A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, or the Causes of Corrupt Eloquence The Works of Cornelius Tacitus, Volume 8 (of 8); With an Essay on His Life and Genius, Notes, Supplements

1. What figure will they make before that solemn judicature? Trained up in chimerical exercises, strangers to the municipal laws, unacquainted with the principles of natural jus...

IX. But to come to the point, from which we started: poetry, to which my friend Maternus wishes to dedicate all his time, has none of these advantages. It confers no dignity, no...

The state, it is true, was often thrown into convulsions: but talents were exercised, and genius opened the way to public honours. He who possessed the powers of persuasion, ros...

LONDON: PRINTED FOR JOHN STOCKDALE; F.C. AND J. RIVINGTON; J. WALKER; R. LEA; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN; CADELL AND DAVIES; J. MAWMAN; J. MURRAY; J. RICHARDSON; R. B...

XVIII. From what I have said, I assume it as a clear position, that the glory, whatever it be, that accrued to the age in which those orators lived, is not confined to that part...

XXVII. What Aper has omitted, I intend to perform. I shall produce his moderns by name, to the end that, by placing the example before our eyes, we may be able, more distinctly,...

[b] The colonies, the provinces, and the nations that submitted to the Roman arms, had their patrons in the capital, whom they courted with assiduity. It was this mark of distin...

[d] Quintilian makes honourable mention of Domitius Afer. He says, when he was a boy, the speeches of that orator for Volusenus Catulus were held in high estimation. _Et nobis p...

[d] Here unfortunately begins a chasm in the original. The words are, _Cum ad veros judices ventum est, * * * * rem cogitare * * * * nihil humile, nihil abjectum eloqui poterat....

[e] Hirtius and Pansa were consuls A.U.C. 711; before the Christian æra 43. In this year, the famous _triple league_, called the TRIUMVIRATE, was formed between Augustus, Lepidu...

[c] Quintilian makes honourable mention of Julius Secundus, who, if he had not been prematurely cut off, would have transmitted his name to posterity among the most celebrated o...

ARMENIA, a kingdom of Asia, having Albania and Iberia to the north, and Mount Taurus and Mesopotamia to the south: divided into the GREATER, which extends astward to the Caspian...

LAODICEA, a town of Phrygia, called, to distinguish it from other cities of the same name, _Laodicea ad Lycum_. Spon, in his account of his travels, says it is rased to the grou...

[d] Quintilian, in his tenth book, chap. 1. has given a full account of the best Greek and Roman poets, orators, and historians; and in b. ii. ch. 6, he draws up a regular schem...

[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 rea...

[b] The passage here alluded to, presents us with a double pun. The word _Verres_ is the name of a man, and also signifies a _boar pig_, as we read in Horace, _Verris obliquum m...

Statius, in Juvenal's time, was a favourite poet. If he announced a reading, his auditors went in crowds. He delighted all degrees and ranks of men; but, when the hour of applau...

SYENE, a town in the Higher Egypt, towards the borders of Ethiopia, situate on the Nile. It lies under the tropic of Cancer, as is evident, says Pliny the elder, from there bein...