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Book 1 - Chapter 9
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Commencement of composition, § 1. Aesop's fables, 2. Sentences, chriae, ethologiae, 3, 4. Narratives from the poets, 5.
1. TWO of the departments which this profession undertakes have now been concluded, namely, the art of speaking correctly, and the explanation of authors, of which they call the one methodicē and the other historicē. Let us add, however, to the business of the grammarian some rudiments of the art of speaking in which they may initiate their pupils while still too young for the teacher of rhetoric. 2. Let boys learn, then, to relate orally the fables of Aesop, which follow next after the nurse's stories, in plain language, not rising at all above mediocrity, and afterwards to express the same simplicity in writing. Let them learn, too, to take to pieces the verses of the poets and then to express them in different words, and afterwards to represent them, somewhat boldly, in a paraphrase, in which it is allowable to abbreviate or embellish certain parts, provided that the sense of the poet be preserved. 3. He who shall successfully perform this exercise, which is difficult even for accomplished professors, will be able to learn anything. Let sentences, also, and chriae and ethologies, be written by the learner, with the occasions of the sayings added according to the grammarians, because these depend upon reading. The nature of all these is similar, but their form different, because a sentence is a general proposition; ethology is confined to certain persons. 4. Of chriae several sorts are specified: one similar to a sentence, which is introduced with a simple statement, He said, or He was accustomed to say: another, which includes its subject in an answer: He, being asked, or, when this remark was made to him, replied; a third, not unlike the second, commences, When some one had not said, but done, something. 5. Even in the acts of people, some think that there is a chria, as, Crates, having met with an ignorant boy, beat his tutor: and there is another sort, almost like this, which, however, they do not venture to call by the same name, but term it a χρειῶδες (chriades); as, "Milo, having been accustomed to carry the same calf every day, ended by carrying a bull." In all these forms the declension is conducted through the same cases, and a reason may be given as well for acts as for sayings. Stories told by the poets should, I think, be treated by boys, not with a view to eloquence, but for the purpose of increasing their knowledge. By abandoning other exercises of greater toil and ardor, Latin teachers of rhetoric have rendered them the necessary work of teachers of grammar. The Greek rhetoricians have better understood the weight and measure of their duties.
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