Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

For the plots of plays composed for acting in the theatre are called arguments, while Pedianus, when explaining the themes of the speeches of Cicero, says The argument is as follows. Cicero [*](In some letter now lost.) himself in writing to Brutus says, Fearing that I might transfer something from that source to my Cato, although the argument is quite different. It is thus clear that all subjects for writing are so called.

Nor is this to be wondered at, since the term is also in common use among artists; hence the Vergilian phrase A mighty argument. [*](Aen. vii. 791, with Reference to the design on the shield of Turnus. ) Again a work which deals with a number of different themes is called

rich in argument.

But the sense with which we are now concerned is that which provides proof Celsus indeed treats the terms, proof, indication, credibility, attempt, simply as different names for the same things, in which, to my thinking, he betrays a certain confusion of thought.