A History of Roman Classical Literature

Note 811 — Chapter X · CICERO NO HISTORIAN—HIS ORATORICAL STYLE DEFENDED—ITS PRINCIPAL CHARM—OBSERVATIONS ON HIS FORENSIC ORATION—HIS ORATORY ESSENTIALLY JUDICIAL—POLITICAL ORATIONS—RHETORICAL TREATISES—THE OBJECT OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS—CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE—PHILOSOPHY OF CICERO—HIS POLITICAL WORKS—LETTERS—HIS CORRESPONDENTS—VARRO.

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Poverty and barrenness were most probably instrumental in producing the diffuseness and exuberance of the Asiatic and Rhodian schools. Their literature and philosophy were deficient in matter, and they sought to hide this defect by the external ornaments of language. For a long time Athens, strong in her pure classic taste, successfully resisted this influence; and in the time of Cicero the tastes of the two schools were in direct opposition. But the flowers of rhetoric are captivating: another generation saw the supremacy of rhetoric at Rome; and the days of Petronius Arbiter (Satyr. book ii.) witnessed the migration of Asiatic taste to Athens.

Return to CHAPTER X. CICERO NO HISTORIAN—HIS ORATORICAL STYLE DEFENDED—ITS PRINCIPAL CHARM—OBSERVATIONS ON HIS FORENSIC ORATION—HIS ORATORY ESSENTIALLY JUDICIAL—POLITICAL ORATIONS—RHETORICAL TREATISES—THE OBJECT OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS—CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE—PHILOSOPHY OF CICERO—HIS POLITICAL WORKS—LETTERS—HIS CORRESPONDENTS—VARRO.