INTRODUCTION. I. LIFE OF QUINTILIAN. It would be possible to state in a very few lines all that is certainly known about Quintilian's personal history; but much would remain to be said in order to convey an adequate idea of the large place he must have filled in the era of which he is so typical a representative. The period of his activity at Rome is nearly co-extensive with the reign of the Flavian emperors,-Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. For twenty years he was the recognised head of the teaching profession in the capital, and a large proportion of those who came to maturity in the days of Trajan and Hadrian must have received their intellectual training in his school. It is in itself a sign of the tendencies of the age that Quintilian should have enjoyed the immediate patronage of the reigning emperor in the conduct of work which would formerly have attracted little notice. In earlier days the profession of teaching had been held in low repute at Rome'. The first attempt to open a school of rhetoric, in B.C. 94, was looked on with the greatest suspicion and disfavour. Even Cicero adopts a tone of apology in the rhetorical text-books which he wrote for the instruction of others. But now all was changed, and education had come to be, as it was in a still greater degree under Nerva, Trajan, and the Antonines, a department of the government itself. Vespasian was the founder of a new dynasty; and, though he had little culture to boast of himself, he was shrewd enough to appreciate the advantages to be derived from systematising the education of the Roman youth, and maintaining friendly relations 1 (Rhetores) quorum professio quam nullam apud maiores auctoritatem habuerit, Tac. Dial. 30. b mas entrusted. mintilian, or is art eems a jane tirando eronder ʼn he scholastic There, as ans fors to office the memory of he ime of roure and inrest vrach ad ioved The antinction of the Julian ine n the person ff Nera. After us eurement rom he active tuties of us profession, he received be consular negria from Deminan —the amomotion of a escher of netoric to he Vighest fen von he State emg regarded is 1 most mexampled phenomenon by the sonservative men of he lav, vnica na ailed to reccemise the significance of he alliance between prince and pedaZoque. The interest with which the mrication of he Instituta Iratoria mas orked forward to, at the dose of us aborious professional career, is sufficient evidence of the authoritative position untilan ad guned for himself at Rome. It was a tribute not only to the successful teacher, but also to the man of letters vo, conscious that ns was in ge literary decadence, sought to probe the causes of the national tectine and to counteract its evil influences. Like so many of the distinguished men of his ume, Quintilian vas a Spaniard by birth. There must have been something in the Spanish national character that rendered the inhabitants of hat country peculiarly susceptible to the influences of Roman culture: certainly no province assimilated more rapidly than Spain the avilisation of is conquerors. The expansion of Rome may be clearly raced in the history of her literature. Just as Italy, rather than the imperial city itself, had supplied the court of Augustus with its chiefest literary ornaments, so now Spain sends up to the centre of attraction for all things Roman a band of authors united, if by nothing else, at least by the ties of a common origin. Pomponius Mela is said to have come from a place called Cingentera, on the bay of Algesiras; Columella was a native of Gades, Martial of Bubilis; the two Senecas and Lucan were born in Corduca. The emperor Trajan came from Italica, near Seville; while Hadrian belonged to a family which had long been settled there. Quinciian's birthplace was the town of Calagurris (Calahorra) on the Ebro, memorable in previous history only for the resistance which it enabled Sertorius to offer to Metellus and Pompeius: it was the last place that submitted after the murder of the insurgent general in B. c. 72. In most of the older editions of Quintilian an anonymous Life appears, the author of which (probably either Omnibonus Leonicenus or Laurentius Valla) prefers a conjecture of his own to the books of the time," and makes out that Quintilian was born in Rome. His main argument is that Martial does not include his name among those of the distinguished hom he refers as being of Spanish origin (e. g. Epigr. i. 61 and 49), though he addresses him separately in complimentary terms. (Epigr. ii. 90). Against this we may set, however, the line in which Ausonius embodies what was evidently a well-known and accepted tradition (Prof. i. 7) :— Adserat usque licet Fabium Calagurris alumnum ; and the statement of Hieronymus in the Eusebian Chronicle :-Quintitilianus, ex Hispania Calagurrilanus, primus Romae publicam scholam [aperuit]. The latter extract carries additional weight if we accept the conjecture of Reifferscheid' that Jerome here follows the authority of Suetonius (Roth, p. 272) in his work on the grammarians and rhetoricians. The fact of Quintilian's Spanish origin may therefore be regarded as fully established, though we cannot cite the authority of Quintilian himself on the subject. His removal to Rome, at a very early period of his life, would naturally make him more of a Roman than a Spaniard; and this is probably the reason why he nowhere refers to the accident of his birth-place. Indeed his work does not lend itself to autobiographical revelations. Most of his reminiscences, some of which occur in the Tenth Book (1 §§ 23 and 86, 3 § 12: cp. v. 7, 7: vi. 1, 14: xii. 11, 3) are suggested by some detail connected with his subject. Apart from the famous introduction to Book VI, where his grief for the loss of his wife and two sons is allowed to interrupt the continuity of his argument, he speaks of his father only once (ix. 3, 73), and then simply to quote, not without some diffidence, a bon mot of his in illustration of a figure of speech. The father was himself a rhetorician, and seems to have taught the subject both at Calagurris and also after the family removed to Rome: whether he is identical with the Quintilianus mentioned as a declaimer of moderate reputation by the elder Seneca (Controv. x. praef. 2: cp. ib. 33, 19) cannot now be ascertained. The date of Quintilian's birth has been variously given as A.D. 42, A.D. 38, and A.D. 35, the last being now most commonly adopted. It cannot be determined with certainty, though a few considerations may here be adduced to show why it seems necessary to discard any theory that would put it after A. D. 38. Dodwell, in his 'Annales Quintilianei' (see Burmann's edition, vol. ii. p. 1117), arrived at the year A.D. 42, after a careful examination of all the passages on which he thought it allowable to base an inference. But Quintilian tells us himself that he was a young man (nobis adulescentibus vi. 1, 14) at the trial of Cossutianus Capito, 1 C. Suetoni Tranquilli praeter Caesarum libros reliquiae. Leipzig 1860, p. 365 sq. and 469 sq. with those to whom it was entrusted. Quintilian, for his part, seems to have diligently seconded, in the scholastic sphere, his patron's efforts to efface the memory of the time of trouble and unrest which had followed the extinction of the Julian line in the person of Nero. After his retirement from the active duties of his profession, he received the consular insignia from Domitian,-the promotion of a teacher of rhetoric to the highest dignity in the State being regarded as a most unexampled phenomenon by the conservative opinion of the day, which had failed to recognise the significance of the alliance between prince and pedagogue. The interest with which the publication of the Institutio Oratoria was looked forward to, at the close of his laborious professional career, is sufficient evidence of the authoritative position Quintilian had gained for himself at Rome. It was a tribute not only to the successful teacher, but also to the man of letters who, conscious that his was an age of literary decadence, sought to probe the causes of the national decline and to counteract its evil influences. Like so many of the distinguished men of his time, Quintilian was a Spaniard by birth. There must have been something in the Spanish national character that rendered the inhabitants of that country peculiarly susceptible to the influences of Roman culture: certainly no province assimilated more rapidly than Spain the civilisation of its conquerors. The expansion of Rome may be clearly traced in the history of her literature. Just as Italy, rather than the imperial city itself, had supplied the court of Augustus with its chiefest literary ornaments, so now Spain sends up to the centre of attraction for all things Roman a band of authors united, if by nothing else, at least by the ties of a common origin. Pomponius Mela is said to have come from a place called Cingentera, on the bay of Algesiras; Columella was a native of Gades, Martial of Bilbilis; the two Senecas and Lucan were born in Corduba. The emperor Trajan came from Italica, near Seville; while Hadrian belonged to a family which had long been settled there. Quintilian's birthplace was the town of Calagurris (Calahorra) on the Ebro, memorable in previous history only for the resistance which it enabled Sertorius to offer to Metellus and Pompeius: it was the last place that submitted after the murder of the insurgent general in B. C. 72. In most of the older editions of Quintilian an anonymous Life appears, the author of which (probably either Omnibonus Leonicenus or Laurentius Valla) prefers a conjecture of his own to the books of the time,' and makes out that Quintilian was born in Rome. His main argument is that Martial does not include his name among those of the distinguished authors to whom he refers as being of Spanish origin (e. g. Epigr. i. i 61 and 49), though he addresses him separately in complimentary terms (Epigr. ii. 90). Against this we may set, however, the line in which Ausonius embodies what was evidently a well-known and accepted tradition (Prof. i. 7) : Adserat usque licet Fabium Calagurris alumnum ; and the statement of Hieronymus in the Eusebian Chronicle :— -Quintitilianus, ex Hispania Calagurrilanus, primus Romae publicam scholam [aperuit]. The latter extract carries additional weight if we accept the conjecture of Reifferscheid' that Jerome here follows the authority of Suetonius (Roth, p. 272) in his work on the grammarians and rhetoricians. The fact of Quintilian's Spanish origin may therefore be regarded as fully established, though we cannot cite the authority of Quintilian himself on the subject. His removal to Rome, at a very early period of his life, would naturally make him more of a Roman than a Spaniard; and this is probably the reason why he nowhere refers to the accident of his birth-place. Indeed his work does not lend itself to autobiographical revelations. Most of his reminiscences, some of which occur in the Tenth Book (1 §§ 23 and 86, 3 § 12: cp. v. 7, 7: vi. 1, 14: xii. 11, 3) are suggested by some detail connected with his subject. Apart from the famous introduction to Book VI, where his grief for the loss of his wife and two sons is allowed to interrupt the continuity of his argument, he speaks of his father only once (ix. 3, 73), and then simply to quote, not without some diffidence, a bon mot of his in illustration of a figure of speech. The father was himself a rhetorician, and seems to have taught the subject both at Calagurris and also after the family removed to Rome: whether he is identical with the Quintilianus mentioned as a declaimer of moderate reputation by the elder Seneca (Controv. x. praef. 2: cp. ib. 33, 19) cannot now be ascertained. The date of Quintilian's birth has been variously given as A.D. 42, A.D. 38, and A.D. 35, the last being now most commonly adopted. It cannot be determined with certainty, though a few considerations may here be adduced to show why it seems necessary to discard any theory that would put it after A. D. 38. Dodwell, in his 'Annales Quintilianei' (see Burmann's edition, vol. ii. p. 1117), arrived at the year A.D. 42, after a careful examination of all the passages on which he thought it allowable to base an inference. But Quintilian tells us himself that he was a young man (nobis adulescentibus vi. 1, 14) at the trial of Cossutianus Capito, 1 C. Suetoni Tranquilli praeter Caesarum libros reliquiae. Leipzig 1860, p. 365 sq. and 469 sq. |