Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Further, although I want my orator to speak with wit, he must not give the impression of striving after it. Consequently lie must not display his wit on every possible occasion, but must sacrifice a jest sooner than sacrifice his dignity.

Again, no one will endure an accuser who employs jests to season a really horrible case, nor an advocate for the defence who makes merry over one that calls for pity. Moreover, there is a type of judge whose temperament is too serious to allow him to tolerate laughter.

It may also happen that a jest directed against an opponent may apply to the judge or to our own client, although there are some orators who do not refrain even from jests that may recoil upon themselves. This was the case with Sulpicius Longus, who, despite the fact that he was himself surpassingly hideous, asserted of a man against whom he was appearing in a case involving his status as a free man, that even his face was the face of a slave. To this Domitius Afer replied,

Is it your profound conviction, Longus, that an ugly man must be a slave?

Insolence and arrogance are likewise to be avoided, nor must our jests seem unsuitable to the time or place, or give the appearance of studied premeditation, or smell of the lamp, while those directed against the unfortunate are, as I have already said, inhuman. Again, some advocates are men of such established authority and such known respectability, that any insolence shown them would only hurt the assailant. As regards the way in which we should deal with friends I have already given instructions.

It is the duty not merely

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of an orator, but of any reasonable human being, when attacking one whom it is dangerous to offend to take care that his remarks do not end in exciting serious enmity, or the necessity for a grovelling apology. Sarcasm that applies to a number of persons is injudicious: I refer to cases where it is directed against whole nations or classes of society, or against rank and pursuits which are common to many.

A good man will see that everything he says is consistent with his dignity and the respectability of his character; for we pay too dear for the laugh we raise if it is at the cost of our own integrity. It is, however, a difficult task to indicate the sources from which laughter may be legitimately derived or the topics where it may be naturally employed. To attempt to deal exhaustively with the subject would be an interminable task and a waste of labour.