Download or read book Dialogue on Orators written by Tacitus and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.