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 follows that in such cases also the question will be either one of expediency alone or of a choice between expediency and honour.

But,

it will be urged,

if a man would beget children, he is under the necessity of taking a wife.

Certainly. But he who wishes to become a father must needs be quite clear that he must take a wife.

It appears to me, therefore, that where necessity exists, there is no room for deliberation, any more than where it is clear that a thing is

v1-3 p.493

not feasible. For deliberation is always concerned with questions where some doubt exists. Those therefore are wiser who make the third consideration for deliberative oratory to be τὸ δυνατόν or

possibility

as we translate it; the translation may seem clumsy, but it is the only word available.

That all these considerations need not necessarily obtrude themselves in every case is too obvious to need explanation. Most writers, however, say that there are more than three. But the further considerations which they would add are really but species of the three general considerations just mentioned. For right, justice, piety, equity and mercy (for thus they translate τὸ ἥμερον ), with any other virtues that anyone may be pleased to add, all come under the heading of that which is honourable.