QUINTILIAN.
(1) LIFE.
M. Fabius Quintilianus was born at Calagurris in Spain. Auson. prof. i. 7, ‘Adserat usque licet Fabium Calagurris alumnum.’ Cf. Jerome yr. Abr. 2104 (quoted below).
Quintilian came at an early age to Rome, where his father was a rhetorician. Cf. his reminiscences:
x. 1, 86, ‘Utar verbis isdem quae ex Afro Domitio (died A.D. 59) iuvenis excepi.’
v. 7, 7, ‘a Domitio Afro quem adulescentulus senem colui.’
vi. 1, 14, ‘Nobis adulescentibus accusator Cossutiani Capitonis’ (A.D. 57), etc.
From the above quotations, Quintilian must have been born somewhere between A.D. 35 and 40. A.D. 35 is usually given as an approximation. For Quintilian’s father cf. ix. 3, 73, ‘Et cur me prohibeat pudor uti domestico exemplo? Pater meus contra eum qui,’ etc. He is possibly the person mentioned by Seneca, Contr. x. praef. 2, ‘quo modo ... Quintilianus senex declamaverit.’
For Quintilian’s teachers of rhetoric, cf. Pliny, Ep. ii. 14, 10, ‘Narrabat ille [Quintilianus], Adsectabar Domitium Afrum.’ Others were Iulius Africanus (Quint. x. 1, 118), Servilius Nonianus (x. 1, 102), Galerius Trachalus (x. 1, 119), Iulius Secundus (x. 1, 120), Vibius Crispus (xii. 10, 11), Remmius Palaemon (Schol. ad Iuv. 6, 452). After his education Quintilian returned to Calagurris, but was brought back to Rome by Galba in A.D. 68.
Jerome yr. Abr. 2084 = A.D. 68, ‘M. Fabius Quintilianus Romam a Galba perducitur.’