Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

The same method will be applied to denunciations as well, but with a view to opposite effects. For humble origin has been a reproach to many, while in some cases distinction has merely served to increase the notoriety and unpopularity of vices. In regard to some persons, as in the story of Paris, it has been predicted that they would be the cause of destruction to many, some like Thersites and Irus have been despised for their poverty and mean appearance, others have been loathed because their natural advantages were nullified by their vices: the poets for instance tell us that Nireus [*](the handsomest warrior among the Greeks of Troy.) was a coward and Pleisthenes [*](Son of Atreus: the allusion is not known.) a debauchee.

The mind too has as

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many vices as virtues, and vice may be denounced, as virtue may be praised, in two different ways. Some have been branded with infamy after death like Maelius, whose house was levelled with the ground, or Marcus Manlius, whose first name was banished from his family for all generations to come.

The vices of the children bring hatred on their parents; founders of cities are detested for concentrating a race which is a curse to others, as for example the founder of the Jewish superstition; [*](Moses.) the laws of Gracchus are hated, and we abhor any loathsome example of vice that has been handed down to posterity, such as the criminal form of lust which a Persian is said to have been the first to practise on a woman of Samos.

And even in the case of the living the judgment of mankind serves as a proof of their character, and the fairness or foulness of their fame proves the orator's praise or blame to be true.

Aristotle [*](Rhet. i. 9. ) however thinks that the place and subject of panegyrics or denunciations make a very considerable difference. For much depends on the character of the audience and the generally received opinion, if they are to believe that the virtues of which they approve are pre-eminently characteristic of the person praised and the vices which they hate of the person denounced. For there can be little doubt as to the attitude of the audience, if that attitude is already determined prior to the delivery of the speech.