over facts—to have, in other words, a power of making and unmaking facts at his pleasure. What does that mean? And what does "no orator" mean? Does it mean that it is part of the business of an orator to make facts to suit his purpose? Is it? Yet I hardly think Cicero made those "facts" about Antony in the second Philippi, which cost the orator his life. The sting lay in the terrible truth of them. One charge[1] went deeper from Cicero's stating that he spoke from personal knowledge; for even in that depraved age of Rome, men who shrunk from no vice shrunk from the brand of disgrace implied in such a charge.
It may be not without use to state more fully the meaning of the words, a command over facts.
"A command over facts" is understood to be the distinctive quality of the highest paid advocates. The reader may ask, what is a command over facts? A command over facts is such a power as the Creator exercised when He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. An advocate of this high order, when he wants facts, creates them for the occasion, and marshalls them in the order and array best suited to the purpose he has in view.
- ↑ Cic. Phil. 2, 18.
