In chapter six I demonstrate that Quintilian puts forth a simplified program of neo-Ciceronianism: Cicero, he says, was Rome’s best orator, and since his day oratory has gone into a decline. Cicero also provided a guide to eloquence in his rhetorical treatises and courtroom speeches. Thus, Quintilian argues, if contemporary students wish to attain Cicero’s greatness, they must do what the great man prescribes and follow in his educational footsteps. Tacitus repudiates these ideals in his Dialogus de oratoribus. He mounts a sophisticated theoretical rebuttal of Quintilian’s neo-Ciceronianism, but he does so in a remarkable fashion, cloaking his rejection in Ciceronian style and language. He thus rejects Cicero by subverting Cicero’s own words. With cleverly destructive intertextuality, Tacitus actually explodes the entire genre within which he is working; while playing by its rules and conventions, he claims that the game can no longer be played and won. In a masterpiece of Ciceronian eloquence he argues that Ciceronian eloquence is no longer possible; the change in political circumstances from the late Republic to the early Empire has closed that route forever.