Orator
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~32,200 words · 153 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). Orator. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/orator
- MLACicero. Orator. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/orator.
- ChicagoCicero. Orator. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/orator.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The Latin original of the 'Orator', of 46 BC: the portrait of the perfect orator, who Cicero admits has never existed.
Context and history
Brutus had asked him which style is best, and Cicero answers by drawing an ideal: the complete orator is the one who commands all three styles — the plain to prove, the middle to please, the grand to move — and knows when each is called for. This is a theory and a self-defence at once: the young Atticists accused Cicero of inflation, and the book is his answer — that austerity is not the only virtue, and that a man who can only speak low is not pure but incomplete. The final part, on the rhythm of prose, is the most detailed discussion antiquity has left us of how a sentence sounds. With the 'Brutus' of the same year it forms a diptych, and in the Renaissance it was a bedside book: the quarrel over Ciceronianism is in good part a quarrel over this text.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Videmus enim fuisse quosdam qui idem ornate et graviter, idem versute et subtiliter dicerent. Atque utinam in Latinis talis oratoris simulacrum reperire possemus! Esset egregium non quaerere externa, domesticis esse contentos. Sed ego idem, qui in illo sermone nostro qui est eitus in Bruto multum tribuerim Latinis, vel ut hortarer alios vel quod amarem meos, recordor longe omnibus unum me anteferre Demosthenem, quem velim accommodare ad eam quam sentiam eloquentiam, non ad eam quam in aliquo ipse cognoverim. Hoc nec gravior exstitit quisquam nec callidior nec temperatior. Itaque nobis monendi sunt ei quorum sermo imperitus increbruit, qui aut dici se desiderant Atticos aut ipsi Attice volunt dicere, ut mirentur hunc maxime, quo ne Athenas quidem ipsas magis credo fuisse Atticas; quid enim sit Atticum discant eloquentiamque ipsius viribus, non imbecillitate sua metiantur. Nunc enim tantum quisque laudat quantum se posse sperat imitari. Sed tamen eos studio optimo iudicio minus firmo praeditos docere quae sit propria laus Atticorum non alienum puto. VIII. Semper oratorum eloquentiae moderatrix fuit auditorum prudentia. Omnes enim qui probari volunt voluntatem eorum qui audiunt intuentur ad eamque et ad eorum arbitrium et nutum totos se fingunt et accommodant. Itaque Caria et Phrygia et Mysia, quod minime politae minimeque elegantes sunt, asciverunt aptum suis auribus opimum quoddam et tamquam adipatae dictionis genus, quod eorum vicini non ita lato interiecto mari Rhodii numquam probaverunt [Graecia autem multo minus], Athenienses vero funditus repudiaverunt; quorum semper fuit prudens sincerumque iudicium, nihil ut possent nisi incorruptum audire et elegans. Eorum religioni cum serviret orator, nullum verbum insolens, nullum odiosum ponere audebat.…