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.