Chapter XL: Section 4

[a] Secundus proceeds to give his opinion. This is managed by Brotier with great art and judgement, since it is evident in the original text that Maternus closed the debate. According to what is said in the introduction to the Dialogue, Secundus agrees with Messala upon most points, but still assigns different, but probable reasons. A revolution, he says, happened in literature; a new taste prevailed, and the worst models were deemed worthy of imitation. The emotions of the heart were suppressed. Men could no longer yield to the impulse of genius. They endeavoured to embellish their composition with novelty; they sparkled with wit, and amused their readers with point, antithesis, and forced conceits. They fell into the case of the man, who, according to Martial, was ingenious, but not eloquent:

Cum sexaginta numeret Casselius annos;
Ingeniosus homo est: quando disertus erit?
Lib. vii. epig. 8.

[b] Enough, perhaps, has been already said in the notes, concerning the teachers of rhetoric; but it will not be useless to cite one passage more from Petronius, who in literature, as well as convivial pleasure, may be allowed to be _arbiter elegantiarum_. The rhetoricians, he says, came originally from Asia; they were, however, neither known to Pindar, and the nine lyric poets, nor to Plato, or Demosthenes. They arrived at Athens in evil hour, and imported with them that enormous frothy loquacity, which at once, like a pestilence, blasted all the powers of genius, and established the rules of corrupt eloquence. _Nondum umbraticus doctor ingenia deleverat, cum Pindarus novemque lyrici Homericis versibus canere non timuerunt. Certe neque Platona, neque Demosthenem, ad hoc genus exercitationis accessisse video. Nuper ventosa isthæc et enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia commigravit, animosque juvenum ad magna surgentes veluti pestilenti quodam sidere afflavit; simulque corruptæ eloquentiæ regula stetit et obtinuit._ Petron. _Satyricon_, s. 2.