Institutio Oratoria

[*](I.e. with exaggerated violence. See II. xii. 9. ) To these latter we may add those speakers who hurl quivering epigrams with their fingers or denounce with the hand upraised, or rise on tiptoe, whenever they say something of which they are specially proud. This last proceeding may at times be adopted by itself; but they convert it into a blemish by simultaneously raising one or even two fingers as high as they can reach, or heaving up both hands as if they were carrying something.

In addition to these faults, there are those which spring not from nature, but from nervousness, such as struggling desperately with our lips when they refuse to open, making inarticulate sounds, as

We must take care not to protrude the chest or stomach, since such an altitude arches the back, and all bending backwards is unsightly. The flanks must conform to the gesture; for the motion of the entire body contributes to the effect: indeed, Cicero holds that the body is more expressive than even the hands. For in the de Orator [*](xviii. 59.) he says,

There must be no quick movements of the fingers, no marking time with the finger-tips, but the orator should control himself by the poise of the whole trunk and by a manly inclination of the side.

Slapping the thigh, which Clean is said to have been the first to introduce at Athens, is in general use and is becoming as a mark of indignation, while it also excites the audience. Cicero [*](Brut. lax. 278. ) regrets its absence in Calidius,

There was no striking of the forehead,

nor of the thigh.