The technical part of the Institutio Oratoria, is now, since the study of formal rhetoric is no longer an important part of a liberal education, of little interest except to those who make a special study of Roman style and educational theories. Yet even in these books are many wise utterances of permanent value, such as “the price of a laugh is too high when it is purchased at the expense of virtue”;[102] or, “a joke at the expense of the wretched is inhuman”;[103] or, “it is the spirit and the force of mind that make men eloquent.”[104] Such remarks, admirably expressed and inserted in fitting places, make the more technical books of Quintilian’s work even now well worth reading. But the chief interest for the modern reader lies in those parts of the work which have less to do with the special training of the orator, and are more general in their scope—the discussion of elementary education in the first book, the treatise on the larger and broader education of mature life in the last book, and the brief critical survey of Greek and Latin literature in the first chapter of the tenth book.
The theory of education as presented by Quintilian is the result of serious thought. The theory of education. It shows a breadth of view, a reasonableness, and at the same time a loftiness of conception that give its author at once an important position among educational writers. The ethical or moral element in education is especially emphasized. Quintilian, like many others in his day, felt that the standard of morals, of literature, and of oratory was lower than in the days of the republic. But instead of mourning over the decay of
Roman virtue and taste, Quintilian, seeing that the only cure lay in right education, undertook to show the way to a restoration of the ancient excellence. Tacitus, in his essay on oratory, mentions carelessness of parents and bad education as the chief reason for the decay of eloquence; the same ground had apparently been taken by Quintilian himself in his lost essay on the Decay of Oratory, and in the Institutio Oratoria the attempt is made to show how deterioration may be stopped and the old virtue restored. That others besides Quintilian were seriously interested in reform there is no doubt, and if their efforts met with little success, it is probably in part because they tried to restore the excellence of a time that was past and were unable to regulate the active forces of the present.
As a literary critic Quintilian exhibits the same sanity that characterizes his educational theory. Literary criticism. Since a knowledge of the best literature is necessary for the orator, Quintilian passes in review the chief Greek and Latin writers, and it is interesting to observe that he regards the latter as the equals of the Greeks. He has decided preferences, and gives to Cicero, whom he regards as the equal of Demosthenes, the foremost place among the Romans. Yet he recognizes the merits even of those authors, such as Seneca, whose style he least admires. In brief and admirably expressive words he characterizes the style of the chief writers of Greece and Rome, and his judgment has, in almost every case, remained the judgment of later ages. It is interesting also to note that the works of nearly all those writers whom he mentions as the best have been preserved to our own time, which is an additional proof that the extant works have been preserved for the most part not by mere chance but on account of their intrinsic merit. Quintilian’s admiration for Cicero is evident in his own style. Statius had reverted to the style of Virgil, and Quintilian goes back to Cicero, discarding the rhetorical excrescences of Seneca and his school. Style. His Latin is classical and beautiful, sometimes equal to that of Cicero himself. He is the foremost representative of the classical reaction of his time. But the reversion to an earlier style, whether in literature or art, has never been permanent, and Quintilian’s influence, great as it undoubtedly was, could not stop the course of that change and decay which was in the end destined to transform the Latin language and bring into being the Romance tongues of modern times.
CHAPTER XV
NERVA AND TRAJAN
Nerva, 96-98 A. D.—Trajan, 98-117 A. D.—Tacitus, about 55 to about 118 A. D.—Juvenal, 55 (?) to about 135 A. D.—Pliny the younger, 61 or 62 to 112 or 113 A. D.—Other writers.