No More Learning

[g] Messala Corvinus is often, in this Dialogue, called Corvinus only.
See s. xii. note [e].

[h] Appius Claudius was censor in the year of Rome 442; dictator, 465;
and, having at a very advanced age lost his sight, he became better
known by the name of Appius Cæcus. Afterwards, A. U. 472, when Pyrrhus,
by his ambassador, offered terms of peace, and a treaty of alliance,
Appius, whom blindness, and the infirmities of age, had for some time
withheld from public business, desired to be conveyed in a litter to
the senate-house. Being conducted to his place, he delivered his
sentiments in so forcible a manner, that the fathers resolved to
prosecute the war, and never to hear of an accommodation, till Italy
was evacuated by Pyrrhus and his army. See Livy, b. xiii. s. 31.
Cicero relates the same fact in his CATO MAJOR, and further adds, that
the speech made by APPIUS CÆCUS was then extant. Ovid mentions the
temple of Bellona, built and dedicated by Appius, who, when blind, saw
every thing by the light of his understanding, and rejected all terms
of accommodation with Pyrrhus.
Hac sacrata die Tusco Bellona duello
Dicitur, et Latio prospera semper adest.
Appius est auctor, Pyrrho qui pace negatâ
Multum animo vidit, lumine cæcus erat.
FASTORUM lib vi. ver. 201.

[i] Quintilian acknowledges this fact, with his usual candour. The
question concerning Attic and Asiatic eloquence was of long standing.
The style of the former was close, pure, and elegant; the latter was
said to be diffuse and ostentatious. In the ATTIC, nothing was idle,
nothing redundant: the ASIATIC swelled above all bounds, affecting to
dazzle by strokes of wit, by affectation and superfluous ornament.
Cicero was said by his enemies to be an orator of the last school.
They did not scruple to pronounce him turgid, copious to a fault,
often redundant, and too fond of repetition. His wit, they said, was
the false glitter of vain conceit, frigid, and out of season; his
composition was cold and languid; wire-drawn into amplification, and
fuller of meretricious finery than became a man. _Et antiqua quidem
illa divisio inter Asianos et Atticos fuit; cum hi pressi, et integri,
contra, inflati illi et inanes haberentur; et in his nihil
superflueret, illis judicium maximè ac modus deesset. Ciceronem tamen
et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant ut tumidiorem, et
Asianum, et redundantem, et in repetitionibus nimium, et in salibus
aliquando frigidum, et in compositione fractum, exultantem, ac penè
(quod procul absit) viro molliorem. _ Quintil. lib.