Child of my vain hopes, did I see your eyes fading in death and your breath take its last flight? Had I the heart to receive your fleeting spirit, It was customary for the next-of-kin to receive in the mouth the last breath of the dying to continue the existence of the spirit. as I embraced your cold pale body, and to live on breathing the common air. Justly do I endure the agony that now is mine, and the thoughts that torment me.

Have I lost you at the moment when adoption by a consular had given hope that you would rise to all the high offices of state, when you were destined to be the son-in-law of your uncle the praetor, and gave promise of rivalling the eloquence of your grandsire? and do I your father survive only to weep? May my endurance (not my will to live, for that is gone from me) prove me worthy of you through all my remaining years. For it is in vain that we impute all our ills to fortune. No man grieves long save through his own fault.

But I still live, and must find something to make life tolerable, and must needs put faith in the verdict of the wise, who held that literature alone can provide true solace in adversity. Yet, if ever the violence of my present grief subside and admit the intrusion of some other thought on so many sorrowful reflexions, I may with good cause ask pardon for the delay in bringing my work to completion. Who can wonder that my studies have been interrupted, when the real marvel is that they have not been broken off altogether?

Should certain portions therefore betray a lack of finish compared with what was begun in the days when my affliction was less profound, I would ask that the imperfections should be regarded with indulgence, as being due to the cruel tyranny of fortune, which, if it has not utterly extinguished, has at any rate weakened such poor powers of intellect as I once possessed. But for this very reason I must rouse myself to face my task with greater spirit, since it is easy to despise fortune, though it may be hard to bear her blows. For there is nothing left that she can do to me, since out of my calamities she has wrought for me a security which, full of sorrow though it be, is such that nothing can shake it.

And the very fact that I have no personal interest in persevering with my present work, but am moved solely by the desire to serve others, if indeed anything that I write can be of such service, is a reason for regarding my labours with an indulgent eye. Alas! I shall bequeath it, like my patrimony, for others than those to whom it was my design to leave it.

The next subject which I was going to discuss was the peroration which some call the completion and others the conclusion. There are two kinds of peroration, for it may deal either with facts or with the emotional aspect of the case. The repetition and grouping of the facts, which the Greeks call ἀνακεφαλαίωσις and some of our own writers call the enumeration, serves both to refresh the memory of the judge and to place the whole of the case before his eyes, and, even although the facts may have made little impression on him in detail, their cumulative effect is considerable.

This final recapitulation must be as brief as possible and, as the Greek term indicates, we must summarise the facts under the appropriate heads. For if we devote too much time thereto, the peroration will cease to be an enumeration and will constitute something very like a second speech. On the other hand the points selected for enumeration must be treated with weight and dignity, enlivened by apt reflexions and diversified by suitable figures; for there is nothing more tiresome than a dry repetition of facts, which merely suggests a lack of confidence in the judges' memory.

There are however innumerable ways in which this may be done. The finest example is provided by Cicero's prosecution of Verres. V. lii. 136 If your own father were among your judges, what would he say when these facts were proved against you? Then follows the enumeration. Another admirable example ib. lxxii. may be found in the same speech where the enumeration of the temples which the praetor had despoiled takes the form of invoking the various deities concerned. We may also at times pretend to be in doubt whether we have not omitted something and to wonder what the accused will say in reply to certain points or what hope tile accuser can have after the manner in which we have refuted all the charges brought against us.

But the most attractive form of peroration is that which we may use when we have an opportunity of drawing some argument from our opponent's speech, as for instance when we say He omitted to deal with this portion of tile case, or He preferred to crush us by exciting odium against us, or He had good reason for resorting to entreaty, since lie knew certain facts.

But I must refrain from dealing with the various methods individually, for fear that the instances that I produce should be regarded as exhaustive, whereas our opportunities spring from the nature of the particular case, from the statements of our opponents and also from fortuitous circumstances. Nor must we restrict ourselves to recapitulating the points of our own speech, but must call upon our opponent to reply to certain questions.

This however is only possible if there is time for him to do so and if the arguments which we have put forward are such as not to admit of refutation. For to challenge points which tell in our opponent's favour is not to argue against him, but to play the part of prompter to him.

The majority of Athenians and almost all philosophers who have left anything in writing on the art of oratory have held that the recapitulation is the sole form of peroration. I imagine that the reason why the Athenians did so was that appeals to the emotions were forbidden to Athenian orators, a proclamation to this effect being actually made by the court-usher. Athenaens (xiii. 6, 590 E) states that a law against appeals to the emotions was passed at Athens after Hyperides' defence of 'hryne ( see xv. 9.). But there is no real evidence for the existence of such a law save in cases tried before the Areopagps (see Arist. Rhet. I. i. 5). Appeals for pity were as freely employed in the ordinary courts of Athens during the fourth century as at Rome. When Xenophon ( Mem. iv. iv. 4) says that Socrates refused to beg mercy of his judges contrary to the law, he seems to refer to the spirit, not the letter. I am less surprised at the philosophers taking this view, for they regard susceptibility to emotion as a vice, and think it immoral that the judge should be distracted from the truth by an appeal to his emotions and that it is unbecoming for a good man to make use of vicious procedure to serve his ends. None the less they must admit that appeals to emotion are necessary if there are no other means for securing the victory of truth, justice and the public interest.

It is however admitted by all that recapitulation may be profitably employed in other portions of the speech as well, if the case is complicated and a number of different arguments have been employed in the defence; though no one will doubt but that there are many cases, in which no recapitulation at all is necessary at any point, assuming, that is, that the cases are both brief and simple. This part of the peroration is common both to the prosecution and the defence.

Both parties as a general rule may likewise employ the appeal to the emotions, but they will appeal to different emotions and the defender will employ such appeals with greater frequency and fulness. For the accuser has to rouse the judge, while the defender has to soften him. Still even the accuser will sometimes make his audience weep by the pity excited for the man whose wrongs he seeks to avenge, while the defendant will at times develop no small vehemence when he complains of the injustice of the calumny or conspiracy of which he is the victim. It will therefore be best to treat these duties separately: as I have already said, IV. i. 27, 28. they are much the same in the peroration as in the exordium, but are freer and wider in scope in the former.

For our attempts to sway the judges are made more sparingly at the commencement of the speech, when it is enough that such an attempt should gain admittance and we have the whole speech before us. On the other hand in the peroration we have to consider what the feelings of the judge will be when he retires to consider his verdict, for we shall have no further opportunity to say anything and cannot any longer reserve arguments to be produced later.

It is therefore the duty of both parties to seek to win the judge's goodwill and to divert it from their opponent, as also to excite or assuage his emotions. And the following brief rule may be laid down for the observation of both parties, that the orator should display the full strength of his case before the eyes of the judge, and, when he has made up his mind what points in his case actually deserve or may seem to deserve to excite envy, goodwill, dislike or pity, should dwell on those points by which he himself would be most moved were he trying the case.

But it will be safer to discuss these considerations in detail. The points likely to commend the accuser to the judge have already been stated in my remarks on the exordium. IV. i 5 sq. There are however certain things which require fuller treatment in the peroration than in the exordium, where it is sufficient merely to outline them. This fuller treatment is specially required if the accused be a man of violent, unpopular or dangerous character or if the condemnation of the accused is likely to cover the judges with glory or his acquittal with disgrace.

Calvus for example in his speech against Vatinius makes an admirable remark: You know, gentlemen, that bribery has been committed and everybody knows that you know it. Cicero again in the Verrines I. xv. 43. says that the ill-name acquired by the courts may be effaced by the condemnation of Verres, a statement that comes under the head of the conciliatory methods mentioned above. The appeal to tear also, if it is necessary to employ it to produce a like effect, occupies a more prominent place in the peroration than in the exordium, but I have expressed my views on this subject in an earlier book. IV . i. 20, 21.

The peroration also provides freer opportunities for exciting the passions of jealousy, hatred or anger. As regards the circumstances likely to excite such feelings in the judge, jealousy will be produced by the influence of the accused, hatred by the disgraceful nature of his conduct, and anger by his disrespectful attitude to the court, if, for instance, he be contumacious, arrogant or studiously indifferent: such anger may be aroused not merely by specific acts or words, but by his looks, bearing and manner. In this connexion the remark made by the accuser of Cossutianus Capito See Tac. Ann. xiii. 33. Cossutianus was condemned for extortion in his province. His accuser is not known. in my young days was regarded with great approval: the words used were Greek, but may be translated thus:— You blush to fear even Caesar.

The best way however for the accuser to excite the feelings of the judge is to make the charge which he brings against the accused seem as atrocious or, if feasible, as deplorable as possible. Its atrocity may be enhanced by considerations of the nature of the act, the position of its author or the victim, the purpose, time, place and manner of the act: all of which may be treated with infinite variety.