The Journal of Greco-Roman Studies Vol. 61-3 | 2022.12.31. DOI: 10.23933/jgrs.2022.61.3.39 Between Rhetoric and Philosophy: loci communes in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria*＊ in memory of †Marc van der Poel (1957-2022) Kihoon Kim (Research Fellow, Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University) Abstract The rhetoric term loci communes is well-known, but it seems not incontestable concept. Quintilian’s usage of it also reflects a kind of ambiguity of the term. In this paper, however, by lexicographical reviewing some passages of his Institutio oratoria, one can differentiates two (except the mnemonic loci) significant connotations from the context. Firstly, it can be understood as commonplaces in modern sense, which are also called ready-made or set-piece arguments. These loci communes are mainly dealt within the preliminary rhetoric education, in the Book 2. Their origin might be from ancient Greek sophists. Quintilian acknowledges these loci’s advantage for exercising sometimes for the orators, but he seems to oppose * This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF-2019S1A5C2A02081381). The main part of this paper had been originally presented at the 23rd Biennial Conference of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR) at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 2nd-6th August 2022. The specific conference theme was ‘Topics and Commonplaces in Antiquity and Beyond’. Afterwards, a revised version for publishing was presented at the International Conference of Korean Society of Greco-Roman Studies at Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, 25th November 2022. I am grateful to the audience who discussed, suggested and shared meaningful thoughts, and to the organizers of the conferences, especially to the late Marc van der Poel (1957-2022) who passed away unexpectedly. I would like to dedicate this work to Marc as a remembrance with him in Nijmegen. Sit illi terra levis.