De Inventione

The De Inventione is a handbook for orators that Marcus Tullius Cicero composed when he was still a young man. Quintillian tells us that Cicero considered the work rendered obsolete by his later writings.^[1] 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" or artes liberales, though whether Cicero coined the term is unclear.^[2][3]

References

1. Caplan, H. (1954). Introduction. Rhetorica ad Herennium. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
2. Kimball, Bruce. Orators and Philosophers. New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1995. p. 13
3. Cicero. De Inventione. Book 1, Section 35

External links

• Translation by C.D. Yonge
• Latin Text