Come un fiume impetuoso. Un elogio dell’oratore in Quint. Inst. 12, 10, 60

Abstract

In a large section of the twelfth book of the Institutio oratoria, which discusses the different oratorical styles and full of Ciceronian memoirs, with an unprecedented simile Quintilian likens the orator to a river in flood, whose violent dragging effect perfectly metaphorizes the task that he will have to achieve with the judges or the assembly