Chapter 12

Dogs are the only animals that are sure to know their masters, and if they suddenly meet him as a stranger, they will instantly recognize him. They are the only animals that will answer to their names, and recognize the voices of the family. They recollect a road along which they have passed, however long it may be. Next to man there is no living creature whose memory is so retentive. By sitting down on the ground we may arrest their most impetuous attack, even when prompted by the most violent rage.

In daily life, we have discovered many other valuable qualities in this animal; but its intelligence and sagacity are more especially shown in the chase. It discovers and traces out the tracks of the animal, leading by the leash the sportsman who accompanies it straight up to the prey; and as soon as ever it has perceived it, how silent it is, and how secret but significant is the indication which it gives, first by the tail and afterward by the nose!

When Alexander the Great was on his Indian expedition, he was presented by the King of Albania with a dog of unusual size; being greatly delighted with its noble appearance, he ordered bears, and after them wild boars, and then deer, to be let loose before it; but the dog lay down and regarded them with a kind of immovable contempt. The noble spirit of the general became irritated by the sluggishness thus manifested by an animal of such vast bulk, and he ordered it to be killed. The report of this reached the king, who accordingly sent another dog, and at the same time sent word that its powers were to be tried, not upon small animals, but upon the lion or the elephant; adding, that he had originally but two, and that if this one were put to death, the race would be extinct. Alexander, without delay, procured a lion, which in his presence was instantly torn to pieces. He then ordered an elephant to be brought, and never was he more delighted with any spectacle; for the dog, bristling up its hair all over the body, began by thundering forth a loud barking, and then attacked the animal, leaping at it first on the one side and then on the other, attacking it in the most skilful manner, and then again retreating at the opportune moment, until at last the elephant, being rendered quite giddy by turning round and round, fell to the earth, and made it quite reecho with its fall.

II

THREE GREAT ARTISTS OF GREECE[93]

Apelles,[94] of Cos, surpassed all the other painters who either preceded or succeeded him. Single-handed, he contributed more to painting than all the others together, and even went so far as to publish some treatises on the principles of the art. The great point of artistic merit with him was his singular charm of gracefulness, and this too, tho the greatest of painters were his contemporaries. In admiring their works and bestowing high eulogiums upon them, he used to say that there was still wanting in them that equal of beauty so peculiar to himself, and known to the Greeks as "Charis"; others, he said, had acquired all the other requisites of perfection, but in this one point he himself had no equal. He also asserted his claim to another great point of merit; admiring a picture by Protogenes, which bore evident marks of unbounded laboriousness and the most minute finish, he remarked that in every respect Protogenes was fully his equal, or perhaps his superior, except in this, that he himself knew when to take his hand off a picture--a memorable lesson, which teaches us that over-carefulness may be productive of bad results. His candor, too, was equal to his talent; he acknowledged the superiority of Melanthius[95] in his grouping, and of Asclepiodorus in the niceness of his measurements, or in other words, the distances that ought to be left between the objects represented.

A circumstance that happened to him in connection with Protogenes[96] is worthy of notice. The latter was living at Rhodes, when Apelles disembarked there, desirous of seeing the works of a man whom he had hitherto only known by reputation. Accordingly, he repaired at once to the studio; Protogenes was not at home, but there happened to be a large panel upon the easel ready for painting, with an old woman who was left in charge. To his inquiries she made answer that Protogenes was not at home; and then asked whom she should name as the visitor. "Here he is," was the reply of Apelles; and seizing a brush, he traced with color upon the panel an outline of a singularly minute fineness. Upon his return the old woman mentioned to Protogenes what had happened. The artist, it is said, upon remarking the delicacy of the touch, instantly exclaimed that Apelles must have been the visitor, for that no other person was capable of executing anything so exquisitely perfect. So saying, he traced within the same outline a still finer outline, but with another color; and then took his departure, with instructions to the woman to show it to the stranger if he returned, and to let him know that this was the person whom he had come to see.

It happened as he anticipated--Apelles returned; and vexed at finding himself thus surpassed, he took up another color and split both of the outlines, leaving no possibility of anything finer being executed. Upon seeing this, Protogenes admitted that he was defeated, and at once flew to the harbor to look for his guest. He thought proper, too, to transmit the panel to posterity, just as it was; and it always continued to be held in the highest admiration by all--artists in particular. I am told that it was burned in the first fire which took place at Caesar's palace on the Palatine Hill; but in former times I have often stopt to admire it. Upon its vast surface it contained nothing whatever except the three outlines, so remarkably fine as to escape the sight: among the most elaborate works of numerous other artists it had all the appearance of a blank space; and yet by that very fact it attracted the notice of every one, and was held in higher estimation than any other painting there.

It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other; a practise which has now passed into a proverb. It was also a practise with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in some exposed place; while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms that were passed upon it: it being his opinion that the judgment of the public was preferable to his own, as being the more discerning of the two. It was under these circumstances, they say, that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one shoe-string too little. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticize the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out, and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes--a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying. In fact, Apelles was a person of great amenity of manners--a circumstance which rendered him particularly agreeable to Alexander the Great, who would often come to his studio. He had forbidden himself by public edict, as already stated, to be represented by any other artist. On one occasion, however, when the prince was in his studio, talking a great deal about painting without knowing anything about it, Apelles quietly begged that he would quit the subject, telling him that he would get laughed at by the boys who were there grinding the colors; so great was the influence which he rightfully possest over a monarch who was otherwise of an irascible temperament. And yet, irascible as he was, Alexander conferred upon him a very signal mark of the high estimation in which he held him: for having, in his admiration of her extraordinary beauty, engaged Apelles to paint Pancaste undraped--the most beloved of all his concubines--the artist while so engaged fell in love with her; upon which, Alexander, perceiving this to be the ease, made him a present of her: thus showing himself, tho a great king in courage, a still greater one in self-command--this action redounding no less to his honor than any of his victories.

Superior to all the statues not only of Praxiteles,[97] but of any other artist that ever existed, is his Cnidian Venus; for the inspection of which, many persons before now have purposely undertaken a voyage to Cnidos. The artist made two statues of the goddess, and offered them both for sale: one of them was represented with drapery, and for this reason was preferred by the people of Cos, who had the choice; the second was offered them at the same price, but on the grounds of propriety and modesty they thought fit to choose the other. Upon this, the Cnidians purchased the rejected statue, and immensely superior has it always been held in general estimation. At a later period, King Nicomedes wished to purchase this statue of the Cnidians, and made them an offer to pay off the whole of their public debt, which was very large. They preferred, however, to submit to any extremity rather than part with it; and with good reason, for by this statue Praxiteles has perpetuated the glory of Cnidos. The little temple in which it is placed is open on all sides, so that the beauties of the statue admit of being seen from every point of view--an arrangement which was favored by the goddess herself, it is generally believed.

Among all nations which the fame of the Olympian Jupiter has reached, Phidias[98] is looked upon, beyond all doubt, as the most famous of artists; but to let those who have never seen his works know how deservedly he is esteemed, we will take this opportunity of adducing a few slight proofs of the genius which he displayed. In doing this we shall not appeal to the beauty of his Olympian Jupiter, nor yet to the vast proportions of his Athenian Minerva, six-and-twenty cubits in height, and composed of ivory and gold: but it is to the shield of this last statue that we shall draw attention; upon the convex face of which he has chased a combat of the Amazons, while upon the concave side of it he has represented the battle between the gods and the giants. Upon the sandals, again, we see the wars of the Lapithae and Centaurs; so careful has he been to fill every smallest portion of his work with some proof or other of his artistic skill.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 86: From the "Natural History." Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley.]

[Footnote 87: A name applied to tribes living in Africa east of the desert of Sahara.]

[Footnote 88: An Ionian city of Asia, distant seventy miles from Ephesus.]

[Footnote 89: An interior town of Cilicia, in Asia Minor.]

[Footnote 90: The home of this warlike people appears to have been Jutland.]

[Footnote 91: The tyrant king of Syracuse, successor to Gelon.]

[Footnote 92: A country of Asia Minor occupying a part of the Black Sea coast.]

[Footnote 93: From the "Natural History." Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley.]

[Footnote 94: Apelles lived in the time of Philip and Alexander the Great. Cos is an island in the AEgean Sea.]

[Footnote 95: A painter of the Sicyonian school who flourished in the third century B.C.]

[Footnote 96: Protogenes, a native of Caria, in Asia Minor, was celebrated as a painter at Rhodes in the second half of the fourth century B.C.]

[Footnote 97: Praxiteles was born in Athena about the end of the fifth century and continued active as an artist until the time at Alexander the Great. Nearly sixty of his works are mentioned in ancient writings, but only two have been identified in modern times.]

[Footnote 98: Phidias was born in Athens about 500 B.C. and died about 430.]

QUINTILIAN

Born in Spain about 35 A.D.; died about 95; celebrated as rhetorian; educated in Rome, where he taught oratory for twenty years; patronized by the emperors Vespasian and Domitian; his most celebrated work the "Institutio Oratoria."[99]

THE ORATOR MUST BE A GOOD MAN[100]

Let the orator, then, whom I propose to form, be such a one as is characterized by the definition of Marcus Cato, _a good man skilled in speaking_.

But the requisite which Cato has placed first in this definition, that an orator should be _a good man_, is naturally of more estimation and importance than the other. It is of importance that an orator should be good, because, should the power of speaking be a support to evil, nothing would be more pernicious than eloquence alike to public concerns and private, and I myself, who, as far as is in my power, strive to contribute something to the faculty of the orator, should deserve very ill of the world, since I should furnish arms, not for soldiers, but for robbers. May I not draw an argument from the condition of mankind? Nature herself, in bestowing on man that which she seems to have granted him preeminently, and by which she appears to have distinguished us from all other animals, would have acted, not as a parent, but as a stepmother, if she had designed the faculty of speech to be the promoter of crime, the oppressor of innocence, and the enemy of truth; for it would have been better for us to have been born dumb, and to have been left destitute of reasoning powers, than to have received endowments from providence only to turn them to the destruction of one another.

My judgment carries me still further; for I not only say that he who would answer my idea of an orator must be a good man, but that no man, unless he be good, can ever be an orator. To an orator discernment and prudence are necessary; but we can certainly not allow discernment to those, who when the ways of virtue and vice are set before them, prefer to follow that of vice; nor can we allow them prudence, since they subject themselves, by the unforeseen consequences of their actions, often to the heaviest penalty of the law, and always to that of an evil conscience. But if it be not only truly said by the wise, but always justly believed by the vulgar, that no man is vicious who is not also foolish, a fool, assuredly, will never become an orator.

It is to be further considered that the mind can not be in a condition for pursuing the most noble of studies, unless it be entirely free from vice; not only because there can be no communion of good and evil in the same breast, and to meditate at once on the best things and the worst is no more in the power of the same mind than it is possible for the same man to be at once virtuous and vicious; but also because a mind intent on so arduous a study should be exempt from all other cares, even such as are unconnected with vice; for then, and then only, when it is free and master of itself, and when no other object harasses and distracts its attention, will it be able to keep in view the end to which it is devoted. But if an inordinate attention to an estate, a too anxious pursuit of wealth, indulgence in the pleasures of the chase, and the devotion of our days to public spectacles, rob our studies of much of our time (for whatever time is given to one thing is lost to another), what effect must we suppose that ambition, avarice, and envy will produce, whose excitements are so violent as even to disturb our sleep and our dreams? Nothing indeed is so preoccupied, so unsettled, so torn and lacerated with such numerous and various passions, as a bad mind; for when it intends evil, it is agitated with hope, care, and anxiety, and when it has attained the object of its wickedness, it is tormented with uneasiness, and the dread of every kind of punishment.

No man, certainly, will doubt, that it is the object of all oratory, that what is stated to the judge may appear to him to be true and just; and which of the two, let me ask, will produce such a conviction with the greater ease, the good man or the bad? A good man, doubtless, will speak of what is true and honest with greater frequency; but even if, from being influenced by some call of duty, he endeavors to support what is fallacious (a case which, as I shall show, may sometimes occur), he must still be heard with greater credit than a bad man. But with bad men, on the other hand, dissimulation sometimes fails, as well through their contempt for the opinion of mankind, as through their ignorance of what is right; hence they assert without modesty, and maintain their assertions without shame; and, in attempting what evidently can not be accomplished, there appears in them a repulsive obstinacy and useless perseverance; for bad men, as well in their pleadings as in their lives, entertain dishonest expectations; and it often happens, that even when they speak the truth, belief is not accorded them, and the employment of advocates of such a character is regarded as a proof of the badness of a cause.

I must, however, notice those objections to my opinion, which appear to be clamored forth, as it were, by the general consent of the multitude. Was not then Demosthenes, they ask, a great orator? yet we have heard that he was not a good man. Was not Cicero a great orator? yet many have thrown censure upon his character. To such questions how shall I answer? Great displeasure is likely to be shown at any reply whatever; and the ears of my audience require first to be propitiated. The character of Demosthenes, let me say, does not appear to me deserving of such severe reprehension, that I should believe all the calumnies that are heaped upon him by his enemies, especially when I read his excellent plans for the benefit of his country and the honorable termination of his life. Nor do I see that the feeling of an upright citizen was, in any respect, wanting to Cicero. As proofs of his integrity, may be mentioned his consulship, in which he conducted himself with so much honor, his honorable administration of his province; his refusal to be one of the twenty commissioners; and, during the civil wars, which fell with great severity on his times, his uprightness of mind, which was never swayed, either by hope or by fear, from adhering to the better party, or the supporters of the commonwealth. He is thought by some to have been deficient in courage, but he has given an excellent reply to this charge, when he says that he was timid, not in encountering dangers, but in taking precautions against them; an assertion of which he proved the truth at his death, to which he submitted with the noblest fortitude. But even should the height of virtue have been wanting to these eminent men, I shall reply to those who ask me whether they were orators as the Stoics reply when they are asked whether Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus were wise men; they say that they were great and deserving of veneration, but that they did not attain the highest excellence of which human nature is susceptible.

Pythagoras desired to be called, not wise, like those who preceded him, but a lover of wisdom. I, however, in speaking of Cicero, have often said, according to the common mode of speech, and shall continue to say, that he was a perfect orator, as we term our friends, in ordinary discourse, good and prudent men, tho such epithets can be justly given only to the perfectly wise. But when I have to speak precisely, and in conformity with the exactness of truth, I shall express myself as longing to see such an orator as he himself also longed to see; for tho I acknowledge that Cicero stood at the head of eloquence, and that I can scarcely find a passage in his speeches to which anything can be added, however many I might find which I may imagine that he would have pruned (for the learned have in general been of opinion that he had numerous excellences and some faults, and he himself says that he had cut off most of his juvenile exuberance), yet, since he did not claim to himself, tho he had no mean opinion of his merits, the praise of perfection, and since he might certainly have spoken better if a longer life had been granted him, and a more tranquil season for composition, I may not unreasonably believe that the summit of excellence was not attained by him, to which, notwithstanding, no man made nearer approaches. If I had thought otherwise, I might have maintained my opinion with still greater determination and freedom. Did Marcus Antonius declare that he had seen no man truly eloquent, tho to be eloquent is much less than to be a perfect orator; does Cicero himself say that he is still seeking for an orator, and merely conceives and imagines one; and shall I fear to say that in that portion of eternity which is yet to come something may arise still more excellent than what has yet been seen? I take no advantage of the opinion of those who refuse to allow great merit to Cicero and Demosthenes even in eloquence; tho Demosthenes, indeed, does not appear sufficiently near perfection even to Cicero himself, who says that he sometimes nods; nor does Cicero appear so to Brutus and Calvus, who certainly find fault with his language.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 99: Quintilian is notable as a writer who was not influenced by his great contemporary Seneca, whom he disliked and harshly criticized for literary defects. Quintilian modeled his own style on that of Cicero, altho at times he dropt back unconsciously into that of Seneca.]

[Footnote 100: From Book XII, Chapter I, of the "Institutes of Oratory." Translated by J. S. Watson.]

TACITUS

Born about 55 A.D.; died about 117; celebrated as historian and orator; praetor in 88; Consul in 97; a friend of the younger Pliny; son-in-law of Agricola; his extant works include a dialog of oratory, a biography of Agricola, "Germania," a history of Rome from Galba to Domitian, and his "Annals," which are a history of the Julian dynasty.[101]

I

FROM REPUBLICAN TO IMPERIAL ROME[102]

Kings held dominion in the city of Rome from its foundation: Lucius Brutus instituted liberty and the consulate. Dictatorships were resorted to in temporary emergencies: neither the power of the decemvirs continued in force beyond two years, nor the consular authority of the military tribunes for any length of time. The domination of Cinna did not continue long, nor that of Sulla: the influence of Pompey and Crassus quickly merged in Caesar: the arms of Lepidus and Antony in Augustus, who, with the title of prince, took under his command the commonwealth, exhausted with civil dissensions. But the affairs of the ancient Roman people, whether prosperous or adverse, have been recorded by writers of renown. Nor were there wanting authors of distinguished genius to have composed the history of the times of Augustus, till by the spirit of flattery, which became prevalent, they were deterred. As to Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, whilst they yet reigned the histories of their times were falsified through fear; and after they had fallen, they were written under the influence of recent detestation. Thence my own design of recounting a few incidents respecting Augustus, and those toward the latter part of his life; and, after that, of giving a history of the reign of Tiberius and the rest; uninfluenced by resentment and partiality, as I stand aloof from the causes of them.