''De Inventione'' is a handbook for

orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...

s that

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

composed when he was still a young man. Quintilian tells us that Cicero considered the work rendered obsolete by his later writings. Originally four books in all, only two have survived into modern times. It is also credited with the first recorded use of the term "

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...

" or ''artes liberales'', though whether Cicero coined the term is unclear. The text also defines the concept of '' dignitas'': ''dignitas est alicuius honesta et cultu et honore et verecundia digna auctoritas''. At the request of

William of Santo Stefano William of Santo Stefano, in Italian Guglielmo di Santo Stefano ( fl. –1303), was an Italian nobleman, historian and patron of letters. He was an active member of the Knights Hospitaller in Outremer, northern Italy and Cyprus, where he was comma ...

, ''De Inventione'' was translated into

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...

by John of Antioch in 1282..

References

External links

Translation
by C.D. Yonge
Latin Text
Works by Cicero on oratory {{AncientRome-work-stub