Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

If our statement is to be clear and brief, almost anything can be justified sooner than digression. And if we do introduce a digression, it must always be short and of such a nature that we give the impression of having been forced from our proper course by some uncontrollable emotion. The passage in Cicero [*](pro Clu. vi. 15. ) about the marriage of Sasia is a good example of this.

What incredible wickedness in a woman! Unheard of in the history of mankind till she dared the sin! What unbridled and unrestrained lust, what amazing daring! One might have thought that, even if she had no regard for the vengeance of heaven and the opinion of man, she would at least have dreaded that night of all nights and those torches that lighted her to the bridal bed: that she would have shrunk in horror from the threshold of her chamber, from her daughter's room and the very walls that had witnessed her former marriage.

As to addressing another in place of the judge, it may be a means of making a point with greater brevity and give it greater force. On this subject I hold the same view that I expressed in dealing with the exordium, as I do on the subject of impersonation. This artifice however is employed not only by Servius Sulpicius in his speech on behalf of Aufidia, when he cries

Am I to suppose that you were drowsed with sleep or weighed down by some
v4-6 p.109
heavy lethargy?

but by Cicero [*](Verr. v. xlv. 118. ) as well, when in a passage which, like the above, belongs to the statement of facts, in speaking of the ships' captains he says,

You will give so much to enter, etc.