Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

There is another threefold division, whereby, it is held, we may differentiate three styles of speaking, all of them correct. The first is termed the plain [*](subtilis ( lit. = finely woven) applied to style has three meanings: (a) refined, (b) precise, (c) plain. See Sandys on Cic. Or. vi. 20. ) (or ἰσχνόν ), the second grand and forcible (or ἁδρόν ), and the third either intermediate or florid, the latter being a translation of ἀνθηρόν.

The nature of these three styles is, broadly speaking, as follows. The first would seem best adapted for instructing, the second for moving, and the third (by whichever name we call it) for charming or, as others would have it, conciliating the audience; for instruction the quality most

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needed is acumen, for conciliation gentleness, and for stirring the emotions force. Consequently it is mainly in the plain style that we shall state our facts and advance our proofs, though it should be borne in mind that this style will often be sufficiently full in itself without any assistance whatever from the other two.

The intermediate style will have more frequent recourse to metaphor and will make a more attractive use of figures, while it will introduce alluring digressions, will be neat in rhythm and pleasing in its reflexions: its flow, however, will be gentle, like that of a river whose waters are clear, but overshadowed by the green banks on either side.

But he whose eloquence is like to some great torrent that rolls down rocks and

disdains a bridge
[*]( Verg. Aen. viii. 728. ) and carves out its own banks for itself, will sweep the judge from his feet, struggle as he may, and force him to go whither he bears him. This is the orator that will call the dead to life (as, for example, Cicero calls upon Appius Caecus [*]( See III. viii. 54. Cicero in the pro Caclio makes both Appius Caecus and her brother Clodius address Clodia the former rebuking her for her immorality, the latter exhorting her thereto. ) ); it is in his pages that his native land itself will cry aloud and at times address the orator himself, as it addresses Cicero in the speech delivered against Catiline in the senate.

Such an orator will also exalt his style by amplification and rise even to hyperbole, as when Cicero [*](Phil. II. xxvii. 67. The passage continues: could scarce, methinks, have swallowed with such speed so many things, scattered in so many places. ) cries,

What Charybdis was ever so voracious!
or
By the god of truth, even Ocean's self,
etc. (I choose these fine passages as being familiar to the student). It is such an one that will bring down the Gods to form part of his audience or even to speak with him, as in the following,
For on you I call, ye hills and groves of Alba, on you, I say, ye fallen altars of the Albans, altars that were once the peers and equals
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of the holy places of Rome.
[*](pro, Mil. xxxi. 85. ) This is he that will inspire anger or pity, and while he speaks the judge will call upon the gods and weep, following him wherever he sweeps him from one emotion to another, and no longer asking merely for instruction.

Wherefore if one of these three styles has to be selected to the exclusion of the others, who will hesitate to prefer this style to all others, since it is by far the strongest and the best adapted to the most important cases?

For Homer himself assigns to Menelaus [*](Mil. iii. 214. The words which Quintilian translates by non deerrare verbhis are οὐδ᾽ ἀφαμαρτοεπής, no stumbler in speech, rather than correct in speech. ) an eloquence, terse and pleasing, exact (for that is what is meant by

making no errors in words
) and devoid of all redundance, which qualities are virtues of the first type: and he says that from the lips of Nestor [*](Il. i. 249. ) flowed speech sweeter than honey, than which assuredly we can conceive no greater delight: but when he seeks to express the supreme gift of eloquence possessed by Ulysses [*](Il. iii. 221. ) he gives a mighty voice and a vehemence of oratory equal to the snows of winter in the abundance and the vigour of its words.

With him then,
he says,
no mortal will contend, and men shall look upon him as on a god.
[*]( A blend of Il. iii. 223 and Od. viii. 173. ) It is this force and impetuosity that Eupolis admires in Pericles, this that Aristophanes [*](Aeh. 530. Then in his wrath Pericles the Olympian lightened and thundered and threw all Greece into confusion. ) compares to the thunderbolt, this that is the power of true eloquence.

But eloquence cannot be confined even to these three forms of style. For just as the third style is intermediate between the grand and the plain style, so each of these three are separated by interspaces

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which are occupied by intermediate styles compounded of the two which he on either side.

For there are styles fuller or plainer than the plain, and gentler or more vehement than the vehement, while the gentler style itself may either rise to greater force or sink to milder tones. Thus we may discover almost countless species of styles, each differing from the other by some fine shade of difference. We may draw a parallel from the winds. It is generally accepted that there are four blowing from the four quarters of the globe, but we find there are also a large number of winds which he between these, called by a variety of names, and in certain cases confined to certain districts and river valleys.

The same thing may be noted in music. For after assigning five notes to the lyre, musicians fill up the intervals between the strings by a variety of notes, and between these again they interpose yet others, so that the original divisions admit of a number of gradations.