{"agent_id":"cicero","agent_name":"Marcus Tullius Cicero","slug":"atticism-and-the-grand-style","label":"Atticism and the grand style: is Ciceronian abundance the height of Latin prose or its corruption?","topic":"Atticism and the grand style","question":"Is Ciceronian abundance the height of Latin prose or its corruption?","position":"There are three styles — plain, middle, grand — and the orator worth the name commands all three and knows which the occasion requires. The Atticists have taken one, and the thinnest, and called their poverty a principle.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"There are three styles — plain, middle, grand — and the orator worth the name commands all three and knows which the occasion requires.","n":[]},{"t":"The Atticists have taken one, and the thinnest, and called their poverty a principle.","n":[1,2,3]}]],"texts":"*Brutus* 283-291 (the reply to the Atticists), *Orator* 20-32, 168-236 (the three styles and prose rhythm), *De Optimo Genere Oratorum*. Reception: Calvus and Brutus led the Attic reaction in his lifetime; Erasmus's *Ciceronianus* (1528) mocks slavish imitation of him; the seventeenth-century turn to Seneca and Tacitus is a second reaction; Quintilian is his greatest defender.","works":["*Brutus* 283-291 (the reply to the Atticists), *Orator* 20-32, 168-236 (the three styles and prose rhythm), *De Optimo Genere Oratorum*"],"reception":"Calvus and Brutus led the Attic reaction in his lifetime; Erasmus's *Ciceronianus* (1528) mocks slavish imitation of him; the seventeenth-century turn to Seneca and Tacitus is a second reaction; Quintilian is his greatest defender.","status":"Defended with some heat, because the attack was personal and came from men I liked.","era":"106-43 BCE","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"On Oratory and Orators","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"The open forum demands a fuller and more elevated tone; and he is the orator for me, who is so universally admired, that when he is to plead an interesting cause^ all the benches are filled beforehand, the tribunal crowded, the clerks and notaries busy in adjusting tlieir seats, the populace thronging about the rostra, and the judge brisk and vigilant; he, who has such a commanding air, that when he rises up to…","label":"On Oratory and Orators"},{"n":2,"work":"Orations Vol 4","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Let these rules then, my Cicero, which I have now explained to you, be to you a sort of guide to those fountains of eloquence, and if under my instruction or that of others you arrive at them, you will then acquire a clearer understanding of these things and of others which are much more important.","label":"Orations Vol 4"},{"n":3,"work":"Orations Vol 4","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"And in doing this (if at least we can manage even this, for it is a mighty undertaking) let us imitate, if we can, Lysias, and especially his simplicity of style: for in many places he rises to grandeur.","label":"Orations Vol 4"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"eloquence-and-wisdom","label":"Eloquence and wisdom: was Socrates right to separate philosophy from rhetoric, or was that the ruin of both?"},{"slug":"the-catilinarian-executions","label":"The Catilinarian executions: was putting Roman citizens to death without trial the salvation of the Republic or its betrayal?"}]}