Institutio Oratoria

The latter name is given to cases which are contrary to ordinary expectation. In ambiguous cases it is specially important to secure the good-will of the judge, in the obscure to render him ready to receive

Some therefore divide the exordium into two parts, the introduction and the insinuation, making the former contain a direct appeal to the good-will and attention of the judge. But as this is impossible in scandalous cases, they would have the orator on such occasions insinuate himself little by little into the minds of his judges, especially when the features of the case which meet the eye are discreditable, or because the subject is disgraceful or such as to meet with popular disapproval, or again if the outward circumstances of the case are such as to handicap it or excite odium (as for instance when a patron appears against a client or a father against a son), or pity (as when our opponent is an old or blind man or a child).

To save the situation the rhetoricians lay down a number of rules at quite inordinate length: they invent fictitious cases and treat them realistically on the lines which would be followed in actual pleading. But these peculiar circumstances arise from such a variety of causes as to render classification by species impossible, and their enumeration save under the most general heads would be interminable.