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Quintilian and the Vir Bonus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Affiliation:
University College, London
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Extract

‘Sit ergo nobis orator quem constituimus is qui a M. Catone finitur, vir bonus dicendi peritus, verum, id quod et ille posuit prius et ipsa natura potius ac maius est, utique vir bonus.’ (Inst. XII, 1, 1). Why did Quintilian insist so strongly on the moral qualities of the orator ? The question has not been persistently enough asked. Austin, for example, thinks that it is only ‘a steadfast sincerity of purpose throughout’ that redeems the first chapter of Book Twelve from ‘mere moralizing’. And it only takes the problem a stage further back to say that this is a matter of Stoic influence. Even if Posidonius did formulate in connexion with rhetoric a maxim on the lines of Strabo's οὐχ οἷόν τε ἀγαθὸν γενέσθαι ποιητὴν μὴ πρότερον γενηθέντα ἄνδρα ἀγαθόν, we must still ask why Quintilian troubled to give this Stoic view such new prominence. After all, ‘oratori…nihil est necesse in cuiusquam iurare leges’ (XII, 2, 26). And it is clear that Quintilian realized that he was innovating. Cicero, he writes, despite the width of his conception, thought it enough to discuss merely the type of oratory that should be used by the perfect orator: ‘at nostra temeritas etiam mores ei conabitur dare et adsignabit officia.’ (XII, pr. 4). This is perhaps to schematize the contrast a little over-dramatically. Cicero had certainly written in theDe Oratore: ‘Quarum virtutum expertibus si dicendi copiam tradiderimus, non eos quidem oratores effecerimus, sed furentibus quaedam arma dederimus.’ (III, 55). But there is no doubt that Cicero was not primarily concerned with the moral aspect. As the leading orator of his day, he may have thought it indelicate or superfluous to stress that the perfect orator must be a good man. Moreover, it was not clear that the troubles of Cicero's day were the result of morally bad orators: one had to look back to Saturninus and Glaucia for examples of the evils caused by unscrupulous use of words.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1-2 , November 1964 , pp. 90 - 97
Copyright
Copyright ©Michael Winterbottom 1964. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Quintiliani … Liber XII, ed. R. G. Austin, Introduction, xiv (Austin's italics).

2 Quintiliani … Liber, xix f. Also the notes on XII, 1, 1. Austin is rightly cautious.

3 1, 2, 5. Morr, J., Wiener Studien XLV (1926–1927), 47.Google Scholar

4 Brut. 224. The Gracchi are also mentioned. Quintilian takes over these examples (11, 16, 5).

5 1, 1. I use sub-sections as in the Oxford Classical Text.

6 The eloquence of the delatores is discussed by Froment, T., Ann. de la Soc. des Lettres de Bordeaux II (1880), 35.Google Scholar

7 Tacitus Ann. XIII, 42. If Tacitus invents, his invention is of archetypal significance. See also Syme, R., Tacitus (1958), 331–2Google Scholar. It will be obvious how much I owe to this book.

8 Ann. I, 74. Syme, o.c. (n. 7), 326, n. 5.

9 Sources for him are gathered in Meyer, H., Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta 2 (1842), 545 f.Google Scholar; Schanz-Hosius, , Gesch.d.röm.Lit. II, 345 f.Google Scholar

10 I have no new arguments with which to rejuvenate the hoary topic of the date of the Dialogus. This article proceeds on the assumption that it post-dates Quintilian's De Causis. See Syme, o.c. (n. 7), 112 f.

11 This conclusion is approached in Norden, E., Antike Kunstprosa (1958), 248.Google Scholar cf. also Reuter, A., De Quintiliani libro…de causis corruptae eloquentiae (Bratislava, 1887), 8.Google Scholar But I visualize a sketch of the history of oratory, not merely of declamation.

12 Such as Quintilian's pupil, Pliny: ‘…perstitit…horis septem. Nam tam diu dixi’ (IV, 16, 2–3).

13 Syme, o.c. (n. 7), 594–5, where the references for Marcellus and Crispus, and for other delatores, also appear.

14 Ep. IV, 22: cf. Syme, o.c. (n. 7), 4–6.

15 For his eloquence e.g. v, 28, 6; his ingenium v, 63, 4; his abilities in defence e.g. IV, 16, 6.

16 Clear references to at least three of the rhetoricalpartes listed by Quintilian at 111, 3, 1: ‘inventione, dispositione, elocutione, memoria, pronuntiatione.’

17 Note also how Aper spoke ‘acrius, ut solebat (Dial, II, 1)—the pale reflexion of Regulus’ savage style ?

18 I discuss the text of this passage in Philologus, CVII (1964), 120 ff.

19 Quintilian is never loath to use insanity to explain or abuse the excesses of contemporary rhetoric, cf. 11, 12, 9 ‘iactatione gestus, motu capitis furentes,’ and often elsewhere. So even the sage Chilon, according to Diogenes Laertius 1, 70, λέγοντα μὴ κινεῖν τὴν χεῖρα μ α ν ι κ ὸ ν γάρ. We have seen Pliny, echoing his master, talk of Regulus' furor. Madness, now as always, was connected closely with inspiration, and if the ‘naturalists’ boasted that they were speaking impetu, they were perhaps taking up the criticism of their opponents and making a virtue of it (for impetus of inspiration cf. e.g. Ovid, , Ex Ponto IV, 2, 25Google Scholar: ‘impetus ille sacer qui vatum pectora nutrit.’ See too Quintilian x, 7, 14, where Cicero is quoted as saying that according to old orators a god is present in successful extemporary effusion.) Behind Quintilian's use of ratio to mean method at 11, 11,4 (cf. 7) may lurk the implication that the Institutio offered reason in place of the madness that now prevailed (Ovid, , Met. XIV, 701Google Scholar: ‘postquam ratione furorem/vincere non potuit.’)

20 ‘maioris ingenii quam studii…ingentibus plena sententiis [oratio]’ (Seneca, Controv. III, pr. 4, and 2); ‘contempto ordine rerum’ (Tacitus, , Dial. 26, 5Google Scholar).

21 No need to search, as Spalding searched, for cases of rixa used of gladiatorial combat—Quintilian is saying that a contest between untrained gladiators is a brawl, not a fight. (Not dissimilarly, Seneca, , De brev. vit. 12, 2Google Scholar talks of ‘puerorum rixantium’: they were wrestling, Seneca was being scornful.)

22 So at much the same time Martial VII, 9: ‘Cum sexaginta numeret Cascellius annos/Ingeniosus homo est: quando disertus erit ?’

23 For naturalists of a rather different kind see Inst. XII, 10, 40 f. More relevantly, IX, 4, 3: ‘neque ignoro quosdam esse, qui curam omnem compositionis excludant, atque illum horridum sermonem, ut forte fluxerit, modo magis naturalem modo etiam magis virilem esse contendant.’ cf. Suillius on his ‘vividam et incorruptam eloquentiam.’ (Tacitus, , Ann. XIII, 42Google Scholar). See also XI, 3. 10–11, whose tone can instructively be compared with that of 11, 12, 12.

24 Also in Book XII, note the emphasis on ‘pecuniariae quaestiones’ in which veritas had to be defended against calumnia by the good orator.

25 The Institutio was ‘presumably published before Domitian's death in 96. At least it seems unlikely that if the murder had taken place before publication the complimentary passages would have been allowed to remain’ (Colson in his edition of Book 1, p. xvi with n. 5).

26 So, it is true, did Columella (1, pr. 9).

27 X, 1, 122. Quintilian is less defensive here than at 11, 5, 23–4 (‘…novos, quibus et ipsis multa virtus adest. Neque enim nos tarditatis natura damnavit’) with which compare Plin., Ep. VI, 21, 1: ‘Neque enim quasi lassa et effeta natura nihil iam laudabile parit.’ The period had no great literary self-confidence.

28 Note especially Pliny on his lack of subjects for letters (Ep. IX, 2); contrast the long letter about the Priscus trial (11, 11).

29 This suggests a clue to the varying tones of the Dialogus. Aper's bright and brash optimism reflects Tacitus' youth under Vespasian, when the visitor from, say, the north of Italy would look out for Eprius Marcellus in the streets of Rome. Messalla speaks for the Quintilian view, formulated rather later in the century. Maternus' final speech, filled with the vague nostalgia of the early Trajanic period, dispels the different optimisms of Aper and Messalla.

30 Cic., De or. II, 55: ‘nemo enim studet eloquentiae nostrorum hominum nisi ut in causis et in foro eluceat’.

31 Except, apparently, by Martianus Capella (Rhetores Latini Minores, p. 453).

32 So Fortunatianus (Rhet.Lat.Min., p. 81); Cassiodorus (ibid. p. 495); Isidore (ibid. p. 507).