CHAPTER IV

THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC

The pedagogy of rhetoric, more constant and more pervasive than that of most subjects still taught, demands historical interpretation, and thus extensive and consecutive survey.[1] Summary of its history has conveyed little of its vitality; but analysis of two cardinal documents will show, first, what the constant tradition of teaching was typically throughout the great classical centuries, and secondly what the teaching of rhetoric was destined to become, with almost equal constancy and pervasiveness, during the centuries of decadence. For each of these traditions there is fortunately, besides much other testimony, a typical text. Quintilian, writing long after rhetoric had ceased to function as an instrument of assembly government, nevertheless comprehends its best older tradition and the whole scope of its classical development in a great work of pedagogy, _De institutione oratoria_ (about 95 A.D.). Seneca the Elder, who died about the time of Quintilian’s birth, had already recorded from memory and notes in his _Controversiæ_ that particular application of the ancient schooling which in the generation before Quintilian was already infecting the old rhetoric, and through which the teaching of both Greek and Roman schools was to be dwarfed and perverted. Quintilian, though writing later than Seneca, preserves ancient rhetoric as a ripe whole; Seneca, though earlier, isolates the germ of its decay.

I. QUINTILIAN ON THE TEACHING OF RHETORIC (_DE INSTITUTIONE ORATORIA_)[2]

A. TABULAR VIEW[3]

1. preliminary studies (προγυμνάσματα, I-II. x)

a. earliest lessons in speech I. i-iii b. studies with _grammaticus_ (_ante officium rhetoris_) (1) in diction as usage iv-vii (2) ” ” ” style viii (a) lectures on poetry (_prælectio_), with reading aloud (_lectio_) (3) in composition ix (a) retelling of fables (b) paraphrase of poetry (c) formal amplification of maxims (_chria_, χρεία) (4) in contributory subjects (music, geometry, astronomy) x (5) in enunciation (lessons from an actor) xi c. studies with _rhetor_ (_prima apud rhetorem elementa_) (1) learning from his example II. i-iii (2) exercises in composition iv (a) rehearsal of events (x) summary of the plot of a tragedy or comedy (_fabula_, _argumentum_) (y) summary of historical events (_historia_) (b) elementary analysis of statements of fact (x) analysis of legends (y) analysis of history (c) elementary panegyric (_laudatio_) and parallel (_comparatio_) (d) amplification of typical propositions (_loci communes_, _theses_) (3) _rhetor’s_ analysis of models (_prælectio_) v (4) speeches from assigned outline (_præformata materia_) vi, vii [(5) advice to teachers on correction and promotion] viii, ix (6) speeches on hypothetical cases (_declamatio_) x (a) deliberative (_suasoriæ_) (b) forensic (_controversiæ_)

2. definition of rhetoric (II. xi-III. v)

a. function and scope xi-xxi b. origin and earlier development III. i, ii c. the five parts of rhetoric iii (1) investigation (_inventio_, εὕρεσις, discussed III. vi-VI. v) (2) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις, discussed in VII) (3) style (_elocutio_, λέξις, discussed in VIII, IX) (4) memory (_memoria_, μνήμη, discussed in XI. ii) (5) delivery (_pronuntiatio_, _actio_, ὑπόκρισις, discussed in XI. iii) d. the three fields of oratory iv (1) occasional, panegyric (_demonstrativum_, ἐπιδεικτικόν; see chapter vii) (2) deliberative (_deliberativum_, συμβουλευτικόν; see chapter viii) (3) forensic (_iudiciale_, δικανικόν; see chapters ix-xi) e. the three aims of oratory v (1) to inform (_docere_) (2) to win sympathy (_conciliare_, _delectare_) (3) to move (_movere_)

3. investigation and handling of material (_inventio_, εὕρεσις, III. vi-VI. v; _dispositio_, τάξις, VII)

a. the nature of the case (_status_, στάσις) (1) in law (_status legalis_) (2) in reason (_status rationalis_) as having for its main issue (a) fact (_an sit_, _status coniecturalis_, _coniectura_, στοχασμός) (b) definition (_quid sit_, _status definitivus_, _finis_, ὅρος) (c) morals or policy (_quale sit_, _status generalis_, _qualitas_, ποιότης) b. the parts of pleading (IV. i-VII) (1) components (a) exordium (προοίμιον) IV. i (b) statement of facts (_narratio_, διήγησις) ii (c) excursus, proposition, division iii-v (d) proof (_confirmatio_, ἀπόδειξις; as including appeal, πίστις) (x) evidence V. i-vii (y) argument viii-xi (z) order xii (e) refutation (_refutatio_, λύσις) xiii (x) destructive enthymeme (f) peroration (_peroratio_, ἐπίλογος) xiv (2) pervasive elements VI. i (a) appeal (x) imaginative ii (y) humorous iii (b) debate (_altercatio_) iv (c) judgment (_iudicium_, _consilium_) v (3) plan (_dispositio_, τάξις) VII

4. style (_elocutio_, λέξις, VIII, IX)

a. choice of words (_electio_, ἐκλογή, including figures) VIII. i-IX. iii b. sentence-movement (_compositio_, σύνθεσις) IX. iv

5. training for facility (_firma facilitas_, X, XI)

a. reading to foster speaking X. i b. imitation ii c. writing for practise iii d. revision iv e. translation and other exercises v f. preparing the speech vi g. speaking the speech vii (1) adaptation XI. i (2) memory ii (3) delivery iii

6. the orator himself

a. moral force and philosophy XII. i, ii b. knowledge of law and history iii, iv c. physique v, vi d. dealings with clients vii-ix e. styles of oratory x f. when to leave the platform xi

B. THE TERMS

Quintilian’s survey is in the traditional terms of classical rhetoric. These demand the more attention because translation has often missed the specific meanings attached to recognized technical terms. “Institutes of Oratory,” never precisely rendering his title, is now almost meaningless. _Institutio Oratoria_ means The Teaching of Rhetoric and announces not so much a manual for students as a survey for teachers. Of the pedagogical terms, _grammatica_ and _grammaticus_ may still be rendered “grammar” and “grammarian” only if they are understood to have wider scope. _Prælectio_ (I. viii) describes the habitual introductory exposition of a passage of poetry by _grammaticus_, or less commonly of a passage of oratory by _rhetor_ (II. v). _Materia_, meaning generally “material,” means often technically (II. vi. vii) a prescribed outline, as French _matière_ still does in pedagogical use. _Declamatio_ (II. x) was quite different from “declamation.” It was speaking, usually extempore, on an assigned hypothetical case, and grew, as will appear below, from an exercise for boys to an exhibition of virtuosity by men.

Of the five traditional parts of rhetoric (III. iii), the first, _inventio_, does not mean “invention”; it means, in Aristotelian language, the discovery of all the extrinsic means of persuasion, or more simply, survey of the material and forecast. _Dispositio_ (_collocatio_) refers not to the arrangement of details, but to the plan of the whole. _Elocutio_ means “elocution” in the sense borne by that word before the nineteenth century. It is sufficiently rendered by “style” and is always conceived in two aspects: (1) _electio_, the choice of words, including “figures of speech”; and (2) _compositio_, the arrangement of words in clauses and sentences, including rhythm and harmony—in a word, sentence-movement. _Compositio_ does not mean, though it is often translated, “composition” in the wide sense now current. For the latter the term is _dispositio_. _Memoria_ ranges far beyond memorizing. It embraces the speaker’s whole command of his material in the order of his constructive plan and in relation to rebuttal, and was most stressed for speeches unwritten. _Pronuntiatio_ and _actio_ cover the whole field of delivery, including all that is now often called “elocution,” from the placing of the voice to the handling of the body.

In detail, _status_ (III. vi), meaning generally and simply “status,” refers technically to a classifying system for determining “the nature of the case” (see 3. a, in the tabular view above). Of its three divisions, _coniectura_, having nothing to do with “conjecture,” denotes a main issue of fact; _finis_, a main issue of definition; _qualitas_, a more general issue of morals or policy. _Narratio_ (IV. ii) means never “narration” in the sense assigned by recent text-books, always either “statement of the facts” or, more generally, “exposition.” These and other technical terms have been guarded, in the tabular view above and in the interpretations below, by adding the Latin originals.

C. TYPICAL DOCTRINE

(1) _Elementary Exercises_

The tradition of _grammatica_ as having the twofold function of forming right speech and of expounding poetry[4] continued for centuries.[5] Traditional also are the first exercises in composition.[6] A chapter (x) on the concurrence of other studies toward a rounded education,[7] and one on elocution (xi), close a preliminary pedagogy so suggestive as to be still studied to-day.

(2) _Declamatio_

The counsels to _rhetor_ (II) imply a warm atmosphere of promotion and a general habit of collaboration.

“The teacher himself should speak something—nay, many things a day—for auditory memory. Though reading aloud may supply a plenty of examples to imitate, nevertheless the living voice gives ampler nourishment, especially the voice of the teacher, whom the pupils, if they be rightly taught, at once love and respect.... Thus while mastery comes through writing, critical faculty will come through hearing.” II. ii.

The teacher should frankly and fully show how. His criticism should beware of setting up inhibitions. To be promotive, he should find something to praise, and, besides explaining why he would have this out or that changed, should illuminate by interposing something of his own. Sometimes it will be helpful to give whole treatments which the boy may imitate without losing faith in his own (II. iv). In short, the teacher’s _declamatio_ should be a model for his students (II. v).

“In this teachers have shown a divergence of method. Some of them would develop orally the outlines that they gave their pupils to speak from, not content to guide by the [assigned] division. Not only would they amplify argumentatively, but also emotionally. Others, giving only a sketch, would after the pupils’ speeches treat what each one had scanted. Some topics, indeed, they would elaborate with no less care than when they themselves were the orators. Either method is useful; neither, I think, should be separated from the other; but, if there must be a choice between the two, it will more avail to have shown the right way in advance than to recall from their error those who have already fallen.” II. vi. 1-2.

The same promotive guidance appears in the assigning of outlines (_materiæ_), less and less ample as the pupils advance, for written composition (II. vi). This writing was generally for practise, not for casting a particular speech in form to be memorized. Sometimes, says Quintilian, the boys may recite what they have written out; but generally learning by heart is better spent on the orators and historians than on their own work (vii).

The _declamatio_ recommended by Quintilian is speaking from outline on hypothetical cases. The more elementary assignments, for deliberative speeches, were called _suasoriæ_; the more advanced, for forensic speeches, _controversiæ_. Both he treats only as school exercises. Within these limits he recommends _declamatio_ as an important pedagogical discovery.

“So soon as [the youth] is well taught and sufficiently exercised in these first tasks, themselves not small, but as it were members and parts of greater ones, let the time demand the essaying of deliberative speaking and forensic on assigned outlines. Before I go into the method of these, I must tell briefly what _declamatio_ has as its idea, which is at once the most recent discovery and far the most useful. For it at once embraces almost all the exercises just discussed and offers the nearest likeness to actuality. Therefore it has become so popular as to be in the opinion of many sufficient of itself to develop eloquence. Nor can there be found any mastery in consecutive discourse which is not related to this exercise in speaking. True, the actual practise has so declined by the fault of teachers that among the chief causes corrupting eloquence have been the license and ignorance of _declamatores_; but we may use well what is essentially good.

“Let the outlines of the fictitious cases assigned be therefore as like as possible to actuality; and let the _declamatio_, so far as possible, imitate those pleas for which it was invented to prepare. Wizards, pestilence, oracles, stepmothers more cruel than those of tragedy, and other topics even more imaginary, we seek in vain among real law cases. What, then? Are we never to permit a young man to elaborate themes outside of statistics, even poetical ones, such indeed as I myself have mentioned, that he may have room, take some pleasure in the assignment, and enter as it were into the body [of the party he defends]? That used to be all very well; but at least let such [exercises] be grand and swelling without being silly and to critical eyes ridiculous.” II. x. 1-6.

Evidently the _declamatio_ that Quintilian recommends is not the _declamatio_ that he heard about him. He wishes to recall to its original purpose what was already out of hand. Originally, he implies, it defined that general practise in debating which must have been as common in the ancient teaching as in modern universities. But already, as he also admits by implication, it had become quite different. Already it was established both as a special exercise and as a special form of public speaking. With the narrowing of the field of public discussion, the large old rhetoric surveyed by Quintilian had been narrowed more and more toward an artificial combination of forensic ingenuity with dramatic imagination. Instead of training youth to lead in public policy and to secure justice for individuals, _declamatio_ had become an end in itself, the rhetor’s own kind of oratory. As an exhibition of skill it was his easiest means of winning pupils, and of holding them by letting them exhibit themselves. The inherent vice of artificiality, which Quintilian admits by implication, he nevertheless assigns entirely to perverted educational practise. He would recall _declamatio_ from invention to actuality, and from display to exercise. That his warning was already too late is evident from Seneca (see section II of this chapter). Meantime one of the chief opportunities for perversion will be found in the _prosopopœiæ_ described next.

The pervasive classical inculcation of appropriateness (see also XI. i) was carried into _declamatio_ through specific exercises known generally as _prosopopœiæ_ (προσωποποιίαι). Their idea was an imaginative entering into the character, the emotional as well as the intellectual habit, of the person for whom one was speaking (_fictæ alienarum personarum orationes_, VI. i. 25). In more elementary form, sometimes called _ethopœiæ_ (ἠθοποιίαι) they bade the student say what Priam must have said to Achilles, or Sulla on renouncing the dictatorship, or some other character of history or fiction on a critical occasion; and they began even with the boy’s amplification of fables and myths.[8] As applied to _declamatio_ (_suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_) they are thus described by Quintilian:

“Therefore _prosopopœiæ_ seem to me far the most difficult, since they add to the other tasks of deliberative _declamatio_ (_suasoria_) the difficulty of characterization (_persona_). For the same arguments must be urged in one way by Cæsar, in another by Cicero, in another by Cato. But the practise is most useful, either as a twofold task or as of the greatest interest to poets also or to future historians. To orators it is even necessary. For the many orations composed by Greeks or Latins to be delivered by others had to adapt what was to be said to the speaker’s habit of life. Did Cicero think in the same way, or assume the same character, when he wrote for Pompey as when he wrote for Ampius and others? Did he not, discerning the fortune, the rank, the deeds of each of them, express the very image of every one to whom he was giving voice, so that they seemed to speak beyond themselves, indeed, but still as themselves? Nor is a speech less faulty for deviating from the person than from the case to which it should be adapted. Admirably, therefore, Lysias, in what he wrote for the untrained, is seen to have been faithful to their actual style.

“But _declamatores_[9] especially have to consider what befits each character; for the forensics (_controversiæ_) that they speak as advocates do are very few. Usually they become sons or fathers, rich, old, harsh, mild, avaricious, even superstitious, timid, or mocking, so that even comedy actors hardly conceive more ways of life on the stage than they on the platform. All these [exercises] may be regarded as _prosopopœiæ_. I have brought them under the head of _suasoriæ_ because the only difference is in [the assumption of] character, although the exercise is sometimes extended also to _controversiæ_.”[10] III. viii. 49-52.

(3) _Status_

Quintilian’s chapter (III, vi) on _status_ is one of his most important, both as specific doctrine and as typical of ancient method. He has simplified a pedagogical device which, while it had been hampered by too analytical subdivision, had long vindicated itself as one of the most effective applications of the ancient theory of systematic guidance. _Status_, meaning the essential character of the case as it appeared to preliminary survey of all the material and all the bearings, had come to denote a uniform system for determining that essential character by leading questions. To gauge the sufficiency of his preparation and the line of his argument, to bring to bear not only his particular investigation, but the whole fund of his experience, the student was to ask himself what the case meant to him as a whole. He must interpret it as resting mainly on one of three issues: (1) of fact (_an sit_); (2) of definition (_quid sit_); or (3) of general considerations, as of right or expediency (_an recte sit_). The first was called _status coniecturalis_, or _coniectura_; the second, _status definitivus_, or _finis_; the third, _status generalis_, or _qualitas_.[11] Even if two of these entered, or all three, one must always be the focus.

The first _status_ (_coniecturalis_, _an sit_) is most frequently determining in criminal cases at law; but it may be determining in any debate involving history, for instance on the question of the recognition of Anglican orders by the Roman or the Eastern Church, or on the question of the historical justification of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Whether it is to be determining must usually be forecast by experiment; for the ancient system presupposes that all three _status_ will be tried in preparation before one is chosen. Actually many arguments against the validity of Anglican orders have interpreted the _status_ as _coniecturalis_; i.e., they rely mainly on establishing certain facts of the English Reformation. Others have chosen _status definitivus_. Though neither excludes the other, one, according to the ancient system and by the very conditions of public address, will always be for that particular speech _the status_. There can be no cogency without unity.

Erskine’s defense of Lord George Gordon in a trial for treason was based on the second _status_ (_definitivus_, _quid sit_). The facts alleged he admitted. That Gordon was concerned in a riot he did not challenge. _Status coniecturalis_ he simply waived. He organized his case to show that what Gordon admittedly did could not be construed as coming within the term treason.

In the defence of Orestes, a familiar ancient assignment, the _status_ could not, except by mere ingenious perversion, be _coniecturalis_. The facts of his killing of Clytemnestra and of her previous killing of Agamemnon had to be admitted. The _status_ might, indeed, be _definitivus_ for some one who cared to split hairs about what we now call murder or homicide; but naturally it was the third (_generalis_, _an recte sit_). Orestes was justified on the ground of the sacred duty to avenge the murder of his father. _The_ issue was whether even a criminal mother should be executed by her own son.

College debaters defending the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine settled on the third _status_. The forcing of the second by their opponents they found themselves prepared to rebut. The issues of democracy, protection, peace seemed to them vital as offering valid arguments for and against, i.e., as being real clashes of actual opinion; and all these issues fell under _status generalis_. _Status coniecturalis_ could never be made determining. _Status definitivus_ would lead to quibbling costly for opponents who should raise it. _Status generalis_ held _the_ issue.

This sort of forecast, surveying the whole trend, the ancients regarded as so vital that they reduced it to a system. The classified _status_ is typical of their pedagogy of rhetoric. Their teaching of _inventio_ did not stop with investigation; it promoted reflection directly and guided it so systematically that no essential aspect could be ignored. Such questioning for focus and line in our day of statistical accumulation is not less, but more valuable.

(4) _The Parts of a Speech_

The traditional parts of an oration Quintilian discusses (IV-VI) under their traditional subdivisions. The exordium (IV. i), for instance, may be drawn from the case, from the persons, from the occasion, or from rebuttal of one’s opponent; and its threefold aim is to remove prejudice, to win attention, and to open the way for understanding.[12] But Quintilian often constructively recombines the traditional items, and often interprets them from teaching experience. The statement of facts (_narratio_, IV. ii) is not limited to pure exposition; even rehearsal may contribute to persuasion. Its cardinal virtue of clearness he reasserts in rebuke of those students whom an itch to be always impressive makes impatient of the obligation.

“When they have experienced the whole range, they will find nothing in eloquence more difficult than to say what every hearer thinks he would have said himself, because it seems to him not good, but true.” IV. ii. 38.

That the statement of facts should be brief does not permit its being either abrupt or meager. That it should sound true implies that it should be in character, i.e., that it should be dramatically consistent and convincing, and also that it should lead into the argument. Similarly practical are the warnings against making the division (IV. v) too minute and against letting it hamper emotional appeal or interrupt progressive coherence. To his conspectus of the ancient classification of proof (V) Quintilian adds (xiii) the following shrewd maxims for rebuttal:

Defense demands more skill than attack.

The system of _status_ has one of its main uses in refutation.

Rebuttal often consists largely in breaking down analogies.

Never rebut what your opponent did not say.

Neither be too anxious nor fight over every item.

Peroration should be more than recapitulation; it should take occasion from the adversary. VI. i.

(5) _Plan_

Quintilian’s discussion of _dispositio_ (VII) is like that of other ancient treatises in confining itself to plan in general. Without specific doctrine for the promotion of cogency as progressive coherence, it carries forward the system of _status_ as determining the main line of argument. That the ancients appreciated and practised what is now taught in American schools and colleges as the lore of paragraphs is evident in their best composition, notably in the orations of Cicero. The decline from such progressive coherence among the later _declamatores_ is one of the marks of decadence (see section II, below). But how the lore was taught we are left to infer. The elementary working out of what is now unfortunately called a detached paragraph, i.e., of a single short composition, is prescribed in the _chria_ (I. ix) much as in modern manuals; but that does not touch the art of composing a sustained speech _by_ paragraphs. In the cogency of mounting by stages we miss the typical systematic instruction. Some of this must have been inculcated through assigned outline (_materia_, page 67 above), some of it by the rhetor’s oral teaching. Quintilian’s instruction as to the close of the exordium is a clear hint of what is now taught as paragraph emphasis.

“The proem should put last that to which the beginning of what follows can most conveniently be linked.” IV. i. 76.

There are, indeed, other hints; but that so important an aspect of composition should not be a distinct topic even in Quintilian’s constructive pedagogy leaves the ancient lore of _dispositio_ too analytical to be sufficient for modern teachers.

(6) _Style Analyzed_

Quintilian’s long discussion of style (_elocutio_, VIII-XI) opens with one of his best sayings, “let care in words be solicitude for things”;[13] and the whole introduction is an admirable answer to the old quibble about form and substance. If he thereupon proceeds for two books by the usual categories, he at least avoids the subdivision that had become excessive, and provides a convenient guide to the voluminous classical lore of _elocutio_.[14] Typical is his introduction, under sentence-movement (_compositio_, IX. iv), to the doctrine of sentence close (_clausula_).

[“Though rhythm must be pervasive] it is more demanded in closing cadences (_in clausulis_) and more obvious; first, because every thought has its own conclusion and demands a natural pause to separate it from the beginning of the one that follows; and furthermore, because the ear, having followed an oral sequence, having been guided by the current of flowing prose, is more critical when that movement stops and gives time to consider. Neither hard, therefore, nor abrupt should be the place where the attention takes breath and is renewed. Here is the dwelling-place of prose; here is the point to which the audience looks forward; here speaks the orator’s whole merit.” IX. iv. 61-62. (The text of the last sentence is dubious; but the general intention of exalting the importance of the _clausula_ is clear.)

(7) _Style Promoted_

Having followed the usual analysis of style, Quintilian proceeds (X) to constructive promotion, to the ways of gaining secure control (_firma facilitas_; see the tabular view, page 66). “We who contemplate oratorical power, not mountebank volubility, have to inculcate both range and discrimination” (_copia cum iudicio_, X. i. 8). So the vivid impressions that come through the ear should be supplemented by critical reading. The reading of poetry promotes concrete realization, heightening of style, emotional appeal, and aptness in characterization.[15] From imitation Quintilian passes (X. iii) to writing for practise in style. Since this, like deep plowing, is for a better yield, he goes into specific counsels.

Repeat what you have just written, both for connection and to warm up afresh. Fluency comes from habit, not from haste. You will not learn to write well by writing rapidly; you will learn to write rapidly by writing well. Lolling and looking at the ceiling will not answer; you must follow a plan (_ratio_). Rapid extempore draft (_silva_) has this disadvantage, that subsequent revision, though it may amend words and rhythm, is likely to leave the superficiality (_levitas_) that has arisen from hasty crowding. Better exercise prevision, and so conduct your work (_opus ducere_) from the beginning that revision shall be polishing, not entirely making over.

Dictation, by either urging or delaying the natural pace of composition, leads to crude, random, or inept expression. It is neither writing nor speaking; for it has neither the accuracy of the one nor the impetus of the other. Incidentally it precludes those motor activities which help composing when one is alone.[16]

Though solitude is best—night, the closed door, the single light—since you cannot always have it, learn abstraction. X. iii. 3-28, paraphrased.

In transition Quintilian observes that meditation (_cogitatio_, X. vi) for speaking without writing can go so far as to fix not only the order of points, which is enough, but even the connection of words. The value to the speaker of practise in writing is to make channels (_formæ_) for such meditation. Since meditation must always leave a margin for improvisation, the plan must be such as may be easily left and resumed. In other words, to give the speaker secure control, the plan must be progressive. Iterating this in the next chapter,[17] Quintilian adds that the other main means to extempore power is concrete realization.[18]

Writing gives speaking precision; speaking gives writing ease (X. vii. 29). From this summary of their general relations in education, Quintilian passes to the use of writing in the preparation of a particular speech.

“Busy pleaders commonly write the most essential parts and the beginnings [i.e., of paragraphs, so as to be readier to pick up the constructive pattern after weaving in rebuttal impromptu]. The rest of their prepared matter they grasp by meditation: and what arises suddenly they meet extempore.” X. vii. 30.

Brief notes to be held in the hand are admissible, but not what is advised by Lænas, to write out the whole speech and then sum it up in outline.[19] X. vii. 32, paraphrased.

The secure control that Quintilian seeks to promote, that _firma facilitas_ which is the subject of the whole tenth book, is evidently quite different from mere fluency. With the gift of gab in boys he has long ago expressed his impatience. “Impromptu garrulity, without the meditation that the master intends, almost without hesitation in rising to speak, is really the brag of a mountebank” (II. iv. 15). He not only presupposes, he specifically inculcates, most careful preparation.

(8) _Memory_

In this preparation the importance that he gives to writing, not only for general practise, but for the composition of a particular speech, may seem greater than is warranted by experience. Even so he is far from supporting those who represent classical oratory as having been generally written and memorized.[20] That the urgencies of public address could be met by that method is _a priori_ a difficult assumption; and even the spread of the oratory of display in his time, and his own professorial fondness for finish of style, did not lead Quintilian to urge memorizing generally and unreservedly. Rather what he offers under _memoria_ (XI. ii) has the usual wide ancient scope. It should be read in its connection with what he has already taught (X. vi. vii, page 80 above) about _cogitatio_.

“All training rests upon memory.... It is the power that makes available funds of examples, laws, decisions, opinions, precedents, funds which the orator ought to have in abundance and at command. Rightly is it called the treasury of eloquence.

“Those who plead much ought not only to retain surely, but to discern [bearings] quickly, not only to grasp what has been written by reading it over and over, but to follow the sequence of points and words in what has been [merely] thought out,[21] to remember the points made on the other side, and, instead of rebutting them seriatim, to bring them in where they will be opportune. Nay, extempore speaking seems to me to rest upon no less vigor of mind.[22] For while we are saying one thing, we have to be considering what we are going to say. So while thought (_cogitatio_) is always questing beyond what is [actually on the carpet], whatever it finds meantime it deposits, so to speak, in the memory; and the memory, as it were a third hand, transmits what it has received from forecast (_inventione_) to expression (_elocutioni_).” XI. ii. 1-3.

Devices and exercises for training and applying such a faculty (XI. ii. 8-35) are summed up (36) under the two principles of _divisio_ and _compositio_, definiteness of outline and definiteness of sentence movement. The former is thus iterated for the third time (see X. vi. vii) as essential. The importance of the latter lies in the fact that the mind more readily retains settled rhythms (39). As verse is easier to memorize than prose, so periodic rhythms than unperiodic.[23] Thus Quintilian faces finally the question of learning by heart. That it was a question, even for Quintilian, shows that classical practise was divided, as modern practise is, by differences both in talent and in the field of habitual exercise.

“From this diversity of talents arises the question whether the preparation of a speech should go so far as learning by heart (_ad verbum sit ediscendum dicturis_), or only far enough to grasp the force of each point and the order (_an vim modo rerum atque ordinem complecti satis sit_). As to this doubtless no rule can be proclaimed as universal. With a memory strong enough, and with time enough, I should like to hold every syllable. Otherwise it is idle to write [the speech out. Such power] is to be secured especially in boyhood, and memory to be trained to that habit, lest we learn to excuse ourselves. Therefore to be prompted or to refer to notes is a fault, because it encourages slackness, and there is no secure hold without some anxiety not to lose. By prompting or the use of notes the impetus of delivery is interrupted, the speech halting and abrupt; and he who speaks as if he were reciting forfeits the whole charm even of what he has written well by betraying that it has been written [i.e., memorizing, to be effective, must be perfect].

“Memory can even give such an impression of impromptu talent that we seem not to have brought the speech from home, but to have laid hold of it on the spot; and that is a great advantage both to the orator and to his case....

“But if memory is less tractable, or if time does not suffice, tying oneself to words will be useless, since the forgetting of a single one may lead to awkward hesitation, or even to silence. It is far safer, having firmly grasped the substance, to give oneself freedom of expression.” XI. ii. 44-48.

D. SCOPE AND PLAN

The comprehensive program announced by Quintilian in his proem is carried through. No other ancient treatise is so exhaustive.[24] Including all the traditional topics, he proceeds upon the classical theory of systematic guidance, but makes the important contribution of pedagogical order. For his plan is progressive. Though sometimes anxiously analytical in subdivision, he is constructive in making his main line not the survey of the subject, but the development of the student. The traditional five parts of rhetoric stand out clearly; but they cover only about half of the space, and they do not determine the plan. Rather Quintilian proceeds from less to more, from boyhood through adolescence to manhood. His idea is to widen and deepen the practise of public speaking as it opens more and more to the growing speaker. Aristotle’s philosophy of rhetoric begins with the speaker as theoretically the efficient cause; Quintilian’s pedagogy ends with the speaker as practically the efficient result. So, before entering upon definitions, he devotes two books to practical exercises, beginning not with the subject, but with the boy.[25] So, after he has defined the field and scope, he expounds _inventio_ as in practise it expands, and links it with _dispositio_. So the two books in which _elocutio_ is traditionally analyzed are followed by the two that show practically how it may be achieved; and these two are the culmination, the final application of all the preceding doctrine. His _Institutio_ is faithfully what its title proposes, a pedagogy of rhetoric.

That it keeps its place in the history not only of rhetoric, but of education is due, of course, to Quintilian’s cogency; it is due also to the largeness of the subject. Rhetoric, for the fortunate few who alone could aspire to leadership, comprised most of the higher systematic education. The scope so brilliantly vindicated by Cicero[26] is taken by Quintilian as a matter of course. Thus his work is in more than one aspect a general pedagogy. Thus also rhetoric itself, to fulfil his demands and follow his methods, must keep his conception of bringing to bear the whole man. The narrowing of rhetoric in practise arose from the narrowing of public life and meant the narrowing of education.

II. DECLAMATIO IN SENECA,[27] TACITUS, AND PLINY

A. DECLAMATIO

The _declamatio_ exhibited by Seneca, though already established, was fairly new at Rome.[28] Cicero, writing about the time of Seneca’s birth, still uses _declamare_, _declamatio_, and _controversia_[29] in their older general senses. His approval of practise speaking on hypothetical cases was apparently of something like our modern “moot courts.” _Controversiæ_ of the Senecan sort he knew only in their incipiency.[30]

Tacitus, writing his _Dialogus de oratoribus_ about 81 A.D., a few years before Quintilian’s _Institutio_, shows clearly that the specialized _controversiæ_, from being common, had become pervasive almost to the extent of monopoly. From the older, Ciceronian position of comprehensive training his Messalla derides _declamatio_ and all its works.

“As to this [education of an orator] the great men of the past had made up their minds. To bring it about they discerned the need not of _declamatio_ in the schools of the rhetors, nor of exercising tongue and voice in imaginary _controversiæ_ without specific relation to actuality, but of filling the mind by the technic (_artibus_) of discussing (_disputatur_, i.e., discussing after the manner of the philosophers) good and evil, honor and dishonor, justice and injustice; for this is the orator’s subject matter (_subiecta ad dicendum materia_).” Tacit. _Dial._ 31, 1.

[The dialogue, which of course gives more than one point of view, but none the less clearly shows the position of Tacitus, proceeds from such general studies to the old custom of apprenticing oneself to an experienced orator (31-34), and then contrasts the modern habit as follows.]

“But now our striplings are drawn off into the schools of those who are called rhetors. How little, just before Cicero’s time, these teachers pleased our ancestors is evident from the fact that the censors Crassus and Domitius bade them close, as Cicero puts it, their ‘schools of impudence.’ Well, as I started to say, the boys are drawn off into schools in which it would be hard to say whether the place itself, or their fellow students, or the sort of exercise, is likely to do their talents more harm. The place has no respect, since every one is equally unskilled; the fellow students give no impetus to progress, since boys among boys and youths among youths speak and are heard with equal carelessness; but the exercises are in great part positively thwarting. For two sorts of themes are handled with the rhetors: _suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_. Of these the _suasoriæ_, as being easier and demanding less foresight (_prudentia_), are left to the boys; the _controversiæ_ are assigned to those of more power. My word! what assignments! and how incredibly composed! It follows, moreover, that _declamatio_ may be applied to an assignment far removed from actuality. So it comes to pass that they pursue with great words rewards for tyrannicides, or the choice to be made by ravished maidens, or incests of matrons, or whatever is argued as often in school as seldom in the forum. When they come before real judges—” ... Tacit. _Dial._ 35, 1-7.

What Quintilian deplores, then, in the practise of _declamatio_ Tacitus shows to have been none the less common. All the more significant is the slight and as it were unwilling consideration that Quintilian gives to these fashionable aspects. Even while he insists on the value of _declamatio_ for general training, he deprecates that wide departure from actual pleading in themes, conception, and style which Seneca records as a matter of course and Tacitus derides as habitual. The use of _declamatio_ by mature speakers not for exercise, but for exhibition, he passes over incidentally in a few sentences as a perversion. Its undoubted prevalence he admits sadly as something that a serious teacher should ignore.[31] Both the scorn of the historian and the reservations of the teacher spring from the older, larger tradition of rhetoric. To this both Tacitus and Quintilian discerned in _declamatio_ a menace. How far their fears were justified will appear in later narrowing and perversion. Meantime they have supplied for interpreting the collection of Seneca not only the ancient standard, but also the necessary information.

B. CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF SENECA’S COLLECTION

Seneca’s _Controversiæ_[32] is a collection of the _declamationes_ made by celebrated rhetors. Though Seneca may well have used published material, his extensive reports, as it were verbatim,[33] at once attest the grasp of the ancient _memoria_ and suggest, amid considerable variety, a fund of stock cases. To exhibit the rhetors’ skill by competition, his plan is to show side by side different treatments of the same theme. He interpolates specific, and, in the prefaces to the several books, general criticism. Though he does not offer his collection of models explicitly as a comprehensive guide, his pervasive implication is that _declamatio_ exhibits the cardinal virtues. Rhetoric might with more safety tend to monopolize education so long as it had its old comprehensiveness; but as it was narrowed, it tended to put the cart before the horse. “Give your mind to eloquence,” says Seneca; “from this you can range easily into all arts.”[34] The idea is almost opposite educationally to Cicero’s view that eloquence is nourished by all studies; and the eloquence exhibited by Seneca is itself much smaller than that intended by Cicero.

(1) _Subjects for Suasoriæ_

_Suasoriæ_ were deliberative; _controversiæ_, forensic. Though in actual practise the one field of oratory seems as difficult as the other, in pedagogical use _suasoriæ_ were generally assigned as elementary exercises, the boy’s first extended compositions with the rhetor.[35] The seven surviving specimens of Seneca’s collection are on the following themes:—

1. Alexander debates whether to embark on the ocean.

2. The three hundred Spartans sent against Xerxes debate, after the flight of the expeditionary forces from the rest of Greece, whether they too shall flee.

3. Agamemnon debates whether to sacrifice Iphigenia, when Calchas has declared that the Trojan expedition cannot otherwise set sail with the consent of the gods.

4. Alexander the Great debates the entry into Babylon after the auguries have warned that danger lurks for him there.

5. The Athenians debate whether to remove the monuments of their victories over the Persians, Xerxes having threatened to come back unless they do so.

6. Cicero debates whether to appeal to Antonius for mercy.

7. Cicero debates whether to burn his writings, Antonius having offered him immunity on this condition.[36]

That the subjects seem to have been always historical reminds us that Roman deliberative oratory was barred from its natural field of the living present. Thus restricted, it is meager even for a school exercise.

(2) _Subjects for Controversiæ_

The cases assigned for the _controversiæ_ of older students, though more various, were even more removed from actuality. The list of those used by Seneca to exhibit the skill of the rhetors themselves fully justifies the exclamation of Tacitus,[37] _quales, per fidem!_ Posed as available for argument on either side—a rhetor would sometimes espouse now one side, now the other—they are difficult, subtle, sensational, often so dubious as to preclude quotation, always remote. On their face they were chosen and iterated by men who desired sensation, prized ingenuity, and had turned the art of persuasion to advertisement.

_A Disinheriting Uncle_ (I. 1)

“Children who refuse support to their parents are liable to imprisonment.”

Two brothers quarreled. The son of one of them, in spite of his father’s prohibition, supported his uncle, who had fallen into poverty. Disinherited on this account, he made no legal protest. He was adopted by his uncle. Through a legacy the uncle became rich. The father began to be in want. The son supported him in spite of the uncle’s prohibition. He was disinherited. [Speak for either the young man or the disinheriting uncle.]

_The Pirate Chief’s Daughter_ (I. 6)

[A young man] captured by pirates wrote to his father for ransom. He was not ransomed. The pirate chief’s daughter induced him to promise marriage if he got his freedom. He promised. She left her father to follow him. He has returned to his father and has married her. An orphan heiress comes along. His father bids him repudiate the pirate chief’s daughter and marry the heiress. When he refuses, he is disinherited. [Defend either the father or the son.]

_An Oath of Husband and Wife_ (II. 2)

A husband and a wife made an oath that if anything happened to either, the other would die. The husband, traveling abroad, sent a messenger to his wife to announce that her husband had died. She threw herself from a cliff. Having recovered, she is bidden by her father to leave her husband. She refuses. She is disinherited. [Speak for either the wife or her father.]

_Poison Given to a Maniac Son_ (III. 7)

A father has given poison to a son who was raging mad and did violence to himself. The mother brings action for cruelty. [Speak for either the father or the mother.]

_Crucifixion of a Slave who Refuses Poison to his Master_ (III. 9)

A sick man has asked his slave to give him poison. The slave has not given it. The master provides in his will that his heirs shall crucify the slave. The slave appeals to the tribunes. [Speak for either the appellant or the respondent.]

_An Exiled Father Excluded from his Lands_ (VI. 2)

“Aiding an exile with shelter or food is prohibited.”

“The penalty for homicide shall be exile for five years.”

The father of a son and a daughter was found guilty of homicide and exiled. He used to come to one of his properties near the frontier. The son learned this and punished the overseer. The overseer excluded the father. The father began to go to his daughter’s. Tried for harboring an exile, she was acquitted on the plea of her brother. The five-year period having expired, the father disinherits the son. [Speak for either the father or the son.]

Against such subjects, against others equally subtle and unreal, even indecent and perverted, both Tacitus and Quintilian protest in the name of education. Training for actual pleading, they urge, is not to be had from tyrannicide, rape, incest, wizards, pestilence, and stepmothers. Seneca leaves no doubt that such subjects were typical; but he expressly repudiates the assumption that _controversiæ_ should be exercises to train for the bar.[38] That _declamatio_ was quite different not only in his view, but in fact, there is no room to doubt. The difference between what Tacitus and Quintilian urge on principle and what they themselves, as well as Seneca and Pliny, record as practise is decisively sharp. It is the difference between the old rhetoric and the new. Even in Seneca’s time, much more in that of Quintilian, _declamatio_ was measured as a special form of public speaking. As such Seneca seems to regard it with complacency. That he thinks it self-sufficient and self-justifying seems evident from his pains to give its oral triumphs the permanence of written record. _Declamatio_ might be cursed by the older tradition as bad education, or justified as originally good by ignoring what it had become. None the less it had gone quite out from the old rhetoric, and had been accepted and widely applauded as an end in itself.

That it perverted schooling, as Tacitus complains, was partly due to its inevitable tendency to turn the school into an auditorium. The rhetor remained, indeed, a teacher; but even in teaching he offered himself as a model.[39] The transition was easy to offering himself to the public as an orator in the latest style of oratory. While this was one of the few ways left under the Empire for appeal to a large audience, it was also one of his chief means of publicity. What the rhetor was thus to become throughout the Roman Empire may be clearly forecast from Pliny’s account of Isæus.

(3) _Pliny on Isæus_

Great as is the reputation that had prepared me for Isæus, I found him greater. He has in the highest degree mastery, abundance, fertility. He speaks always extempore, but as if he had long written. The diction is Greek, nay Attic; the prelude, neat, simple, winsome, or grave and lofty. He asks for several _controversiæ_, and lets the audience choose, often even the side. He rises; his robe is right; he begins. Instantly everything is ready, and ready almost equally. Deep thoughts respond at once and words, but what words! chosen and refined. From his impromptus gleam much reading and much writing. He introduces aptly, states the case lucidly, argues keenly, sums up strongly, in style is superb. In a word, he instructs, charms, moves;[40] and which he does best you hardly know. The enthymemes are frequent, and so are the terse and finished syllogisms, an achievement difficult even for writing. His memory is incredible. He resumes what he has spoken extempore, and does not slip on a single word. Such control he has attained by study and practise; for day and night he does nothing else, hears nothing else, says nothing else. Past his sixtieth year, he is still only a schoolman; and nothing is more ingenuous than that sort of man, or more unsophisticated, or better. We who are crowded at the bar and in real cases learn, even against our will, much cunning. The school and the auditorium, with their made-up cases, are inoffensive and innocuous—and none the less happy, for old men especially. For what is happier in old age than what is pleasantest in youth? Therefore I account Isæus not only most eloquent, but also most blest; and if you have no desire to know him, you are made of stone and iron. So come, if not for other reasons, if not on my account, at least to hear him. Have you ever read of the man of Gades who was so stirred by the name and fame of Livy that he came from the ends of the earth to see him and, once having seen him, forthwith went his way? ’Tis crass, uncultured, stupid, almost base, to think no more highly of an experience than which nothing is pleasanter, or prettier, or more refined. You will say, “I can read no less eloquent orators here.” Yes; but there is always a chance to read, not always to hear. Besides, the living voice, as the phrase goes, is far more moving. For though what you read may be more vehement, yet what is fixed by the delivery, the mien, the bearing, the very gesture of a speaker abides deeper in the mind. Else we give the lie to the story of Æschines, who when he had read aloud to the Rhodians a speech of Demosthenes, and every one was admiring it, is said to have added: “What if you had heard the beast himself?” And Æschines, on the testimony of Demosthenes, had a most brilliant delivery. None the less he admitted that the man who had begotten that speech delivered it far better. All this goes to prove that you should hear Isæus, if only to say that you have heard him. Pliny, _Epist._ II. 3.

In essentials this description applies to the _controversiæ_ preserved by Seneca. The Greek rhetor Isæus whom Pliny heard at the end of the first century is recognizably like the Roman rhetors whom Seneca heard some hundred years before.[41] A century had only fixed the type as a distinct form of oratory, and extended its vogue. Succeeding centuries repeated it, in Greek and in Latin, throughout the Roman world. Meantime Tarsus may have taught _declamatio_ to its most famous citizen. Certainly St. Jerome knew it well. “We have been rhetoricated,” he says with grim humor, “and have played a bit in the way of the _declamatores_.”[42] Indeed, the rhetoric that came first and most actively to the Fathers of the Church must have come through _declamatio_.[43] Its influence as late as the fourth century on St. Augustine throws into sharp relief his ignoring of it in his rhetoric for preachers, the fourth book of _De doctrina christiana_. With such real work of oratory _declamatio_ has nothing to do.

C. SENECA’S CLASSIFICATION AND TREATMENT

Instead of giving his specimens entire, Seneca divides them by a threefold critical classification: (1) _sententiæ_, (2) _divisio_, (3) _colores_. The treatments of the same case by different _declamatores_ are thus compared specifically as to (1) the significances, (2) the analysis, (3) the imaginative handling.

(1) The term _sententiæ_ might imply such interpretations as were significant because they were leading. Taken thus, it suggests the saliences which mark, stage by stage, the development of a single, controlling interpretation. But _sententiæ_ was used familiarly of such interpretations as were valuable rather separately than together, for themselves rather than for the furthering of a progressive development—in a word, aphorisms, or epigrams. The latter sense had become the more common, and in fact is what Seneca exhibits. His _declamatores_ seem more concerned to strike now and strike again than to urge on. Though they still distinguish the formal parts (proem, statement, etc.),[44] they are no longer preoccupied with the onward march of the older tradition. For the cogency of progressive development they have substituted the momentary effectiveness of striking summaries.

(2) Seneca’s _divisio_, the analysis of the case, shows similarly not the stages of a consecutive order, but merely the components of an arbitrary classification. Given such cases as were posed, even the _divisio_ called for ingenuity. Its preliminary _quæstiones_ sometimes suggest an ingenious and perverted application of the traditional _status_.[45]

(3) Under _colores_[46] Seneca exhibits the imaginative development. Meaning generally the tone, or cast—in a large sense, the style, _colores_ means specifically in Seneca’s collection (1) descriptive amplification, and (2) dramatic characterization. Even the descriptions were more than concrete realization of the facts; they were imaginative elaborations.

Quintus Haterius, on the side of the father [in the case of the pirate chief’s daughter, above, page 92] evoked a very fine picture. In the abrupt style habitual with him he began to describe, as if he heard the tumult, how everything was laid waste and ravaged, the farms given to the flames, the peasants’ flight; and, when he had amplified the terror, he added: “Why shudder, young man? ’Tis the arrival of your father-in-law.” Seneca, _Controversiæ_, I. 6. 12.

[Fabianus] was apter at _suasoriæ_. The local color of places, the courses of rivers, the sites of cities and the habits of their peoples, no one described more amply. Never did he pause for lack of a word. His soothing speech would flow about everything with swiftest and easiest course. _Ibid._ II. præf. 3.

More boldly and ingeniously imaginative was the characterization. The case itself being fictitious, the treatment might go the whole length of fiction. At least the _declamatio_ must so enter into the motives, and especially the emotions, of the parties as to make them _dramatis personæ_; at most he might go so far as to supply his imaginary dialogues with a plot.[47] Thus a guilty son is staged in dialogue with his father:

I shall die. I shall die.

Perhaps. I shall not weep.

Heart, why quiverest thou? Tongue, why tremblest? Eyes, why are ye dulled? It is not yet the thirtieth day.

You beg for life? I gave it; and you have lost it.

It is your will that your son should die.

My will? No, your madness, your blind and rash desire, yes, and her father, too soon overborne by your prayers.

Seneca, _Controversiæ_, II. 3. 1.

That such dramatization is obviously an extension of the school _prosopopœiæ_[48] shows how pervasive was the preoccupation with imaginative development. “Asinius Pollio used to say that the _color_ was to be exhibited in the statement of facts, and carried out in the arguments.”[49] What was left of the old rhetoric? The interpretations demanded by _sententiæ_ and _divisio_ were at least intellectual; but the main interpretation, the goal and measure of skill, was imaginative. The surest way to fame was through _colores_. Through _colores_ what had once been useful as a school exercise was artificially extended, and forensic was turned into a form of occasional oratory.

_Sententiæ_, _divisio_, _colores_, epigrams, ingenious analysis, imaginative development, seem a poor substitute for the traditional five parts of rhetoric. Especially impoverishing was the restriction of the ancient _inventio_. With investigation supplanted by fiction, debate lost its typical training and its typical power. With the shift of emphasis to imagination, rhetoric was confused with poetic,[50] to the impairing of both. Nor was _dispositio_ furthered by _sententiæ_ and _divisio_. Salience, instead of being used to further consecutiveness, became an end in itself. The whole was sacrificed to the parts. _Elocutio_, thus left to itself, tended inevitably toward an art of display. The history of rhetoric has no more striking proof that style, when cultivated in artificial isolation, goes bad.

So wide a departure suggests a divergence in conception, a divergence older and deeper than the particular innovations of _declamatio_. Beside Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric as the art of giving effectiveness to truth there had persisted the conception of it as the art of giving effectiveness to the speaker. Though the two conceptions are not mutually exclusive, the dominance of the one or of the other tends either to give rhetoric those manifold relations and that constant answer to reality which mark its great ancient achievements, or on the other hand to narrow it toward virtuosity and display. The large pedagogy of Quintilian is animated by the Aristotelian conception. The other conception, brilliant in Gorgias and his like, had already animated not only the _declamatores_ at Rome, but that larger “second sophistic”[51] which became pervasively the rhetoric of the imperial centuries, in Greek and in Latin, throughout the Roman world. Ancient rhetoric offers the historic example, then, of a divergence that has remained typical.

FOOT-NOTES:

[1] Historical studies are relegated to a later volume.

[2] The long and wide influence of Quintilian will be discussed in a later volume. It is briefly indicated by Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, vol. I, and traced more specifically by Ch. Fierville in his admirable French edition of Book I (Paris, 1890), which also offers the best biography and bibliography. Much of the introduction in W. Peterson’s edition of Book X (Oxford, 1891) is devoted to Quintilian’s literary criticism.

The two modern English translations are (1) by J. S. Watson in the Bohn Library (Oxford, 1891, and probably earlier), and (2) by H. E. Butler in the Loeb Classical Library (London, 1921-2). Both occasionally miss the significance of technical terms. The former, providing summaries and many of the valuable notes of Spalding and Capperonier, is the more useful.

[3] Since Quintilian’s survey includes all the cardinal terms of classical rhetoric, the corresponding Greek terms have been added for convenience of reference.

Compare the valuable analysis of the treatise _Ad Herennium_ (current in the middle age as Cicero’s) in the introduction to Wilkins’s edition of Cicero’s _De oratore_, vol. I, pages 56-64.

[4] recte loquendi scientiam et poetarum enarrationem, I. iv. 2. ratio loquendi et enarratio auctorum, quarum illam _methodicen_, hanc _historicen_ vocant, I. ix. 1.

[5] John of Salisbury, for instance, discusses it about 1159 in _Metalogicus_, Migne, 850 C. D.

[6] Προγυμνάσματα. The widely used compend of them by Hermogenes (late second century) includes myth, tale, chria, proverb, analysis destructive and constructive, commonplace, encomium, comparison, characterization (ἠθοποιία), description (ἔκφρασις), thesis, and the proposal of a bill.

[7] orbis ille doctrinæ quam Græci ἐγκύκλιον παιδείαν vocant, I. x. 1.

[8] Thus Hermogenes on the exercise of retelling myths: “Myths are sometimes to be expanded, sometimes to be told concisely. How? By now telling in bare narrative, and now by feigning the words of the given characters. For example, ‘the monkeys in council deliberated on the necessity of settling in houses. When they had made up their minds to this and were about to set to work, an old monkey restrained them, saying that they would more easily be captured if they were caught within enclosures.’ Thus if you are concise; but if you wish to expand, proceed in this way. ‘The monkeys in council deliberated on the founding of a city; and one coming forward made a speech to the effect that they too must have a city. “For see,” said he, “how fortunate in this regard are men. Not only does each of them have a house, but all going up together to public meeting or theater delight their souls with all manner of things to see and hear.”’ Go on thus, dwelling on the incidents and saying that the decree was formally passed; and devise a speech for the old monkey.” Προγυμνάσματα, ed. Rabe, 2-3.

The exercise is still used in French schools, and for older pupils is carried, as by the ancients, into a sort of historical fiction.

[9] Though the word seems to refer rather to the masters than to the pupils, the whole passage none the less clearly indicates the nature and scope of the exercise for students. The dramatic skill of a _declamator_ is described again in similar terms at X. i. 71; the use of _prosopopœia_ in the peroration of legal pleading, at VI. i. 25-27.

[10] _Suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_, Quintilian adds, should not be treated as essentially different. So far as _prosopopœia_ goes, they differ hardly at all; and otherwise they differ mainly in degree, _controversiæ_ being more difficult.

Besides the consecutive discussion of _declamatio_ in chapter x of Book II, much of which is quoted above, Quintilian has many incidental references and allusions. At IV. ii. 29, he defines _declamatio_ as _forensium actionum meditatio_, “exercise in pleading”, and he implies the same definition in _ad declamandum ficta materia_ (I. x. 33) and in _fictas ad imitationem fori consiliorumque materias_ (i.e., _controversias suasoriasque_, II. iv. 41). Steadfastly ignoring its use as a form of public speaking, he consistently treats it as a school exercise. He implies that _declamatio_ embraced a large part of actual teaching when he complains (II. i. 8) that it is forecast by _grammaticus_, and calls _rhetor_ (II. i. 3) _declamandi magister_. He says repeatedly that it depends largely on imaginative realization of character and emotion (VI. i. 25-27; X. i. 71; and the passage on _prosopopœiæ_ quoted above). He admits the use of it as an exhibition of virtuosity (_in ostentationem_, II. x. 10), but satirizes this (II. xx. 3) by the anecdote commemorating the futile skill of a man who could throw grains through the eye of a needle. Though he regards it as a gymnastic profitable for mature speakers in providing variety and relief (X. v. 17), he has no patience with the common practise of keeping up indefinitely what is properly a school exercise (XII. xi. 15). Finally he repeats explicitly and implicitly his warning that _declamatio_ should be kept close to actuality; and in a long passage (V. xii. 17-22) concluding his discussion of the _sedes argumentorum_, he indignantly condemns its perversion into prettiness as an emasculation of oratory.

Lucian, whose satire does not spare rhetors, makes specific mention now and then of _declamatio_, using the term μελέτη or μελετᾶν: _Demonax_, 33, 36; _Rhetorum præceptor_, 17. One passage is very like Quintilian’s in the text above: “But the chief exercise and the aim of the art of dancing, as I said, is acting, which is practised in the same way by rhetors, especially by those who cultivate the so-called _declamationes_. Their art is the more applauded for its adaptation to the assigned characters and for its consonance with the persons introduced, whether princes, tyrannicides, poor men, or farmers.” _De saltatione_, 65. Some of his satires, e.g., _Tyrannicida_, _Abdicatus_, and some of the _encomia_, sound like mock _declamationes_.

[11] Watson’s (Bohn) translation quotes (foot-notes to pages 212-13 of volume I) Capperonier’s tabular summary of the doctrine of _status_ found in Quintilian, Cicero, the treatise _Ad Herennium_, and Hermogenes. For Cicero see also pages 49-51 above.

Jæneke’s Leipzig dissertation (1904) _De statuum doctrina ab Hermogene tradita_ compares by tabular view (pages 23-4, 120-1) the system of Hermagoras, as it is inferred from Cicero, Quintilian, and St. Augustine, with that of Hermogenes.

[12] The maxim was _reddere auditores benevolos, attentos, dociles_. The classical lore on the third of these functions is surveyed by F. P. Donnelly, S. J., in _A function of the classical exordium_, Classical Weekly, V. 204-7, New York, May 11, 1912.

[13] Curam ergo verborum rerum volo esse solicitudinem. VIII, proem, 20. The passage goes on: “For generally the best words are inseparable from their things, and are discerned by their own light. But we look for them as if they were always lurking and hiding. So, forgetting that they must be near the subject-matter, we seek them elsewhere and, when we have found them, lay hold of them by force. A higher spirit is needed for essaying eloquence; for if she is in sound health throughout her frame, she will not think her care should be spent on manicuring and hairdressing.” Fronto, on the contrary, praises the young Marcus Aurelius for digging up words, “ut verbum ex alto eruas et ad significandum adcommodes,” ed., Haines, I. 6.

[14] For Aristotle’s treatment see above page 24; for Cicero’s, pages 53, 57; for those of Dionysius and “Longinus,” Chapter V.

[15] in rebus spiritus et in verbis sublimitas et in affectibus motus omnis et in personis decor. X. i. 27.

[16] For an interesting note on dictation as practised by a professional orator, see H. von Arnim, _Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa_, page 140.

[17] via, X. vii. 5; intendendus animus ... usque ad ultimum, X. vii. 16.

[18] imagines, X. vii. 15.

[19] The interpretation is substantially that of Luigi Valmaggi: “Insomma il precetto di Quintiliano è questo, che occorre o recitare a memoria o improvvisare sia pure su appunti presi meditando il discorso, ma è d’uopo evitare assolutamente una miscela dei due sistemi.” _Osservazioni sul libro x di Quintiliano_, in Atti della reale accademia delle scienze di Torino, 37:228.

[20] Our modern habits of writing and reading hinder our comprehension of the speaking and listening ancient world. Especially are we liable to misinterpretation of the idea of writing in the ancient rhetoric. This contemplated primarily general training in style. It also included some written preparation for a particular speech, and finally the writing out of some speeches, especially speeches on occasion, in full. But that this last was the general ancient practise has never been sufficiently supported and is _a priori_ improbable. The writing out of speeches after they had been spoken, and the common ancient practise of writing speeches for other men to learn and deliver, are not in point, and must be kept apart from the question of written preparation. The traditional quarrel between the ancient oratory which relied more and that which relied less on writing is admirably summed up by Van Hook, _Alcidamas versus Isocrates; the spoken versus the written word_, in the introduction to his translation of the attack of Alcidamas _On those who write written speeches_, Classical Weekly, XII, 89-94, New York, Jan. 20, 1919. Though there is ground for difference of opinion in interpreting what we can learn of the habit of Demosthenes or of Cicero, there is no ground for assuming that the ancient counsels of care in preparation generally imply writing out. Quintilian, who leans toward written preparation, is by himself almost sufficient testimony to the contrary.

[21] _Cogitatis_, with obvious reference to _cogitatio_ in X. vi. vii.

[22] Note that _memoria_ is vigor of mind, and that it is first, as often, applied to extempore speaking.

[23] For Aristotle on this aspect of the period (_Rhetoric_, iii, 1409 b), see 27 above.

[24] See the tabular view above (page 63, with foot-note 3) and Quintilian’s own review and forecast in the proem to Book VIII.

[25] How deliberate and consistent is his order appears, for instance, at the opening of II. xi, where the definitions begin: Iam hic ergo nobis inchoanda est ea pars artis ex qua capere initium solent qui priora omiserunt.

[26] See Chapter III, pages 38, 46.

[27] The best edition is _Sénèque le rhéteur, controverses et suasoires_, traduction nouvelle (with expository introduction), texte revu (in fine print at the bottom of each page), Henri Bornecque (Lille), 2 volumes, Paris (Garnier), 1902.

The best discussion is also by Bornecque, _Les déclamations et les déclamateurs d’après Sénèque le père_, Travaux et mémoires de l’Université de Lille, nouvelle série, I. Droit, Lettres—fascicule 1, Lille, au siège de l’Université, 1902 (bibliography, index of authors cited other than Seneca, catalogue raisonné of _declamatores_).

Incidental and more general discussion will be found in standard treatises on Roman literature of the Empire, in G. Boissier’s _La fin du paganisme_, and in his _Tacite_, pages 200-240.

Peterson’s translation of the _Dialogus_ of Tacitus is published in the Loeb Classical Library.

[28] For a summary of the earlier Greek history see Bornecque, _Déclam._, 40.

[29] E.g. _De orat._ I. 140.

[30] Commentabar declamitans—sic enim nunc loquuntur. _Brutus_, 310. On this point Seneca has no doubt:—Declamabat autem Cicero non quales nunc controversias dicimus, ne tales quidem quales ante Ciceronem dicebantur, quas thesis vocabant. Hoc enim genus maxime, quo nos exercemur, adeo novum est, ut nomen quoque ejus novum sit. Seneca, _Controversiæ_, I. præf. 12.

[31] See above, pages 70-73 and foot-note 10. The objection of Petronius, _Satyricon_ i. 2, is less specific.

[32] Seneca the Elder (sometimes called the Rhetor, circ. 56 B.C.-39 A.D.) made the collection in his last years.

[33] Bornecque, _Déclam._ 25, thinks that the _Controversiæ_ may be taken as substantial reproductions.

[34] _Controv._ II, præf. 3. J. W. H. Walden quotes a similar counsel from Libanius, _Ep._ 248: καὶ σύ τοι τὸ ἄρχειν ἔχεις ἀπὸ τοῦ δύνασθαι λέγειν. _The Universities of Ancient Greece_, page 78, foot-note.

Bornecque, _Déclam._ 135, sums up the situation as follows: “la rhétorique, devenue l’étude unique, perd, du même coup, le contact avec la réalité ... et elle dépouille à peu près toute valeur comme moyen d’éducation oratoire et général.”

[35] Tacitus, _Dial._ 35-5, quoted above, page 88. Quintilian, II. iv. 25.

[36] C. T. Cruttwell translates the second of these at page 335 of his _History of Roman Literature_.

The subjects mentioned incidentally by Quintilian are similar:—Deliberant Patres conscripti an stipendium militi constituant. III. viii. 18. Deliberant Patres conscripti an Fabios dedant Gallis bellum minitantibus. 19. Deliberat C. Cæsar an perseveret in Germaniam ire, cum milites passim testamenta facerent. 19.

Pompeius deliberavit Parthos, an Africam, an Ægyptum peteret. 33. Deliberat Cæsar an Britanniam impugnet. VII. iv. 2.

[37] _Dial._ 35. 5, quoted above, page 88.

[38] Deinde res ipsa diversa est: totum aliud est pugnare, aliud ventilare. Hoc ita semper habitum est, scholam quasi ludum esse, forum arenam. III. præf. 13.

The same point of view is taken by Pliny in the letter (_Epist._ II. 3) quoted below.

The following _controversia_ was assigned to the young Marcus Aurelius by his master Fronto: “I have sent you an outline; the case is serious. A consul of the Roman people, laying aside his robes, has donned a coat of mail and among the young men at the feast of Minerva has slain a lion in the sight of the Roman people. He is denounced before the Censors. Put into shape and develop.” _Correspondence of Fronto_, ed., with a translation, C. R. Haines, London and New York (Loeb Classical Library), 1919, vol. I, page 210 (see the further correspondence on this theme, pages 212, 214).

[39] See above, page 69.

[40] For all its informality, Pliny’s letter runs, as it were inevitably, into the traditional channels of the formal parts of a speech (_proœmiatur_, _narrat_, _pugnat_) and the three ends of oratory (_docet_, _delectat_, _afficit_). Indeed, it shows throughout a familiarity with rhetorical technic, and assumes a like familiarity on the part of its recipient.

[41] H. Keil’s editio maior of Pliny’s Letters (Leipzig, 1870) dates the second book A.D. 97-100, within a few years of Quintilian’s _Institutio_. For Isæus see Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 20, and Juvenal’s satirical phrase “Isæo torrentior” (I. iii. 74).

[42] “Rhetoricati sumus, et in morem declamatorum paululum lusimus,” quoted by Labriolle, _Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne_, Paris, 1920, page 470. _Lusimus_ corresponds to Seneca’s description of _declamatio_ as _ludus_ (foot-note 38 above).

[43] The history of _declamatio_ as a direct and an indirect influence is reserved for a later volume. It is summarized suggestively by Bornecque in both the introduction to his edition of Seneca and his treatise cited in foot-note 27. Walden’s ample summaries of the work of Libanius (4th century) in his _Universities of Ancient Greece_ corroborate what Bornecque says of St. Augustine.

[44] See Pliny’s letter on Isæus above.

[45] E.g., I. præf. 21; II. iii. 11. See also Bornecque, _Déclam._ 51. For _status_ see above, page 74.

[46] The long and intricate history of _colores_, extending, with that of its Romance cognates, through the middle ages, must be postponed; but its interest may be divined by merely glancing at the successive uses recorded in a few dictionaries. The importance of exploring the term has been urged again by Fletcher in his _“True Meaning” of Dante’s Vita Nuova_, Romanic Review, XI. 119.

[47] For the literary influence of this habit of oral fiction see Bornecque, _Décl._

[48] See above, page 71.

[49] Seneca, _Controversiæ_, IV. iii. 3. Doubtless Quintilian had such perversion of _narratio_ in mind when he wrote: “[_The narratio_] should be neither dry and starved ... nor again winding and seductive with far-fetched descriptions, into which many are led by imitation of the license of poetry.” II. iv. 3.

[50] See the section on Ovid in Chapter VII below. Bornecque sums up the tendency acutely as “pénétration réciproque de la poésie et de la déclamation,” _Déclam._ 115.

[51] The development of this history is reserved to a later volume.