Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 2.4

[1] I shall now proceed to indicate what I think should be the first subjects in which the rhetorician should give instruction, and shall postpone for a time our consideration of the art of rhetoric in the narrow sense in which that term is popularly used. For in my opinion it is most desirable that we should commence with something resembling the subjects already acquired under the teacher of literature.

[2] Now there are three forms of narrative, without counting the type used in actual legal cases. First there is the fictitious narrative as we get it in tragedies and poems, which is not merely not true but has little resemblance to truth. ¹ Secondly, there is the realistic narrative as presented by comedies, which, though not true, has yet a certain verisimilitude. Thirdly there is the historical narrative, which is an exposition of actual fact. Poetic narratives are the property of the teacher of literature. The rhetorician therefore should begin with the historical narrative, whose force is in proportion to its truth.

[3] I will, however, postpone my demonstration of what I regard as the best method of narration till I come to deal with narration as required in the courts. ² In the meantime, it will be sufficient to urge that it should be neither dry nor jejune (for why spend so much labour over our studies if a bald and naked statement of fact is regarded as sufficiently expressive?); nor on the other hand must it be tortuous or revel in elaborate descriptions, such as those in which so many are led to indulge by a misguided imitation of poetic licence.

[4] Both these extremes are faults; but that which springs from poverty of wit is worse than that which is due to imaginative excess. For we cannot demand or expect a perfect style from boys. But there is greater promise in a certain luxuriance of mind, in ambitious effort and an ardour that leads at times to ideas bordering on the extravagant.

[5] I have no objection to a little exuberance in the young learner. Nay, I would urge teachers too like nurses to be careful to provide softer food for still undeveloped minds and to suffer them to take their fill of the milk of the more attractive studies. For the time being the body may be somewhat plump, but maturer years will reduce it to a sparer habit.

[6] Such plumpness gives hope of strength; a child fully formed in every limb is likely to grow up a puny weakling. The young should be more daring and inventive and should rejoice in their inventions, even though correctness and severity are still to be acquired. Exuberance is easily remedied, but barrenness is incurable, be your efforts what they may.

[7] To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination. I like to see the first fruits of the mind copious to excess and almost extravagant in their profusion. The years as they pass will skim off much of the froth, reason will file away many excrescences, and something too will be removed by what I may perhaps call the wear and tear of life, so long as there is sufficient material to admit of cutting and chiselling away. And there will be sufficient, if only we do not draw the plate too thin to begin with, so that it runs the risk of being broken if the graver cut too deep.

[8] Those of my readers who know their Cicero will not be surprised that I take this view: for does he not say ? ³ We must, therefore, take especial care, above all where boys are concerned, to avoid a dry teacher, even as we avoid a dry and arid soil for plants that are still young and tender.

[9] For with such a teacher their growth is stunted and their eyes are turned earthwards, and they are afraid to rise above the level of daily speech. Their leanness is regarded as a sign of health and their weakness as a sign of sound judgment, and while they are content that their work should be devoid of faults they fall into the fault of being devoid of merit. So let not the ripeness of vintage come too soon nor the must turn harsh while yet in the vat; thus it will last for years and mellow with age.

[10] It is worth while too to warn the teacher that undue severity in correcting faults is liable at times to discourage a boy's mind from effort. He loses hope and gives way to vexation, then last of all comes to hate his work and fearing everything attempts nothing.

[11] This phenomenon is familiar to farmers, who hold that the pruning-hook should not be applied while the leaves are yet young, for they seem to ⁴ and to be unable as yet to endure a scar.

[12] The instructor therefore should be as kindly as possible at this stage; remedies, which are harsh by nature, must be applied with a gentle hand: some portions of the work must be praised, others tolerated and others altered: the reason for the alterations should however be given, and in some cases the master will illumine an obscure passage by inserting something of his own. Occasionally again the teacher will find it useful to dictate whole themes himself that the boy may imitate them and for the time being love them as if they were his own.

[13] But if a boy's composition is so careless as not to admit of correction, I have found it useful to give a fresh exposition of the theme and to tell him to write it again, pointing out that he was capable of doing better: for there is nothing like hope for making study a pleasure.

[14] Different ages however demand different methods: the task set and the standard of correction must be proportioned to the pupil's strength. When boys ventured on something that was too daring or exuberant, I used to say to them that I approved of it for the moment, but that the time would come when I should no longer tolerate such a style. The result was that the consciousness of ability filled them with pleasure, without blinding their judgment.

[15] However, to return to the point from which I had digressed. Written narratives should be composed with the utmost care. It is useful at first, when a child has just begun to speak, to make him repeat what he has heard with a view to improving his powers of speech; and for the same purpose, and with good reason, I would make him tell his story from the end back to the beginning or start in the middle and go backwards or forwards, but only so long as he is at his teacher's knee and while he is incapable of greater effort and is beginning to connect words and things, thereby strengthening the memory. Even so when he is beginning to understand the nature of correct and accurate speech, extempore effusions, improvised without waiting for thought to supply the matter or a moment's hesitation before rising to the feet, must not be permitted: they proceed from a passion for display that would do credit to a common mountebank.

[16] Such proceedings fill ignorant parents with senseless pride, while the boys themselves lose all respect for their work, adopt a conceited bearing, and acquire the habit of speaking in the worst style and actually practising their faults, while they develop an arrogant conviction of their own talents which often proves fatal even to the most genuine proficiency.

[17] There will be a special time for acquiring fluency of speech and I shall not pass the subject by unnoticed. For the meantime it will suffice if a boy, by dint of taking pains and working as hard as his age will permit, manages to produce something worthy of approval. Let him get used to this until it becomes a second nature. It is only he who learns to speak correctly before he can speak with rapidity who will reach the heights that are our goal or the levels immediately below them.

[18] To narratives is annexed the task of refuting and confirming them, styled anaskeue and kataskeue, from which no little advantage may be derived. This may be done not merely in connexion with fiction and stories transmitted by the poets, but with the actual records of history as well. For instance we may discuss the credibility of the story that a raven settled on the head of Valerius in the midst of a combat and with its wings and beak struck the eyes of the Gaul who was his adversary, and a quantity of arguments may be produced on either side:

[19] or we may discuss the tradition that Scipio ⁵ was begotten by a serpent, or that Romulus was suckled by the she-wolf, or the story of Numa and Egeria. As regards Greek history, it allows itself something very like poetic licence. Again the time and place of some particular occurrence and sometimes even the persons concerned often provide matter for discussion: Livy for instance is frequently in doubt as to what actually occurred and historians often disagree.

[20] From this our pupil will begin to proceed to more important themes, such as the praise of famous men and the denunciation of the wicked. Such tasks are profitable in more than one respect. The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice. Further wide knowledge of facts is thus acquired, from which examples may be drawn if circumstances so demand, such illustrations being of the utmost value in every kind of case.

[21] It is but a step from this to practice in the comparison of the respective merits of two characters. This is of course a very similar theme to the preceding, but involves a duplication of the subject matter and deals not merely with the nature of virtues and vices, but with their degree as well. But the method to be followed in panegyric and invective will be dealt with in its proper place, as it forms the third department of rhetoric. ⁶

[22] As to commonplaces (I refer to those in which we denounce vices themselves such as adultery, gambling or profligacy without attacking particular persons), they come straight from the courts and, if we add the name of the defendant, amount to actual accusations. As a rule, however, the general character of a commonplace is usually given a special turn: for instance we make our adulterer blind, our gambler poor and our profligate far advanced in years. Sometimes too they entail defence:

[23] for we may speak on behalf of luxury or love, while a pimp or a parasite may be defended in such a way that we appeal as counsel not for the character itself, but to rebut some specific charge that is brought against him.

[24] Theses on the other hand are concerned with the comparison of things and involve questions such as or These provide the most attractive and copious practice in the art of speaking, and are most useful whether we have an eye to the duties of deliberative oratory or the arguments of the courts. For instance Cicero in his pro Murena ⁷ deals very fully with the second of the two problems mentioned above.

[25] Other theses too belong entirely to the deliberative class of oratory, as for instance the questions as to or Put such discussions into the mouths of specific persons and they become deliberative declamations at once.

[26] My own teachers used to prepare us for conjectural cases by a form of exercise which was at once useful and attractive: they made us discuss and develop questions such as ⁸ or and the like. In these exercises our aim was to discover the intention implied, a question which frequently occurs in controversial declamations. Such themes may perhaps be regarded as a kind of chria or moral essay.

[27] That certain topics such as the question as to whether we should always believe a witness or whether we should rely on circumstantial evidence, are part and parcel of actual forensic pleading is so obvious that certain speakers, men too who have held civil office with no small distinction, have written out passages dealing with such themes, committed them to memory and kept them ready for immediate use, with a view to employing them when occasion arose as a species of ornament to be inserted into their extempore speeches.

[28] This practice— for I am not going to postpone expressing my judgment on it—I used to regard a confession of extreme weakness. For how can such men find appropriate arguments in the course of actual cases which continually present new and different features? How can they answer the points that their opponents may bring up? how deal a rapid counterstroke in debate or cross-examine a witness? if, even in those matters which are of common occurrence and crop up in the majority of cases, they cannot give expression to the most familiar thoughts except in words prepared so far in advance.

[29] And when they produce the same passage in a number of different cases, they must come to loathe it like food that has grown cold or stale, and they can hardly avoid a feeling of shame at displaying this miserable piece of furniture to an audience whose memory must have detected it so many times already: like the furniture of the ostentatious poor, it is sure to shew signs of wear through being used for such a variety of different purposes.

[30] Also it must be remembered that there is hardly a single commonplace of such universal application that it will fit any actual case, unless some special link is provided to connect it with the subject: otherwise it will seem to have been tacked on to the speech, not interwoven in its texture,

[31] either because it is out of keeping with the circumstances or like most of its kind is inappropriately employed not because it is wanted, but because it is ready for use. Some speakers, for example, introduce the most long-winded commonplaces just for the sake of the sentiments they contain, whereas rightly the sentiments should spring from the context.

[32] Such disquisitions are at once ornamental and useful, only if they arise from the nature of the case. But the most finished eloquence, unless it tend to the winning of the case, is to say the least superfluous and may even defeat its own purpose. However I must bring this digression to a close.

[33] The praise or denunciation of laws requires greater powers; indeed they should almost be equal to the most serious tasks of rhetoric. The answer to the question as to whether this exercise is more nearly related to deliberative or controversial oratory depends on custom and law and consequently varies in different states. Among the Greeks the proposer of a law was called upon to set forth his case before a judge, ⁹ while in Rome it was the custom to urge the acceptance or rejection of a law before the public assembly. But in any case the arguments advanced in such cases are few in number and of a definite type. For there are only three kinds of law, sacred, public and private.

[34] This division is of rhetorical value chiefly when a law is to be praised. For example the orator may advance from praise to praise by a series of gradations, praising an enactment first because it is law, secondly because it is public, and, finally, designed for the support of religion. As regards the questions which generally arise, they are common to all cases.

[35] Doubts may be raised as to whether the mover is legally in a position to propose a law, as happened in the case of Publius Clodius, whose appointment as tribune of the plebs was alleged to be unconstitutional. ¹⁰ Or the legality of the proposal itself may be impugned in various ways; it may for instance be urged that the law was not promulgated within seventeen ¹¹ days, or was proposed, or is being proposed on an improper day, or in defiance of the tribunicial veto or the auspices or any other legal obstacle, or again that it is contrary to some existing law.

[36] But such points are not suitable to elementary rhetorical exercises, which are not concerned with persons, times or particular cases. Other subjects, whether the dispute be real or fictitious, are generally treated on the following lines.

[37] The fault must lie either in the words or the matter. As regards the words, the question will be whether they are sufficiently clear or contain some ambiguity, and as regards the matter whether the law is consistent with itself or should be retrospective or apply to special individuals. The point however which is most commonly raised is the question whether the law is right or expedient.

[38] I am well aware that many rhetoricians introduce a number of sub-divisions in connexion with this latter enquiry. I however include under the term right all such qualities as justice, piety and religion. Justice is however usually discussed under various aspects. A question may be raised about the acts with which the law is concerned, as to whether they deserve punishment or reward or as to the degree of punishment or reward that should be assigned, since excess in either direction is open to criticism.

[39] Again expediency is sometimes determined by the nature of things, sometimes by the circumstances of the time. Another common subject of controversy is whether a law can be enforced, while one must not shut one's eyes to the fact that exception is sometimes taken to laws in their entirety, but sometimes only in part, examples of both forms of criticism being found in famous speeches.

[40] I am well aware, too, that there are laws which are not proposed with a view to perpetuity, but are concerned with temporary honours or commands, such as the lex Manilia ¹² which is the subject of one of Cicero's speeches. This however is not the place for instructions on this topic, since they depend on the special circumstances of the matters under discussion, not on their general characteristics.

[41] Such were the subjects on which the ancients as a rule exercised their powers of speaking, though they called in the assistance of the logicians as well to teach them the theory of argument. For it is generally agreed that the declamation of fictitious themes in imitation of the questions that arise in the law courts or deliberative assemblies came into vogue among the Greeks about the time of Demetrius of Phalerum.

[42] Whether this type of exercise was actually invented by him I have failed to discover, as I have acknowledged in another work. ¹³ But not even those who most strongly assert his claim to be the inventor, can produce any adequate authority in support of their opinion. As regards Latin teachers of rhetoric, of whom Plotius was the most famous, Cicero ¹⁴ informs us that they came into existence towards the end of the age of Crassus.