Institutio Oratoria

For my own part (for I will not conceal my opinion, though it rests rather on actual examples than on rules), I hold that the statement of fact more than any portion of the speech should be adorned with the utmost grace and charm. But much will depend on the nature of the subject which we have to set forth.

In slighter cases, such as are the majority of private suits, the decoration must be restrained and fit close to the subject, while the utmost care must be exercised in choice of words. The words which in our purple passages are swept along by the force of our eloquence and lost in the profusion of our language, must in cases such as these be clear and, as Zeno says,

steeped with meaning.

while the figures must neither be derived from poetry nor such as are contrary to current usage, though warranted by the authority of antiquity (for it is important that our language should be entirely normal), but should be designed to relieve tedium by their variety and should be frequently

Moreover there is no portion of a speech at which the judge is more attentive, and consequently nothing that is well said is lost. And the judge is, for some reason or other, all the more ready to accept what charms his ear and is lured by pleasure to belief.

When on the other hand the subject is on a larger scale, we have a chance to excite horror by our narration of abominable wrongs or pity by a tale of woe: but we must do so in such a way as not to exhaust our stock of emotions on the spot, but merely to indicate our harrowing story in outline so that it may at once be clear what the completed picture is like to be.

Again I am far from disapproving of the introduction of some striking sentence designed to stimulate the judge's jaded palate. The best way of so doing is the interposition of a short sentence like the following:

Milo's slaves did what everyone would have wished his own slaves to do under similar circumstances

The mother-in-law wedded her son-in-law: there were no witnesses, none to sanction the union, and the omens were dark and sinister.

If this was done in days when every speech was designed for practical purposes rather than display and the courts were far stricter than to-day, how much more should we do it now, when the passion for producing a

A powerful effect may be created if to the actual facts of the case we add a plausible picture of what occurred, such as will make our audience feel as if they were actual eyewitnesses of the scene. Such is the description introduced by Marcus Caelius in his speech against Antonius.

For they found him lying prone in a drunken slumber, snoring with all the force of his lungs, and belching continually, while the most distinguished of his female companions sprawled over every couch, and the rest of the seraglio lay round in all directions. They however perceived the approach of the enemy and, half-dead with terror, attempted to arouse Antonius, called him by name, heaved up his head, but all in vain, while one whispered endearing words into his ear, and another slapped him with some violence. At last he recognised the voice and touch of each and tried to embrace her who happened to be nearest. Once wakened he could not sleep, but was too drunk to keep awake, and so was bandied to and fro between sleeping and waking in the hands of his centurions and his paramours.