Colin’s Reviews > The Orator's Education, Books 3–5 > Status Update

Finished Quintilian's section on the partition of propositions. Whether divided or whole, Quintilian concludes that propositions must be open and clear, and enjoy the virtue of brevity.

Finished Quintilian's section on Propositions

On the Narrative

On securing the goodwill and attention of the audience in prooemia

Finished the section on deliberative oratory

Quintilian writes of the rhetoric of praise and blame. I was rather disturbed by this on those *deserving* blame, "We also hate the parents of evil men, and it is a disgrace to founders of cities to gather together a race pernicious to everybody else, as did the originator of the Jewish supersition [Moses]. The laws of the Gracchi are an object of hatred." Anti-Semitic, and I have always admired the Gracchi!

Finished Quintilian's exhaustive accounting of all the types of causes . . .

"Tria sunt item quae praestare debeat orator, ut doceat, moveat, delectet."

On the five divisions of rhetoric: Invention, Disposition, Elocution, Memory, and Delivery or Performance (Inventio, Dispositio, Elocutio, Memoria, et Pronuntiatio sive Actio)

On the origins of rhetoric . . .