Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Rutilius also in addition to the figures found in other authors adds, παρομολογία [*]( The advancement of some stronger argument after the concession of some other point to our adversary. ) ἀναγκαῖον [*](See IX. ii. 106.) ἠθοποιΐα [*](See IX. ii. 58.)

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δικαιολογία, [*]( The statement of the justice of our cause in the briefest possible form. ) πρόληψις, [*](See IX. ii. 16.) χαρακτηρισμός [*](Description of character or manners.) βραχυλογία, [*](See IX. iii. 50.) παρασιώπησις [*]( The statement that we refrain from saying something, though making it perfectly clear what it is. ) παῤῥησία [*](Freedom of speech.) of which I say the same. I will pass by those authors who set no limit to their craze for inventing technical terms and even include among figures what really comes under the head of arguments.

With regard to genuine figures, I would briefly add that, while, suitably placed, they are a real ornament to style, they become perfectly fatuous when sought after overmuch. There are some who pay no consideration to the weight of their matter or the force of their thoughts and think themselves supreme artists, if only they succeed in forcing even the emptiest of words into figurative form, with the result that they are never tired of stringing figures together, despite the fact that it is as ridiculous to hunt for figures without reference to the matter as it is to discuss dress and gesture without reference to the body.

But even perfectly correct figures must not be packed too closely together. Changes of facial expression and glances of the eyes are most effective in pleading, but if the orator never ceases to distort his face with affected grimaces or to wag his head and roll his eyes, he becomes a laughing-stock. So too oratory possesses a natural mien, which while it is far from demanding a stolid and immovable rigidity should as far as possible restrict itself to the expression with which it is endowed by nature.

But it is of the first importance that we should know what are the requirements of time, place and character on each occasion of speaking. For the majority of these figures aim at delighting the hearer. But when terror, hatred and pity are the

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weapons called for in the fray, who will endure the orator who expresses his anger, his sorrow or his entreaties in neat antitheses, balanced cadences and exact correspondences? Too much care for our words under such circumstances weakens the impression of emotional sincerity, and wherever the orator displays his art unveiled, the hearer says,

The truth is not in him.

IV. I should not venture to speak of artistic structure [*](Composite in its widest sense means artistic structure. But in much of what follows it virtually = rhythm. ) after what Cicero has said upon the subject (for there is I think no topic to which he has devoted such elaborate discussion) but for the fact that his own contemporaries ventured to traverse his theories on this subject even in letters which they addressed to him, while a number of later writers have left on record numerous observations on the same topic.

Accordingly on a large number of questions I shall be found in agreement with Cicero and shall deal more briefly with those points which admit of no dispute, while there will be certain subjects on which I shall express a certain amount of disagreement. For, though I intend to make my own views clear, I shall leave my readers free to hold their own opinion.

I am well aware that there are certain writers who would absolutely bar all study of artistic structure and contend that language as it chances to present itself in the rough is more natural and even more manly. If by this they mean that only that is natural which originated with nature and has never received any subsequent cultivation, there is an end to the whole art of oratory.

For the first men did not speak with the care demanded by that art nor in accordance with the rules that it lays

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down. They knew nothing of introducing their case by means of an exordium, of instructing the jury by a statement of facts, of proving by argument or of arousing the emotions. They lacked all these qualifications as completely as they lacked all knowledge of the theory of artistic structure. But if they were to be forbidden all progress in this respect, they ought equally to have been forbidden to exchange their huts for houses, their cloaks of skin for civilised raiment and their mountains and forests for cities.

What art was ever born fullgrown? What does not ripen with cultivation? Why do we train the vine? Why dig it? We clear the fields of brambles, and they too are natural products of the soil. We tame animals, and yet they are born wild. No, that which is most natural is that which nature permits to be done to the greatest perfection.