[27]
For even if a soldier
cannot achieve the glory of Achilles in war, he will
not despise fame such as fell to the lot of Ajax and
Diomede, while those who cannot be Homers may
be content to reach the level of Tyrtaeus. Nay, if
men had been obsessed by the conviction that it was
impossible to surpass the man who had so far shown
himself best, those whom we now regard as best
would never have reached such distinction, Lucretius
[p. 513]
and Macer would never have been succeeded by
Virgil, nor Crassus and Hortensius by Cicero, nor
they in their turn by those who flourished after
them.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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