I. The commencement or exorditum as we call it in Latin is styled a proem by the Greeks. This seems to me a more appropriate name, because whereas we merely indicate that we are beginning our task, they clearly show that this portion is designed as an introduction to the subject on which the orator has to speak.

It may be because οἴμη means a tune, and players on the lyre have given the name of proem to the prelude which they perform to win the favour of the audience before entering upon the regular contest for the prize, that orators before beginning to plead make a few introductory remarks to win the indulgence of the judges.

Or it may be because οἶμος in Greek means a way, that the practice has arisen of calling an introduction a proem. But in any case there can be no doubt that by proem we mean the portion of a speech addressed to the judge before he has begun to consider the actual case. And it is a mistaken practice which we adopt in the schools of always assuming in our exordia that the judge is already acquainted with the case.

This form of licence arises from the fact that a sketch of the case is always given before actual declamation. i.e. the statement of the hard case with which the declaimer has to deal. cp. iv. ii. 98 Such kinds of exordia may, however, be employed in the courts, when a case comes on for the second time, but never or rarely on the first occasion, unless we are speaking before a judge who has knowledge of the case from some other source.

The sole purpose of the exordium is to prepare our audience in such a way that they will be disposed to lend a ready ear to the rest of our speech. The majority of authors agree that this is best effected in three ways, by making the audience well-disposed, attentive and ready to receive instruction. I need hardly say that these aims have to be kept in view throughout the whole speech, but they are especially necessary at the commencement, when we gain admission to the mind of the judge in order to penetrate still further.

As regards good-will, we secure that either from persons connected with the case or from the case itself. Most writers have divided these persons into three classes, the plaintiff, the defendant and the judge.

This classification is wrong, for the exordium may sometimes derive its conciliatory force from the person of the pleader. For although he may be modest and say little about himself, yet if he is believed to be a good man, this consideration will exercise the strongest influence at every point of the case. For thus he will have the good fortune to give the impression not so much that he is a zealous advocate as that he is an absolutely reliable witness. It is therefore pre-eminently desirable that he should be believed to have undertaken the case out of a sense of duty to a friend or relative, or even better, if the point can be made, by a sense of patriotism or at any rate some serious moral consideration. No doubt it is even more necessary for the parties themselves to create the impression that they have been forced to take legal action by some weighty and honourable reason or even by necessity.