Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

The question as to the origin of rhetoric need not keep us long. For who can doubt that mankind received the gift of speech from nature at its birth (for we can hardly go further back than that), while the usefulness of speech brought improvement and study, and finally method and exercise gave perfection?

I cannot understand why some hold that the elaboration of speech originated in the fact that

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those who were in peril owing to some accusation being made against them, set themselves to speak with studied care for the purpose of their own defence. This, however, though a more honourable origin, cannot possibly be the earlier, for accusation necessarily precedes defence. You might as well assert that the sword was invented for the purpose of self-defence and not for aggression.