Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

For just as he will not speak in the same way when he is defending a client on a capital charge and when he is speaking in a lawsuit concerned with an inheritance, or discussing interdicts and suits taking the form of a wager, [*](cp. I. x. 5 and IV. ii. 61. Sponsio (= wager) was a form of lawsuit in which the litigant promised to pay a certain sum of money if he lost his case. The intrdiet was an order issued by the praetor commanding or prohibiting certain action. ) or claims in connexion with

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loans, so too he will preserve a due distinction between the speeches which he makes in the senate, before the people and in private consultations, while he will also introduce numerous modifications to suit the different persons and circumstances of time and place. Thus in one and the same speech he will use one style for stirring the emotions, and another to conciliate his hearers; it is from different sources that he will derive anger or pity, and the art which he employs in instructing the judge will be other than that which he employs to move him.

He will not maintain the same tone throughout his exordium, statement of fact, arguments, digression and peroration. He will speak gravely, severely, sharply, with vehemence, energy, fullness, bitterness, or geniality, quietly, simply, Hatteringly, gently, sweetly, briefy or wittily; he will not always be like himself, but he will never be unworthy of himself.