This faculty, then, will exist in the eloquent man whom we are endeavouring to describe, so that he shall be able to define a thing; and shall do it in the same close and narrow terms which are commonly employed in those very learned discussions; but he shall be more explanatory and more copious, and he shall adopt his definition more to the ordinary judgment and usual intelligence of mankind.  And again, when circumstances require it, he shall divide and arrange the whole genus into certain species, so that none shall be omitted and none be superfluous.  But when he shall do this, or how, is nothing to the present question; since, as I have said before, I am here only expressing an opinion, not giving a lesson.

Nor, indeed, must he be learned only in dialectics, but he must have all the topics of philosophy familiar to him and at his fingers’ ends.  For nothing respecting religion, or death, or affection, or love for one’s country, or good fortune, or bad fortune, or virtues, or vices, or duty, or pain, or pleasure, or the different motions of the mind, or mistakes, all which topics frequently occur in causes, but are treated usually in a very meagre manner, can be discussed and explained in a dignified and lofty and copious manner without that knowledge which I have mentioned.

XXXIV.  I am speaking at present concerning the subject matter of a speech, not about the kind of speaking requisite.  For I would rather that an orator should first have a subject to speak of worthy of learned ears, before he considers in what words or in what manner he is to speak of everything; and, in order to make him grander, and in some sense loftier (as I have said above about Pericles,) I should wish him not to be utterly ignorant of physical science; and then, when he descends again from heavenly matters to human affairs, he will have all his words and sentiments of a more sublime and magnificent character:  and while he is acquainted with those divine laws, I do not wish him to be ignorant of those of men.  He must be a master of civil law, which forensic debates are in daily need of.  For what is more shameful than for a man to undertake the conduct of legal and civil disputes, while ignorant of the statutes and of civil law?  He must be acquainted also with the history of past ages and the chronology of old time, especially, indeed, as far as our own state is concerned; but also he must know the history of despotic governments and of illustrious monarchs; and that toil is made easier for us by the labours of our friend Atticus, who has preserved and made known the history of former times in such a way as to pass over nothing worth knowing, and yet to comprise the annals of seven hundred years in one book.  For not to know what happened before one was born, is to be a boy all one’s life.  For what is the life of a man unless by a recollection of bygone transactions it is united to the times of his predecessors?  But the mention of antiquity and the citation of examples give authority and credit to a speech, combined with the greatest pleasure to the hearers.