MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 235 



His poetical and historical works have suffered a heavier fate. The Poetical and 

 latter class, consisting of his commentary on his consulship, and his "^ ical 

 history of his own times, is altogether lost. Of the former, which 

 consisted of the heroic poems ' Halcyone,' ' Cimon,' ' Marius,' and his 

 Consulate, the elegy of * Tamelastes,' translations of Homer and Aratus, 

 epigrams, &c., nothing remains, except some fragments of the ' Phae- 

 nomena ' and ' Diosemeia ' of Aratus. It may, however, be questioned 

 whether literature has suffered much by these losses. We are far, 

 indeed, from speaking contemptuously of the poetical powers of one 

 who possessed so much fancy, so much taste, and so fine an ear. 1 But 

 his poems were principally composed in his youth ; and afterwards, 

 when his powers were more mature, his occupations did not allow 

 even his active mind the time necessary for polishing a language still 

 more ragged in metre than it was in prose. His contemporary his- 

 tory, on the other hand, can hardly have conveyed more explicit, and 

 certainly would have contained less faithful, information than his pri- 

 vate correspondence; while, with all the penetration he assuredly 

 possessed, it may be doubted if his diffuse and graceful style of 

 thought and composition was adapted for the depth of reflection and 

 condensation of meaning, which are the chief excellences of historical 

 composition. 



The orations which he is known to have composed amount in all Orations. 

 to about eighty, of which fifty-nine either entire or in part are pre- 

 served. Of these some are deliberative, others judicial, others de- 

 scriptive ; some delivered from the rostrum or in the senate ; others 

 in the forum or before Csssar ; and, as might be anticipated from the 

 character already given of his talents, he is much more successful in 

 pleading or in panegyric than in debate or invective. In deliberative 

 oratory, indeed, great part of the effect depends on the confidence 

 placed in the speaker ; and though Cicero takes considerable pains to 

 interest the audience in his favour, yet his style is not simple and 

 grave enough; he is too ingenious, too declamatory, discovers too 

 much personal feeling, to attain the highest degree of excellence in 

 this department of the art. His invectives again, however grand and 

 imposing, yet, compared with his calmer and more familiar produc- 

 tions, have a forced and unnatural air. Splendid as is the eloquence 

 of his Catilinarians and Philippics, it is often the language of abuse 

 rather than of indignation ; and even his attack on Piso, the most 

 brilliant and imaginative of its kind, becomes wearisome from want 

 of ease and relief. His laudatory orations, on the other hand, are 

 among his happiest efforts. Nothing can exceed the taste and beauty 

 of those for the Manilian law, for Marcellus, for Ligurius, for Archias, 

 and the ninth Philippic, which is principally in praise of Servius 

 Sulpicius. But it is in judicial eloquence, particularly on subjects of 

 a lively cast, as in his speeches for Cselius and Mursena, and against 



1 See Plutarch, in Vita. 



