Brutus or History of Famous Orators/Orator or Accomplished Speaker

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Brutus gives an account of the Roman tradition of public and lawcourt speeches from its beginning to what Cicero described as the polished and entertaining speeches of his own day. Along the way Cicero has interesting things to say about the influence of the speaker's audience on his style and technique. Also notable here is an autobiographical sketch. Cicero's own very wide practical experience informs Orator, which depicts the ideal speaker. Here he details the principles of eloquent oratory and quotes instructive examples. Both works date from 46 BCE and are dedicated to the author's promising young friend, Brutus, later famous in the conspiracy against Caesar.

Genres: Classics, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Ancient History

414 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 47

About the author

Born 3 January 106 BC, Arpinum, Italy
Died 7 December 43 BC (aged 63), Formia, Italy

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

Alternate profiles:
Cicéron
Marco Tullio Cicerone
Cicerone

Note: All editions should have Marcus Tullius Cicero as primary author. Editions with another name on the cover should have that name added as secondary author.

Reviews

[J]

BRUTUS/ DE CLARIS ORATIBUS
This book is more about history of rhetoric than a study on rhetoric itself. If you want to read a complete catalogue of Roman and Greek orators, then Brutus is a book for you. If you are not interested in huge amounts of name-dropping and Cicero's self-congratulation, you should read something else. Even though I love Cicero's works, his ego is sometimes just too much.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brutus is little more than a list of names. Orator is a good treatise on a dull subject.

[Vicki Cline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains two works. The first one, Brutus, is in the form of a conversation between Cicero, Brutus and Atticus, about who among Greek and Roman orators were great, and why. Cicero does most of the talking. I had a hard time getting into this one, because Cicero doesn't really detail why certain men were really good while others weren't. I think this was the third in a series of four works about oratory, so perhaps the first two would have helped. The second one in this book, Orator, does go into more detail, and is not a conversation, just a lengthy essay. Cicero goes into the different styles of oratory, and even goes so far as to talk about why you shouldn't have one word ending in a vowel followed by one beginning with a vowel. And there is lots of detail about rhythm and meter. I wish I knew Latin - it would help me to appreciate these details more.

[Brent Pinkall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read "Brutus," only "Orator." I originally started reading "Orator" thinking it was Cicero's "On the Orator," which is a separate book. But after learning they were different, I finished it anyway. This book would be much more beneficial if Latin was my mother tongue, but, as a rhetoric teacher, I still found it edifying as an example of how to teach oratory well. "Orator" does not cover the wide range of rhetorical theory that some of Cicero's other works do. It focuses primarily on style, and rhythm in particular. But what I found edifying was seeing how Cicero teaches rhythm. He doesn't just give some general "rules" to follow but provides many, many examples from famous speeches. Sometimes these examples function as ones to imitate, but many times Cicero actually gives bad examples from famous speeches and corrects them, saying, "As it stands, this arrangement of words doesn't have a nice rhythm. But if he had placed this word here and that word there like this...then this sentence would flow much better." Unfortunately, all of the examples are in Latin.

Cicero also verbalizes some of the problems I have experienced teaching rhetoric. Sometimes a student will ask why my correction is preferred to his sentence--what "rule" makes it sound better. And Cicero essentially says that rhythm is not primarily determined by reason but by the ear. How the ear determines such a thing, however, is somewhat of a mystery. We cannot find a "rule" that, when followed, will invariably produce an elegant sentence. But this does not negate the fact that there is such a thing as good rhythm. Under such circumstances, it seems that the only helpful way to teach rhythm is to provide many good examples for students to imitate and to correct bad examples, which is precisely what Cicero does.

[Sean Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first foray into Cicero, and I enjoyed it more and less than I thought I would. It's amazing how much of the book is still relevant. I kept thinking how much our national discourse would be raised if we followed his advice, and I lamented to think how many talking heads do the opposite of what he recommends to the detriment of us all. Why have we abandoned the realm of noble ideals in exchange for cheap shots and sound bites. I only take off a point because I felt at times that he spent too much time in the weeds.

[Zachary Rudolph · Rating 3 out of 5]

“For the address of philosophers is gentle, and fond of retirement, and not furnished with popular ideas or popular expressions, not fettered by any particular rhythm, but allowed a good deal of liberty. It has in it nothing angry, nothing envious, nothing energetic, nothing marvellous, nothing cunning, it is as it were a chaste, modest, uncontaminated virgin. Therefore it is called a discourse rather than an oration.”

[Daniel Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought provoking, insightful perspective into the layered mind of Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose genuinely beautiful prose takes us through a crash course on Roman oratory, as presented in a perhaps fictionalized explanation of the rise and fall of oratory to the young, aspiring orator Marcus Brutus and historian geek Titus Pomponius (aka Atticus). The inside glimpse into the psychology of an orator and his placement in the grand scheme of Roman politics was absolutely fascinating, and I though the ending was wonderfully written. Cicero truly did have a gift with words! The only criticism is that I did get kind of bogged down by all the name-dropping/history lesson format in the middle, but Cicero himself even addresses this by having Atticus make some sassy remarks midway through about how unnecessary some of the narration seems to be. I'm glad I got to read portions of this in Latin, as I feel like I really got a sense of the proper, yet remarkably poetic flow of Cicero's prose. His sentences carry a lot of weight and meaning while following a pretty formalized structure that allows for moments of first-person perspective in the analysis of third-person statements. Overall, a fantastic read and a true "classic" of literature (hehe).

[Ashton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The portrayal of eloquentia in the Brutus is nothing short of novel and literary; a laudatio funebris for the state of oratory in the late Republic. The encomium to Caesar is particularly fascinating and underscores the tension-laden undercurrents of this unique dialogue. 3.5 for entertainment value (I'm not that excited about what he thinks of each particular orator in history), but 5 for literary merit and scholarly fodder.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read Orator