"A Dialogue Concerning Oratory" from Cornelius Tacitus. Senator and a historian of the Roman Empire (54-117).

The Dialogus de oratoribus is a short work attributed to Tacitus, in dialogue form, on the art of rhetoric. Its date of composition is unknown, though its dedication to Lucius Fabius Justus places its publication around 102 AD. The dialogue itself, set in the 70s AD, follows the tradition of Cicero's speeches on philosophical and rhetorical arguments. It is set in the home of Curiatius Maternus, one of the speakers, to whom two leading lawyers of the day, Marcus Aper and Julius Secundus, have come to discuss a recent event; the fourth speaker, Gaius Vipstanus Messalla Gallus, arrives later. All four men are attested historical personages. The beginning of the work is a speech in defence of eloquence and poetry. It then deals with the decadence of oratory, for which the cause is said to be the decline of the education, both in the family and in the school, of the future orator. The education is not as accurate as it once was; the teachers are not prepared and a useless rhetoric often takes the place of the general culture.

Publius (Gaius/Caius) Cornelius Tacitus (c56-c117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works - the Annals and the Histories - examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in 14 AD to the death of emperor Domitian in 96 AD. There are significant lacunae in the surviving texts. Other works by Tacitus discuss oratory (Dialogus de Oratoribus), Germania (De Origine et Situ Germanorum), and biographical notes about his father-in-law Agricola, primarily during his campaign in Britannia (De Vita et Moribus Lulii Agricolae). Tacitus' historiographical style in his major works is annalistic. An author writing in the latter part of the Silver Age of Latin literature, his work is distinguished by a boldness and sharpness of wit, and a compact and sometimes unconventional use of Latin.

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