from them.  Otherwise how will he be able to stop and make his stand on those arguments which are good and suited to his purpose? or how to soften what is harsh, and to conceal what cannot be denied, and, if it be possible, entirely to get rid of all such topics? or how will he be able to lead men’s minds away from the objects on which they are fixed, or to adduce any other argument which, when opposed to that of his adversaries, may be more probable than that which is brought against him?

And with what diligence will he marshal the arguments with which he has provided himself? since that is the second of his three objects.  He will make all the vestibule, if I may so say, and the approach to his cause brilliant; and when he has got possession of the minds of his hearers by his first onset, he will then invalidate and exclude all contrary arguments; and of his own strongest arguments some he will place in the van, some he will employ to bring up the rear, and the weaker ones he will place in the centre.

And thus we have described in a brief and summary manner what this perfect orator should be like in the two first parts of speaking.  But, as has been said before, in these parts, (although they are weighty and important,) there is less skill and labour than in the others.

XVI.  But when he has found out what to say, and in what place he is to say it, then comes that which is by far the most important division of the three, the consideration of the manner in which he is to say it.  For that is a well-known saying which our friend Carneades used to repeat:—­“That Clitomachus said the same things, but that Charmadas said the same things in the same manner.”  But if it is of so much consequence in philosophy even, how you say a thing, when it is the matter which is looked at there rather than the language, what can we think must be the case in causes in which the elocution is all in all?  And I, O Brutus, knew from your letters that you do not ask what sort of artist I think a consummate orator ought to be, as far as devising and arranging his arguments; but you appeared to me to be asking rather what kind of eloquence I considered the best.  A very difficult matter, and, indeed, by the immortal gods! the most difficult of all matters.  For as language is a thing soft and tender, and so flexible that it follows wherever you turn it, so also the various natures and inclinations of men have given rise to very different kinds of speaking.

Some men love a stream of words and great volubility, placing all eloquence in rapidity of speech.  Others are fond of distinct and broadly marked intervals, and delays, and taking of breath.  What can be more different?  Yet in each kind there is something excellent.  Some labour to attain a gentle and equable style, and a pure and transparent kind of eloquence; others aim at a certain harshness and severity in their language, a sort of melancholy in their speech:  and as we have just before divided men, so that some wish to appear weighty, some light, some moderate, so there are as many different kinds of orators as we have already said that there are styles of oratory.