Institutio Oratoria (Quintilian)

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	Institutio Oratoria Author: Quintilian	Translator: Harold Edgeworth Butler
3763	Rerum cognitio cotidie crescit , et tamen quam multorum ad eam librorum necessaria lectio est , quibus aut rerum exempla ab historicis aut dicendi ab oratoribus petuntur , philosophorum quoque consultorumque opiniones , si utilia velimus legere non , quod ne fieri quidem potest , omnia ? Sed breve nobis tempus nos facimus .	Knowledge increases day by day, and yet how many books is it absolutely necessary to read in our search for its attainment, for examples of facts from the historians or of eloquence from the orators, or, again, for the opinions of the philosophers and the lawyers, that is to say, if we are content to read merely what is useful without attempting the impossible task of reading everything?
3764	Quantulum enim studiis partimur Alias horas vanus salutandi labor , alias datum tabulis otium , alias spectacula , alias convivia trahunt . Adiice tot genera ludendi et insanam corporis curam , peregrinatio , rura , calculorum anxiam sollicitudinem , invitamenta libidinum et vinum et flagrantibus omni genere voluptatum animis ne ea quidem tempora idonea , quae supersunt .	But it is ourselves that make the time for study short: for how little time we allot to it! Some hours are passed in the futile labour of ceremonial calls, others in idle chatter, others in staring at the shows of the theatre, and others again in feasting. To this add all the various forms of amusement, the insane attention devoted to the cultivation of the body, journeys abroad, visits to the country, anxious calculation of loss and gain, the allurements of lust, wine-bibbing and those remaining hours which are all too few to gratify our souls on fire with passion for every kind of pleasure.
3765	Quae si omnia studiis impenderentur , iam nobis longa aetas et abunde satis ad discendum spatii viderentur vel diurna tantum computantibus tempora ut nihil noctes , quarum bona pars omni somno longior est , adiuvarent . Nunc computamus annos , non quibus studuimus , sed quibus viximus .	If all this time were spent on study, life would seem long enough and there would be plenty of time for learning, even though we should take the hours of daylight only into our account, without asking any assistance from the night, of which no little space is superfluous even for the heaviest sleeper. As it is, we count not the years which we have given to study, but the years we have lived.
3766	Nec vero si geometrae et musici et grammatici ceterarumque artium professores omnem suam vitam , quamlibet longa fuerit , ad singulis artibus consumpserunt , sequitur ut plures quasdam vitas ad plura discenda desideremus . Neque enim illi didicerunt haec usque ad senectutem , sed ea sola didicisse contenti fuerunt ac tot annos non ad percipiendo exhauserunt , sed ad praecipiendo .	And indeed even although geometricians, musicians and grammarians, together with the professors of every other branch of knowledge, spend all their lives, however long, in the study of one single science, it does not therefore follow that we require several lives more if we are to learn more. For they do not spend all their days even to old age in learning these things, but being content to have learned these things and nothing more, exhaust their length of years not in acquiring, but in imparting knowledge.
3767	Ceterum , ut de Homero taceam , ad quo nullius non artis aut opera perfecta aut certe non dubia vestigia reperiuntur , ( ut Eleum Hippiam transeam , qui non liberalium modo disciplinarum prae se scientiam tulit , sed vestem et anulum crepidasque , quae omni manu sua fecerat , ad usu habuit , atque ita se praeparavit , ne cuius alterius opere egeret , ) illusisse tot malis , quot summa senectus habet , uniuersae Graeciae credimus Gorgian , qui quaerere auditores de quo quisque vellet iubebat .	However, to say nothing of Homer, in whom we may find either the perfect achievements, or at any rate clear signs of the knowledge of every art, and to pass by Hippias of Elis, who not merely boasted his knowledge of the liberal arts, but wore a robe, a ring and shoes, all of which he had made with his own hands, and had trained himself to be independent of external assistance, we accept the universal tradition of Greece to the effect that Gorgias, triumphant over all the countless ills incident to extreme old age, would bid his hearers propound any questions they pleased for him to answer.
3768	Quae tandem ars digna litteris Platoni defuit ? Quot sacculis Aristoteles didicit , ut non solum , quae ad philosophos atque oratores pertinent , scientia complecteretur , sed animalium satorumque naturas omnes perquireret ? Illis haec invenienda fuerunt , nobis cognoscenda sunt . Tot nos praeceptoribus , tot exemplis instruxit antiquitas , ut possit videri nulla sorte nascendi aetas felicior quam nostra , cui docendae priores elaborarunt .	Again in what branch of knowledge worthy of literary expression was Plato deficient? How many generations' study did Aristotle require to embrace not merely the whole range of philosophical and rhetorical knowledge, but to investigate the nature of every beast and plant. And yet they had to discover all these things which we only have to learn. Antiquity has given us all these teachers and all these patterns for our imitation, that there might be no greater happiness conceivable than to be born in this age above all others, since all previous ages have toiled that we might reap the fruit of their wisdom.
3769	M . igitur Cato idem summus imperator , idem sapiens , idem orator , idem historiae conditor , idem iris , idem rerum rusticarum peritissimus fuit inter tot operas militiae , tantas domi contentiones , rudi saeculo , litteras Graecas aetate iam declinata ; didicit , ut esset hominibus documento ea quoque percipi posse quae senes concupissent .	Marcus Cato was at once a great general, a philosopher, orator, historian, and an expert both in law and agriculture, and despite his military labours abroad and the distractions of political struggles at home, and despite the rudeness of the age in which he lived, he none the less learned Greek, when far advanced in years, that he might prove to mankind that even old men are capable of learning that on which they have set their hearts.
3770	Quam multa , paene omnia , tradidit Varro ! Quod instrumentum dicendi M . Tullio defuit ? Quid plura ? cum etiam Cornelius Celsus , mediocri vir ingenio , non solum de his omnibus conscripserit artibus , sed amplius rei militaris et rusticae et medicinae praecepta reliquerit , dignus vel ipso proposito , ut eum scisse omnia illa credamus .	How wide, almost universal, was the knowledge that Varro communicated to the world! What of all that goes to make up the equipment of an orator was lacking to Cicero? Why should I say more, since even Cornelius Celsus, a man of very ordinary ability, not merely wrote about rhetoric in all its departments, but left treatises on the art of war, agriculture and medicine as well. Indeed the high ambition revealed by his design gives him the right to ask us to believe that he was acquainted with all these subjects.
3771	At perficere tantum opus arduum et nemo perfecit . Ante omnia sufficit ad exhortationem studiorum , capere id rerum naturam nec , quidquid non est factum , ne fieri quidem posse ; tum omnia , quae magna sunt atque admirabilia , tempus aliquod quo primum efficerentur habuisse .	But, it will be urged, to carry out such a task is difficult and has never been accomplished. To which I reply that sufficient encouragement for study may be found in the fact, firstly, that nature does not forbid such achievement and it does not follow that, because a thing never has been done, it therefore never can be done, and secondly, that all great achievements have required time for their first accomplishment.
3772	Nam et poesis ab Homero et Vergilio tantum fastigium accepit et eloquentia a Demosthene atque Cicerone . Denique quidquid est optimum , ante non fuerat . Verum etiam si quis summa desperet ( quod cur faciat , cui ingenium , valetudo , facultas , praeceptores non deerunt ? ) , tamen est , ut Cicero ait , pulchrum ad secundis tertiisque consistere .	Poetry has risen to the heights of glory, thanks to the efforts of poets so far apart as Homer and Virgil, and oratory owes its position to the genius of Demosthenes and Cicero. Finally, whatever is best in its own sphere must at some previous time have been non-existent. But even if a man despair of reaching supreme excellence (and why should he despair, if he have talents, health, capacity and teachers to aid him?), it is none the less a fine achievement, as Cicero says, to win the rank of second or even third.
3773	Neque enim , si quis Achillis gloriam ad bellicis consequi non potest , Aiacis aut Diomedis laudem aspernabitur , nec qui Homeri non fuerunt , Tyrtaei . Quin immo si hanc cogitationem homines habuissent , ut nemo se meliorem fore eo qui optimus fuisset , arbitraretur , ii ipsi , qui sunt optimi , non fuissent , neque post Lucretium ac Macrum Vergilius nec post Crassum et Hortensium Cicero , sed nec illi , qui post eos fuerunt .	For even if a soldier cannot achieve the glory of Achilles in war, he will not despise fame such as fell to the lot of Ajax and Diomede, while those who cannot be Homers may be content to reach the level of Tyrtaeus. Nay, if men had been obsessed by the conviction that it was impossible to surpass the man who had so far shown himself best, those whom we now regard as best would never have reached such distinction, Lucretius and Macer would never have been succeeded by Virgil, nor Crassus and Hortensius by Cicero, nor they in their turn by those who flourished after them.
3774	Verum ut transeundi spes non sit , magna tamen est dignitas subsequendi . An Pollio et Messala , qui iam Cicerone arcem tenente eloquentiae agere coeperunt , parum ad vita dignitatis habuerunt , parum ad posteros gloriae tradiderunt ? Alioqui pessime de rebus humanis perductae ad summum artes mererentur , si , quod optimum , idem ultimum fuisset .	But even though we cannot hope to surpass the great, it is still a high honour to follow in their footsteps. Did Pollio and Messala, who began to plead when Cicero held the citadel of eloquence, fail to obtain sufficient honour in their lifetime or to hand down a fair name to posterity? The arts which have been developed to the highest pitch of excellence would deserve but ill of mankind if that which was best had also been the last of its line.
3775	Adde quod magnos modica quoque eloquentia parit fructus ac , si quis haec studia utilitate sola metiatur , paene illi perfectae par est . Neque erat difficile vel veteribus vel novis exemplis palam facere , non aliunde maiores opes , honores , amicitias , laudem praesentem , futuram hominibus contigisse , nisi indignum litteris esset , ab opere pulcherrimo , cuius tractatus atque ipsa possessio plenissimam studiis gratiam refert , hanc minorem exigere mercedem , more eorum , qui a se non virtutes sed voluptatem , quae fit ex virtutibus , peti dicunt .	Add to this the further consideration that even moderate eloquence is often productive of great results and, if such studies are to be measured solely by their utility, is almost equal to the perfect eloquence for which we seek. Nor would it be difficult to produce either ancient or recent examples to show that there is no other source from which men have reaped such a harvest of wealth, honour, friendship and glory, both present and to come. But it would be a disgrace to learning to follow the fashion of those who say that they pursue not virtue, but only the pleasure derived from virtue, and to demand this meaner recompense from the noblest of all arts, whose practice and even whose possession is ample reward for all our labours.
3776	Ipsam igitur orandi maiestatem , qua nihil dii immortales melius homini dederunt et qua remota muta sunt omnia et luce praesenti ac memoria posteritatis carent , toto animo petamus nitamurque semper ad optima , quod facientes aut evademus ad summum aut certe multos infra nos videbimus .	Wherefore let us seek with all our hearts that true majesty of oratory, the fairest gift of god to man, without which all things are stricken dumb and robbed alike of present glory and the immortal record of posterity; and let us press forward to whatsoever is best, since, if we do this, we shall either reach the summit or at least see many others far beneath us.
3777	Haec erant , Marcelle Victori , quibus praecepta dicendi pro virili parte adiuvari posse per nos videbantur , quorum cognitio studiosis iuvenibus si non magnam utilitatem adferet , at certe , quod magis petimus , bonam voluntatem .	Such, Marcellus Victorius, were the views by the expression of which it seemed to me that I might, as far as in me lay, help to advance the teaching of oratory. If the knowledge of these principles proves to be of small practical utility to the young student, it should at least produce what [value more,—the will to do well.