Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator), 10.1.56

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[56] I think I hear my readers on all sides suggesting the names of hosts of other poets. What? Did not Pisandros ¹ tell the story of Hercules in admirable style? Were there not good reasons for Virgil and Macer taking Nicander ² as a model? Are we to ignore Euphorion? ³ Unless Virgil had admired him, he would never have mentioned

verses written in Chalcidic strain

in the Eclogues. Again, had Horace no justification for coupling the name of Tyrtacus ⁴ with that of Homer?

Institutio Oratoria. Quintilian. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator). Cambridge, Mass.. 1920-1922.

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Current edition Perseus

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

Editions (1)

Institutio Oratoria Perseus (Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, editor. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.) — 10.1.56 focus

[56] audire videor undique congerentes nomina plurimorum poetarum. quid ? Herculis acta non bene Pisandros? Nicandrum frustra secuti Macer atque Vergilius? quid ? Euphorionem transibimus? quem nisi probasset Vergilius, idem nunquam certe conditorum Chalcidico versu carminum fecisset in Bucolicis mentionem. quid ? Horatius frustra Tyrtaeum Homero subiungit?

Notes on the current edition

Institutio Oratoria

1. A Rhodian poet of the seventh century B.C.

2. Nicander of Colophon (second century B.C.), author of didactic poems, Theriaca and Alexipharmaca and Metamorphoses ( ἑτεροιούμενα ). Virgil imitated him in the Georgics, Aenilius Macer, the friend of Ovid, in his Theriaca.

3. Euphorion of Chalcis (220 B.C. ) wrote elaborate short epics. See Ecl. x. 50. The words are, however, put into the mouth of Gallus with reference to his own imitations of Euphorion.

4. See Hor. A. P. 401. Tyrtaeus, writer of war songs (seventh century B.C.).

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 10.1.56

Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator)

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