Quintilien

Quintilien (in Latin Marcus Fabius Quintilianus ) is a rhetor and Latin pedagog of Ier century apr. J. - C.

Biography

It was born between 30 and 35 a. J. - C., in Calagurris Nassica (today Calahorra), close to Logroño, in the Roman province of Tarraconaise in Spain.

The Quintilien young person makes his first studies in Rome where his/her father follows the occupation of rhetor or lawyer. It acquires a complete general culture there while following the lessons of Palémon for the literature and Domitius Afer for the eloquence. Member of the bar of Rome during a few years, it regains Spain into 61 with Galba that Néron has just named governor of the province of Tarraconaise. During seven years, it is professor of eloquence and lawyer there. It returns to Rome into 68, after the assassination of Néron, when Galba is named Empereur: it will follow there the double occupation of rhetor and lawyer during twenty years.

When Vespasien reaches the capacity in year 69, it decides to promote within the country an official teaching. Its choice is made then naturally on Quintilien which becomes, to some extent, the first professor of the Roman state education. It opens a school of rhetoric which will become among the most run of the capital, gathering wire of good families. It touches approximately 100.000 sesterces per annum. And friend right-hand man of Pline Old the, it counts, among his pupils, Pline the Young person, the nephews of Domitien, the grandsons of the queen Domitella, perhaps even Tacite.

After twenty years of teaching, it withdraws public life into 89 after having obtained several distinctions: the ornamenta , the consularia and the laticlave (band crimson which decorated the tunic of the noble Romans). The end of its life is marked by a series of family dramas: in 89, it loses his 19 years old wife; in 90, it loses its first five years old wire; in 95, it loses its second wire ten years old.

Little before dying, Quintilien makes appear its philosopher's stone: Of institutione oratoria . He dies probably shortly after the assassination of the Domitien emperor into 96.

Work

the institution oratory

A small opuscule of Quintilien, heading Of causis corruptae eloquentiae , is lost. One wanted to identify it, wrongly, with the Dialogus of oratoribus of Tacit.

Its most important work remains the Of institutione oratoria , that one often represents by institution oratory , to the humanistic direction of the term, i.e. About the training of the speaker . Work counts 12 pounds which completely reached us.

If, in the first two books, Quintilien gives an idea of the course which a child must follow - especially the rich person citizens child who has the means of paying a grammaticus - to be formed with the art of public speaking, it is in its third free that it describes, in a theoretical way, the five acts which, according to him, characterize this art of public speaking:

inventio (“the invention”): to find what to say.
dispositio (“the provision”): to know to organize what one will say.
elocutio (“elocution”): to choose the way to say it.
actio (“the action”): to know to combine the word and the gesture.
memoria (“memory”): to retain what one must say.

Quintilien completes this book by the description of the three kinds caractertistic of the eloquence, description which it borrows from the work of Aristote, Poétique and rhetoric :

legal
conclusive kind or epidictic
deliberative kind or sumbouleutic kind

The principle of Quintilien

Worms of Quintilien, remained celebrates, summarizes with him only the step of any criminal instruction: Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando : Which (made the criminal act), what (about what it is?), where, with which means, why, how, when?

One can note that it worms is quoted by the assistant of the prefect of Lutèce in the album of cartoon the gold Bill hook .

This principle, also called “mnemotechnical Hexameter of Quintilien” or “QQOQCCP” is used mainly in the preparation of reports/ratios (journalists, investigators, etc) and the project management.

Pseudo-Quintilien

A collection of declamations was wrongfully allotted to Quintilien: this collection corresponds to exercises of school. One finds there a summary, a groundwork and a development. One counts 19 declamationes maiores and 145 declamationes undervalue .

Editions

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 1, Livre I; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1975. (Collection of the Universities of France). cxxvi-296p. ISBN 2-251-01202-8.

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 2, Livre II; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1976. the 3rd pulling re-examined and corrected by Guy Achard. (Collection of the Universities of France). 456p. ISBN 2-251-01203-6.

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 3, Livres IV-V; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1976. (Collection of the Universities of France). 441p. ISBN 2-251-01204-4.

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 4, Livres VI-VII; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1976. (Collection of the Universities of France). xxxii-390p. ISBN 2-251-01205-2.

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 5, Livres VIII - IX; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1978. (Collection of the Universities of France). 534p. ISBN 2-251-01206-0.

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 6, Livres X-XI; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1979. (Collection of the Universities of France). 549p. ISBN 2-251-01310-5.

Of the Institution oratory . Volume 7, Livre XII; ED. and tr. Jean Cousin. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1980. (Collection of the Universities of France). 396p. ISBN 2-251-01311-3.

See too

Internal bonds

Rhetoric

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