atoribus_, a history of
Roman eloquence containing much valuable information about his
predecessors, drawn largely from the _Chronicle_ (_liber annalis_) of
Atticus (Sec.Sec. 14, 15). (_c_) _Orator_, dedicated to M. Brutus, sketching a
portrait of the perfect and ideal orator, Cicero's last word on oratory.
The sum of his conclusion is that the perfect orator must also be a
perfect man. Cicero says of this work that he has "concentrated in it
all his taste" (_Fam._ vi. 18. 4). The three treatises are intended to
form a continuous series containing a complete system of rhetorical
training.

It will be convenient to mention here a feature of Ciceronian prose on
which singular light has been thrown by recent inquiry. In the _de
Oratore_, iii. 173 sqq., he considers the element of rhythm or metre
in prose, and in the _Orator_ (174-226) he returns to the subject and
discusses it at length. His main point is that prose should be
metrical in character, though it should not be entirely metrical,
since this would be poetry (_Orator_, 220). Greek writers relied for
metrical effect in prose on those feet which were not much used in
poetry. Aristotle recommended the paean [uuu-]. Cicero preferred the
cretic [-u-] which he says is the metrical equivalent of the paean.
Demosthenes was especially fond of the cretic. Rhythm pervades the
whole sentence but is most important at the end or _clausula_, where
the swell of the period sinks to rest. The ears of the Romans were
incredibly sensitive to such points. We are told that an assembly was
stirred to wild applause by a double trochee [-u-u].[9] If the order
were changed, Cicero says, the effect would be lost. The same rhythm
should be found in the _membra_ which compose the sentence. He quotes
a passage from one of his own speeches in which any change in the
order would destroy the rhythm. Cicero gives various _clausulae_ which
his ears told him to be good or bad, but his remarks are desultory, as
also are those of Quintilian, whose examples were largely drawn from
Cicero's writings. It was left for modern research to discover rules
of harmony which the Romans obeyed unconsciously. Other investigators
had shown that Cicero's _clausulae_ are generally variations of some
three or four forms in which the rhythm is trochaic. Dr Thaddaeus
Zielinski of St Petersburg, after examining all the _clausulae_ in
Cicero's speeches, finds that they