Of Extempore Speech.
Quem ad modum extemporalis facilitas paretur et contineatur.
VII:1
VII. Maximus vero studiorum fructus est et velut praemium quoddam
amplissimum longi laboris ex tempore dicendi facultas; quam qui non erit
consecutus mea quidem sententia civilibus officiis renuntiabit et solam
scribendi facultatem potius ad alia opera convertet. Vix enim bonae
fidei viro convenit auxilium in publicum polliceri quod praesentissimis
quibusque periculis desit, intrare portum ad quem navis accedere nisi
lenibus ventis vecta non possit,—
§ 1.
civilibus officiis: see note on 3 §11.
renuntiabit ... convertet: the future as a mild imperative.
Cp. 1 §§41, 58: 3 §18. For this use of _renuntiare_ cp.
Plin. Ep. ii. 1, 8.
in publicum, ‘for general use,’ ‘for the common good,’ ‘for
the benefit of all and sundry.’ The phrase is formed on the analogy of
such expressions as ‘in publicum,’ ‘in commune consulere,’—for the
benefit of the state and the citizen. Cp. vi. 1, 7 in commune profutura.
Introd. p. xlvii.
intrare portum. The infin. depends on _convenit_. For a
similarly abrupt introduction of a figure in connection with, or to
illustrate, the preceding thought cp. 1 §4: 3 §10 (omitting Burmann’s _et_ before
_efferentes_). The meaning is generally understood to be that the
advocate who undertakes legal business, though he has no power of
extempore speaking, is as unconscionable as the pilot (cp. the simile
in §3) who engages to steer a ship
into a harbour that can only be approached in mild weather. The one
forgets that sudden emergencies may arise, calling for a power which he
does not possess; the other does not take into consideration the sudden
storms which may render his poor skill of no avail.—Hirt however
(Jahr. des philol. Vereins zu Berlin 1888, p. 54) points out that
this is to strain _intrare_: Quintilian cannot have meant to say
that it ‘shows bad faith _to enter_ a harbour which can only be
approached in good weather,’—for once you are in the harbour all
is well. _Intrare_ may be corrupt: see Crit. Notes.
VII:2
siquidem innumerabiles accidunt subitae necessitates vel apud
magistratus vel repraesentatis iudiciis continuo agendi. Quarum si qua,
non dico cuicumque innocentium civium, sed amicorum ac propinquorum
alicui evenerit, stabitne mutus et salutarem petentibus vocem, statimque
si non succurratur perituris,
171
moras et secessum et silentium quaeret, dum illa verba fabricentur et
memoriae insidant et vox ac latus praeparetur?
§ 2.
siquidem, εἴγε, εἴπερ, §27 below, and often in Quintilian: ‘iam apud
Cicero nem perinde atque _quoniam_ invenitur causam omnibus notam
significans’ (Günther).
apud magistratus: ‘in virtue of some extraordinary procedure,
and without the day having been appointed for the parties to the suit,’
Hild.
repraesentatis: ‘when a trial is suddenly brought on.’ Cp.
pecuniam repraesentare = ante diem solvere. Caes. B. G. i. 40, 14
se, quod in longiorem diem collaturus esset, repraesentaturum: Sen. Ep.
95 petis a me ut id quod in diem suam dixeram debere differri
repraesentem.
cuicumque. See on 1 §12 quocunque.
petentibus ... perituris: dat. of interest, after
_quaeret_. For the sense cp. Cic. de Orat. i. §251 Hoc nos si
facere velimus ante condemnentur ei quorum causas receperimus quam
totiens quotiens praescribitur Paeanem aut hymnum recitarimus.
171
statimque. _Statim_ goes with _succurratur_, rather
than with _perituris_: its position gives it emphasis. Cp.
_continuo_ agendi.
secessum et silentium: 3 §28.
illa verba, ironical: illa tam egregia verba.
vox ac latus (‘lungs’): often conjoined. Cp. Cic. Verr. iv.
30, 67 quae vox, quae latera: Brut. §316. So xii. 11, 2 neque enim
scientia modo constat orator, ... sed voce, latere, firmitate. For
_latus_ cp. Hor. Ep. i. 7, 26: xii. 5: Sat. i. 9, 32.
VII:3
Quae vero patitur hoc ratio, ut quisquam possit orator aliquando
omittere casus? Quid, cum adversario respondendum erit, fiet? Nam saepe
ea quae opinati sumus et contra quae scripsimus fallunt, ac tota subito
causa mutatur; atque ut gubernatori ad incursus tempestatium, sic agenti
ad varietatem causarum ratio mutanda est.
§ 3.
ratio: ‘theory’ of eloquence. Cp. 3 §15, where it is opposed to
_exercitatio_.—Others explain as = _ratio non patitur_,
like _ratio non est_, _nulla ratio est_, there is no reason or
sense in doing, &c.: Cic. Acad. ii. §74 ironiam enim alterius
perpetuam praesertim, nulla fuit ratio persequi: ib. §17: in Verr. Act.
i. 24: Caec. §15: Tac. Hist. i. 32: iii. 22: and ad Herenn. iv. 18 ei
rationi ratio non est fidem habere.
quisquam ... orator: see on 2 §6.
omittere casus: ‘to leave sudden issues out of consideration,’
i.e. to conduct his case strictly according to the lines of a written or
premeditated speech, without allowing for the emergence of some
unexpected fact in the evidence, or some difficulty suddenly raised by
the other side. For _casus_ cp. 1 §2 paratam ad omnes casus
eloquentiam: 3 §3 unde ad subitos
quoque casus ... proferantur (opes), and below §30: vi. 1, 42 at qui a stilo non recedunt aut
conticescunt ad hos casus aut frequentissime falsa dicunt: xii. 9, 20
licet tamen praecogitare plura et animum ad omnes casus componere.
fallunt: when the opposing counsel does not pursue the line of
argument we had anticipated, and against which we had prepared a written
speech.
ad incursus: see on 2 §1 ad
exemplum.
VII:4
Quid porro multus stilus et adsidua lectio et longa studiorum aetas
facit, si manet eadem quae fuit incipientibus difficultas? Perisse
profecto confitendum est praeteritum laborem, cui semper idem laborandum
est. Neque ego hoc ago ut ex tempore dicere malit, sed ut possit. Id
autem maxime hoc modo consequemur.
§ 4.
longa studiorum aetas: i.e. longum tempus in studiis consumptum.
Cp. i. 8, 8: Hor. Sat. i. 4, 132.
malit ... possit: sc. orator. For such omissions see note on
congregat 1 §7: and cp.
quaerant §6 and dicat §25 below.
VII:5
Nota sit primum dicendi via; neque enim prius contingere cursus potest
quam scierimus quo sit et qua perveniendum. Nec satis est non ignorare
quae sint causarum iudicialium partes, aut quaestionum ordinem recte
disponere, quamquam ista sunt praecipua, sed quid quoque loco primum
sit, quid secundum ac
172
deinceps: quae ita sunt natura copulata ut mutari aut intervelli sine
confusione non possint.
§ 5.
dicendi via: the method, pathway, or track of the argument.
neque enim &c. The reason is given in the form of a
simile: we cannot run a race without knowing the goal and the track, and
it is the same with eloquence. For a similar figure cp. 3 §10.
partes: i.e. prooemium, narratio, probatio, refutatio,
epilogus. Cp. iii. 9, 1.
disponere: vii. 10, 5 quaestio omnis ac locus habet suam
dispositionem.
primum ... secundum: vii. 10, 5 Non enim causa tantum universa
in quaestiones ac locos diducenda est, sed hae
172
ipsae partes habent rursus ordinem suum. Nam et in prooemio primum est
aliquid et secundum ac deinceps, &c.
intervelli: cp. xii. 9, 17.
VII:6
Quisquis autem via dicet, ducetur ante omnia rerum ipsa serie velut
duce, propter quod homines etiam modice exercitati facillime tenorem in
narrationibus servant. Deinde quid quoque loco quaerant scient, nec
circumspectabunt nec offerentibus se aliunde sensibus turbabuntur nec
confundent ex diversis orationem velut salientes huc illuc nec usquam
insistentes.
§ 6.
via dicet: ‘methodically’, ‘systematically,’ cp. dicendi via §5. So ii. 17, 41 via id est ordine. Cic.
Brut. §46 (ait Aristoteles) antea nominem solitum via nec arte, sed
adcurate tamen et de scripto plerosque dicere: Orat. §§10, 116 ratione
et via disputare, docere: de Fin. ii. §3 (oratio) quae via quadam et
ratione habetur. Roby 1236. See Crit. Notes.
velut: see on 1 §5. It softens the expression
_serie ... duce_, being equivalent to ‘ut ita dicam.’ The
collocation _ducetur ... duce_ is to be classed among the rather
negligent repetitions of which a list is given on 2 §23. Becher compares Cic. de Nat. Deor.
ii. §135 depulsum et quasi detrusum cibum accepit depellit (where
J. B. Mayor however reads delapsum): cp. ib. §145. For ‘serie
ducere’ cp. xi. 2, 39 etiam quae bene composita erunt memoriam serie sua
ducent.
propter quod: see on 1 §66: 5 §23.
quaerant, ‘look for as matter of discourse,’ as 6 §7. The occurrence of _homines_ in the
interval leads up from the singular _quisquis_ to the plural.
sensibus: see on 3 §33.
confundent ex diversis: ‘make it a jumble of
incongruities.’
huc illuc: Cic. ad Att. ix. 9, 2 ne ... cursem huc illuc via
deterrima.
VII:7
Postremo habebunt modum et finem, qui esse citra divisionem nullus
potest. Expletis pro facultate omnibus quae proposuerint, pervenisse se
ad ultimum sentient.
Et haec quidem ex arte, illa vero ex studio: ut copiam sermonis optimi,
quem ad modum praeceptum est, comparemus, multo ac fideli stilo sic
formetur oratio ut scriptorum colorem etiam quae subito effusa sint
reddant, ut cum multa scripserimus
173
etiam multa dicamus.
§ 7.
citra: see on 1 §2.
divisionem: ‘here the distribution of the matter of the speech
both into the general divisions and subordinate heads, and also into the
minuter passages and sentences; their order constituting the _via
dicendi_.’ Frieze.
Expletis ... quae proposuerint: ‘when they have overtaken all
the points advanced,’ exhausted the various heads of their discourse, v.
10, 109 nec minus in hoc curae debet adhiberi quid proponendum quam
quomodo sit quod proposueris probandum.
haec quidem &c. The meaning is that while the observance
of the foregoing precepts (haec) depends on knowledge of theory (ars),
as embodied in specific rules and directions, what is now to come (illa)
demands _studium_, i.e. scientific exercise, applied to reading,
imitation, writing, and the practice of speaking (cp. 1 §1). The sentence is an awkward
one: it is best explained by making the _ut_ before _copiam_
co-ordinate with the _ut_ before _cum multa scripserimus_, and
supplying a corresponding _ut_ with _formetur_. _Illa_
then introduces all three clauses, the first referring mainly to
_legere_, the second to _scribere_, and the third to
_dicere_. The precepts in regard to reading and imitation
(quemadmodum praeceptum est) are found in chs. i and ii: writing is
covered by chs. iii, iv and v: while speech is dealt with in the present
chapter.
fideli stilo, the ‘conscientious practice of composition.’
scriptorum colorem: see 6 §5.
effusa sint: cp. 3 §17
componunt quae effuderant.
cum multa scripserimus. The practice
173
of speaking (including extempore utterance) is to come _after_
writing: cp. 1 §3
sq.
VII:8
Nam consuetudo et exercitatio facilitatem maxime parit: quae si paulum
intermissa fuerit, non velocitas illa modo tardatur, sed ipsum _os_
coit atque concurrit. Quamquam enim opus est naturali quadam mobilitate
animi, ut, dum proxima dicimus, struere ulteriora possimus semperque
nostram vocem provisa et formata cogitatio excipiat;
§ 8.
consuetudo et exercitatio, referring only to the last-mentioned
precept, _ut multa dicamus_.
velocitas illa. The demonstr. is vivid,—‘the requisite
rapidity,’ that which we either have acquired or hope to acquire.
os coit atque concurrit. Cp. xi. 3, 56 est aliis concursus
oris et cum verbis suis colluctatio: viii. 3, 45 littera quae exprimi
nisi labris coeuntibus non potest: xi. 3, 121 his accedunt vitia non
naturae, sed trepidationis, cum ore concurrente rixari. “Os concurrit
cum prae anxietate dicentis musculi oris invitis etiam trahuntur et
convelluntur ut labia et lingua quasi trepident.” Wolff.
mobilitate animi: cp. §22. His
mind must be quick of movement in order to express properly what is to
be said on the instant (_proxima_ corresponding to _nostram
vocem_), and at the same time be shaping (_struere_) what is
further on (_ulteriora_ corresponding to _provisa et formata
cogitatio_). Tr. proxima, ‘what we are about to say’:
nostram vocem, ‘what has just been said.’ For provisa cp.
on 3 §10.
VII:9
vix tamen aut natura aut ratio in tam multiplex officium diducere animum
queat ut inventioni, dispositioni, elocutioni, ordini rerum verborumque,
tum iis quae dicit, quae subiuncturus est, quae ultra spectanda sunt,
adhibita vocis, pronuntiationis, gestus observatione, una sufficiat.
§ 9.
ratio, cp. note on §3.
quae dicit, sc. ‘orator,’ as with _sufficiat_ ‘animus’
must be supplied. Cp. on §4.
vocis ... gestus. See 1 §17 for a similar enumeration,
and cp. the note.
una = simul, which indeed Halm substitutes for it in his
text.
VII:10
Longe enim praecedat oportet intentio ac prae se res agat, quantumque
dicendo consumitur, tantum ex ultimo prorogetur, ut, donec perveniamus
ad finem, non minus prospectu procedamus quam gradu, si non
intersistentes offensantesque brevia illa atque concisa singultantium
modo eiecturi sumus.
174
§ 10.
intentio: cp. intendunt animum 1 §24.
prae se res agat. The mind must pursue or chase, as it were,
the ideas that are still in front of it, and have them available in
advance.
consumitur ... prorogetur: expressions derived from banking
transactions. ‘In proportion as the speaker pays out, must he make
advances to himself out of what is to come later.’ For this use of
_prorogare_ see the Lexx. Ex ultimo was understood by Wolff
to mean _ex eo quod modo dictum est_: but Becher (Quaest. Quint.
p. 9) pointed out that it = ‘vom Ende aus,’ and correctly rendered
the whole sentence ‘so viel im Reden drauf geht, so viel muss er sich im
Voraus vom Ende aus flüssig machen und so gewissermassen seine
Zahlungsfähigkeit länger hinausschieben,’—ut ne in inopiam
redactus bonam copiam eiuret. The speaker is to be continually drawing
from his reserve funds (_ex ultimo_, i.e. from the part of his
subject-matter that remains) just so much as he is expending in
delivery.
prospectu procedamus: cp. xi. 2, 3 nam dum alia dicimus, quae
dicturi sumus intuenda sunt: ita cum semper cogitatio ultra eat, id quod
est longius quaerit, quidquid autem repperit quodam modo apud memoriam
deponit, quod illa quas media quaedam manus acceptum ab inventione
tradit elocutioni.
si non ... eiecturi sumus: ‘if we
174
want to avoid coming to a standstill, stuttering, and giving forth our
short, broken phrases, like persons gasping out what they have to
say.’—For offensantes cp. _offensator_ 3 §10: and for brevia illa 2 §17 illud frigidum et inane.
VII:11
Est igitur usus quidam inrationalis, quam Graeci ἄλογον τριβήν vocant, qua manus in
scribendo decurrit, qua oculi totos simul in lectione versus flexusque
eorum et transitus intuentur et ante sequentia vident quam priora
dixerunt. Quo constant miracula illa in scaenis pilariorum ac
ventilatorum, ut ea quae emiserint ultro venire in manus credas et qua
iubentur decurrere.
§ 11.
inrationalis: ‘mechanical,’ ‘unscientific.’ Cp. ii. 15, 23 quidam
eam neque vim neque scientiam neque artem putaverunt, sed Critolaus usum
dicendi (nam hoc τριβή
significat).... For the opposition between τέχνη and τριβή (‘knack’) see Plato, Phaedrus 260 E οὐκ ἔστι τέχνη
ἄλλ᾽ ἄτεχνος τριβή: Gorgias 501 A κομιδῇ ἀτέχνως ... ἔρχεται ... ἀλόγως τε
παντάπασιν, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ... τριβὴ καὶ ἐμπειρία: ib.
463 B.
manus ... decurrit. Cp. Cic. de Orat. ii. §130 neque enim
quotiens verbum aliquod est scribendum nobis, totiens eius verbi
litterae sunt cogitatione conquirendae; nec quotiens causa dicenda est,
totiens ad eius causae seposita argumenta revolvi nos oportet, sed
habere certos locos, qui ut litterae ad verbum scribendum, sic illi ad
causam explicandam statim occurrant.
versus: see on 1 §38.
flexus ... et transitus. These words are generally taken in
their literal sense; but the rendering ‘turns and transitions’
(‘Wendungen and Uebergänge’) seems not sufficiently to explain the
passage. May _flexus_ not refer here to the modulation of the
voice, as frequently in Quintilian (v. Bonn. Lex.), and _transitus_
to the punctuation which marks the passage from one clause to another?
In reading the eye takes in all this in advance. Tr. ‘observe the
intonations and the stops.’ On the other hand Frieze (who alone of the
commentators seems to have felt any difficulty): ‘the action of the eye
itself in reading is ascribed to the lines of the manuscript.
_Flexus_ seems to refer to the turning of the eye from the end of a
line to the beginning of the next, and _transitus_ the passing from
one column of the manuscript to the next.’ But this explanation of
_transitus_ can hardly be right.
dixerunt, sc. lectores,—before the reader has
articulated (to himself) what comes first, the eye runs on to what
follows. For the change of subject cp. §9.
miracula = θαύματα, ‘conjuring-tricks.’
pilariorum ac ventilatorum: ‘jugglers and professors of
legerdemain.’ For the former (who resembled the Indian juggler) see
Rich’s Dict. Ant. s.v., where a figure is shown from a Diptych in the
Museum at Verona exhibiting dexterous feats with a number of balls,
‘throwing them up with both hands, catching them on, and making them
rebound from, the inner joint of the elbow, leg, forehead, and instep,
so that they kept playing in a continuous circle round his person
without falling to the ground, as minutely described by Manilius
(_Astron._ 169-171).’ The ventilator was one who winnowed grain
with the _ventilabrum_ (see Rich. s.v.), and so is generally taken
here of a juggler ‘tossing his balls into the air as the winnower does
his corn’; but looking to the use of _ventilare_ for to ‘conjure
away’ (magicis artibus vitas insontium et manibus accitis ventilare,
Imp. Constant. cod. 9, 18, 6 and cod. Th. 9, 16, 5), I prefer
Professor Key’s explanation of the word, ‘a juggler, as affecting to
toss things away with an οἴχεται, or with a puff of breath’: cp. Prudent.
Peristeph. x. 78 tu ventilator urbis et vulgi levis procella.—The
genitives are to be referred to _scaenis_, not _miracula_.
ut ea: for this constr. see on 1 §58.
in manus: Krüger and Dosson are wrong in taking this of the
hands of the spectators. The balls return to the hands of the performers
themselves. For _qua_ (sc. via) cp. ii. 20, 2 multos video qua vel
impudentia vel fames duxit ruentes: ix. 1, 19: xii. 10, 61.
VII:12
Sed hic usus ita proderit, si ea de qua locuti sumus ars antecesserit,
ut
175
ipsum illud quod in se rationem non habet in ratione versetur. Nam mihi
ne dicere quidem videtur nisi qui disposite, ornate, copiose dicit, sed
tumultuari.
§ 12.
ita ... si, in a limiting sense (= ita demum si), ‘only so
far as.’ Cp. xi. 3, 130 ambulantem loqui ita demum oportet si in causis
publicis, &c. In Brut.
175
§195 Cicero has cum _ita_ heres institutus esset _si_ pupillus
ante mortuus esset. In this restrictive sense ita is more
commonly followed by ut (Verr. iv. §150): sometimes by _cum_
(Brut. §222). In Top. §44 we have agens de eo qui testamento _sic_
heredem instituisset ut si filius natus esset, &c.
locuti sumus, i.e. in §§5-7.
quod ... non habet: cp. §11
usus inrationalis, where there is no consciousness of method.
in ratione versetur = arte, artis et rationis praeceptis
contineatur. Though mechanical, through habit it should be based on
method and rational principle.
nisi qui &c. Cp. Cic. de Orat. i. §48 Sin oratoris nihil
vis esse nisi _composite_ _ornate_ _copiose_ loqui,
&c. The first refers to _collocatio_, the second to
_elocutio_, and the third to _inventio_.
tumultuari, to ‘rant.’ Cp. vii. pr. §3 oratio carens hac
virtute (sc. ordine) tumultuetur necesse est: ii. 12, 11 cum interim non
actores modo aliquos invenias, sed, quod est turpius, praeceptores etiam
qui brevem dicendi exercitationem consecuti omissa ratione, ut tulit
impetus, passim tumultuentur, eosque qui plus honoris litteris
tribuerunt ineptos et ieiunos et tepidos et infirmos, ut quodque verbum
contumeliosissimum occurrit, appellent.
VII:13
Nec fortuiti sermonis contextum mirabor umquam, quem iurgantibus etiam
mulierculis superfluere video, cum eo quod, si calor ac spiritus tulit,
frequenter accidit ut successum extemporalem consequi cura non
possit.
§ 13.
fortuiti sermonis, ‘random talk.’
contextum = continuam orationem, cp. §26. The word denotes mere continuity of speech, a
mere train of words.
superfluere video: see Crit. Notes.
cum eo quod, ‘with this consideration that,’ connects in a
loose manner with what goes before: ‘and this I say with the addition
that,’ &c.
The usual explanation is ‘with the exception or limitation that,’
&c.: so Günther ‘postquam sese mirari nunquam fortuiti sermonis
contextum dixit, hoc enuntiato a “cum eo quod” pendente orationi
moderatur et concedit frequenter, si calor ac spiritus tulerit, curam
consequi non posse successum extemporalem’: cp. Cic. ad Att. vi. 1, §4
sit sane, quoniam ita tu vis, sed tamen cum eo, credo, quod sine peccato
meo fiat. But Quintilian is not ‘taking back’ what he has said in ‘nec
mirabor’: he is going on to add what is really an independent statement.
Other uses of _cum eo quod_ occur ii. 4, 30 cum eo quidem, quod vix
ullus est tam communis locus, qui possit cohaerere cum causa nisi aliquo
propriae quaestionis circulo copulatus: xii. 10, 47 cum eo quod, si non
ad luxuriam ac libidinem referas, eadem speciosiora quoque sint quae
honestiora. See Introd. p. liii.
spiritus: see on 1 §27.
tulit. For _ferre_ used absolutely: cp. 3 §7 si feret flatus, and such phrases as ‘si
occasio tulerit.’ Krüger supplies _aliquem_, comparing 1 §110.—For the perfect,
used like the Greek aorist to denote repeated occurrence, cp. refrixit
3 §6, and accessit ... restitit §14 below.
ut ... possit—that the success of such impromptu
speaking is not attained by study and premeditation (cura).
VII:14
Deum tunc adfuisse, cum id evenisset, veteres oratores, ut Cicero,
dictitabant. Sed ratio manifesta est. Nam bene concepti adfectus et
recentes rerum imagines continuo impetu feruntur, quae nonnumquam mora
stili refrigescunt et dilatae non revertuntur. Utique vero,
176
cum infelix illa verborum cavillatio accessit et cursus ad singula
vestigia restitit, non potest ferri contorta vis; sed, ut optime vocum
singularum cedat electio, non continua sed composita est.
§ 14.
ut Cicero. No such saying can be found in Cicero’s extant works:
cp. however de Orat. i. §202. For the reading see Crit. Notes.
ratio manifesta est: cp. 5 §3.
bene concepti adfectus, ‘emotion profoundly felt’: v. on §15 and cp. vi. 2, 30 has (imagines rerum)
quisquis bene conceperit is erit in adfectibus potentissimus.
recentes rerum imagines: ‘fresh,’ ‘vivid’ conceptions, or
ideas: a lively imagination.
continuo impetu feruntur: ‘sweep along in uninterrupted
course.’
refrigescunt, cp. 3 §6, and
§33.
utique: see on 1 §20.
176
infelix ... verborum cavillatio: of the morbid carping
self-criticism spoken of in 3 §10:
1 §115. For
_infelix_ see on 1 §7.
non potest ferri contorta vis: ‘there can be no energy in the
swing,’ a figure taken from the discharge of missile weapons, such as
the sling and the javelin. _Vis contorta fertur_ = the _vis_
(of the speech) is ‘whirled and sped onward’: for _ferri_ cp. ix.
4, 112 oratio quae ferri debet et fluere. For the whole expression cp.
Cic. Orator §234 Demosthenes! cuius non tam vibrarent fulmina illa, nisi
numeris contorta ferrentur, (Quint. ix. 4, 55,) where _contorquere_
describes the whirling action which imparts to the missile that rotating
movement by which (as with our rifled guns) it is made more certain to
hit the mark: see Sandys ad loc. Quintilian has a similar figure in ix.
4, 9 mihi compositione velut amentis quibusdam nervisve intendi et
concitari sententiae videntur.
ut = though.
continua ... composita, ‘the style is not all of one pattern,
but rather a patchwork,’—it does not flow on spontaneously, but is
elaborately put together. The subject _oratio_ must be supplied out
of the context: cp. §26, and 1 §§7 and 29. Becher renders ‘nicht aus ganzem
Holze (geschnitten) sondern geleimt,’—not all of one piece but
glued together: and compares ‘corpora continua’ and ‘composita’ in Sen.
Epist. xvii. 2, 6 (102),—‘organisms’ and mechanical fabrics.
VII:15
Quare capiendae sunt illae, de quibus dixi, rerum imagines, quas vocari
φαντασίας indicavimus,
omniaque, de quibus dicturi erimus, personae, quaestiones, spes, metus,
habenda in oculis, in adfectus recipienda; pectus est enim, quod
disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo sunt
aliquo adfectu concitati, verba non desunt.
§ 15.
de quibus dixi. Cp. vi. 2, 29 Quas φαντασίας Graeci vocant (nos sane visiones
appellemus) per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo
ut eas cernere oculis ac praesentes habere videamur, has quisquis bene
conceperit is erit in adfectibus potentissimus. So of the creations of
the painter’s fancy, xii. 10, 6 concipiendis visionibus, quas φαντασίας vocant,
praestantissimus Theon Samius.
dicturi erimus. The careful selection of the tense is to be
noted: cp. Cic. de Orat. i. §223 eorum apud quos aliquid aget aut erit
acturus mentes sensusque degustet, where _agit_ is contemporaneous
with _degustet_, while _erit acturus_ is regarded as still
future.—There is negligence in the juxtaposition of _dixi_
and _dicturi erimus_.
in adfectus recipienda, sc. that emotions may thereby be
excited which shall find expression in what we say. The intensity of
these emotions will depend on the vividness of the images in the
mind.
pectus: ‘feeling.’ The sentence is carefully arranged: besides
the chiasmus above (_habenda in oculis_, _in adfectus
recipienda_) _pectus_ now takes up _in adfectus
recipienda_, while vis mentis refers to _habenda in
oculis_, and denotes accordingly force or clearness of
conception.
VII:16
Tum intendendus animus, non in aliquam rem unam, sed in plures simul
continuas, ut si per aliquam rectam viam mittamus oculos simul omnia
quae sunt in ea circaque intuemur, non ultimum tantum videmus, sed usque
177
ad ultimum. Addit ad dicendum etiam pudor stimulos, mirumque videri
potest quod, cum stilus secreto gaudeat atque omnes arbitros reformidet,
extemporalis actio auditorum frequentia, ut miles congestu signorum,
excitatur.
§ 16.
Tum, if allowed to stand (see Crit. Notes), does not introduce a
help to oratory, like _pectus_ above (cp. si modo sunt aliquo
adfectu concitati), and addit ad dicendum etiam _pudor_ stimulos in
the following sentence. The words from _pectus est enim_ to
_verba non desunt_ form a parenthesis, and _tum intendendus_
resumes the previous recommendation, _omniaque de quibus dicturi
erimus ... recipienda_. This is clear from the correspondence of
participles, _capiendae_ ... _habenda_ ... _recipienda_
... _intendendus_.
continuas, here of things that ‘hang together’: tr. ‘in an
orderly sequence.’
circa, ‘on either side.’
177
pudor = ‘amour-propre,’ sense of honour as (possibly) to be
compromised by failure.
stilus secreto: 3 §23
sq.
congestu signorum: the ‘crowded standards,’—of the
moment when the legion is about to advance, and the standard of every
company is set in motion at the same time. This is better than to take
it of the assembling of the standard-bearers with their ensigns round
the general’s tribunal, while he addresses the army on the eve of
battle.
VII:17
Namque et difficiliorem cogitationem exprimit et expellit dicendi
necessitas, et secundos impetus auget placendi cupido. Adeo pretium
omnia spectant ut eloquentia quoque, quamquam plurimum habeat in se
voluptatis, maxime tamen praesenti fructu laudis opinionisque
ducatur.
§ 17.
difficiliorem: thought that labours, is slow to find
utterance.
expellit, stronger than _exprimit_: cp. 3 §6.
secundos impetus, ‘the favourable glow,’—the ‘élan’ so
helpful for the expression of thought.
pretium, like _praemium_ in a parallel passage, Tac.
Dial. 36: ita ad summa eloquentiae praemia magna etiam necessitas
accedebat, et quo modo disertum haberi pulchrum et gloriosum sic contra
mutum et elinguem videri deforme habebatur.
quamquam, with subj. 1 §33.
opinionis, ‘reputation,’ the favourable estimate which others
form of us: see on 5 §18 and cp. §24 below: Cic. pro Arch. §26. Introd. p. xliv.
VII:18
Nec quisquam tantum fidat ingenio ut id sibi speret incipienti statim
posse contingere, sed, sicut in cogitatione praecepimus, ita facilitatem
quoque extemporalem a parvis initiis paulatim perducemus ad summam, quae
neque perfici neque contineri nisi usu potest.
§ 18.
id, i.e. ut ex tempore dicere possit: the faculty of
improvisation.
praecepimus: 6 §3.
contineri, 6 §3 augenda vis
et exercitatione multa continenda est.
VII:19
Ceterum pervenire eo debet ut cogitatio non utique melior sit ea, sed
tutior, cum hanc facilitatem non in prosa modo multi sint consecuti, sed
etiam in carmine, ut Antipater Sidonius et Licinius Archias (credendum
enim Ciceroni est)— non quia
178
nostris quoque temporibus non et fecerint quidam hoc et faciant. Quod
tamen non ipsum tam probabile puto (neque enim habet aut usum res aut
necessitatem) quam exhortandis in hanc spem, qui foro praeparantur,
utile exemplum.
§ 19.
debet. The subject which the editors generally say is to be
supplied is ‘facilitas extemporalis’: cp. 6 §4. But Becher is probably right in supplying
a personal subject (as 1 §7: 2 §24: 7 §§4, 25),—‘the orator,’ ‘the budding rhetorician,’
or even τις: cp. nec
quisquam.* If _extemporalis facilitas_ were the subject of the
sentence, _ipsa_ would have been expected instead of _ea_. See
Critical Notes.* recte: _nec quisquam fidat_, _above_.
non utique: ‘not of course,’ ‘not necessarily.’ See on 1 §20: cp. xii. 2, 18.
in prosa: see on 1 §81.
Antipater of Sidon, an Alexandrine poet, cir. B.C. 135. Cic. de Orat. iii. §194 quod si Antipater
ille Sidonius ... solitus est versus hexametros aliosque variis modis
atque numeris fundere ex tempore, tantumque hominis ingeniosi ac memoris
valuit exercitatio ut, cum se mente ac voluntate coniecisset in versum,
verba sequerentur, quanto id facilius in oratione, exercitatione et
consuetudine adhibita, consequemur!
Archias. Cic. pro Arch. 8 §18 quotiens ego hunc vidi, cum
litteram scripsisset nullam, magnum numerum optimorum versuum de iis
ipsis rebus quae tum agerentur dicere ex tempore.
non quia ... non. For the subjunctive, see Introd. p. liv: cp. §31, below.
178
Becher rightly explains (Bursian’s Jahresb.) that _credendum enim
Ciceroni est_ is to be bracketed as a parenthesis of the writer’s to
Antipater Sidonius and Licinias Archias,—examples which give the
motive for the half apology _non quia_, &c. Tr. ‘though I do
not wish to be understood to mean that,’ &c. Others explain the
sentence as elliptical: ‘I do not quote Cicero’s authority because we
have not abundant examples in our own times, but because his authority,
at any rate, will be unquestioned,’ Frieze.
quidam. Hild thinks the reference must be particularly to
Statius: Silv. 1 pr. hos libellos qui mihi subito calore et quadam
festinandi voluptate fluxerunt: and iii. pr. libellos ... subito natos.
Possibly also to Remmius Palaemon, the teacher of Quintilian: Suet.
Gram. 23 poemata faciebat ex tempore.
quod ... ipsum. ‘This accomplishment in itself,’ viz.
facilitas ex tempore carmina fingendi.
in hanc spem = huius in rei spem. Cp. 3 §2 sine hac conscientia.
VII:20
Neque vero tanta esse umquam _debet_ fiducia facilitatis ut non
breve saltem tempus, quod nusquam fere deerit, ad ea quae dicturi sumus
dispicienda sumamus, quod quidem in iudiciis ac foro datur semper; neque
enim quisquam est qui causam quam non didicerit agat.
§ 20.
non ... saltem: see on 2 §15.
didicerit. In acquainting himself with the facts of a case,
and considering (however briefly) the principles applicable to it, the
judicial pleader has always some little time to think over his
speech.
VII:21
Declamatores quosdam perversa ducit ambitio ut exposita controversia
protinus dicere velint, quin etiam, quod est in primis frivolum ac
scaenicum, verbum petant quo incipiant. Sed tam contumeliosos in se
ridet invicem eloquentia, et qui stultis videri eruditi volunt, stulti
eruditis videntur.
§ 21.
Declamatores: see on 1 §71.
ambitio: see Introd. p. xliv.
exposita controversia, ‘as soon as the question is
stated.’
frivolum, ‘in bad taste,’ a word characteristic of the Silver
Age.
scaenicum, ‘theatrical.’ On the stage, actors often start off
with such a ‘cue.’ Cp. i. 11, 3 plurimum ... aberit a scaenico: xi. 3,
57 modulatio scaenica: ib. §123 nam et complodere manus scaenicum est et
pectus caedere. We may also recall ‘nedum ille scaenicus (Nero)’: Tac.
Ann. xv. 59.
VII:22
Si qua tamen fortuna tam subitam fecerit agendi necessitatem, mobiliore
quodam opus erit ingenio, et vis omnis intendenda rebus et in praesentia
remittendum aliquid ex cura verborum, si consequi utrumque non dabitur.
Tum et tardior pronuntiatio moras habet et suspensa ac velut dubitans
oratio, ut tamen deliberare, non
179
haesitare videamur.
§ 22.
vis omnis intendenda rebus. Cp. Cato’s golden rule for the
speaker, rem tene verba sequentur: Cic. de Orat. ii. §146: iii. §125:
Hor. A. P. 311.
non dabitur, cp. §29: Verg.
Aen. i. 408 cur dextrae iungere dextram non datur?
tardior pronuntiatio. The opposite is _citata_ xi. 3, 111
aliis locis citata aliis pressa conveniet pronuntiatio.
habet, ‘secures.’ Krüger (3rd ed.) would prefer to read
_habebit_.
suspensa ... dubitans: a ‘slow and undecided style of
speaking,’ in which one is, as it were, feeling one’s way. Tac. Ann. i.
11 of Tiberius, suspensa semper et obscura verba.
179
VII:23
Hoc, dum egredimur e portu, si nos nondum aptatis satis armamentis aget
ventus; deinde paulatim simul euntes aptabimus vela et disponemus
rudentes et impleri sinus optabimus. Id potius quam se inani verborum
torrenti dare quasi tempestatibus quo volent auferendum.
§ 23.
hoc, sc. fieri potest. For the ellipse cp. vi. 4, 10 hoc, dum
ordo est et pudor: xi. 1, 76 hoc et apud eos.
dum egredimur, &c. As in §1
the simile takes the place of the main thought without any word of
introduction: cp. athleta 1 §4.
simul. The juxtaposition of _simul_ and _euntes_
reminds us of the Greek constr. of ἅμα with a participle = ἅμα πορευόμενοι.
aptabimus ... optabimus. The assonance is surely an example of
Quintilian’s negligent style, rather than (as Krüger thinks) an
intentional pun. So _aptatis ... aptabimus_, in this passage.
VII:24
Sed non minore studio continetur haec facultas quam paratur. Ars enim
semel percepta non labitur, stilus quoque intermissione paulum admodum
de celeritate deperdit: promptum hoc et in expedito positum
exercitatione sola continetur. Hac uti sic optimum est ut cotidie
dicamus audientibus pluribus, maxime de quorum simus iudicio atque
opinione solliciti; rarum est enim ut satis se quisque vereatur. Vel
soli tamen dicamus potius quam non omnino dicamus.
§ 24.
ars: cp. on §7.
non labitur. The sense is clear, though the reading is very
uncertain: ‘la connaissance théorique une fois acquise ne se perd pas,’
Hild, who suspects that _animo_ or _mente_ has fallen out. Cp.
de Orat. ii. §109 ante enim praeterlabitur (sc. definitio) quam percepta
est. _Labi_ by itself well expresses the gradual ‘oozing away’ of
anything from the mind. Verg. Ecl. i. 63 quam nostro illius labatur
pectore vultus. It might however be preferable to read _nunquam_
instead of _non_. See Crit. Notes.
deperdit. Cic. Verr. ii. 2, 30 ut ne quid de libertate
deperderit.
promptum hoc et in expedito positum: ‘this promptitude and
readiness for action.’ The neuter of the adj. and the part. are used
along with the demonstrative in place of abstract nouns, in which Latin
is not strong. Cp. Livy vii. 8, 5 diu non perlitatum tenuerat
dictatorem: Tac. Ann. iii. 80 Capito insignitior infamia fuit quod ...
egregium publicum et bonas domi artes dehonestavisset; v. Nägelsbach,
Lat. Stil. p. 98 sq. and 140 sq.: Introd. p. xlviii.
rarum est ut = raro fit ut. Cp. primum est ut 2 §18.
non omnino. The adverb strengthens the negative (cp. οὐ πάνυ), instead of the
negative being employed for the negation of the adverb. So often
_prorsus_ and _sane_.
VII:25
Est alia exercitatio cogitandi
180
totasque materias vel silentio (dum tamen quasi dicat intra se ipsum)
persequendi, quae nullo non et tempore et loco, quando non aliud agimus,
explicari potest, et est in parte utilior quam haec proxima;
§ 25.
est alia exercitatio cogitandi ... persequendi. There is a
similar transition at ix. 2, 57 est alia non quidem reticentia. The
sequence of thought is as follows: the best method of acquiring and
maintaining the _facultas ex tempore dicendi_ is to discourse daily
before competent hearers: if that is not possible _soli tamen
dicamus_; this is better than not speaking at all. There is another
_exercitatio_ (i.e. as a help to keeping up the _facultas ex
tempore dicendi_), viz. the going over our subject-matter in silent
thought, as we can do always and everywhere. _Cogitandi_ and
_persequendi_ are genitives of definition, or epexegetic genitives
standing in the place of appositional infinitives): cp. exitus mortis,
τέλος θανάτοιο,
and (cited by Krüger) Cic. de Fin. iii. 14, 45 denique ipsum bonum quod
in eo positum est ut naturae consentiat, crescendi accessionem ( =
accessionem quae fit crescendo) nullam habet: de Orat. 1 §90 quod
consuetudo exercitatioque et intellegendi prudentiam (= prudentiam
quae cernitur in intellegendo, or prudentiam ad intellegendum) acueret
et eloquendi celeritatem incitaret. With
180
exercitatio, supply ‘continendi facultatem ex tempore dicendi.’
totasque materias ... persequendi: cp. 5 §21 per totas ire materias.
tamen: i.e. even though it be _silentio_.
dicat. Again the subject (sc. orator) is to be supplied out of
the context. Cp. 1 §7.
explicari potest: ‘can have full scope given to it,’ an
exercise in which we can indulge freely.
in parte, often in Quintilian. See on 1 §88.
haec proxima: viz. that recommended in §24 ut cotidie dicamus audientibus pluribus: to
which _illa_ and _prior_ in §26
refer.
VII:26
diligentius enim componitur quam illa, in qua contextum dicendi
intermittere veremur. Rursus in alia plus prior confert, vocis
firmitatem, oris facilitatem, motum corporis, qui et ipse, ut dixi,
excitat oratorem et iactatione manus, pedis supplosione, sicut cauda
leones facere dicuntur, hortatur.
§ 26.
diligentius enim componitur quam illa: ‘it (i.e. discourse thus
premeditated) is more accurately put together.’ The grammatical subject
of _componitur_ is _exercitatio cogitandi_, &c., but the
verb is chosen with reference to the train of thought which the mind is
exercised in pursuing. The virtual subject is thus rather _oratio quam
cogitando persequimur_, or _tacita oratio_ (as shown by _dum
tamen quasi dicat intra se ipsum_). _Illa_ (like _proxima_)
refers to the practice of extempore speaking, either alone or in the
presence of others. Grammatically the _exercitatio_ of §24 must be understood along with it: logically the
_oratio_ which is the result of that
_exercitatio_.—Krüger (3rd ed.) takes _componitur_ as
used impersonally, but that would seem to be impossible without some
reference to _exercitatio cogitandi_. The sentence, though
grammatically awkward, is quite consistent with Quintilian’s loose style
of writing, so that there seems no necessity for such a device about
_componitur_, or for Gertz’s conjecture _in illa_: see Crit. Notes.
contextum dicendi: cp. §13.
veremur, with infin. as 1 §101, and even in Cicero: cp.
the striking instance de Fin. ii. §39 quos non est veritum in ...
voluptate ... summum bonum ponere.
Rursus, ‘on the other hand.’
in alia ... confert. See on 1 §1 for the constr. of
_conferre_ (συμφέρειν): cp. 5 §11 in hoc facient.
prior, viz. speaking.
firmitatem. In such enumerations Quintilian does not repeat
the prep.: cp. 2 §16.
oris facilitatem = ‘ease of utterance.’
ut dixi, 3 §21.
pedis supplosione. Cp. xi. 3, 128 pedis supplosio ut loco est
opportuna, ut ait Cicero, in contentionibus aut incipiendis aut
finiendis, ita crebra et inepti est hominis et desinit iudicem in se
convertere: Sen. Epist. 75 §2: Cic. Brut. §141.
sicut cauda leones. Hom. Il. xx. 170 οὐρῇ δὲ πλευράς τε καὶ ἰσχία ἀμφοτέρωθεν
Μαστίεται, ἑὲ δ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐποτρύνει μαχέσασθαι: Hesiod, Shield of
Herc. 430 γλαυκιόων δ᾽ ὄσσοις
δεινὸν πλευράς τε καὶ ὤμους οὐρῇ μαστιόων ποσσὶ γλάφει. Plin.
Nat. Hist. viii. 16, 19 leonum animi index cauda ... immota ergo
placido, clemens blandienti, quod rarum est: crebrior enim iracundia,
eius in principio terra verberatur, incremento terga ceu quodam
incitamento flagellantur.
studendum, 3 §29. Cp. note
on _studiosis_ 1 §45.
VII:27
Studendum vero semper et ubique. Neque enim fere tam est ullus dies
occupatus, ut nihil lucrativae, ut Cicero Brutum facere tradit,
181
operae ad scribendum aut legendum aut dicendum rapi aliquo momento
temporis possit: siquidem C. Carbo etiam in tabernaculo solebat hac
uti exercitatione dicendi.
§ 27.
tam est ... occupatus. The order supports the traditional reading
at 1 §83, where see
note.
lucrativae operae. Cic. ad Att. vii. 11, 1 unam mehercule
tecum apricationem in illo lucrativo tuo sole malim quam omnia istius
modi regna: Fronto, ad Anton. imp. 2, 2 lucrativa tua in tantis negotiis
tempora. Tr. ‘a few precious moments’:
181
_lucrativa opera_ means an occupation which profitably occupies our
spare time. The adjective is properly a legal term, applied to things
acquired by gift or bequest: e.g. species possessionis Gai. 2, 56:
usucapio 2, 60: adquisitio Ulp. Dig. xliv. 4, 4, 31. Krüger refers
to the special meaning of _lucrum_, ‘an unexpected gain’: Hor. Car.
i. 9, 14 quem fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro adpone. Spalding says:
“_operam lucrativam_ a Qu. dici potuisse censeo quidquid operae
iniunctis et necessariis laboribus negotiisque velut surriperetur et
dilectis studiis accederet.” Cp. i. 12, 13 quibus potius studiis haec
temporum velut subsiciva donabimus? Cic. de Orat. ii. 364 quae cursim
adripui, quae subsicivis operis, ut aiunt.
Cicero. The reference seems to be to the remark addressed to
Brutus in the Orator §34 iam quantum illud est quod in maximis
occupationibus numquam intermittis studia doctrinae, semper aut ipse
scribis aliquid aut me vocas ad scribendum. So in the Brutus §332 he
praises his _perennia studia_, and §22 his _singularis
industria_. Cp. Plutarch, Brutus, §4 and §36. See Crit. Notes.
siquidem, see on §2, above.
C. Carbo. In the Brutus §§103-105 Cicero eulogises his
eloquence and industry: industrium etiam et diligentem et in
exercitationibus commentationibusque multum operae solitum esse ponere:
cp. de Orat. i. §154.—Carbo, who had originally been a supporter
of Ti. Gracchus, but had afterwards gone over to the optimates, became
consul in B.C. 120; and it was in
connection with his prosecution in the year following, on some charge
not distinctly specified, that Crassus made his first public appearance.
Carbo was driven to commit suicide.
VII:28
Ne id quidem tacendum est, quod eidem Ciceroni placet, nullum nostrum
usquam neglegentem esse sermonem: quidquid loquemur ubicumque, sit pro
sua scilicet portione perfectum. Scribendum certe numquam est magis quam
cum multa dicemus ex tempore. Ita enim servabitur pondus et innatans
illa verborum facilitas in altum reducetur, sicut rustici proximas vitis
radices amputant, quae illam in summum solum ducunt, ut inferiores
penitus descendendo firmentur.
§ 28.
Ciceroni. The reference cannot be traced.
ubicumque: see on 1 §5.
pondus, ‘solidity.’
innatans, sc. in superficie: ‘floating’ and so ‘superficial.’
Cp. vii. 1, 44 haec velut innatantia videbunt: Persius i. 104-5 summa
delumbe saliva Hoc natat in labris, where Conington cites Gell. i. 15
qui nullo rerum pondere innixi verbis humidis et lapsantibus diffluunt,
eorum orationem bene existimatum est _in ore nasci_ non in pectore:
so 3 §2 verba in labris nascentia,
where see note.
in altum reducetur = in profundum, giving the antithesis to
the figure (‘the shallows’) involved in _innatans_. Tr. ‘will gain
in depth.’ For such combinations of the prep. with the acc. or abl.
neuter of adj. see Introd. p. xlvii.
proximas, the uppermost roots, which protrude from the surface
of the ground. By paring these away, the taproots (inferiores) are
forced to strike deeper.
VII:29
Ac nescio an si utrumque cum cura et studio fecerimus, invicem prosit,
ut scribendo dicamus diligentius, dicendo scribamus facilius. Scribendum
ergo quotiens licebit;
182
si id non dabitur, cogitandum; ab utroque exclusi debent tamen _sic
d_icere ut neque deprehensus orator neque litigator destitutus esse
videatur.
§ 29.
nescio an = fortasse, as at 6 §1; see on 1 §65. Tr. ‘and I rather think
that there is this reciprocal advantage, viz. that,’ &c.
utrumque, i.e. dicere and scribere, both in the way of
_exercitatio_.
Scribendum ergo, &c. This is Quintilian’s summing up. If
the advocate has time to elaborate his speech in writing, that is best
(as a rule); if writing is impossible, he must have recourse to
cogitatio (ch. vi). If there is time for neither
the one nor the other, the discipline which
182
is being recommended ought nevertheless (_tamen_, i.e. in spite of
the fact that there has been no opportunity for either writing or
reflection) to enable him to “speak in such a way that no one will think
either that the pleader has been taken aback or that the client has been
left in the lurch.” The emendation _sic dicere_, which I venture to
introduce in the text (see Crit. Notes), seems in harmony not
only with the tradition of the MSS. but also with the whole context.
There is the same sequence immediately below (§30) _scribant ... cogitatione complectantur ...
subitis extempore occurrant_. The busy advocate will make use of all
three methods: but in most cases writing, according to Quintilian, is to
be recommended, and, failing it, meditation,—not that the latter
is better than off-hand speech, but safer (tutior §19). Lastly, even such _subitae necessitates_
as are referred to in §2 ought to find the
advocate prepared to make a creditable extempore appearance: cp. §4 neque ego hoc ago ut extempore dicere malit sed
ut possit.
deprehensus: cp. xii. 9, 20: Seneca Ep. xi. 1 non enim ex
praeparato locutus est, sed subito deprehensus.
VII:30
Plerumque autem multa agentibus accidit ut maxime necessaria et utique
initia scribant, cetera, quae domo adferunt, cogitatione complectantur,
subitis ex tempore occurrant; quod fecisse M. Tullium commentariis
ipsius apparet. Sed feruntur aliorum quoque et inventi forte, ut eos
dicturus quisque composuerat, et in libros digesti, ut causarum, quae
sunt actae a Servio Sulpicio, cuius tres orationes extant; sed hi de
quibus loquor commentarii ita sunt exacti ut ab ipso mihi in memoriam
posteritatis videantur esse compositi.
§ 30.
utique, ‘especially,’ or ‘at all events’: see on 1 §20.
domo adferunt: cp. 6 §6.
subitis: ‘emergencies,’ unforeseen developments, e.g.
questions and objections by the other side. Cp. Plin. Ep. iii. 9, 16 vir
exercitatus et quamlibet subitis paratus.
commentariis: ‘note-books,’ memoranda containing jottings,
outlines, &c. Cp. iv. 1, 69.
feruntur: see note on ferebantur 1 §23.
et ... et = ‘some ... others.’ In the one case the actual
jottings have been found, just as they were originally set down for the
guidance of the speaker: in the other they have been put together in
book form, for the benefit of later readers.
causarum: sc. commentarii: outlines of cases.
Servio Sulpicio: see on 1 §116. He left only three
written speeches, but his friends had edited his notes of the numerous
cases in which he had appeared.
hi. The memoranda, as opposed to the finished speeches
(orationes).
exacti: see on 2 §14.
in memoriam posteritatis: see on 1 §31.
VII:31
Nam Ciceronis ad praesens modo tempus aptatos libertus Tiro contraxit:
quos non ideo excuso quia non
183
probem, sed ut sint magis admirabiles. In hoc genere prorsus recipio
hanc brevem adnotationem libellosque, qui vel manu teneantur et ad quos
interim respicere fas sit.
§ 31.
Nam: see on 1 §12. The meaning is as follows:
I make special mention of the finished character of Sulpicius’s
outline speeches, as written out by himself: for in Cicero’s case it is
different: his commentarii ‘non sunt ab ipso compositi in memoriam
posteritatis.’ Moreover they are not now in their original form: by
Cicero they were prepared only for the occasion (ad praesens tempus
aptati), and were afterwards abridged (contraxit) by Tiro. But even in
this shorter form they are of great value.
contraxit, ‘abbreviated.’ The context shows, on the whole,
that this is the proper sense to attach to this word. Sulpicius’s
memoranda had been put together (in libros digesti) by his friends, but
so finished are they that one might think he had intended them to
survive. This gives
183
two points of contrast with Cicero. The first (cp. _exacti_ with
_ad praesens modo tempus aptatos_) would hardly be enough by
itself, as Quintilian rather insinuates than asserts that Sulpicius
intended his jottings to go down to posterity: the second is that in
Cicero’s case we have his sketches in a still briefer form than that in
which they were originally composed. The contrast would not be so
striking if _contraxit_ were practically synonymous with _in
libros digesti_. Becher is strongly, however, in favour of
_contraxit_ = collected: cp. Tac. Dial. 37.—For Tiro see esp.
Teuffel’s Rom. Lit. §178.
quos ... probem. The meaning is this: I do not make this
apology or explanation (excuso) as to the character of Tiro’s abridgment
of Cicero’s memoranda, compared with the studied elaboration of
Sulpicius, with any idea of implying inferiority, but in order
that—even in their present form—they may excite even greater
admiration of Cicero’s genius.—Quintilian is conscious that in
giving prominence to the two points of contrast in regard to Cicero’s
remains, as compared with those of Sulpicius, he may be in danger of
being misunderstood.—For _non quia_ with subj. cp. §19 above: Introd. p. liv.
In hoc genere, i.e. in this _extemporalis actio_. The
opposite is ‘in his quae scripserimus’ §32.
recipio: ‘I allow, admit,’ δέχομαι: cp. Cic. de Off. iii. §119 non recipit istam
coniunctionem honestas, aspernatur repellit: Introd. p. xliii.
hanc seems to indicate what was a common practice in
Quintilian’s time.
VII:32
Illud quod Laenas praecipit displicet mihi, _et_ in his quae
scripserimus velut summas in commentarium et capita conferre. Facit enim
ediscendi neglegentiam haec ipsa fiducia et lacerat ac deformat
orationem. Ego autem ne scribendum quidem puto quod _non_ simus
memoria persecuturi; nam hic quoque accidit ut revocet
184
nos cogitatio ad illa elaborata nec sinat praesentem fortunam
experiri.
§ 32.
Laenas, Popilius, a rhetorician who flourished under Tiberius. He
is mentioned as a contemporary of Cornelius Celsus, iii. 1, 21 and xi.
3, 183.
et in his quae scripserimus. See Crit. Notes. The reference obviously
is to speeches carefully written out before delivery, (contrast _in
hoc genere_ above, of the extempore kind). Quintilian says that he
cannot approve of Laenas’s recommendation that, after we have written
out a speech in this way, we should proceed to prepare an abstract.
Dependence on this abstract will make us careless about learning off
what we have written, and this will check the flow of our eloquence, and
mar and disfigure our discourse. Iwan Müller points out that in the
sentence _in his quae scripserimus ... conferre_, Quintilian is
probably quoting from some rhetorical treatise of Laenas.
velut summas in ... conferre. The reading is very uncertain:
see Crit. Notes for
Kiderlin’s proposed emendation. The text may be rendered ‘to enter in a
notebook arranged according to heads the essence, as it were,’ of what
we have written, the genitive required by _summas_ being supplied
out of _in his quae scripserimus_. Cp. Cic. Brut. §164 non est
oratio sed quasi capita rerum et orationis commentarium paulo
plenius.
haec ... fiducia. See on 3 §2 hac conscientia.
ne ... quidem: ‘neither should we.’ There is no climax here:
like οὐδέ the particles
_ne ... quidem_ are often used, as Madvig pointed out, ‘ubi sine
ullo orationis descensu aut gradatione negativi aliquid adiungitur
superioribus simile’ (see 3rd excursus to de Fin. pp. 802-3 2nd
ed.).
quod non simus. The context makes the reading certain, and
also gives the key to the interpretation. We ought not to write out,
says Quintilian, what we do not intend to commit perfectly to memory; it
would be better to trust to ‘extemporalis facilitas.’ If we do so, he
goes on to say, our imperfect recollection of what we have written (illa
elaborata) will interfere with the free play of thought.—For
_memoria persequi_ cp. Cic. pro Sulla §42.
hic quoque: cp. 6 §§5-7,
where it is
184
said of imperfect _premeditation_ (cogitatio) that if it is to make
the speaker hesitate between what he has written, but can hardly recall,
and the new ideas which the subject might inspire, he would do better to
trust wholly to improvisation.
praesentem fortunam: cp. 6 §1 extemporalem fortunam.
VII:33
Sic anceps inter utrumque animus aestuat, cum et scripta perdidit et non
quaerit nova. Sed de memoria destinatus est libro proximo locus nec huic
parti subiungendus, quia sunt alia prius nobis dicenda.
11
§ 33.
scripta perdidit, i.e. because he is suffering the consequences
of _ediscendi neglegentia_.
non quaerit nova—being too much occupied with the
attempt to remember what he had written.
de memoria = disputationi de memoria. See xi. 2.
185
CRITICAL NOTES.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
Bn = codex Bernensis s. x.
Bg = codex Bambergensis s. x.
B = conspirantes lectiones Bernensis et Bambergensis.
G = codicis Bambergensis eae partes quae alia manu suppletae sunt.
Introd. p. lviii.
b = manus secunda codicis Bambergensis.
H = codex Harleianus (2664) s. x-xi. Introd. p. lxiv, sqq.
F = codex Florentinus.
T = codex Turicensis.
N = codex Parisinus Nostradamensis s. x-xi.
Ioan. = codex Ioannensis s. xiii.
For the above (with the exception of H and Ioan. and a fresh
collation of Bg and G) I have depended on Spalding, Halm, and
Meister. In the same way I quote references occasionally to M (codex
Monacensis s. xv), S (codex Argentoratensis s. xv), and L (codex
Lassbergensis s. xv), the Gothanus, Guelferbytanus, Vossiani,
&c.
A collation of the following has kindly been put at my disposal by
M. Ch. Fierville, Censeur des études au Lycée Charlemagne (Introd.
p. lxi,
sqq.):—
Codex Pratensis (Prat.) s. xii.
Codex Puteanus (Put.) s. xiii.
Codex Parisinus (7231) s. xii.
Codex Parisinus (7696) s. xii.
Codex Salmantinus (Sal.) s. xii-xiii.
The readings of the Codex Vallensis (Vall.) are given from Becher’s
Programm des königlichen Gymnasiums zu Aurich, Ostern, 1891.
Other 15th cent. MSS., which I have specially collated for this
edition, are the following (Introd. p. lxxiii, sqq.):—
Codex Harleianus 2662 (Harl. 2662). The inscription on this codex bears
that it was finished 25th Jan., 1434.
Codex Harleianus 11671 (Harl. 11671), bearing date 1467.
Codex Harleianus 4995 (Harl. 4995), dated 5th July, 1470.
Codex Harleianus 4950 (Harl. 4950).
Codex Harleianus 4829 (Harl. 4829).
Codex Burneianus 243 (Burn. 243).
Codex Burneianus 244 (Burn. 244).
Codex Balliolensis (Ball.). This MS. is mutilated, and contains nothing
after x. 6, 4: there is moreover a lacuna from ch. ii to iii §26.
Codex Dorvilianus (Dorv.), in the Bodleian at Oxford (codd. man. x. 1,
1, 13).
Codex Bodleianus (Bodl.).
The readings of the Codex Carcassonensis (C—15th cent.) are
given from M. Fierville’s collation (De Quintilianeis Codicibus,
Paris, 1874).
186
CHAPTER I.
§1.
cognitioni, Harl. 4995: Burn. 243 (and so Gothanus, Spald.).
_Cogitationi_ G and most codd., probably mistaking a contraction in
the ancient text.
§2.
sciet G. The reading _scierit_ (Harl. 4995 and many codd.)
is probably due to H, which gives _sciuit_ (so FT).
quae quoque sint modo dicenda. So GHFTL, and Halm. The
alternative reading is _quo quaeque s. m. d._, S and all
my 15th cent. MSS: Spalding and Meister, with the approval of Becher.
See note ad loc. In the parallel passages i. 8. 1 Halm adopts Spalding’s
reading (ut sciat) quo quidque flexu ... dicendum for quid quoque ABMS,
and i. 6. 16 (notatum) quo quidque modo caderet for quid quoque BMS, and
so Meister: Fierville returns to the reading of the MSS. In support of
_quo quaeque_ other exx. might be cited: v. 10. 17 quo quaeque modo
res vitari vel appeti soleat, and vi. 4. 22 quo quaeque ordine probatio
sit proferenda. But the parallel instances in the Tenth Book quoted in
the notes (1 §8: 7 §§5 and 6) seem to guarantee the correctness
of the reading of the oldest MSS.: though it is better to take
_quoque_ as the ablative of _quisque_ than (as Halm) as the
relative with que.
tamen: GHFT Harl. 4950: _tanquam_ Harl. 2662, 11671,
4995, 4829, L S Bodl. Ball. Burn. 243 Dorv. In Burn. 244 _tanquam_
is corrected to _tamen_. _Paratam_ explains _in
procinctu_: so that _tanquam_ is not so necessary as
_velut_ in xii. 9. 21.
§3.
ante omnia est: so all codd., and Halm. Hirt (Jahresb. des
philol. Vereins zu Berlin viii. p. 69 sq. 1882: ix. p. 312 sq.
1883) conjectured _ante omnia necessarium est_, and this is
approved by Kiderlin (Blätter f. d. bayer. Gymn. 1887, p. 454): cp.
_necessarium_ just above, and _necessaria_ in §1. Schöll (Rh. Mus. 34, p. 84)
first challenged the MS. reading, and suggested that the original may
have been _ante omnia stat atque_, corrupted into _ante omniast
[at] atque_: for which use of _sto_, see Bonn. Lex. s.v.
ii. γ. As an alternative suggestion he put forward _ante omnia
necesse est_, and this was adopted by Meister. Becher (Phil. Rundsch.
iii. 14. 428) proposed _ante omnia sciet_, though more recently he
has signified his adherence to the tradition of the MSS. Maehly
suggested _ante omnia opus esse_. Perhaps the true reading may be
_ante omnia prodest_.
The question depends to some extent on the treatment of the following
passage. GH agree in giving _proximam deinde inimitationem novissimam
scribendi quoque diligentia_. This Halm converted into _proximum
deinde imitatio est, novissimum ... diligentia_,—where the
_est_ is certainly superfluous (cp. i. 3. 1), while it may be
doubted (comparing ii. 13. 1 and iii. 6. 81—Kiderlin l.c.) whether
_proxima deinde imitatio, novissima_ &c. would not be a
sufficient change: Kiderlin compares ‘proxima huic narratio,’ ii. 13. 1,
and ‘novissima qualitas superest,’ and objects to the citation of
‘proximum imitatio,’ in 1. 3,
in support of the neuter, on the ground that there ‘signum ingenii’ is
to be supplied.
Kiderlin’s proposed modification of Gemoll’s conjecture (l.c.
p. 454 note, cp. Rhein. Mus. 46 p. 10 note) _proximum deinde
multa lectio_ is adopted by Krüger (3rd ed.), who thinks that the
sequence of thought makes the special mention of _legere_
(alongside of _dicere_ and _scribere_) a necessity:
_multa_ corresponds to _diligentia_ in what follows: cp. multa
lectione §10. But
_legere_ has already been touched on in §2, and moreover is included under
_imitatio_ (sc. exemplorum ex lectione et auditione
repetitorum).
§4.
iam opere. So Harl. 4995 and Regius: all other codd. _iam opere
iam_. Becher reports _iam opere_ also from the Vallensis.
qua ratione. For _qua in oratione_, the reading of all
MSS., Hirt conjectured
187
_qua exercitatione_. Schöll proposed to reject _in oratione_
as a gloss: but _qua_ by itself (sc. via) is only used by Quint.
with verbs of motion: see on 7 §11.
In his latest paper (Rheinisches Museum, 46, pp. 10-13, 1891),
Kiderlin subjects the whole of §4 to a searching and destructive
analysis. He translates: ‘doch nicht darüber, wie der Redner
heranzubilden ist, sprechen wir in diesem Abschnitte (denn dies ist
genügend oder wenigstens so gut, als wir konnten, besprochen worden)
sondern darüber, durch welche Art von Uebung der Athlet, welcher alle
Bewegungen von seinem Lehrer bereits genau erlernt hat, für die Kämpfe
vorzubereiten ist.’ He doubts whether such passages as §33 and 7 §1 can be cited to justify the
abrupt transition from orator to athlete, on the ground of the formal
antithesis in which the two stand to each other,—‘orator’ coming
in at the end of one clause, and ‘athleta’ standing at the head of
another, in front of ‘quo genere exercitationis.’ And yet it is just the
‘orator’ who is to be understood in the ‘athleta.’ As to the sentence
introduced by ‘Igitur eum,’ if by ‘athleta qui omnes iam perdidicerit a
praeceptore numeros’ we are to understand one who has mastered the whole
theory of rhetoric, then it adds nothing to what has been said already,
and is therefore altogether superfluous.
Kiderlin proposes to read: sed _ut_ (so L and S,—also
Harl. 2662, 4995) athleta, qui omnes iam perdidicerit a praeceptore
numeros, multo (nonnullo?) varioque (numuro quae G,—also H: num
muro quae T: numeroque F L; nimirum quo S) genere exercitationis ad
certamina praeparandus _erit_ (sit, the codd.) _ita_ (so
S,—also Harl. 2662, 4995 and Bodl.) eum, qui ... perceperit,
instruamus, qua in _praeparatione_ (qua in oratione, the codd.)
quod didicerit facere quam optime, quam facillime possit. _Ut_ may
easily, he contends, have fallen out before _at_: and the running
of three words into one (_numeros multo vario—numero_) is
paralleled by such a case as §23, where it
will be found that Kiderlin sees _ut duo tresque_ in
_utrisque_. For ‘multo varioque’ he compares viii. 5. 28 multis ac
variis: x. 5. 3 multas ac varias: xi. 3. 163 varia et multiplex: xii. 1.
7 totae tam variis; and, for ‘varioque,’ vii. 3. 16 latiore varioque,
and xii. 10. 36 sublimes variique. ‘Vario genere’ actually occurs i. 10.
7, and _multo_ may easily have been written in the singular, like
_nonnullus_ vi. 3. 11 (hoc nonnullam observationem habet) and
elsewhere. The motive for changing _que_, _quae_, into
_quo_ and _erit_ (_est_?) into _sit_ may have been
the analogy of the foregoing _quomodo sit_. As for ut (sicut) ita
(sic), it is so favourite a form with Quintilian that he uses it seven
times in the first nineteen paragraphs of this chapter. _Qua in
oratione_, the reading of all MSS., may have resulted from _qua in
praeparatione_ more probably than from _qua ratione_, which
appears first in the ed. Col. 1527, and is not so appropriate to the
context as _qua in praeparatione_ (cp. _praeparandus_ above,
and _parandae_ below). Quintilian is detailing in this Book on what
preparation (cp. praeparant §35, comparant §67, praeparetur 6 §6, praeparantur 7 §19) the orator may best and
most easily carry out in practice what he has learnt theoretically. For
the preposition (_in_ praeparatione) cp. viii. pr. 22: ut in hac
diligentia deterior etiam fiat oratio.
The text of Quintilian, especially of this part of the Tenth Book, is
admittedly very defective, and invites emendation: there is a great deal
to be said for the theory that in many places several words must have
dropped out. Kiderlin’s attempts to remedy existing defects are always
marked by the greatest ingenuity: they are all well worth recording as
evidences of critical ability and insight, even though it may be that
not all of them will be received into the ultimate text. Here there
seems no reason why Quintilian, who was notoriously a loose writer,
should not have said in the concluding sentence of the paragraph what he
had already said, in the form of a metaphor, in the clause immediately
preceding. Indeed the word _igitur_ seems to suggest that after
indulging in his favourite metaphor (_sed athleta_, &c.) he
wishes to resume, as it were, and is now going on to say what he means
in more ordinary language. It may not be artistic: but it is Quintilian.
If he had had some of his modern critics at
188
his side when preparing a second edition of the _Institutio_ some
of his angularities might have been smoothed away.
§5.
Non ergo. Meister and ‘edd. vett.’: I find this reading in
Harl. 4995, and Burn. 243. So Vall. Halm. has _Num ergo_, and so
most codd. (including HFT Bodl. and Ball.).
§6.
ex his. Qy. _ex iis_? so §128: cp. Introd. p. xlix.
§7.
quo idem, Meister and ‘edd. vett.’: _quod idem_ Halm,
supported by Becher and Hirt, perhaps rightly. Nearly all my MSS. agree
with GLS in _quod_: _quo_ occurs in Harl. 4995 only.
§8.
quod quoque GH Halm, Meister: _quid quoque_ (as 7 §5) occurs in L S, also in
Bodl., Ball. For _quid_ Zumpt cites also Par. 1 and 2: i.e. 7723
and 7724 (Fierville). _Aptissimum_ (strangely mangled in most
codd.—e.g. _locis ita petissimum_ G) is given rightly in
Dorv.
§9.
omnibus enim fere verbis. This reading, ascribed by Meister to
Badius, and by Halm to ed. Colon. (1527), I have found in Harl.
4995 (A.D. 1470): _ferebis vel_ G
H: _fere rebus vel_ L S Harl. 2662, 4950, 4829. From the Vallensis
Becher reports _fere verbis vel_.
intueri, ed. Col. 1527. In Harl. 11671 I find _interim
intueri_: Harl. 2662 L S Ball., Dorv., Bodl., _interim
tueri_.
quae nitidiore in parte occurs first in ed. Col. 1527:
Vall.2 Harl. 4995 Goth. Voss. ii. shows _quae cultiore in
p._: GH _quaetidiorem in p._: LS Harl. 2662 Guelf. Bodl. _quae
utiliore in p._
§10.
cum omnem, &c. _cum omnem misermonem a. pr. accipiamus_
GH: _cum omnem enim_, most codd. Osann, followed by Gemoll and
Krüger (3rd ed.), suggested _omnem enim sermonem a. pr.
accipimus_.
§11.
alia vero, Frotscher: _aliave_ GH: _aliaque_ Harl.
4995. This last Becher now prefers (_alia que_ Vall.: _alia
quae_ Regius), comparing ix. 3. 89 and ix. 4. 87.
τροπικῶς quasi
tamen, Spalding, Zumpt, Meister and Krüger (3rd ed.): _tropicos
quare tam_ GH, _quare tamen_, later MSS. Halm obelized _quare
tamen_: Mayor only _quare_. Becher recommends _tamen_ by
itself. Gensler (Anal. p. 25) reads _tamen quasi_, and is
followed by Hild, who takes _quasi_ with _feruntur_ in the
sense of _referuntur_ (μεταφορά): Zumpt took it with _eundem
intellectum_. Gemoll approves of the exclusion of _quare_, which
he thinks must have arisen from a gloss _figurate_ (either marginal
or interlinear) on τροπικῶς. Kiderlin adopts this and thinks the _quare
tam_ of GHL a mutilation of the gloss _figurate_: _gurate_
and _quare tā_ are not far apart.
§12.
figurarum G (per compendium): _figuranus_ H. Kiderlin
suggests _mutuatione figurarum_, sc. _ostendimus_: after which
Quintilian continues ‘sed etiam ex proximo mutuari licet.’ Cp. Cic. de
Or. iii. 156 translationes quasi mutuationes sunt. Kiderlin adds (Rhein.
Mus. 46, p. 14 note) that in iii. 4. 14 all MSS. wrongly give
_mutantes_ for _mutuantes_, and in i. 4. 7 A1 has
_mutamur_ for _mutuamur_.
§15.
hoc sunt exempla potentiora. _Hoc_ is a conj. of Regius
(also Vall.2), all the MSS. giving _haec_ (hec).
_Hoc_ appears in the Basle ed. of 1555 and in that of Leyden 1665.
It is challenged by Schöll (Rhein. Mus. 44, p. 85), who says
_quia_ stands too far away from _hoc_ to allow of such a
construction, and thinks the context has been misunderstood. According
to him _haec exempla_ (those derived from _lectio_ and
_auditio_) are set over against those which one gets in theoretical
books and lectures: they are more telling, because they act directly on
the mind, and are not served up as dry theory in the form of extracts
(‘quia quae doctor praecepit orator ostendit’). He therefore understands
‘ipsis (exemplis) quae traduntur artibus,’ but admits that ‘etiam’ is
thus otiose, and would therefore read _quam ipsis quae traduntur
artibus_.
Schöll is supported by Hirt (Jahresb. des philol. Vereins zu Berlin,
1882, p. 70), who thus gives the sense of the passage: ‘Der
Wortschatz wird durch Lektüre und vieles
189
Hören erworben. Aber nicht nur seinetwegen soll man lesen und hören; man
soll es auch noch aus einem anderen Grunde. In allem nämlich, was wir
lehren, sind diese Beispiele, d.h. diejenigen, welche uns die Lektüre
und der Vortrag bieten, wichtiger selbst als die Beispiele welche die
Handbücher und Vorlesungen darbieten, weil, was der Lehrer nur als
Forderung aufstellt, bei dem Redner That geworden ist und sich durch den
Erfolg bewährt hat.’
Iwan Müller (Bursian’s Jahresb. vii. 1879, 2, p. 168) objects
that if Quintilian had wished to convey this meaning he would have said,
not _haec exempla_, but _hinc ducta (petita)_ or _quae hinc
ducuntur (petuntur) exempla_; and he rightly desiderates also _quam
quae (in) ipsis traduntur artibus_. Meister also opposes Schöll
(Philol. xlii. p. 149): the order _quam ipsis quae traduntur
artibus_ is in fact impossible.
On the whole it seems much better to keep _hoc_, and to
understand: ‘in all instruction, example is better than precept: the
_doctor_ relies only on precept, the _orator_ on example.’
Gertz conjectures _nam omnium quaecunque docemus hinc_ (cp. v.
10. 5: xii. 2. 31) _sunt exempla, potentiora_ (i.e. _quae
potentiora sunt_) _etiam ipsis quae traduntur artibus_. But with
_hinc_, as Kiderlin observes, some other verb than _sunt_
would be expected: v. 10. 15 is an uncertain conjecture, the MSS. giving
_nihil_, and in xii. 2. 31 _hinc_ belongs to _bibat_ and
_sumptam_. Kiderlin himself at first proposed _haec praestant
exempla, potentiora_: this he now withdraws, however, (Rhein. Mus.
46, p. 15) in favour of _haec suggerunt exempla, potentiora_,
&c. By _haec_ he understands _legere_ and _audire_,
and gives the sequence of thought as follows:—‘Aber wenn auch auf
diese Weise eine Fülle von Ausdrücken erworben wird, so ist das doch
nicht der einzige Zweck des Lesens und Hörens. Denn _von allem_ was
wir lehren (nicht nur von den Ausdrücken) liefert dieses (das Lesen und
Hören) Beispiele, welche noch wirksamer sind als die vorgetragenen
Theorieen selbst (wenn der Lernende so weit gefördert ist, dass er die
Beispiele ohne Beihilfe verstehen und sie bereits aus eigener Kraft
befolgen kann), weil der Redner das zeigt, was der Lehrer nur
vorgeschrieben hat.’ For _suggerere_ Kiderlin compares i. 10. 7
artibus, quae ... vim occultam suggerunt, and v. 7. 8 ea res suggeret
materiam interrogationi: cp. also §13 quorum nobis ubertatem ac divitias
dabit lectio, and ii. 2. 8 licet satis exemplorum ad imitandum ex
lectione suppeditet.
§16.
imagine et ambitu rerum: so Harl. 2662 L S Ball. Burn. 243 and
Bodl.: followed by Spalding, Frotscher, Herbst, and Bonnell. GH give
_imagine ambitu rerum_. Halm (after Bursian) bracketed
_ambitu_: but it is more probable that _imagine_ is a gloss on
_ambitu_ than vice versa (so Hirt and Kiderlin), and Meister
accordingly (followed by Krüger 3rd ed.) reads [_imagine_]
_ambitu rerum_. It seems just as likely, however, that _et_
has fallen out. Hertz suggested _imagine ambituve rerum_: Maehly
thinks that _ambitu_ was originally _tantum_.
nec fortune modo. Gertz proposed _nec forma modo_: pro
Mil. §1 movet nos forma ipsa et species veri iudicii.
§17.
accommodata ut: ed. Col. 1527, and so Meister and Krüger (3rd
ed.): _commodata ut_ Halm (after Bursian): _commoda ut_
Spald., Frotsch., Herbst, and Bonnell. GHS give _commoda aut_:
L and all my MSS _commoda ut_ (except Burn. 243 which shows
_comendat ut_).
et, ut semel dicam. Kiderlin would delete _et_, rendering
‘Stimme, Aktion, Vortrag ist, um es kurz zu sagen, alles in gleicher
Weise belehrend.’
§18.
placent—laudantur—placent: so Halm and most edd.,
following S, with which all my MSS. agree. The emphasis gained by the
opposition of _placent_ and _non placent_ makes this reading
probable. But GH give _laudetur_: and so Meister and Krüger (3rd
ed.) prefer to follow Regius in reading
_placeant—laudentur—placent_.
§19.
e contrario. This reading, which Meister adopts from ‘edd.
vett.,’ occurs in
190
Harl. 2662, 4995, 4829, 11671, Burn. 243, 244, Bodl. and Dorv. Becher
reports it also from the Vallensis. Halm wrote _contrarium_.
actionis impetu, Spald. and Krüger (3rd ed.): _actionis
impetus_ GH and all MSS. (except Vall., in which the s in
_impetus_ has been deleted): _ut actionis impetus_ Halm and
Meister.
tractemus GHL: _tractamus_ all my MSS.:
_retractemus_ Spald., Halm, Meister. Becher (Phil. Rundsch. iii.
14. 429) supports _tractemus_, arguing that the phrase is a sort of
hendiadys = repetendo tractemus (cp. Frotscher, and Bonn. Proleg. to
Lex. p. xxxviii), or that the _re_ of _repetamus_ is to be
supplied in thought with _tractemus_: cp. Cic. de Div. 1 §1
‘praesensionem et scientiam rerum futurarum.’ _Tractamus_ in 5 §8 also supports this
reading.
iteratione, Harl. 4995 and Vall.2: most MSS.
_altercatione_ (as G) or _alteratione_ (as Harl.
2662).
§22.
illud vero. The MSS. vary between _illa_ (GH) and
_illud_ (Harl. 4995 Vall.2). Kiderlin suggests _illa
... utilissima_.
§23.
Quin etiam si ... tamen: so all MSS.
Meister and Krüger (3rd ed.) accept Eussner’s proposal to exclude
_quin_. Becher on the other hand objects (Bursian’s Jahresb. 1887.
xv. 2, p. 9). From some points of view the deletion would be an
improvement: it would bring out better the chiastic arrangement,
_utilissimum ... utrimque habitas legere actiones_ and _easdem
causas ... utile erit scire_. But (1) such careless repetition
(_quin etiam—quin etiam_) is not unusual in Quint.: and
(2) _si_ when followed by _tamen_ often = _etiamsi_:
Cic. pro Leg. Man. §50: pro Deiot. §25: Sall. Bell. Iug. 85, 48 &c.,
so that it is not necessary to connect _etiam_ with it like
_etiamsi ... tamen_ xi. 3. 48. The sentence (as recommending the
reading of the ‘minus pares actiones’) forms an exception to the rule
otherwise consistently followed, ‘non nisi optimus quisque legendus,’
&c.
Again Spalding, Bonnell, and Hild put the comma before, not after
_aliquae_, which they take with _requirentur_ (‘yet in some
cases’). But this does not square with ‘quoties continget utrimque
habitas legere actiones,’—words which are distinctly against any
idea of _selecting from_ the ‘minus pares.’
causas ut quisque egerit utile erit scire, Halm and Meister
following ed. Ald., and ed. Colon. 1527: _causas utile erit scire_
Vall.: all other codd. _causas utrisque erit scire_. Meister thinks
_non inutile_ would be more in accordance with Quintilian’s usage.
Gemoll suggests _causas ut plures egerint intererit scire_, Kaibel
_ut quisque egerit e re erit scire_. Perhaps (with Becher)
_causas ut quisque egerit intererit scire_.
Kiderlin’s treatment of the passage merits a separate notice. He
accepts the first _quin etiam_, as the reading of the MSS., and
also as quite appropriate to the context (‘in cases even where the
combatants are not equally matched—as were Demosthenes and
Aeschines’). But he doubts whether Quintilian could have written two
sentences running, each beginning with _quin etiam_, and relies
greatly on the undoubted fact that in the second all the MSS. have
_quis etiam_,—_quin_ being an emendation by Regius. The
MS. reading is _quis etiam easdem causas utrisque erit scire_: this
Kiderlin would at once convert into ‘quis etiam _illud utile neget_
(or, negat esse utile) easdem causas ut quisque egerit,
scire’?—comparing xii. 10. 48 ceterum hoc quod vulgo sententias
vocamus ... quis utile neget? But _ut quisque_ does not quite
satisfy him. In the sequel reference is made to cases in which two and
even three orators have handled the same theme: Kiderlin therefore
proposes _ut duo tresque_ for the MS. _utrisque_. The passage
would then run: ‘quis etiam _illud utile neget_ (negat esse utile?)
easdem causas u_t duo_ tr_e_sque (tresve?)
e_g_eri_n_t, scire?’ The position of _easdem causas_ is due to
a desire for emphasis: and for the isolated position of _scire_ cp.
v. 7. 2 quo minus et amicus pro amico et inimicus contra inimicum possit
verum, si integra sit ei fides, dicere.
191
§28.
poeticam ostentationi comparatam. This is Schöll’s conj. for the
MSS. _genus ostent. comparatum_, which is however defended by
Becher in Bursian’s Jahresb. (1887), p. 40: he contends that the
feminine participles below (_adligata_, _depulsa_) refer to
_poesis_, present in the mind of the writer, and that the text of
the MSS. is simply a case of constr. κατὰ σύνεσιν: cp. ix. 2. 79: ib. 3 §3, and such
passages as Cic. Or. §68 ego autem etiamsi quorundam grandis et ornata
vox est poetarum, tamen in ea (sc. poesi), &c. This would support
also the traditional reading _nescio an ulla_ §65 below, where see note. Becher
explains the MS. reading as = genus (sc. poeticum or hoc genus) ostent.
comp. (esse)—Halm prints _genus * * * ostent._, and
supposes that _poeseos_ has fallen out.—For _genus_ cp.
§68: de Or. ii. §55, where
_genus hoc_ = history.
Schöll’s argument (Rhein. Mus. 34, p. 86) is that Quintilian
cannot have passed from _genus_ to _adligata_: Halm’s _genus
poeseos_ is not probable, in the light of Quintilian’s avoidance of
the word _poesis_ (cp. xii. 11. 26, where it occurs once, and there
only in A _in rasura_—GM giving _poetas_, which was
probably at first the reading also of A: there Halm and Meister now read
_poetica_). The text may have been altered by interpolation from
viii. 3. 11: namque illud genus (sc. demonstrativum) ostentationi
compositum solam petit audientium voluptatem,—from which passage
_genus_ may have been written in where the Greek ποιητικήν had fallen out, giving rise
to comparat_um_. Meister, who adopts _poeticam_, thinks it
probable that the Greek word started the corruption. Other suggestions
are _praeter id quod_, _genus ost. comp._, _sol. petit
vol._ (Hild),—a transposition which does no good, especially as
it leaves no subject to ‘iuvari’: _figurarum sed esse hoc eloquentiae
genus ost. comp. et ... iuvari_ (Binde); _fig._, _ingenuam
ost. comparatam artem_ (Gemoll); Kiderlin (Hermes 23, p. 164)
thinks we ought to assume a lacuna, and would read _poeticam (or
poesin?) ut illud demonstrativum genus_, _ostentationi
comparatam_: cp. ii. 10. 11: v. 10. 43: iii. 7. 28: viii. 3. 11.
§30.
neque ego: Spald., Frotscher, Herbst, Halm, Meister. _Neque
ergo_ all MSS. Bonnell and Frieze retain the reading of the MSS., the
latter explaining _ergo_ ‘viz. because I have given this caution to
the orator about too close imitation of the poetic manner.’
§31.
quodam uberi: Spald. for _quodam moveri_ of GH and all MSS.
except Harl. 4995, Vail.2 and Burn. 243, which give _quodam
molli_. Kiderlin suggests _quodammodo uberi_, thinking that
_uberi_ became _ueri_, while the letters _mo_ (in
_moveri_) point to _modo_: cp. ix. 1. 7 where A has
_quomo_ for _quomodo_, and xi. 3. 97 where b has _homo_
for _hoc modo_. In the margin of Bodl. and Dorv. (both which have
_moveri_) I find _quodammodo vero_.
est enim, H, which (like G) has _est_ also
after _solutum_. Halm adopts Osann’s conjecture _etenim_:
Kiderlin suggests _ea enim_ or _ista enim_, which may be
right. Becher defends the double _est_ (GH), comparing ix.
3. 7 quod minus mirum est, quia in natura verborum est, and i. 3. 14
(reading servile est et ... iniuria est).
poetis, H, following b: _poesi_ Spald. ‘recte ut
videtur,’ Halm.
§33.
adde quod, Regius followed by Meister and Krüger (3rd ed.).
_audeo quia_ GH; _audio quia_ L S Bodl. Ball. Harl. 2662,
&c. Halm adopted Geel’s conj. _ideoque_: and the Bonn. Meister
ed. reads _adeo_. Becher proposes _quid? quod_: Kiderlin _id
eo magis (fortius) dicere audeo_. The last conj. revives what I find
is the reading of some old edd. (e.g. ed. Col. 1527 and Riccius 1570)
_quod dicere fortius audeo quia_, except that from _id eo_ the
eye might pass more easily to _audeo_.
opus, accepted from Spalding (who conjectured it
independently) by Halm and Meister, already appears in ed. Col. 1527 and
in that of Riccius 1570.
§34.
rerum exemplorumque. Kiderlin suspects a lacuna after
_rerum_ and suggests _ex cognitione rerum enim venit copia
exemplorum_. His argument is that
192
while ‘ex cognitione rerum’ might serve as a sort of explanation of ‘ex
historiis,’ ‘exemplorumque’ must also be accounted for, and that after
‘locum’ we expect to hear what advantage is derived from historical
literature, not from what that advantage arises. The omission by a
copyist of _enim venit copia_ explains how _exemplorum_ comes
to be joined with _rerum_: cp. xii. 4. 1 in primis vero abundare
debet orator exemplorum copia cum veterum tum etiam novorum, and esp.
ii. 4. 20 et multa inde cognitio rerum venit exemplisque, quae sunt in
omni genere potentissima, iam tum instruit, cum res poscet, usurum. For
_ne omnia_ (Badius and Vall.2) the codd. give _nec
omnia_, which Becher prefers.
§35.
vitio factum est oratorum. G gives _est orum_ with _al.
oratorum_ written in above by the hand which Halm calls b. H (with
FTLS Bodl.) gives _est alia oratorum_,—one of many strong
indications that it was copied from G: for _alia_ some MSS. give
_alias_. Halm (ii. p. 369) thinks that _orum_ in G may
have stood for _rhetorum_.
quae sunt istis. GHLS and Vall. all give _sint_. But
iniusta, inhonesta, inutilia are as definite as their contraries.
Stoici supplied by Meister, whom Krüger follows. Kiderlin
would place it after _maxime_, just as _Socratici_ stands
after _optime_. Perhaps _Stoici_ and _Socratici_ are both
glosses. Quint. may simply be saying that philosophical reading improves
the matter of oratory (_de iustis_, &c.) and also the form (by
_altercationes_ and _interrogationes_). _Stoici_ looks
appropriate to _de rebus divinis_ (see note): and _argumentantur
acriter_ is quite in place as referring to the Stoic logic, renowned
for its acuteness (Zeller, Epic. & Stoics, p. 118): but on the
other hand _interrogationibus_ would be as apt in regard to them as
to the Socratics. Cp. de Or. i. §43 Stoici vero nostri disputationum
suarum atque _interrogationum_ laqueis te inretitum tenerent.
On the alternative explanation of the passage mentioned in the note,
_altercationibus_ and _interrogationibus_ are taken as datives
(as often in Quint. after _praeparo_), referring to two
well-understood parts of the duty of a counsel in an action-at-law. As
regards the _altercatio_ indeed, previous writers on rhetoric had
not stated any special rules for its conduct, probably (as Quint., in
his treatment of the subject, suggests vi. 4. 1) because it was
sufficiently covered by precepts of a more general kind. In a
court-of-law, the _altercatio_ was a discussion carried on between
opposing advocates in the way of short answers or retorts: it followed
(when resorted to) the examination of the witnesses, which was in Roman
usage _preceded_ by the main speeches for the prosecution and
defence, embracing all the facts of the case (Cic. in Verr. i. 1 §55).
Cp. Cic. Brut. §159 iam in altercando (Crassus) invenit parem
neminem.—See Poiret, _L’éloquence judiciaire à Rome_
pp. 212-216.
§37.
qui sint legendi. Halm, Meister: GHL and all MSS. _qui sint.
Legendi_ appears in ed. Col. 1527, and I have found it also inserted
by a later hand above the line in the Bodleian codex. It may have fallen
out because of _legendo_ above, and Spalding is probably right in
regarding it as indispensable. There seems however no reason for
eliminating the asyndeton by reading _et quae_ (with Meister) or
_quaeque_ (Halm). Kiderlin (Hermes, 23, 1888 p, 160) suggests that
the original may have run _qui sint qui prosint_: cp. 2 §14 tum in ipsis quos
elegerimus quid sit ad quod nos efficiendum comparemus: xii. 2. 4 quid
sit quod memoriam faciat. This suits the context, cum tantum
_utilitatis_ in legendo iudicemus, and §40 paucos enim ... utilitatis
aliquid. Cp. ii. 5. 20 nec prodesse tantum sed etiam amari potest
(Cicero).
§38.
[quibuscum vivebat] is bracketed by Krüger (3rd ed.), as it had
already been by Frotscher and Herbst. This reading first appears in the
Aldine edition: the only MS. in which I have been able to find any trace
of it is Burn. 243, where _quibuscum convivebat_ is inserted as a
correction. Some have refused to recognise it as a gloss, in spite of
the uncertainty of the MSS., and have sought to interpret it ‘with whom
he lived in close, familiar intercourse’ (opp. to quos viderim §§98, 118): cp. Cic. de
193
Off. i. §143 quibuscum vivimus, ib. §46. But in Brut. §231 Cicero
distinctly says in hoc sermone nostro statui neminem eorum qui viverent
nominare, whence Jeep was led to conj. _qui quidem viverent_:
Hortensius, for example, was ‘aetatis suae,’ but had died four years
before the date of the Brutus. So Geel conjectured _qui tum
vivebant_ (a reading which however I find in the ed. Col. 1527
and Riccius 1570): Törnebladh _qui quidem tum vivebant_, Wrobel
_qui tunc vigebant_ (cp. §122), Zambaldi _ut quisque tum
vivebat_, and Kiderlin _qui quidem nondum e vita excesserant_;
see Rhein. Mus. 46, p. 23. Andresen proposed to read _qui quidem
sescenti erant_.
G (and practically H) gives _quidqui convivebit_. FT part
company with H, the former reading _quod quid convivabit_, the
latter _quidque contuuebit_ (man. sec. _quod quisque
contuebat_). Many MSS. (e.g. Bodl. Ball. Harl. 2662, 4995 LS) have
_quid quisque convivebat_ (_convivabit_ L). The
Carcassonensis gives _quid quod convivabit_.
persequamur [et philosophos]. _Persequamur_ is a conj. of
Regius adopted by Meister: all MSS. give _et Graecos omnes et
philosophos_ (_philosophis_ HFT). In Harl. 4995 (which is dated
A.D. 1470) I have however found
_et philosophos exequar_: and so (Becher) a later hand in Vall. The
reading of the ed. Col. 1527 is _Graecos omnes et philosophos et
poetas persequi velim_.
Schmidt, followed by Halm, rejected _et philosophos_ as a gloss,
as both here and in the next sentence Quint. is evidently speaking of
orators only. Certainly, if it stood, we should expect the poets and
historians to come in also. Accordingly Claussen (Quaest. Quint.
p. 335) suspected a lacuna consisting both of the finite verb and
the poets and historians: Krüger (3rd ed.) adopts his conjecture and
reads _si et illos et qui postea fuerunt et Graecos omnes persequamur
et poetas et historicos et philosophos?_ He cps. 1 §25 nam si, quantum de quaque re
dici potest, persequamur, finis operis non reperietur: v. 10. 91: viii.
5. 25. So Andresen (Rhein. Mus. 30, p. 520), except that he omits
‘persequamur,’ and proposes to read above _de Romanis tantum_ et
_oratoribus_ for _et_ in sense of ‘and that’: cp. §§51, 94. Gertz suggests _et Graecos omnes
persequi velis nec oratores tantum, sed etiam poetas et historicos et
philosophos_. Kiderlin (Berl. Jahr. xiv. 1888, p. 62 sq.)
prefers _persequamur_ because of _iudicemus_ and
_adiungamus_ above. If the verb could be dispensed with, he would
propose ‘et praeter hos oratores etiam omnes poetas et historicos et
philosophos,’—arguing that et praeter hos and philosophos may have
run together in the eye of the copyist and so caused the lacuna. For
_et philosophos_ Jeep suggested _explico novos_.
§39.
fuit igitur, all codd.: _fuerit_, Regius. That the
difficulty of the passage was felt by the early editors is obvious from
this emendation, and also from the fact that in §40 the traditional reading has been
_non est tamen_ (for _non est_): _sed non est_, Spalding:
_at non est_ Osann.
Taking §§37-45
as they stand the sequence of thought seems to be
this: ‘If I am asked to recommend individual writers I shall have to
take refuge in some such utterance as that of Livy. His _dictum_
was “read Demosthenes and Cicero first, and let others follow in the
order of their resemblance to Demosthenes and Cicero.” Mine is that
there is some good to be got out of almost every author,—except of
course the utterly worthless. But (_sed non quidquid_, &c. §42) the particular object I
have in view itself supplies a limitation for what would otherwise be an
endless task (_infiniti operis_ §37). My business is the formation of
style. In regard to this matter there is a difference of opinion—a
cleavage between the old school and the new (see esp. §43). This opens up the whole question of the
various _genera dicendi_, a detailed examination of which I must
postpone: for the present I shall take the various departments of
literature (_genera lectionum_ §45) and mention in connection
therewith certain representative writers who may serve as models for the
students of style (_(iis) qui confirmare facultatem dicendi
volent_).’
This seems satisfactory enough, especially in the case of so loose a
writer as Quintilian.
194
§§39 and 40 are parallel, instead of being antithetical: §39 says ‘Livy’s prescription was the
safest,’ while §40 gives a
general utterance on the part of Quintilian. In each deliverance
_brevitas_ is meant to be the distinguishing characteristic of
individual representatives of poetry, history, oratory, and
philosophy.
In his _Beiträge zur Heilung der Ueberlieferung in Quintilians
Institutio Oratoria_ (Cassel, 1889), Dr. Heinrich Peters makes some
very drastic proposals in regard to the sections under discussion. He
fails to see any satisfactory connection between the purport of §§40-42 and that of §§37-39. And he thinks the statement
of a _summa iudicii_ in §40 is inconsistent with the special
treatment of individual authors which begins at §46. On these and other grounds he
proposes to transfer §§40-42 (down to _accommodatum_) to §44 and read: _interim non est
dissimulanda nostri quoque iudicii summa_. _Summa iudicii_ then
furnishes the antithesis to _disseram diligentius_: _nostri
quoque iudicii_ receives additional point from the reference to
conflicting views which immediately precede it: an explanation is gained
of the emphasis laid in §§40-41 on the distinction between the
_veteres_ and the _novi_,—the later sections §§43-44 explain the preceding
(§§40-42): and the transition from Livy’s dictum in §39 to _verum antequam de
singulis_ in §42 is
natural and easy. Then Dr. Peters would propose to continue: _quid
sumat_ (for _summatim_, see below) _et a qua lectione petere
possit qui confirmare facultatem dicendi volet attingam_. This gives
a very satisfactory and even a necessary sequel, he thinks, to _non
quidquid ... accommodatum_. Sections 40-42 are then addressed, not to the
student of rhetoric, but to the disputants who quarrel over the
comparative merits of the _veteres_ and the _novi_: Quintilian
says ‘something may be learned from everybody.’ Then he continues ‘for
the formation of style a selection is necessary, and that I now proceed
to make under the two heads of what the student is to appropriate and to
whom he is to go for it.’
quae est apud Livium, &c. Schöll unnecessarily conjectured
_qua praecipit Livius_ (cp. ii. 5. 20) or _qua apud Livium in ep.
ad fil. praescribitur_,—doubting if _brevitas_ could have
an acc. and infin. depending on it. But see note. G gives _quae
apud Livium epistula_, _in_ being inserted by the second hand,
which H as usual follows.
§42.
ad faciendam φράσιν. This is the reading now proposed by
Kiderlin (in Hermes, vol. xxiii. p. 161), though φράσιν appeared as early as the edition
of Riccius (1570). The following are the MSS. readings _ad farisin_
G: _ad faciendam etiam ad farisin_ H (_affaresim_ S. Harl.
2662 Bodl. Ball. _apharesim_ Harl. 4295) _ad faciendam
affarisin_ L. Meister adopts the vulgate, _ad faciendam etiam
phrasin_: Halm reads _ad phrasin_.
The parallel passage in §87 clearly makes for
_faciendam_. The probability is that ‘phrasin’ was originally
written in Greek, as at viii. 1 §1: cp. ἕξις in §1: §59: 5 §1, where the MSS. vary between
_ex his_, _lexis_, _exitum_, &c.: τροπικῶς §11. Cp. on §87. Two Paris MSS. (acc. to Zumpt)
show ἀφέρεσιν.
_Etiam_ Kiderlin rejects: perhaps however the true reading may be
_protinus_ et _ad faciendam_ φράσιν.
de singulis loquar, G man. 2 H L and Vall. Halm omits
_loquar_, with G.
§44.
tenuia atque quae. In a very interesting note (Programm des
königlichen Gymnasiums zu Aurich, 1891, p. 8) Becher establishes
the correctness of this reading, instead of the traditional _tenuia et
quae_. The Vallensis has _tenuia atque que_ (i.e. _atque
quae_): for what may appear a cacophony, Becher compares i. 3. 8
atque ea quoque quae, Cic. de Leg. Agr. ii. 33. 90 atque qui. ‘That V
(Vall.) has preserved the true reading is confirmed by the other
codices: not only S, which gives _tenia atque que_, but also GL
[and H], _tenui atque_, which is nothing else than tenui
AtQUE, i.e. tenuia atque quae.’ In the Rh. Mus. xi. (‘zur Kritik
der ciceronischen Briefe’ pp. 512-13) Buecheler says, ‘One of the
commonest sources of corruption in the Florentine codex is that when two
“consonant syllables” follow each other, one is omitted. The
195
reason of this phenomenon is probably the fact that in the archetype of
which this MS. is an indirect copy the sounds which were to be repeated
were distinguished by letters of a larger size.’ Becher finds the same
phenomenon in the manuscripts of Quintilian, and gives the following
examples, selected at random from many others: §45 aliquos G(H)LSV, i.e.
aliQUOS = aliquos quos: §54 reddit G(H)V, i.e.
redDIt = reddidit (so cod. Almen.): §79 auditoris S (audituris G,
also H), i.e. auditorIs = auditoriis (as Vall. M: also Ball.
Dorv. Burn. 244 Harl. 4829, 4995): ibid. comparat GMS (and all my codd.)
i.e. compARat = compararat: §84 probandoque G (and H) =
probandoQUE: §89
etiam sit G (see Crit. Note _ad loc._) = etiam SIt. Especially
significant is ix. 4. 41 o fortunatam me consule Romam AGM, i.e. o
fortuNATAM me consule Romam.—Becher finds a further ground
for _atque_, as connecting ‘quae minimum ab usu cotidiano recedunt’
more closely than _et_, in the fact that already in Cicero
_tenuis_ is used of a person of the commoner sort, ‘unus de
multis,’ de Leg. iii. 10. 24.
lenis ... generis. For _lenis_ Krüger (3rd ed.) reads
_levis_, adopting a conj. of Meyer (Halm ii. p. 369) for which
cp. §52 (levitas verborum)
and v. 12. 18 (levia ac nitida): supported by Becher Phil. Runds. iii.
14. 430. In this sense _levis_ (λεῖος) is opp. to _asper_: cp. de Orat. iii. §171
struere verba sic ut neve asper eorum concursus neve hiulcus sit, sed
quodam modo coagmentatus et _levis_: cp. §172: Orat. §20: Quint.
ii. 5. 9 _levis_ et quadrata compositio: de Orat. iii. §201 levitas
coniunctionis: Brut. §96: de Opt. Gen. Or. §2: Quint. viii. 3. 6.
interim. H. Peters would prefer _nunc_ (if the text
stands as it is), comparing v. 11. 5; 14. 33: ix. 4. 19.
summatim quid et a qua. Kiderlin approves of Meister’s
retention of the vulgate: _petere_ must have an object. So Krüger,
3rd ed. The original reading in G is _sumat et a qua_, corrected to
_sumat quia et a qua_, which occurs in HFTL. Bodl. Ball, and my
other MSS. agree with S in reading _summa_ for _sumat_. Even
if the text stands (without his proposed inversion) H. Peters would
prefer _quid sumat et a qua_, as nearer the MSS.
§45.
paucos enim qui sunt eminentissimi. Meister and Krüger 3rd ed.
have _paucos_ (_sunt enim em._) =‘nur wenige’: cp. hos (sc.
tantum) §91. Halm reads
_paucos enim_ (_sunt autem em._) GH give _paucos enim sunt
em_. L and the British Museum MSS. all read _paucos sunt
enim_. The text is that of ed. Col. 1527 adopted by Zambaldi, and
approved by Kiderlin: cp. §101 qui sunt dulciores: ix 4. 37
quae sunt asperiores. Osann proposed _paucos enim_, _sunt
enim_.
his simillimi, Halm, supported by Becher, who compares §39: _his similes_ Meister and
Krüger (3rd ed.). G has _hi similibus_, corrected by the same
hand to _simillimis_: H gives _his simillimis_: all the
other MSS. _his simillimi_.
plures is the common reading, and occurs in Harl. 4995, and
also Vall. (Becher). GHFT give _plurimis_: LS and the later MSS.
generally _plurimos_. Kiderlin proposes _pluris iis_ as being
nearer _plurimis_. The pronoun, he argues, is not superfluous,
because Quintilian is distinguishing between ‘qui confirmare fac. dic.
volent’ (i.e. those who have finished their rhetorical studies and want
practice) and the ‘studiosi’ (young men busy with theory). The latter
will read more authors than those for whom _this_ book is intended,
its aim being (§4) to instruct the young orator (after the stage of
theory) how best and most readily to use what he has acquired.—For
_aliquos quos_ see on _tenuia atque quae_ §44 above.
qui a me nominabuntur, ed. Col. 1527; GH have _quia
nom_.: Vall. LS _qui nom_. Hertz rejects _a me_, and he may
be right.
§46.
omnium fluminum. GHL Bodl. _annium_: S Harl. 2662, 4950,
Ball. _amnium vim_. Halm, following Osann, read _omnium
amnium_: but though _omnium_ is necessary (cp. πάντες ποταμοί Il. 21. 196),
Quintilian would surely have avoided such
196
a cacophony as _omnium amnium_. Wölfflin conjectured _omnium
fluminum_ (Rhein. Mus. 42, Pt. 1, 1887, p. 144), and this is now
accepted by Meister (vol. ii. p. 362 and Pref. to Book x,
p. xiii). Wölfflin supposes that the archetype had _omnium
fontiumque_, _fluminum_ having fallen out: _omnium_ was
then corrected into _amnium_. _Amnis_ however is rare, and
_fluminum_ not only secures an apt alliteration, but is constantly
found: cp. §78 puro fonti
quam magno flumini propior: viii. 3. 76 magnorum fluminum navigabiles
fontes: Lucr. iv. 1024: v. 261, 945 (‘fluvii fontesque’): Ovid Met. i.
334.
§47.
ac consiliorum L: _hac con._ G: _et con._ Prat. Put.
_atque con._ 7231, 7696.
§48.
operis sui ingressu: _operis si ingressus_ GH: _operis
sui_ Bodl.: _operis_ Prat. Put. S Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950, Dorv.
Ball. Badius conj. _ingressu_, and Halm added _in_, which is
however unnecessary: cp. iv. 1. 34 operum suorum principiis: iv. pr. 4
initiis operum suorum. Becher keeps _ingressus_, but makes it a
genitive dependent on _versibus_.
Two Oxford MSS (Bodl. and Dorvilianus) give _nam_ for
_non_, and in the former case the _nam_ looks very like
_viam_. It is possible that _viam_ may be the true reading:
cp. ii. 10. 1 quarum (materiarum) antequam viam ingredior ... pauca
dicenda sunt,—though there the phrase refers to entering on the
_regular treatment_ of a subject. _Age vero_ is not always
found with questions, Hand Turs. i. p. 211. Without _non_, the
reading may possibly be _age vero viam utriusque operis ingressus, in
paucissimis_, &c. The _si_ after _operis_ may have
arisen from operi s ingressus. The MSS. are unanimous for
_ingressus_, and the awkwardness of operis sui ingressu in pauc.
vers. makes it very probable that something is wrong. _Utrumque opus
ingressus_ would have been more natural: _viam utriusque operis
ingressus_ is not far off it. Perhaps however it would be preferable
to keep the question and read _nonne viam ut. op. ingressus_.
nam benevolum. _nam et ben_, Put. 7231, 7696: so too the
Carcassonensis.
§49.
ceteraque genera. GHL and the Brit. Mus. MSS. give _ceteraque
quae_: so too Bodl. and Ball. _Genera_ was conjectured by Caesar
(Philol. xiii. p. 757). Schöll (in Krüger 3rd ed.) proposes
_ceteraeque viae ... multae_: Kiderlin _ceteraque, quae probandi
ac refutandi sunt, nonne sunt ita multa ut ... petant?_ For _quae
... sunt_ he compares §106 omnia denique quae sunt
inventionis.
§50.
ut magni sit. G Burn. 243: Ball.: Bodl.: _sint_ H: _ut
magni sit viri_ Prat. Put. 7231, 7696, S, Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950,
4829, Dorv., Burn. 244 (_sint_ L): _ut magnum sit_,
Gensler: _ut magni sit spiritus_, Kiderlin (cp. i. 9. 6).
§51.
et in omni: _et_ om. Prat. and Put.
clarissima LS and most codd.: _durissima_ GHT Prat. Put.
7231, 7696, Dorv.
§52.
utiles circa praecepta, &c. Kraffert proposed _utilis circa
praecepta sententiasque levitas verborum_ ... With _praecepta_
may there not have been a genitive in the original text: _utilis circa
praecepta sapientiae_ (pr. §19: i. 4. 4: xii. 1. 28), or perhaps
_utiles circa morum praecepta sententiae_ (xii. ii. 9)?
§53.
secundum Prat. Put. 7231, 7696, Vall. LS Harl. 2662, 4995 Dorv.
Ball.: om. GHFT Bodl. Halm, following Hertz, gives _parem_ (cp. §127 pares ac saltem proximo):
_aequalem_ would be as probable, and is given by some MSS. in §55. Schöll now thinks
_secundum_ an old interpolation, and conjectures _quam sit aliud
atque aliud proximum esse_, cp. i. 7. 2: ix. 4. 90.
§54.
poetarum iudices Prat. Put. 7231, 7696, LS Ball. _iudicium_
G, _iuditium_ H. Halm suspected it to be a gloss introduced
from the margin (cp. laus Ciceronis §109) and Mayor removed it from the
text.
reddidit cod. Almen.: _reddit_ GHFT Vall. Harl. 4995
Bodl. Burn. 243. _Edidit_ is given in Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 Harl.
2662, 4950, 4829 Dorv. and Ball., besides L and S.
sufficit MSS.: Halm would prefer _suffecit_ (cp. §123). For _parem_ many MSS.
197
give _equalem_, which must have been a gloss: S has _equalem
credidit parem_, and so Prat. (Fierville Introd. p. lxxix) Harl. 2662 (A.D. 1434) and 11671 (A.D. 1467).
§56.
Macer atque Vergilius. Unger suggested _Valgius_ for
Vergilius. This is however unnecessary, though it has been proposed to
insert the comma after _Vergilius_ instead of after _idem_
below.
§59.
adsequimur GHS Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 Bodl. Ball. Dorv. and
British Mus. MSS. (except 4950 which gives C and L’s _assequatur_
and 4829 which has _assecuntur_). Halm reads _adsequamur_, and
is followed by Meister. Krüger (3rd ed.) proposes _ut
adsequamur_.
§60.
quibusdam quod quoquam minor est. GH give _quibus_ for
quibusdam: Prat. Put. S and all my MSS. have _quibusdam quod quidem
minor est_: (_minoris_ Bodl. Burn. 243): _quod quodam_
7696. Wölfflin (Rhein. Mus. xlii. Pt. 2, p. 310) proposes _quod
idem amarior est_: _amarus_ (§117) indicates the excess of
_acerbitas_ (§96) which might be alleged against Archilochus for
his lampoons on Lycambes. Cp. iamborum amaritudinem Tac. Dial. 10. But
_quoquam_ (Madv. 494 b) does not necessarily imply that there
_is_ any one superior to the great Archilochus, though, outside the
range of iambographi, Homer is always present (§65) to the writer’s
mind. _Quoquam_ is not to be restricted to the narrow circle of
iambic writers, otherwise _materiae_ would have no point.
Quintilian means that Archilochus must be ranked immediately after
Homer, if indeed the disadvantage of his subject-matter forbids us to
place him alongside of Homer. That he had a schoolmaster’s liking for an
‘order of merit’ is shown by §§53, 62, 85, 86.
§61.
spiritu, magnificentia, Put. 7696 S Harl. 2662, 4995, 11671,
Dorv.: _spiritus_ H (_sps._) Prat. 7231 Harl. 4950 Burn. 243
Bodl. Ball., and so Halm and Meister. The strongest argument for the
abl. is that the nouns go together in pairs,—spiritu
magnificentia, sententiis figuris, copia ... flumine. So Claussen
(Quaest. Quint. p. 334), who compares Dion. Hal. ἀρχ. κρ. 2. 5, p. 420 R
ζηλωτὸς δὲ καὶ Πίνδαρος ὀνομάτων καὶ νοημάτων εἵνεκα, καὶ
μεγαλοπρεπείας καὶ τόνου, καὶ περιουσίας .... καὶ
σχηματισμῶν.
§62.
Stesichorum Badius: _iste sichorus_ GH: _Stesichorus_
Bodl. 7696: _Stesicorus_ Harl. 4995: other MSS. _Terpsichorus_
or _Terpsicorus_.
§63.
magnificus et diligens et plerumque oratori similis: GH
_magnificus et dicendi et plerumque orationis similis_; so Burn.
243 and Bodl. (_orationi_); most other MSS. _et diligens
plurimusque_ (_plurimum_ or _plurimumque_) _Homero
similis_: _plurimumque oratio_, Prat. Put.: _plerumque
orationis_ 7231, 7696. Halm gives _dicendi vi_, which, after
_in eloquendo_, would be strange. Wölfflin proposes _elegans
et_ (for dicendi et, diligens et): cp. §§78, 83, 87, 93, 114, and Dion. Hal. l.c. Ἀλκαίου δὲ σκόπει τὸ μεγαλοφυὲς καὶ βραχὺ καὶ ἡδὺ μετὰ δεινότητος
... καὶ πρὸ πάντων τὸ τῶν πολιτικῶν πραγμάτων ἦθος. Halm’s
_dicendi vi_ rested on μετὰ δεινότητος, but we need not suppose that
Quintilian translated word for word from Dionysius. With _in eloquendo_,
_diligens_ seems quite appropriate: i. §3 cum sit in eloquendo
positum oratoris officium.
Sed et lusit, Prat. Put. Voss. 1 and 3: _sed et eius sit_
GH: _sed in lusus_ MS Ball. Dorv.: _sed editus sit_ Bodl.
§64.
eius operis: _ei_ GH: _eius_ M Bodl. Burn. 243:
_eiusdem_ Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 S, Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950, 4829,
Burn. 244, Dorv., Ball. In Prat. and Put. the order is _in hac parte
omnibus eum eiusdem operis_.
§65.
est et in. The MSS. give _etsi est_: Wölfflin conjectured
_est et_, and Halm, (following some old edd.) inserted _in_,
comparing §§64 and 68. So too Meister. _Etsi_ may
have crept into the text to anticipate _tamen_ (ii. 5. 19): or the
true reading may be _est et etsi in_. Schöll suggests (Krüger, 3rd
ed. p. 92) that the passage ought to run as follows:—_ant.
com. cum sincera illa sermonis Attici gratia prope sola retinet_
198
_vim_ (_dum_ G, _tum_ vulg.) _fac. libertatis, et si
est in insect. vitiis praecip._, _plur. tamen_, &c.
nescio an ulla. This is the reading of Prat. Put. 7231, 7696,
M, S, Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950, 11671, Dorv. Ball., and if it can be
sustained, the sense it gives is quite satisfactory. We must suppose
that _poesis_ (probably the only fem. noun that would suit) was
present in the writer’s mind: see on _poeticam_ §28 above.
But in Quint. _poesis_ occurs only once (cp. on §28),—at xii. 11. 26, where it
is not used of a special branch of poetry, as here; and even there a
doubt has been expressed about the reading. Kiderlin therefore urges
(Hermes 23, p. 163) that it is incredible that Quintilian would
have left his readers to supply for themselves a word which he uses only
once, if at all: _ullum genus_ would surely have occurred to him,
as both genus and opus are constantly used to denote departments of
literature. Again the text gives _post_ not _praeter_ Homerum.
Founding on the reading _an illa_ (GHFT Burn. 243 Bodl.) Kiderlin
therefore suggests _an illa poeta ullo post_ &c.: ‘und ich
weiss nicht, ob nicht jene mehr als irgend ein Dichter (nach Homer
jedoch, &c.).’ The copyist would easily wander from _poet._ to
_post_, and it is not unusual to compare old comedy &c. with
the poets and not their works (cp. similior oratoribus: historia proxima
poetis est §31: at non
historia cesserit Graecis §101); especially as here _post
Homerum_ follows at once. For _ullo_ cp. §60 quod quoquam minor est. An
alternative emendation would be _poesi ulla_.
The _aut ... aut_ immediately below is very much against this
conjecture, which however Krüger (3rd ed.) has received into the text:
we should expect rather _nescio an illa quisquam_, or _nullus
poeta_, or keeping _illa_ as nominative _nescio an illa poeta
ullo_. Quintilian’s use of _nescio an_ (like that of
post-Augustan writers generally) is vague: it is usually an expression
of doubt, the _an_ meaning either ‘whether,’ or ‘whether not’
indifferently. Cp. ix. 4. 1: vi. 3. 6: viii. 6. 22: xii. 10. 2: i. 7.
24. (Mayor cites also Plin. Ep. i. 14. 9: iii. 1. 1: iv. 2. 1: v. 3. 7:
vi. 21. 3: vii. 10. 3: 19. 4: viii. 16. 3: ix. 2. 5; and adds ‘In all
these instances _nescio an_ (dubito an) is ‘I doubt whether’; in
Cicero the meaning is always ‘I rather think.’’) Andresen proposed
_nescio an ulla poeseos pars_. The passage closely resembles §28, and must be emended on the
same lines.
§66.
tragoedias. Thurot (Revue de Phil. 1880, iv. 1, p. 24)
conjectured _tragoediam_: cp. §67 hoc opus. He is followed by
Dosson, against all MS. authority. Becher points out that we must supply
with _hoc opus_ in §67
the words ‘tragoedias in lucem proferendi,’ so that _opus_ and
_tragoedias_ square well enough with each other.
§68.
quod ipsum reprehendunt, Meister, Krüger (3rd ed.) and Becher.
This reading also occurs in the Codex Dorvilianus. Other readings are
_quod ipsum quod_ GHT Burn. 243, Bodl.: _quo ipsum_ MS Harl.
2662, 4995, 4950, Ball. Halm conjectured _quem ipsum quoque_, and
was followed by Mayor and Hild. But as no fault has been found with
Euripides in the foregoing, _quoque_ seems out of place.
Founding on the reading of GHT, &c., also on that of F (which
gives _quod ipsum qui_) Kiderlin (Hermes 23, p. 165) proposes
to read _quod ipsum quidam_, comparing §98, where for _quem senes quem_
(GT) Spalding rightly conjectured _quem senes quidem_, and 7, §21, where Bn, Bg give
_quod_ for _quosdam_. He then goes on, in an interesting
paper, to reconstruct the whole passage, which is open to suspicion,
especially in respect that _sublimior_ stands as predicate with
_gravitas_ and _cothurnus_, as well as with _sonus_. The
admirers of Sophocles consider his elevation of tone more appropriate
than the strain of Euripides. _Sublimior_ is therefore perhaps
_not_ the predicate of the sentence, however suitable it may be as
the attribute of _sonus_. The predicate may have dropped out, and
_sublimior_ may have been transferred from its real place to supply
it. It is striking that GFTM (also H and Bodl.) all give _sublimior
erit_. Kiderlin imagines that a copyist who missed the predicate
wrote in the margin ‘sublimior erit ponendum
199
post esse’: and then another inserted _sublimior erit_ after
_esse_ in the text. For the predicate, _magis accommodatus_
might stand: in copying, the eye may have wandered from _magis
accommodatus_ to _magis accedit_: for _magis accomm._ cp.
ii. 5. 18 and x. 1. 79. Kiderlin therefore boldly proposes to make the
parenthesis run, ‘quod ipsum quidam reprehendunt quibus gravitas et
cothurnus et sublimior sonus Sophocli videtur esse magis accommodatus’:
‘was gerade manche tadeln, welchen das Würdevolle, der Kothurnus, und
der erhabenere Ton des Sophokles angemessener zu sein scheint.’
et dicendo ac respondendo 7231, 7696: _dicendo ac
respondo_ GH: _in dicendo et in respondendo_ Prat. Put. S (_et
respondendo_ M).
praecipuus. Hunc admiratus maxime est. This is Meister’s
reading, except that for _eum_ I give (with Prat. Put. 7231, 7696
Harl. 2662 and 4995) _hunc_, which is commoner in Quint. at the
beginning of a sentence (§§46, 78, 91, 112). The following are the
readings of the MSS.: GH _praecipuus et admiratus miratus_: M Bodl.
Harl. 4950, 4829, Burn. 244, C, Burn. 243 Ball. Dorv. _praecipuus et
admirandus_: S _praecipuum. Nunc admiratus et_: Prat. Put. Harl.
2262 and 11671 _praecipuus hunc admiratus et maxime est ut saepe test.
et sec. quamvis_: Harl. 4995, _hunc admiratus max. ut s. test. et
eum secutus quamquam_. Halm gives _praecipuus est. Admiratus maxime
est_: Kiderlin insists on the _est_ after _praecipuus_, to
correspond with _accedit_, though it seems better to take all that
comes after _accedit_ as an explanation of the statement _magis
accedit oratorio generi_: he also retains the _et_ of most MSS.
and reads _praecipuus est. hunc et admiratus_ (Blätter f. d. bayer.
Gymn. 24, p. 84). Wölfflin (partly followed by Krüger 3rd ed.)
proposed a more radical change (Rhein. Mus. 1887, 2 H. p. 313)
_praecipuus. Hunc imitatus_, quoting in support of the conjunction
_imitatus ... secutus_ §122, eos iuvenum imitatur et
sequitur industria: 5 §19, deligat quem sequatur,
quem imitetur: Ovid, Fasti v. 157, ne non imitata maritum esset et ex
omni parte secuta virum. But Kiderlin (l.c.) aptly remarks that if
Quintilian had written _imitatus_, he would not have said _ut
saepe testatur_ but _ut ex multis locis patet_ (_apparet,
videmus_): while vii. 4. 17 (on which Wölfflin relies) is not really
to the point. Moreover Quintilian, would never have separated such
synonyms as _imitatus_ and _secutus_ by _ut saepe
testatur_.
Charisi nomini addicuntur, Frotscher: _Charis in homine
adductura_ GH: _Charisii nomine eduntur_ Prat. Put. 7231, 7696
Harl. 2662 Dorv.
§70.
aut illa iudicia Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 Harl. 4995. GH Harl. 4950
give _aut illa mala iudicia_: Bodl. Burn. 243 _aut alia mala
iud._ S Harl. 2662 Dorv. and Ball. _aut alia iudicia._ The edd.,
following Gesner, have generally given (with Harl. 4950) _aut illa
mala iudicia_ (so Halm and Meister), and have taken _mala_ as
predicate, though the order of the words makes that impossible. Becher
approves of Andresen’s deletion of _mala_. Krüger (3rd ed.) prints
_mala [illa] iudicia_, thinking that _illa_ arose by
dittography, and that then the order was changed in the codd. to _illa
mala iudicia_. Kiderlin (in Hermes 23) gives as an alternative to
deleting _mala_ the conjecture _illa simulata iudicia_ (‘jene
erdichteten nachgemachten Gerichtsverhandlungen’; cp. xi. 1. 56: cum
etiam hoc genus simulari litium soleat). A similar mutilation
occurs, e.g., xi. 1. 20, where b gives _secum_ M _secus_
instead of _consecutum_.
§71.
filiorum militum, most codd.: _filiorum maritorum militum_
Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 S.
§72.
si cum venia leguntur. The reading of the MSS. is upheld by Iwan
Müller, Meister, and Kiderlin. Spalding suggested _cum verecundia_:
Schöll _cum iudicio_: Becher _cum ingenio_. Becher points out
(Bursians Jahresb. 1887) that the expression is meant to cover
_decerpere_ as well as _legere_, and _decerpere_
indicates careful and intelligent reading (cp. §69, _diligenter_ lectus): _cum
ingenio_ = ‘mit Verstand’: cp. Cic. ad Fam. xiii. 10. 2 quod
versabatur in hoc studio nostro .. et cum ingenio .. nec sine industria:
Ulp. Dig. 1. 16. 9 patientem esse proconsulem oportet, sed cum
200
ingenio, ne contemptibilis videatur. Finally, Krüger (3rd ed.) proposes
_cum acumine_ or _cum vigilantia_ (cp. v. 7. 10).—Prat.
Put. 7231, 7696 S Harl. 2662 all give Osann’s conjecture
_legantur_.
prave GH Harl. 4995, 4950 Burn. 243 Bodl.: _pravis_
Regius, Halm, Meister, Becher draws attention to the parallelism between
the clauses: _ut prave praelatus est sui temporis iudiciis, ita merito
creditur_ (= meruit credi) _secundus consensu omnium_.
§76.
nec quod desit ... nec quod redundet: H Burn. 243 and Bodl. give
_quod .. quod_: Prat. Put. MS Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950, Burn. 244,
Dorv. C, and Ball, _quid .. quid_. The latter reading is supported
by Becher (Phil. Rund. iii. 434). For _quod_ cp. xii. 10. 46: (xii.
1. 20 where for _quod adhuc_ BM give _quid adhuc_): on the
other hand, in vi. 3. 5 the MSS. are in favour of _quid_, though
Halm reads _quod_ (followed by Meister). For _quid_ cp. Cic.
pro Quint. §41, neque praeterea quid possis dicere invenio.
§77.
grandiori similis. So all MSS.: Halm and Meister. Several
conjectural emendations have been put forward. Comparing 2 §16 (fiunt pro grandibus
tumidi), Becher suggests _grandi oratori_,—an easy change, if
the copyist used contractions, but without point: above in §74, ‘oratori magis similis’ is
appropriate enough in speaking of _historians_, but ‘oratori’ would
be inappropriate here. This is accepted, however, by Hirt (Berl. Jahr.
ix., 1883, p. 312; cp. P. Hirt, Subst. des Adjectivums,
p. 12). Schöll proposes to read _gladiatori_ similis, in view
of the close connection with what follows, strictus ... carnis ...
lacertorum: but _plenior_ and _magis fusus_ are a bad
introduction to _gladiatori_, and if Aeschines had _plus
carnis_ and _minus lacertorum_, he cannot really have resembled
a gladiator. This reading is, however, adopted by Krüger (3rd ed.).
Finally, Kiderlin (Hermes 23, p. 166 sq.) has conjectured _et
grandi_ (or _grandiori_) _organo similis_, and applies the
figure throughout: ‘voller und breiter lässt Aeschines den Ton
hervorströmen, einem grossen Musikinstrumente gleich’: ‘einer Orgel
gleich,’—he is _grandisonus_. The translation appears to
limit unnecessarily the meaning of _plenus_ and _fusus_:
though the former is used of tone i. 11. 6 (cp. xi. 3. 15 of the voice:
ib. §§42, 62: and §55 of the breath): while _fusus_ is used of the
voice xi. 3. 64. For such a use of _grandis_ cp. §58 (cenae): §88 (robora): xi. 2. 12 (convivium):
3. 15 (vox): 68 (speculum): and for _organum_, i. 10. 25: ix. 4.
10: xi. 3. 20 (where there is a comparison between the throat and a
musical instrument): probably also i. 2. 30. There is an antithesis in
the two parts of the sentence between fulness and breadth, on the one
hand, and real strength on the other; and for the transition to the
second figure Kiderlin compares §33.
§78.
nihil enim est inane: perhaps ‘nihil enim est _in eo_ inane’
(Becher), or _nihil enim inest_.
§79.
honesti studiosus. Becher’s proposal to alter the punctuation of
this passage is discussed in the note _ad loc._—For
_auditoriis_ and _compararat_, see on _tenuia atque quae_
§44, above.
§80.
quem tamen. Kiderlin, in Hermes (23, p. 168), raises a
difficulty here. _Tamen_ shows that the clause cannot go with the
main statement (_fateor_), and its position forbids us to take it
with the _quamquam is primum_ clause: it can only go with _quod
ultimus est_, &c., ‘though Demosthenes is _ultimus fere_,
&c., _yet_ Cicero, &c.’ To prevent so awkward a joining of
the clauses, Kiderlin proposes to read _eumque tamen_: pointing out
that the _quae_ of the MSS. (GH) may have arisen out of _que_,
and that Quintilian may have written _eumque_; cp. vi. 2. 13, where
Halm makes _utque_ out of _quae_ (G), and xi. 2. 32, where
Meister reads _estque_. The meaning will then be: Demetrius is
worthy of record as being about the last, &c., and yet Cicero gives
him the first place in the _medium genus_.—It seems better,
however, to give _tamen_ a general reference: ‘yet, in spite of all
that can be said on the other side’ (e.g., inclinasse eloquentiam
dicitur). Cp. §99 quae tamen
sunt in hoc genere elegantissima.
201
§81.
prosam (prorsam) orationem et all MSS.; Halm,
Meister, Krüger (3rd ed.) omit _et_. I find that Becher
supports the view stated in the note _ad loc._: he would however
write _prorsam_, which the best MSS. give also in Plin. v. 31,
112 D.
quodam Delphici videatur oraculo dei instinctus: so Frotscher,
followed by Krüger (3rd ed.). On the other hand Claussen (Quaest.
Quint., p. 356) and Wölfflin (followed now by Meister, pref. to ed.
of Book x., p. 13) propose to delete _Delphici_, of which
Becher also approves. But the MS. evidence cannot be disregarded. The
following are the various readings: GH _quaedam Delphico videatur
oraculo de instrictus_, and so FT, the former giving also (by a later
hand) _de instinctus_, the latter _dei instructus_. Bodl.
gives _quodam delphico videatur oraculo dei instructus_. The most
frequent reading is that of Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 Harl. 2662, 4995,
4829, 11671, Ball. and most edd., _quodam delphico videatur oraculo
instinctus_: S agrees, but is reported to have _delphico_
after _oraculo_: Harl. 4950 and Burn. 244 have the same reading,
with _institutus_ corr. to _instinctus_: Burn. 243 gives
_instructus_. _Delphico_ was originally deleted by Caesar:
Phil xiii, p. 758. Halm read _tamquam Delphico videatur oraculo
instinctus_: but Quintilian would take no trouble to avoid the
repetition of _quidam_ (cp. divina quadam, above).—For the
arrangement of words, Krüger (3rd ed.) compares §41 qui ne minima quidem alicuius
certe fiducia partis memoriam posteritatis speraverit.
§82.
quandam persuadendi deam. Nettleship (Journ. of Philol., xxix,
p. 22) conjectures _Suadam_ [_persuadendi deam_],
comparing Brutus, §59, quoted _ad loc. Persuadendi deam_ would thus
become a gloss on _Suadam_: but the expression in the text is quite
in Quintilian’s style.
§83.
eloquendi suavitate: _eloquendi usus_ (or _usu_)
_suav._ GH and all codd. except Harl. 4950, and Dorv., both of
which give simply _eloq. suav._ Halm admitted into his text Geel’s
conj. for _usus_, ‘eloquendi _vi ac_ suavitate,’ and this has
met with some acceptance (Iwan Müller and Becher). But the parallel from
Dion. Hal., Ἀρχ. κρ. 4
is hardly conclusive: τῆς τε περὶ ἑρμηνείαν
δεινότητος ... καὶ τοῦ ἡδέος. Hirt properly remarks that the
agreement between the two is not so great as to allow of correcting the
one by the other. Kiderlin conjectures _eloquendi vi_,
_suavitate_, _perspicuitate_.
tam est loquendi. See note _ad loc._ for Kiderlin’s conj.
_tam manifestus est_. Though Meister’s _tam est eloquendi_ is
probably a misprint, it is found in some MSS.—Harl. 4950: Burn.
244.
§84.
sane non affectaverunt. Bodl. and Vall. (_veru_
subpunctuated in the latter: _affectant_ Prat. Put. 7231 MS Ball.
Dorv. Harl. 2662, 4995, 4829, 11671: _sene non adfectitacuerunt_ GH
Burn. 243: _adfectarunt_ 7696: _adfectitant_ Harl. 4950, and
so Burn. 244 (corrected from _affectant_).
§85.
haud dubie proximus. Halm inserted _ei_ after _dubie_,
though it is not found in any MS.: Regius had suggested _illi_.
Kiderlin (Hermes 23, p. 170) points out that if _propiores
alii_ in §88 is allowed
to stand without a dative, _ei_ is not necessary here. He suggests,
however, _illi_ before _alii_ in §88: both passages must be dealt with
in the same way.—For _haud_ (Vall.), GHS have _aut_: M
_haut_. Cp. on 3 §26.
§86.
ut illi ... cesserimus: _cum illi_ GHFT Harl. 4995 Burn.
243: _ut illi_ Prat. Put. 7231, 7696: and so S Harl. 4950 (with
_caelesti atque divinae_): _ut ille_ M Harl. 2662. Kiderlin
(Hermes, p. 170) proposes to go back to the reading of the older
MSS. _cum illi_, and instead of _cesserimus_ to read
_cesserit_, so as to make Vergil the subject throughout. _Cum_
cannot, he contends, be a copyist’s error, motived by _ita_; and it
is probable, therefore, that at first _cesserit a_ was
inadvertently written for _cesserit_; then (in G or some older MS.)
_cesserimus ita_ was made out of that, to correspond with
_vincimur_ below: and then in the later MSS. _cum_ was changed
to _ut_, because of _ita_. For the transition, with this
reading, from cesserit to the plural (_vincimur, pensamus_), he
202
compares §107, where, after
speaking of Demosthenes and Cicero, Quintilian passes to
_vincimus_.
§87.
sequentur MS Halm and Meister: _sequenter_ G _seq̅nt’_
H: _sequuntur_ Prat. Put. 7231, 7696.
φράσιν id est.
These words are omitted in the Pratensis, which is Étienne de Rouen’s
abridgement of the _Beccensis_, now lost. This is an additional
proof that φράσιν was
originally written in Greek: cp. on §42.
§88.
propiores H Prat. Put. Vall. Harl. 2662, 4495, 11671, Burn. 243.
Bodl., Halm: _propriores_ GMS 7231, 7696, Harl. 4950, C, Burn. 244,
Dorv., Meister. In Cicero and Quintilian _magis proprii_ would be
more usual for the latter.
§89.
etiam si sit. This conjecture of Spalding’s (for _etiam sit_
GH Bodl. &c.: _etiam si_ M Harl. 4950 Dorv.: _etiam sic_
Prat. Put. S Harl. 2662) I have found in the Balliol codex. 7231
and 7696 give _etiam si est_. Cp. note on _tenuia atque quae_
§44, above.
ut est dictum. These words were bracketed as a gloss by Halm,
and are now omitted altogether by Krüger (3rd ed.): see however note
_ad loc._ Döderlein proposed to place them after _poeta
melior_, Fleckeisen after _etiam si_.
Serranum is Lange’s conjecture for _ferrenum_ GHM:
_farrenum_ 7231, 7696 Harl. 2662, 11671: _Pharrenum_ Prat.
Put. Some MSS. (e.g. Vall. Harl. 4995, Burn. 243 and 244) give _sed
eum_, but it is obvious that the criticism of Severus stopped with
the word _locum_.
§90.
senectute maturuit ed. Col. 1527 and so 7231, 7696 (Fierville):
_senectutem maturbit_ GH: _senectute maturum_ Prat. Put. MS
Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950, Burn. 244, Dorv. and Ball.: _senectus
maturavit_ Bodl., Burn. 243.
et, ut dicam. Halm’s _sed_ instead of _et_ has been
rejected by later critics. Cp. Claussen (Quaest. Quint., p. 357
note): _sed_ ‘sententiam efficit ab hac operis parte alienam. Nam
cum oratori futuro exempla quaerantur oratoria virtus in quovis
scriptore laudi vertitur (§§46, 63, 65, 67, 74, &c.). Itaque
propter huius censurae consilium Quintilianus Lucani elocutionem
oratoriam laudat, sed ingenium poeticum una reprehendit.’
§91.
propius H Prat. Put. Burn. 243, Harl. 2662 and other codd.: Bodl.
Ball. Harl. 4950 _proprius_. Reisig conjectured _propitius_,
which also is apt; but in spite of _industrius_,
_necessarius_, cited in its support (cp. iv. 2. 27: vii. 1. 12), it
is too uncertain a form to be received into the text. Iwan Müller thinks
it would have to be _magis propitiae_. Halm gives _promptius_:
Wölfflin _pronius_: while Schöll now suggests _propitiae
potius_ (cp. iv. pr. §5: 2 §27: vii. 1. 12).
§92.
feres G Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 S Harl. 2662, 4829, Dorv., Ball.,
Halm.: _feras_ H, Harl. 4950, Burn. 243, Bodl. C and M, Meister and
Krüger (3rd ed.). Harl. 4995 has _fere_: from Vall. Becher reports
feras, ‘probably at first _feres_.’
elegea GH 7696, and so A2 BN Put. S at i. 8. 6.
§94.
abunde salis G Prat. Put. M and all my MSS. except H, Burn. 243,
Bodl. which have _abundantia salis_.
multum est tersior. The variety of MS. readings seems to point
to an _et_ wrongly inserted after _multum_, perhaps from a
confusion with ‘multum et ver gloriae’ below. GH give _multum et est
tersior_: M Harl. 4950, Bodl. Ball. C Dorv. Burn. 243 and also Harl.
4829 _multum etiam est t._: Prat. Put. 7231, 7696 S Harl. 2662,
11671 _multum est tersior_: while Harl. 4995 (and Vall.) has
_multo et est tersior_. Osann proposed _multo eo est tersior_:
Wölfflin _multo est tersior_: Halm and Meister print _multum eo
est tersior_. For _multum_, cp. multum ante xii. 6. 1: and see
Introd. p. li.
non labor GH Burn. 243 Bodl. and Meister: _nisi labor_
7231, 7696 S Harl. 2662, 4995, 4950, 4829, 11671, Burn. 244, Dorv. Ball.
C, and Halm. Prat. and Put. have _mihi labor_.
203
hodieque et qui: H, Prat., Put., 7231, 7696, Harl. 2662, 4829,
Bodl. Dorv.: _hodie et qui_ Burn. 243: _hodie quoque et qui_
Vall. Harl. 4995, 4950: _hodie quod et qui_ S.—Becher is
of opinion that the text will not bear the explanation given in the
note, and would read _hodie quoque et qui_: ‘es giebt auch heute
noch berühmte Satirendichter, die einst &c.’ _Et qui_ he takes
with _clari_, not with _hodie quoque_, the _et_ being
omitted in translation: clari (hodie quoque) qui (olim)
nominabuntur.
§95.
etiam prius. Founding on the classification given in Diomedes
(see note _ad loc._), according to which the _satura_ of
Pacuvius and Ennius preceded and was distinct from that of Lucilius,
Horace, and Persius, Claussen (Quaest. Quint., p. 337) thinks that
the true reading here may be _Alterum illud et iam prius_ Ennio
temptatum _saturae genus_, &c. For the satura of Ennius, cp.
ix. 2. 36. Iwan Müller points out that Ennius is not mentioned below
(§97), beside Attius and Pacuvius, probably because neither in tragedy
nor in satire did Quintilian consider him to have produced anything
helpful for the formation of an oratorical style. Other unnecessary
conjectures are _etiam posterius_, Gesner: _etiam proprium_,
Spald.: _etiam amplius_, L. Müller: _etiam verius_,
Riese: _alterum illud Lucilio prius sat. genus_, Krüger (3rd
ed.).
sola: _solum_ Prat. and Put.
collaturus quam eloquentiae. These words, omitted in GHS Bodl.
Burn. 243, occur in all my other codd.
§96.
sed aliis quibusdam interpositus: sc. carminibus, Christ. In H
the reading is _quibusdam interpositus_: so 7231, 7696 Bodl. and
Burn. 243: but M Harl. 4950, 4829 Burn. 244 Dorv. and Ball, give _a
quibusdam interpositus_: S _cuiusdam_: Prat. and Put. _opus
interpositus_. Osann conjectures _sed quibusdam_, and so Hild.
In the margin of Harl. 4995 is the variant _aliquibus
interpositis_.
In Hermes, vol. 23, p. 172, Kiderlin makes a fresh conjecture.
Recognising that something must have fallen out before _quibusdam_,
but dissatisfied with Osann’s _sed_ and Christ’s _sed aliis_,
he proposes to read _ut proprium opus, quibusdam aliis tamen
carminibus_ (or _versibus_) _a quibusdam interpositus_. The
eye of a copyist may easily, Kiderlin thinks, have wandered from the
first to the second _quibusdam_: cp. v. 10. 64, ut quaedam a
quibusdam utique non sunt, &c., and for quibusdam aliis xi. 3. 66,
et quibusdam aliis corporis signis.
intervenit, which is a conjecture of Osann, I have found
in Harl. 2662, 11671 Prat. Put. 7231, 7696.
lyricorum. Kiderlin thinks there may be something wrong in the
text here. The last sentence (sed eum longe, &c.) shows clearly that
Quintilian had a high opinion of the lyrists of his day: if Bassus was
_legi dignus_, they were even more so. Would he then have said ‘of
the Roman lyrists Horace is almost the only one worth reading’? Perhaps
we should read _lyricorum priorum_: after _-ricorum_,
_priorum_ might easily fall out, and it gives a good antithesis to
_viventium_. Bassus (quem nuper vidimus) forms the transition: and
the next paragraph begins _Tragoediae scriptores veterum_,
&c.
§97.
clarissimi. This reading is stated by Halm to be ‘incerta
auctoritate,’ and is referred by Meister to the Aldine edition. It
occurs in Prat. 7231, 7696 Harl. 2662 (A.D. 1434) Vall. 4995, 4829, 11671, Dorv. and Ball.:
Put. gives _clarissime_: G has _gravissima_: HFTS
_gravissimus_, and so also Harl. 4950, Burn. 243, Bodl. and
C. Halm prints _grandissimi_: Ribbeck (Röm. Trag.
p. 337, 3) inclines to accept the sing. _grandissimus_,
M, of Pacuvius alone.