Institutio Oratoria

even common sayings and popular beliefs may be found to be useful. For they form a sort of testimony, which is rendered all the more impressive by the fact that it was not given to suit special cases, but was the utterance or action of minds swayed neither by prejudice or influence, simply because it seemed the most honourable or honest thing to say or do.

For instance, if I am speaking of the misfortunes of this mortal life, surely it will help me to adduce the opinion of those nations who hold that we should weep over the new-born child and rejoice

do we not regard the precepts of the Seven Wise Men as so many rules of life? If an adulteress is on her trial for poisoning, is she not already to be regarded as condemned by the judgment of Marcus Cato, who asserted that every adulteress was as good as a poisoner? As for reflexions drawn from the poets, not only speeches, but even the works of the philosophers, are full of them; for although the philosophers think everything inferior to their own precepts and writings, they have not thought it beneath their dignity to quote numbers of lines from the poets to lend authority to their statements.

Again, a remarkable example of the weight carried by authority is provided by the fact that when the Megarians disputed the possession of Salamis with the Athenians, the latter prevailed by citing a line from Homer, [*](II. ii. 558. Twelve ships great Ajax brought from Salamis, And ranged them where the Athenian army stood. ) which is not however found in all editions, to the effect that Ajax united his ships with those of the Athenians.