Institutio Oratoria

Again a digression may be advantageous if after setting forth the services rendered by your client to his opponent you denounce the latter for his ingratitude, or after producing a variety of charges in your statement, you point out the serious danger in which the advancement of such charges is likely to involve you.

But all these digressions should be brief. For as soon as he has heard the facts set forth in order, the judge is in a hurry to get to the proof and desires to satisfy himself of the correctness of his impressions at the earliest possible moment. Further, care must be taken not to nullify the effect of the statement by

But, though such digressions are not always necessary at the end of the statement, they may form a very useful preparation for the examination of the main question, more especially if at first sight it presents an aspect unfavourable to our case, if we have to support a harsh law or demand severe punishment. For this is the place for inserting what may be regarded as a second exordium with a view to exciting or mollifying the judge or disposing him to lend a favouring ear to our proofs. Moreover we can do this with all the greater freedom and vehemence at this stage of the proceedings since the case is already known to the judge.

We shall therefore employ such utterances as emollients to soften the harder elements of our statement, in order that the ears of the jury may be more ready to take in what we have to say in the sequel and to grant us the justice which we ask. For it is hard to persuade a man to do anything against the grain.

It is also important on such occasions to know whether the judge prefers equity or a strict interpretation of the law, since the necessity for such digression will vary accordingly.

Such passages may also serve as a kind of peroration after the main question. The Greeks call this παρέκβασις, the Romans egressus or egressio (digression). They may however, as I have said, be of various kinds and may deal with different themes in any portion of the speech. For instance we may extol persons or places, describe regions, record historical or even legendary occurrences.

As examples I may cite the praise of Sicily and the rape

παρέκβασις may, I think, be defined as the handling of some theme, which must however have some bearing on the case, in a passage that involves digression from the logical order of our speech. I do not see therefore why it should be assigned a special position immediately following on the statement of facts any more than I understand why they think that the name is applicable only to a digression where some statement has to be made, when there are so many different ways in which a speech may leave the direct route.

For whatever we say that falls outside the five divisions of the speech already laid down is a digression, whether it express indignation, pity, hatred, rebuke, excuse, conciliation or be designed to rebut invective. Other similar occasions for digression on points not involved by the question at issue arise when we amplify or abridge a topic, make any kind of emotional appeal or introduce any of those topics which add such charm and elegance to oratory, topics that is to say such as luxury, avarice, religion, duty: but these would hardly seem to be digressions as they are so closely attached to arguments on similar subjects that they form part of the texture of the speech.

There are however a number of topics which are inserted in the midst of matter which has no connexion with them, when for example we strive to excite, admonish, appease, entreat or praise the judge. Such passages are

For example, this made it necessary for Cicero to digress even in the exordium when he was defending Milo, as is clear from the short speech [*]( The speech actually delivered, not the long speech which has come down to us, but was never delivered. ) which he made on that occasion. But the orator who makes some preface to the main question or proposes to follow up his proofs with a passage designed to commend them to the jury, may digress at some length. On the other hand, if he breaks as say in the middle of his speech, he should not be long in returning to the point from which he departed.

IV. After the statement of facts some place the proposition [*](III. ix. 5; xi. 27.) which they regard as forming a division of a forensic speech. I have already expressed my opinion of this view. [*](III. ix. 2.) But it seems to me that the beginning of every proof is a proposition, such as often occurs in the demonstration of the main question and sometimes even in the enunciation of individual arguments, more especially of those which are called ἐπιχειρήματα [*](See v. xiv. 14.) But for the moment I shall speak of the first kind. It is not always necessary to employ it.

The nature of the main question is sometimes sufficiently clear without any proposition, especially if the statement of facts ends exactly where the question begins. Consequently the recapitulation generally employed in the case of arguments is sometimes placed immediately after the statement of facts.

The affair took place, as I have described, gentlemen: he that laid the ambush was defeated,

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violence was conquered by violence, or rather I should say audacity was crushed by valour.

Sometimes proposition is highly advantageous, more especially when the fact cannot be defended and the question turns on the definition of the fact; as for example in the case of the man who has taken the money of a private individual from a temple: we shall say,

My client is charged with sacrilege. It is for you to decide whether it was sacrilege,

The same method may be employed in obscure or complicated cases, not merely to make the case clearer, but sometimes also to make it more moving. This effect will be produced, if we at once support our pleading with some such words as the following:

It is expressly stated in the law that for any foreigner who goes up on to the wall the penalty is death. You are undoubtedly a foreigner, and there is no question but that you went up on to the wall. The conclusion is that you must submit to the penalty.

Propositions may be single, double or manifold: this is due to more than one reason. For several charges may be combined, as when Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth and of introducing new superstitions; while single propositions may be made up of a number of arguments, as for instance when Aeschines is accused of misconduct as an ambassador on the ground that he lied, failed to

The defence may also contain several propositions: for instance against a claim for money we may urge,

Your claim is invalid; for you had no right to act as agent nor had the party whom you represent any right to employ an agent: further, he is not the heir of the man from whom it is asserted that I borrowed the money, nor am I his debtor.

These propositions can be multiplied at pleasure, but it is sufficient to give an indication of my meaning. If propositions are put forward singly with the proofs appended, they will form several distinct propositions: if they are combined, they fall under the head of partition.

A proposition may also be put forward unsupported, as is generally done in conjectural cases:

The formal accusation is one of murder, but I also charge the accused with theft.

Gaius Cornelius is guilty of an offence against the state; for when he was tribune of the plebs, he himself read out his bill to the public assembly.

I accuse him of adultery,

The charge brought against me is one of adultery,

The question in dispute between myself and my opponent is, which of the two is next-of-kin to the deceased who died intestate.

I say this, my opponent says that.

We may at times produce the effect of a proposition, even though it is not in itself a proposition, by adding after the statement of facts some phrase such as the following:

These are the points on which you will give your decision,