Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

As a result, those who flaunt tasteless and insipid thoughts, couched in an uncouth and inharmonious form, think that they are the equals of the ancients; those who lack ornament and epigram, pose as Attic; those who darken their meaning by the abruptness with which they close their periods, count themselves the superiors of Sallust and Thucydides; those who are

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dreary and jejune, think that they are serious rivals to Pollio, while those who are tame and listless, if only they can produce long enough periods, swear that this is just the manner in which Cicero would have spoken.

I have known some who thought that they had produced a brilliant imitation of the style of that divine orator, by ending their periods with the phrase esse videatur. [*](cp. ix. iv. 73. Tac. Dial. 23. ) Consequently it is of the first importance that every student should realise what it is that he is to imitate, and should know why it is good.

The next step is for each student to consult his own powers when he shoulders his burden. For there are some things which, though capable of imitation, may be beyond the capacity of any given individual, either because his natural gifts are insufficient or of a different character. The man whose talent is for the plain style should not seek only what is bold and rugged, nor yet should he who has vigour without control suffer himself through love of subtlety at once to waste his natural energy and fail to attain the elegance at which he aims: for there is nothing so unbecoming as delicacy wedded to ruggedness.