Institutio Oratoria

There is another point to which I must call attention, namely the credit which accrues to the statement of facts from the authority of the speaker. Now such authority should first and foremost be the reward of our manner of life, but may also be conferred

It is therefore specially important in this part of our speech to avoid anything suggestive of artful design, for the judge is never more on his guard than at this stage. Nothing must seem fictitious, nought betray anxiety; everything must seem to spring from the case itself rather than the art of the orator.

But our modern orators cannot endure this and imagine that their art is wasted unless it obtrudes itself, whereas as a matter of fact the moment it is detected it ceases to be art. We are the slaves of applause and think it the goal of all our effort. And so we betray to the judges what we wish to display to the bystanders.

There is also a kind of repetition of the statement which the Greeks call ἐπιδιηγήσις. It belongs to declamation rather than forensic oratory, and was invented to enable the speaker (in view of the fact that the statement should be brief) to set forth his facts at greater length and with more profusion of ornament, as a means of exciting indignation or pity. I think that this should be done but rarely and that we should never go to the extent of repeating the statement in its entirety. For we can attain the same result by a repetition only of parts. Anyone, however, who desires to employ this form of repetition, should touch but lightly on the facts when making his statement and should content himself with merely indicating what was done, while promising to set forth how it was done more fully when the time comes for it.

Some hold that the statement of facts should always begin by referring to some person, whom we must

Persons may however also be introduced with all their attendant circumstances, if such a procedure is likely to prove useful. For instance,

The father of my client, gentlemen, was Aulus Cluentius Habitus, a man whose character, reputation and birth made him the leading man not only in his native town of Larinum, but in all the surrounding district.

Or again they may be introduced without such circumstances, as in the passage beginning

For Quintus Ligarius etc.

Marcus Tullius has a farm which he inherited from his father in the territory of Thurium,

On the outbreak of the Phocian war.

As regards the conclusion of the statement of facts, there is a controversy with those who would have the statement end where the issue to be determined begins. Here is an example.

After these events the praetor Publius Dolabella issued an interdict in the usual form dealing with rioting and employment of armed men, ordering, without any exception, that Aebutius should restore the property from which he had ejected Caecina. He stated that he had done so. A sum of money was deposited. It is for you to decide to whom this money is to go.