Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

at an age to which boldness is still natural, he will find it easy to get over the timidity which invariably accompanies the period of apprenticeship, and

v10-12 p.419

will not, on the other hand, carry his boldness so far as to lead him to despise the difficulties of his task. This was the method employed by Cicero: for when he had already won a distinguished position at the bar of his day, he took ship to Asia and there studied under a number of professors of philosophy and rhetoric, but above all under Apollonius Molon, whose lectures he had attended at Rome and to whom he now at Rhodes entrusted the refashioning and recasting of his style. It is only when theory and practice are brought into a perfect harmony that the orator reaps the reward of all his study.

When our orator has developed his strength to such a pitch that it is equal to every kind of confact in which he may be called upon to bear his part, his first consideration should be to exercise care in the choice of the cases which he proposes to undertake. A good man will undoubtedly prefer defence to prosecution, but he will not have such a rooted objection to the task of accuser as to disregard his duty towards the state or towards individuals and refuse to call any man to render an account of his way of life. For the laws themselves would be powerless without the assistance of advocates equal to the task of supporting them; and to regard it as a sin to demand the punishment of crime is almost equivalent to the sanctioning of crime, while it is certainly contrary to the interest of the good to give the wicked free leave to work their will.