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Book 2 - Chapter 14
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Of the term rhetoric or oratory, § 1-4. Heads under which Quintilian considers the art of oratory, 5.
1. SOME who have translated ῥητορικὴ (rhētorikē) from Greek into Latin have called it ars oratoria and oratrix. I would not deprive those writers of their due praise for endeavoring to add to the copiousness of the Latin language, but all Greek words do not obey our will in attempting to render them from the Greek, as all our words, in like manner, do not obey that of the Greeks when they try to express something of ours in their own tongue. 2. This translation is no less harsh than the essentia and entia of Flavius, for the Greek οὐσία (onsia): nor is it indeed exact, for oratoria will be taken in the same sense as elocutoria, oratrix as elocutrix, but the word rhētorikē, of which we are speaking, is the same sort of word as eloquentia, and it is doubtless used in two senses by the Greeks. 3. In one acceptation, it is an adjective, ars rhetorica, as navis piratica: in the other a substantive, like philosophia or amicitia. We wish it now to have the signification of a substantive, just as γραμματικὴ (grammatikē) is rendered by the substantive literatura, not by literatrix, which would be similar to oratrix, nor by literatoria, which would be similar to oratoria; but for the word rhētorikē, no equivalent Latin word has heen found. 4. Let us not, however, dispute about the use of it, especially as we must adopt many other Greek words, for if I may use the terms physicus, musicus, geometres, I shall offer no unseemly violence to them by attempting to turn them into Latin. Since Cicero himself uses a Greek title for the books which he first wrote upon the art, we certainly need be under no apprehension of appearing to have rashly trusted the greatest of orators as to the name of his own art.
5. Rhetoric, then, (for we shall henceforth use this term without dread of sarcastic objections) will be best divided, in my opinion, in such a manner that we may speak first of the art, next of the artist, and then of the work. The art will be that which ought to be attained by study and is the knowledge how to speak well. The artificer is he who has thoroughly acquired the art, that is, the orator, whose business is to speak well. The work is what is achieved by the artificer, that is, good speaking. All these are to be considered under special heads, but of the particulars that are to follow, I shall speak in their several places; at present I shall proceed to consider what is to be said on the first general head.
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