ABSTRACT
The historian Tacitus, writing toward the end of the first century, composed a caustic Dialogue Concerning Oratory3 in which he took as his main theme the question, “What are the causes of the decay of eloquence?” Tacitus criticizes the introversion of the rhetorical schools, the meanness of courtrooms that dealt only with petty issues, the lack of real public issues for orators to handle, and the deadening effect of powerful governments. “Who ever heard of a great orator in a tightly ruled place like Persia?” one of his characters asks. Only in a free society, Tacitus declares, can the clash of arguments provide great oratory.
