Institutio Oratoria

For it is most important that we should know how the judge is disposed to listen, and his face will often (as Cicero [*](Not in any extant work.) reminds us) serve as a guide to the speaker. Consequently we must press the points that we see commend themselves to him, and draw back from those which are ill-received, while our actual language must be so modified that he will find our arguments as intelligible as possible. That this should be necessary is scarcely surprising, when we consider the alterations that are frequently necessary to suit the characters of the different witnesses.

He was a shrewd man who, when he asked a rustic witness whether he knew Amphion, and the witness replied that he did not, dropped the aspirate and shortened the second syllable, [*]( The witness did not recognise the name correctly pronounced Amphion, but recognised it when pronounced Amphion. ) whereupon the witness recognised him at once. Such situations, when it is impossible to speak as we write, will sometimes make it necessary to speak in language other than that which we use in writing.

There is another threefold division, whereby, it is held, we may differentiate three styles of speaking, all of them correct. The first is termed the plain [*](subtilis ( lit. = finely woven) applied to style has three meanings: (a) refined, (b) precise, (c) plain. See Sandys on Cic. Or. vi. 20. ) (or ἰσχνόν ), the second grand and forcible (or ἁδρόν ), and the third either intermediate or florid, the latter being a translation of ἀνθηρόν.

The nature of these three styles is, broadly speaking, as follows. The first would seem best adapted for instructing, the second for moving, and the third (by whichever name we call it) for charming or, as others would have it, conciliating the audience; for instruction the quality most