (193) the pæan. This is to be preferred as being less readily metrical (196); but it should be varied by other measures. Iambic is most frequent (197) in the plain style, the pæan in the grand style; but all should be mingled for variety. “Thus the hearers will hardly notice the snaring of their delight [in sound] and the pains to square the speech. These will be the less apparent if the words and thoughts are weighty; for those who are listening to these and liking them—the words, I mean, and the thoughts—while their attention and admiration are thus fixed do not notice the rhythm, though they would be less pleased without it.” (197). Prose is rhythmical not (198) by never varying—that would be verse—but by movement neither limping nor fluctuating, but even and constant. Prose rhythm, therefore, is more difficult than verse. The rhythm of the period (199), in order to make such a close as the ear desires, must be marshalled that way from the start. Prose rhythm may arise, without rhythmical intention, from the harmonizing[95] of the phrase.

The use (204) of rhythm is most extensive in panegyric (207); in the other fields it enters when panegyric enters, or when statement of facts demands rather dignity than poignancy, often also in amplification, and most frequently in the peroration (210). For variety change (211) from the statements grouped and rounded in periods to statements detached (_incisa_ and _membra_). Debate, more than exposition, needs speed. The cadence, or close (_clausula_, 215) may be in any one of several modes. The dichoreus, preferred in Asia (212), is admirable; but any one cadence palls. A full period (221) consists of four parts, or clauses (_membra_), i.e., is about the length of four hexameter verses; and is held together by _nodi continuationis_. When we wish to shift to detached short sentences (_membratim_), as we must often do in forensic, we pause, and break the rhythm that might suggest artifice. But even in such shorter reaches (223) we need rhythm, whether they be _incisa_, _membra_, or short periods; and these may be supported by a longer period, ending in a dichoreus or a spondee. The shorter reaches demand freer measures. They are of most force in forensic (225), especially in proof and refutation. Nor is any sort of speaking (226) stronger than to strike with two or three words, sometimes even with one, and then to interpose a rhythmical period.

Rhythm is not merely beautiful (227), but, like the beautiful motions of athletes, useful. Pursuit of it must avoid the appearance of artifice, padding (231) to round the cadence, the laming of the movement by too many short reaches, and monotony. Proof of the value of rhythm may be made by dislocating[96] the sentence movement of a good orator without changing the words, or conversely by rearranging the sentences of a careless orator (233). Those who affect to despise rhythm (234) are unable to master it. Calling themselves Attic, they ignore the rhythm of Demosthenes. If they prefer a loose style, let them follow it if they can show even in their parts the beauty that is lacking in the whole (235), or if they can compose in any other style; but the perfect orator (236) is master of all his art.

Cicero’s treatment of rhythm in oratory, though sometimes vague and as a whole unsatisfying, is important historically. Its very extent and care show that for the orator, no less than for the theorist, rhythm in the classical tradition was a main consideration. It was not something additional, a final grace of style, but an essential element of oratorical effectiveness. Moreover it was a primary and controlling consideration in all that revision which is spent on the shaping of sentences. The oral and auditory ancients taught sentences more largely as movements in time than do the writing and visual moderns. They are thus the more instructive to those whose ears writing and print have trained imperfectly. In every case, of course, ancient or modern, the unit is logical, the expression of a thought; but whereas modern manuals generally confine themselves to terms of syntax, the ancient rhetoric is constantly aware of the effects of rhythm. Its analysis of these, though it leaves much to be desired in scientific accuracy,[97] serves at least to direct attention and stimulate imitation; and more than the modern logic of the sentence it seems to promote fluency.[98]

Foot-Notes:

[1] Besides many incidental references, Cicero left seven works dealing mainly or entirely with rhetoric: _De inventione_ (about 86 B.C.), _De oratore_ (55 B.C.), _Partitiones oratoriæ_ (about 54 B.C.), _Brutus_ (46 B.C.), _Orator_ (46 B.C.), _De optimo genere oratorum_ (about 46 B.C.), _Topica_ (44 B.C.). Of these the most explicit and suggestive are _De oratore_ and _Orator_, which are used as the basis of the following chapter.

The most convenient bibliographical guide to Cicero’s rhetorical doctrine is Laurand, L., _De M. Tulli Ciceronis studiis rhetoricis_ (University of Paris thesis, 1907), which also summarizes lucidly its derivation and progress.

The best editions in English are: Wilkins, A. S., _M. Tulli Ciceronis De Oratore_, Oxford, 1893 (3d ed.), 3 volumes (introduction, including a sketch of the history of rhetoric and a tabular analysis of the treatise _Ad Herennium_ formerly ascribed to Cicero; analyses, notes, index); Sandys, J. E., _M. Tulli Ciceronis Orator_ ... Cambridge, 1885 (introduction, including a sketch of the history of rhetoric, a brief analysis of Cicero’s rhetorical works, a study and an abstract of _Orator_, and a list of editions, commentaries, and translations; notes, indices).

English translations of _De oratore_: Guthrie, W., London, 1808 & 1840; Watson, J. S., London (Bohn), 1855 & 1896; Calvert, F. B., Edinburgh, 1870; Moor, E. N. P., (Book I only), London, 1904. Of _Orator_ Sandys (page xcvii) cites three English translations, of which only Yonge’s seems to be available in this country. The French translation by Colin (_Traduction du traité de l’orateur de Cicéron, avec des notes, par M. l’Abbé Colin_, Paris, 1737), though somewhat paraphrastic, is accurate so far as I have used it. Another accompanies Bornecque’s edition, Paris, 1921.

Among recent critical studies the following will be found suggestive in their several directions: Hendrickson, G. L., _The Peripatetic mean of style and the three stylistic characters_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxv. 125 (1904); _Ancient characters of style_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxvi. 249 (1905); _Cicero’s Brutus and the technique of citation in dialogue_, Amer. Jo. Philol. xxvii, 184 (1906); Hubbell, H. M., _The influence of Isocrates on Cicero, Dionysius and Aristides_ (Yale thesis, 1914); Nassal, F., _Æsthetisch-rhetorische Beziehungen zwischen Dionysius von Halikarnass und Cicero_ (Tübingen thesis, 1910). For study of rhetorical terms see Causeret, C., _Étude sur la langue de la rhétorique et de la critique dans Cicéron_, Paris, 1886, which is classified by the fivefold division, _inventio_, _collocatio_, etc. The influence of Cicero in the middle age and the Renaissance will be discussed in a later volume.

[2] _Literature_, the second lecture on _University Subjects_ in the _Idea of a University_.

[3] See below, Chapter IV. II.

[4] W. B. Owen in the introduction to his edition of Book I (Boston, 1895) makes more of this than its importance seems to warrant.

[5] _In omni genere sermonis et humanitatis perfectum_, I. ix. 35

[6] I. xi.

[7] I. xii. 51.

[8] I. xiii. 55.

[9] 56.

[10] 63.

[11] I. xv. 64. _Quam ob rem, si quis universam et propriam oratoris vim definire complectique vult, is orator erit mea sententia, hoc tamen gravi dignus nomine, qui, quæcumque res inciderit quæ sit dictione explicanda, prudenter et composite et ornate et memoriter dicet cum quadam actionis etiam dignitate._

[12] Wilkins (note _ad loc._) evidently takes _composite_ in a general sense as referring to composition (_dispositio_, _collocatio_); for he says: “The definition includes all the five main divisions of oratory,” and _dispositio_ is not otherwise mentioned. But for the apparent intention to include all five parts, _composite_ would more readily suggest _compositio_, which is the technical name for sentence movement, one of the subdivisions of _elocutio_. _Compositio_ is consistently used in this special sense; but whether _composite_ is so meant here or not, Cicero intended four of the five parts, if not five; and that suffices to establish his allusion to the traditional division. The issue between Crassus and Antonius has little to do with _dispositio_; it concerns the scope of _inventio_.

For the division of rhetoric see pages 21, 65, the table in foot-note 1a to Chapter V, and Wilkins’s introduction, page 57.

[13] I. xvi.

[14] xviii.

[15] xix. 86.

[16] 87.

[17] xx. 91.

[18] 92.

[19] _disertus._ I. xxi. 94.

[20] _Eloquentem vero qui mirabilius et magnificentius augere posset atque ornare quæ vellet, omnisque omnium rerum, quæ ad dicendum pertinerent fontis animo ac memoria contineret._

[21] I. xxv-xxxv.

[22] xxxiii. 149 seq.

[23] xxxvi-xlvii.

[24] xlix. 213. _Oratorem autem, quoniam de eo quærimus, equidem non facio eundem quem Crassus, qui mihi visus est omnem omnium rerum atque artium scientiam comprehendere uno oratoris officio ac nomine; atque eum puto esse qui et verbis ad audiendum iucundis et sententiis ad probandum accommodatis uti possit in causis forensibus atque communibus: hunc ego appello oratorem eumque esse præterea instructum voce et actione et lepore quodam volo._

[25] lxi. 260.

[26] xxiv-lxxi.

[27] lxxii-lxxxv.

[28] lxxxvi-lxxxviii.

[29] xx. 84.

[30] _Animus acer et præsens et acutus idem atque versutus invictos viros efficit._

[31] xxi. 88.

[32] xxii.

[33] Tacitus (_Dial._ 34) says that the older method (of Cicero’s time), supplanted in his own time by the schools of the _declamatores_, was apprenticeship.

[34] xxiv. 99.

[35] xxiv. 101.

[36] 102.

[37] 103.

[38] xxiv-xxvi, 104-110. For the more detailed presentation of Quintilian see Chapter iv, page 74.

[39] xxv. 108.

[40] xxvii. 114.

[41] Hendrickson (Amer. Journ. Philol. xxvi. 260) finds this threefold division first here. The usual terms are _docere_, _conciliare_, _movere_.

[42] xxvii. 117.

[43] xxx. 132.

[44] xxxi. 133.

[45] xxxviii. 157.

[46] xxxix. cf. above, xxvii. 117.

[47] xlii-lxxi.

[48] xlii. 178.

[49] xliii. 182.

[50] xlv. 190.

[51] xlvi. 191.

[52] xlix-liii. 213.

[53] liii. 214.

[54] liv-lxxi.

[55] lxxii-lxxxv.

[56] lxxvi.

[57] lxxvii.

[58] lxxviii.

[59] lxxix.

[60] lxxx.

[61] lxxxii-lxxxv.

[62] lxxxvi-lxxxviii.

[63] lxxxviii. 359. _verborum memoria, quæ minus est nobis necessaria ... rerum memoria propria est oratoris._

[64] xv-xxxvi.

[65] xxxviii-xlii.

[66] xliii-liv.

[67] lvi-lxi.

[68] x. 37.

[69] 39.

[70] xii. 44.

[71] _sapientiam._ xv. 56.

[72] 57.

[73] xvi. 61.

[74] xvii-xxiii.

[75] xxiv-xxvii.

[76] xxviii-xxxv.

[77] xiv. 53.

[78] xxxii. 126.

[79] Sandys notes that the avowed object is “criticism, and not direct instruction.” This, however, is part of Cicero’s literary method and of his habit of scorning the manuals. As to his main topic, _elocutio_, he writes _doctrina_ as definite as that of _De oratore_ on the other parts; and though his headings are not all conventional, his outline and order are thoroughly systematic.

[80] 37, seq.

[81] 40, _verba iunxisse_; cf. 77, _vinculis numerorum_; 208.

[82] 44, seq.

[83] 50, seq.

[84] 61-236.

[85] 20-23.

[86] See the articles by Hendrickson cited in the first foot-note to this chapter.

[87] 69.

[88] 100.

[89] One could wish that Cicero had been content with his twofold division in _Brutus_, xxiii. 89: _cum duæ summæ sint in oratore laudes, una subtiliter disputandi ad docendum, altera graviter agendi ad animos audientium permovendos_.

[90] The digest of the whole _Orator_ at pages lxxiv-lxxvi of the edition of Sandys need be neither repeated nor revised. Assuming this, I have added here certain significant rhetorical details, translation of some important passages, and the connection of the topics.

[91] See above.

[92] _Mensionem_, 177. The word in a similar passage at 67 is _mensura_.

[93] Because, says Sandys, their style is unperiodic, and there can hardly be rhythm without periods. He cites the famous passage from Aristotle discussed above at page 27, and notes Quintilian’s demur as to Herodotus. This is a fair inference from Cicero’s context; and, indeed, the ancients generally considered prose rhythm as oratorical rhythm. The narrative rhythms of imaginative prose were naturally not much discussed separately in a time when prose fiction was undeveloped. The nearest approach to these in oratory was in panegyric. But Dionysius with more discernment praises the _compositio_ of Herodotus. (See below, Chapter v.)

[94] The translation is closer to that of Colin than to that of Sandys. The point—and if it is obvious, it is often forgotten—seems to be that variety in prose depends on rhythm.

[95] _concinnitas_ (201). Cicero does not say explicitly what I have summarized in the last sentence above; but I think he implies it. He does not hint what Stevenson brings out in _Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature_, that subconscious rhythmical predilection may be a cause, or a determining factor, in adaptation.

[96] Dionysius of Halicarnassus exhibits this specifically with telling effect in the first part of _De compositione verborum_. See below, Chapter v.

[97] For scientific analysis, with a succinct review of previous investigations, see W. M. Patterson, _The Rhythm of Prose_, New York, Columbia University Press, 1916. For the _clausula_ in particular see the summary of Zielinski in Sandys, _Companion to Latin Studies_, 655; Quintilian below, page 79; and M. W. Croll, _The cadence of English oratorical prose_. Studies in Philology, 16:1, University of North Carolina, January, 1919.

[98] That the classical rhetoric has so little to say of narrative rhythms is due not so much to the limited scope of ancient narrative as to the fact that these rhythms are considered properly in poetic. See page 30.

Chapter IV

The Teaching Of Rhetoric

The pedagogy of rhetoric, more constant and more pervasive than that of most subjects still taught, demands historical interpretation, and thus extensive and consecutive survey.[1] Summary of its history has conveyed little of its vitality; but analysis of two cardinal documents will show, first, what the constant tradition of teaching was typically throughout the great classical centuries, and secondly what the teaching of rhetoric was destined to become, with almost equal constancy and pervasiveness, during the centuries of decadence. For each of these traditions there is fortunately, besides much other testimony, a typical text. Quintilian, writing long after rhetoric had ceased to function as an instrument of assembly government, nevertheless comprehends its best older tradition and the whole scope of its classical development in a great work of pedagogy, _De institutione oratoria_ (about 95 A.D.). Seneca the Elder, who died about the time of Quintilian’s birth, had already recorded from memory and notes in his _Controversiæ_ that particular application of the ancient schooling which in the generation before Quintilian was already infecting the old rhetoric, and through which the teaching of both Greek and Roman schools was to be dwarfed and perverted. Quintilian, though writing later than Seneca, preserves ancient rhetoric as a ripe whole; Seneca, though earlier, isolates the germ of its decay.

I. Quintilian On The Teaching Of Rhetoric (_De Institutione Oratoria_)[2]

A. Tabular View[3]

1. preliminary studies (προγυμνάσματα, I-II. x)

a. earliest lessons in speech I. i-iii b. studies with _grammaticus_ (_ante officium rhetoris_) (1) in diction as usage iv-vii (2) ” ” ” style viii (a) lectures on poetry (_prælectio_), with reading aloud (_lectio_) (3) in composition ix (a) retelling of fables (b) paraphrase of poetry (c) formal amplification of maxims (_chria_, χρεία) (4) in contributory subjects (music, geometry, astronomy) x (5) in enunciation (lessons from an actor) xi c. studies with _rhetor_ (_prima apud rhetorem elementa_) (1) learning from his example II. i-iii (2) exercises in composition iv (a) rehearsal of events (x) summary of the plot of a tragedy or comedy (_fabula_, _argumentum_) (y) summary of historical events (_historia_) (b) elementary analysis of statements of fact (x) analysis of legends (y) analysis of history (c) elementary panegyric (_laudatio_) and parallel (_comparatio_) (d) amplification of typical propositions (_loci communes_, _theses_) (3) _rhetor’s_ analysis of models (_prælectio_) v (4) speeches from assigned outline (_præformata materia_) vi, vii [(5) advice to teachers on correction and promotion] viii, ix (6) speeches on hypothetical cases (_declamatio_) x (a) deliberative (_suasoriæ_) (b) forensic (_controversiæ_)

2. definition of rhetoric (II. xi-III. v)

a. function and scope xi-xxi b. origin and earlier development III. i, ii c. the five parts of rhetoric iii (1) investigation (_inventio_, εὕρεσις, discussed III. vi-VI. v) (2) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις, discussed in VII) (3) style (_elocutio_, λέξις, discussed in VIII, IX) (4) memory (_memoria_, μνήμη, discussed in XI. ii) (5) delivery (_pronuntiatio_, _actio_, ὑπόκρισις, discussed in XI. iii) d. the three fields of oratory iv (1) occasional, panegyric (_demonstrativum_, ἐπιδεικτικόν; see chapter vii) (2) deliberative (_deliberativum_, συμβουλευτικόν; see chapter viii) (3) forensic (_iudiciale_, δικανικόν; see chapters ix-xi) e. the three aims of oratory v (1) to inform (_docere_) (2) to win sympathy (_conciliare_, _delectare_) (3) to move (_movere_)

3. investigation and handling of material (_inventio_, εὕρεσις, III. vi-VI. v; _dispositio_, τάξις, VII)

a. the nature of the case (_status_, στάσις) (1) in law (_status legalis_) (2) in reason (_status rationalis_) as having for its main issue (a) fact (_an sit_, _status coniecturalis_, _coniectura_, στοχασμός) (b) definition (_quid sit_, _status definitivus_, _finis_, ὅρος) (c) morals or policy (_quale sit_, _status generalis_, _qualitas_, ποιότης) b. the parts of pleading (IV. i-VII) (1) components (a) exordium (προοίμιον) IV. i (b) statement of facts (_narratio_, διήγησις) ii (c) excursus, proposition, division iii-v (d) proof (_confirmatio_, ἀπόδειξις; as including appeal, πίστις) (x) evidence V. i-vii (y) argument viii-xi (z) order xii (e) refutation (_refutatio_, λύσις) xiii (x) destructive enthymeme (f) peroration (_peroratio_, ἐπίλογος) xiv (2) pervasive elements VI. i (a) appeal (x) imaginative ii (y) humorous iii (b) debate (_altercatio_) iv (c) judgment (_iudicium_, _consilium_) v (3) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις) VII

4. style (_elocutio_, λέξις, VIII, IX)

a. choice of words (_electio_, ἐκλογή, including figures) VIII. i-IX. iii b. sentence-movement (_compositio_, σύνθεσις) IX. iv

5. training for facility (_firma facilitas_, X, XI)

a. reading to foster speaking X. i b. imitation ii c. writing for practise iii d. revision iv e. translation and other exercises v f. preparing the speech vi g. speaking the speech vii (1) adaptation XI. i (2) memory ii (3) delivery iii

6. the orator himself

a. moral force and philosophy XII. i, ii b. knowledge of law and history iii, iv c. physique v, vi d. dealings with clients vii-ix e. styles of oratory x f. when to leave the platform xi

B. The Terms

Quintilian’s survey is in the traditional terms of classical rhetoric. These demand the more attention because translation has often missed the specific meanings attached to recognized technical terms. “Institutes of Oratory,” never precisely rendering his title, is now almost meaningless. _Institutio Oratoria_ means The Teaching of Rhetoric and announces not so much a manual for students as a survey for teachers. Of the pedagogical terms, _grammatica_ and _grammaticus_ may still be rendered “grammar” and “grammarian” only if they are understood to have wider scope. _Prælectio_ (I. viii) describes the habitual introductory exposition of a passage of poetry by _grammaticus_, or less commonly of a passage of oratory by _rhetor_ (II. v). _Materia_, meaning generally “material,” means often technically (II. vi. vii) a prescribed outline, as French _matière_ still does in pedagogical use. _Declamatio_ (II. x) was quite different from “declamation.” It was speaking, usually extempore, on an assigned hypothetical case, and grew, as will appear below, from an exercise for boys to an exhibition of virtuosity by men.

Of the five traditional parts of rhetoric (III. iii), the first, _inventio_, does not mean “invention”; it means, in Aristotelian language, the discovery of all the extrinsic means of persuasion, or more simply, survey of the material and forecast. _Dispositio_ (_collocatio_) refers not to the arrangement of details, but to the plan of the whole. _Elocutio_ means “elocution” in the sense borne by that word before the nineteenth century. It is sufficiently rendered by “style” and is always conceived in two aspects: (1) _electio_, the choice of words, including “figures of speech”; and (2) _compositio_, the arrangement of words in clauses and sentences, including rhythm and harmony—in a word, sentence-movement. _Compositio_ does not mean, though it is often translated, “composition” in the wide sense now current. For the latter the term is _dispositio_. _Memoria_ ranges far beyond memorizing. It embraces the speaker’s whole command of his material in the order of his constructive plan and in relation to rebuttal, and was most stressed for speeches unwritten. _Pronuntiatio_ and _actio_ cover the whole field of delivery, including all that is now often called “elocution,” from the placing of the voice to the handling of the body.

In detail, _status_ (III. vi), meaning generally and simply “status,” refers technically to a classifying system for determining “the nature of the case” (see 3. a, in the tabular view above). Of its three divisions, _coniectura_, having nothing to do with “conjecture,” denotes a main issue of fact; _finis_, a main issue of definition; _qualitas_, a more general issue of morals or policy. _Narratio_ (IV. ii) means never “narration” in the sense assigned by recent text-books, always either “statement of the facts” or, more generally, “exposition.” These and other technical terms have been guarded, in the tabular view above and in the interpretations below, by adding the Latin originals.

C. Typical Doctrine

(1) _Elementary Exercises_

The tradition of _grammatica_ as having the twofold function of forming right speech and of expounding poetry[4] continued for centuries.[5] Traditional also are the first exercises in composition.[6] A chapter (x) on the concurrence of other studies toward a rounded education,[7] and one on elocution (xi), close a preliminary pedagogy so suggestive as to be still studied to-day.

(2) _Declamatio_

The counsels to _rhetor_ (II) imply a warm atmosphere of promotion and a general habit of collaboration.

“The teacher himself should speak something—nay, many things a day—for auditory memory. Though reading aloud may supply a plenty of examples to imitate, nevertheless the living voice gives ampler nourishment, especially the voice of the teacher, whom the pupils, if they be rightly taught, at once love and respect.... Thus while mastery comes through writing, critical faculty will come through hearing.” II. ii.

The teacher should frankly and fully show how. His criticism should beware of setting up inhibitions. To be promotive, he should find something to praise, and, besides explaining why he would have this out or that changed, should illuminate by interposing something of his own. Sometimes it will be helpful to give whole treatments which the boy may imitate without losing faith in his own (II. iv). In short, the teacher’s _declamatio_ should be a model for his students (II. v).

“In this teachers have shown a divergence of method. Some of them would develop orally the outlines that they gave their pupils to speak from, not content to guide by the [assigned] division. Not only would they amplify argumentatively, but also emotionally. Others, giving only a sketch, would after the pupils’ speeches treat what each one had scanted. Some topics, indeed, they would elaborate with no less care than when they themselves were the orators. Either method is useful; neither, I think, should be separated from the other; but, if there must be a choice between the two, it will more avail to have shown the right way in advance than to recall from their error those who have already fallen.” II. vi. 1-2.

The same promotive guidance appears in the assigning of outlines (_materiæ_), less and less ample as the pupils advance, for written composition (II. vi). This writing was generally for practise, not for casting a particular speech in form to be memorized. Sometimes, says Quintilian, the boys may recite what they have written out; but generally learning by heart is better spent on the orators and historians than on their own work (vii).

The _declamatio_ recommended by Quintilian is speaking from outline on hypothetical cases. The more elementary assignments, for deliberative speeches, were called _suasoriæ_; the more advanced, for forensic speeches, _controversiæ_. Both he treats only as school exercises. Within these limits he recommends _declamatio_ as an important pedagogical discovery.

“So soon as [the youth] is well taught and sufficiently exercised in these first tasks, themselves not small, but as it were members and parts of greater ones, let the time demand the essaying of deliberative speaking and forensic on assigned outlines. Before I go into the method of these, I must tell briefly what _declamatio_ has as its idea, which is at once the most rece