Hoc sibi illi veteres persuaserant, ad hoc efficiendum intellegebant opus esse, non ut in rhetorum scholis declamarent, nec ut fictis nec ullo modo ad veritatem accedentibus controversiis linguam modo et vocem exercerent, sed ut iis artibus pectus implerent in quibus de bonis ac malis, de honesto et turpi, de iusto et iniusto disputatur; haec enim est oratori subiecta ad dicendum materia.
This was fully understood by the men of former days. They were well aware that, in order to attain the end in view, the practice of declamation in the schools of rhetoric was not the essential matter'the training merely of tongue and voice in imaginary debates which had no point of contact with real life. No, for them the one thing needful was to stock the mind with those accomplishments which deal with good and evil, virtue and vice, justice and injustice. It is this that forms the subject-matter of oratory.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Dialogus.json