Cicero

1.2 early latin translation 21

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bc)

Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher, was regarded as one of the Wnest Classical stylists. He is credited with the formation of a Latin philosophical vocabulary.

In De optimo genere oratorum, his introduction to his translation (not extant) of two speeches by Demosthenes and his arch-rival Aeschines, Demosthenes being the greatest orator of fourth-century Greece, Cicero makes a case for ‘free’ translation. The essence of successful oratory, he insists, is that it should ‘instruct, delight and move the minds of his audience’, this being achievable in translation only by conserving the ‘force and Xavour of the passage’, not by translating ‘word for word’. While Cicero has been routinely quoted in defence of non-literal translation, it should be remembered that he is instancing the translation of speeches.

The assumption then is that, with suYcient latitude, it is not impossible to convey the persuasiveness of Greek oratory. Cicero’s approach is essentially pragmatic. Thus, in the De Wnibus bonorum et malorum, he discusses the translation of Greek philosophical terms into Latin, insisting that Greek neologisms may be rendered by Latin ones, that there is good reason for sometimes translating one Greek word by several Latin ones, and that there should be no injunction against importing Greek words into Latin when there is no adequate Latin term.

‘De optimo genere oratorum’ (the Best Kind of Orator), iv. 13–v. 14 (46 bc), translated by

L.G. Kelly

And this is our conclusion: that, since the most outstanding Greek orators were those from Athens, and that their chief was easily Demosthenes, anybody who imitates him will speak in the Attic style, and excellently to boot. Consequently, since Athenian orators are proposed for our imitation, to speak in the Attic style is to speak well. But, because there are many misconceptions over what constitutes this style of composition, I propose to undertake a task useful for students, but not completely necessary for myself. For I have translated into Latin two of the most eloquent and most noble speeches in Athenian literature, those two speeches in which Aeschines and Demonsthenes oppose each other. And I have not translated like a mere hack, but in the manner of an orator, translating the same themes and their expression and sentence shapes in words consonant with our conventions. In so doing I did not think it necessary to translate word for word, but I have kept the force and Xavour of the passage. For I saw my duty not as counting out words for the reader, but as weighing them out. And this is the goal of my project: to give my countrymen an understanding of what they are to seek from those models who aim to be Attic in style, and of the formulas of speech they are to have recourse to.