Quintilian: Master of Oratory

timeline

ancient greece

o m c . k Marzolino/Sh utt er st o c

440 BCE

Roman boys next attended secondary level Greek grammar schools. The development of these schools related to Rome’s conquest of Greece. Roman diplomats, generals, and administrators needed to know Greek as an international language. Grammar schools were established to teach the Greek language and literature, as a second language, to Rome’s Latin-speaking youth. Under the direction of a grammar teacher, grammaticus, Roman boys from ages 11 to 16 studied Greek grammar, composition, literature, poetry, and history. The Greek grammar school led to the later development of a Latin grammar school, which taught the vernacular language, in the first century BCE.

For higher studies, upper-class Roman youths attended rhetorical schools that combined the Greek conception of liberal education and the Roman emphasis on practical politics and law. Roman rhetoric incorporated many aspects of Greek rhetoric, especially the model developed by Isocrates.

3-6a Quintilian: master of oratory

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35–95 CE), or Quintilian, was one of imperial Rome’s most highly recognized rhetoricians.41 The emperor appointed him to the first chair of Latin rhetoric.

Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria discussed (1) education preparatory to studying rhetoric, (2) rhetorical and educational theory, and (3) the practice of public speaking or declamation. Anticipating the modern teacher’s preservice preparation, Quintilian, recognizing the importance of students’ individual differences, advised that instruction be appropriate to their readiness and abilities. He urged teachers to motivate students by making lessons interesting and engaging.

Quintilian developed stage-based learning that corresponded to the patterns of human development. He recognized the importance of early childhood, the first stage from birth to age 7, in shaping later patterns of behavior. Because children construct their speech patterns on what they hear, he advised parents to select well-spoken nurses, pedagogues, and companions for their children.

41Robin Barrow, Greek and Roman Education (London: Duckworth Publishers, 2011). Also, see Iain Mcdougal, J. C. Yardley, and Mark Joyal, Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook (New York and London: Routledge, 2008); for a biographical sketch and an excerpt from Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, see Madonna M. Murphy, The History and Philosophy of Education: Voices of Educational Pioneers (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2006), pp. 59–66.

420 BCE

404 BCE sparta defeats Athens in Peloponnesian War

399 BCE Death of socrates

385 BCE Plato establishes Academy 384 BCE birth of Aristotle

400 BCE 380 BCE

427 BCE birth of Plato 436 BCE birth of Isocrates