Note 23 — Chapter V · THE PROSE OF THE ROMAN STATESMEN

Cicero in his Brutus mentions fifteen speakers of the Catonian period, some twenty as being important between Cato and Tiberius Gracchus, about thirty who belonged distinctly to the period of the Gracchan reforms, and twenty more who gained distinction before the end of the second century; that is, some eighty-five whose contributions were worthy of mention before the fashion set in of studying rhetoric in Greece.