Oratory: What makes a good man the better speaker?

Roman Rostra

Quintilian makes a very compelling argument when it comes to expressing why a good man makes a wise and worthy orator. With his Institutes of Oratory, the controversy revolving proper rhetoric as an orator is explored. It is obvious the task of explaining such an argument in a persuasive manner is difficult. Quintilian must explain what is means to be a good orator by being a good man by proving his own argument by his own example.

“For the same reason at present, also, though the task grows more burdensome than ever, as I look towards the end, I am determined rather to faint than to despair.”

– Quintilian

Later in the text, Quintilian shows through other examples, namely Cicero, to further prove his argument of only a good man making a good orator.

14. “I must, however, notice those objections to my opinion which appear to clamor forth, as it were, from the general consent of the multitude… Was not Cicero a great orator? Yet many have thrown censure upon his character.” How shall I answer such questions? … As proofs of his integrity, may it 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 20 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. 17. 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 which he proved true at his death, to which he submitted with the noblest fortitude.”

Now as for Cicero and his Orations Against Lucius Catilina, there is a different approach. Here, is an oration of power and persuasion showing the works of a great orator as a good man standing up for what is right.

“Cicero, however, had information of all the designs of the conspirators, as by the intrigues of a woman called Fulvia, the mistress of Curius, he had gained him over, and received regularly from him an account of all their operations. He sent for some of the chief men of the city and informed them of the plot against himself; and even of the names of the knights who were to come to his house, and of the hour at which they were to come. When they did come they found the house carefully guarded, and all admission refused to them. He was enabled also to disappoint an attempt made by Catiline to seize on the town of Praeneste, which was a very strong fortress, and would have been of great use to him. The meeting of the conspirators had taken place on the evening of the sixth of November. On the eighth Cicero summoned the senate to meet in the temple ofJupiter in the Capitol, a place which was only used for this purpose on occasions of great danger. (There had been previously several debates on the subject of Catiline’s treasons and design of murdering Cicero, and a public reward had actually been offered to the first discoverer of the plot. But Catiline had nevertheless continued to dissemble; had offered to give security for his behaviour, and to deliver himself to the custody of any one whom the senate chose to name, even to that of Cicero himself.). Catiline had the boldness to attend this meeting, and all the senate, even his own most particular acquaintance, were so astonished at his impudence that none of them would salute him; the consular senators quitted that part of the house in which he sat, and left the bench empty; and Cicero himself was so provoked at his audacity, that, instead of entering on any formal business, he addressed himself directly to Catiline in the following invective.”

Here, the same conclusion from our previous Greek orators can be drawn as is it shown how one must know the truth to be a wise a good orator.