Twelve books on the education of an orator, from childhood to the courtroom. Quintilian defines the ideal orator as "a good man skilled in speaking" and builds the most comprehensive ancient curriculum to produce one.
Start ReadingThe education of the future orator begins in the cradle. Quintilian prescribes the child's nurses, tutors, and early schooling. The foundation is character.
Grammar and early literary education. How to teach reading, writing, and the analysis of texts. The importance of wide reading from the start.
The transition to the rhetorical school. Preliminary exercises (progymnasmata): fable, narrative, thesis, commonplace. The building blocks of oratory.
The structure of a speech: invention and arrangement. The parts of a forensic speech and how to organise an argument.
Further treatment of invention. Legal argument, proof, evidence, and the art of refutation. Quintilian is thorough and practical.
Emotional persuasion: pathos and ethos. How to move the audience, inspire sympathy, and establish the speaker's character. Quintilian's treatment of laughter.
Arrangement (dispositio) in detail. The order of arguments, the handling of digressions, and the structure of complex cases.
Style (elocutio). Tropes and figures of speech catalogued and illustrated. Quintilian's comprehensive taxonomy of rhetorical ornament.
Further figures of speech. Composition: rhythm, sentence structure, and the music of prose. How to avoid both flatness and excess.
A survey of Greek and Roman literature for the orator's reading. Homer, the tragedians, Demosthenes, Cicero — Quintilian's famous literary criticism chapter.
Memory and delivery. Mnemonic techniques, voice training, gesture, and physical deportment. The orator as performer.
The character of the ideal orator. Quintilian's famous definition: 'vir bonus dicendi peritus' — a good man skilled in speaking. The complete orator is the complete human being.