Institutio Oratoria

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. )