taer]) of perfection, because
different things appear perfection to different people. I am delighted
with Ennius, says one person, because he never departs from the
ordinary use of words. I love Pacuvius, says another, all his verses
are so ornamented and elaborate while Ennius is often so careless.
Another is all for Attius. For there are many different opinions, as
among the Greeks, nor is it easy to explain which form is the most
excellent. In pictures one man is delighted with what is rough harsh
looking, obscure, and dark, others care only for what is neat cheerful
and brilliant. Why should you, then give any precise command or
formula, when each is best in its own kind, and when there are many
kinds? However, these difficulties have not repelled me from this
attempt, and I have thought that in everything there is some point of
absolute perfection even though it is not easily seen, and, that it
can be decided on by a man who understands the matter.

But since there are many kinds of speeches, and those different, and
as they do not all fall under one form, the form of panegyric, and of
declamation, and of narration, and of such discourses as Isocrates has
left us in his panegyric, and many other writers also who are called
sophists; and the form also of other kinds which have no connexion
with forensic discussion, and of the whole of that class which is
called in Greek [Greek: epideiktikon], and which is made up as it were
for the purpose of being looked at--for the sake of amusement, I
shall omit at the present time. Not that they deserve to be entirely
neglected; for they are as it were the nursery of the orator whom we
wish to draw; and concerning whom we are endeavouring to say something
worth hearing.

XII. From this form is derived fluency of words; from it also the
combination and rhythm of sentences derives a freer licence. For
great indulgence is shown to neatly turned sentences; and rhythmical,
steady, compact periods are always admissible. And pains are taken
purposely, not disguisedly, but openly and avowedly, to make one word
answer to another, as if they had been measured together and were
equal to each other. So that words opposed to one another may be
frequently contrasted, and contrary words compared together, and that
sentences may be terminated in the same manner, and may give the same
sound at their conclusion; which, when we are dealing with actual
causes, we do much more seldom, and certainl