Institutio Oratoria

Cornelius Celsus, [*]( An encyclopedic writer under Augustus and Tiberius. His medical treatises have survived. He wrote on oratory also, and is not infrequently quoted by Quintilian. ) a follower of the Sextii, [*]( The Sextii, father and son, were Pythagorean philosophers of the Augustan age, with something of a Stoic tendency as well. ) wrote a number of philosophical works, which have considerable grace and polish. Among the Stoics Plautus [*](123) is useful as giving a knowledge of the subject.

Among the Epicureans Catius [*]( A contemporary of Cicero, who speaks of him somewhat contemptuously. He wrote four books de rerum matura et de summo bono. ) is agreeable to read, though lacking in weight. I have deliberately postponed the discussion of Seneca in connexion with the various departments of literature owing to the fact that there is a general, though false, impression that I condemn and even detest him. It is true that I had occasion to pass censure upon him when I was endeavouring to recall students from a depraved style, weakened by every kind of error, to a severer standard of taste.

But at that time Seneca's works were in the hands of every young man, and my aim was not to ban his reading altogether, but to prevent his being preferred to authors superior to himself, but whom he was never tired of disparaging; for, being conscious of the fact that his own style was very different