Cicero, De Inventione 1.2: A Translation

But if we wish to consider the origin (principium) of this thing which is called eloquence, whether it is an art or skill or some sort of training or natural talent, we will discover that it derives from the most respectable causes and that it has been developed by the best methods. For there was a time when men wandered in the fields here and there like beasts and sustained themselves with wild food; they carried out nothing according to the dictates of reason, but more often with brute strength; there was not yet a system of divine worship or human government, and no one was yet acquainted with lawful marriage; no one had any assurance that the children he beheld were his own; no one enjoyed the benefits of fair and impartial law.

Cicero, De Inventione 1.1: A Translation (Continued)

Long have I thought about the question, and reason itself leads me rather to believe that wisdom without eloquence is of little advantage to nations, but indeed eloquence without wisdom too often is an obstacle, and never an advantage, to them. Therefore, if someone neglects the most appropriate and honorable study of reason and duty and wastes all his effort in training to speak publicly, he is developing into a citizen of no use to himself and harmful to his country. But the one who arms himself with eloquence so that he does not oppose advantages to his own country, but instead actively fights to obtain them, this man seems to me to be a citizen of the greatest value and utility to his own relations and to the public at large.

Cicero, De Inventione 1.1: A Translation

I have often wondered, and at length, whether facility (copia) in public speaking and in-depth study of eloquence have caused more good or more ill for both men and nations. For when I consider the damage to our own republic, and when I think back over the ancient disasters of the greatest nations, I realize that not the least part of these ills were brought on by the most eloquent men; but when I propose to investigate in the literary record events far distant from our memory because of their antiquity, I come to understand that many cities were founded, even more wars were extinguished, the most stable communities and most hallowed alliances were accomplished as much by the force of reason as--and even more easily--by eloquence.