Institutio Oratoria

Let me then give you separate examples of these classes of argument from the pages of Cicero; for where should I find better? The following passage from the pro Murena [*]( viii. 17. Sulpicius, one of Murena's accusers and an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship, had sought to depreciate Murena's birth. Cicero urges that even if Sulpicius' statements were true they would be irrelevant and cites his own case to support his argument. ) is an instance of argument from the like:

For it happened that I myself when a candidate had two patricians as competitors, the one a man of the most unscrupulous and reckless character, the other a most excellent and respectable citizen. Yet I defeated Catiline by force of merit and Galba by my

v4-6 p.279

popularity.

The pro Milone [*](iii. 7.) will give us an example of argument from the greater to the less:

They say that he who confesses to having killed a man is not fit to look upon the light of day. Where is the city in which men are such fools as to argue thus? It is Rome itself, the city whose first trial on a capital charge was that of Marcus Horatius, the bravest of men, who, though the city had not yet attained its freedom, was none the less acquitted by the assembly of the Roman people, in spite of the fact that he confessed that he had slain his sister with his own hand.

I killed, not Spurius Maelius, who by lowering the price of corn and sacrificing his private fortune fell under the suspicion of desiring to make himself king, because it seemed that he was courting popularity with the common people overmuch,

No, the man I killed (for my client would not shrink from the avowal, since his deed had saved his country) was he who committed abominable adultery even in the shrines of the gods

Arguments from unlikes present great variety, for they may turn on kind, manner, time, place, etcetera, almost every one of which Cicero employs to overthrow the previous decisions that seemed to apply to the case of Cluentius, [*](pro Cluent. xxxii. sqq. ) while he makes use of argument from contraries when lie minimises [*](ib. xlviii. 134. The accused was a knight: the retention of his horse implied that he retained his status. ) the importance of the censorial stigma by praising Scipio Africanus, who in his capacity of censor allowed one whom he openly asserted to have committed deliberate perjury to retain his horse, because no one had appeared as evidence against him, though he

A brief example of a similar argument is to be found in Virgil, [*](Aen. ii. 540. )

1. But he, whom falsely thou dost call thy father,
2. Even Achilles, in far other wise
3. Dealt with old Priam, and Priam was his foe.

Historical parallels may however sometimes be related in full, as in the pro Milone [*](pro Mil. iv. 9. ) :

When a military tribune serving in the army of Gaius Marius, to whom he was related, made an assault upon the honour of a common soldier, the latter killed him; for the virtuous youth preferred to risk his life by slaying him to suffering such dishonour. And yet the great Marius acquitted him of all crime and let him go scot free.

On the other hand in certain cases it will be sufficient merely to allude to the parallel, as Cicero does in the same speech [*](ib. iii. 8. ) :

For neither the famous Servilius Ahala nor Publius Nasica nor Lucius Opimius nor the Senate during my consulship could be cleared of serious guilt, if it were a crime to put wicked men to death.

A similar method is to be pursued in quoting from the fictions of the poets, though we must remember that they will be of less force as proofs. The same supreme authority, the great master of eloquence, shows us how we should employ such quotations.

For an example of this type will be found in the same speech [*](ib. iii. 8. The allusion is to Orestes, acquitted when tried before the Areopagus at Athens by the casting vote of Pallas Athene. ) :

And it is therefore, gentlemen of' the jury, that men of the greatest learning have

v4-6 p.283

recorded in their fictitious narratives that one who had killed his mother to avenge his father was acquitted, when the opinion of men was divided as to his guilt, not merely by the decision of a deity, but by the vote of the wisest of goddesses.