Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Cassius Severus baffled an opponent who reproached him with the fact that Proculeius had forbidden him to enter his house by replying,

Do I ever go there?

But one jest may also be defeated by another: for example, Augustus of blessed memory, when the Gauls gave him a golden necklet weighing a hundred pounds, and Dolabella, speaking in jest but with an

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eye to the success of his jest, said,

General, give me your necklet,

replied,

I had rather give you the crown of oak leaves.

[*]( The civic crown of oak leaves was given as a reward for saving the life of a fellow-citizen in war. The torquis was often given as a reward for valour, and Augustus pretends to believe that Dolabella had asked for a military decoration. The point lies in the contrast between the intrinsic value and weight of the two decorations. Further, Augustus was very parsimonious in bestowing military decorations and had himself received the crown of oak leaves from the senate as the saviour of Rome, a fact which must have rendered its bestowal on others rare, if not non-existent. )

So, too, one lie may be defeated by another: Galba, for instance, when someone told him that he once bought a lamprey five feet long for half a denarius in Sicily, replied,

There is nothing extraordinary in that: for they grow to such a length in those seas that the fishermen tie them round their waists in lieu of ropes!

Then there is the opposite of denial,

namely a feigned confession, which likewise may show no small wit. Thus Afer, when pleading against a freedman of Claudius Caesar and when another freedman called out from the opposite side of the court,

You are always speaking against Caesar's freedmen,

replied,

Yes, but I make precious little headway.

A similar trick is not to deny a charge, though it is obviously false and affords good opportunity for an excellent reply. For example, when Philippus said to Catulus,

Why do you bark so?

the latter replied, [*](cp. Cic. de Or. II. liv. 220. )

I see a thief.

To make jokes against oneself is scarcely fit for any save professed buffoons and is strongly to be disapproved in an orator. This form of jest has precisely the same varieties as those which we make against others and therefore I pass it by, although it is not infrequently employed.

On the other hand scurrilous or brutal jests, although they may raise a laugh, are quite unworthy of a gentleman. I remember a jest of this kind being made by

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a certain man against an inferior who had spoken with some freedom against him:

I will smack your head, and bring an action against you for having such a hard skull!

In such cases it is difficult to say whether the audience should laugh or be angry.

There remains the prettiest of all forms of humour, namely the jest which depends for success on deceiving anticipations [*](See IX. ii. 22.) or taking another's words in a sense other than he intended. The unexpected element may be employed by the attacking party, as in the example cited by Cicero, [*](de Or. II. lxx. 281. )

What does this man lack save wealth and—virtue?

or in the remark of Afer,

For pleading causes he is most admirably—dressed.

Or it may be employed to meet a statement made by another, as it was by Cicero [*](cp. § 68. ) on hearing a false report of Vatinius' death: he had met one of the latter's freedmen and asked him,

Is all well?

The freedman answered,

All is well.

To which Cicero replied,

Is he dead, then?