See Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 8.3.62; Ad Herennium 4.39.51. The authors of the so-called Progymnasmata (rhetorical exercises for schoolboys) also commended the vividness, clarity and style of both the accomplished speaker and writer. According to the first-century C.E. author Aelius Theon, the “desirable qualities of a description are these; above all, clarity and vividness, in order that what is being reported is virtually visible” (Progymnasmata 7.53–55).