XI

QUINTILIAN AND RHETORICAL TEACHING

Quintilianus doctor egregius.

Cassiodorus, de Rhetorica 10 (498 Halm)

THOUGH RHETORICAL theory occupies the greater part of the Institutio Oratoria, most modern readers find more interest in the educational side of the work. Quintilian’s originality lay largely in the fact that he was the first to interpret the art of oratory as including all that was necessary for the training of an orator from his earliest years. Others before him had ignored the preliminary stages; he first brought them within the sphere of rhetoric.¹ In this he was reflecting the spirit of the age. Under the Empire the schoolmaster came into his own. Vespasian founded chairs of rhetoric supported by public funds.² Pliny took a delight in finding tutors for his friends’ sons and founding a school in his native town, and looked back wistfully to schooldays as the happiest period of one’s life.³ The bad-tempered or scandalously immoral type of teacher, Orbilius or Remmius Palaemon, gave way to the conscientious educationalist.

The early part of Quintilian’s work contains much sound educational precept which has a value independent of his professed aim of producing the complete orator, but it hardly concerns us here. We must pass over the orator’s early training and confine ourselves to rhetorical education in the generally accepted sense.

Quintilian was essentially conservative in educational as in rhetorical theory. He accepted the existing system, under which the rhetorician’s main work was lecturing on the theory of rhetoric and teaching declamation. We shall see later how he used declamation; as regards theory it may be assumed that Quintilian’s lectures in his school were on the same lines as his treatment in the Institutio, and no one who has read that work through can doubt that his teaching was thorough and scholarly.

Another traditional function of the rhetorician was the teaching of composition through the elementary exercises known as progymnasmata. In Quintilian’s day, however, these had passed to the grammaticus, who had encroached on the province of the rhetorician, and was even handling certain types of declamation. The rhetoricians were quite content to be rid of the progymnasmata and to concentrate on what they regarded as higher work.⁴ Quintilian did not approve of this development; grammatice, he holds, should stick to its own business, and rhetoric should not shirk what is an important part of its task.⁵ He does not, however, restore the progymnasmata completely to the rhetorician, but divides them between the two schools, the more elementary type of exercise being assigned to the grammaticus.⁶ The more advanced ones, which were more closely connected with oratorical practice, are reserved for the school of rhetoric. Under the rhetorician, according to Quintilian’s scheme, the pupil begins with exercises in historical narrative and proceeds to defending or impugning the credibility of stories, fictitious or historical. He then goes on to the praise or blame of famous men, comparison between two historical characters, commonplaces and theses and the commendation or denunciation of laws.⁷

In this connection Quintilian makes one of his cautious suggestions for reform. These exercises were written, but it was the common practice also to learn them by heart and recite them on an appointed day. This practice Quintilian disapproves of; it would be better in his view to learn by heart the works of others rather than the pupils’ own compositions. But the existing practice was popular with parents,⁸ and there is no evidence that Quintilian himself succeeded in getting it abandoned.

One of the problems for the Roman educationalist was how to combine the specialised teaching of the rhetorical schools with the broad general education which was generally considered desirable. Cicero had given eloquent expression to the view that the orator should be learned in history, law and philosophy and well read in literature, and there were also certain other subjects which the educated man was expected to know something of. The Hellenistic , or general education, included music and mathematics, two subjects which would appear to have little connection with the literary and rhetorical studies of the Roman schools. Quintilian, however, gives them a place among the studies preliminary to entry to the rhetorical school,⁹ and by ingenious special pleading tries to show that they have their value in oratorical training.

Music, he argues, was originally united with philosophy; therefore, since philosophy had usurped the functions of oratory it really belonged to the latter. It was useful too for the orator to know about gestures, arrangement of words and inflexions of the voice, and it was music that handled such matter. Again, the future orator must read poetry, and poetry cannot be understood without music. Finally, there was a controversia about a piper who had driven someone mad by playing in the Phrygian mode; how could one declaim on this theme without a knowledge of music?¹⁰ As for mathematics (geometria), there were lawsuits about boundaries and measurements. Logical deduction and syllogistic method were used in mathematics—and in oratory. Astronomy—a branch of mathematics—taught that nothing was irregular and fortuitous, and this piece of knowledge would be found useful by the orator.¹¹

The lengthy treatment which Quintilian gives to music and mathematics, and the enthusiasm which breaks out after all the dubious utilitarian arguments are done with, are surprising. But Quintilian is conscious that he has to contend against the objections of those who regarded these subjects as useless to the orator, and it was easy for him to expatiate on their value since he expected them to be finished with before the boy entered on his rhetorical training. Learning to speak and to write was in his opinion too exacting a study to allow of any other simultaneous study.¹²

By contrast the studies on which Cicero laid such emphasis are given comparatively meagre treatment by Quintilian. History he regards more as a branch of literature than as the study of the past. He would have liked historians to be read as part of the curriculum of the rhetorical schools, no doubt because of the speeches included in their works,¹³ and he includes historical writers in his summary of Greek and Latin literature in Book X, not without preliminary warning that their style is not altogether suited to the orator.¹⁴ Style is his primary interest in this part of his work, but he notes also an important advantage to be derived from history, the knowledge of facts and precedents, which will provide the orator with valuable arguments.¹⁵ To this theme, familiar to us already from Cicero, Quintilian returns in a brief and rather perfunctory paragraph in Book XII.¹⁶

The study of law has no place in Quintilian’s educational scheme. It is only after he has finished with school days and is depicting the mature orator that he gives us a chapter on this subject.¹⁷ Here, following as so often in Cicero’s footsteps, he insists that the orator should be well acquainted with the law and should not have to go for help to professional advisers. The latter are after all often unsuccessful orators who have given up pleading because it is too difficult. Legal science is only a mixture of knowledge and common sense; the knowledge can be easily acquired and the common sense belongs to the orator already.¹⁸

Knowing Quintilian’s admiration for Cicero we might expect to find him urging the study of philosophy on his pupils. But, as we have already seen, he did not care for philosophers, and though he admits the oratorical uses of philosophy, he does so somewhat grudgingly. He does however make it clear that he expects his orator to have a thorough knowledge of philosophical, or at least of ethical, theory, and reviewing the various branches of philosophy, dialectic, ethics and natural philosophy, he finds that each of them has its oratorical uses. His attitude is indeed rather ambiguous; at times we may get the impression that his ideal of the vir bonus can be attained without the aid of philosophy, but he was not in fact prepared to go as far as that. The orator must still depend on the philosopher.¹⁹

If Quintilian shows no great enthusiasm for the study of law and philosophy it should be remembered that, unlike Cicero, he had been a practising teacher and was primarily concerned with the discipline which he himself had taught. Music and mathematics might find a place in the stage before the rhetorician took over, but philosophy and law had no place there or in the rhetoric course proper.²⁰ Philosophy belonged to the philosophers and law to the lawyers.

Literature was to some extent catered for by the grammaticus, one of whose traditional functions was the interpretation of the poets, but lectures on literature were considered below the dignity of the rhetorician,²¹ and the prose writers, who were not touched by the grammaticus, would thus be left out. Quintilian himself introduced for some of his pupils the reading of the historians and orators, but the experiment was not a success. Though Quintilian remained convinced of its value and recommended it to posterity, tradition proved too strong for him.²² The method he suggests is that the pupil should be made to read a speech aloud, and that this should be accompanied by comments on the argument, the style and so on. The master should not only comment himself, but should ask questions. ‘I will venture to say’, writes Quintilian, ‘that this form of exercise will be of more use to learners than all the textbooks of the authorities…. There are few cases in which precept is not less valuable than practice. If the teacher is to declaim to provide his hearers with a model, will not the reading of Cicero and Demosthenes be more profitable?’²³ After thus recommending the innovation he adds revealingly, ‘I wish that the reluctance to do this did not equal the pleasure it would cause.’²⁴ Quintilian himself did not abandon rhetorical theory and declamation for the reading of texts, and it is safe to say that his followers, too, adhered to the traditional methods.

But though Quintilian’s attempt to introduce the reading of texts into the curriculum was not successful, he believed that the orator should be well read. His best known chapter is a critical reading list for would-be orators, a list that comprises most of Greek and Latin literature.²⁵ The course is not part of the formal instruction of the rhetorical school; it is rather to enable those who have learnt what can be learnt from their teacher to put their lessons into practice as well and as easily as possible.²⁶ It is important, too, to note where the chapter comes in the economy of the whole work. It follows the rules for style, and is connected with them. Rules do not by themselves produce facility of speech; reading is required.²⁷ ‘It is from these and other works worth reading’, writes Quintilian after his survey is completed, ‘that we must draw our supply of words, the variety of our figures and our methods of arrangement.’²⁸ Reading is to make a ready man rather than a full man.

We pass on to the most important part of the rhetorical education, the declamation. Quintilian, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was a severe critic of declamation as it was practised in his day, but this does not mean that he rejected the practice altogether. So far from doing this, he regarded it as by far the most valuable method of education, if properly used, and he certainly employed it himself in teaching.²⁹ The subjects chosen should in his view be as true to life as possible. Controversiae ought to be what they were originally intended to be, a preparation for the courts, and the incredible themes, with their ‘magicians, plagues, oracles and stepmothers’, should be banished, or at any rate, if this is impossible, the foolish and ridiculous should be avoided.³⁰ It is clear, however, that the conventions of the schools were too strong for any radical reform. Quintilian is prepared to concede that students should occasionally let off steam on the wilder themes, and though he suggests certain improvements, the addition of names, the use of longer and more complicated themes and a more familiar and less solemn style, there is no evidence that even he, with all his influence and authority, had introduced any of these improvements.³¹ His common-sense view of declamation as preparation for real practice was not shared by all, and some maintained that its object was simply display.³² Quintilian is prepared to admit that it involved an element of display, and it followed from this that certain inconveniences from the practical point of view had to be put up with.³³

The extent to which Quintilian accepted declamation is evident throughout his work. The attentive reader will notice that often his advice is concerned with declamation rather than with the speeches of real life. Seneca’s non vitae sed scholae discimus applies in part even to Quintilian’s school.³⁴ Particularly is this the case with his treatment of deliberative oratory. His examples are drawn from past history or legend as treated in the suasoriae. Thus ‘When we advise the arming of slaves in the Punic War’ is his example of an occasion where expediency is preferred to honour; and advice is given as to how to treat the well-known suasoriae about Cicero and

Antony, and what arguments to use in urging Julius Caesar to accept the crown, evidently a familiar theme of the schools.³⁵ His remarks on style in the genus deliberativum are wholly concerned with school declamation,³⁶ and it is only at the end of the section that we come to a brief allusion to the world outside the schools.³⁷

In his treatment of the genus iudiciale Quintilian, having himself been a practising advocate, is nearer to reality, but here, too, his advice is often explicitly or implicity concerned with school declamation.³⁸ He thinks it worth while, for instance, to include advice on matters such as the rewards due to tyrannicides, which belonged solely to the world of the controversiae.³⁹

Quintilian then was to some extent, as most teachers no doubt are, the victim of educational tradition. He could not get away from declamation, and he accepted it as he found it. But no doubt in his case even unrealistic themes were treated in a thorough and sensible manner which made them a useful training in thought and expression. He had no use for the showy and superficial, or for the tortuous obscurities popular with some declaimers. He subjected his themes to a careful analysis, and developed them on the lines of common sense. In a sphere where the unnatural had long reigned supreme, he followed the guidance of nature.⁴⁰

There survive two collections of declamations ascribed by manuscript tradition to Quintilian and known as Declamationes Maiores and Declamationes Minores. The first, a collection of nineteen fully worked out declamations, passed as Quintilian’s work in the fourth century, but it is hard to believe that any of the declamations included in it are from his hand. Most of them are quite out of keeping with all that we know of his attitude to declamation, and even the more sober of them seem to have little Quintilianic about them. The Lesser Declamations, though they have no external evidence in their favour,⁴¹ have a greater claim to be considered Quintilianic. They are evidently the notes of a pupil taken down in the classroom and not originally intended for publication.⁴² The declamations, the master’s ‘fair copy’, are given in outline, sometimes very briefly, in other cases in greater detail, though never in the complete form in which they would have appeared if the master had published them. Prefixed to and interspersed with the declamations there are in many cases notes of the master’s oral expositions, to which the manuscripts give the title ‘sermo’.

Was this master Quintilian himself? In the Institutio Oratoria there is a reference to two unauthorised publications of Quintilian’s lecture notes made during his lifetime,⁴³ and it has been suggested that one of these was what has come down to us as the Lesser Declamations.⁴⁴ This is clearly not the case; the lectures in question were evidently not on declamation but on rhetorical theory.⁴⁵ But the Lesser Declamations may none the less be notes from Quintilian’s teaching, published after the appearance of the Institutio. There is much that is Quintilianic about them. The method of handling declamation, the rhetorical doctrine, the tone and the manner all remind one of Quintilian.⁴⁶ On the other hand so much of what appears in Quintilian was common property that too much stress should not be laid on these similarities, and in one respect there is not quite so close a correspondence as we should expect if Quintilian and the master of the Declamations were one and the same person. In the course of the Institutio something like fifty declamation themes are quoted or referred to. It is probable that a considerable proportion of these themes were those that Quintilian was accustomed to use in teaching, and we should therefore expect to find them reappearing in the Declamations. In fact of the 145 themes in the extant part of the collection only one is identical with a theme referred to in the Institutio,⁴⁷ though three more are closely similar.⁴⁸ Even allowing for the fact that nearly two-thirds of the original collection is lost, we should expect to find a greater degree of correspondence. To the cautious scholar therefore the master of the Declamations will be not Quintilian but rather ‘school of Quintilian’.

We may take the Lesser Declamations, then, as evidence of the existence after Quintilian’s death of a school of rhetorical teaching inspired by him and preserving his methods of handling declamation. The subjects are on the old lines. We are still in an artificial world, where pirates roam the seas, sons are disinherited, tyrants are slain, stepmothers play their traditional role and victims of rape exercise their traditional option of either marrying their seducer or demanding his death. But if the themes are unreal the treatment is sober and realistic. ‘I do not want anyone to blame me’, says our professor, ‘for not giving you loci. If you want to extend the declamation or to exercise your wits, what you say may perhaps delight the ears, but will be quite irrelevant to the case.’⁴⁹ One must stick to the set theme, and not introduce motives that are inconsistent with it.⁵⁰ So the outline declamations are strictly to the point, without the forced style, the ingenious and improbable ‘colours’ and the striking epigrams familiar to us from the elder Seneca.⁵¹

The analysis is commonly on the traditional lines of ius and aequitas, the former being often divided into scriptum and sententia. Careful attention is given to the legal aspect. In one of the declamations a girl who has been raped hangs herself. Her father then produces her twin sister, and makes her exercise the option of the victim of rape and demand the death of the seducer. The trick succeeds, but later the truth comes out and the father is accused of having caused the death of the seducer. ‘It is easy and obvious’, we read, ‘to deal with that side of the old man’s case which is concerned with emotional appeal and equity. But unless his defence is founded on law, there is a risk of his being condemned for all his tears. So we must be careful to make the most of the legal case…. We must therefore define what is meant by “cause of death”. The whole dispute and the whole point of the case lies in this.’⁵²

The characters must be made to behave consistently with the data given by the subject and with the situation in which they find themselves. A father is accused of insanity because he follows his dissolute son weeping through the streets. The father might well be expected to show violent indignation against his son. But we must consider the character we are impersonating. He was not a violent father, for he had not disinherited his son or reviled him; he was not a hard father, for he wept. This character must be preserved.⁵³ Similarly with the case of the rich man who educated a poor man in oratory at his own expense, and accused him of ingratitude because when acting as the rich man’s advocate he failed to secure his acquittal. ‘You realise that this young man must show the utmost respect for the rich man. That is the only way of making him appear to have been forced to act as he did if there is any complaint on that score. In all cases based on the law about ingratitude we should be careful to see that the defendant does not show ingratitude in his pleading.’⁵⁴

‘One must consider what the theme demands and what suits the characters concerned.’ Quintilian’s prescription⁵⁵ governs the master of the Lesser Declamations. In his hands the controversia is a serious exercise, not an occasion for display. He shows us what Quintilian meant when he called declamation the most useful of rhetorical exercises; in spite of the extravagance of the themes it could be made the vehicle of a sober and sensible training.