Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

I would also have students of oratory consider that all the forms of argument which I have just set forth cannot be found in every case, and that when the subject on which we have to speak has been propounded, it is no use considering each separate type of argument and knocking at the door of each with a view to discovering whether they may chance to serve to prove our point, except while we are in the position of mere learners without any knowledge of actual practice.

Such a proceeding merely retards the process of speaking to an incalculable extent, if it is always necessary for us to try each single

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argument and thus learn by experiment what is apt and suitable to our case. In fact I am not sure that it will not be an actual obstacle to progress unless a certain innate penetration and a power of rapid divination seconded by study lead us straight to the arguments which suit our case.

For just as the melody of the voice is most pleasing when accompanied by the lyre, yet if the musician's hand be slow and, unless he first look at the strings and take their measure, hesitate as to which strings match the several notes of the voice, it would be better that he should content himself with the natural music of the voice unaccompanied by any instrument; even so our theory of speaking must be adapted and, like the lyre, attuned to such rules as these.

But it is only by constant practice that we can secure that, just as the hands of the musician, even though his eyes be turned elsewhere, produce bass, treble or intermediate notes by force of habit, so the thought of the orator should suffer no delay owing to the variety and number of possible arguments, but that the latter should present themselves uncalled and, just as letters and syllables require no thought on the part of a writer, so arguments should spontaneously follow the thought of the orator.

The third kind of proof, which is drawn into the service of the case from without, is styled a παράδειγμα by the Greeks, who apply the term to all comparisons of like with like, but more especially to historical parallels. Roman writers have for the most part preferred to give the name of comparison to that which the Greeks style παραβολή, while they translate παράδειγμα by example, although this latter involves comparison, while the former is of

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the nature of an example.

For my own part, I prefer with a view to making my purpose easier of apprehension to regard both as παραδείγματα and to call them examples. Nor am I afraid of being thought to disagree with Cicero, although he does separate comparison from example. [*](de Inv. I. xxx. 49. ) For he divides all arguments into two classes, induction and ratiocination, just as most Greeks [*]( cp. Ar. ah. I. ii. 18. ) divide it into παραδείγματα and ἐπιχειρήματα, explaining παράδειγμα as a rhetorical induction.

The method of argument chiefly used by Socrates was of this nature: when he had asked a number of questions to which his adversary could only agree, he finally inferred the conclusion of the problem under discussion from its resemblance to the points already conceded. This method is known as induction, and though it cannot be used in a set speech, it is usual in a speech to assume that which takes the form of a question in dialogue.

For instance take the following question:

What is the finest form of fruit? Is it not that which is best?
This will be admitted.
What of the horse? What is the finest? Is it not that which is the best?
Several more questions of the same kind follow. Last comes the question for the sake of which all the others were put:
What of man? Is not he the finest type who is best?
The answer can only be in the affirmative.

Such a procedure is most valuable in the examination of witnesses, but is differently employed in a set speech. For there the orator either answers his own questions or makes an assumption of that which in dialogue takes the form of a question.

What is
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the finest fruit? The best, I should imagine. What is the finest horse? The swiftest. So too the finest type of man is not he that is noblest of birth, but he that is most excellent in virtue.
All arguments of this kind, therefore, must be from things like or unlike or contrary. Similes are, it is true, sometimes employed for the embellishment of the speech as well, but I will deal with them in their proper place; [*]( VIII iii. 72 sqq. ) at present I am concerned with the use of similitude in proof.

The most important of proofs of this class is that which is most properly styled example, that is to say the adducing of some past action real or assumed which may serve to persuade the audience of the truth of the point which we are trying to make. We must therefore consider whether the parallel is complete or only partial, that we may know whether to use it in its entirety or merely to select those portions which are serviceable. We argue from the like when we say,

Saturninus was justly killed, as were the Gracchi
; from the unlike when we say,

Brutus killed his sons for plotting against the state, while Manlius condemned his son to death for his valoulr
; [*]( Manlius had forbidden all encounters with the enemy. His son engaged in single combat and slew his man. See Liv. VIII. viii. 1. ) from the contrary when we say,
Marcellus restored the works of art which had been taken from the Syracusans who were our enemies, while Verres [*](cp. Verr. IV. lv. 123. ) took the same works of art from our allies.
The same divisions apply also to such forms of proof in panegyric or denunciation.

It will also be found useful when we are speaking of what is likely to happen to refer to historical parallels: for instance if the orator asserts that Dionysius is asking for a bodyguard that with their armed assistance he may establish himself as tyrant, he may

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adduce the parallel case of Pisistratus who secured the supreme power by similar means.

But while examples may at times, as in the last instance, apply in their entirety, at times we shall argue from the greater to the less or from the less to the greater.

Cities have been overthrown by the violation of the marriage bond. What punishment then will meet the case of adultery?
Fluteplayers have been recalled by the state to the city which they had left. How much more then is it just that leading citizens who have rendered good service to their country should be recalled from that exile to which they have been driven by envy.
[*]( cp. Liv. ix. 30. The flute-players employed in public worship migrated to Tibur because deprived of an oldestablished privilege, but were brought back by stratagem, after their hosts had made them drunk. )

Arguments from unlikes are most useful in exhortation. Courage is more remarkable in a woman than in a man. Therefore, if we wish to kindle someone's ambition to the performance of heroic deeds, we shall find that parallels drawn from the cases of Horatius and Torquatus will carry less weight than that of the woman by whose hand Pyrrhus was slain, and if we wish to urge a man to meet death, the cases of Cato and Scipio will carry less weight than that of Lucretia. These are however arguments from the greater to the less.

Let me then give you separate examples of these classes of argument from the pages of Cicero; for where should I find better? The following passage from the pro Murena [*]( viii. 17. Sulpicius, one of Murena's accusers and an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship, had sought to depreciate Murena's birth. Cicero urges that even if Sulpicius' statements were true they would be irrelevant and cites his own case to support his argument. ) is an instance of argument from the like:

For it happened that I myself when a candidate had two patricians as competitors, the one a man of the most unscrupulous and reckless character, the other a most excellent and respectable citizen. Yet I defeated Catiline by force of merit and Galba by my
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popularity.

The pro Milone [*](iii. 7.) will give us an example of argument from the greater to the less:

They say that he who confesses to having killed a man is not fit to look upon the light of day. Where is the city in which men are such fools as to argue thus? It is Rome itself, the city whose first trial on a capital charge was that of Marcus Horatius, the bravest of men, who, though the city had not yet attained its freedom, was none the less acquitted by the assembly of the Roman people, in spite of the fact that he confessed that he had slain his sister with his own hand.
The following [*](pro Mil. xxvii. 72. ) is an example of argument from the less to the greater:
I killed, not Spurius Maelius, who by lowering the price of corn and sacrificing his private fortune fell under the suspicion of desiring to make himself king, because it seemed that he was courting popularity with the common people overmuch,
and so on till we come to,
No, the man I killed (for my client would not shrink from the avowal, since his deed had saved his country) was he who committed abominable adultery even in the shrines of the gods
; then follows the whole invective against Clodius.

Arguments from unlikes present great variety, for they may turn on kind, manner, time, place, etcetera, almost every one of which Cicero employs to overthrow the previous decisions that seemed to apply to the case of Cluentius, [*](pro Cluent. xxxii. sqq. ) while he makes use of argument from contraries when lie minimises [*](ib. xlviii. 134. The accused was a knight: the retention of his horse implied that he retained his status. ) the importance of the censorial stigma by praising Scipio Africanus, who in his capacity of censor allowed one whom he openly asserted to have committed deliberate perjury to retain his horse, because no one had appeared as evidence against him, though he

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promised to come forward himself to bear witness to his guilt, if any should be found to accuse him. I have paraphrased this passage because it is too long to quote.

A brief example of a similar argument is to be found in Virgil, [*](Aen. ii. 540. )

  1. But he, whom falsely thou dost call thy father,
  2. Even Achilles, in far other wise
  3. Dealt with old Priam, and Priam was his foe.

Historical parallels may however sometimes be related in full, as in the pro Milone [*](pro Mil. iv. 9. ) :

When a military tribune serving in the army of Gaius Marius, to whom he was related, made an assault upon the honour of a common soldier, the latter killed him; for the virtuous youth preferred to risk his life by slaying him to suffering such dishonour. And yet the great Marius acquitted him of all crime and let him go scot free.

On the other hand in certain cases it will be sufficient merely to allude to the parallel, as Cicero does in the same speech [*](ib. iii. 8. ) :

For neither the famous Servilius Ahala nor Publius Nasica nor Lucius Opimius nor the Senate during my consulship could be cleared of serious guilt, if it were a crime to put wicked men to death.
Such parallels will be adduced at greater or less length according as they are familiar or as the interests or adornment of our case may demand.