Preface

SECTION 1

I have often noticed, Brutus, that when your uncle Cato delivered his opinion in the Senate, he would discuss weighty themes drawn from philosophy, far removed from the familiar business of the courts and public life, yet through his eloquence make them seem persuasive even to the people.

SECTION 2

This is a greater achievement for him than for either you or me, because we draw more heavily on the philosophy that has fostered a wealth of eloquence and whose teachings do not differ greatly from popular opinion. Cato, however, in my judgment a consummate Stoic, both holds views that find little favor with the public and belongs to a school that pursues no flowers of rhetoric and gives its arguments no expansive treatment: it establishes its propositions through tiny questions, like pinpricks.

SECTION 3

Yet nothing is so unbelievable that eloquence cannot make it persuasive, nothing so rough and unpolished that speech cannot lend it brilliance and, as it were, refinement. Thinking this, I ventured even further than the very man of whom I speak. For Cato generally confines himself to speaking as a Stoic, with the ornaments of oratory, about greatness of spirit, self-restraint, death, every excellence of virtue, the immortal gods, and love of country. I, as a diversion for you, have cast into the form of general rhetorical arguments those very doctrines that the Stoics can scarcely win acceptance for even in their lecture halls and hours of leisure.

SECTION 4

Because these doctrines are startling and run counter to everyone’s opinion [and are even called “paradoxes” by the Stoics themselves], I wished to test whether they could be brought into the light [that is, into the Forum] and presented persuasively, or whether learned discourse was one thing and popular discourse quite another. I wrote these arguments all the more gladly because these so-called paradoxes seem to me thoroughly Socratic and supremely true.

SECTION 5

You will therefore receive this little work, composed by lamplight during these nights that are now growing shorter, since the gift that cost me longer vigils has already appeared under your name. You will sample the kind of exercises I regularly practice when I transfer what the schools discuss as general propositions into our own oratorical manner of speaking. Yet I do not ask you to enter this work to my credit. It is not something that could be placed on the citadel, like that Minerva of Phidias, but it should at least be recognizable as a product of the same workshop.

SECTION 1

Brutus, I've often watched your uncle Cato give his opinion in the Senate. He takes up serious points of philosophy that have little to do with our usual courtroom arguments or public business. Yet he speaks so well that even ordinary people find those points reasonable.

SECTION 2

That's harder for him than it is for you or me. The philosophy we mostly follow has given rise to a full, expressive style of speaking. Its positions aren't very different from what people generally believe. Cato, on the other hand, is a thorough Stoic, as I see it. He believes things that don't appeal much to the public. His school doesn't aim at elegant language or spell out its arguments at length. It establishes a point with tiny questions, rather like needle pricks.

SECTION 3

Still, an argument can make the most unbelievable claim seem reasonable. Language can polish and brighten even the roughest, least cultivated material. That was my thinking when I went further than Cato himself. He usually speaks as a Stoic, adding the resources of public speaking, only about courage of spirit, restraint, death, all the merits of virtue, the immortal gods, and devotion to one's country. For your amusement, I've taken the very claims the Stoics struggle to establish even in their classrooms and leisure hours and made them subjects for general arguments.

SECTION 4

These claims surprise people and contradict what everyone believes [the Stoics themselves even call them “paradoxes”]. I wanted to see whether I could bring them out into public view [in other words, into the Forum] and argue for them convincingly. Or is addressing educated people quite different from addressing the public? I was particularly glad to write these arguments because I find these so-called paradoxes very much in Socrates' spirit, and truer by far than other views.

SECTION 5

So here's a small piece of work for you, done by lamplight in these nights that have already grown shorter. The gift that took much longer nights of work has already appeared with your name on it. This will give you a taste of my usual exercises: I take what the schools discuss as general questions and put it into the kind of language we use in public speaking. But I'm not asking you to enter this on the credit side of my account. It's no Minerva by Phidias to be set up on the citadel. You should, however, be able to tell that it came out of the same workshop.