If, as already noted, Quintilian’s character has met with general approval from modern readers, his apparent flattery of the emperor Domitian (3.7.9, 4 praef. 2-5, 10.1.91-2) has often generated criticism. In fact, his praise of the princeps has been interpreted in a variety of ways: some have viewed it as a sincere expression of support for Domitian’s regime (e. g., McDermott and Orentzel 1979: 15); others as a perfunctory, thoroughly conventional routine, one virtually unavoidable given the circles in which Quintilian moved (e. g., H. Butler 1920: viii; cf. Kennedy 1969: 110). A more complex picture of Quintilian’s relationship with the emperor should take into account several issues that point to a certain intimacy between the rhetor and the successive rulers of the empire.
The first of these issues is Vespasian’s attitude toward provincials: as the first Flavian emperor he showed a very active interest in promoting individuals from the western provinces to high positions in the Roman administration. Vespasian, following Claudius’ earlier policy, made a conscious effort to renew the ruling classes by turning to the more Romanized provinces (especially Hispania) for new blood. Moreover, from a narrower political point of view, Hispania (together with other provinces) had aligned itself with Vespasian while the outcome of the conflict between the Flavians and Vitellius was still uncertain (see Tac. Hist. 3.53.5, 3.70.5), a factor that no doubt reinforced Vespasian’s favorable attitude.
Another affinity between Quintilian’s ideas and the Flavians’ policies involves philosophy. As has already been discussed, one of Quintilian’s main concerns in the programmatic preface to book 1 of the Institutio is his battle with philosophers for hegemony over the intellectual and educational scene of the time, and it was Vespasian who took the extreme measure of banishing philosophers from Rome in 71 CE. It should be noted, however, that the philosophers Quintilian has in mind in his discussion were generally not concerned with political matters, while the ones hounded by Vespasian most probably belonged to the anti-tyrannical Stoic tradition and more or less actively opposed the imperial regime.
It should be remembered too that Domitian’s despotic persecutions had almost exclusively as their target the senatorial rank, which traditionally opposed imperial absolutism, a group to which Quintilian did not belong. Moreover the Flavians’ rule was characterized for decades by its administrative efficiency. Their success in this respect depended heavily on the selection of reliable collaborators from emergent groups, including a provincial like Quintilian. Finally, Domitian’s rule had another positive side: the last Flavian emperor led a campaign of solid moral reform that aimed at correcting what was interpreted as present-day decadence and recovering a more or less vague glorious past. This was an idea that Quintilian was likely to approve of since it coincided with his conservative views on the moral situation of contemporary Rome and the aesthetic trends that derived from it.
Although Quintilian’s flattering comments on Domitian are hyperbolic, especially the praise of the emperor’s poetic skills at Institutio 10.1.91-2, and he was rewarded with the ornamenta consularia, he is far from servile: he did not dedicate the Institutio to the emperor and he limits his praise to the three passages cited above. Moreover, there is little sign of the emperor’s influence on the Institutio'’s general structure, scope, and content. At most Quintilian indulges in a certain political opportunism in his emphatic denunciation of philosophers and his invocation of the morality and literary style of the past.
World History
