Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

But he did something more than reproduce the best elements in each of these authors by dint of careful study; it was to himself that he owed most of, or rather all his excellences, which spring from the extraordinary fertility of his immortal genius. For he does not, as Pindar [*](The quotation is not found in Pindar's extant works.) says,

collect the rain from heaven, but wells forth with living water,

since Providence at his birth conferred this special privilege upon him, that eloquence should make trial of all her powers in him.

For who can instruct with greater thoroughness, or more deeply stir the emotions? Who has ever possessed such a gift of charm? He seems to obtain as a boon what in reality he extorts by force, and when he wrests the judge from the path of his own judgment, the latter seems not to be swept away, but merely to follow.

Further, there is such weight in all that he

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says that his audience feel ashamed to disagree with him, and the zeal of the advocate is so transfigured that it has the effect of the sworn evidence of a witness, or the verdict of a judge. And at the same time all these excellences, of which scarce one could be attained by the ordinary man even by the most concentrated effort, flow from him with every appearance of spontaneity, and his style, although no fairer has ever fallen on the ears of men, none the less displays the utmost felicity and ease.

It was not, therefore, without good reason that his own contemporaries spoke of his

sovereignty

at the bar, and that for posterity the name of Cicero has come to be regarded not as the name of a man, but as the name of eloquence itself. Let us, therefore, fix our eyes on him, take him as our pattern, and let the student realise that he has made real progress if he is a passionate admirer of Cicero.