[2]
Another when asked whether he
was a follower of Theodorus or Apollodorus, replied,
“Oh! as for me, I am all for the Thracians.”1
To do him justice, he could hardly have found a
neater way to avoid confessing his ignorance. These
persons, just because, thanks to their natural gifts,
they are regarded as brilliant performers and have,
as a matter of fact, uttered much that deserves to
be remembered, think that, while most men share
their careless habits, few come near them for talent.
1 i.e. I care naught for your rival schools of rhetoric. I give all my favour to the men armed with the buckler (the gladiators known as Thraces). Such contests of the amphitheatre interest me far more than the contests between rival schools of rhetoric.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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