Institutio Oratoria

Some have added a sixth department, subjoining judgment to invention, on the ground that it is necessary first to invented and then to exercise our judgment. For my own part I do not believe that invention can exist apart from judgement, since we do not say that a speaker has invented incousistent, two-edged or foolish arguments, but merely that he has failed to avoid them. It is true that Cicero in his Rhetorica [*]( No such statement is found in the de Inventione. )

includes judgment under mention; but in my opinion judgment is so inextricably mingled with the first three departments of rhetoric (for without judgment neither expression nor arrangement are possible), that I think that even delivery owes much to it. I say this with all the greater confidence because Cicero in

Others, who seem to me to have been no less desirous than those mentioned above to introduce some novelty, have added order, although they had already mentioned arrangement, as though arrangement was anything else than the marshalling of arguments in the best possible order. Dion taught that oratory consisted only of invention and arrangement, but added that each of these departments was twofold in nature, being concerned with words and things, so that expression comes under invention, and delivery under arrangement, while memory must be added as a fifth department. The followers of Theodorus divide invention into two parts, the one concerned with matter and the other with expression, and then add the three remaining departments.

Hermagoras places judgment, division, order and everything relating to expression under the heading of economy, a Greek word meaning the management of domestic affairs which is applied metaphorically to oratory and has no Latin equivalent.

A further question arises at this point, since some make memory follow invention in the list of departments, while others make it follow arrangement. Personally I prefer to place it fourth. For we ought not merely to retain in our minds the fruits of our

There are also not a few who have held that these are not parts of rhetoric, but rather duties to be observed by the orator. For it is his business to invent, arrange, express, etcetera. If, however, we accept this view, we leave nothing to art.

For although the orator's task is to speak well, rhetoric is the science of speaking well. Or if we adopt another view, the task of the artist is to persuade, while the power of persuasion resides in the art. Consequently, while it is the duty of the orator to invent and arrange, intention and arrangement may be regarded as belonging to rhetoric.

At this point there has been much disagreement, as to whether these are parts or duties of rhetoric, or, as Athenaeus believes, elements of rhetoric, which the Greeks call στοιχεῖα But they cannot correctly be called elements. For in that case we should have to regard them merely as first-principles, like the moisture, fire, matter or atoms of which the universe is said to be composed. Nor is it correct to call them duties, since they are not preformed by others, but perform something themselves. We must therefore conclude that they are parts.

For since rhetoric is composed of them, it follows that:, since a whole consists of parts, these must be parts of the whole which they compose. Those who have called them duties seem to me to have been further influenced by the fact that they wished to reserve the name of parts for another

For each of them contains the whole of rhetoric, since each of them requires invention, arrangement, expression, memory and delivery. Consequently some writers have thought it better to say that there are three kinds of oratory; those whom Cicero [*](de Or. I. xxxi. 141; Top. xxiv. 91. ) has followed seem to me to have taken the wisest course in terming them kinds of causes.

There is, however, a dispute as to whether there are three kinds or more. But it is quite certain that all the most eminent authorities among ancient writers, following Aristotle who merely substituted the term public for deliberative, have been content with the threefold division.

Still a feeble attempt has been made by certain Greeks and by Cicero in his de Oratore, [*](de Or. ii. 10 sq. ) to prove that there are not merely more than three, but that the number of kinds is almost past calculation: and this view has almost been thrust down our throats by the greatest authority [*](Unknown. Perhaps the elder Pliny.) of our own times.

Indeed if we place the task of praise and denunciation in the third division, on what kind of oratory are we to consider ourselves to be employed, when we complain, console, pacify, excite, terrify, encourage, instruct, explain obscurities, narrate, plead for mercy, thank, congratulate, reproach, abuse, describe, command, retract, express our desires and opinions, to mention no other of the many possibilities?

As an adherent of the older view I must ask for indulgence and must enquire what was the reason that led earlier writers to restrict a subject

For it was customary to write panegyrics and denunciations and to deliver funeral orations, while the greater part of their activities was devoted to the law-courts and deliberative assemblies; as a result, they say, the old writers of text-books only included those kinds of oratory which were most in vogue.

The defenders of antiquity point out that there are three kinds of audience: one which comes simply for the sake of getting pleasure, a second which meets to receive advice, a third to give judgement on causes. In the course of a thorough enquiry into the question it has occurred to me that the tasks of oratory must either be concerned with the law-courts or with themes lying outside the law-courts.

The nature of the questions into which enquiry is made in the courts is obvious. As regards those matters which do not come before a judge, they must necessarily be concerned either with the past or the future. We praise or denounce past actions, we deliberate about the future.

Again everything on which we have to speak must be either certain or doubtful. We praise or blame what is certain, as our inclination leads us: on the other hand where doubt exists, in some cases we are free to form our own views, and it is here that deliberation comes in, while in others, we leave the problem to the decision of others, and it is on these that litigation takes place.

Anaximenes regarded forensic and public oratory as genera but held that there were seven species :— exhortation, dissuasion, praise, denunciation,