agreeable; but this most copious speaker, if he is nothing else, appears scarcely in his senses.  For a man who can say nothing with calmness, nothing with gentleness; who seems ignorant of all arrangement and definition and distinctness, and regardless of wit, especially when some of his causes require to be treated in that matter entirely, and others in a great degree; if he does not prepare the ears of his hearers before he begins to work up the case in an inflammatory style, he seems like a madman among people in their senses, or like a drunken man among sober men.

XXIX.  We have then now, O Brutus, the orator whom we are looking for; but only in our mind’s eye.  For if I had had hold of him in my hand, even he himself, with all his eloquence, should never have persuaded me to let him go.  But, in truth, that eloquent man whom Antonius never saw is now discovered.  Who then is he?  I will define him in a few words, and then describe him at length.  For he is an eloquent man who can speak of low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.

Such a man you will say there never was.  Perhaps there never was; for I am only discussing what I wish to see, and not what I have seen.  And I come back to that sketch and idea of Plato’s which I mentioned before; and although we do not see it, yet we can comprehend it in our mind.  For I am not looking for an eloquent man, or for any other mortal or transitory thing; but for that particular quality which whoever is master of is an eloquent man; and that is nothing but abstract eloquence, which we are not able to discern with any eyes except those of the mind.  He then will be an eloquent man, (to repeat my former definition,) who can speak of small things in a lowly manner, of moderate things in a temperate manner, and of great things with dignity.  The whole of the cause in which I spoke for Caecina related to the language or an interdict:  we explained some very involved matters by definitions; we praised the civil law; we distinguished between words of doubtful meaning.  In a discussion on the Manilian law it was requisite to praise Pompey; and accordingly, in a temperate speech, we arrived at a copiousness of ornament.  The whole question, of the rights of the people was contained in the cause of Rabinius; and accordingly we indulged in every conceivable amplification.  But these styles require at times to be regulated and restrained.  What kind of argument is there which is not found in my five books of impeachment of Verres? or in my speech for Avitus? or in that for Cornelius? or in the other numerous speeches in defence of different men?  I would give instances, if I did not believe them to be well known, and that those who wanted them could select them for themselves; for there is no effort of an orator of any kind, of which there is not in our speeches, if not a perfect example, at least some attempt at and sketch of.  If we cannot arrive at perfection, at all events we see what is becoming.