rna-), in which the resume of the business
discussed before the people and in the senate, and births, deaths,
and such like were recorded. This became a not unimportant
source for history, but remained without proper political
as without literary significance.

Speeches
Decline of Political Oratory

To subsidiary historical literature belongs of right also
the composition of orations. The speech, whether written down or not,
is in its nature ephemeral and does not belong to literature;
but it may, like the report and the letter, and indeed still
more readily than these, come to be included, through the significance
of the moment and the power of the mind from which it springs,
among the permanent treasures of the national literature.
Thus in Rome the records of orations of a political tenor delivered
before the burgesses or the jurymen had for long played a great part
in public life; and not only so, but the speeches of Gaius Gracchus
in particular were justly reckoned among the classical Roman writings.
But in this epoch a singular change occurred on all hands.
The composition of political speeches was on the decline like political
speaking itself. The political speech in Rome, as generally
in the ancient polities, reached its culminating point in the discussions
before the burgesses; here the orator was not fettered, as in the senate,
by collegiate considerations and burdensome forms, nor,
as in the judicial addresses, by the interests--in themselves foreign
to politics--of the accusation and defence; here alone his heart
swelled proudly before the whole great and mighty Roman people
hanging on his lips. But all this was now gone. Not as though
there was any lack of orators or of the publishing of speeches
delivered before the burgesses; on the contrary political
authorship only now waxed copious, and it began to become
a standing complaint at table that the host incommoded his guests
by reading before them his latest orations. Publius Clodius
had his speeches to the people issued as pamphlets,
just like Gaius Gracchus; but two men may do the same thing
without producing the same effect. The more important leaders
even of the opposition, especially Caesar himself, did not often address
the burgesses, and no longer published the speeches which they delivered;
indeed they partly sought for their political fugitive writings
another form than the traditional one of -contiones-, in which respect
more especiall