[28]
Again praise in general terms may be
awarded to noble sayings or deeds. Finally things
of every kind may be praised. Panegyrics have
been composed on sleep and death, and physicians
have written eulogies on certain kinds of food.
While therefore I do not agree that panegyric
concerns only questions regarding what is honourable, I do think that it comes as a rule under
the heading of quality, although all three bases1 may
he involved in Panegyric and it was observed by
Cicero2 that all were actually used by Gaius Caesar
in his denunciation of Cato. But panegyric is akin
to deliberative oratory inasmuch as the same things
are usually praised in the former as are advised
in the latter.
VIII. I am surprised that deliberative oratory also
has been restricted by some authorities to questions
of expediency. If it should be necessary to assign
one single aim to deliberative I should prefer
Cicero's3 view that this kind of oratory is primarily
concerned with what is honourable. I do not doubt
that those who maintain the opinion first mentioned
adopt the lofty view that nothing can be expedient
which is not good.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.