Editing Quintilian (section)

== Placement of Quintilian's rhetoric ==
{{Rhetoric}}
Quintilian cites many authors in the ''Institutio Oratoria'' before providing his own definition of [[rhetoric]].{{sfn|Quintilianus|1920|loc=10.1.3}} His rhetoric is chiefly defined by [[Cato the Elder]]'s ''vir bonus, dicendi peritus'', or "the good man skilled at speaking".{{sfn|Quintilianus|1920|loc=12.1.1}} Later he states: "I should like the orator I am training to be a sort of Roman Wise Man".{{sfn|Quintilianus|1920|loc=12.2.7}} Quintilian also "insists that his ideal orator is no philosopher because the philosopher does not take as a duty participation in civic life; this is constitutive of Quintilian's (and [[Isocrates]]' and [[Cicero]]'s) ideal orator".{{sfn|Walzer|2003|p=26}} Though he calls for [[Dionysian imitatio|imitation]], he also urges the orator to use this knowledge to inspire his own original invention.{{sfn|Quintilianus|1920|loc=10.2.4}}

No author receives greater praise in the ''Institutio Oratoria'' than Cicero: "For who can instruct with greater thoroughness, or more deeply stir the emotions? Who has ever possessed such a gift of charm?".{{sfn|Quintilianus|1920|loc=10.1.110}} Quintilian's definition of rhetoric shares many similarities with that of Cicero, one being the importance of the speaker's moral character.{{sfn|Logie|2003|loc={{Page needed|date=March 2017}}}} Like Cicero, Quintilian also believes that "history and philosophy can increase an orator's command of ''copia'' and style;" they differ in that Quintilian "features the character of the orator, as well as the art".{{sfn|Walzer|2003|pp=36–7}}

In Book II, Quintilian sides with [[Plato]]'s assertion in the ''[[Phaedrus (dialogue)|Phaedrus]]'' that the rhetorician must be just: "In the ''Phaedrus'', Plato makes it even clearer that the complete attainment of this art is even impossible without the knowledge of justice, an opinion in which I heartily concur".{{sfn|Quintilianus|1920|loc=2.15.29}} Their views are further similar in their treatment of "(1) the inseparability, in more respects than one, of wisdom, goodness, and eloquence; and (2) the morally ideological nature of rhetoric. [...] For both, there are conceptual connections between rhetoric and justice which rule out the possibility of [an] amorally neutral conception of rhetoric. For both, rhetoric is 'speaking well,' and for both 'speaking well' means speaking justly".{{sfn|Logie|2003|p=371}}