Institutio Oratoria

Such a procedure is most valuable in the examination of witnesses, but is differently employed in a set speech. For there the orator either answers his own questions or makes an assumption of that which in dialogue takes the form of a question.

What is

v4-6 p.275

the finest fruit? The best, I should imagine. What is the finest horse? The swiftest. So too the finest type of man is not he that is noblest of birth, but he that is most excellent in virtue.

All arguments of this kind, therefore, must be from things like or unlike or contrary. Similes are, it is true, sometimes employed for the embellishment of the speech as well, but I will deal with them in their proper place; [*]( VIII iii. 72 sqq. ) at present I am concerned with the use of similitude in proof.

The most important of proofs of this class is that which is most properly styled example, that is to say the adducing of some past action real or assumed which may serve to persuade the audience of the truth of the point which we are trying to make. We must therefore consider whether the parallel is complete or only partial, that we may know whether to use it in its entirety or merely to select those portions which are serviceable. We argue from the like when we say,

Saturninus was justly killed, as were the Gracchi

; from the unlike when we say,

Brutus killed his sons for plotting against the state, while Manlius condemned his son to death for his valoulr

; [*]( Manlius had forbidden all encounters with the enemy. His son engaged in single combat and slew his man. See Liv. VIII. viii. 1. ) from the contrary when we say,

Marcellus restored the works of art which had been taken from the Syracusans who were our enemies, while Verres [*](cp. Verr. IV. lv. 123. ) took the same works of art from our allies.

The same divisions apply also to such forms of proof in panegyric or denunciation.

It will also be found useful when we are speaking of what is likely to happen to refer to historical parallels: for instance if the orator asserts that Dionysius is asking for a bodyguard that with their armed assistance he may establish himself as tyrant, he may

adduce the parallel case of Pisistratus who secured the supreme power by similar means.