Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

as when one man replied to another, a worthless fellow, who had fallen down and asked to be helped to his feet,

Let someone pick you up who does not know you.

[*]( Hor. Ep. I. xvii. 62, where the passers by reply Quaere peregrinum to an imposter who, having fallen down and broken his leg, implores them to pick him up, crying Credite, non ludo: crudeles, tollite claudum. ) Or we may shew our culture by drawing on legend for a jest, as Cicero did in the trial of Verres, when Hortensius said to him as he was examining a witness,

I do not understand these riddles.

You ought to, then,

said Cicero,

as you have got the Sphinx at home.

Hortensius had received a bronze Sphinx of great value as a present from Verres.

Effects of mild absurdity are produced by the simulation of folly and would, indeed, themselves, be foolish were they not fictitious. Take as an example the remark of the man who, when people wondered why he had bought a stumpy candlestick, said,

It will do for lunch.

[*]( Lunch requiring a less elaborate service, but being in broad daylight. ) There are also sayings closely resembling absurdities which derive great point from their sheer irrelevance, like the reply of Dolabella's slave, who, on being asked whether his master had advertised a sale of his property, answered,

He has sold his house.

[*](i.e. how can he? he has nothing left to sell. )

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Sometimes you may get out of a tight comer by giving a humorous explanation of your embarrassment,

as the man did who asked a witness, who alleged that lie had been wounded by the accused, whether he had any scar to show for it. The witness proceeded to show a huge scar on his thigh, on which lie remarked,

I wish he had wounded you in the side.

[*](ac. because then he would have killed you. ) A happy use may also be made of insult. Hispo, for example, when the accuser charged him with scandalous crimes, replied,

You judge my character by your own

; while Fulvius Propinquus, when asked by the representative of the emperor whether the documents which he produced were autographs, replied,

Yes, Sir, and the handwriting is genuine, too!

[*]( Presumably the legatus had been suspected of forgery. )

Such I have either learned from others or discovered from my own experience to be the commonest sources of humour. But I must repeat that the number of ways in which one may speak wittily are of no less infinite variety than those in which one may speak seriously, for they depend on persons, place, time and chances, which are numberless.

I have, therefore, touched on the topics of humour that I may not be taxed with having omitted them; but with regard to my remarks on the actual practice and manner of jesting, I venture to assert that they are absolutely indispensable. To these Domitius Marsus, who wrote an elaborate treatise on Urbanity, adds several types of saying, which are not laughable, but rather elegant sayings with a certain charm and attraction of their own, which are suitable even to speeches of the most serious kind: they are characterized by a certain urbane wit, but not of a kind to raise a laugh.

And

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as a matter of fact his work was not designed to deal with humour, but with urbane wit, a quality which he regards as peculiar to this city, though it was not till a late period that it was understood in this sense, after the word Urbs had come to be accepted as indicating Rome without the addition of any proper noun. He defines it as follows:

Urbanity is a certain quality of language compressed into the limits of a brief saying and adapted to delight and move men to every kind of emotion, but specially suitable to resistance or attack according as the person or circumstances concerned may demand.

But this definition, if we except the quality of brevity, includes all the virtues of oratory. For it is entirely concerned with persons and things to deal with which in appropriate language is nothing more nor less than the task of perfect eloquence. Why he insisted on brevity being essential I do not know,

since in the same book he asserts that many speakers have revealed their urbanity in narrative. And a little later he gives the following definition, which is, as he says, based on the views expressed by Cato:

Urbanity is the characteristic of a man who has produced many good sayings and replies, and who, whether in conversation, in social or convivial gatherings, in public speeches, or under any other circumstances, will speak with humour and appropriateness. If any orator do this, he will undoubtedly succeed in making his audience laugh.

But if we accept these definitions, we shall have to allow the title of urbane to anything that is well said. It was natural therefore that the author of this definition should classify such sayings under three heads, serious, humorous and intermediate, since all good

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sayings may be thus classified. But, in my opinion, there are certain forms of humorous saying that may be regarded as not possessing sufficient urbanity.

For to my thinking urbanity involves the total absence of all that is incongruous, coarse, unpolished and exotic whether in thought, language, voice or gesture, and resides not so much in isolated sayings as in the whole complexion of our language, just as for the Greeks Atticism means that elegance of taste which was peculiar to Athens.

However, out of respect to the judgment of Marsus, who was a man of the greatest learning, I will add that he divides serious utterances into three classes, the honorific, the derogatory and the intermediate. As an example of the honorific he quotes the words uttered by Cicero in the pro Ligario [*](xii. 35.) with reference to Caesar,

You who forget nothing save injuries.

The derogatory he illustrates by the words used by Cicero of Pompey and Caesar in a letter to Atticus: [*](Ad. Att. VIII. vii. 2. )

I know whom to avoid, but whom to follow I know not.

Finally, he illustrates the intermediate, which he calls apophthegmatic (as it is), by the passage from Cicero's speech against Catiline [*](IV ii. 3.) where he says,

Death can never be grievous to the brave nor premature for one who has been consul nor a calamity to one that is truly wise.

All these are admirable sayings, but what special title they have to be called urbane I do not see.

If it is not merely, as I think, the whole complexion of our oratory that deserves this title, but if it is to be claimed for individual sayings as well, I should give the name only to those sayings that are of the same general character as humorous sayings, without actually being humorous. I will give an

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illustration of what I mean. It was said of Asinius Pollio, who had equal gifts for being grave or gay, that he was

a man for all hours,

and of a pleader who was a fluent speaker extempore, that

his ability was all in ready money.

Of the same kind, too, was the remark recorded by Marsus as having been made by Pompey to Cicero when the latter expressed distrust of his party:

Go over to Caesar and you will be afraid of me.

Had this last remark been uttered on a less serious subject and with less serious purpose, or had it not been uttered by Pompey himself, we might have counted it among examples of humour.

I may also add the words used by Cicero in a letter [*](Now lost. Caerellia was a literary lady.) to Caerellia to explain why he endured the supremacy of Caesar so patiently:

These ills must either be endured with the courage of Cato or the stomach [*](i.e. he must stomach it. ) of Cicero,

for here again the word

stomach

has a spice of humour in it. I felt that I ought not to conceal my feelings on this point. If I am wrong in my views, I shall not, at any rate, lead my readers astray, since I have stated the opposite view as well, which they are at liberty to adopt if they prefer it.

IV. With regard to the principles to be observed in forensic debate, [*]( The altercatio, which followed the set speeches, took the form of a number of brief arguments pro and con. ) it might seem that I should delay such instructions until I had finished dealing with all the details of continuous speaking, since such debates come after the set speeches are done. But since the art of debate turns on invention alone, does not admit of arrangement, has little need for the embellishments of style, and makes no large demand on memory or delivery, I think that it will not be out of place to deal with it here before I proceed to the second of the five parts, [*](See v. Pr. 5.) since it is

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entirely dependent on the first. Other writers have omitted to deal with it on the ground perhaps that they thought the subject had been sufficiently covered by their precepts on other topics.

For debate consists in attack and defence, on which enough has already been said, since whatever is useful in a continuous speech for the purpose of proof must necessarily be of service in this brief and discontinuous form of oratory. For we say the same things in debate, though we say them in a different manner, since debate consists of questions and replies, a topic with which we have dealt fairly exhaustively in connexion with the examination of witnesses. [*](See v. vii.)