Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

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 people

he 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.

Turning to those who regard rhetoric as an art, but not as a virtue, we find that Theodorus of Gadara is more cautious. For he says (I quote the words of his translators),

rhetoric is the art which discovers and judges and expresses, mith an elegance duly proportioned to the importance of all such elements of persuasion as may exist in any subject in the field of politics.

Similarly Cornelius Celsus defines the end of rhetoric as

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to speak persuasively on any doubtful subject within the field of politics. Similar definitions are given by others, such for instance as the following:—

rhetoric is the power of judging and holding forth on such political subjects as come before it with a certain persuasiveness, a certain action of the body and delivery of the words.

There are countless other definitions, either identical with this or composed of the same elements, which I shall deal with when I come to the questions concerned with the subject matter of rhetoric. Some regard it as neither a power, a science or an art; Critolaus calls it the practice of speaking (for this is the meaning of τριβή ), Athenaeus styles it the art of deceiving,

while the majority, content with reading a few passages from the Gorgias of Plato, unskilfully excerpted by earlier writers, refrain from studying that dialogue and the remainder of Plato's writings, and thereby fall into serious error. For they believe that in Plato's view rhetoric was not an art, but a certain adroitness in the production of delight and gratification, [*](Gorg. 462 c. )

or with reference to another passage the shadow of a small part of politics [*](ib. 463 p. ) and the fourth department of flattery. For Plato assigns [*](ib. 464 B. ) two departments of politics to the body, namely medicine and gymnastic, and two to the soul, namely law and justice, while he styles the art of cookery [*](ib. 464 B-465 E. ) a form of flattery of medicine, the art of the slave-dealer a flattery of gymnastic, for they produce a false complexion by the use of paint and a false robustness by puffing them out with fat: sophistry he calls a dishonest counterfeit of legal science, and rhetoric of justice.

All these statements occur in the Gorgias and are uttered by Socrates who appears to be the

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mouthpiece of the views held by Plato. But some of his dialogues were composed merely to refute his opponents and are styled refutative, while others are for the purpose of teaching and are called doctrinal.

Now it is only rhetoric as practised in their own day that is condemned by Plato or Socrates, for he speaks of it as

the manner in which you engage in public affairs

[*](500 c.) : rhetoric in itself he regards as a genuine and honourable thing, and consequently the controversy with Gorgias ends with the words,

The rhetorician therefore must be just and the just man desirous to do what is just.

[*](460 c.)

To this Gorgias makes no reply, but the argument is taken up by Polus, a hot-headed and headstrong young fellow, and it is to him that Socrates makes his remarks about

shadows

and

forms of flattery.

Then Callicles, [*](508 c.) who is even more hot-headed, intervenes, but is reduced to the conclusion that

he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and possess a knowledge of justice.

It is clear therefore that Plato does not regard rhetoric as an evil, but holds that true rhetoric is impossible for any save a just and good man. In the Phaedrus [*](261 A-273 E.)