Quintilian, the Princeps, and the Orator

Quintilian, the Princeps, and the Orator

Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria may seem like a far cry from a guide to political resistance.  Its author prospered under the Flavian dynasty, holding a state-sponsored professorship of rhetoric, receiving consular insignia, and agreeing to supervise the education of Domitian’s grand-nephews and heirs apparent (cf. Kennedy 1969).  Not even Quintilian’s lavish praise of the emperor in the prologue to Book Four, however, can entirely obscure an undercurrent of skepticism about authoritarian rule that suggestively surfaces in his discussions of the orator’s interactions with the judge.  Extending the argument of Morgan 1998, I read Quintilian’s work as responding to the political situation under Domitian through its theory of education.  Since political power and decision-making were concentrated in the hands of a supreme individual (the princeps, cf. Inst. 6.1.35), Quintilian champions an ideal in which another individual (the orator) develops the power to override the potential injustice of the princeps in a judicial setting.  I suggest that Quintilian conceptualizes both the problem of one-person rule and the solution as a matter of individual will (voluntas).  The will of the princeps, which can override the law, is counterpoised by that of the orator, on whom Quintilian lays the moral responsibility for bringing about a just outcome (e.g., 6.1.7-8); the orator’s honesta voluntas preserves his moral integrity even when he has to deceive or overwhelm the judge (12.1.45).  Acknowledging Quintilian’s participation in techniques of doublespeak (cf. Bartsch 1994) without denying that he may have been genuinely grateful to the emperor for benefits bestowed, I propose that Quintilian resists imperial domination not by seeking to overthrow an unjust regime but by forming individuals who are equipped to balance and transform it from within.

Quintilian alludes to the potentially problematic power of the emperor’s will in Institutio 5.13.6.  Since the princeps can make up his mind however he wishes (cui utrum velit liceat) without being bound by existing laws (cf. Brunt 1977 on the lex de imperio Vespasiani), the orator can adopt a different persuasive strategy than he would use with an ordinary judge (5.13.7).  Before the emperor, the orator can plead for mercy, begging him to show his clementia by sparing the guilty defendant.  This technique affords the orator scope for the kind of emotional maneuvering that Quintilian claims is the orator's highest achievement (6.2.4-5).  Through this emotional mastery, Quintilian portrays the orator dominating the judge, sweeping him away by the force of his emotional appeals to get him to carry out what the orator intends (6.2.1, 6.2.3-6).  By qualifying the orator’s will as upright and committed to the achievement of justice in 12.1, Quintilian establishes the orator as a sort of moral check on the emperor.  In laying out the education of an orator who always wants the good—and has the power to achieve it through skillful speaking—Quintilian offers a means of resisting injustice in the political regime while empowering younger people, including the emperor’s potential successors, to aspire to build a better one.