Si Fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul;[[1308]]
and besides this he held one of the professorships which were endowed by Vespasian with 100,000 sestertia per annum (800l.[[1309]]) He thus formed an exception to the larger number of instructors and grammarians who swarmed in Rome, who, depending on the fees of their pupils, earned a precarious subsistence,[[1310]] and was even able to purchase estates and accumulate property.
But though more fortunate than many deserving members of his profession, he was not esteemed a wealthy man by the rich and luxurious Romans of his day; for his grateful pupil, Pliny, when he presented him with 400l. towards his daughter’s portion, spoke of him as a man of moderate means.[[1311]] His expressions are:—“Te porro, animo beatissimum, modicum facultatibus scio.” The probability is that he was twice married. His first wife died at the early age of nineteen, leaving two sons, of whom death bereaved him in a few years.[[1312]] For the instruction of the elder of these, who survived his younger brother for but a short time, he wrote his great work. His second wife was the daughter of one Tutilius, and the fruit of this marriage was an only daughter who married Nonius Celer, and to whom the liberal present of Pliny was made. For twenty years he discharged the duties of his professorship, and then retired from active life; and died, as is generally supposed, about A. D. 118. His countryman, Martial,[[1313]] speaks of him as the glory of the Roman bar, and the head of his profession as an instructor:—
Quintiliane, vagæ moderator summe juventæ,
Gloria Romanæ, Quintiliane, togæ.[[1314]]
Quintilian’s great work is entitled Institutiones Oratoriæ, or a complete instruction in the art of oratory: and in it he shows himself far superior to Cicero as a teacher, although he was inferior to him as an orator. The rhetorical works of the great orator will not, in point of fulness and completeness, bear a comparison with the elaborate treatise of Quintilian. When engaged in its composition he had retired from the duties of a public professor, and was only occupied, as he himself states,[[1315]] with his duties as tutor to the great-nephew of Domitian. He professes to have undertaken the task reluctantly, and at the earnest solicitations of his friends. He thought that the ground was already pre-occupied, both by Greek and Latin writers of eminence. But seeing how wide the field was, and that such a work must treat of all those qualifications without which no one can be an orator, he complied with their entreaties, and dedicated his book to his friend Marcellus Victorius, as a token of his regard, and a useful contribution towards the education of his son. Two rhetorical treatises had already appeared under his name, but not published by himself. One consisted of a lecture which occupied two days in delivery; the other a longer course: and both had been taken down in notes, and given to the public, as he says, by his excellent but too partial pupils: (boni juvenes, sed nimium amantes mei.[[1316]])
On the Institutiones he professes to have expended the greatest pains and labour. He traces the progress of the orator from the very cradle until he arrives at perfection.[[1317]] He speaks of the importance of earliest impressions, of the parental, especially the maternal care, and illustrates this by the example of Cornelia, to whom the Gracchi owed their eminence; and brings forward, as instances of female eloquence, the daughters of Lælius and Hortensius. He believes that education must commence, and the tastes be formed, and the moral character be impressed, even in infancy. The choice, therefore, of a nurse is, in his opinion, as important, as of early companions, pedagogues, and instructors.
Both on account of the positive good to be acquired, and the evil resulting from the corrupt state of Roman society which the boy would thus avoid, he prefers a school to a home education.[[1318]] As we consider the classical languages the best preparation for the study of the vernacular tongue,[[1319]] so he lays down as an axiom that education in Greek literature should precede Latin. Grammar[[1320]] is to be the foundation of education, together with its subdivisions, declension, construction,[[1321]] orthography,[[1322]] the use of words,[[1323]] rhythm, metre, the beauties and faults of style,[[1324]] reading,[[1325]] delivery, action;[[1326]] and to these are to be added music and geometry.[[1327]]
Primary education being completed, the young student is to be transferred to the care of the rhetorician.[[1328]] The choice of a proper instructor,[[1329]] as well as his duties and character,[[1330]] are described; the necessary exercises, the reading and study of orations and histories are recommended,[[1331]] and the nature, principles, objects, and utility of oratory are accurately investigated. In the third book, after a short notice of the principal writers on rhetoric,[[1332]] he divides his subject into five parts,[[1333]] namely, invention, arrangement, style, memory, both natural and artificial, and delivery or action. Closely following Aristotle, he then discusses the three kinds of oratory, the demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial.[[1334]] In the fourth, he treats of the physical divisions of all orations, namely, the exordium,[[1335]] the narration,[[1336]] excursions or digressions,[[1337]] the question proposed,[[1338]] the division of topics.[[1339]] In that part of his treatise which discusses the next division, namely, proofs, Aristotle is his chief guide, as meeting, in his opinion, the universal assent of all mankind. The sixth book analyzes the peroration, and also discusses the passions,[[1340]] moral habits,[[1341]] ridicule,[[1342]] and other topics, which complete the subject of invention. The seventh treats of arrangement and its kindred topics; the eighth and ninth of style and its essential qualities, such as perspicuity,[[1343]] ornament[[1344]] tropes,[[1345]] amplification,[[1346]] figures of speech.[[1347]]
Facility, or as we, in common with the Romans, frequently term it, “copia verborum,”[[1348]] is the next division of the subject; and as original invention has already occupied so large a portion of his work, he now endeavours to guide the student in imitating the excellencies of the best Greek and Latin writers; and tells him that the next duty, in point of importance, is to profit by the inventions of others.[[1349]] A wide field is thus opened before him, affording an opportunity for the display of his extensive learning, his critical taste, his penetrating discrimination, and his great power of illustration.[[1350]]