Something may, however, be said
here of the view taken of a rhetorical training by Cicero himself,
very clearly expressed in the exordium of the treatise just mentioned,
and often more or less directly reiterated in his later and more
mature works on oratory.
"After much meditation," he says, "I have been led to the conclusion
that wisdom without eloquence is of little use to a state, while
eloquence without wisdom is often positively harmful, and never of any
value. Thus if a man, abandoning the study of reason and duty, which
is always perfectly straight and honourable, spends his whole time in
the practice of speaking, he is being brought up to be a hindrance
to his own development, and a dangerous citizen." This reminds us of
Cato's saying that an orator is "vir bonus dicendi peritus." Less
strongly expressed, the same view is also found in the exordium of
another and more mature treatise on rhetoric, by an author whose name
is unknown, written a year or two before that of Cicero: "Non enim
parum in se fructus habet copia dicendi et commoditas orationis, si
recta intelligentia et definita animi moderatione gubernetur.
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