Institutio Oratoria

Critolaus and Athenodorus of Rhodes have produced many arguments against this view, while Agnon renders himself suspect by the very title of his book in which he proclaims that he is going to indict rhetoric. As to the statements of Epicurus on this subject, they cause me no surprise, for he is the foe of all systematic training.

These gentlemen talk a great deal, but the arguments on which they base their statements are few. I will therefore select the most important of them and will deal with them briefly, to prevent the discussion lasting to all eternity.