Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

There is a further question which is still more frequently raised, as to whether the statement of facts should always follow immediately on the

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exordium. Those who hold that it should always do so must be admitted to have some reason on their side. For since the purpose of the exordium is to make the judge more favourably disposed and more attentive to our case and more amenable to instruction, and since the proof cannot be brought forward until the facts of the case are known, it seems right that the judge should be instructed in the facts without delay.

But the practice may be altered by circumstances, unless it is contended that Cicero in his magnificent published defence of Milo delayed his statement too long by placing three questions before it; or unless it is argued that, if it bad been held to be impermissible to defend a man at all who acknowledged that he had killed another, or if Milo's case had already been prejudged and condemnation passed by the senate, or if Gnaeus Pompeius, who in addition to exerting his influence in other ways had surrounded the court with an armed guard, had been regarded with apprehension as hostile to the accused, it would have served his case to set forth how Clodius had set an ambush for Milo.

These three questions, then, served the purpose of an exordium, since they all of them were designed to prepare the minds of the judges. Again in the pro Vareno Cicero delayed his statement of facts until he had first rebutted certain allegations put forward by the prosecution. This may be done with advantage whenever we have not merely to rebut the charge, but to turn the tables on our opponents: thus after first rebutting the charge, we make our statement of facts the opening of an incrimination of the other party just as in actual fighting we are most

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concerned to parry our adversary's blows before we strike him ourselves.