VIII.  The prudence of the hearers has always been the regulator of the eloquence of the orators.  For all men who wish to be approved of, regard the inclination of those men who are their hearers, and form and adapt themselves entirely which of the Greek rhetoricians ever drew any of his rules from Thucydides?  Oh, but he is praised universally.  I admit that, but it is on the ground that he is a wise, conscientious, dignified relater of facts, not that he was pleading causes before tribunals, but that he was relating wars in a history.  Therefore, he was never accounted an orator; nor, indeed, should we have ever heard of his name if he had not written a history, though he was a man of eminently high character and of noble birth.  But no one ever imitates the dignity of his language or of his sentiments, but when they have used some disjointed and unconnected expressions, which they might have done without any teacher at all, then they think that they are akin to Thucydides.  I have met men too who were anxious to resemble Xenophon, whose style is, indeed, sweeter than honey, but as unlike as possible to the noisy style of the forum.

X Let us then return to the subject of laying a foundation for the orator whom we desire to see, and of furnishing him with that eloquence which Antonius had never found in any one.  We are, O Brutus, undertaking a great and arduous task, but I think nothing difficult to a man who is in love.  But I am and always have been in love with your genius, and your pursuits, and your habits.  Moreover, I am every day more and more inflamed not only with regret,—­though I am worn away with that while I am wishing to enjoy again our meetings and our daily association, and your learned discourse,—­but also with the admirable reputation of your incredible virtues, which, though different in their kind, are united by your prudence.  For what is so different or remote from severity as courtesy?  And yet who has ever been considered either more conscientious or more agreeable than you?  And what is so difficult as, while deciding disputes between many people, to be beloved by all of them?  Yet you attain this end, of dismissing in a contented and pacified frame of mind the very parties against whom you decide.  Therefore, while doing nothing from motives of interest you still contrive that all that you do should be acceptable.  And therefore, of all the countries on earth, Gaul[59] is now the only one which is not affected by the general conflagration, while you yourself enjoy your own virtues in peace, knowing that your conduct is appreciated in this bright Italy, and surrounded as you are by the flower and strength of the citizens.