Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

For the same reason I cannot commend the advocate who, when his opponent the accuser produced a bloodstained sword in court, fled suddenly from the benches as though in an agony of terror, and then, when his turn came to plead, peeped out of the crowd with his head half covered by his robe and asked whether the man with the sword had gone away. For though he caused a laugh, he made himself ridiculous.

Still, theatrical effects of the kind we are discussing can be dispelled by the power of eloquence. Cicero provides most admirable examples of the way in which this may be done both in the pro Rabirio [*](cp. Pro Rab. ix 24. ) where he attacks the production in court of the portrait of Saturninus in the most dignified language, and in the pro Vareno where he launches a number of witticisms against a youth whose wound had been unbound at intervals in the course of the trial.

There are also milder kinds of peroration in which, if our opponent is of such a character that he deserves to be treated with respect, we strive to ingratiate ourselves with him or give him some friendly warning or urge him to regard us as his friends. This method was admirably employed by Passienus when he pleaded in a suit brought by his wife Domitia against her brother Ahenobarbus for the recovery of a sum of money: he began by making a number of remarks about the relationship of the two parties and then, referring to their wealth, which was in both cases enormous, added,

There is nothing either of you need less than the subject of this dispute.

All these appeals to emotion, although some hold

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that they should be confined to the exordium and the peroration, which are, I admit, the places where they are most often used, may be employed in other portions of the speech as well, but more briefly, since most of them must be reserved for the opening or the close. But it is in tile peroration, if anywhere, that we must let loose the whole torrent of our eloquence.

For, if we have spoken well in the rest of our speech, we shall now have the judges on our side, and shall be in a position, now that we have emerged from the reefs and shoals, to spread all our canvas, while since the chief task of the peroration consists of amplification, we may legitimately make free use of words and reflexions that are magnificent and ornate. It is at the close of our drama that we must really stir the theatre, when we have reached the place for the phrase with which the old tragedies and comedies used to end,

Friends, give us your applause.

In other portions of the speech we must appeal to the emotions as occasion may arise. For it would clearly be wrong to set forth facts calling for horror and pity without any such appeal, while, if the question arises as to the quality of any fact, such an appeal may justifiably be subjoined to the proofs of the fact in question.

When we are pleading a complicated case which is really made up of several cases, it will be necessary to introduce a number of passages resembling perorations, as Cicero does in the Vetrines, where he laments over Philodamus, the ships' captains, the crucifixion of the Roman citizen, and a number of other tragic incidents.

Some call these μερικοὶ ἐπίλογοι, by which they mean a peroration distributed among different portions of a speech.

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I should regard them rather as species than as parts of the peroration, since the terms epilogue and peroration both clearly indicate that they form the conclusion of a speech.