During all this formality, what kind of an audience has the orator to invigorate his faculties?  Two or three stragglers drop in by chance, and to them the whole business seems to be transacted in solitude.  But the orator requires a different scene.  He delights in clamour, tumult, and bursts of applause.  Eloquence must have her theatre, as was the case in ancient times, when the forum was crowded with the first men in Rome; when a numerous train of clients pressed forward with eager expectation; when the people, in their several tribes; when ambassadors from the colonies, and a great part of Italy; attended to hear the debate; in short, when all Rome was interested in the event.  We know that in the cases of Cornelius, Scaurus, Milo, Bestia, and Vatinius, the concourse was so great, that those several causes were tried before the whole body of the people.  A scene so vast and magnificent was enough to inflame the most languid orator.  The speeches delivered upon those occasions are in every body’s hands, and, by their intrinsic excellence, we of this day estimate the genius of the respective authors.

XL.  If we now consider the frequent assemblies of the people, and the right of prosecuting the most eminent men in the state; if we reflect on the glory that sprung from the declared hostility of the most illustrious characters; if we recollect, that even Scipio, Sylla, and Pompey, were not sheltered from the storms of eloquence, what a number of causes shall we see conspiring to rouse the spirit of the ancient forum!  The malignity of the human heart, always adverse to superior characters, encouraged the orator to persist.  The very players, by sarcastic allusions to men in power, gratified the public ear, and, by consequence, sharpened the wit and acrimony of the bold declaimer.

Need I observe to you, that in all I have said, I have not been speaking of that temperate faculty [a] which delights in quiet times, supported by its own integrity, and the virtues of moderation?  I speak of popular eloquence, the genuine offspring of that licentiousness, to which fools and ill-designing men have given the name of liberty:  I speak of bold and turbulent oratory, that inflamer of the people, and constant companion of sedition; that fierce incendiary, that knows no compliance, and scorns to temporize; busy, rash, and arrogant, but, in quiet and well regulated governments, utterly unknown.  Who ever heard of an orator at Crete or Lacedaemon?  In those states a system of rigorous discipline was established by the first principles of the constitution.  Macedonian and Persian eloquence are equally unknown.  The same may be said of every country, where the plan of government was fixed and uniform.