ABSTRACT
The art of rhetoric, the creation of the Greeks, was late in gaining acceptance at Rome. Certainly, in the centuries which preceded its introduction, there must always have been men who surpassed the rest in readiness of speech (facundia., and who were chosen to represent them, for ‘spokesman’ was what orator originally meant. But there is no evidence that they were trained to do so. In a community which had seen so much political strife and so many hard-fought causes, there would always have been those who could sway their fellow-citizens by speeches which bore the stamp of their own personality. [1] The manner of speech of Fabius Maximus Cunctator, says Plutarch, accorded closely with his life, ‘for there was in it no embellishment, none of the superficial charm of the forensic orator, but the expression of his own thoughts, which took an individual and highly sententious form, and carried weight’. [2] Tribunician oratory, on the other hand, must often have been far more vehement and impassioned. But, whatever the circumstances, these early orators had what Quintilian calls a ‘natural eloquence’, which owed nothing to preparatory exercises and the study of textbook rules. [3]
