Chapter II: Quintilian: Declamations and Orators

Spanish birth and Roman influences—Immediate predecessors,
Africanus, Domitius Afer, Nonianus, Trachalus, Vibius
Crispus and Julius Secundus—A professorial chair—Pathos
of bereavements—Quintilian’s pupils—Lost works—Date of
the _Institutio Oratoria_—Its scheme—Four prominent
books—Importance of the child—Fundamentals—Transition
from Grammar to Rhetoric—On oratory without training—Hard
work essential—Moral and intellectual qualities
involved—Subject-matter and arrangement in a speech—Attitude to
technicalities—Practical application of oratory to law—Virtues
of style—Mechanism of adornment—The best authors—Quintilian as
critic—On delivery—Parallels with painting and sculpture—Attic,
Asian, Rhodian—Latin compared with Greek—Eloquence and everyday
language—_Sententiae_ spoken and written—Another division
of styles in oratory—The complete orator—Sources—Common
sense—Aspects of Quintilian’s achievement—His style—Reputation
through the centuries.

The two sets of declamations under Quintilian’s
name—Characteristics—Persistence of rhetorical
exercises—Rhetoricians and orators of the day.

QUINTILIAN

In M. Fabius Quintilianus[1133] we meet the premier teacher of imperial rhetoric and the greatest Latin authority upon education. The epigrammatist justifiably invoked him as

Quintilian, sovran guide of wayward youth,
Quintilian, glory of the Roman gown![1134]

Belonging to Calagurris in Spain,[1135] he spent some part, perhaps a great part, of his early life in Rome, where his father may have been a rhetor.[1136] Quintilian recalls the trial of Cossutianus Capito in A.D. 57 as an event of his youth (_nobis adulescentibus_): he mentions also his youthful attendance on the aged speaker Domitius Afer,[1137] who died a year or more later. The conjectural date, then, for his birth would be about A.D. 35. If we accept the evidence of the scholiast on Juvenal,[1138] the distinguished grammarian Palaemon was one of Quintilian’s teachers; and the common impression has been that his education was mainly in Rome. He had studied observantly the methods adopted by speakers of the previous generation, and his own criticisms indicate some of the qualities that acted upon him. Among these predecessors he ranks Julius Africanus high, no doubt for his force (_uires Africani_, XII. x. 11), alongside of his old master Domitius Afer, for whom, although a detestable informer under Tiberius, he entertained a deep respect. He liked Afer’s _bon mots_ and his ripeness (_maturitatem_): he recalls his treatise _On Witnesses_ and a speech that circulated in his boyhood.[1139] Africanus, we learn independently, indulged in a metaphorical style of which it was remarked “Very fine, indeed; but what’s the point of it?”[1140] Among others who exerted influence on Quintilian was Servilius Nonianus, to whose able though discursive histories he had listened.[1141] Three recent orators he particularly mentions together.[1142] They are Galerius Trachalus, whose lofty style and lucidity appeared to more advantage when heard than when read; for, says Quintilian, “he was blest with a voice such as I never heard in anyone else and a delivery that would have done credit to the stage” (_pronuntiatio uel scenis suffectura_);[1143] Vibius Crispus, the notoriously successful informer whose pleasant style was apparently better suited to private than to public cases;[1144] and Julius Secundus, like Marcus Aper, one of the figures in Tacitus’s _Dialogus_, and prevented only by his premature demise from developing into a great orator.[1145]

While, however, rhetoric pervaded the atmosphere of Rome, we have no means of determining how much Quintilian owed in training to his own cultured home-province of Spain or whether he actually taught there. At some time or other he had gone back to Spain; for in 68 Galba brought him to Rome.[1146] He then entered on his career of teaching as a professor, holding what may be termed an imperially subsidized chair of rhetoric.[1147] His lectures earned him reputation, honours and wealth. Pupils surreptitiously pirated his discourses, and he himself was ultimately paid the compliment of elevation to the consulate.[1148] After retirement from public teaching, he devoted the evening of life to his work on the principles of oratory, dedicated to Victorius, or Vitorius, Marcellus. Domitian entrusted to him the tutorship of his two grandnephews, as we learn from the proem to his fourth book, where he combines a perhaps diplomatically unavoidable flattery of the emperor with the explanation that this mark of confidence in his educational power had stimulated him to provide more than a manual on rhetoric for the son of Marcellus and his own son. Before he had gone quite half-way through his literary task the author suffered the pangs of severe bereavement.

Striking the most personal note in his work, the proem to the sixth book turns from technicalities to the broken hopes of a sorrowing father. Addressed to Marcellus as the real begetter of the treatise, it tells how the author had counted on bequeathing the work to be the richest of inheritances for his son, then a promising lad of nine, but death had intervened. In a fit of human petulance he upbraids the gods for causing him to outlive all his dear ones. He had already lost his young wife in her nineteenth year, then one boy of five, and now the surviving boy—a clever child on whose accomplishments in Greek and Latin, and patience during illness he dwells tenderly, so that amidst his apostrophes of grief and Stoic reflections we are drawn nearer to him than anywhere else in his writings. In spite of a few epigrammatic antitheses, true to the rhetoric of the age, one cannot but be touched when he begs indulgence if mourning should make his energy flag, finds his best security in the thought that fortune has left herself no further chance of afflicting him, and bespeaks a kind attitude to labours that are not selfish but altruistic in aim. “This work, alas, like the acquisitions of my fortune, I shall leave for others than those for whom I designed it.”[1149]

The first ten chapters of the second book enable us to picture the sort of exercises prescribed by Quintilian in his apparently rather select academy. These were written themes to be criticized; reading lessons in historians and orators, with exposition and questioning; choice passages for committal to memory; courses on the theory of rhetoric—all leading to the supreme test of the declamation. A rhetorical instructor evidently led a busy life. Help had to be given to pupils in laying out a scheme of treatment, or marshalling arguments; the prepared speech had to be listened to and criticized; models for comparison had to be composed by the master. In addition, Quintilian took engagements outside school: he gave public exhibitions of his skill,[1150] and he accepted briefs.[1151] Many, therefore, who were not formally pupils came under his influence. The younger Pliny mentions him as his teacher.[1152] On the other hand, there is no proof that Tacitus or Juvenal attended his school. It is not impossible that the former, who began his literary career with a flavour of Ciceronianism had, like his friend Pliny, studied under Quintilian; and passages in Juvenal,[1153] which look like reminiscences of Quintilian, may imply acquaintance with the _Institutes of Oratory_ as a book or with its author as an instructor. But here positive statement is not defensible. Nor can a date be assigned for his death: it is usually placed before A.D. 100.

Of his lost works the most valuable would have been his investigation into decadence in oratory, _De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae_.[1154] This was a subject sure to engage the attention of criticism. Petronius, in his romance, had put his finger on the weak spots in declamations, and Tacitus handled the question in the _Dialogus_. Quintilian’s attitude, we can infer, was that of the expert who recognized the evil effects of unpractical exercises divorced from the concerns of ordinary life and marred by artificial figures of speech.[1155] To Tacitus’s genius the same problem presented itself in its historical setting: political developments at Rome were no longer, he realized, such as to foster the ancient greatness in oratory. Among Quintilian’s orations there was only one which he published himself—an early effort defending Naevius Arpinianus and admittedly issued from ambitious motives.[1156] But there were others which admirers had taken down imperfectly in shorthand and circulated under his name with a minimum of the real Quintilian in them (_minimam partem mei habent_). We cannot tell whether such collections included the two other cases which he definitely specifies—his speech for Queen Berenice and that for a widow alleged to have forged a will.[1157] There was, besides, a pair of unauthorized publications of his lectures based on notes taken by enthusiastic students—the one on a two days’ discourse; the other on a longer course.[1158] These appeared under Quintilian’s name, but, as they are stated to be _libri artis rhetoricae_, they can hardly be identified with either collection of _Declamationes_ which used to be ascribed to Quintilian and which fall to be noticed later.

His single extant work, the _Institutio Oratoria_, in which he gathered up an educational experience of twenty years, was undertaken only after prolonged resistance to requests made to him in his newly won leisure: it took over two years to write, and even then, conscious of Horace’s precept against hurried workmanship, he delayed publication, as he explains to his publisher Trypho, from a sense that the two years had been given more to collection of material than to style.[1159] If, as is usually thought, the twenty years of teaching mean years spent in Rome after his return in 68, then his retirement happened in 88, and the earliest date for the issue of the treatise would be four or five years afterwards, 92 or 93.[1160] In the other direction, the latest date must fall before Domitian’s death in 96.

The author’s outline of his scheme in the twelve books is as follows.[1161] Book I treats preliminary education from infancy; II, the initial training under a professor of rhetoric. This leads to a definition of rhetoric in which the essential divisions are _inuentio_ (getting the right subject-matter) and _elocutio_ (use of the right style). Five books (III-VII) are assigned to _inuentio_ with the allied subject of _dispositio_ (arrangement), and then four (VIII-XI) to _elocutio_ with _memoria_ (memorizing of a speech) and _pronuntiatio_ (delivery). XII, as a culmination to the work, draws the picture of the finished orator.

The books that stand out distinctively are the first, in which Quintilian’s greatness as an educator is apparent—just where he would have wished it to appear—at the earlier stages of education; the second, in which he exhibits his method of teaching rhetoric; the tenth, in which his list of authors suitable for study is accompanied by brief literary judgements, many of them since grown familiar and famous; and the twelfth, which conveys his final conception of the trained speaker. But all possess value far beyond what might be looked for in a treatise on oratorical instruction. This is largely due to the width of the author’s purview. To educate a speaker was to educate a Roman gentleman; and capable speaking was expected of all in public life. The training too was in much more than in speaking. It had to build up character, and to embrace the liberal arts.

Quintilian’s thoroughness impress one from the outset. This is what gives to the first book its permanent appeal. In education the initial steps are of vital importance; for early influences leave an indelible imprint.[1162] No detail, therefore, is overlooked that might count—the speech of a child’s nurse, parental example, manners of slaves, ways of learning the letters, attention to syllables, or practice in saying hard words. The last contributes to clear enunciation—so much neglected in English education that we are fast becoming a nation of bad readers. The principle of the Kindergarten is foreshadowed in the dictum that mental work ought at the start to wear the shape of amusement. Quintilian offers sound reasons for preferring school to the home as an educational instrument: he believes in healthy emulation among boys and in the bond of initiation into common pursuits. “Ambition,” he remarks, “may be a vice, but it is often the root of virtues” (I. ii. 22). The best teacher must be secured even for the rudiments, but the standard should never be beyond the pupil’s capacity—the vessel must not be overfilled. One section is concerned with testing intelligence and temperament, to which instruction is to be adapted. Greek is prescribed from the beginning of the school-course, as well as the use of standard authors, even though the pupil may not appreciate them fully till later in life. Wider than in modern times, “Grammar,” we have seen,[1163] embraces both the correct use of language and the study of literature. Linguistic foundations cannot be dispensed with: “without them the superstructure will collapse” (_quidquid superstruxeris corruet_, I. iv. 5). The warning about the danger of showy haste is as necessary now as in the first century. “This advice” (to study grammar), he says, “would be superfluous, were it not that most teachers, in their pretentious hurry (_ambitiosa festinatione_), begin with what should come later, and, through a preference for parading their pupils’ attainments in regard to the more brilliant parts of their subject, actually hinder their progress by the short cut” (I. iv. 22).

When, after careful grounding in language, the young scholar reaches literature—where Homer and Virgil make the best reading-books—it will be found that, as honey is drawn from various blooms, so eloquence needs many arts for its support. There must be geometry and at least some philosophy; besides, ancient poetry could not be understood without some knowledge of music and astronomy. Before the book closes, a fine plea is made for breadth of training, and for the love of accomplishments for their own sake. Concurrent teaching of varied subjects is advocated, because change of study stimulates mental activity, and there is a tendency to underestimate the power of boys to bear the strain. For many studies there will never be more free time than in boyhood; we are apt to forget this and “shield laziness under the excuse of difficulty” (_difficultatis patrocinia praeteximus segnitiae_, I. xii. 16). Protesting against mercenary estimates of a subject, Quintilian says, “I don’t want to have a reader who is going to count up how his training is to pay him” (I. xii. 17).

The age for beginning the higher study of rhetoric, in contradistinction to grammar, must depend not on years but on attainment (II. i. 7). As the type of exercise in vogue has been indicated in the chapter on Roman education and in the sketch of Quintilian’s academy, it need not detain us. But attention may be drawn to the sanity of the pronouncements on the need for ability, character, good temper and patience in a teacher; on the mischief done to pupils by excessive applause or excessive severity; on the promise indicated by exuberance of style; on the correction of written work; on test-questions to make pupils think for themselves; on the discussion of blemishes and excellences in speeches chosen for study; on the deleterious influence of the proud parent; on the affection due by pupils to teachers who are “the parents of the mind” (_parentes mentium_, II. ix. 1). Regarding declamations it is worth observing that Quintilian, while he recognizes their weaknesses and suggests improvements (II. x. 9), will not go the length of forbidding the imaginative type of theme.

There is a passage that implicitly states the case for such a work as the _Institutio Oratoria_, by answering the question why the untrained in speaking are sometimes thought more effective than the trained:

“An untrained speaker (_ineruditus_) employs abuse too openly and too often, even to the peril of the party whose case he has taken up, and to his own peril as well. At the same time, such a line gains a reputation, for people like very much to hear things said that they would never have consented to say themselves. A speaker of this sort still less escapes the other peril that lies in style: he makes frantic efforts (_conatur perdite_), with the occasional result that, while invariably casting about for the extravagant (_nimium_), he may chance on a fine effect (_aliquid grande_); but it is of rare occurrence and does not compensate for undoubted faults. For this reason, the uninstructed sometimes appear to have the fuller flow, because they say everything: trained speakers feel the need of both selection and restraint (_et electio et modus_). There is the further point that untrained speakers abandon the task of proving what they have asserted! By this means they avoid what our decadent law-courts (_corrupta iudicia_) consider dryness of question and argument; and they seek solely the kind of thing calculated to gratify the ear of the court with spurious delights. Besides, their very epigrams (_sententiae_), which they make their one great aim, are the more striking because the whole context is poor and mean—it is the case of flashes that show brighter not in shadow, as Cicero has it, but in downright darkness. So then one may call them geniuses to one’s heart’s content, provided it remains clear that such praise would be an insult to a really eloquent man.”[1164]

So much for the justification of his task. Full success, he is convinced, is the fruit of hard work devoted to a difficult subject of wide ramifications; and he can only congratulate, he remarks ironically, those persons who are eloquent without any trouble or system or study (_sine labore, sine ratione, sine disciplina_). The leisure secured by his retirement from teaching and pleading while his services were still in demand (_dum desideraremur_) will enable him to formulate principles likely to help genuine students.[1165] To be sure, an absolutely fixed system is impracticable: rhetoric would be a simple matter, if even a division of it were capable of being summarized in one brief instruction.[1166] But, subject to certain rights of deviation, rules there must be:

It is upon great labour, continual study, varied practice,
repeated experiments, profound sagacity and ready resource that
the art of speaking depends. But it is also assisted by these
rules, provided they point out the straight road instead of one
fixed wheel-rut (_orbitam_); for if anyone believes it a sin to
deviate from it, he needs must submit to the slow progress of
a tight-rope walker! So we often quit the main military road,
allured by a short cut.... The orator’s task is of wide extent
and variety, fresh almost every day, and on it the last word
will never have been said.[1167]

So Quintilian addresses himself to the details of his work with a dignified consciousness of its utility and indeed of its divine call—for speech, the God-given endowment which distinguishes man from other beings, undeniably deserves assiduous cultivation.[1168] Defined as _bene dicendi scientia_, rhetoric, in addition to natural ability and expert training, demands a moral basis. A good character is insisted upon over and over again as an essential qualification of the orator, who is defined in Cato’s familiar words as _uir bonus dicendi peritus_.[1169] Without sound morality the glib speaker endangers both the community and his own soul. Equally indispensable to a great orator is wide knowledge. As shown in the chapter on Roman education, Cicero actually recommended _omnium rerum magnarum atque artium scientiam_, while Quintilian’s requirements are more moderate—_sed mihi satis est eius esse oratorem rei de qua dicet non inscium_,[1170] _i.e._ he must study the subject on which he is to speak. This explains why during schooldays, though the pupil’s individual bent is to be taken into account, yet some breadth of training should be compulsory for all. It will be observed that this raises the question of the educational profit of training in subjects which a student may not like. We have seen that acquaintance with subjects like music, geometry, astronomy, outside the professional training was recommended at an earlier stage: and the importance of ethics, physics, dialectic, law and history could not be overlooked.[1171] Purely vocational specialization for an orator would defeat itself.

At the outset of the five books allotted to matter and arrangement (III-VII), Quintilian, conscious that technicalities are unavoidable, gives warning that there will be much “wormwood and little honey” (_parum mellis et absinthii multum_). To his credit, he is not so dry as he promised to be. Certainly we are no longer interested in deciding into how many divisions the _status_ of a case should fall. On the other hand, it would be too much to expect him entirely to renounce or even denounce the _multa in nominibus differentia_ (III. vi. 47) as futile verbiage; for that would be opposed to the loyal spirit which led him to record, with merciful reductions, the terminological exactitudes used by generations of predecessors. We may, then, rest content in the confidence that he must have writhed under a boredom which he could not end. Technicalities notwithstanding, there is much of value. We would not be without his sketch of Greek and Roman writers on rhetoric,[1172] which marks his interest in the past of his subject and constitutes an ancient bibliography on it as well as some indication of his sources. It is good to be told that of the two schools Apollodoreans and Theodoreans, the former represented an older type of oratory and were specially keen on _narratio_, the statement of a case; also, that Apollodorus taught Augustus, whereas Theodorus taught Tiberius. Again, when, after adopting the ancient tripartite division of oratory into laudatory, deliberative, and judicial, Quintilian adduces among deliberative exercises a technical term like _prosopopoeia_,[1173] his remarks have the refreshing merit of showing his sound educational preference for a difficult thing. _Prosopopoeia_ was a dramatic exercise in character—a declamation where the speaker assumed the personality of the supposed deliberator; and Quintilian holds it to be the most useful of exercises for the excellent reason that it involves double the amount of work and develops the powers of future poets and historians.

Another testimony to his concern for the practical application of oratory is found in the predominance of its judicial aspects. In none of the parts of a speech, _prooemium_ or _exordium_, _narratio_, _probatio_, _refutatio_, _peroratio_, do we ever seem far from the law-courts, so that interesting and sometimes entertaining light is thrown on criminal and civil procedure. Illustrations are drawn from the handling of arguments in Cicero’s speeches; and various problems are threshed out, such as the conciliation of a judge, the countering of an opponent’s pleas, or the admissibility of more than one answer to a charge. We are reminded of risks in a digression (_egressio_) which is sandwiched between the statement of a case and the enumeration of points to be dealt with (_propositio_). We recognize the virtues of a _narratio_ when told that it must above all be understood, remembered, believed. Further, we learn the autobiographical fact that Quintilian was an adept at _narratio_, with the consequence that, in lawsuits where the pleading was shared among several advocates, he was usually asked to present the case—a circumstance which he mentions with a justifiable Apollodorean pride.

This legal atmosphere prevails throughout the fifth book in the treatment of proof, oaths, witnesses and rebutting arguments; and again through the sixth on perorations, sway of emotions, and the _altercatio_. Fortunately other matters are touched on. In one passage[1174] he denounces the absence of solid reasoning—a want of virility to his mind—which weakened declamations composed merely to attract notice. They are like foils with the button on (_praepilatis_), and have no sinews (_neruis carent_). Among the emotions he examines laughter,—a perennial problem for the psychologist—and on it is prudent enough to confine himself to a single chapter, recognizing the merits of the facetious and illustrating various types of pleasantry more or less funny. The attempted classification of jokes foreshadows no solution of the origin of laughter on the basis of psychoanalysis or otherwise: he is frankly puzzled: “a joke is appreciated not by the reason but by a mental impulse perhaps inexplicable.”[1175] The seventh book—on arrangement—largely reflects the management of actual lawsuits. Here the process of thinking out points in a case recalls to the author several times his own practice. There is one most instructive example of the different lines on which the same academic case may be argued.[1176]

With four books to write on style (_elocutio_) and delivery (_pronuntiatio_), Quintilian declares that difficult portions of his work are still ahead. Good style is not compassed by taking thought: as he mischievously remarks, “it has happened that some most painstaking authors of manuals have themselves been very far away from eloquence.”[1177] Mere attention to words (_cura uerborum_, VIII. _pr._ 18) is not enough, for real style is not a matter of showiness. Solicitude over verbal niceties quenches the ardour of imagination.[1178] Yet the right sort of labour earns its reward: “no appropriate word will be lost by the man who first of all has learned the principles of eloquence, and by prolonged and judicious reading has acquired a plentiful stock of words, and applied thereto skill in arrangement; and who, besides, has strengthened all by abundant practice, so as to have it constantly at hand and before his eyes.... When our words are sound Latin, significant, elegant and appropriately arranged, why need we trouble further?”[1179]

One of the positive virtues in style is its due embellishment (_ornatus_); for the attainment of correctness and perspicuity is but to have avoided faults.[1180] Such adornment should be virile, noble and chaste: it must not court an effeminate flightiness or artificial showiness: it ought to be radiant, as it were, with healthy blood and vigour. And so _ornatus_ leads him to its mechanism in “tropes” (including metaphor, metonymy, irony, hyperbole) which he distinguishes from the “figures” of Book IX. These figures depend either on the thought (like interrogation, personification, apostrophe) or on language (climax, paronomasia, antitheton or balance).

The chapter on the cultivation of style (_de compositione_, IX. iv.) is of vital importance for the student of Latin. It deals with charm in style, with the compact and the loose type of prose (_uincta_ or _contexta_, and _soluta_),[1181] order of words, jarring of consonants, final _-m_, jerkiness produced by a run of monosyllables, and prose-rhythm. It is an appropriate echo that the book should end with the Ciceronian _clausula_ “esse uideatur.”

The long opening chapter of Book X contains Quintilian’s list of the best authors for study, first Greek and then Latin, in the provinces of poetry, drama, history, oratory and philosophy. When he comes to Roman writers, he adds satire, and makes the well-known claim, _satura quidem tota nostra est_, which, though fully defensible in one sense needs in another as much qualification as Horace’s statement that Lucilius depends entirely on old Attic comedy. In estimating Quintilian’s judgements, it should be remembered that they are primarily made from an oratorical standpoint. The chapter is not a piece of pure literary criticism. There is in it, as regards the Greeks, a good deal of traditional appreciation according to Alexandrian and Pergamene canons, and in many of the brief findings we feel that Quintilian has missed saying the right thing. Again, his attitude to history shows the limitations of his period. Here he is not advanced enough to conceive of history as a science as well as an art. Influenced by the prevailing tendency to compose history on rhetorical lines with purple patches and poetic descriptions, he holds it to be _proxima poetis_ and in a sense “poetry free from the shackles of metre” (_carmen solutum_, X. i. 31). Nor is there any dream of a philosophy of history; there is no testimony to its power of guidance in the hands of the greatest masters; and when he avers that, in contrast with forensic oratory, it has nothing to do with proof, he ignores the part played in historical investigation by the weighing of documents and evidence. All the same, on the purely stylistic aspect of history, he has said memorable things, like _densus et breuis et semper instans sibi Thucydides, dulcis et candidus et fusus Herodotus_, or his ascription of _lactea ubertas_ to Livy and of _breuitas_ as well as _immortalis uelocitas_ to Sallust.[1182]

The traditional element in his criticisms, particularly on Greek literature, lessens his claim to originality. Broadly similar to Dionysius of Halicarnassus in order of treatment, he probably used both his work περὶ μιμήσεως and some of its sources.[1183] Though he does not name him in Book X, he does so elsewhere more than once. But it should be remembered that he had open access to an extensive _corpus_ of Greek criticism with its canonical lists of authors arranged in different branches of literature. Such literary canonization received the sanction of renowned authorities like Aristophanes of Byzantium and his follower Aristarchus; and similar lists issued from Pergamum. The stiffness of treatment and fixed habit of comparison which are the outcome of this inheritance leave their mark upon Quintilian: he is too starched in his grouping and too fond of finding for Greek writers a supposed analogue among the Romans. In respect of Latin literature, he is freer to employ his own reading and his own judgement. Though he had at least three well-known predecessors in the field of Latin criticism—Varro, Cicero and Horace—who were available, still here he speaks more clearly for himself.[1184] There is no mistaking either his genuine predilection for Cicero,[1185] whom he only occasionally criticises and then apologetically, or his almost consequential dislike of Seneca as master of a newfangled but unhealthily attractive style in prose.[1186]

Neat though many of the verdicts on Roman writers be, they are, except in fuller critiques like those on Cicero and Seneca, too perilously adapted for unintelligent repetition by label-lovers. What purports to be criticism in a nutshell contains so small a fraction of the whole truth as to be virtually false or positively useless. It takes us, for instance, but a little way to find Lucretius put alongside of Macer for graceful handling of material, with the qualification that the latter is “tame” (_humilis_) while the former is “hard reading” (_difficilis_); and, while among elegiac poets Tibullus may properly be singled out for smooth finish, it is extraordinarily unsatisfying to read the added words “there are some who prefer Propertius.” Equal disappointment is felt on realizing that Catullus is regarded as a bitter lampoonist rather than a lyric poet. Yet within his limits Quintilian has given us much to be grateful for. It is illuminating to read the comparison of Ennius to the venerable oaks of the forest; or the opinions that Julius Caesar, granted more time for forensic oratory, would have rivalled Cicero; that Ovid was too much in love with his own genius; and that Lucan for all his fire, impetuosity and epigrams, must be frankly reckoned a model for orators instead of poets. It is of service also to have testimony to the excellence of lost plays like Varius’s _Thyestes_ and Ovid’s _Medea_. Quintilian’s view was that Latin tragedies might rival Greek, but that in comedy Rome was crippled.[1187]

The treatment of _memoria_ in Book XI gives an opportunity for the record of some wonderful powers of memory. _Pronuntiatio_ (or delivery), which follows, is, we are told, termed “action” by most authorities, “but it appears to derive the one name from the voice, the other from gesture.” On this appeal to ear and eye, Quintilian lays great stress: “personally, I should be inclined to declare that language of but moderate quality, if recommended by forcible delivery, will produce a more powerful effect than the most excellent language, if deprived of that advantage.” He contemplates in language a standard of correct, clear, elegant Latin pronunciation free from anything rustic or foreign,[1188] and in gesture a convincing fitness to the thought. “If gestures and looks are at odds with our speech, if we utter melancholy words with a cheerful air, if we assert anything in a tone of denial, it is not merely impressiveness that is lacking to our words, but credibility as well.” Besides, there must be restraint: to prance about while speaking is to “overdo the business”—the bad habit of the professor who was jocularly asked how many miles he had declaimed![1189]

It is in the last book that the moral dignity of Quintilian’s conception is best revealed. In the definition of an orator as “the good man skilled in speaking,” the indispensable requisite is put first: whatever academic labour may be involved in gaining the prescribed skill, he must before everything be good. “This is of moment,” he insists with a Roman _grauitas_, “because, should the oratorical power furnish the equipment of wickedness, then nothing would be more ruinous than eloquence alike to national and to private interests.” He might be expected to share Hecuba’s contempt for Odysseus as the glib orator, prepared to sacrifice every consideration to please the majority.[1190] This stress on morality is so emphatic that his occasional concessions regarding a speaker’s avowal of the truth almost wear the guise of Macchiavellian lapses.[1191]

The tenth chapter of Book XII is full of value. Brief parallel surveys of Greek painting and sculpture faintly raise the hope that an attempt might be made, as in Lessing’s _Laocoon_, to demarcate the provinces of painting and literature. What in fact they lead up to is an instructive glance at dominant qualities in different Roman orators, and at the change in prevalent opinion about Cicero’s speeches. Once upon a time censured by hostile critics as florid and exuberant, they had come in Quintilian’s day to be thought meagre and dry. Thereupon we get the famous division of oratory into three traditional styles—the restrained Attic, the inflated Asian and the intermediate Rhodian. With the grammarian Santra’s explanation of Asianism, as due to the circumlocutions used by imperfect speakers of Greek on the Asiatic coast, he cannot agree. More plausibly he refers differences in oratory to national and racial differences in speaker and hearer. “Attic” one may cheerfully pronounce the best style; but there is Attic and then again Attic. In an admirable passage he picks out types of Attic orators, among them Demosthenes and Pericles, to remind us how distinct in quality they were.

But now, as to what vitally concerns him, Latin eloquence (_Latina facundia_), he feels it cannot be properly discussed except from a comparative standpoint. How does the Latin language appear when placed side by side with Greek? Here two thoughts may present themselves to the reader, first, that Quintilian possessed the great advantage which Aristotle as a critic did not possess, and the later author of the Περὶ ὕψους did not use to any extent, of having the best of both Greek and Roman literature on which to form a judgement, and, second, that some authorities have tended to overstate Quintilian’s homage to Greek. On the latter point it may be said that this passage shows the Roman critic endeavouring to hold the balance evenly between a well-grounded traditional reverence for Greek and a patriotic confidence in the virility of Latin. No modern can hope to estimate either Greek or Latin sounds exactly with Roman ears, or to appreciate fully the counts on which he finds Greek more pleasant than Latin. He dislikes, for example, the letter _f_, particularly in the combination _fr_: he prefers the ringing final -ν of Greek to the “lowing sound” of the Latin -m. It is, however, easier to follow his complaint about the _paupertas_ which involved Latin in repetitions unneeded by Greeks, and he is entitled to note the rich variety of Greek dialects. Yet he is not dismayed:

He who is to demand from the Latins the acknowledged grace of
Attic speech must give me the same sweetness in utterance and
equal supply of words.... The less help our language gives,
the more we must battle in the production of thought. Sublime
and varied conceptions must be brought forth. All the emotions
should be stirred, and our speech illumined with the gleam of
metaphor. We cannot be so graceful as the Greek: let us be
more vigorous. We are defeated in subtlety: let us prevail in
weight.[1192]

A curious anticipation of the Wordsworthian doctrine of poetic diction in the preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_ appears in the contention next examined—that there is no natural eloquence except in the language of ordinary life.[1193] Quintilian furnishes a sensible answer in his insistence on the fundamental difference between the common language and the speech of an eloquent man. If the theory were correct, then the orator’s sole task would be to apply plain words appropriately, whereas his duty is the wider one of delighting, touching, influencing hearers, and for such aims he must employ other aids—aids that are also granted to man by nature. Exercise is as needful and natural for the orator as for an athlete; and so in all nations one man is recognized as more eloquent than another.

Passing to the striking thoughts (_sententiae_) characteristic rather of Latin than of Greek oratory, Quintilian holds they are admittedly serviceable within limits—if they bear on the case, are not overdone, and contribute to a speaker’s success.[1194] They have the merit of being impressive in a single hit (_uno ictu_), memorable for brevity, and effective by their charm (_ipsa breuitate magis haerent et delectatione persuadent_). Now are these ingenious flashes of epigram permissible in a spoken but not in a written oration? On this question, while he owns that the spoken speech may have to be somewhat cut to fit it for permanent book-form, Quintilian yet makes the significant declaration that ultimately an identical law of criticism must rule: “I consider it one and the same thing to speak well and to write well.”[1195] The broad validity of this is not impaired by special circumstances like the necessity for addressing a popular jury or adapting one’s pronunciation to suit an illiterate witness.

Thereupon another threefold division of styles is given without any explicit attempt to relate it to the previous geographical triad. The three types are the plain (ἰσχνὸν), to instruct; the grand (ἁδρὸν), to move; and the intermediate or flowery (ἀνθηρὸν), to charm.[1196] We are quickly assured that the three have many subdivisions and gradations of shade, and that eloquence cannot be confined rigidly by classification. All varieties have their uses: besides, an orator is not always equal to himself. One thing is clear—it is a mistake to believe that a corrupt and flamboyant type is sure to be popular.[1197] In any case, the true orator will achieve his supreme effects with the ease that comes to the successful climber above the zone of difficulty, and he will respect that sense of due restraint (_modus_) without which nothing is praiseworthy or beneficial.[1198] Similar judgement (_ratio_) is applicable to all aspects of oratory, where, as in Aristotelian ethics, virtue lies in the mean (_utriusque ultimum uitium est_).[1199]

Towards the end, he not unnaturally thinks of the judgements which his work may encounter. To the best of his ability, he has put his knowledge at the service of those desirous to learn: “and it is enough for an honest man to have taught what he knew.”[1200] But he anticipates criticism on his exacting demand that the same individual shall combine the highest ethical qualities with the highest intellectual proficiency based on extensive academic study—a sort of Admirable Crichton in oratory. If it be objected that his conception is too ideal, that it implies too much work, and that there is no time for a training so elaborate, then the answer to each count is ready: “let those who incline to despair reflect how great is the ability of the human mind, and how capable of realizing its aims....[1201] Next let them think how noble is the object, and that no toil should be shirked with such a reward in view”; then in a Senecan tone he adds, “it is we ourselves that make our time short; for how little do we devote to study! The empty ceremonial call filches some hours, leisure squandered on gossip other hours, public shows and conviviality others still.”[1202] He is conscious of an aim transcending all this as he continues: “let us pursue wholeheartedly the true majesty of eloquence, than which the immortal gods have granted nothing better to mankind, and deprived of which all things remain dumb, lacking illumination for the present as well as remembrance among posterity: let us unceasingly strive after the highest, for so doing we shall either attain the summit or at the least behold many below ourselves.”[1203]

Quintilian’s eclectic erudition was drawn from wide reading in Greek and Latin. A full list of its sources would almost amount to a catalogue of rhetorical literature.[1204] He was conversant with Greek theories, old and new, on his subject. Both Aristotelianism and Stoicism exerted influence upon him; Chrysippus[1205] contributed important elements to his educational doctrine; and there is ground for believing that he studied the critical works of learned Greeks who had lived in Rome under Augustus, like Caecilius Calactinus (_i.e._ from Cale Acte in Sicily) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Among his Latin authorities on rhetoric Cornificius (usually identified with the _Auctor ad Herennium_), Cicero and Celsus were notable; while grammatical material was borrowed from Verrius Flaccus, Remmius Palaemon, and the elder Pliny. Quintilian possessed besides, as his quotations, allusions and criticisms show, an indispensable acquaintance with the best poetry and oratory composed in Latin.[1206]

Perhaps more than his learning, already glanced at, it is Quintilian’s prevailing sanity that impresses us. His common sense is apparent in his refusal to lose himself, despite an intricate subject, amidst a maze of rules, definitions or subdivisions; in his consequently drastic reduction of the technicalities infesting the ordinary _artes_ or handbooks; in his repeated reminders that actual oratory gave birth to the rules, not the rules to oratory, and therefore that mere adherence to rules will never make a great speaker; in his admonition that rules cannot fit all occasions, but that circumstances alter cases; in the instructive citations of his own practical experience; in his recognition that weighty responsibility in a law-court is very different from the fictitious cases of the schools, with the corollary that practice without learning is better than learning without practice;[1207] and in the broadminded pronouncements that one’s chief model should not be one’s sole model,[1208] and that the moderns are not entirely to be ignored.[1209] With a similar eye for the practical, believer though he was in ideals, he condemns the foolishness of aiming at an unattainable perfection, and tells an illustrative anecdote. Julius Secundus, when a young student, was once found by his uncle in despair over the exordium of a speech on which he could not make a satisfactory start in spite of three days’ work: his uncle, an experienced speaker, rallied him smilingly into a sensible view by the pertinent question: “You don’t want, do you, to speak better than you can?”[1210] Quintilian would not have progress in a great subject hindered by fantastic hypercriticism: _dicendum pro facultate_.

So much common sense and such preoccupation with the making of an orator may forbid us to expect anything startling in his criticisms. Practical in retrospect and outlook, he could not fail to value literature mainly by standards of utility. He does not turn his eye upon sheer beauty of words as the author of the Περὶ ὕψους does;[1211] nor has he any _flair_ for romance that might have made him appreciative of the tale of _Cupid and Psyche_ or the _Peruigilium Veneris_, had they appeared in his day. It is not without significance that the grim wrestlings in Lucretius’s soul or in Catullus’s heart appear never to have affected him. The frenzy of despair and the fires of love are not such stuff as sound oratory is made of; and in any case it may be that he shares Horace’s antagonism to Catullus and Propertius, who had the temerity to exalt love into an absorbing passion and who could never have taken the Augustan official view of marriage as a civic duty. But Quintilian has admirable qualities which find parallels in our own Age of Reason during the eighteenth century. In contrast to the manifold affectations of his day, he shows a noticeable severity of taste. He seeks on all occasions to discern clearly and think directly, because he has a zest for truth; he uses learning without flaunting it, while his maturity of judgement is saved from becoming oppressive by grace of expression and occasional gleams of humour. The kindliness of his heart, his sympathy with learners, and his steady resolve to help education forward are winning traits that make the _Institutio_ something far higher than a manual of rhetoric.

It had been his ambition to produce an up-to-date handbook on an orator’s training that might be deemed equally classic with the rhetorical works of Cicero. To this object he devoted the fruits of his reading, teaching, and thinking, so that on the technique of the past conjoined with his personal experience he was enabled to rear with admirable discernment a coherent system from which the aspirant after oratorical triumphs might realize the extent and pertinacity of effort involved. Within the field of rhetoric, no ancient writer has rivalled him in varied fullness of achievement. He not merely gave us an excellent treatment of grammar in its literary aspects, of rhetorical technicalities, of idiomatic and euphonious prose, of the contrasted virtues and styles perennial in speaking and the avenues towards success; he not merely left us an incidental sketch of select Greek and Latin authors; but even outside the realm of composition and criticism he proved himself to be one of the great educators.[1212] Though there may be no inkling of modern psychological paedagogy or of recently devised intelligence-tests, yet many of the eternal principles of a sound education are to be found in him stated for all time with convincing authority. The fact that many of his pronouncements retain their applicability amidst modern problems of teaching is, like the constant citation of his critical dicta, among the proofs of his permanent value.[1213]

Quintilian’s personal preferences in style can be gauged from the two cautions prescribed for young students, the one against an uncouth archaism, the other against the allurements of modern affectation (_ne recentis huius lasciuiae flosculis capti uoluptate praua deleniantur_).[1214] Admirer though he was of the Latinity of the Golden Age, and, in particular, a confessed follower of Cicero, abjuring all such artificial glitter as he associated with Seneca’s compositions, he was yet sufficiently a product of his own age to betray in his prose the new literary tendencies.[1215] That was inevitable. The most potent will could not avail to reimpose on writers a Ciceronian Latin unchanged after a lapse of nearly a century and a half. Quintilian, then, while he soberly avoids meretricious tinsel, is himself a proof of the alteration in the language since the close of the republic. The examination of single words, idioms, sentence-structure, and of literary ornament half-shyly used, must definitely place him in the Silver Age. There are words like _amaritudo_, _consummatus_, _formator_, _profectus_, professor which he shares with several post-Augustan prose-writers; some like _insenesco_ and _secessus_ that have come from Augustan poets into subsequent prose; others of which we do not know in Latin before him, like _adnotatio_, _circulatorius_, _destructio_.[1216] He has his own dash of the poetic tinge that now coloured prose—simple verbs for compounds (_finire_ for _definire_, _solari_ for _consolari_), abstracts for concretes, and adjectives employed as substantives.[1217] Signs of Silver Latin are noticeable in the sense he gives to adverbs like _alioqui_ and _olim_, or to prepositions like _circa_ and _citra_. Equally symptomatic is the fondness for augmentatives in _prae-_, like _praedurus_, _praedulcis_, _praetenuis_, and the absence of the intensive _per-_ compounds familiar in Cicero.[1218] So, too, with syntax, in such constructions of the infinitive as _opponere uerear_ or _legi dignus_. The change is, however, more than one in vocabulary and syntax. The usual ring of the sentence is different from the Ciceronian.[1219] The old amplitude of period is rarely present: it is replaced by a frequent looseness of structure whereby causal and adjectival clauses are tacked on to the sentence in a semi-detached fashion which operates against the harmony and euphony of the whole. Consequently, in spite of express preference for the ancient style of oratory,[1220] there is no longer the same fullness or symmetry in Quintilian’s modified Ciceronianism. It was Filelfo, in the fifteenth century, who suggested that one might detect in Quintilian a smack of Spain (_sapit Hispanitatem_) and departure from good Latin (_barbariem quandam_); but it is as hard to isolate any characteristic Spanish colour or atmosphere or humour in him as it is to recognize the Patavinity of Livy. His style is, at least, free from that smart artificiality which offended him in the oratory of his day; for he stigmatizes it as a great contemporary fault to court praise by studied effects under which the artifice lay transparent. “People consider that the art is lost, unless it is obvious; whereas it ceases to be art, if it is obvious.”[1221] This is in substance a return to the Horatian maxim of literary sobriety, _ars est celare artem_. A pervading restraint recommends him to the confidence of readers, and has contributed to form a prose which, without Aristotelian profundity or Ciceronian brilliance, is worthily adapted to the ripeness of experience that everywhere seems to speak through it. So it comes that after Seneca’s clever restlessness one has a sense of calm in Quintilian.

* * * * *

What were the vicissitudes of Quintilian’s reputation? Martial’s apostrophe, already cited, was a proclamation of his educational supremacy, as, in a left-handed way, was the fathering of spurious _Declamations_ upon him. The _Dialogus_ of Tacitus owed its inception probably to Quintilian’s inquiry into decadence in oratory. Published to meet an express demand, his _Institutio_ must have enjoyed for a time a vogue which is reflected in the attitude of Juvenal and Suetonius. From Suetonius descended the information entered in Jerome’s _Chronicle_ of the fourth century: besides, Jerome’s letters imply acquaintance with Quintilian’s writings. But the Frontonian archaizers of the second century had checked the pro-Ciceronian authority of Quintilian, and in fact we have for 300 years no evidence proving direct knowledge of his work.[1222] In the fourth century Quintilian appears to be known, except to Jerome and possibly Lactantius, solely through the _Declamations_. After Jerome, in spite of the fact that Cassiodorus and Isidorus recognize his rhetorical eminence, there are great intervals in time during which no mention of Quintilian can be traced. One of these long silences was broken in the ninth century when Servatus Lupus wrote to the Abbot of York asking for a copy of the twelve books of the _Institutio_—a request which he also preferred to the Pope with the explanation that he possessed only incomplete copies of Quintilian and of the _De Oratore_.[1223] Silence falls again for a couple of centuries until, in the twelfth, the testimony of John of Salisbury proves that some of Quintilian’s methods were in use at the school of Chartres; nor is that the solitary evidence for monastic acquaintance with his work at this period.[1224] Next century, the encyclopaedist Vincent of Beauvais knew his text at first hand; and then Petrarch’s enthusiastic handling of a manuscript of the _Institutio_, “discerptus et lacer” though it was,[1225] brings us to the verge of the Renaissance.

A strong reinforcement in the posthumous influence of Quintilian came with the rediscovery of a complete text by Poggio at St. Gall in 1416. Five years earlier, in 1411, Guarino had translated into Latin the treatise of disputed authenticity Περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς which is included among Plutarch’s writings and which is affected by a great deal of Quintilian’s educational theory.[1226] The two events united to confirm the hold of Quintilian over humanism at the Revival of Learning.[1227] In the general purpose of the humanist educator—the production not of a pedantic recluse but of an all-round man and fully equipped citizen—there was great similarity to the aims of the _Institutio_. For the attainment of Quintilian’s ideal no less than for that of the Renaissance, it was requisite to develop natural gifts by training, to form character by the lessons of standard literature, and to ensure an attractive dignity of bearing in social relations. The modern might be expected to find more ways of employing leisure nobly than a Roman gentleman of the Empire, to have more freedom of personal grace, and to show, if less oratorical cleverness, then perhaps more skill in conversation—but the fundamental basis for both systems was the same, and this explains why Quintilian was so warmly taken to the hearts of the humanists. His influence was enormous on educators like Vittorino da Feltre, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), Guarino, Agricola, Bebel, Vives and Melanchthon. Nowhere did it work more clearly than on Erasmus himself. In England Quintilian’s authority can be traced decidedly as far back as Elyot’s _Governour_ of 1531. Ascham was much less impressed, whereas extensive borrowings from Quintilian went to the making of Ben Jonson’s _Discoveries_. Later, among great figures in our literature, Pope stands out as the one who had most understanding of “grave Quintilian’s copious works,” where “the justest rules and clearest methods” are “all ranged in order and disposed with grace.”[1228] Apart from inevitable references in the comparatively modern treatises on rhetoric by Blair, Campbell and Whately, it must be recognized that Quintilian has scarcely attracted in Britain his due share of attention—but then we are not a rhetorical nation.

DECLAMATIONS AND ORATORS

Two sets of _Declamationes_[1229] have come down under Quintilian’s name in separate MSS, the one consisting of nineteen fairly elaborate productions, the other of 145 shorter and sketchy ones from a collection originally numbering 388; for time has mercifully spared us the first 243. The ascription to Quintilian does not now convince many scholars of the authenticity of either collection. There has not, however, always been equal distrust. The Oxford editors of the longer declamations in the seventeenth century published them as specimens of his method, anticipating in the preface gratitude for omitting “the sorry remains and unsightly ruins” (_miseras reliquias et informia rudera_) of the 388 shorter ones. On the other hand, these same remnants were claimed for Quintilian by Aerodius in the sixteenth century and by Ritter in recent times.

In neither collection is the Latin notably irregular. There are in the nineteen longer declamations no very glaring deviations from classical diction to make belief in Quintilian’s authorship _prima facie_ absurd on bare linguistic grounds. Yet features in the form of argument and the over-frequent recourse to _sententiae_ of doubtful relevance point to a later date for some of them at least. Ritter thinks four authors[1230] are represented; and Reitzenstein thinks even more, in which he is supported by Golz after an examination of the _clausulae_.[1231] Few may accept in detail the groups arrived at by tests partly subjective and partly numerical; but it is likely enough that some are nearer in time to Quintilian than others and may actually represent themes used in his school. A plausible guess is that we have here a collection made and perhaps amplified by a contemporary of Gellius or Apuleius.[1232]

As early as the third century A.D., there was current a collection of declamations referred to Quintilian but recognized as containing spurious specimens.[1233] Jerome and Servius in the fourth century, and later Isidorus, quote from the longer declamations; Jerome, indeed, like Lactantius, quotes other declamations now lost. The belief of antiquity, therefore, that some of the declamations came down from Quintilian was unquestioning. But here, where there is so much triviality, so much of what he himself condemned in oratory, our hardest task is to believe either collection worthy of the great teacher. Ritter, however, has championed the authenticity of the shorter pieces, claiming that as legal speeches by Quintilian were brought out without his permission, so it is possible that these scholastic speeches were issued in an unauthorized way. Of two works in the province of rhetoric mentioned by Quintilian as having been published by enthusiastic pupils from notes, Ritter identifies the second with the shorter declamations; but, as this second work is stated to have been taken down in a comparatively few days, it is not easy to think it the same as the long series of what was once 388 school-themes, or to think it could be appropriately mentioned as an _ars rhetorica_.[1234]

It remains to glance at the collections themselves. The “learned and ingenious hand” who made the English version of the nineteen specimens in 1686 regarded them as an “exercitation or praxis upon Quintilian’s XII Books,” naïvely pronouncing them to be “the cream and product of the most promising wits (in the schools) culled out and polished by the second hand of the master.” Some turn upon immorality or crime: some have a public bearing: more often, with features akin to the Greek comedy of manners or a modern novel, their interest is social or domestic. A few could be served up as romances like _The Philtre of Loathing_ (XIV, XV), or as spiritualistic cases for investigation by the Psychical Research Society, like _The Spell-bound Tomb_ (X), in which a mother, hitherto comforted by visions of her dead son, is aggrieved because a magician, at her husband’s instigation, has by enchantment cut off communication with the ghost. A detective story might be made out of _The Wall with Handprints of Blood_ (I); and then we have the usual quota of pirates. A half-romantic theme like a wizard’s prophecy may be entangled with two imaginary laws which create a dilemma for debate. Thus, the fourth case concerns a brave young soldier whose horoscope, read by an astrologer long ago, had foretold that he would win distinction in battle but would one day kill his father. Now, there are supposed to be in this state two laws; (i) “A warrior who has served his country nobly may choose his reward;” (ii) “A citizen who meditates suicide must render satisfactory reasons for his resolve in open senate, under the penalty (so dreadful to the ancients) of having his body refused burial.” Here is the crux. The wizard’s prophecy about his valour has come true: he cannot face the likelihood of committing parricide which has by the power of suggestion become an obsession. The only way out, therefore, is to kill himself; but to secure burial he must gain the senate’s approval. This, then, is the reward which he will ask—leave to put himself to death:

“I, who am willing to die that I may not commit parricide, do
not see but I must commit it, if I continue to live.... As
for my father, who would keep me alive against my will, I do
not wonder at him, because he is still overjoyed at the fresh
acquist of my martial glory (_adhuc recenti gloriae nostrae
gaudio stupet_).... He cannot see the parricide through the
champion.”

The situation is not one which could ever trouble the student in actual life, but, like many other exercises, it served to evoke ingenuity in pleading. We seem to see literature in the making, when we chance upon a miniature study in the workings of fate that might form the basis of a Greek tragedy:

“My father was so far from being deterred by the prediction
of his own danger that he himself, I say, (alack for the
melancholy force of fate—_proh tristis necessitas!_), girt on
my arms and equipped me for battle with his own hands, as if
assured of the astrologer’s veracity (_tanquam mathematico iam
credidisset_).... And now he will not have me die, though there
is nothing left for me to do but to murder him. O Death, who
art commendable for the valiant, desirable for the wretched,
and not to be rejected even by the happy! How much have I
courted thee in war! (_quanum te quaesiuimus in bello!_)”

He relates how he bore a charmed life amidst the deadliest dangers: as no foe could slay him, he now must beg permission to kill himself:

“Titles, statues, dignities—reserve them for those who must
live: guarantee me but my father’s safety, my own innocence,
and the respect of history (_temporum pudorem_).... I trust the
House will not consider that my father’s appearing against me
(_contradictione_) debars me of my reward.”

The pleader contends that in any case it is better to die young in the midst of one’s fame than to endure the decrepitude of old age; but, in his special case, he is destined by his horoscope to die as a felon, if the fortune-teller spoke truth. Then comes a fresh turn. His valiancy in battle after all could only have been downright frenzy:

“I was not myself when I fought so gallantly; and I shall
commit parricide too when I am not myself.... God forbid that
I should tarry till the issue decide the conflict betwixt
the wizard’s response and myself. I had rather defeat the
astrologer than find fault with his predictions (_mathematicum
uincere malo quam reprehendere_).”

This, then, is the paradoxical _impasse_: he can baulk his destiny only by death. If he is allowed to die now, his father, who admittedly loves him, will be able to shower affection upon his body, and (in the peroration)

“when you have had enough of farewell embraces, then and not
till then is it right to lift up your hands towards heaven and
cry out, ‘Wizard, thou art a liar!’ (_mathematice, mentitus
es_).”

It is wonderful with what variety of argument or reflection upon life and death, astrology and the power of prediction, such a theme can be elaborated. Similar dexterity, worthy of more solid cases, pervades most of the orations. It scarcely matters whether we have a lawsuit to compensate a poor man’s loss of bees through poison sprinkled on his rich neighbour’s flowers, or a strange malady of sleepy sickness attacking twins, of whom the doctor undertakes to cure one if he is allowed to put the other to death and hold a _post-mortem_!

* * * * *

The shorter declamations (and some are fortunately quite short) are more profitably represented in specimens than in their wearisome total. The problems are such as arise out of cases of outrage, divorce, adultery, murder of or by outlaws, tyrannicide, military desertion, shipwreck, prodigality of sons, harshness of fathers, or (like later Italian _novelle_) marriage between a son and a daughter of hostile families. Handling the type of theme already worn threadbare in Augustan days, they cannot be considered uniformly entertaining. Yet there are exceptions, and all is not monotony. One may even be grateful for absurd instances with outlines that might serve for wildly impossible tales; and, dipping further into the collection, one cannot deny that it has some variety. We may light upon the Gilbertian situation of a Cynic youth with a professed contempt for the good things of life objecting to disinheritance by his father; or a sober question of legacies to relatives or freedmen; or a semi-economic discussion on a proposed equalization of property, with such pertinent queries as whether it is to be for once and all, or whether the equalizing process is to be carried out as often as some one, for any reason whatever, is found to have less than his fellows. Favourite themes are dilemmas due to conflict between two laws: _e.g._ If a man exiled for treason has come so gallantly to the aid of his country in wartime that she gratefully recalls him, can he have his original conviction reviewed in spite of a law that the same case must not be heard twice? Or, again, if an exile has illegally come home before his time has expired, is he entitled to plead a law permitting an injured husband to inflict on his wife and her paramour the fate that befell Paolo and Francesca? A common _motif_ is that of an outraged woman. There is a refinement of this theme in the case where the unfortunate lady seems at various crises to jump out of the frying-pan into the fire. Against her father’s wish, she had exercised her option to marry the violator rather than have him put to death. For this compassion her father disowns her. When her father afterwards fell into poverty, filial affection impelled her to relieve his straits in spite of her husband’s objection; and for this he divorces her! Many cases, however, are of a stereotyped character, with little to differentiate them from the elder Seneca’s examples, except perhaps greater silliness.[1235] In the case of the imported slave dressed by a dealer as a free citizen to cheat the Customs, one recognizes a parallel to that given by Suetonius as an illustration of the _controuersia_.[1236]

It is usual to find imaginary points of law freely and subtly raised, effective lines of argument being sketched in the _sermo_, and the rhetorical handling in the _declamatio_. Sometimes we get more than one _sermo_ and _declamatio_: sometimes a section is devoted to the law of the case before it is examined in equity: sometimes the _sermo_ is absent, leaving the _declamatio_, as in the dispute among three sons, an orator, a physician, and a philosopher, claiming the property of their deceased father, whose will constituted as his heir the son who should be proved to have best served the state. The general method may be exemplified in _The Digging up of the Parricide’s Bones_.[1237] Two laws are here assumed that may conflict: (i) “Let a parricide’s body be cast out unburied”; (ii) “Let the violation of a grave be actionable.” The statement of the case is in brief as follows: a father on his death-bed, declaring that his two sons have poisoned him, enjoins on his daughter the duty of vengeance. She accuses them both. Before the trial one commits suicide and is buried in the family tomb. The other, when tried, is found guilty, put to death, and his body left to rot. The daughter, presuming the guilt of the suicide, has his corpse exhumed and cast forth. She is charged with illegal violation of a grave. In the _sermo_, among questions suggested for discussion are these: is it illegal to disinter a buried person in any circumstances? More particularly, is it legal for one who could have prevented the burial in the first instance? Does the law, in forbidding burial of a parricide, forbid burial only of persons duly convicted? From the _declamatio_ a few sentences may indicate the rhetorical line of defence:

“So then (had he not been exhumed) the dead parricide would
have been buried and laid in lasting rest beside his father
(his victim)!... Is such treatment to be conceded to one whom
the law would cut off from the light of heaven when alive and
from the earth when dead?... Must not a dutiful daughter listen
to the troubled ghost of her father, unable to bear contact
with a guilty son?”

Tediously unreal though the declamations are, they have a genuine importance in the history of ancient education and eloquence. They link the exercises of the Golden Age, as recorded by the elder Seneca, with those of several succeeding centuries. Deserving to die of their own dullness, they yet had surprising vitality, so that when we turn to the Greek declamations of the sophist Libanius, whose works help to make the century of Gregory Nazianzenus, Basil the Great and Julian the Apostate live again for us, we find the time-honoured themes still under treatment in the Eastern empire. The gibe of Gibbon that Libanius lived too much in the times of the Trojan War and in Athenian history might lead one to overlook other themes of his, of equal artificiality but of more social interest, in which preternaturally embittered fathers, unscrupulous stepmothers and disinherited sons play much the same part as they do in the Latin exercises that passed under Quintilian’s name.[1238]

Quintilian himself passed on what he found valuable in the rhetorical lore of writers like Rutilius Lupus and Celsus. He mentions together[1239] the senior rhetorical authors of his own day, Verginius Flavus, Pliny (the elder), and Tutilius, thus looking back in the case of the first-named to the Neronian age; for Verginius, as has been noted, taught Persius. Tutilius is named by Martial,[1240] when he counsels a parent to avoid for his boy’s instructors all grammarians and rhetors, and so “leave Tutilius alone in his glory.” It is unfortunate for the completeness of our record that Quintilian expressly omits mention of authors alive when he wrote the _Institutio_.[1241] Princeps was a rhetorician whom Suetonius could remember as giving on alternate days exhibitions of declamation and disputation. Julius Tiro is mentioned just after Quintilian himself in Suetonius’s list of rhetoricians, and Julius Gabinianus, who figures in the same list, won a great name as a teacher in Gaul during the Flavian period.[1242] M. Aquilius Regulus, the younger Pliny’s bugbear, wrote books including a biographical lament on his dead son, but unscrupulously applied his oratorical gifts in delation, as did the hated Baebius Massa, Mettius Carus and Palfurius Sura. At the bar there were many able speakers less famous than Tacitus and Pliny themselves, such as Herennius Senecio, who was with Pliny in the impeachment of Baebius Massa; Vitorius Marcellus to whom Quintilian dedicated his _Institutio_; the African Septimius Severus, grandfather to the emperor of that name, and known to Statius and Martial; Satrius Rufus whom Pliny characterizes as content with contemporary style without seeking to rival Cicero (which Pliny himself tried to do); Valerius Licinianus, a native of Bilbilis, admired as a sort of Cicero by his fellow-Spaniard Martial, exiled under Domitian, but allowed by Nerva to settle as a professor of oratory in Sicily; and one of Martial’s patrons, the Spaniard Licinius Sura, who later composed speeches for Trajan.