Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

However, if I were to indulge my own inclinations in expatiating on this subject, I should go

v1-3 p.327
on for ever. Let us therefore pass to the next question and consider whether rhetoric is an art.

No one of those who have laid down rules for oratory has ever doubted that it is an art. It is clear even from the titles of their books that their theme is the art of rhetoric, while Cicero [*](de Inv. I. v. 6. The titles in question are such as Ars rhetorica, Ars Hermagorae, etc. ) defines rhetoric as artistic eloquence. And it is not merely the orators who have claimed this distinction for their studies with a view to giving them an additional title to respect, but the Stoic and Peripatetic philosophers for the most part agree with them.

Indeed I will confess that I had doubts as to whether I should discuss this portion of my inquiry, for there is no one, I will not say so unlearned, but so devoid of ordinary sense, as to hold that building, weaving or moulding vessels from clay are arts, and at the same time to consider that rhetoric, which, as I have already said, is the noblest and most sublime of tasks, has reached such a lofty eminence without the assistance of art.

For my own part I think that those who have argued against this view did not realise what they were saying, but merely desired to exercise their wits by the selection of a difficult theme, like Polycrates, when he praised Busiris and Clytemnestra; I may add that he is credited with a not dissimilar performance, namely the composition of a speech which was delivered against Socrates.

Some would have it that rhetoric is a natural gift though they admit that it can be developed by practice. So Antonius in the de Oralore [*](II. lvii. 232.) of Cicero styles it a knack derived from experience, but denies that it is an art:

this statement is however not intended to be accepted by us as the actual truth, but is inserted to make

v1-3 p.329
Antonius speak in character, since he was in the habit of concealing his art. Still Lysias is said to have maintained this same view, which is defended on the ground that uneducated persons, barbarians and slaves, when speaking on their own behalf, say something that resembles an exordiam, state the facts of the case, prove, refute and plead for mercy just as an orator does in his peroration.

To this is added the quibble that nothing that is based on art can have existed before the art in question, whereas men have always from time immemorial spoken in their own defence or in denunciation of others: the teaching of rhetoric as an art was, they say, a later invention dating from about the time of Tisias and Corax: oratory therefore existed before art and consequently cannot be an art.