Institutio Oratoria

locus is usually taken to mean the opposite of seriousness. This view is, however, somewhat too narrow. For to feign, to terrify, or to promise, are all at times forms of jesting. Dicacitas is no doubt derived from dico, and is therefore common to all forms of wit, but is specially applied to the language of banter, which is a humorous form of attack. Therefore, while the critics allow that Demosthenes was urbanus, they deny that he was dicax.

The essence, however, of the subject which we are now discussing is the excitement of laughter, and consequently the whole of this topic is entitled περὶ γελοίου by the Greeks. It has the same primary division as other departments of oratory, that is to say, it is concerned with things and words.

The application of humour to oratory may be divided into three heads: for there are three things out of which we may seek to raise a laugh, to wit, others, ourselves, or things intermediate. In the first case we either reprove or refute or make light of or retort or deride the arguments of others. In the

The third kind consists, as Cicero also tells us, in cheating expectations, in taking words in a different sense from what was intended, and in other things which affect neither party to the suit, and which I have, therefore, styled intermediate.

Further, things designed to raise a laugh may either be said or done. In the latter case laughter is sometimes caused by an act possessing a certain element of seriousness as well, as in the case of Marcus Caelius the praetor, who, when the consul Isauricus broke his curule chair, had another put in its place, the seat of which was made of leather thongs, by way of allusion to the story that the consul had once been scourged by his father: sometimes, again, it is aroused by an act which passes the grounds of decency, as in the case of Caelius' box, [*](cp. Pro Cael xxix. 69. There is no jest in this passage which lays itself open to such censure. The jest must have consisted in some action on the part of the orator. ) a jest which was not fit for an orator or any respectable man to make.

On the other hand the joke may lie in some remark about a ridiculous look or gesture; such jests are very attractive, more especially when delivered with every appearance of seriousness; for there are no jests so insipid as those which parade the fact that they are intended to be witty. Still, although the gravity with which a jest is uttered increases its attraction, and the mere fact that the speaker does not laugh himself makes his words laughable, there is also such a thing as a humorous look, manner or