Institutio Oratoria

The rhetoricians have however been nearer the truth in their censure of certain other faults that may occur in the exordium. The stock exordium which can be suited to a number of different cases they style vulgar; it is an unpopular form but can sometimes be effectively employed and has often been adopted by some of the greatest orators. The exordium which might equally well be used by our opponent, they style common. That which our opponent can turn to his own advantage, they call interchangeable, that which is irrelevant to the case, detached, and that which is drawn from some other speech, transferred. In addition to these they censure others as long and others as contrary to rule. Most of these faults are however not peculiar to the exordinum, but may be found in any or every portion of a speech.

Such are the rules for the exordium, wherever it is employed. It may however sometimes be dispensed with. For occasionally it is superfluous, if the judge has been sufficiently prepared for our speech without it or if the case is such as to render