Quintilian

Quintilian (born ad 35, Calagurris Nassica, Hispania Tarraconensis—died after 96, Rome) was a Latin teacher and writer whose work on rhetoric, Institutio oratoria, is a major contribution to educational theory and literary criticism.

Quintilian was born in northern Spain, but he was probably educated in Rome, where he afterward received some practical training from the leading orator of the day, Domitius Afer. He then practiced for a time as an advocate in the law courts. He left for his native Spain sometime after 57 but returned to Rome in 68 and began to teach rhetoric, combining this with advocacy in the law courts. Under the emperor Vespasian (ruled 69–79) he became the first teacher to receive a state salary for teaching Latin rhetoric, and he also held his position as Rome’s leading teacher under the emperors Titus and Domitian, retiring probably in 88. Toward the end of Domitian’s reign (81–96) he was entrusted with the education of the Emperor’s two heirs (his grandnephews), and through the good agency of the boys’ father, Flavius Clemens, he was given the honorary title of consul (ornamenta consularia). His own death, which probably took place soon after Domitian’s assassination, was preceded by that of his young wife and two sons.

Quintilian’s great work, the Institutio oratoria, in 12 books, was published shortly before the end of his life. He believed that the entire educational process, from infancy onward, was relevant to his major theme of training an orator. In Book I he therefore dealt with the stages of education before a boy entered the school of rhetoric itself, to which he came in Book II. These first two books contain his general observations on educational principles and are notable for their good sense and insight into human nature. Books III to XI are basically concerned with the five traditional “departments” of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. He also deals with the nature, value, origin, and function of rhetoric and with the different types of oratory, giving far more attention to forensic oratory (that used in legal proceedings) than to other types. During his general discussion of invention he also considers the successive, formal parts of a speech, including a lively chapter on the art of arousing laughter. Book X contains a well-known and much-praised survey of Greek and Latin authors, recommended to the young orator for study. Sometimes Quintilian agrees with the generally held estimate of a writer, but he is often independent in his judgments, especially when discussing Latin authors. Book XII deals with the ideal orator in action, after his training is completed: his character, the rules that he must follow in pleading a case, the style of his eloquence, and when he should retire.

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The Institutio was the fruit of Quintilian’s wide practical experience as a teacher. His purpose, he wrote, was not to invent new theories of rhetoric but to judge between existing ones, and this he did with great thoroughness and discrimination, rejecting anything he considered absurd and always remaining conscious of the fact that theoretical knowledge alone is of little use without experience and good judgment. The Institutio is further distinguished by its emphasis on morality, for Quintilian’s aim was to mold the student’s character as well as to develop his mind. His central idea was that a good orator must first and foremost be a good citizen; eloquence serves the public good and must therefore be fused with virtuous living. At the same time, he wished to produce a thoroughly professional, competent, and successful public speaker. His own experience of the law courts gave him a practical outlook that many other teachers lacked, and indeed he found much to criticize in contemporary teaching, which encouraged a superficial cleverness of style (in this connection he particularly regretted the influence of the early 1st-century writer and statesman Seneca the Younger). While admitting that stylish tricks gave an immediate effect, he felt they were of no great help to the orator in the realities of public advocacy at law. He attacked the “corrupt style,” as he called it, and advocated a return to the more severe standards and older traditions upheld by Cicero (106–43 bc). Although he praised Cicero highly, he did not recommend students to slavishly imitate his style, recognizing that the needs of his own day were quite different. He did, however, appear to see a bright future for oratory, oblivious to the fact that his ideal—the orator-statesman of old who had influenced for good the policies of states and cities—was no longer relevant with the demise of the old republican form of Roman government.

Two collections of declamations attributed to Quintilian have also survived: the Declamationes majores (longer declamations) are generally considered to be spurious; the Declamationes minores (shorter declamations) may possibly be a version of Quintilian’s oral teaching, recorded by one of his pupils. The text of his Institutio was rediscovered by a Florentine, Poggio Bracciolini, who, in 1416, came across a filthy but complete copy of it in an old tower at St. Gall, Switz., while he was on a diplomatic mission there. Its emphasis on the dual importance of moral and intellectual training was very appealing to the 15th and 16th centuries’ humanist conception of education. Although its direct influence diminished after the 17th century, along with a general decline in respect for the authority of classical antiquity, the modern view of education as all-around character training to equip a student for life follows in a direct line from the theories of this 1st-century Roman.

Quintilian advises the teacher to apply different teaching methods according to the different characters and abilities of his pupils; he believes that the young should enjoy their studies and knows the value of play and recreation; he warns against the danger of discouraging a pupil by undue severity; he makes an effective criticism of the practice of corporal punishment; he depicts the schoolmaster as taking the place of a parent. “Pupils,” he writes, “if rightly instructed regard their teacher with affection and respect. And it is scarcely possible to say how much more willingly we imitate those we like.”