Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

I have often seen clients whose behaviour was wholly out of keeping with the line adopted by their counsel, since their expression showed not the slightest emotion, while they displayed a most unseasonable cheerfulness and even aroused laughter by their looks or actions; such incongruity is especially frequent when the appeal is of a theatrical character.

On one occasion an advocate produced a girl alleged to be the sister of the opposing party (for it was on this point that the dispute turned) and led her across to the benches occupied by his opponents as though to leave her in the arms of her brother: I however had given tile brother timely warning and he had left his seat. The advocate, although as a rule an eloquent speaker, was struck dumb by the unexpected turn of events and took his little girl back again in the tamest possible manner.

There was another advocate who was defending a woman who thought to secure a great effect by producing the portrait of her husband, but sent the court into repeated peals of laughter. For the persons entrusted with the duty of handing in the portrait had no idea

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of the nature of a peroration and displayed it whenever the advocate looked their way, and when at last it was produced at the proper moment it destroyed all the good effect of his previous eloquence by its hideousness, for it was a wax cast taken from an old man's corpse.

We are also familiar with the story of what happened to Glycon, nicknamed Spiridion. He asked a boy whom he produced in court why he was crying; to which the boy replied, that his paedagogus was pinching him. But the most effective warning as to the perils which beset the peroration is the story told by Cicero [*](pro Cluent. xx.sqq. ep. Quint. VI. iii. 40. ) about the Caepasii.