Twenty-five years after his speech for Sextus Roscius, Cicero composed On the Orator , a dialogue that takes place, in 91 E.C.E., a date not long before young Cicero and the Auctor venture on their own treatises. In this dialogue, the recognition that philosophical training and political authority must learn to coincide finds its fullest expression in the mature Cicero's representation of Crassus. Crassus claims to have neither the desire nor sufficient experience to teach rhetorical treatises. His excuse for ignorance contains an ironic aside that recalls the treatises' distinction between writing 'about the art' and practicing 'in accordance with the art'; he pleads 'an unfamiliarity with these matters that are passed down as if they constituted some kind of art'. The writing of On the Orator represents the final stop in the continuous effort to integrate Greek tradition with Roman civic authority. Keywords: Auctor; Cicero; Crassus; On the Orator ; rhetorical treatises
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