Institutio Oratoria

For although the vices which are its opposites, such as arrogance, temerity, impudence and presumption, are all positively obnoxious, still without constancy, confidence and courage, art, study and proficiency will be of no avail. You might as well put weapons into the hands of the unwarlike and the coward. It is indeed with some reluctance,

But in case any of my readers should still lack skill to distinguish the precise meaning of each word, I would have him know that it is not honest shame that is the object of my criticism, but that excess of modesty which is really a form of fear deterring the soul from doing what is its duty to do, and resulting in confusion of mind, regret that our task was ever begun, and sudden silence. For who can hesitate to give the name of fault to a feeling that makes a man ashamed to do what is right?

On the other hand, I am not unwilling that the man who has got to make a speech should show signs of nervousness when he rises to his feet, should change colour and make it clear that he feels the risks of his position: indeed, if these symptoms do not occur naturally, it will be necessary to simulate them. But the feeling that stirs us should be due to the realisation of the magnitude of our task and not to fear: we should be moved, but not to the extent of collapsing. But the best remedy for such excess of modesty is confidence: however great our natural timidity of mien, we shall find strength and support in the consciousness of the nobility of our task.

There are also those natural instruments which, as I mentioned above, [*]( I Pr. 27. ) may be further improved by care, such as voice, lungs and grace of carriage and movement, all of which are of such importance

At any rate I remember that, when he was speaking in the Basilica Julia before the first tribunal, and the four panels of judges [*]( Of the Cenutumviral Court. Four different cases were being tried simultaneously. ) were assembled as usual and the whole building was full of noise, he could still be heard and understood and applauded from all four tribunals at once, a fact which was not complimentary to the other pleaders. But gifts like these are such as all may pray for and few are happy enough to attain. And if we cannot achieve such fortune, we must even be content to be heard by the court which we are addressing. Such then should the orator be, and such are the things which he should know.

The age at which the orator should begin to plead will of course depend on the development of his strength. I shall not specify it further, since it is clear that Demosthenes pleaded against his guardians while he was still a mere boy, Calvus, Caesar and Pollio [*]( Demosthenes was 18, Crassus 19, Caesar 21, Asinius Pollio and Calvus not much older. See Tac. Dial. 34. ) all undertook cases of the first importance before they were old enough to be qualified for the quaestorship, others are said to have pleaded while still wearing the garb of boyhood, and Augustus Caesar delivered a funeral oration over his grandmother from the public rostra when he was only twelve years old.

In my opinion we should aim

On the other hand, it is undesirable to postpone the apprenticeship of the bar till old age: for the fear of appearing in public grows daily and the magnitude of the task on which we must venture continually increases and we waste time deliberating when we should begin, till we find it is too late to begin at all. Consequently it is desirable that the fruit of our studies should be brought before the public eye while it is still fresh and sweet, while it may hope for indulgence and be secure of a kindly disposition in the audience, while boldness is not unbecoming and youth compensates for all defects and boyish extravagance is regarded as a sign of natural vigour.

Take for example the whole of the well-known passage from Cicero's defence of Sextus Roscius: [*](pro Rose. Amer. xxvi. 72. )

For what is more common than the air to the living, than the earth to the dead, than the sea to mariners or the shore to shipwrecked men?

some who have grown old in the schools lose their heads when confronted by the novelty of the law courts and wish that it were possible to reproduce all the conditions under which they delivered their exercises. But there sits the judge in silence, their opponent bellows at them, no rash utterance passes unnoticed and all assumptions must be proved, the clock cuts short the speech that has been laboriously pieced together at the cost of hours of study both by day and night, and there are certain cases which require simplicity of language and the abandonment of the perpetual bombast of the schools, a fact which these fluent fellows completely fail to realise.

And so you will find some persons who regard themselves as too eloquent to speak in the courts. On the other hand, the man, whom we conducted to the forum while still young and in the charm of immaturity, should begin with as easy and favourable a case as may be (just as the cubs of wild beasts are brought up to start with on softer forms of prey), and should not proceed straight from this commencement to plead case after case without a break, or cause his talents to set and harden while they still require nourishment; on the contrary, as soon as he has come to realise the nature of the conflicts in which he will have to engage and the object to which his studies should be directed, he should take an interval of rest and refreshment. Thus,

at an age to which boldness is still natural, he will find it easy to get over the timidity which invariably accompanies the period of apprenticeship, and

When our orator has developed his strength to such a pitch that it is equal to every kind of confact in which he may be called upon to bear his part, his first consideration should be to exercise care in the choice of the cases which he proposes to undertake. A good man will undoubtedly prefer defence to prosecution, but he will not have such a rooted objection to the task of accuser as to disregard his duty towards the state or towards individuals and refuse to call any man to render an account of his way of life. For the laws themselves would be powerless without the assistance of advocates equal to the task of supporting them; and to regard it as a sin to demand the punishment of crime is almost equivalent to the sanctioning of crime, while it is certainly contrary to the interest of the good to give the wicked free leave to work their will.

Therefore, our orator will not suffer the complaints of our allies, the death of friends or kinsmen, or conspiracies that threaten the common weal to go unavenged, while his conduct will be governed not by a passion to secure the punishment of the guilty, but by the

Consequently, while to devote one's life to the task of accusation, and to be tempted by the hope of reward to bring the guilty to trial is little better than making one's living by highway robbery, none the less to rid one's country of the pests that gnaw its vitals is conduct worthy of comparison with that of heroes, who champion their country's cause in the field of battle. For this reason men who were leaders of the state have not refused to undertake this portion of an orator's duty, and even young men of high rank have been regarded as giving their country a pledge of their devotion by accusing bad citizens, since it was thought that their hatred of evil and their readiness to incur enmity were proofs of their confidence in their own rectitude.

Such action was taken by Hortensius, the Luculli, Sulpicius, Cicero, Caesar and many others, among them both the Catos, of whom one was actually called the Wise, [*](i.e. Cato the Elder. ) while if the other is not regarded as wise, I do not know of any that can claim the title after him. On the other hand, this same orator of ours will not defend all and sundry: that haven of safety which his eloquence provides will never be opened to pirates as it is to others, and he will be led to undertake cases mainly by consideration of their nature.

However, since one man cannot undertake the cases of all litigants who are not, as many undoubtedly are, dishonest, he will be influenced to some extent by the character of the persons who recommend clients to his protection and also by the character of the litigants themselves, and will allow himself to be moved by

But he must put away from him two kinds of pretentious display, the one consisting in the officious proffering of his services to the powerful against those of meaner position, and the other, which is even more obtrusive, in deliberately supporting inferiors against those of high degree. For a case is not rendered either just or the reverse by the social position of the parties engaged. Nor, again, will a sense of shame deter him from throwing over a case which he has undertaken in the belief that it had justice on its side, but which his study of the facts has shown to be unjust, although before doing so he should give his client his true opinion on the case.

For, if we judge aright, there is no greater benefit that we can confer on our clients than this, that we should not cheat them by giving them empty hopes of success. On the other hand, no client that does not take his advocate into his counsel deserves that advocate's assistance, and it is certainly unworthy of our ideal orator that he should wittingly defend injustice. For if he is led to defend what is false by any of the motives which I mentioned above, [*](XII. i. 36.) his own action will still be honourable.

It is an open question whether he should never demand a fee for his services. To decide the question at first sight would be the act of a fool. For we all know that by far the most honourable course, and the one which is most in keeping with a liberal education and that temper of mind which we desiderate, is not to sell our services nor to debase the value of such a boon as eloquence, since there are not a few things which come to be regarded as