[h] Appius Claudius was censor in the year of Rome 442; dictator, 465; and, having at a very advanced age lost his sight, he became better known by the name of Appius Caecus.  Afterwards, A.U. 472, when Pyrrhus, by his ambassador, offered terms of peace, and a treaty of alliance, Appius, whom blindness, and the infirmities of age, had for some time withheld from public business, desired to be conveyed in a litter to the senate-house.  Being conducted to his place, he delivered his sentiments in so forcible a manner, that the fathers resolved to prosecute the war, and never to hear of an accommodation, till Italy was evacuated by Pyrrhus and his army.  See Livy, b. xiii. s. 31.  Cicero relates the same fact in his CATO MAJOR, and further adds, that the speech made by APPIUS CAECUS was then extant.  Ovid mentions the temple of Bellona, built and dedicated by Appius, who, when blind, saw every thing by the light of his understanding, and rejected all terms of accommodation with Pyrrhus.

Hac sacrata die Tusco Bellona duello
Dicitur, et Latio prospera semper adest. 
Appius est auctor, Pyrrho qui pace negata
Multum animo vidit, lumine caecus erat. 
FASTORUM lib vi. ver. 201.

[i] Quintilian acknowledges this fact, with his usual candour.  The question concerning Attic and Asiatic eloquence was of long standing.  The style of the former was close, pure, and elegant; the latter was said to be diffuse and ostentatious.  In the ATTIC, nothing was idle, nothing redundant:  the ASIATIC swelled above all bounds, affecting to dazzle by strokes of wit, by affectation and superfluous ornament.  Cicero was said by his enemies to be an orator of the last school.  They did not scruple to pronounce him turgid, copious to a fault, often redundant, and too fond of repetition.  His wit, they said, was the false glitter of vain conceit, frigid, and out of season; his composition was cold and languid; wire-drawn into amplification, and fuller of meretricious finery than became a man. Et antiqua quidem illa divisio inter Asianos et Atticos fuit; cum hi pressi, et integri, contra, inflati illi et inanes haberentur; et in his nihil superflueret, illis judicium maxime ac modus deesset.  Ciceronem tamen et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant ut tumidiorem, et Asianum, et redundantem, et in repetitionibus nimium, et in salibus aliquando frigidum, et in compositione fractum, exultantem, ac pene (quod procul absit) viro molliorem. Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 10.  The same author adds, that, when the great orator was cut off by Marc Antony’s proscription, and could no longer answer for himself, the men who either personally hated him, or envied his genius, or chose to pay their court to the, triumvirate, poured forth their malignity without reserve.  It is unnecessary to observe, that Quintilian, in sundry parts of his work, has vindicated Cicero from these aspersions.  See s. xvii. note [b].