Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
In the same period flourished Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, Prodicus of Ceos, Protagoras of Abdera, for whose instructions, which he afterwards published in a text-book, Euathlus is said to have paid 10,000 [*](About £312.) denarii, Hippias of Elis and Alcidamas of Elaea whom Plato [*](Phaedr. 261 D. ) calls Palamedes.
There was Antiphon also, who was the first to write speeches and who also wrote a text-book and is said to have spoken most eloquently in his own defence; Polycrates, who, as have already said, wrote a speech against Socrates, and Theodorus of Byzantium, who was one of those called
word-artificersby Plato. [*](Phaedr. 266 E. )
Of these Protagoras and Gorgias are said to have been the first to treat commonplaces, Prodicus, Hippias, Protagoras and Thrasymachus the first to handle emotional themes. Cicero in the Brutus [*](vii. 27.) states that nothing in the ornate rhetorical style was ever committed to writing before Pericles, and that certain of his speeches are still extant. For my part I have been unable to discover anything in
These rhetoricias had many successors, but the most famous of (Gorgias' pupils was Isocrates, although our authorities are not agreed as to who was his teacher: I however accept the statement of Aristotle on the subject.
From this point the roads begin to part. The pupils of Isocrates were eminent in every branch of study, and when he was already advanced in years (and he lived to the age of ninety-eight), Aristotle began to teach the art of rhetoric in his afternoon lectures, [*]( Aristotle gave his esoteric lectures in the morning, reserving the afternoon for those of more general interest: see Aul. Gell. xx. v. ) in which he frequently quoted the wel-known line from the Philoctetes [*]( Probably the Philoctetes of Euripides. The original line was αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾶν, βαρβάρους δ᾽ ἐᾶν λέγειν, which Aristotle travestied by substituting Ἰσοκράτην for βαρβάρους. ) in the form
Both Aristotle and Isocrates left text-books on rhetoric, but that by Aristotle is the larger and contains more books. Theodectes, whose work I mentioned above,
- Isocrates still speaks. 'Twere shame should I Sit silent.