Prima officia operis sui. Quintiliano, Teone e l’insegnamento degli esercizi preliminari (con nota filologica a inst. 2.1.2)

This paper offers a fresh reinterpretation of Quint. inst. 2.1, aiming to show that: (a) the way in which Quintilian defines the nature and limits of rhetorical teaching, overtly challenging the claims of the grammarians, features several (and not casual) similarities with the preface of Theon’s progymnasmatic textbook; (b) Quintilian’s treatment of prosopopoeia, while not finding a perfect match within the extant sources, must be read in light of the Greek rhetorical tradition on progymnasmata; (c) the textual problem affecting Quint. inst. 2.1.2, while still difficult to solve, can be better assessed considering the conclusions of the first two sections of the paper.