Tacitus, writing his _Dialogus de oratoribus_ about 81 A.D., a few years before Quintilian’s _Institutio_, shows clearly that the specialized _controversiæ_, from being common, had become pervasive almost to the extent of monopoly. From the older, Ciceronian position of comprehensive training his Messalla derides _declamatio_ and all its works. “As to this [education of an orator] the great men of the past had made up their minds. To bring it about they discerned the need not of _declamatio_ in the schools of the rhetors, nor of exercising tongue and voice in imaginary _controversiæ_ without specific relation to actuality, but of filling the mind by the technic (_artibus_) of discussing (_disputatur_, i.e., discussing after the manner of the philosophers) good and evil, honor and dishonor, justice and injustice; for this is the orator’s subject matter (_subiecta ad dicendum materia_).” Tacit. _Dial._ 31, 1. [The dialogue, which of course gives more than one point of view, but none the less clearly shows the position of Tacitus, proceeds from such general studies to the old custom of apprenticing oneself to an experienced orator (31-34), and then contrasts the modern habit as follows.] “But now our striplings are drawn off into the schools of those who are called rhetors. How little, just before Cicero’s time, these teachers pleased our ancestors is evident from the fact that the censors Crassus and Domitius bade them close, as Cicero puts it, their ‘schools of impudence.’ Well, as I started to say, the boys are drawn off into schools in which it would be hard to say whether the place itself, or their fellow students, or the sort of exercise, is likely to do their talents more harm. The place has no respect, since every one is equally unskilled; the fellow students give no impetus to progress, since boys among boys and youths among youths speak and are heard with equal carelessness; but the exercises are in great part positively thwarting. For two sorts of themes are handled with the rhetors: _suasoriæ_ and _controversiæ_. Of these the _suasoriæ_, as being easier and demanding less foresight (_prudentia_), are left to the boys; the _controversiæ_ are assigned to those of more power. My word! what assignments! and how incredibly composed! It follows, moreover, that _declamatio_ may be applied to an assignment far removed from actuality. So it comes to pass that they pursue with great words rewards for tyrannicides, or the choice to be made by ravished maidens, or incests of matrons, or whatever is argued as often in school as seldom in the forum. When they come before real judges—” ... Tacit. _Dial._ 35, 1-7.