A Dialogue on the Best Style of Speaking 49

Testem, Si tua tantummodo Vatini; " To the Knights when he
was on the point of going into exile," Si quando inimicorum;
" To the Senate, after his return," Si P. C. vestris; Pro Marco
Caelio, Si quis judices; De Provinciis Consularibus, Si quis
vestrum, P. C. What could be more ridiculous and more unlike
Cicero than to confine the introduction of a speech to such words
as these ! If any one should ask Cicero why he began with these
words, he would, I think, make the same reply that in the Blessed
Isles Homer made to Lucian's query as to why he began the Iliad
with the word ju.^vii' (for this question had troubled Grammar-
ians for many ages). ^" Because," said Homer, " that word at
the moment happened to occur to me '' Of like effrontery are
those who think themselves ultra Ciceronians because at different
times they prop themselves on these phrases: etiam atque etiam
used for vehementer ; majorum in modum for valde; indentidem
for subinde; quum and turn whenever there are things of un-
equal weight to join, turn and turn when equal; tuorum in me
meritorum. Quid quaeris for in summa or breviter; and Non
solum peto, verum, etiam oro contendoque. Ante hac dilexisse
tantum, nunc etiam amiare mihi videor. Valetudinem tuam cura,
et me, ut facis, ama. Non ille quidem vir malus, sed parum
diligens, in which last phrase Cicero seemed so to delight that
you may find it repeatedly on the same page. Likewise when by
the pronoun ilhid he indicates not what precedes but what soon
follows. And if perchance in his letters Cicero has said occas-
ionally, cogitabam in Tusculanum, then he considers himself a
Ciceronian who repeatedly says, Romam cogitabam, instead of
what he means, in cmimo habebam, or statueram proHcisci Romam.
