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On Oratory and Orators (2); With Notes Historical and Explanatory
On Oratory and Orators With Notes Historical and Explanatory - 2 Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1808 Original Publisher: printed for J. and J. Richardson Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Mil... more »lion-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PREFACE. JS the following rhetorical pieces have never appeared before in the English language, I thought a translation of them would be no unacceptable offering to the public. The character of the author (Marcus Tullius Cicero) is so universally celebrated, that it would be needless, and indeed impertinent, to say any thing to recommend them. The first of them waa the fruit of his retirement, during the remains of the civil war in Africa; and was composed in the form of a dialogue. It contains a few short, but very masterly sketches of all the speakers who had flourished either in Greece or Rome, with any reputation of eloquence, down to his own time; and as he generally touches the principal incidents of their lives, it will be considered by an attentive reader, as a concealed epitome of the Roman history. The conference is supposed to have been held with Atticus, and their common friend Brutus, in Cicero's garden at Rome, under the statue of Plato, whom he always admired, and usually imitated in his dialogues; and he seems in this to have copied even his double titles, calling it Brutus, or the History of famous Orators. It was intended as a supplement, ex fourth book, to three former ones, on the qualifications of an orator. The second, which is entitled The Orator, was composed a very short time afterwards (both of them in the 6lst year of his age) and at the request of Brutus. It contains a plan, or critical delineation of what he himself esteemed the most finished eloquence, or style of speaking. He calls it The Fifth Part, or or...« less