Institutio Oratoria

I have noted, judges, that the speech for the prosecution was divided into two parts: of these, the first seemed to rest and in the main to rely on the odium, now inveterate, arising from the trial before Junius, while the other appeared to touch, merely as a matter of form, and with a certain timidity and diffidence, on the question of the charge of poisoning, though it is to try this point that the present court has been constituted in accordance with the law.

Nor shall any authority, however great, induce me to abandon my opinion that it is always desirable to render the judge attentive and ready to receive

Our opponent has spoken and perhaps convinced him; we must alter his opinion, and this we cannot do unless we render him attentive to what we have to say and ready to be instructed. What are we to do then? I agree to the view that we should cut down, depreciate and deride some of our opponent's arguments with a view to lessening the attention shown him by the judge, as Cicero did in the pro Ligario.

For what was the purpose of Cicero's irony save that Caesar should be induced to regard the case as presenting only old familiar features and consequently to give it less attention? What was his purpose in the pro Caelio [*](pro Cael. 31. ) save to make the case seem far more trivial than had been anticipated? It is, however, obvious that of the rules which I have laid down, some will be applicable to one case and some to another.

The majority of writers consider that there are five kinds of causes, the honourable, the mean, the doubtful or ambiguous, the extraordinary and the obscure, or as they are called in Greek, ἔνδοξον, ἄδοξον, ἀμφίδοξον, παράδοξον and δυσπαρακολούθητον. To these some would add a sixth, the scandalous, which some again include under the heading of the mean, others under the extraordinary.