{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "cicero.brutus",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/cicero/brutus/reference-274/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Brutus, or On Eminent Orators",
    "author": "Cicero",
    "date": "46 BCE",
    "summary": "Cicero traces the history of Roman eloquence through the speakers who shaped it. The dialogue combines criticism, portraiture, and an anxious reflection on public speech at a moment when the Republic is losing its freedom.",
    "learning": "Recognize Roman standards of eloquence, follow a literary history built through comparison, and connect the crisis of oratory with that of the Republic.",
    "long_summary": "Judgements about style, memory, voice, and training compose a genealogy of the Roman orator. Cicero places predecessors, rivals, and his own career within a tradition where political effectiveness cannot be separated from verbal art.\n\nDialogue turns the catalogue into a debate about standards of excellence. Beneath literary history lies a political question: what becomes of eloquence when civic deliberation gives way to personal force?",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Roman world, 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood.",
        "science": "Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory.",
        "medicine": "Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist.",
        "transport": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour.",
        "communication": "Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand.",
        "clothing": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Paved roads, aqueducts, concrete, glassware, mills, and hypocaust heating equip some cities, but energy comes mainly from bodies, animals, water, and wood. Astronomy, geometry, natural history, and engineering compile Greek, Egyptian, and Roman knowledge. Measurement exists without a modern laboratory. Physicians, midwives, baths, plants, and rudimentary surgery can help; reliable anaesthesia, antisepsis, and antibiotics do not exist."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "On foot, horseback, cart, or ship, road and sea networks connect the Empire. Travel remains slow, costly, and risky. Imperial couriers, letters on papyrus or tablets, inscriptions, and oral proclamations spread information. Everything is copied by hand."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, vines, olives, pulses, and livestock supply cities and armies; estates, slavery, and tenancy organize part of the labour."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/09-54-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Tunics and cloaks are common to both sexes; the stola, toga, footwear, colours, and jewellery mark citizenship, office, wealth, and origin."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "greek-roman-traditions",
        "label": "Greek and Roman traditions"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "lat",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/brutus/representations/lat.ndjson",
            "language": "lat",
            "records": 334,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "ee71cf092bf7b4bff9e46b7d84d6d2233817ecb912ad213af5bf241a11fbbe92",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-brutus-lat"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/brutus/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 334,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "8273f16d3d1e9896fae36ef528dbf46e23081f777fc1b5c7f96f453183ed3a65",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/brutus/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 334,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "5625ffe6dd7b642e68fb9982cbdec944e9a8c498a57343af12202fb552c74f4e",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_fr_27/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "5c767b8bf95b137c1fcd813a2b283ab9d989380448c26e233af7880ad9ccbc00",
            "source_id": "wikisource-brutus"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_fr_27/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "f51092b8e14be274c829c1f91c5bf7f4025816790b4824ac1284a3a6c7ddc07a",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_en_11/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "9591f6c2cf7d48f20d5149c9a1e7edea50340ef0a68899a5c3f236f8740f2120",
            "source_id": "gutenberg-brutus-orator"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/cicero/translation_carrier_en_11/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 1,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "9b59e0884b88d843749319ba93298bc74c0a88f7eba798a11c99cbff1b94bdf5",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "education",
            "label": "Education"
        },
        {
            "id": "humility",
            "label": "Humility"
        },
        {
            "id": "law",
            "label": "Law"
        },
        {
            "id": "prayer",
            "label": "Prayer"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "rhetoric",
            "label": "Rhetoric"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "cicero.brutus",
        "cicero.translation_carrier_fr_27",
        "cicero.translation_carrier_en_11"
    ],
    "passages": 334,
    "word_count": 79995,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 79995,
        "fr": 75431,
        "lat": 25099
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "cicero-work-hierarchy-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "hierarchical_ref",
                "label_fr": "Division",
                "label_en": "Division"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Passage",
        "leaf_en": "Passage"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:cicero.brutus:274",
    "canonical_ref": "274",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lat",
            "text": "Sed de M. Calidio dicamus aliquid, qui non fuit orator unus e multis, potius inter multos prope singularis fuit: ita reconditas exquisitasque sententias mollis et perlucens vestiebat oratio. Nihil tam tenerum quam illius comprensio verborum, nihil tam flexibile, nihil quod magis ipsius arbitrio fingeretur, ut nullius oratoris aeque in potestate fuerit: quae primum ita pura erat ut nihil liquidius, ta libere fluebat ut nusquam adhaeresceret; nullum nisi loco positum et tamquam in vermiculato emblemate, ut ait Lucilius, structum verbum videres; nec vero ullum aut durum aut insolens aut humile aut [in] longius ductum ; ac non propria verba rerum sed pleraque translata, sic tamen ut ea non inruisse in alienum locum sed immigrasse in suum diceres; nec vero haec soluta nec diffluentia sed astricta numeris, non aperte nec eodem modo semper sed varie dissimulanterque conclusis.",
            "edition": "perseus-cicero-brutus-lat",
            "source_id": "perseus-cicero-brutus-lat",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "But let us say something about Marcus Calidius, who was not merely one orator among many, but almost unique among many. His soft and transparent speech clothed thoughts that were deeply considered and refined. Nothing was so delicate as his combination of words, nothing so flexible, nothing more readily shaped at his own discretion, so that no orator’s language was equally under his control. First, it was so pure that nothing could be clearer; it flowed so freely that it caught nowhere. You saw no word that was not placed exactly where it belonged and set, as Lucilius says, like a piece in a vermiculated mosaic. Nor was any word harsh, unusual, low, or [in] drawn out too far. His words were not the proper names of things, but were mostly metaphorical, yet in such a way that you would say they had not broken into an alien place but migrated to their own. Nor were these loose or diffuse, but bound by rhythms, their periods closed not openly or always in the same manner, but with variety and concealment.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Mais parlons un peu de M. Calidius, qui ne fut pas simplement un orateur parmi beaucoup d’autres, mais presque un homme unique au milieu d’eux. Son style doux et transparent revêtait des pensées profondes et recherchées. Rien n’était aussi délicat que ses périodes, rien d’aussi souple, rien qui se façonnât davantage à son gré, au point qu’aucun orateur n’eut jamais autant de pouvoir sur son expression. Celle-ci était d’abord si pure que rien ne pouvait être plus limpide ; elle coulait si librement qu’elle ne s’arrêtait nulle part. On n’y voyait aucun mot qui ne fût placé à l’endroit voulu et enchâssé, comme dans un pavement en mosaïque, selon le mot de Lucilius ; aucun qui fût dur, insolite, bas ou [trop] prolongé. Ce n’étaient pas les termes propres des choses, mais pour la plupart des métaphores, employées pourtant de telle manière qu’on aurait dit qu’elles n’avaient pas fait irruption dans une place étrangère, mais émigré vers la leur. Ces mots n’étaient ni relâchés ni flottants, mais liés par le rythme, sans conclusions manifestes ni toujours identiques, avec variété et dissimulation.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "4f068746f398202d800b9aee13a64e7391ca1aeb4465ae2dc1bd77dc472a2786"
}