QUINTUS CURTIUS 



QUITO 



537 



exchequer. His professional career as a teacher 

 of eloquence commenced probably about 72, but 

 after twenty years of labour as advocate and 

 teacher he retired into private life, and died prob- 

 ably soon after 96. His reputation rests securely on 

 his great work entitled De Iitstitittione Oratoria 

 Libri XII., a complete system of rhetoric, which 

 he dedicates to his friend Victorias Marcellus, 

 himself a court favourite and orator of distinction. 

 It was written as he tells us in his preface to 

 his publisher Trypho after he had ceased to be a 

 public teacher, and was the fruit of two years' 

 labour. In the first book he discusses the pre- 

 liminary training through which a youth must 

 pass before he can begin those studies which are 

 requisite for the orator, and he gives us an elaborate 

 outline of the mode in which children should be 

 educated in the interval between the nursery and 

 the final instructions of the grammarian. The 

 second book treats of the first principles of rhetoric, 

 and contains an inquiry into the essential nature 

 of the art. The subjects of the five following 

 books are invention and arrangement ; while that 

 of the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh is style 

 ( locutio ), with memory and delivery. Of these the 

 eighth and ninth discuss the elements of a good 

 style ; the tenth, the practical studies requisite ; 

 the eleventh, appropriateness, memory, and 

 delivery. The last, and in the author's view 

 most important, book is devoted to the various 

 requisites for the formation of a finished orator, 

 suHi as his manners, his moral character, his 

 mode of undertaking, preparing, and conducting 

 causes, the style of eloquence most advantageous 

 to adopt, the age at which pleading shoulil lie 

 begun, and at which it should be left off, and other 

 allied topics. The entire work is remarkable for 

 its sound critical judgments, its purity of taste, 

 admirable form, and the perfect familiarity it 

 exhibits with the literature of oratory. The con- 

 densed survey of Greek and Roman literature with 

 which the tenth book commences has always been 

 admired for ite clearness, width of intellectual 

 sympathy, and vigour. Quintilian's own style is 

 excellent, for though he is not free from the love of 

 florid ornament and poetic metaphor characteristic 

 of his age, he was saved from its extremes by his 

 good sense, which refused to sacrifice clearness and 

 simplicity to effect, and still more, by his whole- 

 some admiration for Cicero. The style of Seneca 

 he discusses almost as fully as he does that of 

 Cicero, denouncing it as a dangerous model for the 

 orator to follow, lie makes an obvious effort to be 

 fair in balancing his praise and blame, but a careful 

 reader detects an undertone of dislike, whether to 

 Seneca's philosophy or his person. Nineteen longer 

 and 145 snorter Declamations (ed. C. Ritter, 1885), 

 which have been ascribed to him, are now believed 

 to be spurious, as they evidently belong to different 

 authors, and even different epochs. 



The best edition of Quintilian's works is that of Bur- 

 niann ( 1720 ) ; of the Inttitutio Oratoria, those by Spald- 

 ing, completed by Zumpt and Bonnell (1798-1834), the 

 last volume (vi.) containing a lexicon, Halm (1868-69), 

 and the hand-edition by Meister ( 1886-87). Of Book x. 

 alone there are editions by Professor J. E. B. Mayor 

 ( 1872, incomplete ), Hild ( Paris, 1885 ), Frieze ( New York, 

 188U ), and Principal Peterson ( Oxford, 18H1 ). There are 

 English translations by Guthrie ( 1805) and the Kev. J. S. 

 Watson (Bohn, 1855-56). See Karl Pilz, Quintilianut : 

 tin Lehrtrlehen atu der romixctten Kaiterzeit ( 1863 ), and 

 C. Ritter, Die Quintilianitchen Declamatirmen (1881). 



Qnlntus Cut-tins. See CUBTIUS. 



Qllipu> the language of knotted cords which 

 was used by the Incas of Peru previous to the con- 

 quest of their country by the Spaniards. A series 

 of knotted strings was fastened at one end to a 

 tout cord ; the other ends hung free. This was 



used for the purpose of conveying commands to 

 officers in the provinces, and even for recording^ 

 historic annals. The colours of the strings and 

 the order of their arrangement, the character and 

 number of the knots, their distance from the cord 

 to which they were connected, and the methods of 

 their interlacing were the principal elements in 

 this ' knotty language. ' 



Qllirililis (see MARS). The QUIRINAL (Lat. 

 CoUis Quirinalis) is one of the seven hills of 

 ancient Rome (q.v.), and next to the Palatine 

 and Capitoline the oldest and most famous quarter 

 of the city. For Qitirites, also, see ROME. 



Quiscalus. See GRAKLE. 



Qlli Taill actions are actions so called in the 

 law of England from the first words of the old 

 form of declaration by which informers sue for 

 penalties, the plaintiff describing himself as suing 

 as well for the crown as for himself, the penalty 

 being divided between himself and the crown. 



Quitch. See COUCH-GRASS. 



4)llitO, the capital of Ecuador, and of the pro- 

 vince of Pichincha, lies in 14' S. lat., on the east 

 side of the great plateau of Quito, at the foot of 

 the volcano of Pichincha (q.v.), at an eleva- 

 tion of 9351 feet above the sea. Its site, cut np 

 with numerous ravines, is very uneven ; but the 

 streets are laid out regularly at right angles, 

 plunging into and scaling the sides of the valleys 

 which come in their course. The city is well 

 paved, but the sidewalks are very narrow ; and 

 the streets are lit only with candles or kerosene 

 lamps oftenest those placed before shrines at the 

 street-corners. The api>earance of Quito is very 

 picturesque, and its beautiful environment of 

 mountains, together with its clear, healthy, and 

 temperate climate, maintaining an eternal spring, 

 renders it one of the most charming cities of South 

 America ; yet the abrupt changes from the hot sun 

 of mill day to the chills of evening make pneumonia 

 ami diseases of the chest very common. The chief 

 odiliri-s are built of stone, the others of adobes or 

 sun-dried bricks, covered with tiles. In the great 

 square stand the quaint cathedral, with its green- 

 tiled dome, the archbishop's palace, the municipal 

 building, and the capitol, built of brick and stucco, 

 with wine-shops on the ground-floor and the two 

 halls of congress on the third story. Other public 

 buildings include the university, a seminary, an 

 institute of science, an observatory, a museum, a 

 library of 20,000 volumes, a penitentiary with 500 

 cells, a hospital with 500 beds, a lunatic asylum, a 

 retreat for lepers, a score of churches, and three 

 times as many monasteries. Most of these last are 

 in a very dilapidated condition, for which it is hard 

 to tind any explanation but laziness ; for they still 

 retain their lands and revenues, and the offerings 

 of the faithful, who are nearly all Indians, are as 

 constant as ever. Indeed, Quito is the paradise of 

 priests of whom there are more than 400 in the 

 city and the bells are jangling all day long ; for 

 Ecuador is the most faithful province of the pope, 

 and the one state in the world which still refuses to 

 recognise the unity of Italy and the condition of 

 affairs that resulted from the occupation of Rome. 

 There are only two or three good shops, and no 

 hotels ; the daily market in the square before the 

 monastery of San Francisco is the general purchas- 

 ing-place, and the religious houses serve for hostels. 

 The city boasts a telephone system, but water is still 

 purveyed in great jars borne on the shoulders of 

 carriers. The manufactures include cottons and 

 woollens and l>eer ; the drying of bird-skins 

 (humming-birds'), the copying of religions paint- 

 ings, and the production of images of the Virgin 

 ami of saints rank as important industries. 

 Founded in 1534, Quito has suffered frequently 



