specially recommended as a form of poetry than which probably none is better suited to form the orator' (1 § 65). With the prose writers Quintilian is thoroughly at home, and he nowhere lets in so much light on his own sympathies as in the estimates he gives us of Cicero (1 §§ 105– 112) and Seneca (1 §§ 125-131). His criticism of Cicero is precisely what might have been expected from the general tone of the references throughout the Institutio. Cicero is Quintilian's model, to whom he looks up with reverential admiration: he will not hear of his faults. In his own day the great orator had been attacked by Atticists of the severer type for the richness of his style and the excessive attention which they alleged that he paid to rhythm. The 'plainness' of Lysias was their ideal, and they failed to recognise the fact that, with the more limited resources of the Latin language, such simplicity and condensation would be perilously near to baldness (cp. note on 1 § 105). Cicero they regarded as an Asianist in disguise; in the words of his devoted follower, they "dared to censure him as unduly turgid and Asiatic and redundant; as too much given to repetition, and sometimes insipid in his witticisms; and as spiritless, diffuse, and (save the mark!) even effeminate in his arrangement" (Inst. Or. xii. 10, 12, quoted on 1 § 105). That this criticism had not been forgotten in Quintilian's own day is obvious not only from the Institutio but also from the discussion in the Dialogus de Oratoribus, where Aper is represented as saying "We know that even Cicero was not without his disparagers, who thought him inflated, turgid, not sufficiently concise, but unduly diffuse and luxuriant, and far from Attic" (ch. 18). To such detractors of his great model Quintilian will have nothing to say, and in his criticism of Cicero he gives full expression to his enthusiastic admiration for the genius of one who had brought eloquence to the highest pinnacle of perfection (vi. 31 Latinae eloquentiae princeps: cp. x. 1 §§ 105112: xii. 1, 20 stetisse ipsum in fastigio eloquentiae fateor: 10, 12 sqq. in omnibus quae in quoque laudantur eminentissimum).

With such an absorbing enthusiasm for Cicero, it was hardly to be expected that Quintilian would show an adequate appreciation of Seneca. Seneca's influence was the great obstacle in the way of a general return to the classical tradition of the Golden Age, and this was the literary reform which Quintilian had at heart-corruptum et omnibus vitiis fractum dicendi genus revocare ad severiora iudicia contendo x. 1, 125. It is probable that, in spite of the appearance of candour which he assumes in dealing with him, Quintilian approached Seneca with a certain degree of prejudice'. Quintilian represents the literature of erudition, and his

'See M. Samuel Rocheblave: De M. Quintiliano L. Annaei Senecae Judice, Paris (Hachette), 1890.

standard is the best of what had been done in the past: Seneca was, like Lucan, the child of a new era, to whom it seemed perfectly natural that new thoughts should find utterance in new forms of expression. Seneca's motto was 'nullius nomen fero,'-he gave free rein to the play of his fancy, and rejected all method1: Quintilian looked with horror (in the interest of his pupils) on a liberty that was so near to licence, and set himself to check it by recalling men's minds to the 'good old ways,' and extolling Cicero as the synonym for eloquence itself. In such a conflict of tastes as regards things literary, and apart from the ambiguous character of Seneca's personal career, it is not surprising that Quintilian should have been unfavourably disposed towards him. He had a grudge, moreover, against philosophers in general, especially the Stoics. They had encroached on what his comprehensive scheme of education impelled him to believe was the province of the teacher of rhetoric,-the moral training of the future orator 2.

He was morbidly anxious to show that rhetoric stood in need of no extraneous assistance: even the 'grammatici' he teaches to know their proper place (see esp. i. 9, 6). But it was mainly, no doubt, as representing certain literary tendencies of which he disapproved that Seneca must have incurred Quintilian's censure. It is probable that in many passages of the Institutio, where he is not specially named, it is Seneca that is in the writer's mind: the tone of the references corresponds in several points with the famous passage of the Tenth Book. In this passage

1 Ep. xvi. 5, 5 de compositione non constat: Ep. xix. 5, 13 oratio certam regulam non habet.

i Prooem. § 10 sqq., especially neque enim hoc concesserim rationem rectae honestaeque vitae, ut quidam putaverunt, ad philosophos relegandam. Cp. x. 1, 35 and xii. 2,9 Utinam ... orator hanc artem superbo nomine et vitiis quorundam bona eius corrumpentium invisam vindicet. M. Rocheblave sees in these and other passages evidence of a bias against the representatives of philosophy on the part of Quintilian, which must have worked as powerfully in the case of a teacher of youth as the more open denunciations of Juvenal and Martial. He even finds traces of Quintilian's influence with Domitian in the banishment of the philosophers from Rome in A.D. 94. It is certainly noticeable that the tone of his references to them becomes more bitter in the later books: e. g. xi. 1, 33-35: and xii. 3, 1112. The Prooemium to Book i. may have been written last of all: and apart from it there is nothing in Books i to x (see i.

4, 5; x. I, 35 and 123) so acrimonious as the extracts referred to. Cp. p. xiv.

See ii. 5, 10-12 Ne id quidem inutile, etiam corruptas aliquando et vitiosas orationes, quas tamen plerique iudiciorum pravitate mirantur, legi palam ostendique in his quam multa impropria, obscura, tumida, humilia, sordida, lasciva, effeminata sint: quae non laudantur modo a plerisque sed, quod est peius, propter hoc ipsum quod sunt prava laudantur. With this last cp. x. I, 127 (of Seneca) placebat propter sola vitia. So i. 8, 9 quando nos in omnia deliciarum vitia dicendi quoque ratione defluximus: ii. 5, 22 (cavendum est) ne recentis huius lasciviae flosculis capti voluptate prava deleniantur ut praedulce illud genus et puerilibus ingeniis hoc gratius quo propius est adament with which compare x. I, 129 corrupta pleraque atque eo perniciosissima, quod abundant dulcibus vitiis: § 130 consensu potius eruditorum_quam puerorum amore comprobaretur. Rocheblave cites also viii. 5, 27, 28, 30.

Quintilian is evidently putting forward the whole force of his authority in order to counteract Seneca's influence. He has kept him waiting in a marked manner, to the very end of his literary review: and when he comes to deal with him he does not confine his criticism to a few words or phrases, but devotes nearly as much space to him as he did to Cicero himself. In his estimate of Seneca nothing is more remarkable than the careful manner in which Quintilian mingles praise and blame. But the praise is reluctant and half-hearted: it is Seneca's faults that his critic wishes to make prominent. He admits his ability (ingenium facile et copiosum § 128), and even goes the length of saying that it would be well if his imitators could rise to his level (foret enim optandum pares ac sallem proximos illi viro fieri § 127). But praise is no sooner given than it is immediately recalled. It was his faults that secured imitators for Seneca (placebat propter sola vitia ib.); if he was distinguished for wide knowledge (plurimum studiï, multa rerum cognitio § 128), he was often misled by those who assisted him in his researches; if there is much that is good in him, 'much even to admire' (multa ... probanda in eo, multa etiam admiranda sunt § 131), still it requires picking out. In short, so dangerous a model is he, that he should be read only by those who have come to maturity, and then not so much, evidently, for improvement, as for the reason that it is good to see both sides,'-quod exercere potest utrimque iudicium, ib.

It has already been suggested that the secret of a great part of Quintilian's antipathy to Seneca may have been his dislike of the philosophers, whom his imperial patrons found it necessary from time to time to suppress. He was anxious to exalt rhetoric at the expense of philosophy. But he was no doubt also honestly of opinion—and his position as an instructor of youth would make him feel bound to express his view distinctly-that Seneca was a dangerous model for the budding orator to imitate. His merits were many and great: but his peculiarities lent themselves readily to degradation. Quintilian wished to put forward a counterblast to the fashionable tendency of the day, and to recall-in their own interests-to severer models Seneca's youthful imitators, those of whom he writes ad ea (i.e. eius vitia) se quisque dirigebat effingenda, quae poterat; deinde quum se iactaret eodem modo dicere, Senecam infamabat § 127. Seneca was of course not responsible for the exaggerations of his imitators, and Quintilian would never have encouraged in his pupils exclusive devotion to any particular model, especially if that model were characterised by such peculiar features of style as distinguished Sallust or Tacitus. But he could not forgive

Seneca for his share in the reaction against Cicero'. Admirers of Seneca think that he failed to make allowance for the influences at work on the philosopher's style, and that he judged him too much from the standpoint of a rhetorician. They admit Seneca's faults-his tendency to declamation, the want of balance in his style, his excessive subtlety, his affectation, his want of method: but they contend that these faults are compensated by still greater virtues 2. M. Rocheblave, who possesses the appreciation of Seneca traditional among Frenchmen, follows Diderot in inclining to believe that the philosopher was the victim of envy and dislike. For himself he protests in the following terms against what he considers the inadequacy of Quintilian's estimate: Da mihi quemvis Annaei librorum ignarum, et dicito num ex istis Quintiliani laudibus non modo perspicere, sed suspicari etiam possit quanto sapientiae doctrinaeque gradu steterit scriptor qui in tota latina facundia optima senserit, humanissima docuerit, maxima et multo plurima excogitaverit, ita ut, multis ex antiqua morali philosophia seu graeca seu latina depromptis, adiectis pluribus, potuerit in unum propriumque saporem omnia illa quasi sapientiae humanae libamenta confundere? Credisne a tali lectore scriptorem vivo gurgite exundantem, sensibus scatentem, legentes in perpetuas rapientem cogitationes, eum denique quem ob vim animi ingeniique acumen iure anteponat Tullio Montanius noster, protinus agnitum iri? . . . facile credo pusillas Fabii laudes multum infra viri meritum stetisse (quod detrectationis sit tutissimum genus) omnes mecum confessuros' (pp. 44-5).

...

Whether they were altogether deserved or not, there can be no doubt

1 It is doubtful if the allusion in § 126 (potioribus praeferri non sinebam quos ille non destiterat incessere, &c.) is exclusively to Cicero. Seneca's extant works contain many references to Cicero which are the reverse of disparaging: Rocheblave (p. 43) cites Ep. vi. 6, 6 where he speaks of him as 'locuples' in the choice of words: xvi. 5, 9 where he is 'maximus' in philosophy: xviii. 4, 10 where he is disertissimus': see also xix. 5, 16, and xvi. 5, 7.

2

Cp. Rocheblave, p. 46 De Annaco vero Seneca, velut olim de Catone defendebat lepidissimus consul, merito

nobis dici videtur posse, quae deficiant, si minus omnia, pleraque saltem tempori esse attribuenda; quae vero emineant, ipsius scriptoris esse propria, et in primis oculos capere: p. 36 Eloquentiam non verbis, sed rebus valere, nec per se, sed propter quae docere animum possit, esse excolendam Annaeus semper professus

that the strictures made by so great a literary leader as Quintilian was in his own day must have greatly contributed to the overthrow of Seneca's influence. There is more than one indication, in the literature of the next generation, that he is no longer regarded as a safe model for imitation. Tacitus, in reporting the panegyric which Nero delivered on Claudius after his death, and which was the work of Seneca, says that it displayed much grace of style (multum cultus), as was to be expected from one who possessed ingenium amoenum et temporis eius auribus accommodatum (Ann. xiii. 3). Suetonius tell us how Caligula disparaged the lenius comtiusque scribendi genus which Seneca represented; and here (Calig. 53) occurs a similar reference to a fame that had passed away,-Senecam tum maxime placentem, just as the elder Pliny, writing about the time of Seneca's death, speaks of him as princeps tum eruditorum (Nat. Hist. xiv. 51). Later writers, such as Fronto and Aulus. Gellius were much more unreserved and even immoderate in their censure. And it is a remarkable fact (noted by M. Rocheblave) that the name of the great Stoic nowhere occurs in the writings of his successors, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. He who had been the greatest literary ornament of Nero's reign disappears almost from notice in the second century.

1

In regard to the general body of Quintilian's literary criticism, the question of greatest interest for modern readers is the degree of its originality. How far is Quintilian giving us his own independent judgments on the writings of authors whom he had read at first hand? How far is he merely registering current criticism, which must already have found more or less definite expression in the writings and teaching of previous rhetoricians and grammarians? The circumstances of the case make it impossible for us to approach the special questions which it involves with any great prejudice in favour of Quintilian's originality in general. The extent of his indebtedness to previous writers, as regards the main body of his work, may be inferred from a glance at the 'Index scriptorum et artificum' in Halm's edition. In many places he is merely simplifying the rules of the Greek rhetoricians whom he followed. Probably he was not equally well up in all the departments of the subject of which he treats, and he naturally relied, to some extent, on the works of those who had preceded him. But did he take his literary criticism from others? Was Quintilian one of those reprehensible persons who do not scruple to borrow, and to give forth as their own, the estimate formed and ex

1 Fronto, De Oration. p. 157 At enim quaedam in libris eius scite dicta, graviter quoque nonnulla. Etiam laminae inter

dum argentiolae cloacis inveniuntur; eane re cloacas purgandas redimemus? For Gellius see Noct. Att. xii. 2.