Plato Interrupts Quintilian (Book 3, Ch. 8)

Plato joins Quintilian for a beer on the patio of the University Brew House.

P: The day is pleasant my friend, with a breeze that is so much more comfortable than the air-conditioning inside. I think it will be but a few more days before it will be too warm to enjoy the afternoon thus. Before we begin our discussion, I think a small oblation to Pan is appropriate. Perhaps a little ale poured out on the pavement.

Q: But would not wine be a more appropriate offering to Pan?

P: Perhaps so. Yet, he might appreciate an occasional beer. See how it soaks into the stones? Ah, but the waiter is giving me a dirty look now. No more, I think. Besides, this is an excellent beer.

In your Institutes, you write that the end of oratory is not persuasion, a distinction I appreciate. But what, if not persuasion, is the end of oratory?

Q: Eloquence. Nothing more.

P: Eloquence? How then does that assure virtue? An orator who seeks to persuade might at least seek to persuade toward the virtuous. But if an orator seeks only eloquence, has he no concern at all for the end of his speech? Speak up my friend. Demonstrate for me your eloquence.

Q: You are right, friend Plato; an orator who seeks only to persuade might seek a virtuous cause--or an unvirtuous one. An orator who seeks eloquence seeks to speak to the best of his ability. In other words, he speaks for and to his own honor. This is the meaning of that phrase, which though attributed to me, I have heard Cato utter more than once, that true rhetoric is "a good man speaking well." Eloquence, thus defined, connects what a man says to who he is. An honorable man cannot but speak honorably. Eloquence must be married to honor.

P: Just so, my friend. I am troubled, I must admit, on reading the third book of your Institutes, where you allow your orator to bow to expedience. Where is the honor in this?

Q: There may be times when an orator is forced to expedience in a good cause. Should an orator allow an evil to come to pass when he has the eloquence to put a stop to it?

P: Ah, if my teacher, Socrates, had thought so, he would not have been so truthful when he stood before the judges. Surely you have read my Apology, or if not, at least Xenophon's. Was this a man who thought anything less than honor was due from him in his every word, his every breath?

Q: You must keep in mind the differences between the courts in Athens in your day and those in Rome in mine. You had no lawyers, and every man spoke for himself. What a man said was seen as what he was. Not so today, when litigants are represented by an orator whose honor is tied to his eloquence, in doing the best for his client. 

P: So, in your eyes the orator didn't have to be honorable as long as he could imitate honor?

Q: I address this more clearly in Book Twelve. Have you not read so far?

P: We shall get to that when we get to that. What of these imitations, prosopopeiae, you call them? Do you really suggest, as you write, that "we very often utter fictitious speeches attributed to characters which we ourselves introduce"? How does an orator stay honorable if he is no longer speaking of himself, from his own honor? How is such a speech honorable, if eloquence comes from the inner character of the man if he no longer speaks as himself.

Q: I believe the waiter is eyeing us again. Perhaps we are disturbing the other patrons.

P: Ah well, we can put these questions off if you wish. Does this establishment have no flute players to keep us entertained as we drink?

The Seeds of Vico and Grassi

In this brief statement, Quintilian places the imaginative above the analytical, or at least before the analytical, a theme that is repeated and elaborated on in Vico and Grassi. At question in Quintilian is whether the imaginative is elementary or the foundational. If elementary it can be left behind when analysis comes to the fore; if foundational provides much of the framework for invention.

"Exuberance is easilv remedied, but barrenness is incurable, be your efforts what they may. To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination. I like to see the first fruits of the mind copious to excess and almost extravagant in their profusion."

Book II, Chapter 4

Quintilian on the Separation of Philosophy and Rhetoric

Quintilian gives a fascinating, if brief , account of the separation of rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. First, he tells his readers that the original fault lies with rhetoric, or at least, rhetoricians, their mercenary bent and ethical problems. He writes, "as soon as the tongue became an instrument of gain, and it was made a practice to abuse the gifts of eloquence, those who were esteemed as eloquent abandoned the care of morals." So, greed led rhetoricians to seek their own gratification over the needs of the state. Something Plato could wholeheartedly agree with. However, Plato would not agree with the next statement, for Quintilian argues that as a result of the separation of the two, philosophy suffered from a lack of intellectual rigor. According to Quintilian, "when thus neglected, [philosophy] became as it were the prize of the less robust intellects." Thus, rhetoric deteriorated morally, and philosophy deteriorated intellectually.

The solution? Joining the two: "Let the orator, therefore, be such a man as may be called truly wise, not blameless in morals only (for that, in my opinion, though some disagree with me, is not enough) but accomplished also in science and in every qualification for speaking, a character such as, perhaps, no man ever was. But we are not the less, for that reason, to aim at perfection, for which most of the ancients strove, who, though they thought that no wise man had yet been found, nevertheless laid down directions for gaining wisdom. For the perfection of eloquence is assuredly something, nor does the nature of the human mind forbid us to reach it, but if to reach it be not granted us, yet those who shall strive to gain the summit will make higher advances than those who, prematurely conceiving a despair of attaining the point at which they aim, shall at once sink down at the foot of the ascent."

Institutes of Oratory. Preface. 13-20