Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

For example, if we charge soldiers with rapacity, we shall

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qualify our statement by saying that the fact is not surprising, as they think that they are entitled to some special reward for the perils they have faced and the wounds they have sustained. Or, if we censure them for insolence, we shall add that this quality is due to the fact that they are more accustomed to war than to peace. In the case of freedmen we should disparage their influence: but we may also give them credit for the industry which secured their emancipation.

With regard to foreign nations, Cicero's practice varies. When he intends to disparage the credibility of Greek witnesses he admits their distinction in learning and literature and professes his admiration for their nation. [*](E.g. pro Flacco xxvi. ) On the other hand, he has nothing but contempt for the Sardinians [*]( In a fragment of pro Scauro. ) and attacks the Allobroges as the enemies of Rome. [*](pro Font. viii. ) In all these cases none of his remarks, at the time they were made, were inconsistent with or adverse to the claims of decorum.

If there be anything offensive in the subject on which we have to speak, it may be toned down by a studied moderation in our language; for example, we may describe a brutal character as being unduly severe, an unjust man as led astray by prejudice, an obstinate man as unreasonably tenacious of his opinion. And there are a large number of cases where we should attempt to defeat our opponents by reasoning, which forms the gentlest of all methods of attack.

To these remarks I would add that all extravagance of any kind is indecorous, and consequently statements which are in sufficient harmony with the facts will none the less lose all their grace unless they are modified by a certain restraint. It is hard

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to give rules as to the exact method in which this precept should be observed, but the problem will easily be solved by following the dictates of our own judgement, which will tell us what it is sufficient to say and how much the ears of our audience will tolerate. We cannot weigh or measure our words by fixed standards: they are like foods, some of which are more satisfying than others.

I think I should also add a few brief words to the effect that not only very different rhetorical virtues have their special admirers, but that they are often praised by the same persons. For instance, there is one passage [*]( See Or. rxiii. 76. In this and the next passage Quintilian does not quote, but paraphrases. ) in Cicero where he writes that the best style is that which we think we can easily acquire by imitation, but which we find is really beyond our powers. But in another passage [*]( See Or. xxviii. 97. ) he says that his aim was not to speak in such a manner that everyone should be confident that he could do the same, but rather in a style that should be the despair of all.

These two statements may seem to be inconsistent, but as a matter of fact both alike deserve the praise which they receive. The difference is due to the fact that cases differ in character. Those of minor importance are admirably suited by the simplicity and negligence of unaffected language, whereas cases of greater moment are best suited by the grand style. Cicero is pre-eminent in both. Now while eminence in one of these styles may seem to the inexperienced to be within their grasp, those who understand know that they are capable of eminence in neither.

II. Some regard memory as being no more than one of nature's gifts; and this view is no doubt true to a great extent; but, like everything else, memory

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may be improved by cultivation. And all the labour of which I have so far spoken will be in vain unless all the other departments be co-ordinated by the animating principle of memory. For our whole education depends upon memory, and we shall receive instruction all in vain if all we hear slips from us, while it is the power of memory alone that brings before us all the store of precedents, laws, rulings, sayings and facts which the orator must possess in abundance and which he must always hold ready for immediate use. Indeed it is not without good reason that memory has been called the treasure-house of eloquence.

But pleaders need not only to be able to retain a number of facts in their minds, but also to be quick to take them in; it is not enough to learn what you have written by dint of repeated reading; it is just as necessary to follow the order both of matter and words when you have merely thought out what you are going to say, while you must also remember what has been said by your opponents, and must not be content merely with refuting their arguments in the order in which they were advanced, but must be in a position to deal with each in its appropriate place.

Nay, even extempore eloquence, in my opinion, depends on no mental activity so much as memory. For while we are saying one thing, we must be considering something else that we are going to say: consequently, since the mind is always looking ahead, it is continually in search of something which is more remote: on the other hand, whatever it discovers, it deposits by some mysterious process in the safe-keeping of memory, which acts as a transmitting agent and hands on to the delivery

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what it has received from the imagination.

I do not conceive, however, that I need dwell upon the question of the precise function of memory, although many hold the view that certain impressions are made upon the mind, analogous to those which a signet-ring makes on wax. Nor, again, shall I be so credulous, in view of the fact that the retentiveness or slowness of the memory depends upon our physical condition, as to venture to allot a special art to memory.

My inclination is rather to marvel at its powers of reproducing and presenting a number of remote facts after so long an interval, and, what is more, of so doing not merely when we seek for such facts, but even at times of its own accord, and not only in our waking moments, but even when we are sunk in sleep.

And my wonder is increased by the fact that even beasts, which seem to be devoid of reason, yet remember and recognise things, and will return to their old home, however far they have been taken from it. Again, is it not an extraordinary inconsistency that we forget recent and remember distant events, that we cannot recall what happened yesterday and yet retain a vivid impression of the acts of our childhood?

And what, again, shall we say of the fact that the things we search for frequently refuse to present themselves and then occur to us by chance, or that memory does not always remain with us, but will even sometimes return to us after it has been lost? But we should never have realised the fullness of its power nor its supernatural capacities, but for the fact that it is memory which has brought oratory to its present position of glory.

For it provides the orator not merely with the order of his thoughts, but even of

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his words, nor is its power limited to stringing merely a few words together; its capacity for endurance is inexhaustible, and even in the longest pleadings the patience of the audience flags long before the memory of the speaker.

This fact may even be advanced as an argument that there must be some art of memory and that the natural gift can be helped by reason, since training enables us to do things which we cannot do before we have had any training or practice. On the other hand, I find that Plato [*](Phaedr. 275 A. ) asserts that the use of written characters is a hindrance to memory, on the ground, that is, that once we have committed a thing to writing, we cease to guard it in our memory and lose it out of sheer carelessness.

And there can be no doubt that concentration of mind is of the utmost importance in this connexion; it is, in fact, like the eyesight, which turns to, and not away from, the objects which it contemplates. Thus it results that after writing for several days with a view to acquiring by heart what we have written, we find that our mental effort has of itself imprinted it on our memory.

The first person to discover an art of memory is said to have been Simonides, [*](See x. i. 64.) of whom the following well-known story is told. He had written an ode of the kind usually composed in honour of victorious athletes, to celebrate the achievement of one who had gained the crown for boxing. Part of the sum for which he had contracted was refused him on the ground that, following the common practice of poets, he had introduced a digression in praise of Castor and Pollux, and he was told that, in view of what he had done, he had best ask for the rest of the sum due from those whose deeds he had

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extolled. And according to the story they paid their debt.

For when a great banquet was given in honour of the boxer's success, Simonides was summoned forth from the feast, to which he had been invited, by a message to the effect that two youths who had ridden to the door urgently desired his presence. He found no trace of them, but what followed proved to him that the gods had shown their gratitude.

For he had scarcely crossed the threshold on his way out, when the banqueting hall fell in upon the heads of the guests and wrought such havoc among them that the relatives of the dead who came to seek the bodies for burial were unable to distinguish not merely the faces but even the limbs of the dead. Then it is said, Simonides, who remembered the order in which the guests had been sitting, succeeded in restoring to each man his own dead.

There is, however, great disagreement among our authorities as to whether this ode was written in honour of Glaucus of Carystus, Leocrates, Agatharcus or Scopas, and whether the house was at Pharsalus, as Simonides himself seems to indicate in a certain passage, and as is recorded by Apollodorus, Eratosthenes, Euphorion and Eurypylus of Larissa, or at Crannon, as is stated by Apollas Callimachus, who is followed by Cicero, [*]( Cic. de Or. II. lxxxvi. 352. ) to whom the wide circulation of this story is due.