Institutio Oratoria

In the one case it is an adjective i.e. ars rhetorica, the rhetorical art, like piratic in the phrase nauis piratica, in the other it is a noun like philosophy or friendship. It is as a substantive that we require it here; now the correct translation of the Greek grammatice is litteratura not litteratrix or litteratoria, which would be the forms analogous to oratrix and oratoria. But in the case of

rhetoric

It is best therefore not to quarrel about it, more especially as we have to use Greek terms in many other cases. For I may at least use the words philosophus, musicus and geometres without outraging them by changing them into clumsy Latin equivalents. Finally, since Cicero gave a Greek title [*](See § 6 of next chapter.) to the earlier works which he wrote on this subject, I may without fear of rashness accept the great orator as sufficient authority for the name of the art which he professed.