Ut gubernator: Similitudini e metafore marine nell’Institutio oratoria di Quintiliano

Abstract

The paper analyses the presence of sea similes and metaphors in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, in the belief that an unabridged reading of the treatise allows us to show how the imagery of the sea is particularly pleasing to the Author, who resorts to it to explain or comment on almost every theme developed. Quintilian, moreover, is the first modern exegete of the allegorical meaning of the famous Horatian ode 1.14, a justly famous page, which nevertheless confirms the Author’s interest in a motif that will constitute one of the most vital topoi in modern literatures.