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Having studied a single speech of Cicero’s in some depth, the class is now moving on to a very rapid examination of De Oratore. This is usually translated as On the Ideal Orator, and is a bit unusual for its time on focusing on the orator as a person, rather than on oratory as a skill to be developed. Our translation has all sorts of interesting pages and pages and pages of info on this, but the simple version is: Cicero was trying to reconcile the usually opposed schools of philosophy (aiming at the truth) and rhetoric (aiming at persuasion), in an argument for the ideal (and likely unattainable ideal at that) orator being one who fully understands the truth, the matter at hand, and the art of speaking.
Rather than being a treatise with the author arguing his point of view, this is presented in the old Greek style: it’s a dialogue between characters, who argue back and forth over what makes for the best orator. From a modern perspective, it’s almost a piece of historical fiction: it’s set in a specific year, in a meeting that presumably did or could have occurred between specific historical characters, but it’s all written by a later author trying to make his point while keeping the people he represents “in character.” As with a lot of ancient literature, it’s not exactly fiction or non-fiction as we think of them today.
In any case, the parts we’re translating in class--and I use the term “parts” rather than “section”, because we’ll be jumping from one chunk to the next with many intervening bits skipped--come from Book III, which represents the third supposed night of conversation between our characters. The main speakers are Crassus and Antonius, and, unlike in the Socratic dialogues, neither one of them is meant to represent the Real Answers while the other is a fool proved to be wrong; they’re both actual famous orators of yore whom Cicero respected highly. (They both died horribly during a civil war, too; the scene is set a few weeks before their deaths.) Instead, their argument is meant to work out the truth by means of their disagreement, a sort of worked example for Cicero’s argument that rhetoric is a better battleground for the truth than philosophy alone. Part of his point is that just thinking about the truth isn’t sufficient; it’s through the debate over the truth, and putting it into practice in the political sphere, that philosophy finally stops being theoretical and starts getting things done.
With all that preamble out of the way? I expect to botch this translation rather badly. Cicero is using a lot of words in very particular ways, and I’m liable to grab the wrong synonym, even when it’s possible to get a single English word that covers his chosen nuance of Latin word choice. And since this is all very theoretical discussion, the grammar (beyond the helpful ‘Then Crassus said’ bits) gets complex--not in a stylistic sense, but in the sense of having thorny nested relative clauses used instead of nice simple nouns, a lot of the time.
But, hey, some of you have, I believe, actually been reading what I translated for the Pro Caelio. So let’s find out if anyone wants to read this, too!
19. Then Crassus said, “Both your authority and friendship, and Antonius’s skill, have snatched from me the liberty of objecting in my strongest basis. Nevertheless in portioning out our dispute, since it picks up regarding those things which ought to be spoken by an orator, however it leaves to me that I explain by what method that ought to be elaborated*, and it divides these things which cannot be disjoined. For when a whole oration stands firm out of the matter and the words, neither can the words have any foundation, if you remove the matter, nor the matter any illumination, if you detach the words.
20. “And indeed these old men seem to me, having grasped a certain matter strongly with their minds, to have seen a great deal more than the acuity of our talent is able to look upon; and they said that all these things, those above and below, are one thing, and are bound together by the one force and consensus of nature. For there is no type of thing which either itself can stand on its own torn away from the rest, or which if the others lack it, they are able to unite their own power and existence.
21. “But if this principle seems to be more than man is able to comprehend by senses or thought, indeed that is the truth of Plato, and truly not an unheard voice for you, Catulus,** that the whole doctrine of these ingenious and humane arts are contained by a certain single fetter of union. For when the power of this principle is seen, by which the reasons for things and their results are understood, a certain amazing almost consensus and harmony of all doctrines is found.
22. “But if this also seems to be higher than that which we’re able to look up towards, while lying down on the earth, certainly nevertheless that thing which we embraced, which we volunteered for, which we undertook, we ought to recognize and understand.*** For there is one thing, which I said yesterday and Antonius noted in various places during his morning lecture, namely, eloquence, which was destroyed in whichever borders or regions of the argument.
23. “For it spoke about either the nature of heaven or that of earth, either the force of the divine or of humanity, from either the lowest place or the middle or the highest, to either drive men onward or to teach them or deter them or spur them or turn them back or incite them or soothe them, either towards few men or many or among strangers or friends or only oneself, the oration is dispersed at streams, not at its springs, and wherever it should flow to, in that place it follows instruction and style.
24. “But since we were held down by opinions not in the ordinary manner, for the truth of slightly erudite men, who, what they were unable to wholly embrace, these things they easily handled when rent and almost torn apart, and who like a body from life disconnected words from meanings, without the destruction of which it could not become neutral--I will not undertake this truth by my oration more than it is imposed on me; I will indicate so much briefly that it is not possible to find a style of the words not expressed in parts and opinions, nor for any opinion to be illustrated without the light of words.”
---
* “ornari”, which strictly speaking means to be decorated with ornaments, but in speech ends up being used for reference to making speech sound pretty. Style, essentially.
** No, not Catullus. Catulus. Totally different!
*** Or, “get to know and hold,” but it’s more emphatic than the literal translation would suggest.
Rather than being a treatise with the author arguing his point of view, this is presented in the old Greek style: it’s a dialogue between characters, who argue back and forth over what makes for the best orator. From a modern perspective, it’s almost a piece of historical fiction: it’s set in a specific year, in a meeting that presumably did or could have occurred between specific historical characters, but it’s all written by a later author trying to make his point while keeping the people he represents “in character.” As with a lot of ancient literature, it’s not exactly fiction or non-fiction as we think of them today.
In any case, the parts we’re translating in class--and I use the term “parts” rather than “section”, because we’ll be jumping from one chunk to the next with many intervening bits skipped--come from Book III, which represents the third supposed night of conversation between our characters. The main speakers are Crassus and Antonius, and, unlike in the Socratic dialogues, neither one of them is meant to represent the Real Answers while the other is a fool proved to be wrong; they’re both actual famous orators of yore whom Cicero respected highly. (They both died horribly during a civil war, too; the scene is set a few weeks before their deaths.) Instead, their argument is meant to work out the truth by means of their disagreement, a sort of worked example for Cicero’s argument that rhetoric is a better battleground for the truth than philosophy alone. Part of his point is that just thinking about the truth isn’t sufficient; it’s through the debate over the truth, and putting it into practice in the political sphere, that philosophy finally stops being theoretical and starts getting things done.
With all that preamble out of the way? I expect to botch this translation rather badly. Cicero is using a lot of words in very particular ways, and I’m liable to grab the wrong synonym, even when it’s possible to get a single English word that covers his chosen nuance of Latin word choice. And since this is all very theoretical discussion, the grammar (beyond the helpful ‘Then Crassus said’ bits) gets complex--not in a stylistic sense, but in the sense of having thorny nested relative clauses used instead of nice simple nouns, a lot of the time.
But, hey, some of you have, I believe, actually been reading what I translated for the Pro Caelio. So let’s find out if anyone wants to read this, too!
19. Then Crassus said, “Both your authority and friendship, and Antonius’s skill, have snatched from me the liberty of objecting in my strongest basis. Nevertheless in portioning out our dispute, since it picks up regarding those things which ought to be spoken by an orator, however it leaves to me that I explain by what method that ought to be elaborated*, and it divides these things which cannot be disjoined. For when a whole oration stands firm out of the matter and the words, neither can the words have any foundation, if you remove the matter, nor the matter any illumination, if you detach the words.
20. “And indeed these old men seem to me, having grasped a certain matter strongly with their minds, to have seen a great deal more than the acuity of our talent is able to look upon; and they said that all these things, those above and below, are one thing, and are bound together by the one force and consensus of nature. For there is no type of thing which either itself can stand on its own torn away from the rest, or which if the others lack it, they are able to unite their own power and existence.
21. “But if this principle seems to be more than man is able to comprehend by senses or thought, indeed that is the truth of Plato, and truly not an unheard voice for you, Catulus,** that the whole doctrine of these ingenious and humane arts are contained by a certain single fetter of union. For when the power of this principle is seen, by which the reasons for things and their results are understood, a certain amazing almost consensus and harmony of all doctrines is found.
22. “But if this also seems to be higher than that which we’re able to look up towards, while lying down on the earth, certainly nevertheless that thing which we embraced, which we volunteered for, which we undertook, we ought to recognize and understand.*** For there is one thing, which I said yesterday and Antonius noted in various places during his morning lecture, namely, eloquence, which was destroyed in whichever borders or regions of the argument.
23. “For it spoke about either the nature of heaven or that of earth, either the force of the divine or of humanity, from either the lowest place or the middle or the highest, to either drive men onward or to teach them or deter them or spur them or turn them back or incite them or soothe them, either towards few men or many or among strangers or friends or only oneself, the oration is dispersed at streams, not at its springs, and wherever it should flow to, in that place it follows instruction and style.
24. “But since we were held down by opinions not in the ordinary manner, for the truth of slightly erudite men, who, what they were unable to wholly embrace, these things they easily handled when rent and almost torn apart, and who like a body from life disconnected words from meanings, without the destruction of which it could not become neutral--I will not undertake this truth by my oration more than it is imposed on me; I will indicate so much briefly that it is not possible to find a style of the words not expressed in parts and opinions, nor for any opinion to be illustrated without the light of words.”
---
* “ornari”, which strictly speaking means to be decorated with ornaments, but in speech ends up being used for reference to making speech sound pretty. Style, essentially.
** No, not Catullus. Catulus. Totally different!
*** Or, “get to know and hold,” but it’s more emphatic than the literal translation would suggest.