Rhetorum praeceptor
Lucian of Samosata (lucian-of-samosata)Prae 15 · perseus-eng2More by Lucian of Samosata (lucian-of-samosata)
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You ask, my boy, how you can get to be a public speaker, and be held to personify the sublime and glorious name of sophist; life, you say, is not worth living, unless when you speak you can clothe yourself in such a mantle of eloquence that you will be irresistible and invincible, that you will be admired and stared at by everyone, counting among the Greeks as a highly desirable treat for their ears. Consequently, you wish to find out what the roads are that lead to this goal. Come, I have no desire to be churlish, lad, especially when a mere youngster who craves what is noblest, not knowing how to come by it, draws near and asks, as you do now, for advice— a sacred matter. So listen; and in so far as it lies in my power, you may have great confidence that soon you will be an able hand at discerning what requires to be said and expressing it in words,
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if only you on your part are willing henceforth to abide by what I tell you, to practise it industriously, and to follow the road resolutely until you reach your goal.
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Certainly the object of your quest is not trivial, nor one that calls for little effort, but rather one for which it is worth while to work hard, to scant your sleep, and to put up with anything whatsoever. Just see how many who previously were nobodies have come to be accounted men of standing, millionaires, yes, even gentlemen, because of their eloquence.
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Do not be daunted, however, and do not be dismayed at the greatness of your expectations, thinking to undergo untold labours before you achieve them. I shall not conduct you by a rough road, or a steep and sweaty one, so that you will turn back halfway out of weariness. In that case I should be no better than those other guides who use the customary route—long, steep, toilsome, and, as a rule, hopeless. No, my advice has this to commend it, that ascending in the manner of a leisurely stroll through flowery fields and perfect shade in great comfort and luxury by a sloping bridle-path that is very short as well as very pleasant, you will gain the summit without sweating for it, you will bag your game without any effort, yes, by Heaven, you will banquet at your ease, looking down from the height at those who went the other way as they creep painfully upward over sheer and slippery crags, still in the foot-hills of the ascent, rolling off head-first from time to time, and getting many a wound on the sharp rocks—and you, the while, on the top long before them, with a wreath upon your head, will be fortunate beyond compare, for you will have acquired from Rhetoric in an instant, all but in your sleep, every single blessing that there is!
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Yes, my promise goes to that extent in its generosity;
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but in the name of Friendship
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do not disbelieve me, when I say that I shall show
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you that its attainment is at once easy and pleasant. Why should you? Hesiod was given a leaf or two from Helicon, and at once he became a poet instead of a shepherd and sang the pedigrees of gods and heroes under the inspiration of the Muses.
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Is it impossible, then, to become a public speaker —something far inferior to the grand style of poetry—in an instant, if one could find out the quickest way?
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Just to show you, I should like to tell you the tale of a Sidonian merchant's idea which disbelief made ineffectual and profitless to the man who heard it. Alexander was then ruler of the Persians, having deposed Darius after the battle of Arbela, and postmen had to run to every quarter of the realm carrying Alexander’s orders. The journey from Persia to Egypt was long, since one had to make a detour about the mountains, then to go through Babylonia to Arabia, and then to traverse a wide expanse of desert before reaching Egypt at last, after spending in this way, even if one travelled light, twenty very long days on the road. Well, this annoyed Alexander, because he had heard that the Egyptians were showing signs of disaffection, and he was unable to be expeditious in transmitting his decisions concerning them to his governors. At that juncture the Sidonian merchant said: “I give you my word, King Alexander, to show you a short route from Persia to Egypt. If a man went over these mountains—and he could do it in three
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days—he is in Egypt in no time!” And it was so! Alexander, however, put no faith in it, but thought that the merchant was a liar.
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So true is it that amazing promises seem untrustworthy to most people.
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But you must not make the same mistake. Experience will convince you that nothing can prevent you from arriving as a public speaker, in a single day, and not a full day at that, by flying across the mountains from Persia to Egypt! I wish first of all to paint you a picture in words, like Cebes of old, and show you both the roads; for there are two that lead to Lady Rhetoric, of whom you seem to me exceedingly enamoured. So let her be sitting upon a high place, very fair of face and form, holding in her right hand the Horn of Plenty, which runs over with all manner of fruits. Beside her imagine, pray, that you see Wealth standing, all golden and lovely. Let Fame, too, and Power stand by; and let Compliments, resembling tiny Cupids, swarm all about her on the wing in great numbers from every side. If you have ever seen the Nile represented in a painting, lying on the back of a crocodile or a hippopotamus, such as are frequent in his stream, while tiny infants play beside him—the Egyptians call them cubits— the Compliments that surround Rhetoric are like these.Evidently there were many copies of this picture about, and they were not all exactly alike. The Vatican has a treatment of the theme in sculpture, in which Nile rests upon a sphinx, and has about him sixteen ‘ cubits,” symbolizing the desired yearly rise of his stream. Now you, her lover, approach, desiring, of course, to get upon the summit with all speed in order to marry her when you get there, and to possess all that she has—the Wealth, the Fame, the Compliments; for by law everything accrues to the husband.
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Then when you draw near the mountain, at first you despair of climbing it, and the thing seems to you just as AornusA table-mountain captured by Alexander on his way to India, 11 stades high at its lowest point, according to Arrian (Alex. 4, 28). Cunningham identifies it ss Ranigat. Tomaschek considers the Greek name derived from Sanscrit avarana by popular etymology; but compare the Avestan name Upairi-saena (above the eagle). looked to the Macedonians when they observed that it was precipitous on every side, truly far from easy even for a bird to fly over, calling for a Dionysus or a Heracles if it were ever going to be taken. That is how it seems to you at first; and then, after a little, you see two roads. To be more exact, one of them is but a path, narrow, briery, and rough, promising great thirstiness and sweat; Hesiod has been beforehand with us and has already described it very carefully, so that I shall not need to do so.Works and Days, 286-292. The other, however, is level, flowery, and wellwatered, just as I described it a moment ago, not to detain you by saying the same things over and over when you might even now be a speaker.
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But I must add at least this much, that the rough, steep road used not to have many tracks of wayfarers, and whatever tracks there were, were very old. I myself, unlucky dog, got up by that road and did all that hard work without any need; but as the other was level and had no windings at all, I could see from a distance what it was like without having travelled it myself. You see, being still young, I could not discern what was better, but believed that poetEpicharmus. to be telling the truth when he said that blessings were engendered of toil.The thought is expressed in Works and Days, 289: “The immortal gods have put sweat before virtue;” but Lucian’s wording is closer to the famous line of E icharmus quoted (just after the passage from Hesiod) in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, 2, 1, 20: “’Tis at the price of toil that the gods sell us all their blessings.” That was not so, however; at all events, I notice that most people are accorded greater returns without any labour, through their felicitous choice of words and ways. But, to resume—when you reach the starting-point, I am sure that you will be in doubt, and indeed are even now in doubt, which road to follow. I propose, therefore, to tell you how to do now in order to mount to the highest peak with the greatest ease, to be fortunate, to bring off the marriage, and to be accounted wonderful by everyone. It is quite enough that I should have been duped and should have worked hard. For you, let everything grow “without sowing and without ploughing,” as in the time of Cronus.The quotation is from Odyssey, 9,.109, but there is also an allusion to Hesiod’s description of the time of Cronus, the golden age, when the “‘grain-giving earth bore fruit of itself, in plenty and without stint” (Works and Days, 117-118).
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On the instant, then, you will be approached by a vigorous man with hard muscles and a manly stride, who shows heavy tan on his body, and is bold-eyed and alert. He is the guide of the rough road, and he will talk a lot of nonsense to you, the poor simpleton. In exhorting you to follow him, he will point out the footprints of Demosthenes and of Plato, and one or two more—great prints, I grant you, too great for men of nowadays, but for the most part dim and indistinct through lapse of time; and he will say that you will have good fortune and will contract a lawful marriage with Rhetoric if you
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follow these footprints like a rope-dancer; but if you should make even a slight mis-step, or set your foot out of them, or let your weight sway you somewhat to one side, you will fall from the direct road that leads to the marriage. Then he will tell you to imitate those ancient worthies, and will set you fusty models for your speeches, far from easy to copy, resembling sculptures in the early manner such as those of Hegesias and of Critius and Nesiotes
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—wasp-waisted, sinewy, hard, meticulously definite in their contours. And he will say that hard work, scant sleep, abstention from wine, and untidiness are necessary and indispensable; it is impossible, says he, to get over the road without them. What is most vexatious of all, even the time which he will prescribe to you for the journey will be very long——many years, for he counts not by days and months, but by whole Olympic cycles,
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so that you will be foredone in advance as you listen and will forswear your project, bidding a fond farewell to the good fortune that you expected. Besides, he demands no small fee for all these hardships; in fact, he would not guide you unless he should get a huge sum in advance.
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That is what this man will say, the impostor, the absolute old fogey, the antediluvian, who displays dead men of a bygone age to serve as patterns, and expects you to dig up long-buried speeches as if they were something tremendously helpful, wanting you to emulate the son of a sword-maker, and some other
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fellow, the son of a school-master named Atrometus,
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and that too in times of peace, when no Philip is making raids and no Alexander issuing orders—situations in which their speeches were perhaps considered useful. He does not know what a short, easy road, direct to Rhetoric, has recently been opened. But do not you believe or heed him for fear he may give you a neck-breaking tumble somewhere after he gets you in charge, or may in the end make you prematurely old with your labours. No, if you are unquestionably in love, and wish to marry Rhetoric forthwith, while you are still in your prime, so that she may be fond of you, do bid a long good-bye to that hairy, unduly masculine fellow, leaving him to climb up himself, all blown and dripping with sweat, and lead up what others he can delude.
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If you turn to the other road, you will find many people, and among them a wholly clever and wholly handsome gentleman with a mincing gait, a thin neck, a languishing eye, and a honeyed voice, who distils perfume, scratches his head with the tip of his finger,Cf. Plutarch, Pompey, 48 fin. and carefully dresses his hair, which is scanty now, but curly and raven-black—an utter] delicate Sardanapalus, a Cinyras, a very Agathon (that charming writer of tragedies, don’t you know?). I am thus explicit that you may recognize him by these tokens, and may not overlook a creature so marvellous, and so dear to Aphrodite and the Graces. But what am I talking about? Even if you had your eyes shut, and he should come and speak to you, unsealing those Hymettus lips and releasing upon the air those wonted intonations, you would discover that he is not like us “who eat the fruit of the glebe,”Iliad6, 142. but some unfamiliar spirit, nurtured on dew or on ambrosia. If, then, you go to him and put yourself in his hands, you will at once, without effort, become an orator, the observed of all, and, as he himself calls it, king of the platform, driving the horses of eloquence four-in-hand. For on taking you in charge, he will teach you first of all—but let him address you himself.
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It would be comical for me to do the talking on behalf of such an accomplished speaker, as I should be poorly cast, it may very well be, for parts of that nature and importance; I might fall down and so put out of countenance the hero whom I impersonated. He would address you, then, somewhat in this fashion, tossing back what hair is still left him, faintly smiling in that sweet and tender way which is his wont, and rivalling Thais herself of comic fame, or Malthace, or Glycera, in the seductiveness of his tone, since masculinity is boorish and not in keeping with a delicate and charming platform-hero —
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he will address you, I say, using very moderate language about himself: “Prithee, dear fellow, did Pythian Apollo send you to me, entitling me the best of speakers, just as, when Chaerephon questioned him, he told who was the wisest in that generation?
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If that is not the case, but you have come of your own accord in the wake of rumour, because you hear everybody speak of my achievements with astonishment, praise, admiration, and self-abasement, you shall very soon learn what a superhuman person you have come to. Do not expect to see something that you can compare with
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So-and-so, or So-and-so; no, you will consider the achievement far too prodigious and amazing even for Tityus or Otus or Ephialtes. Indeed, as far as the others are concerned, you will find that I drown them out as effectively as trumpets drown flutes, or cicadas bees, or choirs their leaders.
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“As you yourself wish to become a speaker, and cannot learn this with greater ease from anyone else, just attend, dear lad, to all that I shall say, copy me in everything, and always keep, I beg you, the rules which I shall bid you to follow. ‘In fact, you may press on at once; you need not feel any hesitation or dismay because you have not gone through all the rites of initiation preliminary to Rhetoric, through which the usual course of elementary instruction guides the steps of the senseless and silly at the cost of great weariness. You will not require them at all. No, go straight in, as the proverb says, with unwashen feet,
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and you will not fare any the worse for that, even if you are quite in the prevailing fashion and do not know how to write. Orators are beyond all that!
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“I shall first tell you what equipment you must yourself bring with you from home for the journey, and how you must provision yourself so that you can finish it soonest. Then giving you my personal instruction along the road, partly by example set for you while you proceed, and partly by precept, before sunset I shall make you a public speaker, superior to them all, just like myself—indubitably first, midmost and lastI.e, the others are not in it with him. Compare Demosthenes 25, 8: “all such beasts, of whom he is midmost and last and first.” of all who undertake to make speeches. “Bring with you, then, as the principal thing, ignorance; secondly, recklessness, and thereto effrontery and shamelessness. Modesty, respectability, selfrestraint, and blushes may be left at home, for they are useless and somewhat of a hindrance to the matter in hand. But you need also a very loud voice, a shameless singing delivery, and a gait like mine. They are essential indeed, and sometimes sufficient in themselves.Compare the conversation between Demosthenes and the sausage-seller in Aristophanes, Knights, 150-235. Let your clothing be gaily-coloured, or else white, a fabric of Tarentine manufacture, so that your body will show through; and wear either high Attic sandals of the kind that women wear, with many slits, or else Sicyonian boots, trimmed with strips of white felt. Have also many attendants, and always a book in hand.
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“That is what you must contribute yourself. The rest you may now see and hear by the way, as you go forward. And next I shall tell you the rules that you must follow in order that Rhetoric may recognize and welcome you, and not turn you her back and bid you go to, as if you were an outsider prying into her privacies. First of all, you must pay especial attention to outward appearance, and to the graceful set of your cloak. Then cull from some source or other fifteen, or anyhow not more than twenty, Attic words, drill yourself carefully in them, and have them ready at the tip of your tongue
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—‘sundry,’ ‘eftsoons,’ ‘prithee,’ ‘in some wise,’ ‘fair sir, and the like.
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Whenever you speak, sprinkle in some of them as a relish. Never mind if the rest is inconsistent with them, unrelated, and discordant. Only let your purple stripe be handsome and bright, even if your cloak is but a blanket of the thickest sort.
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Hunt up obscure, unfamiliar words, rarely used by the ancients, and have a heap of these in readiness to launch at your audience. The many-headed crowd will look up to you and think you amazing, and far beyond themselves in education, if you call rubbing down ‘ destrigillation,’ taking a sun-bath ‘insolation,’ advance payments ‘hansel,’ and daybreak ‘crepuscule.” Sometimes you must yourself make new monstrosities of words and prescribe that an able writer be called fine-dictioned, an intelligent man sage-minded, and a dancer handiwise.
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. If you commit a solecism or a barbarism, let shamelessness be your sole and only remedy, and be ready at once with the name of someone who is not now alive and never was, either a poet or a historian, saying that he, a learned man, extremely precise in his diction, approved the expression. As for reading the classics, don’t you do it—either that twaddling Isocrates or that uncouth Demosthenes or that tiresome Plato. No, read the speeches of the men who lived only a little before our own time, and
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these pieces that they call ‘exercises,’
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in order to secure from them a supply of provisions which you can use up as occasion arises, drawing, as it were, on the buttery.
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“When you really must speak, and those present suggest themes and texts for your discussion, carp at all the hard ones and make light of them as not fit, any one of them, fora real man. But when they have made their selection,
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unhesitatingly say ‘whatever comes to the tip of your unlucky tongue.’
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Take no pains at all that the first thing, just because it really is first, shall be said at the appropriate time, and the second directly after it, and the third after that, but say first whatever occurs to you first; and if it so happens, don’t hesitate to buckle your leggings on your head and your helmet on your leg.* But do make haste and keep it going, and only don’t stop talking. If you are speaking of a case of assault or adultery at Athens, mention instances in India or Ecbatana. Cap everything with references to Marathon and Cynegeirus, without which you cannot succeed at all. Unendingly let Athos be crossed in ships and the Hellespont afoot; let the sun be shadowed by the arrows of the Medes, and Xerxes flee the field and Leonidas receive admiration; let the inscription of Othryades be deciphered, and let allusions to Salamis, Artemisium, and Plataea come thick and fast. Over everything let those few words of yours run riot and bloom, and let ‘sundry’
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and ‘forsooth’ be incessant, even if there is no need of them; for they are ornamental even when uttered at random.
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“If ever it seems an opportune time to intone, intone everything and turn it into song. And if ever you are at a loss for matter to intone, say ‘Gentlemen of the jury’ in the proper tempo and consider the music of your sentence complete. Cry ‘Woe is me!’ frequently; slap your thigh, bawl, clear your throat while you are speaking, and stride about swaying your hips. If they do not cry ‘Hear!’ be indignant and upbraid them; and if they stand up, ready to go out in disgust, command them to sit down: in short, carry the thing with a high hand.
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“That they may marvel at the fulness of your speeches, begin with the story of Troy, or even with the marriage of Deucalion and Pyrrha,
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if you like, and bring your account gradually down to date. Few will see through you, and they, as a rule, will hold their tongues out of good nature; if, however, they do make any comment, it will be thought that they are doing it out of spite. The rank and file are already struck dumb with admiration of your appearance, your diction, your gait, your pacing back and forth, your intoning, your sandals, and that ‘sundry’ of yours; and when they see your sweat and your labouring breath they cannot fail to believe that you are a terrible opponent in debates. Besides, your extemporary readiness goes a long way with the crowd to absolve your mistakes and procure you admiration; so see to it that you never write anything out or appear in public with a prepared speech, for that is sure to show you up.
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“Let your friends spring to their feet constantly and pay you for their dinners by lending you a hand whenever they perceive that you are about to fall down, and giving you a chance to find what to say next in the intervals afforded by their applause. Of course you must make it your business to have a well-attuned chorus of your own.
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“There you have what concerns the speaking. Afterwards let them
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dance attendance upon you as you go away with your head swathed in your mantle, reviewing what you have said. And if any one accosts you, make marvellous assertions about yourself, be extravagant in your self-praise, and make yourself a nuisance to him.
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‘What was Demosthenes beside me?’ ‘Perhaps one of the ancients is in the running with me!’ and that sort of thing.
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“I almost omitted the thing that is most important and most needful for maintaining your reputation. Laugh at all the speakers. If anyone makes a fine speech, let it appear that he is parading something that belongs to someone else and is not his own; and if he is mildly criticized, let everything that he says be objectionable. At public lectures, go in after everybody else, for that makes you conspicuous; and when everybody is silent, let fall an uncouth expression of praise which will draw the attention of the company and so annoy them that they will all be disgusted at the vulgarity of your language and will stop their ears.Here again Lucian himself breaks through, and describes what a fellow of this sort actually does. The man himself would put it quite differently. Do not make frequent gestures of assent, for that is common, and do not rise,A form of applause; cf. Essays in Portraiture Defended, c. 4, at end. except once or at most twice. As a rule, smile faintly, and make it evident that you are not satisfied with what is being said. There are plenty of opportunities for criticism if one has captious ears. “For the rest, you need have no fear. Effrontery and shamelessness, a prompt lie, with an oath to confirm it always on the edge of your lips, jealousy and hatred of everyone, abuse and plausible slanders —all this will make you famous and distinguished in an instant.
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“So much for your life in public and in the open. In your private life, be resolved to do anything and everything—to dice, to drink deep, to live high and to keep mistresses, or at all events to boast of it even if you do not do it, telling everyone about it and showing notes that purport to be written by women. You must aim to be elegant, you know, and take pains to create the impression that women are devoted to you. This also will be set down to the credit of your rhetoric by the public, who will infer from it that your fame extends even to the women’s quarters. And I say—do not be ashamed to have the name of being an effeminate, even if you are bearded or actually bald. There should be some who hang about you on that account, but if there are none, your slaves will answer. This helps your rhetoric in many ways; it increases your shameless- ness and effrontery. You observe that women are more talkative, and that in calling names they are extravagant and outstrip men. Well, if you imitate them you will excel your rivals even there. Of course you must use depilatories, preferably all over, but if not, at least where most necessary. And let your mouth be open for everything indifferently; let your tongue serve you not only in your speeches, but in any other way it can. And it can not only solecize and barbarize, not only twaddle and forswear, call names and slander and lie—it can perform other services even at night, especially if your love affairs are too numerous. Yes, that must know everything, be lively, and balk at nothing.
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“If you thoroughly learn all this, my lad—and you can, for there is nothing difficult about it—I promise you confidently that right soon you will turn out an excellent speaker, just like myself. And there is no need for me to tell you what will follow—all the blessings that will instantly accrue to you from Rhetoric. You see my own case. My father was an insignificant fellow without even a clear title to his freedom, who had been a slave above Xois and Thmuis,
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and my mother was a seamstress in the slums. For myself, as my personal attractions were considered not wholly contemptible, at first I lived with an ill-conditioned, stingy admirer just for my keep. But then I detected the easi-
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ness of this road, galloped over it, and reached the summit; for I possessed (by thy grace, Fortune!) all that equipment which I have already mentioned— recklessness, ignorance, and shamelessness. And now, in the first place, my name is no longer Potheinus,
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but I have become a namesake of the sons of Zeus and Leda.
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Moreover, I went to live with an old woman and for a time got my victuals from her by pretending to love a hag of seventy with only four teeth still left, and those four fastened in with gold! However, on account of my poverty I managed to endure the ordeal, and hunger made even those frigid, graveyard kisses exceedingly sweet to me. Then I very nearly became heir to all her property, if only a plaguy slave had not blabbed that I had bought poison for her.
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I was bundled out neck and crop, yet even then I was not at a loss for the necessaries of life. No, I enjoy the name of a speaker, and prove myself such in the courts, generally playing false to my clients, although I promise the poor fools to deliver their juries to them.He is an accomplished praevaricator, not only selling out to the other side, but extracting money from his own clients under pretext of bribing the jury. To be sure I am generally unsuccessful, but the palm-leaves at my door are green and twined with fillets, for I use them as bait for my victims.For palm-branches as a token of success at the bar see Juvenal 7, 118, and Mayor’s note. But even to be detested by everyone, to be notorious for the badness of my character and the still greater badness of my speeches, to be pointed out with the finger—‘ There he is, the man who, they say, is foremost in all iniquity!’—seems to me no slight achievement. “This is the advice which I bestow upon you. By Our Lady of the Stews, I bestowed it upon myself long ago, and am deeply grateful to myself for it.”
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Well, the gentleman will end his remarks with that, and then it is up to you. If you heed what he has said, you may consider that even now you are where in the beginning you yearned to be; and nothing can hinder you, as long as you follow his rules, from holding the mastery in the courts, enjoying high favour with the public, being attractive, and marrying, not an old woman out of a comedy, as did your law-giver and tutor, but Rhetoric, fairest of brides. Consequently, Plato’s famous phrase about driving full-tilt in a winged car can be applied by you to yourself with a better grace than by him to Zeus! As for me, I am spiritless and fainthearted, so I will get out of the road for you, and stop trifling with Rhetoric, being unable to recommend myself to her by qualifications like those of yourself and your friend. Indeed, I have stopped already; so get the herald to proclaim an uncontested victory and take your tribute of admiration, remembering only this, that it is not by your speed that you have defeated us, through proving yourself more swift of foot than we, but because you took the road that was easy and downhill.