Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

For while a display of care and anxiety, and the employment of every device available for the amplification of our style are becoming when we are

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pleading for a client accused on a capital charge, it would be useless to employ the same methods in cases and trials of minor importance, and the speaker who, when speaking from his chair before an arbitrator on some trivial question, should make an admission like that made by Cicero, to the effect that it was not merely his soul that was in a state of commotion, but that his whole body was convulsed with shuddering, [*](Div. in Caec. xiii. 41 ) would meet with well-deserved ridicule.

Again, who does not know what different styles of eloquence are required when speaking before the grave assembly of the senate and before the fickle populace, since even when we are pleading before single judges the same style will not be suitable for use before one of weighty character and another of a more frivolous disposition, while a learned judge must not be addressed in the same tone that we should employ before a soldier or a rustic, and our style must at times be lowered and simplified, for fear that he may be unable to take it in or to understand it.

Again, circumstances of time and place demand special consideration. The occasion may be one for sorrow or for rejoicing, the time at our disposal may be ample or restricted, and the orator must adapt himself to all these circumstances.

It, likewise, makes no small difference whether we are speaking in public or in private, before a crowded audience or in comparative seclusion, in another city or our own, in the camp or in the forum: each of these places will require its own style and peculiar form of oratory, since even in other spheres of life the same actions are not equally suited to the forum, the senate-house, the Campus Martius, the theatre

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or one's own house, and there is much that is not in itself reprehensible, and may at times be absolutely necessary, which will be regarded as unseemly if done in some place where it is not sanctioned by custom.

I have already pointed out [*]( VIII. iii. 11 sqq. ) how much more elegance and ornament is allowed by the topics of demonstrative oratory, whose main object is the delectation of the audience, than is permitted by deliberative or forensic themes which are concerned with action and argument. To this must be added the fact that certain qualities, which are in themselves merits of a high order, may be rendered unbecoming by the special circumstances of the case.

For example, when a man is accused on a capital charge, and, above all, if he is defending himself before his conqueror or his sovereign, it would be quite intolerable for him to indulge in frequent metaphors, antique or newlycoined words, rhythms as far removed as possible from the practice of every-day speech, rounded periods, florid commonplaces and ornate reflexions. Would not all these devices destroy the impression of anxiety which should be created by a man in such peril, and rob him of the succour of pity, on which even the innocent are forced to rely?