The End of Empire

The close relationship between rhetoric and politics was demonstrated when the Caesars overturned the Republic and ended free debate both in the oligarchic Senate and the carefully restricted popular assemblies. Oratory degenerated into showy and empty declamation, a wordy exhibitionism deprived of the vigor it had when it was the voice of free men, whether aristocratic or democratic, determining their own destiny. Without free speech, oratory become mere wind.
The Trial of Socrates, I.F. Stone, p. 43