Institutio Oratoria

We however are the victims of the practice of the schools in accordance with which certain points or themes as we call them are put forward for discussion, outside which our refutation must not go, and consequently a statement of facts always follows the exordium. It is this too that leads declaimers to take the liberty of inserting a statement of facts even when they speak second for their side.

For when they speak for the prosecution they introduce both a statement of facts, as if they were speaking first, and a refutation of the arguments for the defence, as if they were replying: and they are right in so doing. For since declamation is merely an exercise in forensic pleading, why should they not qualify themselves to

But even scholastic rhetoricians occasionally substitute a brief summary for the full statement of the facts. For what statement of the case can be made when a wife is accusing a jealous husband of maltreating her, or a father is indicting his son turned Cynic before the censors for indecent behaviour [*]( See Index, s. v. Cynicus. ) ? In both cases the charge can be sufficiently indicated by one word placed in any part of the speech. But enough of these points.

I will now proceed to the method to be adopted in making our statement of facts. The statement of facts consists in the persuasive exposition of that which either has been done, or is supposed to have been done, or, to quote the definition given by Apollodorus, is a speech instructing the audience as to the nature of the case in dispute. Most writers, more especially those of the Isocratean school, hold that it should be lucid, brief and plausible (for it is of no importance if we substitute clear for lucid, or credible or probable for plausible).

I agree with this classification of its qualities, although Aristotle [*](Rhet. iii. 16. ) disagrees with Isocrates on one point, and pours scorn on his injunction to be brief, as though it were necessary that a statement should be either long or short and it were impossible to hit the happy mean. The followers of Theodorus on the other hand recognise only plausibility on the ground that it is not always expedient that our exposition should be either short or clear.

It will be necessary

Now I should regret that anyone should censure my conduct in suggesting that a statement which is wholly in our favour should be plausible, when as a matter of fact it is true. There are many things which are true, but scarcely credible, just as there are many things which are plausible though false. It will therefore require just as much exertion on our part to make the judge believe what we say when it is true as it will when it is fictitious.

These good qualities, which I have mentioned above, do not indeed cease to be virtues in other portions of the speech; for it is our duty to avoid obscurity in every part of our pleading, to preserve due proportion throughout and to say nothing save what is likely to win belief. But they require special observance in that portion of the speech which is the first from which the judge can learn the nature of the case: if at this stage of the proceedings he fails to understand, remember or believe what we say, our labour is but lost in the remainder of the speech.

We shall achieve lucidity and clearness in our statement of facts, first by setting forth our story in words which are appropriate, significant and free from any taint of meanness, but not on the other

This latter virtue is disregarded by the majority of speakers who are used to the noisy applause of a large audience, whether it be a chance gathering or an assembly of claqueurs, and consequently are unnerved by the attentive silence of the courts. They feel that they have fallen short of eloquence, if they do not make everything echo with noise and clamour; they think that to state a matter simply is suited only to everyday speech such as falls within the capacity of any uneducated man, while all the time it is hard to say whether they are less willing or less capable of performing a task which they despise on account of its supposed easiness.

For even when they have tried everything, they will never find anything more difficult in the whole range of oratory than that which, once heard, all think they would have said,— a delusion due to the fact that they regard what has been said as having no merit save that of truth. But it is just when an orator gives the impression of absolute truth that he is speaking best.

As it is, when such persons as these get a fair field for stating their case, they select this as the precise occasion for affected modulations of the voice, throwing back their heads, thumping their sides and indulging in every kind of extravagance of statement, language and style. As a result, while the speech, from its very monstrosity, meets with applause, the case remains unintelligible. However, let us pass to another subject; my aim is to win favour for

The statement of facts will be brief, if in the first place we start at that point of the case at which it begins to concern the judge, secondly avoid irrelevance, and finally cut out everything the removal of which neither hampers the activities of the judge nor harms our own case.

For frequently conciseness of detail is not inconsistent with length in the whole. Take for instance such a statement as the following:

I came to the harbour, I saw a ship, I asked the cost of a passage, the price was agreed, I went on board, the anchor was weighed, we loosed our cable and set out.

I sailed from the harbour.

Consequently when it is possible to say

I have a young son,

Being desirous of children I took a wife, a son was born whom I acknowledged and reared and brought up to manhood.

Personally, when I use the word brevity, I mean not saying less, but not saying more than occasion demands. As for repetitions and tautologies and diffuseness, which some writers of textbooks tell us we must avoid, I pass them by;

But we must be equally on our guard against the obscurity which results from excessive abridgment, and it is better to say a little more than is necessary than a little less. For though a diffuse irrelevance is tedious, the omission of what is necessary is positively dangerous.