Institutio Oratoria

Hermagoras, who asserts that its end is to speak persuasively, and others who express the same opinion, though in different words, and inform us that the end is to say everything which ought to be said with a view to persuasion, have been sufficiently answered above, when I proved that persuasion was not the privilege of the orator alone.

Various additions have been made to these definitions. For some hold that rhetoric is concerned with everything, while some restrict its activity to politics. The question as to which of these views is the nearer to the truth shall be discussed later in its appropriate place.