Cicero, Orations Vol. 1

Our man excelled in all these kinds to such a degree that not even from those who flourished in individual styles can anyone be compared to him in that very kind. No one was more compressed in small matters, more ornate in moderate ones, or more sublime in great ones; no one instructed a judge more keenly, delighted him more pleasantly, or incited him more ardently. Even if these things were equal in Demosthenes, there are still those who believe that his oration could have been seasoned much more pleasantly with those witticisms in which Cicero mostly abounds. There are those who desire lamentations, which, although he was prohibited from using by the law of the Athenians, it is nevertheless a great thing that is lacking in him. In which matter, Cicero has been considered to excel all others to such an extent that in those cases which Q. Hortensius or other orators who were the greatest at that time were pleading together with him, the final place for the peroration was always left to him by the agreement of those very men. Furthermore, in his letters, since those of both exist, such is the charm in our man, such urbanity, such sweetness, such candor, such pure language, and such gravity when he speaks of the Republic, that it is a wonder by how great an interval we surpass them. What of the richness of his genius? Can the knowledge of so many and most distinguished matters be compared? We read many orations and certain letters of that Greek man in his language alone. This Roman man, however, wrote more with such ornamentation, and he is said to have spoken sometimes so brilliantly when the matter required it, that even the Greeks themselves, men most expert in this faculty, would grant no less elegance to his language than they would unwillingly feel this praise being snatched from themselves.