M. Fabius Quintilianus

M. Fabius Quintilianus circa annum XXXV p.C.n. Calagurri in Hispania natus est. Romae eruditus, ubi adulescens Domitium Afrum oratorem audivit, in Hispaniam rediit, unde eum Galba anno LXVIII Romam secum duxit. Ibi causas egit et per viginti annos rhetoricam docuit; primus rhetor salarium e fisco accepit, Vespasiano principe. Inter discipulos eius fuit Plinius Minor.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was born about A.D. 35 at Calagurris (Calahorra) in Spain. Educated at Rome, where as a young man he heard the orator Domitius Afer, he returned to Spain, and in 68 the emperor Galba brought him back to Rome. There he pleaded in the courts and taught rhetoric for twenty years; under Vespasian he became the first teacher of rhetoric to receive a salary from the treasury. Pliny the Younger was among his pupils.

Domitianus eum sororis nepotibus, heredibus designatis, praeceptorem dedit, et ornamenta consularia accepit. Magnos luctus passus est: uxor iuvenis, nondum undeviginti annos nata, mortua est, deinde ambos filios pueros amisit, quorum in maiore omnem spem reposuerat. De his luctibus in prooemio libri sexti graviter scripsit.

Domitian made him tutor to his sister's grandsons, the designated heirs, and he received the insignia of a consul. He suffered great grief: his young wife died before she was nineteen, and then he lost both his sons while they were still boys, the elder of whom carried all his hopes. He wrote of these losses with deep feeling in the preface to the sixth book of his Institutio.

In otio, amicis rogantibus, Institutionem Oratoriam libris duodecim scripsit (circa annum XCV), Marcello Victorio amico dedicatam, de oratore a cunabulis ad forum instituendo. Liber decimus auctores Graecos et Latinos oratori legendos diiudicat; ultimus oratorem perfectum depingit, Catonis 'virum bonum dicendi peritum'. Circa annum C mortuus est.

In retirement, at the urging of friends, he wrote the Institutio Oratoria in twelve books (about A.D. 95), dedicated to his friend Marcellus Victorius, on the training of the orator from the cradle to the forum. Its tenth book judges the Greek and Latin authors an orator should read; its last portrays the ideal orator, Cato's 'good man skilled in speaking'. He died about A.D. 100.

1. c. 35 p.C.n.c. A.D. 35Calagurri nascitur.Born at Calagurris.
2. c. 68 p.C.n.c. A.D. 68Romam venit.Comes to Rome.
3. c. 70–75 p.C.n.c. A.D. 70–75Salarium publicum rhetor accipit.Receives a public salary as teacher of rhetoric.
4. c. 90 p.C.n.c. A.D. 90Praeceptor heredum Domitiani.Tutor to Domitian's heirs.
5. c. 95 p.C.n.c. A.D. 95Institutionem Oratoriam edit.Publishes the Institutio Oratoria.
6. c. 100 p.C.n.c. A.D. 100Moritur.Dies.