Quintilian Institutio Oratoria, Vol. 1 of 3

Quintilian Institutio Oratoria, Vol. 1 of 3 Synopsis

Excerpt from Quintilian Institutio Oratoria, Vol. 1 of 3: Books I-III

He died full of honour, the possessor of wide lands and consular rank. The date of his death is nu known, but it was before 100 a.d. He left behind him a treatise On the causes of the decadence of Roman oratory (de causis corruplac eloquenliae), the present work, and a speech in defence of a certain Naevius Arpinianus, who was accused of murdering his wife. These are the only works known to have been actually published by him, ' though others of his speeches had been taken down in shorthand and circulated against his will, while an excess of zeal on the part of his pupils resulted in the unauthorised publication of two series of lecture notes. The present work alone survives. The declamations which have come down to us under his name are spurious. Of his character the Inslilulio Oratorio gives us the pleasantest impression. Humane, kindly and of a deeply affectionate nature, gifted with a robust common sense and sound literary judgment, he may well have been the ideal school master. The fulsome references to Domitian are the only blemishes which mar this otherwise pleasing impression. And even here we must remember his great debt to the Flavian house and the genuine difficulty for a man in his position of avoiding the official style in speaking of the emperor.

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