The Orator's Education, Books 3–5

The Orator's Education #2

by Quintilian, D.A. Russell (Translator)

Quintilian, born in Spain about A.D. 35, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. The Orator's Education (Institutio Oratoria), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world. Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyses the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures. Donald Russell's new five-volume Loeb Classical Library edition of The Orator's Education, which replaces an eighty-year-old translation by H. E. Butler, provides a text and facing translation fully up to date in light of current scholarship and well tuned to today's taste. Russell also provides unusually rich explanatory notes, which enable full appreciation of this central work in the history of rhetoric.

Genres: Classics, Philosophy

560 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 95

About the author

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus or Quintilian (c. 35 – c. 100) was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing.

Reviews

[Brent Pinkall]

First read 1/7/16. Read again 1/17/21. Just wonderful. Much of this went over my head the first time I read it five years ago, but having taught rhetoric for four years now, everything clicked this time through. A masterful work. They don't make rhetoric textbooks like this anymore.

[Joshua]

Discusses mostly forensic, or "courtroom" oratory, including strategies for investigating possible arguments, tactics for winning the audience's emotions, and things to avoid in pleading cases. It was a standard text of classical education, and played a big part in Renaissance eloquence (next to Cicero).

[Christopher]

Quintilian succumbed badly to the "let me classify everything I can think of in a semi-organized, little row and dump it on you" sin.