Institutio Oratoria

Stamping the foot is, as Cicero [*](de Or. iii. lix. 220. ) says, effective when done on suitable occasions, that is to say, at the commence meant or close of a lively argument, but if it be

frequently indulged in, it brands the speaker as a fool and ceases to attract the attention of the judge. There is also the unsightly habit of swaying to right and left, and shifting the weight from one foot to the other. Above all, we must avoid effeminate movements, such as Cicero [*](Brut. lxii. ) ascribes to Titus, a circumstance which led to a certain kind of dance being nicknamed Titus.

Another reprehensible practice is that of nodding frequently and rapidly to either side, a mannerism for which the elder Curio [*](cp. Cic. Brut. lx. ) was derided by Julius, who asked who it was who was speaking in a boat, while on another occasion, when Curio had been tossing himself about in his usual manner, while Octaves, his colleague, was sitting beside him bandaged and reeking with medicaments on account of ill-health, Spiciness remarked,

Octaves, you can never be sufficiently grateful to your colleague: for if he wasn't there, the flies would have devoured you this very day where you sit.

The shoulders also are apt to be jerked to and fro, a fault of which Demosthenes is said to have cured himself by speaking on a narrow platform with a spear hanging immediately above his shoulder, in order that, if in the heat of his eloquence he failed to avoid this fault, he might have his attention called to the fact by a prick from the spear. The only condition that justifies our walking about while speaking is if we are pleading in a public trial before a large number of judges and desire specially to impress our arguments upon them individually.