Institutio Oratoria

There is, however, a dispute as to whether there are three kinds or more. But it is quite certain that all the most eminent authorities among ancient writers, following Aristotle who merely substituted the term public for deliberative, have been content with the threefold division.

Still a feeble attempt has been made by certain Greeks and by Cicero in his de Oratore, [*](de Or. ii. 10 sq. ) to prove that there are not merely more than three, but that the number of kinds is almost past calculation: and this view has almost been thrust down our throats by the greatest authority [*](Unknown. Perhaps the elder Pliny.) of our own times.