Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
If, on the other hand, each living thing has its own peculiar virtue, in which it excels the rest or, at any rate, the majority (I may instance the courage of the lion and the swiftness of the horse), it may be regarded as certain that the qualities in which man excels the rest are, above all, reason and powers of speech. Why, therefore, should we not consider that the special virtue of man lies just as much in eloquence as in reason? It will be with justice then that Cicero [*](de Or. III. xiv. 55. ) makes Crassus say that
eloquence is one of the highest virtues,and that Cicero himself calls it a virtue in his letters to Brutus [*](Lost.) and in other passages.
But,it may be urged,
a bad man will at times produce an exordium or a statement of facts, and will argue a case in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired.No doubt; even a robber may fight bravely without courage ceasing to be a virtue; even a wicked slave may bear torture without a groan, and we may still continue to regard endurance of pain as worthy of praise. We can point to many acts which are identical with those of virtue, but spring from other sources. However, what I have said here must suffice, as I have already dealt with the question of the usefulness of oratory.
As to the material of oratory, some have asserted that it is speech, as for instance Gorgias [*](Gorg. 449 E. ) in the dialogue of Plato. If this view be accepted in the sense that the word
speechis used of a discourse composed on any subject, then it is not the material, but the work, just as a statue is the work of the sculptor. For speeches like statues require art for their production. If on the other hand we interpret
speechas indicating the words themselves, they can do nothing unless they are related to facts. Some again hold that the material consists of persuasive arguments. But they form part of the work, are produced by art and require material themselves.
Some say that political questions provide the material. The mistake made by these lies not in the quality of their opinion but in its limitation. For political questions are material for eloquence but not the only material.
Some, on the ground that rhetoric is a virtue, make the material with which it deals to be the whole of life. Others, on the ground that life regarded as a whole does not provide material for every virtue, since most of them are concerned only with departments of life (justice, courage and self-control each having their own duties and their own end), would consequently restrict oratory to one particular department of life and place it in the practical or pragmatic department of ethics, that is to say the department of morals which deals with the business of life.