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But Calvus did not threaten to become a political force, Calidius was too even-tempered, and Caesar was now in the north, fighting with other weapons. Cicero's prestige still seemed unbroken. It was not till Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49, after Hortensius had died, and Cicero had been pushed aside as a futile statesman, that Atticism gained predominance in the schools.
Well then, to begin, the liberty of the Tenedians has received short shrift, no one speaking for them except myself, Bibulus, Calidius, and Favonius. A complimentary reference to you was made by the legates from Magnesia and Sipylum, they saying that you were the man who alone had resisted the demand of L. Sestius Pansa.
Severe simplicity was favored by Calvus in his orations, Catullus in his lyrics 5 while a more polished and well-nigh précieuse plainness was illustrated in the speeches of Calidius and in the Alexandrian epyllion of Catullus' Peleus and Thetis and in Vergil's Ciris and Bucolics. Demetrius, Philodemus, Cicero; of. Class.
Most of the great statesmen of Rome, in the time of Cicero, were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P. Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Calidius, Messala Niger, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M. Antonius, Caesar, Calvus, Caelius, Brutus, Catulus, Messala Cervirus, were all celebrated for their forensic efforts.
The last had a very brilliant career as an orator, though his orations were too florid to be read. Caesar was also distinguished for his eloquence, its characteristics being force and purity. "Coelius was noted for lofty sentiment, Brutus for philosophical wisdom, Calidius for a delicate and harmonious style, and Calvus for sententious force."
You bid me to disarm or withdraw from Italy, as though the lives and property of any good men would be safe the moment Cæsar was left unopposed to pour his cohorts of barbarous Gauls and Germans into the country. You, Calidius, have given the same untimely advice. Beware lest you repent the hour when you counselled that I should disarm or quit the neighbourhood of Rome."
But M. Calidius has a more particular claim to our notice for the singularity of his character; which cannot so properly be said to have entitled him to a place among our other Orators, as to distinguish him from the whole fraternity; for in him we beheld the most uncommon, and the most delicate sentiments, arrayed in the softest and finest language imaginable.
We may add that he readily discovered, upon all occasions, what was the real point of debate, and where the stress of the argument lay; and that his method of ranging his ideas was extremely artful, his action genteel, and his whole manner very engaging and very sensible. In short, if to speak agreeably is the chief merit of an Orator, you will find no one who was better qualified than Calidius.
Respecting the proposal renewed by Caesar that both generals might be enjoined to resign their commands simultaneously, respecting all the projects of accommodation suggested by his letter, and respecting the proposal made by Marcus Coelius Rufus and Marcus Calidius that Pompeius should be urged immediately to depart for Spain, the consuls refused as they in the capacity of presiding officers were entitled to do to let a vote take place.
To be sure, Calvus had already raised the banner of Atticism and had in several biting attacks shown what a simple, frugal and direct style could accomplish; Calidius, one of the first Roman pupils of the great Apollodorus, had already begun making campaign speeches in his neatly polished orations which painfully eschewed all show of ornament or passion; and Caesar himself, efficiency personified, had demonstrated that the leader of a democratic rabble must be a master of blunt phrases.
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