Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

The orator's task covers a large ground, is extremely varied and develops some new aspect almost every day, so that the last word on the subject will never have been said. I shall however try to set forth the traditional rules and to point out their best features, mentioning the changes, additions and subtractions which seem desirable.

Rhetoric is a Greek term which has been translated into Latin by oratoria or oratrix. I would not for the world deprive the translators of the praise which is their due for attempting to increase the vocabulary of our native tongue; but translations

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from Greek into Latin are not always satisfactory, just as the attempt to represent Latin words in a Greek dress is sometimes equally unsuccessful.

And the translations in question are fully as harsh as the essentia and queentia [*](sc. essence and possibility. ) of Plautus, [*]( A Stoic. cp. x. i. 124. ) and have not even the merit of being exact. For oratoria is formed like elocutoria and oratrix like elocutrix, whereas the rhetoric with which we are concerned is rather to be identified with eloquentia, and the word is undoubtedly used in two senses by the Greeks.