[46]
I shall, I think, be right in following the principle
[p. 29]
laid down by Aratus1 in the line, “With Jove let
us begin,” and in beginning with Homer. He is like
his own conception of Ocean,2 which he describes as
the source of every stream and river; for he has
given us a model and an inspiration for every
department of eloquence. It will be generally admitted that no one has ever surpassed him in the
sublimity with which he invests great themes or the
propriety with which he handles small. He is at
once luxuriant and concise, sprightly and serious,
remarkable at once for his fullness and his brevity,
and supreme not merely for poetic, but for oratorical
power as well.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.