Institutio Oratoria

We know that the orators of earlier days improved their eloquence by declaiming themes and common-places [*](communes loci = passages dealing with some general principle or theme. For theses see iv. 24. ) and other forms of rhetorical exercises not involving particular circumstances or persons such as provide the material for real or imaginary causes. [*](controversiae are declamations on controversial or judicial themes. A general rule or law is stated: then a special case, which has to be solved in accordance with the law. An abbreviated controversia is to be found in I. x. 33, and they occur frequently hereafter (cp. esp. vi. 96). ) From this we can clearly see what a scandalous dereliction of duty it is for the schools of rhetoric to abandon this department of their work, which was not merely its first, but for a long time its sole task.

What is there in those exercises of which I have just spoken that does not involve matters which are the special concern of rhetoric and further are typical of actual legal cases? Have we not to narrate facts in the law-courts? Indeed I am not sure that this is not the most important department of rhetoric in actual practice.