Institutio Oratoria

The sole purpose of the exordium is to prepare our audience in such a way that they will be disposed to lend a ready ear to the rest of our speech. The majority of authors agree that this is best effected in three ways, by making the audience well-disposed, attentive and ready to receive instruction. I need hardly say that these aims have to be kept in view throughout the whole speech, but they are especially necessary at the commencement, when we gain admission to the mind of the judge in order to penetrate still further.

As regards good-will, we secure that either from persons connected with the case or from the case itself. Most writers have divided these persons into three classes, the plaintiff, the defendant and the judge.

This classification is wrong, for the exordium may sometimes derive its conciliatory force from the person of the pleader. For although he may be modest and say little about himself, yet if he is believed to be a good man, this consideration will exercise the strongest influence at every point of the case. For thus he will have the good fortune to give the impression not so much that he is a zealous advocate as that he is an absolutely reliable witness. It is therefore pre-eminently desirable that he should be believed to have undertaken the case out of a sense of duty to a friend or relative, or even better, if the point can be made, by a sense of patriotism or at any rate some serious moral consideration. No doubt it is even more

But just as the authority of the speaker carries greatest weight, if his undertaking of the case is free from all suspicion of meanness, personal spite or ambition, so also we shall derive some silent support from representing that we are weak, unprepared, and no match for the powerful talents arrayed against us, a frequent trick in the exordia of Messala.

For men have a natural prejudice in favour of those who are struggling against difficulties, and a scrupulous judge is always specially ready to listen to an advocate whom he does not suspect to have designs on his integrity. Hence arose the tendency of ancient orators to pretend to conceal their eloquence, a practice exceedingly unlike the ostentation of our own times.

It is also important to avoid giving the impression that we are abusive, malignant, proud or slanderous toward any individual or body of men, especially such as cannot be hurt without exciting the disapproval of the judges.

As to the judge, it would be folly for me to warn speakers not to say or even hint anything against him, but for the fact that such things do occur. Our opponent's advocate will sometimes provide us with material for our exordium: we may speak of him in honorific terms, pretending to fear his eloquence and influence with a view to rendering them suspect to the judge, or occasionally, though very seldom, we may abuse him, as Asinius did in his speech on behalf of the heirs of Urbinia, where he includes among the proofs of the weakness of the plaintiff's case the fact that he has secured Labienus as his advocate.

Cornelius Celsus denies that such remarks can be considered as belonging to the exordium on the ground that they are irrelevant to the actual case. Personally I prefer to follow the authority of the greatest orators, and hold that whatever concerns the pleader is relevant to the case, since it is natural that the judges should give readier credence to those to whom they find it a pleasure to listen.

The character of our client himself may, too, be treated in various ways: we may emphasise his worth or we may commend his weakness to the protection of the court. Sometimes it is desirable to set forth his merits, when the speaker will be less hampered by modesty than if he were praising his own. Sex, age and situation are also important considerations, as for instance when women, old men or wards are pleading in the character of wives, parents or children.

For pity alone may move even a strict judge. These points, however, should only be lightly touched upon in the exordium, not run to death. As regards our opponent he is generally attacked on similar lines, but with the method reversed. For power is generally attended by envy, abject meanness by contempt, guilt and baseness by hatred, three emotions which are powerful factors to alienate the good-will of the judges.