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 question as to the origin of rhetoric need not keep us long. For who can doubt that mankind received the gift of speech from nature at its birth (for we can hardly go further back than that), while the usefulness of speech brought improvement and study, and finally method and exercise gave perfection?

I cannot understand why some hold that the elaboration of speech originated in the fact that

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those who were in peril owing to some accusation being made against them, set themselves to speak with studied care for the purpose of their own defence. This, however, though a more honourable origin, cannot possibly be the earlier, for accusation necessarily precedes defence. You might as well assert that the sword was invented for the purpose of self-defence and not for aggression.

It was, then, nature that created speech, and observation that originated the art of speaking. Just as men discovered the art of medicine by observing that some things were healthy and some the reverse, so they observed that some things were useful and some useless in speaking, and noted them for imitation or avoidance, while they added certain other precepts according as their nature suggested. These observations were confirmed by experience and each man proceeded to teach what he knew.

Cicero, [*](de Inv. i. 2. ) it is true, attributes the origin of oratory to the founders of cities and the makers of laws, who must needs have possessed the gift of eloquence. But why he thinks this the actual origin, I cannot understand, since there still exist certain nomad peoples without cities or laws, and yet members of these peoples perform the duties of ambassadors, accuse and defend, and regard one man as a better speaker than another.