ABSTRACT
And this attitude persisted even after Latin literature clearly had some ‘classics’ of its own to set alongside the classics of Greek literature. So much is clear from the way in which Quintilian describes his ideal school curriculum in his Training of the Orator (10.1.37-131). He assumes the superiority or at least the priority of the study of Greek literature when he discusses the ideal Greek authors for the school student first (10.1.46-84) and only afterwards moves on to discuss the ideal Latin authors (10.1.85-131). What is more, his discussion of Latin authors is conducted entirely in relation to their Greek predecessors, as we see in his remarks on, for example, elegy and tragedy:
In elegy too we challenge the supremacy of the Greeks. Of our elegiac poets Tibullus seems to me the most terse and elegant. But there are people who prefer Propertius. Ovid is more playful than either, while Gallus is more severe. . . . The Thyestes of Varius is a match for any Greek tragedy and Ovid’s Medea suggests to me his potential for excellence if he had been prepared to control his talent rather than indulge it.
