Thesauros Literature rhetoric Institutio Oratoria

Institutio Oratoria

Institutio Oratoria Quintilian

Book 12

11.5 His house will, as in the days of old, be thronged by all the best of the rising generation, who will seek to learn from him as from an oracle how they may find the path to true eloquence. And he as their father in the art will mould them to all excellence, and like some old pilot will teach them of the shores whereby their ships must sail, of the harbours where they may shelter, and the signs of the weather, and will expound to them what they shall do when the breeze is fair or the tempest blows. Whereto he will be inclined not only by the common duty of humanity, but by a certain passion for the task that once was his, since no man desires that the art wherein he was once supreme should suffer decay or diminution.
11.6 And what can be more honourable than to teach that which you know surpassing well? It was for this that the elder Caelius brought his son to Cicero, as the latter pro Cael. iv. 10. tells us, and it was with this intent that the same great orator took upon himself the duties of instructor, and trained Pansa, Hirtius and Dolabella by declaiming daily before them or hearing them declaim.

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