Quintilian

Life Biography of Marco Fabio Quintilian

Writer and Latin rhetoric. Not much is known of his biography; not even know if his father was the rhetorician Quintilian, appointed by Seneca the Elder in his Controversies .

It is also difficult to imagine how long he remained in Spain before moving to Rome, where he developed the bulk of their training. There, according to Quintilian himself points throughout his work, he attended the grammar school of Q. Remmio Palaemon (also master Persius) and, later, was very close to the famous orator Domitius African (d. 59), also recalls having met Pomponio and Seneca. After his training in Rome, is supposed to return to Spain, where he remained some time until he returned to Rome, called by Galba, when he was proclaimed emperor in 68.

From that point, Quintilian devoted to teaching rhetoric, developed activity for at least 20 years as stated in the preface to his Institutes of oratory(perhaps between 68-88 or 70-90). As a teacher of rhetoric, Quintilian achieved great fame and, in fact, became the first professor who opened a public school paid by the Treasury under Vespasian. His pupils were Pliny the Younger and probably Tacitus .And while Juvenal said that his salary was not very high, Quintilian got amass a fortune.

Throughout this time, not completely abandoned his law practice and he even publish some of his speeches, perhaps one of his most famous process was that of Queen Berenice, alluded to in his Institutio.

Under the emperor Domitian, Quintilian was asked to foster the education of his sister's grandchildren (sons of Flavius ​​Clemens and Flavia Domitilla) and was at the time when she received the ornamenta Consularia through the intervention of Clement himself, and anyway , one must assume that it was more than an honorific title of real power.

After all those years devoted to education, Quintilian retired and began to compose a treatise on rhetoric or, rather, a real manual for the instruction of the young: the aforementioned Institutes of oratory , a work composed between 93 and 96 , year of death of Domitian. In this work, in the preface to Book VI, Quintilian speaks also of an important event in his life: his marriage and two children. Here we learn that his wife had died just turned 19. Also killed were two children: one at age 5 and one with 9. After this work was not again have definite information about Quintilian, so it is not possible to identify the exact date of his death, which must occur before the year 100.

Quintilian Works

Before addressing the study's most important work of Quintilian's Institutio oratory , we must mention some other works which, unfortunately, have not survived to this day. First it should be noted the De Causis corruptae eloquentiae where Quintilian addressed the problem of the decline of this art. The author himself tells us that began the composition of this work at the time her son was dead and refers to it in several passages of his Institutio . His speech Pro Naevio Arpiniano , also lost, was released safely, unlike his other speeches that were able to move without permission.

There is also a group of works falsely attributed to Quintilian: are called Pseudo-Quintilianeae Declamationes , which can be divided into two types: The so-called declamationes maiores anddeclamationes minores . The former are 19 pieces of rhetoric that circulated under the name of the great rhetorician Hispanic during the fourth century and were probably produced by some scholars of that period. Today there are great doubts about the actual authorship of Quintilian on these orationes that are extremely contrived and gimmicky, which contradict the doctrine of Quintilian own.

The declamationes minores are a set of 145 pieces from a collection that originally had 388. They are much shorter than previous ones and each develops a theme so bare. This suggests that thesedeclamationes are rather the result of school and were composed merely as teaching exercises. It really is hard to believe that its author was Quintilian, although the author is not entirely impossible.

Put aside these minor works, it must be emphasized above all the Institutio speaking , a great treatise on rhetoric in 12 books published certainly before the death of the emperor Domitian in AD 96, who is praised in the book X . The work appears dedicated to Victorio Marcelo and his words in the introduction, more quickly conclude two years.

Also according to the letter head of the Institutiodedicated to the bookseller Trypho, the publication of the text had advanced to the demands of those eager to read the work. In addition, at the time circulated under his name two treatises of rhetoric that were not theirs, but rather notes taken in class, which had led him to write his own manual to avoid misunderstandings.

Right from the Quintilian principle states that the treaty will be characterized by its originality but will be based mainly on his own experience as a rhetorician. Moreover, since he felt that nothing was alien to the art of oratory, his book would deal with all aspects, even the most insignificant, which helped in the formation of a good speaker, a man virtuous and eloquent as well. Thus, the Institutio is not just a treatise on rhetoric, but an entire educational program that starts from the early life of an individual.

Thus, for Quintilian, a great admirer of Cicero and his style, he is more than able to convince someone through words, for him, he is above all a man useful to the state through that their training has made him an individual charged with moral values, who knows, among other things, philosophy and, ultimately, a sage (opinion not shared, among others, Seneca, author who runs against widespread criticism) .

Thus Quintilian resumes Roman tradition, against Cicero, who regarded philosophy as a major disciplines than any he had known, and even identify the speaker with the philosopher (he is a philosopher who speaks eloquently) Quintilian thinks he is simply a wise and that philosophy is one more of the arts must learn to complete their training.

Actually, the admiration felt by Cicero, Quintilian, whom he considered the true incarnation of eloquence, speaks volumes about his position: Quintilian did not look kindly on the paths being taken by the eloquence in Rome, or did not like the way that new speakers and writers handled the tongue for it with his treatise, intended to put things back in place.

To that end, Quintilian wrote the manual, in which Cicero was the model, in fact, the orationesCiceronian serve here to illustrate the functions of different parts of speech, but also according to Cicero, Quintilian considers the elocutio is the most important of the five parties which breaks down the activity of the speaker ( inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memory and actio ) and develops the same theory of the three styles (the sublime, the middle and the lowest).

However, there is an important aspect in which the doctrine of Quintilian opposed to Cicero, and it is to study the relationship between ars ('art art') andnature ('nature, wit and flair'): if for Cicero's eloquence was a natural gift that could improve the study of rhetoric, for Quintilian is a gift that can be achieved precisely by the rhetoric. Here lies the main difference: while Cicero spoke in their treatises on rhetoric from his own experience and successful speaker and revealed the fruits of their experience, Quintilian speaks as Professor of Rhetoric and therefore intended to be exhaustive in all aspects that Cicero had not even tried on the idea that perseverance and good teachers are able to create a speaker.

Of course, the oratory of Cicero's time was not the same as that of Quintilian's time, so even if Quintilian recognizes the importance of deliberative oratory, the times were not the most conducive to political debate on a subject to Senate power of the emperor himself, however, for oratory, true field in which to exercise and get rich. However, this speech, abandoning all restraint, had fallen into excess, something criticized by authors such as Tacitus and Pliny: here, everything was fair game for the applause of the audience, and oratory, taught in school through the famous disputes and dissuasive , had weakened and had lost its moral intention.

The weapons of eloquence could fall into the hands of anyone with the danger that entailed. In this situation, Quintilian only aspired to return to oratory its measure, and while advocating the declamationesschool wanted them to be ciñeran the field of probability and how close to the reality of the processes. To this must be added the need to turn the speaker on a good man like that could unite the good intentions of the means to implement them through discussion.

Quintilian draws on his work a comprehensive curriculum that includes theory, which deals with the basic precepts of rhetoric well known given the large number of existing treaties, and a practical part in which he recommended to the future exercise of his art through the aforementioned declamationes or proposed models for imitation. In Book I, our author comes to preparing children for college (or Rhetoric), so here addresses some issues related to grammar and also encouraged the study of geometry and music.

In Book II, Quintilian places the child in the school of rhetoric; throughout this book presents the elements in theory, the nature and essence of this art, then in books III to VI explains the doctrine of inventio and in Book VII speaks of the dispositio . The eighth book is devoted to style (the elocutio ) and speaks here of the proprietas , adornment and tropes, in the ninth book explores the tropes or figures of thought and a few paragraphs are devoted to the art of prose rhythms.

X The book is of great interest because it is built like a real book review section, where Quintilian Latin literature compares with the Greek and made ​​judgments about the most important authors of antiquity. This preamble below treats some aspects of imitatio (imitation of models). This book, by its content, has enjoyed a great reputation and has won numerous times alone editions.

At first, this book draws on X Quintilian's interest to seek a practical method that he becomes more fluent of speech and thought, but anyway, what has attracted the attention of scholars has been to outline a brief history of classical literature, used to offer students a series of oratorical models of reading and learning. Thanks to this text, although limited by pedagogical issues to a small number of authors, we know some Latin writers whose works have not survived, besides, Quintilian not only limited to name these authors and their works, but also expressed in a few words and harsh critical judgment, but sometimes this is not merely a reflection of a whole previous tradition.

This occurs especially when dealing with Greek literature, here, Quintilian shows coincidences with Dionysius of Halicarnassus and veterum of censorshipand seem to quote these authors under a plan established by an entire previous criticism. As Latin literature, our rhetor seeks to develop a catalog of catalogs so that students had made ​​Alexandrian Greek literature, anyway, here it reflects the personal views of Quintilian himself about the authors he cites.Thus, in this book is inscribed the famous praise of Cicero, who is identified as the most perfect and finished, and includes a pretty fair judgment on Seneca, whose unique style is criticized in other chapters of the Institutio .

The book deals with memory XI and actio. The play ends with the twelfth book, where Quintilian, concerned about the formation of complete or perfect speaker talks about the ethical and moral qualities which should govern the heart and mind of the true citizen, the true vir bonus .

Although Quintilian was aware he was writing a training manual, wanted to adorn their work with a costume that would make it more pleasing to his audience, which is why sometimes resorted to ornate and florid style and, despite proclaiming its intention to recover Ciceronian model, could not escape the influences that came from his own time, one that has called Silver Age of Latin letters.

His Latin meets therefore the characteristics of the Latin imperial linguistic and stylistic daring and a marked taste for flavored poetic language, which makes his style is closer to Seneca than you might think. In fact, Quintilian, who hated the extreme features of modernity, wanted to find the happy medium between these models and the most archaic.This has meant that his work has become, though it might seem by its content, an important piece of literature of that time.