Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Aristotle seems to have implied that the sphere of the orator was all-inclusive when he defined rhetoric as the power to detect every element in any given subject which might conduce to persuasion; so too does Patrocles who omits the words in any given subject, but since he excludes nothing, shows that his view is identical. For he defines rhetoric as the power to discover whatever is persuasive in speech. These definitions like that quoted above include no more than the power of invention alone. Theodorus avoids this fault and holds that it is the power to discover and to utter forth in elegant language whatever is credible in every subject of oratory.
But, while others besides
. Plato makes Gorgias [*](Gorg. 454 B. ) say that he is a master of persuasion in the law-courts and other assemblies, and that his themes are justice and injustice, while in reply Socrates allows him the power of persuading, but not of teaching.
Those who refused to make the sphere of oratory allinclusive, have been obliged to make somewhat forced and long-winded distinctions: among these I may mention Ariston, the pupil of the Peripatetic Critolaus, who produced the following definition,
Rhetoric is the science of seeing and uttering what ought to be said on political questions in language that is likely to prove persuasive to the people.
Being a Peripatetic he regards it as a science, not, like the Stoics, as a virtue, while in adding the words
likely to prove persuasie to the peoplehe inflicts a positive insult on oratory, in implying that it is not likely to persuade the learned. The same criticism will apply to all those who restrict oratory to political questions, for they exclude thereby a large number of the duties of an orator, as for example panegyric, the third department of oratory, which is entirely ignored.