Valerius Maximus flourished during the reign of Tiberius. His work is a collection of anecdotes entitled "Memorable Sayings and Deeds," the object of which was to illustrate by examples the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. The style is prolix and declamatory, and characterized by awkward affectation and involved obscurity.
7. RHETORIC AND ELOQUENCE.--Under the empire, schools of rhetoric were multiplied, as harmless as tyranny could desire. In these the Roman youth learned the means by which the absence of natural endowments could be compensated. The students composed their speeches according to the rules of rhetoric; they were then corrected, committed to memory, and recited, partly with a view to practice, partly in order to amuse an admiring audience. Nor were these declamations confined to mere students. Public recitations had, since the days of Juvenal, been one of the crying nuisances of the times. Seneca, the father of the philosopher of the same name, a famous rhetorician himself, left two works containing a series of exercises in oratory, which show the hollow and artificial system of those schools. He was born in Cordova in Spain (61 A.D.), and as a professional rhetorician amassed a considerable fortune.
Quintilian (40-118 A.D.) was the most distinguished teacher of rhetoric of this age. He attempted to restore a purer and more classical taste, but, although to a certain extent he was successful, the effect which he produced was only temporary. For the instruction of his elder son he wrote his great work, "Institutes of Oratory," a complete system of instruction in the art of oratory; and in it he shows himself far superior to Cicero as a teacher, though he was inferior to him as an orator.
His work is divided into twelve books, in which he traces the progress of the orator from the very cradle until he arrives at perfection. In this monument of his taste and genius he fully and completely exhausted the subject, and left a text-book of the science and art of nations, as well as a masterly sketch of the eloquence of antiquity.
The disposition of Quintilian was as affectionate and tender as his genius was brilliant and his taste pure; few passages throughout the whole range of Latin literature can be compared to that in which he mourns the loss of his wife and children. It is the touching eloquence of one who could not write otherwise than gracefully.