viii. 6, 11 (verba) quae audaci et proxime periculum translatione

tolluntur ... qualis est: pontem indignatus Araxes. Cp. paene periclitantia xi. 1, 32. For the phrase ex periculo petere cp. ii. 11, 3 sententiis grandibus, quarum optima quaeque a periculo petarur. Gr. παρακεκινδυνευμένα.

significantia: §49.

I:122 Habebunt qui post nos de oratoribus scribent magnam eos qui nunc vigent materiam vere laudandi; sunt enim summa hodie, quibus inlustratur forum, ingenia. Namque et consummati iam patroni veteribus aemulantur et eos iuvenum ad optima tendentium imitatur ac sequitur industria.

§ 122. eos qui nunc vigent. Who these were we can infer from the Dialogue of Tacitus and from Pliny’s Letters, e.g. Aper, Marcellus, Maternus, Aquilius Regulus, and others. Quintilian must of course have meant to include Tacitus and Pliny themselves.

consummati: often equivalent to _perfectus_ in Quintilian: 5 §14. Cp. above §89. It is combined with _perfectus_ v. 10, 119 ne se ... perfectos protinus atque consummates putent.

veteribus. _Aemulari_ occurs elsewhere with the accusative, §62; 2 §17. So of envious emulation Cic. Tusc. i. §44: cp. iv. §17 with the dative of the person.

iuvenum ad optima tendentium. Hild refers to the speeches of Messalla and Maternus in the Dial. (28-30, 34-36) as indicating the oratorical aspirations of the youth of Rome when Quintilian wrote.

I:123 Supersunt qui de philosophia scripserint, quo in genere paucissimos adhuc eloquentes litterae Romanae tulerunt. Idem igitur M. Tullius, qui ubique, etiam in hoc opere Platonis aemulus 119 extitit. Egregius vero multoque quam in orationibus praestantior Brutus suffecit ponderi rerum: scias eum sentire quae dicit.

§ 123. philosophia. For the attitude of the Romans to philosophy see Teuffel, §40 sq. Abstract speculation, leading to no practical end, was not held in honour by them: like Neoptolemus, in the play of Ennius, they said ‘philosophari est mihi necesse, at paucis (i.e. ‘only a little’: Roby, §1237) nam omnino haud placet,’—Cicero de Orat. ii. §156: de Repub. i. 18, 30: Pacuvius too (in Gell. xiii. 8) had made one of his characters exclaim: ego odi homines ignava opera et philosopha sententia. The Romans disliked the unsettling tendencies which seemed to accompany the study of philosophy: hence e.g. their treatment of the Athenian ambassadors in the middle of the second century B.C. The prejudice against such studies had by no means entirely disappeared even in the time of Cicero, who constantly apologises for and seeks to justify his leanings to philosophy: de Off. ii. 1, 2 sqq.: de Fin. i. 1, 1. Tacitus, Agricola 4, tells us that Agricola used to say ‘se prima in iuventa studium philosophiae acrius, ultra quam concessum Romano ac senatori, hausisse, ni prudentia matris incensum ac flagrantem animum coercuisset.’ About the time when Quintilian was writing, Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome: ibid. ch. 2. For the help which philosophy can give to oratory see xii. 11, which contains (§7) an expression of the Roman ideal: atqui ego illum quem instituo Romanum quendam velim esse sapientem, qui non secretis disputationibus, sed rerum experimentis atque operibus vere civilem virum exhibeat. Cp. Cicero’s boast in regard to himself and Cato of Utica: nos philosophiam veram illam et antiquam, quae quibusdam otii esse ac desidiae videtur, in forum atque in rempublicam atque in ipsam aciem paene deduximus. See on §84.

paucissimos ... eloquentes. The addition of an adj. to another adj. used as a subst. is rare in Quintilian. Hirt (Subst. des Adj. p. 17) cites only five exx. besides this one: e.g. iii. 8, 31 antiquis nobilibus ortos.

qui ubique. The sense is clear: it is a repetition of the claim made in §108 mihi videtur M. Tullius ... effinxisse vim Demosthenis, copiam Platonis, iucunditatem Isocratis. But it was not _ubique_ that Cicero rivalled Plato: it was only in Plato’s own domain (sc. in hoc opere). The expression 119 was adopted for brevity’s sake: Spalding says it is equivalent to ‘ut ubique Graecorum praestantissimi cuiusque, ita in hoc opere Platonis.’ For Cicero’s philosophical writings cp. Teuffel, §173 sq.

Brutus: cp. §23. He is not included in Quintilian’s list of orators; and though Cicero uses towards him the language of extravagant eulogy (v. esp. Brut. §22) in many of his works, yet we know from a passage in the Dialogue already quoted that he sometimes found him ‘otiosum atque disiunctum’ ch. 18. Cp. ch. 21 Brutum philosophiae suae relinquamus. Nam in orationibus minorem esse, fama sua etiam admiratores eius fatentur. A reference follows to his speech ‘Pro rege Deiotaro,’ which the speaker (Aper) considers ‘dull and tedious’—_lentitudo_ and _tepor_ being the words used. A fragment of a declamation by him is quoted ix. 3 §95–. On his philosophical works see Cic. Acad. i. 3, 12 (with Reid’s note). He was an adherent of the Stoico-academic school, whose tenets he had studied under Aristus and Antiochus: cp. Tusc. v. 21: Brut. 120, 149, 332: de Fin. v. 8. There was a treatise _de Virtute_ addressed to Cicero, one περὶ καθήκοντος, and one _de Patientia_: Teuffel, 209 §§2 and 3.

suffecit ponderi rerum: Quint. xii. 10, 11 names _gravitas_ as his distinguishing quality: cp. gravior Brutus, Tac. Dial. ch. 25.

sentire quae dicit. The intensity and sincerity of his nature can be inferred from ad Att. xiv. 1, 2, where Caesar is quoted as saying of him _magni refert hic quid velit, sed quicquid vult valde vult_. For his devotion to study see 7 §27 below.

I:124 Scripsit non parum multa Cornelius Celsus, Sextios secutus, non sine cultu ac nitore. Plautus in Stoicis rerum cognitioni utilis. In Epicureis levis quidem, sed non iniucundus tamen 120 auctor est Catius.

§ 124. non parum multa: litotes, as at vi. 2, 3 semper fuerunt non parum multi.—Becher compares also non parum multi Cic. in Verr. iii. 9, 22: Phil. vii. 6, 18: pro Quinctio 3, 11: in Verr. iv. 12, 29: parum saepe de Fin. ii. 4, 12. The opposite of _non parum_ is _non nimis_: cp. Liv. xxii. 26, 4 haud parum callide with Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 25, 70 nihil horum nimis callide.

Cornelius Celsus: a celebrated encyclopaedist under Augustus and Tiberius, who wrote on rhetoric, jurisprudence, farming, medicine, military art, and practical philosophy. Only eight books on medicine have come down to us. He survived into the reign of Nero. Cp. §23 above. Of his philosophy Augustine writes as follows (de Haeres. Prol.): opiniones omnium philosophorum qui sectas varias condiderunt usque ad tempora sua ... sex non parvis voluminibus ... absolvit; nec redarguit aliquem, sed tantum quid sentirent aperuit, ea brevitate sermonis ut tantum adhiberet eloquii quantum ... aperiendae iudicandaeque sententiae sufficeret. In xii. 11, 24 Quintilian refers to the universality of his knowledge, though he speaks of him as mediocri vir ingenio. “In other passages also Quintilian often expresses his disagreement from this predecessor of his, e.g. ii. 15, 22, 32: iii. 6, 13 sq.: viii. 3, 47: ix. 1, 18 ... Even when he agrees with him he does so with reserve, e.g. vii. 1, 10.—It may be that Quintilian was vexed that a subject to which he had devoted an entire life was merely cursorily treated by Celsus, and besides an encyclopaedia might easily be open to technical objections. At all events, Celsus’ rhetorical manual was obscured by that of Quintilian. It is mentioned only by Fortunat. iii. 2 (p. 121, 10 H)”—Teuffel, 275.

Sextios. The Sextii, father and son, were contemporary with Caesar and Augustus, and belonged to the Pythagorean school, though not without a leaning to the Stoics (Seneca, Ep. 64 §2–). Seneca speaks frequently of the elder Sextius in his letters: e.g. 59 §7– ‘virum acrem, Graecis verbis, Romanis moribus philosophantem.’ In the Nat. Quaest. vii. 32, 2 we are told how their following—‘Sextiorum nova et Romani roboris secta’—soon fell away: ‘inter initia sua extincta est,’ v. Teuffel 261.

cultu ac nitore: v. §79 and §83, with notes.

Plautus. The text is not certain (see Crit. Notes), but as Quintilian elsewhere (ii. 14, 2 and iii. 6, 23) refers to a philosopher 120 of this name as employing the unusual words _queentia_ and _essentia_, it may as well be retained. (In ii. 14, 2 however Meister reads Flavi: cp. Teuffel, 261, §9.)

levis: ‘of no weight.’

Catius, an Insubrian by birth, contemporary with Cicero, who speaks of his recent death ad Fam. xv. 16, 1; cp. 19, 2 Epicurus, a quo omnes Catii et Amafinii, mali verborum interpretes (referring to their faithful transcripts of Greek terminology) proficiscuntur. The scholiast on Hor. Sat. ii. 4 tells us that he wrote ‘quattuor libros de rerum natura et de summo bono.’

I:125 Ex industria Senecam in omni genere eloquentiae distuli propter vulgatam falso de me opinionem, qua damnare eum et invisum quoque habere sum creditus. Quod accidit mihi dum corruptum et omnibus vitiis fractum dicendi genus revocare ad severiora iudicia contendo; tum autem solus hic fere in manibus adulescentium fuit.

§ 125. Seneca: A.D. 2-65. For his life and works see Teuffel 282 sqq., Bernhardy p. 871 sq. Martha gives an estimate of the moral teaching of his well-known Letters in ‘Moralistes sous l’Empire Romain.’ Quintilian’s criticism of Seneca is subjected to a searching examination by M. Samuel Rocheblave in a pamphlet De M. Fabio Quintiliano L. Annaei Senecae Judice (Paris, 1890): see esp. chs. iii. and iv. Introduction, pp. xxiv. sqq.

opinionem. Quintilian worked hard to recall the Romans to a more temperate and classical style. He aimed too at a partial ‘return to Cicero,’ and considered Seneca a dangerous model for the youth of the day. See Introduction, pp. xxxix. sqq. Fronto and others used stronger language: e.g. p. 155 N eloquentiam ... Senecae mollibus et febriculosis prunuleis insitam subvertendam censeo radicitus ... neque ignoro copiosum sententiis et redundantem hominem esse, verum sententias eius tolutares video, quatere campum quadripedo concita cursu, tenere nusquam, pugnare nusquam ... dicteria potius eum quam dicta continere. Cp. Aul. Gell. xii. 2, 1 de Annaeo Seneca partim existimant ut de scriptore minime utili, cuius libros attingere nullum pretium operae sit, quod oratio eius vulgaris videatur et protrita, res atque sententiae aut inepto inanique impetu sint aut levi et quasi dicaci argutia, eruditio autem vernacula et plebeia nihilque ex veterum scriptis habens neque gratiae neque dignitatis. Alii vero elegantiae in verbis parum esse non infitias eunt, sed et rerum quas dicat scientiam doctrinamque ei non deesse dicunt et in vitiis morum obiurgandis severitatem gravitatemque non invenustam. So too Caligula (Suet. 53) had called Seneca’s productions arena sine calce, commissiones merae.

damnare ... invisum habere. There is nothing in this of a moral judgment, though some of Quintilian’s contemporaries, notably Tacitus, disliked Seneca, probably because they could not acquit him from blame in regard to his pupil Nero’s excesses, and other matters. The only parallel to _et invisum quoque_ in classical Latin is said by Becher to be Cic. pro Domo §47 quoniam iam dialecticus es et haec quoque liguris. It does not occur in Caesar, seldom in Livy, but frequently in Quintilian. Cp. on §20.

corruption ... genus. He is not speaking of the false taste of Seneca’s style exclusively, but of the general deterioration that prevailed: cp. §43 recens haec lascivia.

dum contendo: ‘through the efforts I made’: the _tum_ which follows shows that it refers to past time.

solus hic fere in manibus. Tac. Ann. xiii. 3 fuit illi viro ingenium amoenum et temporis eius auribus adcommodatum. In his endeavours to introduce a purer taste Quintilian naturally made so popular an author as Seneca the peg on which to hang his discourse.

I:126 Quem non equidem omnino conabar excutere, sed potioribus praeferri non sinebam, quos ille non destiterat incessere, cum diversi sibi conscius 121 generis placere se in dicendo posse _iis_ quibus illi placerent diffideret. Amabant autem eum magis quam imitabantur, tantumque ab illo defluebant quantum ille ab antiquis descenderat.

§ 126. excutere: sc. e manibus adulescentium.

incessere. At the close of the passage quoted above, Gellius goes on to quote, with much indignation, Seneca’s disparaging criticism of Ennius, Cicero, and Vergil, from Book xxii of the Letters to Lucilius (no longer extant). In Ep. 114 we find 121 him censoring Sallust and those who imitated him. Sueton. Ner. 52 a cognitione veterum oratorum Seneca praeceptor, quo diutius in admiratione sui detineret (Neronem avertit). For _iis_, see Crit. Notes.

defluebant = degenerabant, i. 8, 9 quando nos in omnia deliciarum vitia dicendi quoque ratione defluximus.

I:127 Foret enim optandum pares ac saltem proximos illi viro fieri. Sed placebat propter sola vitia et ad ea se quisque dirigebat effingenda, quae poterat; deinde cum se iactaret eodem modo dicere, Senecam infamabat.

§ 127. Foret ... optandum, of a wish that is considered impossible,—which shows how high was Quintilian’s opinion of Seneca: cp. _ac saltem proximus_. So velles §130. For the infin. see Introd. p. lvi.

ad ea ... effingenda: cp. Cic. Orat. §9 ad illius similitudinem artem et manum dirigebat. For _effingenda_ cp. §108.

quae poterat, sc. effingere: cp. Caesar, B.C. 37 quam celerrime potuit (comparare).

infamabat, ‘brought reproach on.’

I:128 Cuius et multae alioqui et magnae virtutes fuerunt, ingenium facile et copiosum, plurimum studii, multa rerum cognitio, in qua tamen aliquando ab his quibus inquirenda quaedam mandabat deceptus est.

§ 128. alioqui: see Introd. p. li.

quibus ... mandabat. Especially for physical science he must have been greatly indebted to external aid. His VII Books ‘Naturalium Quaestionum,’ with the addition of moral meditations, were used as a text-book in the Middle Ages.

I:129 Tractavit etiam omnem fere studiorum materiam; nam et orationes eius et poemata et epistulae et dialogi feruntur. In philosophia parum diligens, egregius tamen vitiorum insectator 122 fuit. Multae in eo claraeque sententiae, multa etiam morum gratia legenda, sed in eloquendo corrupta pleraque atque eo perniciosissima, quod abundant dulcibus vitiis.

§ 129. orationes. None survive. Quintilian refers (viii. 5, 18) to the speech he made for Nero on the occasion of his mother’s funeral: Tac. Ann. xiii. 3, cp. 11. It is probable also that Seneca wrote the speeches mentioned by Suet. Ner. 7, the ‘gratiarum actio’ in the Senate, ‘pro Bononiensibus latine, pro Rhodiis atque Iliensibus graece.’ He also pleaded with success in the law-courts (Dion Cass. 59, 19, 7.).

poemata. That Seneca wrote poetry is evident from Tacitus Ann.