Fragment of a Panegyric on Scipio Orfitus
17. I leave it to those who are in the habit of obtruding themselves upon their proconsul’s leisure moments57 to attempt to commend their wits by the exuberance of their speech, and to glorify themselves by affecting to bask in the smiles of your friendship. Both of these offences are far from me, Scipio Orfitus. For on the one hand my poor wit, such as it is, is too well known to all men to have any need of further commendation; on the other hand, I prefer to enjoy rather than to parade the friendship of yourself and such as you; I desire such friendship, but I do not boast of it, for desire can in no case be other than genuine, whereas boasting may always be false. With this in view I have ever cultivated the arts of virtue, I have always sought both here in Africa and when I moved among your friends in Rome to win a fair name both for my character and studies, as you yourself can amply testify, with the result that you should be no less eager to court my friendship than I to long for yours. Reluctance to excuse the rarity of a friend’s appearances is a sign that you desire his continual presence; if you delight in the frequency of his visits or are angry with him for neglecting to come, if you welcome his company and regret its cessation, it is clear proof of love, since it is obvious that his presence must be a pleasure whose absence is a pain. But the voice, if it be refrained in continued silence, is as useless as the nostrils when choked by a cold in the head, the ears when they are blocked with dirt, the eyes when they are sealed by cataract. What can the hands do, if they are fettered, or what the feet, if they are shackled? What can58 the mind that rules and directs us do, if it be relaxed in sleep or drowned in wine or crushed beneath the weight of disease? Nay, as the sword acquires its sheen by usage, and rusts if it lie idle, so the voice is dulled by its long torpor if it be hidden in the sheath of silence. Desuetude must needs beget sloth, and sloth decay. If the tragic actor declaim not daily, the resonance of his voice is dulled and its channels grow hoarse. Wherefore he purges his huskiness by loud and repeated recitation. However, it is vain toil and useless labour59 for a man to attempt to improve the natural quality of the human voice. There are many sounds that surpass it. The trumpet’s blare is louder, the music of the lyre more varied, the plaint of the flute more pleasing, the murmurs of the pipe sweeter, the message of the bugle further heard. I forbear to mention the natural sounds of many animals which challenge admiration by their different peculiarities, as, for instance, the deep bellow of the bull, the wolf’s shrill howl, the dismal trumpeting of the elephant, the horse’s lively neigh, the bird’s piercing song, the angry roar of the lion, together with the cries of other beasts, harsh or musical, according as they are roused by the madness of anger or the charms of pleasure. In place of such cries the gods have given man a voice of narrower compass; but if it give less delight to the ear, it is far more useful to the understanding. Wherefore it should be all the more cultivated by the most frequent use, and that nowhere else60 than in the presence of an audience presided over by so great a man, and in the midst of so numerous and distinguished a gathering of learned men who come kindly disposed to hear. For my part, if I were skilled to make ravishing music on the lyre, I should never play save before crowded assemblies. It was in solitude that
Orpheus to woods, to fish Arion sang.
For if we may believe legend, Orpheus had been driven to lonely exile, Arion hurled from his ship. One of them soothed savage beasts, the other charmed beasts that were compassionate: both musicians were unhappy, inasmuch as they strove not for honour nor of their free choice, but for their safety and of hard necessity. I should have admired them more if they had pleased men, not beasts. Such solitude were far better suited to birds, to blackbird and nightingale and swan. The blackbird whistles like a happy boy in distant wilds, the nightingale trills its song of youthful passion in the lonely places of Africa, the swan by far-off rivers chants the music of old age. But he who would produce a song that shall profit boys, youths, and greybeards, must sing it in the midst of thousands of men, even as now I sing the virtues of Orfitus. It is late, perhaps, but it is meant in all earnestness, and may prove no less pleasing than profitable to the boys, the youths, and the old men of Carthage. For all have enjoyed the indulgence of the best of all proconsuls: he has tempered their desires and restrained them with gentle remedies, he has given to boys the boon of plenty, to young men merriment, and to the old security. But now, Scipio, that I have come to touch on your merits, I fear lest either your own noble modesty or my own native bashfulness may close my mouth. But I cannot refrain from touching on a very few of the many virtues which we so justly admire in you. Citizens whom he has saved, show with me that you recognize them!