The work is repeatedly quoted by Quintilian, sometimes under the title Libri Rhetorici, sometimes as Libri Artis Rhetoricae, generally as Rhetorica (comp. Serv. ad Virg. Aen. viii. 321, ix. 481), and we might infer from a passage in Quintilian (ii. 14. § 5), that De Rhetorice was the appellation selected by the author; at all events, the addition De Inventione Rhetorica rests upon no ancient authority.
An account of the most important editions of the De Inventione is given below, after the remarks upon the Rhetorica ad Herennium.
2. De Partitione Oratoria Dialogus.
This has been correctly described as a catechism of Rhetoric, according to the method of the middle Academy, by way of question and answer, drawn up by Cicero for the instruction of his son Marcus, in which the whole art is comprised under three heads. 1. The Vis Oratoris, in which the subject is treated with reference to the speaker; 2. the Oratio, which treats of the speech; 3. the Quaestio, which treats of the case.
The precepts with regard to the speaker are ranged under five heads. 1. Inventio. 2. Collocatio. 3. Eloquutio. 4. Actio. 5. Memoria.
The precepts with regard to the speech are also under five heads. 1. Exordium. 2. Narratio. 3. Confirmatio. 4. Reprehensio. 5. Peroratio.
The case may be a. Infinita, in which neither persons nor times are defined, and then it is called propositum or consultatio, or it may be b. Finita, in which the persons are defined, and then it is called causa; this in reality is included in the former.
The precepts with regard to the quaestio infinita or consultatio are ranged under 1. Cognitio, by which the existence, the nature, and the quality of the case are determined; 2. Actio, which discusses the means and manner in which any object may be obtained.
The precepts with regard to the quaestio finita or causa are ranged under three heads, according as the case belongs to 1. the Genus Demonstrativum; 2. the Genus Deliberativum; 3. the Genus Judiciale.
The different constitutiones are next passed under review, and the conversation concludes with an exhortation to the study of philosophy.
These partitiones, a term which corresponds to the Greek διαιρέσεις, may be considered as the most purely scientific of all the rhetorical works of Cicero, and form a useful companion to the treatise De Inventione; but from their strictly technical character the tract appears dry and uninteresting, and from the paucity of illustrations is not unfrequently somewhat obscure. From the circumstance that Cicero makes no mention of this work in his other writings, some critics have called in question its authenticity, but there seems to be no evidence either internal or external to justify such a suspicion, and it is repeatedly quoted by Quintilian without any expression of doubt. Another debate has arisen as to the period when it was composed. We are told at the commencement that it was drawn up during a period when the author was completely at leisure in consequence of having been at length enabled to quit Rome, and this expression has been generally believed to indicate the close of the year в. с. 46 or the beginning of в. с. 45, shortly before the death of Tullia and the departure of Marcus for Athens, when, as we know from his correspondence, he was devoting himself with the greatest diligence to literary pursuits. (Ad Fam. vii. 28, ix. 26.) Hand has, however, endeavoured to prove (Ersch and Grüber's Encyclopädie, art. Cicero), that we may with greater probability fix upon the year в. с. 49, when Cicero after his return from Cilicia suddenly withdrew from Rome about the middle of January (ad Att. vii. 10), and having spent a considerable time at Formiae, and visited various parts of Campania, proceeded to Arpinum at the end of March, invested his son with the manly gown, and afterwards made him the companion of his flight. But this critic seems to have forgotten that Cicero never entered the city from the spring of в. с. 51 until late in the autumn of в. с. 47, and therefore could certainly never have employed the phrase "quoniam aliquando Roma exeundi potestas data est," and still less could he ever have talked of enjoying "summum otium" at an epoch perhaps the most painful and agitating in his whole life.
The earliest edition of the Partitiones Oratoriae, in a separate form, which bears a date, is that by Gabr. Fontana, printed in 1472, 4to., probably at Venice. There are, however, two editions, supposed by bibliographers to be older. Neither of them has place, date, nor printer's name, but one is known to be from the press of Moravus at Naples. The commentaries of G. Valla and L. Strebaeus, with the argument of Latomius, are found in the edition of Seb. Gryphius, Leyden, 1541 and 1545, 8vo., often reprinted. We have also the editions of Camerarius, Lips. 1549; of Sturnius,Strasburg, 1565 ; of Minos, Paris, 1582; of Maioragius and Marcellinus, Venice, 1587; of Hauptmann, Leipzig, 1741. In illustration, the disquisition of Erhard. Reuschius, " De Ciceronis Partitionibus Oratoriis," Helmstaedt, 1723, will be found useful.
3. De Oratore ad Quintum Fratrem Libri III.
Cicero having been urged by his brother Quintus to compose a systematic work on the art of Oratory, the dialogues which bear the above title were drawn up in compliance with this request. They were completed towards the end of в. с. 55 (ad Att. iv. 13), about two years after the return of their author from banishment, and had occupied much of his time during a period in which he had in a great measure withdrawn from public life, and had sought consolation for his political degradation by an earnest devotion to literary pursuits. All his thoughts and exertions were thus directed in one channel, and consequently, as might be expected, the production before us is one of his most brilliant efforts, and will be found to be so accurately finished in its most minute parts, that it may be regarded as a master-piece of skill in all that relates to the graces of style and composition. The object in view, as explained by himself, was to furnish a treatise which should comprehend all that was valuable in the theories of Aristotle, Isocrates, and other ancient rhetoricians, and at the same time present their precepts in an agreeable and attractive form, disembarrassed of the formal stiffness and dry technicalities of the schools. (Ad Fam. i. 9, ad Att. iv. 16.)
The conversations, which form the medium through which instruction is conveyed, are supposed to have taken place in в. с. 91, immediately before the breaking out of the Social war, at the moment when the city was violently agitated by the proposal of the tribune M. Livius Drusus, to
