Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

It is never correct to employ the left hand alone in gesture, though it will often conform its motion to that of the right, as, for example, when we are counting our arguments on the fingers, or turn the palms of the hands to the left to express our horror of something,

or thrust them out in front or spread them out to right and left, or lower them in apology or supplication (though the gesture is not the same in these two cases), or raise them in adoration, or stretch them out in demonstration or invocation, as in the passage,

Ye hills and groves of Alba, [*](pro Mil. xxxi. 85. )

or in the passage from Gracchus [*]( See Cic. de Or. III. lvi. 214. ) :

Whither, alas! shall I turn me? To the Capitol? Nay, it is wet with my brother's blood. To my home?

etc.