ORATION, in Rhetoric, a speech or harangue, composed according to the rules of oratory, but spoken in public. Oration may be reduced to three kinds, viz. the demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial. To the demonstrative kind belong panegyrics, genehtliaca, epithalamia, congratulations, &c. To the deliberative kind belong persuasion, exhortation, &c. And to the judicial kind belong accusation, confutation, &c.
Funeral ORATION. See FUNERAL Oration.
ORATOR, among the Romans, differed from a patronus: The latter was allowed only to plead causes on behalf of his clients; whereas the former might quit the forum and ascend the rostra or tribunal, to harangue the senate or the people. The orators had rarely a profound knowledge of the law, but they were eloquent, and their style was generally correct and concise. They were employed in causes of importance, instead of the common patrons. Orators in the violence of elocution used all the warmth of gesture, and even walked backwards and forwards with great heat and emotion. This it was which occasioned a witticism of Flavius Virginus, who asked one of those walking orators, Quot millia passuum declamasset? "How many MILES he had declaimed?" Similar to the Roman orators were the Grecian Rhetores. See RHETORES.