Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
But I still live, and must find something to make life tolerable, and must needs put faith in the verdict of the wise, who held that literature alone can provide true solace in adversity. Yet, if ever the violence of my present grief subside and admit the intrusion of some other thought on so many sorrowful reflexions, I may with good cause ask pardon for the delay in bringing my work to completion. Who can wonder that my studies have been interrupted, when the real marvel is that they have not been broken off altogether?
Should certain portions therefore betray a lack of finish compared with what was begun in the days when my affliction was less profound, I would ask that the imperfections should be regarded with indulgence, as being due to the cruel tyranny of fortune, which, if it has not utterly extinguished, has at any rate weakened such poor powers of intellect as I once possessed. But for this very reason I must rouse myself to face my task with greater spirit, since it is easy to despise fortune, though it may be hard to bear her blows. For there is nothing left that she can do to me, since out of my calamities she has wrought for me a security which, full of sorrow though it be, is such that nothing can shake it.
And the very fact that I have no personal interest in persevering with my present work, but am moved solely by the desire to serve others, if indeed anything that I write can be of such service, is a reason
The next subject which I was going to discuss was the peroration which some call the completion and others the conclusion. There are two kinds of peroration, for it may deal either with facts or with the emotional aspect of the case. The repetition and grouping of the facts, which the Greeks call ἀνακεφαλαίωσις and some of our own writers call the enumeration, serves both to refresh the memory of the judge and to place the whole of the case before his eyes, and, even although the facts may have made little impression on him in detail, their cumulative effect is considerable.