Institutio Oratoria: Books I-III

Description

QUINTILIANUS, Marcus Fabius (c.35-c.95 A.D.) of Calagurris in Spain was brought up at Rome, but was in Spain 61-68 until with the new-made emperor Galba he returned to Rome where he became head of the most important school of Oratory, and sometimes pleaded in the law-courts. The emperor Vespasian (69-79) made him a 'Professor of Latin Rhetoric' until he retired to compose a lost work on why eloquence had declined, and the extant Institutio Oratoria 'Training of an Orator' (twelve books), and also became a teacher to the emperor Domitian's two grand-nephews. He died before A.D. 96. He had been taught by the famous Seneca and Domitius of Nimes, but so admired the long dead orator Cicero that he wished to bring the orators of his own age back to Cicero'. His Institutio propounds for an orator a training in character and oratory from birth. He presents us with interesting and important views on general education, deals in detail with all oratorical composition and the devices of rhetoric, and outlines the ideal orator. His review of the past literature of Greece and Rome is famous and makes him a good literary critic. The whole work is composed in a dignified yet pleasant style, and his judgements are fair and gentle.