Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

and we may do this in such a way as to defend our client; for instance, if our client is addicted to luxury, we may say,

He has been charged with living in a somewhat too liberal style.

So, too, we may call a mean man thrifty and a slanderous tongue free. [*](cp. iv. ii. 77 )

But we must never under any circumstances repeat our opponent's charges together with their proofs, nor emphasise any of his points by amplifying them, unless we do so with a view to making light of them, as for instance in the following passage [*](pro. Mur. ix. 21. ) :

You have been with the army, he says, and have not set foot in the forum for so many years, and do you now on returning after so long an interval seek to compete for a post of high dignity with those who have made the forum their home?

Again, when we are replying to the accuser we may sometimes set forth the whole charge, as Cicero does in the pro Scauro with reference to the death of Bostar, [*](cp. IV. i. 69. Scaurus was accused of extortion in Sardinia, and of having murdered a certain Bostar at a banquet. ) where he virtually parodies the speech of his opponent, or we may take a number of points raised in the course of the accusation and put them together as in the pro Vareno : [*](cp. v. x. 69. )

They have asserted that, when he was
v4-6 p.329
journeying with Pompulenus through a lonely stretch of country, he fell in with the slaves of Ancharius, that Pompulenus was then killed and Varenus imprisoned on the spot until such time as this man should indicate what he wished to be done with him.

Such a procedure is useful, if the sequence of facts alleged by the prosecution is incredible, and likely to lose its force by restatement. Sometimes, on the other hand, we may destroy the cumulative force of a number of statements by refuting them singly; in fact this is generally the safest course. Sometimes, again, the different portions of our reply will be independent of one another, a case which requires no illustration.

Common arguments [*](i.e. are easy to make use of. ) are readily appropriated, not merely because they can be used by either party, but because they are of greater service to the speaker who is replying; for I shall not scruple to repeat the warning which I have often given already; the speaker who is first to employ such an argument makes it tell against himself.