§12.2.1quando igitur orator est vir bonus, is autem citra virtutem intelligi non potest, virtus, etiamsi quosdam impetus ex natura sumit, tamen perficienda doctrina est: mores ante omnia oratori studiis erunt excolendi atque omnis honesti iustique disciplina pertractanda, sine qua nemo nec vir bonus esse nec dicendi peritus potest.
Since, therefore, an orator is a good man, and he cannot be understood without virtue, virtue, even if it takes certain impulses from nature, must nevertheless be perfected by instruction: before all things, character must be cultivated by the orator through studies, and the whole discipline of the honorable and the just must be thoroughly treated, without which no one can either be a good man or be skilled in speaking.
§12.2.2nisi forte accedemus iis, qui natura constare mores et nihil adiuvari disciplina putant; scilicet ut ea quidem, quae manu fiunt, atque eorum etiam contemptissima confiteantur egere doctoribus, virtutem vero, qua nihil homini, quo ad deos immortales propius accederet, datum est, obviam et illaboratam, tantum quia nati simus, habeamus.
Unless, perhaps, we are to agree with those who think that character is established by nature and is not aided at all by discipline; as if, forsooth, they should confess that those things which are made by hand, and even the most contemptible of them, stand in need of teachers, but that virtue, than which nothing greater has been given to man to bring him closer to the immortal gods, is met with and unlabored, merely because we are born.
abstinens erit qui id ipsum, quid sit abstinentia, ignoret?
Will he be abstinent who is ignorant of this very thing, what abstinence is?
§12.2.3et fortis qui metus doloris, mortis, superstitionis nulla ratione purgaverit? et iustus qui aequi bonique tractatum, qui leges, quaeque natura sunt omnibus datae quaeque propriae populis et gentibus constitutae, nunquam eruditiore aliquo sermone tractarit? O quam istud parvum putant, quibus tam facile videtur!
And will he be brave who has in no way purged away the fears of pain, of death, and of superstition by reason? And will he be just who has never treated the discussion of the fair and the good, the laws, both those given to all by nature and those established as peculiar to peoples and nations, in some more learned discourse? Oh, how small a thing do they think that is, to whom it seems so easy!
§12.2.4sed hoc transeo, de quo neminem, qui litteras vel primis, ut aiunt, labris degustarit, dubitaturum puto.
But I pass over this, concerning which I think no one who has tasted literature with even, as they say, the tips of his lips will doubt.
ad illud sequens praevertar, ne dicendi quidem satis peritum fore, qui non et naturae vim omnem penitus perspexerit et mores praeceptis ac ratione formarit.
I shall turn to the following point: that not even a man sufficiently skilled in speaking will exist who has not both thoroughly seen into the whole power of nature and formed his character by precepts and reason.
§12.2.5neque enim frustra in tertio de Oratore libro L. Crassus cuncta, quae de aequo, iusto, vero, bono deque iis, quae sunt contra posita, dicantur, propria esse oratoris adfirmat, ac philosophos, cum ea dicendi viribus tuentur, uti rhetorum armis, non suis.
For not in vain in the third book of the De Oratore does L. Crassus affirm that all things which are said concerning the fair, the just, the true, and the good, and concerning those things which are set opposite to them, are peculiar to the orator, and that philosophers, when they defend them with the powers of speaking, use the weapons of rhetoricians, not their own.
idem tamen confitetur, ea iam esse a philosophia petenda, videlicet quia magis haec illi videtur in possessione earum rerum fuisse.
Yet the same man confesses that these things must now be sought from philosophy, namely because this seems to him to have been more in possession of those things.
§12.2.6hinc etiam illud est, quod Cicero pluribus libris et epistolis testatur dicendi facultatem ex intimis sapientiae fontibus fluere, ideoque aliquamdiu praeceptores eosdem fuisse morum atque dicendi.
Hence also is that which Cicero testifies in many books and letters, that the faculty of speaking flows from the inmost fonts of wisdom, and that therefore for some time the same teachers taught both character and speaking.
quapropter haec exhortatio mea non eo pertinet ut esse oratorem philosophum velim, quando non alia vitae secta longius a civilibus officiis atque ab omni munere oratoris recessit.
Wherefore this exhortation of mine does not tend to this, that I should wish the orator to be a philosopher, since no other sect of life has receded further from civil duties and from the whole office of an orator.
§12.2.7nam quis philosophorum aut in iudiciis frequens aut clarus in contionibus fuit? quis denique in ipsa, quam maxime plerique praecipiunt, rei publicae administratione versatus est? atqui ego illum, quem instituo, Romanum quendam velim esse sapientem, qui non secretis disputationibus, sed rerum experimentis atque operibus vere civilem virum exhibeat.
For who of the philosophers was either frequent in the courts or famous in public assemblies? Who, in short, was engaged in that very administration of the state which most of them teach with the greatest zeal? Yet I should wish him whom I am training to be a certain Roman wise man, who would exhibit a truly civil man not by secret disputations, but by experience and works of reality.
§12.2.8sed quia deserta ab his, qui se ad eloquentiam contulerunt, studia sapientiae non iam in actu suo atque in hac fori luce versantur, sed in porticus et in gymnasia primum, mox in conventus scholarum recesserunt: id, quod est oratori necessarium nec a dicendi praeceptoribus traditur, ab iis petere nimirum necesse est, apud quos remansit, evolvendi penitus auctores, qui de virtute praecipiunt, ut oratoris vita cum scientia diuinarum rerum sit humanarumque coniuncta.
But because the studies of wisdom, deserted by those who betook themselves to eloquence, no longer engage in their own action and in this light of the forum, but receded first into porticos and gymnasia, and soon into the assemblies of the schools: that which is necessary to the orator and is not handed down by the teachers of speaking must indeed be sought from those in whose possession it remained, by thoroughly reading the authors who teach concerning virtue, so that the life of the orator may be joined with the knowledge of divine and human affairs.
§12.2.9quae ipsae quanto maiores ac pulchriores viderentur, si illas ii docerent, qui etiam eloqui praestantissime possent? utinamque sit tempus unquam, quo perfectus aliquis, qualem optamus, orator hanc artem superbo nomine et vitiis quorundam bona eius corrumpentium invisam vindicet sibi ac, velut rebus repetitis, in corpus eloquentiae adducat.
And how much greater and more beautiful would these things themselves appear, if they were taught by those who could also speak most excellently? And would that there may ever be a time when some perfect orator, such as we wish for, may reclaim for himself this art, which is hated for its proud name and for the vices of certain men who corrupt its good qualities, and, as if reclaiming his property, bring it back into the body of eloquence.
§12.2.10quae quidem cum sit in tris divisa partes, naturalem, moralem, rationalem, qua tandem non est cum oratoris opere coniuncta? nam ut ordinem retro agamus, de ultima illa, quae tota versatur in verbis, nemo dubitaverit, si et proprietates vocis cuiusque nosse et ambigua aperire et perplexa discernere et de falsis iudicare et colligere ac resoluere quae velis oratorum est.
Since this is indeed divided into three parts—natural, moral, and rational—by which of them, pray, is it not joined with the work of the orator? For to go backward in order, concerning that last part, which is entirely occupied with words, no one will doubt, if both to know the properties of each word, to open ambiguities, to discern perplexities, to judge concerning falsehoods, and to collect and resolve what you will is the business of orators.