Section XIV.

[a] Vipstanius Messala commanded a legion, and, at the head of it, went over to Vespasian’s party in the contention with Vitellius.  He was a man of illustrious birth, and equal merit; the only one, says Tacitus, who entered into that war from motives of virtue. Legioni Vipstanius Messala praeerat, claris majoribus, egregius ipse, et qui solus ad id bellum artes bonas attulisset. Hist. lib. iii. s. 9.  He was brother to Regulus, the vile informer, who has been mentioned.  See Life of Agricola, section 2. note a, and this tract, s. xii. note [b].  Messala, we are told by Tacitus, before he had attained the senatorian age, acquired great fame by pleading the cause of his profligate brother with extraordinary eloquence, and family affection. Magnam eo die pietatis eloquentiaeque famam Vipstanius Messala adeptus est; nondum senatoria aetate, ausus pro fratre Aquilio Regulo deprecari. Hist. lib. iv. s. 42.  Since Messala has now joined the company, the Dialogue takes a new turn, and, by an easy and natural transition, slides into the question concerning the causes of the decline of eloquence.

[b] This is probably the same Asiaticus, who, in the revolt of the provinces of Gaul, fought on the side of VINDEX.  See Hist. b. ii. s. 94.  Biography was, in that evil period, a tribute paid by the friends of departed merit, and the only kind of writing, in which men could dare faintly to utter a sentiment in favour of virtue and public liberty.

[c] In the declamations of Seneca and Quintilian, we have abundant examples of these scholastic exercises, which Juvenal has placed in a ridiculous light.

Et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus, et nos
Consilium dedimus Syllae, privatus ut altum
Dormiret. 

                                                      Sat. i. ver. 15.

Provok’d by these incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown. 

          
                                              DRYDEN’S JUVENAL.

Section XV.

[a] The eloquence of Cicero, and the eminent orators of that age, was preferred by all men of sound judgement to the unnatural and affected style that prevailed under the emperors.  Quintilian gives a decided opinion.  Cicero, he says, was allowed to be the reigning orator of his time, and his name, with posterity, is not so much that of a man, as of eloquence itself. Quare non immerito ab hominibus aetatis suae, regnare in judiciis dictus est:  apud posteros vero id consecutus, ut Cicero jam non hominis, sed eloquentiae nomen habeatur. Lib. x. cap. 1.  Pliny the younger professed that Cicero was the orator with whom he aspired to enter into competition.  Not content with the eloquence of his own times, he held it absurd not to follow the best examples of a former age. Est enim mihi cum Cicerone aemulatio, nec sum contentus eloquentia saeculi nostri.  Nam stultissimum credo, ad imitandum non optima quaeque praeponere. Lib. i. epist. 5.