Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

. Of moral essays there are various forms: some are akin to aphorisms and commence with a simple statement

he said
or
he used to say
: others give the answer to a question and begin
on being asked
or
in answer to this he replied,
while a third and not dissimilar type begins,
when someone has said or done something.
Some hold that a moral essay may take some action as its text;