Oratory, as an Art, was first mooted by Empedocles (b. C. But the oldest existing treatise on the subject is Aristotle's Rhetoric. Cicero, at a later date, dealt more comprehensively with it in his Essays, as in The Invention of the Topics, The Orator, or Brutus, The Divisions of Oratory, Of Famous Orators, and The Orator. In this last work the author, in three books, enters minutely into all the details of the art. The Institutions of Quintilian, in twelve books, is the fullest work of the kind in the classical age. Modern writers have added little to the art; their task has been the application of given principles. These pages, in dealing with the second part, or Practical Oratory, are mainly an epitome of Cicero and Quintilian, supplemented by details according to modern usage.