Section XIX.

[a] Cassius Severus lived in the latter end of the reign of Augustus, and through a considerable part of that of Tiberius.  He was an orator, according to Quintilian, who, if read with due caution, might serve as a model worthy of imitation.  It is to be regretted, that to the many excellent qualities of his style he did not add more weight, more strength and dignity, and thereby give colour and a body to his sentiments.  With those requisites, he would have ranked with the most eminent orators.  To his excellent genius he united keen reflection, great energy, and a peculiar urbanity, which gave a secret charm to his speeches.  But the warmth of his temper hurried him on; he listened more to his passions than to his judgement; he possessed a vein of wit, but he mingled with it too much acrimony; and wit, when it misses its aim, feels the mortification and the ridicule which usually attend disappointed malice. Multa, si cum judicio legatur, dabit imitatione digna CASSIUS SEVERUS, qui, si caeteris virtutibus colorem et gravitatem orationis adjecisset, ponendus inter praecipuos foret, Nam et ingenii plurimum est in eo, et acerbitas mira, et urbanitas, et vis summa; sed plus stomacho quam consilio dedit; praeterea ut amari sales, ita frequenter amaritudo ipsa ridicula est. Lib. x. cap. 1.  We read in Suetonius (Life of Octavius, s. 56), that Cassius had the hardiness to institute a prosecution for the crime of poisoning against Asprenas Nonius, who was, at the time, linked in the closest friendship with Augustus.  Not content with accusations against the first men in Rome, he chose to vent his malevolence in lampoons and defamatory libels, against the most distinguished of both sexes.  It was this that provoked Horace to declare war against Cassius, in an ode (lib, v. ode 6), which begins, Quid immerentes hospites vexas, canis.  See an account of his malevolent spirit, Annals, b, i. s. 72.  He was at length condemned for his indiscriminate abuse, and banished by Augustus to the isle of Crete.  But his satirical rage was not to be controlled.  He continued in exile to discharge his malignity, till, at last, at the end of ten years, the senate took cognizance of his guilt, and Tiberius ordered him to be removed from Crete to the Rock of Seriphos, where he languished in old age and misery.  See Annals, b. iv. s. 21.  The period of ancient oratory ended about the time when Cassius began his career.  He was the first of the new school.

[b] These two rhetoricians flourished in the time of Augustus.  Apollodorus, we are told by Quintilian (b. iii. chap. 1), was the preceptor of Augustus.  He taught in opposition to Theodorus Gadareus, who read lectures at Rhodes, and was attended by Tiberius during his retreat in that island.  The two contending masters were the founders of opposite sects, called the Apollodorean and Theodorian.  But true eloquence, which knows no laws but those of nature and good sense, gained nothing by party divisions.  Literature was distracted by new doctrines; rhetoric became a trick in the hands of sophists, and all sound oratory disappeared.  Hermagoras, Quintilian says, in the chapter already cited, was the disciple of Theodorus.