Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

All these statements occur in the Gorgias and are uttered by Socrates who appears to be the

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mouthpiece of the views held by Plato. But some of his dialogues were composed merely to refute his opponents and are styled refutative, while others are for the purpose of teaching and are called doctrinal.

Now it is only rhetoric as practised in their own day that is condemned by Plato or Socrates, for he speaks of it as

the manner in which you engage in public affairs

[*](500 c.) : rhetoric in itself he regards as a genuine and honourable thing, and consequently the controversy with Gorgias ends with the words,

The rhetorician therefore must be just and the just man desirous to do what is just.

[*](460 c.)

To this Gorgias makes no reply, but the argument is taken up by Polus, a hot-headed and headstrong young fellow, and it is to him that Socrates makes his remarks about

shadows

and

forms of flattery.

Then Callicles, [*](508 c.) who is even more hot-headed, intervenes, but is reduced to the conclusion that

he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and possess a knowledge of justice.

It is clear therefore that Plato does not regard rhetoric as an evil, but holds that true rhetoric is impossible for any save a just and good man. In the Phaedrus [*](261 A-273 E.)

he makes it even clearer that the complete attainment of this art is impossible without the knowledge of justice, an opinion in which I heartily concur. Had this not been his view, would he have ever written the Apology of Socrates or the Funeral Oration [*](Menexenus.) in praise of those who had died in battle for their country, both of them works falling within the sphere of oratory.

It was against the class of men who employed their glibness of speech for evil purposes that he directed his denunciations. Similarly Socrates thought it incompatible with his honour to

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make use of the speech which Lysias composed for his defence, although it was the usual practice in those days to write speeches for the parties concerned to speak in the courts on their own behalf, a device designed to circumvent the law which forbade the employment of advocates.