ed
from the treatise itself, did not write to make money, but to oblige his
relative and friend Herennius, for whose instruction he promises to
supply other works on grammar, military matters and political
administration. He expresses his contempt for the ordinary school
rhetorician, the hair-splitting dialecticians and their "sense of
inability to speak, since they dare not even pronounce their own name
for fear of expressing themselves ambiguously." Finally, he admits that
rhetoric is not the highest accomplishment, and that philosophy is far
more deserving of attention. Politically, it is evident that he was a
staunch supporter of the popular party.

The first and second books of the _Rhetorica_ treat of _inventio_ and
forensic rhetoric; the third, of _dispositio_, _pronuntiatio_,
_memoria_, deliberative and demonstrative rhetoric; the fourth, of
_elocutio_. The chief aims of the author are conciseness and clearness
(_breviter et dilucide scribere_). In accordance with this, he ignores
all rhetorical subtleties, the useless and irrelevant matter introduced
by the Greeks to make the art appear more difficult of acquisition;
where possible, he uses Roman terminology for technical terms, and
supplies his own examples of the various rhetorical figures. The work as
a whole is considered very valuable. The question of the relation of
Cicero's _De inventione_ to the _Rhetorica_ has been much discussed.
Three views were held: that the Auctor copied from Cicero; that they
were independent of each other, parallelisms being due to their having
been taught by the same rhetorician at Rome; that Cicero made extracts
from the _Rhetorica_, as well as from other authorities, in his usual
eclectic fashion. The latest editor, F. Marx, puts forward the theory
that Cicero and the Auctor have not produced original works, but have
merely given the substance of two [Greek: technai] (both emanating from
the Rhodian school); that neither used the [Greek: technai] directly,
but reproduced the revised version of the rhetoricians whose school they
attended, the introductions alone being their own work; that the
lectures on which the Ciceronian treatise was based were delivered
before the lectures attended by the Auctor.

The best modern editions are by C. L. Kayser (1860), in the Tauchnitz,
and W. Friedrich (1889), in the Teubner edition of Cicero's works, and
separately by F. Marx (1894); see also _De scholiis Rhetorices ad
Herennium_