Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

And yet it is this emotional power that dominates the court, it is this form of eloquence that is the queen of all. For as a rule arguments arise out of the case itself, and the better cause has always the larger number to support it, so that the party who wills by means of them will have no further satisfaction than that of knowing that his advocate did not fail him.

But the peculiar task of the orator arises when the minds of the judges require force to move them, and their thoughts have actually to be led away from the contemplation of the truth. No instruction from the litigant can secure this, nor can such power be acquired merely by the study of a brief. Proofs, it is true, may induce the judges to regard our case as superior to that of our opponent, but the appeal to the emotions will do more, for it will make them wish our case to be the better. And what they wish, they will also believe.

For as soon as they begin to be angry, to feel favourably disposed, to hate or pity, they begin to take a personal interest in the case, and just as lovers are incapable of forming a reasoned judgment on the beauty of the object of their affections, because passion forestalls

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the sense of sight, so the judge, when overcome by his emotions, abandons all attempt to enquire into the truth of the arguments, is swept along by the tide of passion, and yields himself unquestioning to the torrent.

Thus the verdict of the court shows how much weight has been carried by the arguments and the evidence; but when the judge has been really moved by the orator he reveals his feelings while he is still sitting and listening to the case. When those tears, which are the aim of most perorations, well forth from his eyes, is he not giving his verdict for all to see? It is to this, therefore, that the orator must devote all his powers,

  1. There lie the task and toil!
Aen. vi. 128.
Without this all else is bare and meagre, weak and devoid of charm. For it is in its power over the emotions that the life and soul of oratory is to be found.