Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Even in the schools it is desirable that the student should be moved by his theme, and should imagine it to be true; indeed, it is all the more desirable then, since, as a rule in scholastic
I now turn to a very different talent, namely that which dispels the graver emotions of the judge by exciting his laughter, frequently diverts his attention from the facts of the case, and sometimes even refreshes him and revives him when he has begun to be bored or wearied by the case. How hard it is to attain success in this connexion is shown by the cases of the two great masters of Greek and Roman oratory.
For many think that Demosthenes was deficient in this faculty, and that Cicero used it without discrimination. Indeed, it is impossible to suppose that Demosthenes deliberately avoided all display of humour, since his few jests are so unworthy of his other excellences that they clearly show that he lacked the power, not merely that he disliked to use it.
Cicero, on the other hand, was regarded as being unduly addicted to jests, not merely outside the courts, but in his actual speeches as well. Personally (though whether I am right in this view, or have been led astray by an exaggerated admiration for the prince of orators, I cannot say),