Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

accuses Ligarius of having been in Africa, and complains that Ligarius refused to allow him to land in Africa. At times, however, some ill-advised statement by our opponent will give us an opportunity of demolishing his arguments. This is specially likely to occur with speakers who have a passion for producing impressive thoughts: for the temptation to air their eloquence is such that they take no heed of what they have said already, being absorbed by the topic immediately before them to the detriment of the interests of the case as a whole.

What is there likely to tell so heavily against Cluentius as the stigma inflicted by the censors? What can be more damaging than the fact that Egnatius disinherited his son on the ground that lie had been bribed to give a false verdict in the trial in which Cluentius secured the condemnation of Oppianicus? But Cicero [*](pro Cluent. xlviii. 135. )

shows that the two facts tell against one another.

But, Attius, I would urge you to give the closest consideration to the following problem. Which do you desire to carry the greater weight—the judgment of the censors, or of Egnatius? If the latter, you regard the judgment of the censors in other cases as counting for little, since they expelled this same Gnaeus Egnatius, on whose authority you lay such stress, from his place in the senate. On the other hand, if you attach most weight to the judgment of the censors, I must point out that the censors retained the younger Egnatius, whom his father disinherited by an act resembling a censorial decision, in his position as senator, although they had expelled his father.

As regards errors such as the following,

the folly

v4-6 p.333

shown in their commission is out of all proportion to the skill required to deal with them: I refer to mistakes such as advancing a disputable argument as indisputable, a controversial point as admitted, a point common to a number of cases as peculiar to the case in hand, or the employment of trite, superfluous, or incredible arguments. For careless speakers are liable to commit a host of errors: they will exaggerate a charge which has still got to be proved, will argue about an act when the question is who committed it, will attempt impossibilities, drop an argument as if it were complete, whereas it is scarcely begun, speak of the individual in preference to the case,

and attribute personal faults to circumstances, as for instance if a speaker should attack the decemvirate instead of Appius. They will also contradict what is obvious, speak ambiguously, lose sight of the main issue of the case, or give replies which have no relation to the charges made. This latter procedure may, it is true, be occasionally employed when we have a bad case which requires to be supported by arguments drawn from matters foreign to the case. The trial of Verres provides an example; when accused of peculation it was alleged that he had shown courage and energy in his defence of Sicily against the pirates.