Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

Nor is expediency compared merely with inexpediency. At times we have to choose between two advantageous courses after comparison of their respective advantages. The problem may be still more complicated, as for instance when Pompey deliberated whether to go to Parthia, Africa or Egypt. [*](After his defeat at Pharsalus.) In such a case the enquiry is not which of

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two courses is better or worse, but which of three or more.

On the other hand in deliberative oratory there will never be any doubt about circumstances wholly in our favour. For there can clearly be no doubt about points against which there is nothing to be said. Consequently as a rule all deliberative speeches are based simply on comparison, and we must consider what we shall gain and by what means, that it may be possible to form an estimate whether there is more advantage in the aims we pursue or greater disadvantage in the means we employ to that end.

A question of expediency may also be concerned with time (for example,

it is expedient, but not now
) or with place (
it is expedient, but not here
) or with particular persons (
it is expedient, but not for us
or
not as against these
) or with our method of action (
it is expedient, but not thus
) or with degree (
it is expedient, but not to this extent
). But we have still more often to consider personality with reference to what is becoming, and we must consider our own as well as that of those before whom the question is laid.

Consequently, though examples are of the greatest value in deliberative speeches, because reference to historical parallels is the quickest method of securing assent, it matters a great deal whose authority is adduced and to whom it is commended. For the minds of those who deliberate on any subject differ from one another and our audience may be of two kinds.

For those who ask us for advice are either single individuals or a number, and in both cases the factors may be different. For when advice is asked by a number of persons it makes a considerable difference whether they are

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the senate or the people, the citizens of Rome or Fidenae, Greeks or barbarians, and in the case of single individuals, whether we are urging Cato or Gaius Marius to stand for office, whether it is the elder Scipio or Fabius who is deliberating on his plan of campaign.

Further sex, rank, and age, must be taken into account, though it is character that will make the chief difference. It is an easy task to recommend an honourable course to honourable men, but if we are attempting to keep men of bad character to the paths of virtue, we must take care not to seem to upbraid a way of life unlike our own.

The minds of such an audience are not to be moved by discoursing on the nature of virtue, which they ignore, but by praise, by appeals to popular opinion, and if such vanities are of no avail, by demonstration of the advantage that will accrue from such a policy, or more effectively perhaps by pointing out the appalling consequences that will follow the opposite policy.

For quite apart from the fact that the minds of unprincipled men are easily swayed by terror, I am not sure that most men's minds are not more easily influenced by fear of evil than by hope of good, for they find it easier to understand what is evil than what is good.