Institutio Oratoria

No one of those who have laid down rules for oratory has ever doubted that it is an art. It is clear even from the titles of their books that their theme is the art of rhetoric, while Cicero [*](de Inv. I. v. 6. The titles in question are such as Ars rhetorica, Ars Hermagorae, etc. ) defines rhetoric as artistic eloquence. And it is not merely the orators who have claimed this distinction for their studies with a view to giving them an additional title to respect, but the Stoic and Peripatetic philosophers for the most part agree with them.

Indeed I will confess that I had doubts as to whether I should discuss this portion of my inquiry, for there is no one, I will not say so unlearned, but so devoid of ordinary sense, as to hold that building, weaving or moulding vessels from clay are arts, and at the same time to consider that rhetoric, which, as I have already said, is the noblest and most sublime of tasks, has reached such a lofty eminence without the assistance of art.

For my own part I think that those who have argued against this view did not realise what they were saying, but merely desired to exercise their wits by the selection of a difficult theme, like Polycrates, when he praised Busiris and Clytemnestra; I may add that he is credited with a not dissimilar performance, namely the composition of a speech which was delivered against Socrates.

Some would have it that rhetoric is a natural gift though they admit that it can be developed by practice. So Antonius in the de Oralore [*](II. lvii. 232.) of Cicero styles it a knack derived from experience, but denies that it is an art:

this statement is however not intended to be accepted by us as the actual truth, but is inserted to make

To this is added the quibble that nothing that is based on art can have existed before the art in question, whereas men have always from time immemorial spoken in their own defence or in denunciation of others: the teaching of rhetoric as an art was, they say, a later invention dating from about the time of Tisias and Corax: oratory therefore existed before art and consequently cannot be an art.

For my part I am not concerned with the date when oratory began to be taught. Even in Homer we find Phoenix [*](Il. ix. 432. ) as an instructor not only of conduct but of speaking, while a number of orators are mentioned, the various styles are represented by the speeches of three of the chiefs [*](i.e. the copious style by Nestor, the plain by Menelaus, the intermediate by Ulysses. ) and the young men are set to contend among themselves in contests of eloquence: [*](Il. xv. 284. ) moreover lawsuits and pleaders are represented in the engravings on the shield of Achilles. [*](Il. xviii. 497 sqq. )

It is sufficient to call attention to the fact that everything which art has brought to perfection originated in nature. Otherwise we might deny the title of art to medicine, which was discovered from the observation of sickness and health, and according to some is entirely based upon experiment: wounds were bound up long before medicine developed into an art, and fevers were reduced by rest and abstention from food, long before the reason for such treatment was

So too building should not be styled an art; for primitive man built himself a hut without the assistance of art. Music by the same reasoning is not an art; for every race indulges in some kind of singing and dancing. If therefore any kind of speech is to be called eloquence, I will admit that it existed before it was an art.

If on the other hand not every man that speaks is an orator and primitive man did not speak like an orator, my opponents must needs acknowledge that oratory is the product of art and did not exist before it. This conclusion also rules out their argument that men speak who have never learnt how to speak, and that which a man does untaught can have no connexion with art.