Book 11
1.129
Another reprehensible practice is that of nodding frequently and rapidly to either side, a mannerism for which the elder Curio cp. Cic. Brut. lx. was derided by Julius, who asked who it was who was speaking in a boat, while on another occasion, when Curio had been tossing himself about in his usual manner, while Octaves, his colleague, was sitting beside him bandaged and reeking with medicaments on account of ill-health, Spiciness remarked, Octaves, you can never be sufficiently grateful to your colleague: for if he wasn't there, the flies would have devoured you this very day where you sit. The shoulders also are apt to be jerked to and fro, a fault of which Demosthenes is said to have cured himself by speaking on a narrow platform with a spear hanging immediately above his shoulder, in order that, if in the heat of his eloquence he failed to avoid this fault, he might have his attention called to the fact by a prick from the spear. The only condition that justifies our walking about while speaking is if we are pleading in a public trial before a large number of judges and desire specially to impress our arguments upon them individually.
