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This is particularly observable in his defence of Cluentius, where prejudices, suspicions, and difficulties are encountered with the most triumphant ingenuity; in the antecedent probabilities of his Pro Milone; in his apology for Muræna's public, and Cælius's private life, and his disparagement of Verres's military services in Sicily; it is observable too in the address with which the Agrarian law of Rullus, and the accusation of Rabirius, both popular measures, are represented to be hostile to public liberty; with which Milo's impolitic unconcern is made a touching incident; and Cato's attack upon the crowd of clients which accompanied the candidate for office, a tyrannical disregard for the feelings of the poor.
The Pro Cluentio, which is twice as long as the Pro Milone, and which has never, I think, been a favorite with modern readers, is quoted very frequently by Quintilian. It is the second in the list. Quintilian makes eighteen references to it; but the Pro Milone is brought to the reader's notice thirty-seven times.
It is well known that the speech to which I refer was not spoken, and could not have been spoken, in the form in which it has reached us. We do not know what part of it was spoken and what was omitted; but we do know that the Pro Milone exists for us, and that it lives among the glories of language as a published oration.
The Oratio pro Milone, published afterwards by Cicero, was the speech which he intended to deliver and did not. Suetonius, De Vita Julii Caesaris. Cicero again and again acknowledges in his letters to Atticus that the engagement had really been made. Contra Caesarem? Ubi illae sunt densae dexterae? Nam ut illi hoc liceret adjuvi rogatus ab ipso Ravennae de Caelio tribuno plebis. Ab ipso autem?
At other times, his peroration contains more heroic and elevated sentiments; as in his invocation of the Alban groves and altars in the peroration of the Pro Milone, the panegyric on patriotism, and the love of glory in his defence of Sextius, and that on liberty at the close of the third and tenth Philippics.
We begin with Orlando. Milon, or Milone, a knight of great family, and distantly related to Charlemagne, having secretly married Bertha, the Emperor's sister, was banished from France, and excommunicated by the Pope. After a long and miserable wandering on foot as mendicants Milon and his wife arrived at Sutri, in Italy, where they took refuge in a cave, and in that cave Orlando was born.
I find, on looking through the Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, that in his estimation the Pro Milone was the first in favor of all our author's orations "facile princeps," if we may collect the critic's ideas on the subject from the number of references made and examples taken.
These strong expressions can hardly refer to a proposed enfranchisement of the libertini, or sons of freedmen, like Horace's father. "Caesaris potentiam suam esse dicebat.... An consules in praetore coercendo fortes fuissent? Primum, Milone occiso habuisset suos consules." Pro Milone, 33.
Then young Orlando, son of the Count Milone, and nephew of Charlemagne, no longer able to endure this misapprehension, threw down his helmet, and ran to unlace Ogier's, while the other young men laid aside theirs. Our author says he cannot express the surprise, the admiration, and the tenderness of the Emperor and his peers.
Then young Orlando, son of the Count Milone, and nephew of Charlemagne, no longer able to endure this misapprehension, threw down his helmet, and ran to unlace Ogier's, while the other young men laid aside theirs. Our author says he cannot express the surprise, the admiration, and the tenderness of the Emperor and his peers.
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