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 first question which confronts us is

What is rhetoric?

Many definitions have been given; but the problem is really twofold. For the dispute turns either on the quality of the thing itself or on the meaning of the words in which it is defined. The first and chief disagreement on the subject is found in the fact that some think that even bad men may be called orators, while others, of whom I am one, restrict the name of orator and the art itself to those who are good.

Of those who divorce eloquence from that yet fairer and more desirable title to renown, a virtuous life, some call rhetoric merely a power, some a science, but not a virtue, some a practice, some an art, though they will not allow the art to have anything in common with science or virtue, while some again call it a perversion of art or κακοτεχνία.

These persons have as a rule held that the task of oratory lies in persuasion or speaking in a persuasive manner: for this is within the power of a bad man no less than a good. Hence we get the common definition of rhetoric as the power of persuading. What I call a power, many call a capacity, and some a faculty. In order therefore that there may be no misunderstanding I will say that by power I mean δύναμις.

This view is derived from Isocrates, if indeed the treatise on

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rhetoric [*]( This treatise is lost. It may have been the work of the younger Isocrates. ) which circulates under his name is really from his hand. He, although far from agreeing with those whose aim is to disparage the duties of an orator, somewhat rashly defined rhetoric as πειθοῦς δημιουργός, the

worker of persuasion

: for I cannot bring myself to use the peculiar derivative which Ennius [*](Ann. ix. 309 (Vahlen). The derivative to which he objects is the rare word suada. ) applies to Marcus Cethegus in the phrase suadae medulla, the

marrow of persuasion.

Again Gorgias, [*](Gorg. 453 A. ) in the dialogue of Plato that takes its title from his name, says practically the same thing, but Plato intends it to be taken as the opinion of Gorgias, not as his own. Cicero [*](de Inv. I. v. 6, de Or. I. xxxi. 138 ) in more than one passage defined the duty of an orator as

speaking in a persuasive manner.